What I've Learned On My Summer Vacation

I really don't know what I was thinking.

See, a few months ago, when there were still the remnants of all that winter snow in the mall parking lot, the kids were in raptures over one of those crappy little 'fairs' that were set up by the chain toy store. You know the sort: a small Ferris wheel, some sort of half-assed mini roller coaster, probably a tilt-a-whirl, a few win-a-.99-cent-prize by spending $5 and seeing if you can toss a ring around a bottle and some cotton candy and popcorn concessions.

Their pleas of "pleasepleaseplease" were answered with a 1-2 punch of "No!" and "We'll see about going to the big State Fair in the summer."

A trip to the fair in summer, being months away and warm and bright, seemed like just the ticket. Visions of tents pitched on the grass, breezes amidst the trees, parades of well-groomed cows and the like, accompanied by all sorts of fair food. What's not to like? Sort of a grown-up version of our small county fair that we went to a few years ago.

Oh, Stupid-o mio.

Concrete. Miles and miles of concrete overlayed with a cacophony of screaming. Unbelievably overpriced, with tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of people scuffing along in the opposite direction of where ever it was we were trying to get to.

And to top it all off, I inflicted the whole thing on poor pal, Teri, who I've not seen in 2 years. "We're going to the fair! We'll be near you! Do you want to meet up with us and do the fair? We can get to spend some time together while the kids enjoy themselves."

Alas for her and her girls, meet us they did. The cranky, over-heated family who didn't bring enough cash for both riding and eating, or really even just riding. (Who the hell doesn't take credit cards these days, I ask you? That's not just unamerican, it's anti-commercial. Don't they watch TV? Life stops for those who taketh not the bits of plastic.) After a few hours of dragging around, we called it a day and packed it in, leaving poor Teri a little cotton candy colored puddle in front of the cursed Ferris wheel. (We'd gone back on purpose, right before leaving, so Colin could ride it, as promised, but he decided that he'd really rather not ride it after all and just.wanted.to.go.home.) As a topper, Sara succumbed about 1/10th of the way back to the car (conservatively a generous 1/2 mile (1 km) away, swimming like salmon up a stream of lemmings) and so Charles and I lugged her back, between us, Colin dragging behind.

Had we only stopped and indulged the lil' darlings all those months ago with the crappy parking lot fairlet, we'd have saved us all a bunch of woe, not to mention a chunk of change. Live and learn, cupcakes. Live and learn. Trade not the small pain of today for the large woe of tomorrow.

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A couple of weeks ago, though, I got to meet another of us, Teresa, out from Seattle to visit the relatives. We met up at the very large farmer's market around the Madison capital square and I got to sit and laugh with Teresa and her sister and daughter while her brother-in-law entertained her niece and nephew. It was, as it invariably is, an all-out gab fest as two people who've never met in person and yet know scads about each other's lives finally get to sit down and sip coffee and nibble baked goods. It's never long enough, is it? And what is Teresa like? Just like she looks: You have to hug her as soon as you see her. She absolutely sparkles. It should come as no surprise to know she teaches kindergarten. I don't know if only lovely people teach kindergarten or if teaching kindergarten makes people lovely. (I strongly suspect the former. 5-year-olds are sweet but I think were it me in a classroom of them I'd be heavily medicated or lobotomized and Teresa is neither.) I forgot my camera but she brought hers and posted one of us if you care to scoot over and wave "Hi" to her.
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And while we're on the topic of catching up over the past few weeks, what happened to The Pool? Well, it was replaced with a more modest and demure inflatable one that was used with reckless abandon by kids and dog, alike. When it was about to qualify for protected status under the umbrella of the endangered species act as a habitat for several newly emerging life forms, I emptied it, scrubbed it out and left it to desiccate a bit in the sun before filling it anew. Then one of those freak violent summer storms blew up out of nowhere. It ended up down at the bottom of the pasture impaled on something large and sharp, leaving it with a ragged rent in the side, rendering it no longer either "inflatable" or a "pool". Luckily, the pools are still on sale at an even more reduced price. I did toy with putting 5-6 of them in the cart. I think I will live to rue the day that I did not. I was wondering why Jocelyn was disparaging inflat-a-pools in her comment. Now I know.



I'm just a-learning lessons left and right, aren't I?

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Speaking of learning, I did finally take that agricultural medicine test last week. Not that anyone was really wondering, but take it I did. It was well and truly taken. Now I just need to wait for the results and then figure what the hell I'm going to do with all that newly gotten knowledge about tractor safety and the lot. Assuming I pass, of course. If not, then I guess I'll not need to decide. Win-win.

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Interlude:

Here's the two fawns who seem to be growing and learning without their mum. They keep eyeing my vegetable garden but have decided that the tomatoes that have taken over most of the space aren't what they'd really rather eat. Aren't they pretty? I tried to post a larger, cropped picture but flickr wouldn't have any of it for some reason. Trust me. They're adorable and still have their spots.

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Firmly entrenched in the heading of "When Will I Ever Learn" is finding that I have somehow agreed to serve my Network and can be found on the roster of the Physician Practice Committee. Gads. For almost 8 years I had successfully avoided such things but found myself thinking, "Hmm. This could be interesting and a way to make some positive changes in the good ol' firm. And breakfast will be served."

All this must have taken place right before lunch when my defenses and blood sugar were at a double ebb for I found myself responding that I'd be delighted to take a seat at that table. I now find that I've somehow become one of 2 physician leaders of the Patient Access sub-committee of the original committee. That's 2 committees. What were they thinking? What was I thinking? I'm the one who sits in the back and nods in agreement from time to time while eyeing the danishes and wondering if I can somehow snag another one while looking like I'm just stretching, sort of a variation on that old first-date-in-the-movie-theater move where his yawn ends with an arm around your shoulders. Now I'm to be at the head of the table at the horrible hour of 7 am, expected to contribute many things of worth AND I've not heard a word about food at these sub-committee meetings. I fear a large tumor has taken over the logic and reasoning bits of my frontal lobe. Here's hoping it rapidly eats away the rest of my higher functions and personality so I won't suffer too long. As an added bonus, we're to round up several other physicians to serve along with us. Ever try lining up docs to do such things? Forget herding cats. It's like herding birds. Birds who never return your calls. Can't say I blame them.

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And while we're on the subject, is there anyone else who would be horrified to find that the gown you were handed by the nurse for your daughter to change into at her kindergarten check-up/meet-her-new-doctor-now-that-your-insurance-has-changed appointment had 8 McDonald's characters spread across the front in various medical garb, all grinning horrifically?

I felt like putting posters of "Supersize Me" up all over the exam room. Good grief.

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So, that's my hiatus in brief. Well, not really brief, actually.

I'll leave you (and you, Teresa as I promised you one, and you, Jocelyn, as you appreciate the inappropriate conversationalist that is the manic gardener, and you, Teri, as you are a true friend as you're still speaking to me despite the horror that was the state fair) with the following of my lovely tree lily. It topped out at over 6 ft (2 m) high and smelled of sweet, sweet summer. Don't look too closely as each cup was full of gorged and stupefied earwigs. The good with the bad, as is life.

Hope the rest of you are well and you avoid state fairs and committee meetings.

(Oh, and if you happen to not look where you are vigorously weeding along your raised garden bed, and put your hand --gloved, thank god, but inadequately so-- in a hornet's nest, this will lead to a most painful stinging, causing a stream of fuckingshitfuckingshitsonofabitchFUC!KING!SHIT! to issue from your mouth as a reflex, and your small children will learn how to correctly pronounce, enunciate and vocally inflect those most taboo of words. They'll be the pride of the school playground in a few weeks.)

Haikus For My Own Private Waterloo

I suck as a mom,
not for the obvious, but
for the stupid stuff.

I make them eat their
vegetables and drink their milk
And do their homework.

Their wails make me smile
as I set the course; mixing
Athens with Sparta.

But then I get a plan.
Something to make them smile,
Glad I am their mom.

Good in it's way, but
then I get cocky and make
promises. I'm doomed.

Like just this Sunday:
"Hey, Colin, let's have your friend
to play in the pool!"

What pool? Well you ask.
Really more a plan as it's
still stuck in its box.

See, after years of
inflatable pools that
die and go to ground,

this year we made a
change and got a Slip 'n Slide
for their summer fun.

But it was no pool.
Nope. It was a little fun,
but it was no pool.

So, "Fuck it," I said.
Life's too short to not have a
pool in your backyard.

The problem is it
kills the grass as it sits there,
for more than a week.

But, wait! We've a slab
of vacant concrete poured by
the prior owners.

It's flat! It's grass-free!
It's level (I think it is).
The place for a pool.

Off we go, to Toys
R Us, Where pools are on sale!
(Who needs measurements!?!)

So, after breakfast,
and laundry. And dinner prep.
And my exercise,

I head out to the
Midwest backyard, where its now
90* in the shade.

Colin's friend arrives
with flip-flops, swimsuit and towel,
ready for a dip.

Alas, the pool is
still theoretical and
laughing at me.

See, it's a full yard
(a meter) too big for the
handy cement pad.

The pad, I might add,
is only mostly level,
for all it's grass free.

Two options there are:
Charles says let it go and get
another, smaller pool.

Me? I say let's do
the more miserable way
and build up the slope.

Thar's rock a-plenty
in the fire pit. I can
build a pool rampart.






Yeah. Good plan, that. Hot
and humid. The sweat burns with
the dirt in my eyes.

I forgot the bush
I had to transplant so the
pool wouldn't crush it.

(Colin and his friend
went down to the basement and
played video games.)


Charles, always wise,
remained exiled on Elba;
he had to study.


Hours later, I
Once again filled the bastard
and prayed for success.

Let's define 'success',
shall we? It holds some water
and is sort of round.

Maybe it is less
than half its expected depth
and shaped like a "D"



And there's a sort of
waterfall at one place as
one side collapses.




On a side note, I
noted a water beetle
made the pool its home.

This was only a half
hour from starting to fill the
cursed fucking pool.

(How a water bug
got in that fast? I'm flummoxed.
Call her 'Harriet'.)






So, there we are kids.
I tried, I really did, but
I suck as a mom.

Tomorrow, you can
splash in your puddle and make
friends with Harriet.

Maybe now you'll find that
the poor Slip 'n Slide is not
such a wretched deal.



-------------
The following day,
my own private Waterloo
sinks to sad, new depths.





Hell with it. I'll clean
it and donate it to some
poor sap at Goodwill.

The rock, of course, will
all have to be schlepped back to
the fire pit site.

The transplanted bush?
There it stays. I'll plant a spare
in its former spot.
------------

I want it noted that
I was just transiently
thwarted in my quest.

The next day I found
Another pool, smaller, less
tricky to put up.

Napoleon has
nothing on me for stubborn
personality.

*34 degrees C for the civilized world.

Anyone want a minimally used pool with filter-pump (complete with O rings lubricated) and ladder assembled? You need a 13 foot (4+ meter) scrupulously level spot of yard or you will rue the day and regret the loss of your sanity. Actually, I've been using the ladder in my multi-month window-washing quest, so at least the ladder has been pressed into honest service.

Second Childhood

It came as something of a surprise last night when I found myself, after work, stopping at the local Shopko and, after a serpeginous route that took me past the sunscreen, bug repellent and little girls' sundresses (sale! $3.99 a piece--to replace the ones that have shrunk in the wash to Hollywood starlet length) standing in front of the baseball mitts, my real reason for stopping.

Me. Baseball mitts. Me. The one who spent her school years dreading the hours spent in PE, where balls were frequently thrown. Balls combined with poor hand-eye coordination, thick glasses and jeering classmates rarely lead to happy, smiling outcomes, except in trite family-oriented movies. Rest assured, there were no game winning saves in my PE history, only years of scheming how to have the fewest times at-bat or at-serve or at-pummelling as possible:

• For softball, you make sure you are last in line to bat and, as able, discretely trade places with the athletic kids in line behind you who want to move up in line. It goes without saying that you go waaaaaaaaaay out in left field when it's time to switch sides.
• For volleyball, you place yourself at the front of the net in the spot you rotate to AFTER you serve (I think it's front left).
• For basketball, you pass the ball as soon as you touch it and never make eye contact with the person with the ball, so they don't throw it at you.
• For dodge ball (the worst!), you get yourself hit as soon as possible, sometimes even faking it so you can go to the sidelines and, again, swap places with those who want to get back in, making sure you basically stay toward the middle-end (but not conspicuously at the very end) of the line.

I actually liked soccer, but we rarely played it. This was the '70s, people. Soccer (OK, yes. 'Football' for the civilized world.) was not played by middle-class, red-blooded American children.

So, back to standing in the middle of the baseball mitt aisle. I then proceeded to spend 20 minutes trying on all the sizes and models, finally deciding on that particular glove, above, being suspiciously examined by Mad-Kitty.

My very own first baseball mitt, at the age of 42. After I got home, we all went outside and played catch, liberally covered in bug spray, until Sara got unbearably cranky and Charles got tired. After years of trying unsuccessfully to ignite a passion for soccer in the small ones, we find that baseball seems to be our family's game. It goes without saying that I now love playing it.

Go figure. I still can't throw to save my life and I am at a 2nd grade level when it comes to catching and batting, but I'm having fun! with a ball! and coordinating the hands and eyes!

Never too late to indulge yourself or continue your childhood. I will draw the line at dodge ball, though. Some scars run too deep.

In Which She Inflicts Vacation Photos On All Of You

So I'm back, sort of. Back in the sense that the bags are unpacked and put away, the wash is done, the house is in its usual state of disarray and the kitty has forgiven us for abandoning her. Actually, she seemed fine with the whole thing and looked rather horrified when we walked in the door all loud and stinky. She wore that look of "Oh. God. I thought you were coming back tomorrow. I thought I had another day to finish that season of My Name Is Earl."



All told, we had 4 days in lovely Door County (that pointy bit of land at the NE end of Wisconsin that sticks in such a fragile way between Green Bay and Lake Michigan) and did little but eat, nap, hang out with each other and go fishin'. (Caught nothin' but a very small bullhead that looked really pissed off, but after all was said and done, was left with a belly full of worm and tales to tell of his abduction to the drowning atmosphere above the lake and the monsters that live there. I'm sure he'll get lots of use of that tale down at the fish pub where they'll buy him pints and await the tale of how he single-fin-edly beat up the 4 enormous aliens and then escaped back to the deeps with their sweet, wriggling food. Good for him.)



We also taught Colin and Sara how to play Monopoly and how he who 1) buys up all the railroads and utilities and 2) doesn't get bored and quit after the first couple of hours tends to win. It's good to pass on such knowledge from one's own childhood to one's offspring.



We did, indeed, go to a fish boil and ladled butter on fish, potatoes and onions. We ate many cherry-inspired products, like pie. And wine. And brought back lots of pancake and scone mixes. And jam and syrup and dried cherries. And wine. I also let Sara learn to take pictures with my camera, and so for the first time in 20 years,I have vacation photos with me in them because someone else was snapping the scenes as well.



And so we all had a short, lovely, restful time, except for poor Molly-dog, who just thought the whole thing was wrong and WHAT the hell were we doing in this little house that smelled funny and had red tartan carpet in the kitchen and hall and WHAT would the kitty do with no one to chase her and give her a good butt licking. She clearly felt that it was all so wrong and couldn't understand why we didn't take her hint of staring hard at the car whenever we passed it, and just get in and go back home where we belonged.

It's always good to mess with your dog.

And so we've been and gone and returned and had our vacation.

The second half of the ag-med conference was as good as the first. I can now talk of ROPS and help you figure out what sort of respirator you need if you are cleaning out a silo, working in a CAFO or spraying your fields. I can also be found hollering from inside my car when driving past the fields and barns in my locale, "Hey! You! What the hell are you doing driving that tricycle tractor with the front end loaded!" and "Hey! You! I see you plowing that field in your cabless tractor without adequate hearing protection, sun screen, wide brimmed hat, respirator mask or ROPS!" In short, I've become even more of an embarrassment to polite society.



Now I must get the contents of the 2" (5cm) syllabus and good-sized textbook into my squash, so I can pass the damn test and make my employer proud to have spent all that money (actually, in the scheme of things, it wasn't that much money as such things go) for me to have done this, which means that I'll still be blogging sporadically for weeks to come. That study time has to come from somewhere.

Charles is winding up his days as principal at his soon-to-be-old district. He drove to work today in the SUV to load up almost all his office-ly possessions and move them to the new digs. He starts next Tuesday, which means we have only one more day of driving in to work together. The end of an era.

And, so, I'll leave you with this year's before and after shots of the front flower beds. You'll notice that the 3 low-lying juniper bushes at the front of the bed have gone the way of Wanda and Muriel, last year's alien-abducted cinquefoil and have been replaced by about 20 pretty-pretty flowering lovelies. (Well, they will be flowering when it's their time to do so.) You'll also notice that I need to get busy and divide all the pretties that have cancer-like grown and taken over the garden, transforming it into something that looks like the Amazon jungle.

Gone Fishin'

Bags packed?

Check.

Paper towels and plastic bags and fishing gear and more paper towels?

Check.

Molly's food, bowls, bed?

Check.

10 lbs of kitty food left out and all the toilet lids up (because she just won't drink out of anything else and getting everyone to remember to shut the lids in this household so isn't going to happen)?

Checkity, check, check.

Windows shut so we only come back to a wet basement and not a wet 2nd floor, what with all the damn storms stacked one on top of the other from Kansas on, all pointed straight at us for the next few days?

Oh, yeah, baby! Check!

Crackers, coffee, granola bars, other junk?

Are you kidding me? Of course check. That was the first thing I packed.

DVDs for the kids in the car (clearly I was born a generation too late, having to look out the window and play the 'alphabet game' with license plates and signs) and Harry Potter V on CD for Charles and I?

Check.

Destination directions and phone number of the lovely lady renting us a place on the lake in Door County?

Check-a-roo.

See y'all in a bit. Off to spend some time with just us. Then off to the second part of that agriculture in medicine conference.

Camera?

Check.

Kiss, kiss. It's been 7 years since we've done a vacation with just us. I'd say that's long over due. Over and out.

Check.

Doin's

There's this back bathroom in our clinic, away down the end of the long physical therapy/chiropractor hall and around the corner past the tiny excuse of a break room. The advantage of that back bathroom is two-fold: First, it's away from a passing hallway, being at the bendy-end of the passageway, next to the emergency exit door (to be kept locked at all times on pain of hairy-eyeball of our practice director). It's a good place to go for some 'private time' with one's bowels, should the office coffee be a bit too much. It's also something of a game of Russian roulette with the toilet seat, as there's someone in the clinic who likes to anoint it and not dry it off. If you've a brain in your head, you check the seat every time before you place your cheeks upon it. If you've left your brain elsewhere as you nipped down the hall for a quick deposit, then approximately once a month you find your buttocks all wet and saddened as you've once again fallen prey to the scourge of toilet seats. (Fool me once, shame on you; fool me 43,892 times and counting, shame on me.) Actually, I don't think it's urine, I think it's water. God knows why someone would repetitively cover the seat with water and not wipe it off. I know who I suspect but it's not something you can just go up to someone about (especially this Someone) and demand that if they're going to wash the seat that they have the common decency to dry the damned thing off afterward (and while we're on it, why the hell are you washing the toilet seat?????).


Anyway, it's a small price to pay for privacy.


But the second reason to use the far-back bathroom is that a few times a year, there's a show. The bathroom abuts the outside wall of the clinic and about every 3 months during the non-frozen season, these tinytiny ants use the bathroom as their landfill.

It's fascinating.


I was thrilled to find that his week marked their spring return. Usually, their public works are partially hidden by the wastepaper basket in the corner, but this time it's been moved to the space between the sink and the toilet, so you can sit and watch the tinytiny ants tote them barges and lift them bales. Today, they were expelling grains of dirt, each the size of 1/2 their heads (the ants, themselves are about 2 mm long) and and! trying to get these two round white things (?? small donut sprinkles?? Who would eat a donut while using the crapper??) twice the size of their heads out of the bathroom and through the tinytiny crack between the vinyl baseboard and the floor and, presumably to their kitchen so they could dine upon them for dinner (it was past breakfast and lunch). 2-3 ants at a time would try over and over to get the sprinkle-balls through the crack, only to get stymied at the end and have the sprinkle balls shoot out of their grasp and pop back into the bathroom, flying about an inch (a whopping 25mm, such a vast ant-distance, just think) each time.


I have no idea what happened in the end, whether they finally found a wide enough crack or if 1 of the 3 workers said, "Fuck the rest of them, we've been doing all the work and we deserve a little tiny-sprinkle snack right here. Bob, Tina, grab a sprinkle and dig in." In any case, by the end of this afternoon, the ants and the tiny, white sprinkles were no where to be seen. Just small piles of tinytiny dirt grains at each break in the baseboard vinyl.


For some reason, they made me think of the manufacturing plant some of us went out to visit last week. 'Twere clean and well run as a factory goes but I was struck by the mind rotting tedium and the workers who didn't seem to mind their minds being rotted by the tedium. The plant pays well for standing and running a machine 8-12 hours a shift, 5-7 days a week (overtime pays well and most work at least 6 days a week). It was loud in many areas (ear plugs required), so no chatting possible. Many of the machines were fed every 10 minutes to every hour or so, and the rest of the time was spent staring and standing, perhaps tending another machine in the interim. The worst of the jobs (as seemed to me) were the 2 women chasing each other in a 6' (2m) circle as they moved small pieces of metal from station to station, washing and oiling and assembling the small parts for tractors and other heavy machines. Loud, dull, smelling of oil and metal. The lives of the ants seemed more full of interest. And these factory jobs, being both well paying and not requiring an education past high school, are in this town highly sought after and diminishing in number. I don't know what's worse: Having one of these jobs or wanting to have one of these jobs and losing it.


I am so lucky to love what I do and to find it endlessly fascinating.


Anyway, sadly, someone (the cleaning service?) will eventually notice Bob, Tina, Lou and the rest of the ant crew and spray neurotoxins and clean away the tiny grains of debris and all will be back to dull toileting, but until then, I'm only using that loo, wet butt be damned. There's worse jobs than being an ant.

High Rent

'High rent', as Jocelyn called my gardening efforts in the last post, but worth it, I've decided.







These are the grow lights a couple of days ago, 5 days after I stuck the little seeds in the little peat patties and placed them under the magically radiating light sources. (See, I can't be trusted to remember to schlep the little growing things out to the deck in the morning for their dose of light, and back into the house away from the nightly frosts. I also can't be trusted to keep them adequately watered. Plant infanticide is my invariable path: They either wither in the heat and drought or become little plantcicles. So very disappointing, and I'm tired of the guilt.)







As you can see, the morning glory are the first out of the gate. Shall I repeat that they are 5 days past planting?



Here they are 2 days later, yesterday, only 7 days in the peat. Note it's not just the morning glories that are a couple of inches high.


Is anyone else a little scared? No? Just me?


A good friend of mine had a nightmare that morning glories were growing through her bedroom window and strangling her in her sleep.



I think she has a valid basis for this nightmare. And yet, here I am, not only choosing to plant them in our front garden, where they may happily twine up the front porch railing but have easy access to the bedroom windows of our children.



Fortunately, hundreds of Colin's little soldiers are scattered all over the house, keeping guard. You can see the sentries on the pass-through from the kitchen to the dining room (plant nursery, as the number of times I can be bothered to have us eat in the dining room can be numbered on the fingers of a partially amputated hand).







See them?







Better? There are many dozen camouflaged in the dining room carpet, bayonets at the ready for bare feet and malcontent plants.



I feel better.



Plus, I won't need to keep nagging him to pick up his damn soldiers, already, at least until next fall's frost.

Spring Cleaning

Enough.

Enough of the endless winter ennui.

Enough of feeling sorry for myself for the lack of spring. And the persistance of grime. And mouse turds.

Enough.

Enough of yet another week lost in work and illness. (Yes. The ninth bout of crud for this season. Not approaching that horrible season of '01, where I succumbed to 14 separate bouts of crud between November and June--the first year of same-day-caring and therefore abbreviated, no less, so stop whining.)

Enough.

So, I arose with some semblance of energy and a bee in my butt. Well, a bee after a morning loafing with the small ones on the sofas, eating breakfast and doing nothing of value beyond the eating and getting breakfast for various and sundry beings. And that after sleeping in to the slothful hour of 7:04 AM CDT. ("Boy, mom sure sleeps late on weekends, doesn't she, Dad? Yes, son, she sure does, but some people like to sleep in a bit on the weekends.")

Enough.

Well, enough after lunch and a rest. And the getting of lunch for the various and sundry. And the starting of seeds in small pots of peat under newly purchased grow lights. $100 spent to save $40 in new plants. If they live. But if one is going to claim to be a gardener, at some point one really does need to commit to growing more than sunflowers from seed. (And let's face it, the sunflowers have had less than a 50% success rate. More like 5%. Sunflowers. The things that grow where birds poop them.)

Enough. 1:30 pm and out you go. To the garage where you need to expell the garage floor of winter gravel and sand and dust on the floor of cement. And mouse doodies. Let's not forget the pounds of mouse doodies. Apparently the few field mice that did manage to get into the garage this winter found it to be the land of milk and honey and bags of garbage of partially eaten foodstuffs. And it was good. And cathartic. And they did eat much of it. And now, that they are no more with us (may their little beady-eyed souls rest in peace in the great garbage-filled garage in the sky), it is time to rid the garage of their evidence, the small black ovals blanketing the garage. (Let's try not to remember the symptoms of Hantavirus, shall we? Or the Hantavirus deaths.)

A full hour spent sweeping the detritus of the winter from the garage. And now to the garden. The first day of gardening. The first day of cleaning out two of the three parts of the front flower beds, each finally with noses of the bulbs of daffodils and tulips and the first flowers of the bravest of crocuses up, finally exposed to the sun, previously hidden by the rotting, frozen plant matter of last fall's fallen, now removed. New. Green. Forgotten. Remembered.

Oh, but wait.

I forgot the visitor.

Standing 100 meters (100 yards for those of us who still cling to the outmoded) from where I paced, sweeping, was the large, antler-free quadroped, gleaning the freshly plowed cornfield across the road and looking like chiseled Adonis. Molly-dog and I surreptitiously watched him from across the road for 10 minutes as he studiously ignored us, looking buff but aware of our admiration. And then the spell was broken.

Charles, sleepy from his afternoon nap (naps are important if you start your day at 5 am on the weekend for no better reason than habit), stepped out to investigate the dual sighting of a llama in the cornfield across the road.

("Dad! Dad! Wake up! There's a LLAMA across the road! Really! You've got to come and see!)

We decide that our children may not be as countrified as we thought, if they can't tell the difference between a llama and a deer at a distance of 100 m. (The 'llama' having bounded away in a distinctly un-llama-like fashion, flashing his white tale.)

Or maybe it's not that they aren't yet countrified, but it's in their genes to see llamas.

Happy springish.

Love Letters

Dear Patients of Last Week,

While it was nothing but an unmitigated pleasure and a true delight to spend 15 minutes with each of you locked in a tiny exam room listening with rapt attention to the particulars of your sputum (purulent), your body aches (extreme) and your fevers (impressive), I'd have really preferred that you'd kept your mask (kindly provided and requested to be keep in place by our friendly and courteous reception staff) on rather than removing it as soon as the nurse was out of the room. Your well-meant touch of asking me why doctors don't get sick was so very humorous that we both laughed heartily, especially after I replied that I was just getting over my 8th bout of illness since October and then stared pointedly at your pointless mask, dangling from it's elastic band at the level of your sternum.


When I next get a bout of severely unpleasant gastroenteritis, I shall be sure to have you over to share a piece of cake and drink out of the same cup of friendship.


Big, wet smooches!
Diana
(You know, that lady doctor)



-----------------------------------------------------



Dearest Neighbor Steve,

You are the bestest neighbor anyone could have and have such a nice large pack of dogs. While we all think Bad Dog Bailey is a sweetheart (well, except Molly-dog, who hates her with the fire of 1000 suns), we think she's more of a sweetheart when she's in her own yard (about 200m away as the dog runs, and runs she does, through the tick-infested tall grass that separates our lands) and not making Molly throw herself against the windows with alarming violence and much spittle. It is also less than joyful when we let said Molly out to relieve herself (after carefully going out ourselves to scout for any wandering canines that would tempt her to badness in the bitter cold), only to have Bad Dog Bailey come trotting from around the side of our house as soon as Molly is let loose. After a half an hour of me trying to get now Bad Dog Molly to get the hell into the house, I am forced to give up and return to warmth and light. Sorry And Frozen And Oh-So-Hungry Dog Molly does finally agree to come in, an hour later.


Please don't take it as anything but a gesture of good will when you see the unsightly high cement wall that we've constructed along our shared property line that is topped with broken glass and razor wire. Good fences and good neighbors and all that.


As you've already lost one lovely pup in your growing pack to a passing car (Poor Maisy, we hardly knew her), we've made a deal with our florist so that for every 5th bouquet of dead-dog lillies we send to you, we get a 6th free! So, that's good, yes?


Yours in Dogginess,
Diana
(You know, the one married to Charles, the mother of your son's friend, the one you studiously ignore when in company together?)



-------------------------------------------



Dear Mad-Kitty,

While I think you are the world's best cat and find most of your antics hilarious, (like the one where you jump out and grab me from behind, around the knee and then skitter off, leaving me to pick myself and whatever I had in my arms up from off the floor, you little dickens) this does not mean that you get to be pissy when, unbeknown to me, you've chosen to bury yourself under Sara's bedclothes and then are launched into the air in the middle of a nap, when I go in to turn down her covers. Your pointing out that you clearly make a (very small) lump in the rumpled bed does not bear weight in this circumstance. You are roughly the size of any one of the 107 dolls and stuffed animals that inhabit her bed and are indispensable to her peaceful slumbers.


If you choose to lurk and nap thus, you will be unceremoniously tossed, again and again.


Yours in fond nappage,
Diana
(You know, the one who feeds you and makes the bed all warm for you.)



---------------------------



Dear Driver of a Subcompact Last Night,


Hello!
Let me introduce myself. I am the white knuckled driver of the large minivan, driving home last night in the snowstorm at dusk. There was no one behind me, nor anyone in the approaching two lanes of the highway when you, coming out of the side street as the highway passed through your small Wisconsin town, pulled out right in front of me.


Whee! Wasn't that fun! We nearly collided! I nearly slid into the median as I cursed loudly and tapped the breaks as hard as I dared, fishtailing away! Such a hoot! I know you were just being neighborly and, as I've memorized your license plate, and it's a very small world, not to mention a very small town, I'm sure you won't take it amiss if I flick a lighted cigarette in your window next summer. I don't smoke, but after last night, I felt compelled to start.

Yours in future emphysematous rapture,
Diana
(You know, the one driving the fishtailing minivan, wishing for a third hand, so she could have waved a middle finger at you without taking the necessary two hands off the wheel last night.)


-----------------------------------
Now where's the damn stamps?

Mid Life Crisis

I am an adulterer.

I'm not proud of it, but it is what it is.

See, for decades, basically since I was out of footie jammies, I've not been a lounge-around-in-a-robe sort of person. It's not that I don't own a robe. I own a perfectly fine robe. Its got flowers on it. Blue and maroon ones, if you will know, lined in a blue terry-cloth. It wraps around and ties with a tie and hangs to the mid-calf. I wear it when I'm ill or chilly of an early morning. A perfectly fine robe that, as it does fairly light duty as a garment, is only washed a few times a year and is only slightly rattier than the day it was bought, I'm guessing some 20 or more years ago. I'm pretty sure I got it to go to college, primarily for schlepping down the hall to and from the dorm showers, again of an early morning. So, as you can see, Faithful Flower Robe was set to go through life with me and would probably have attended me on my death bed, should I have died of an early morning, before a shower.

You can see where all this is going, of course. I'm led to believe that this is how most affairs occur. You truly aren't looking. Perhaps you've wondered about it, why others seem so enamored with their robes that they seem to seek out their company. They speak of whole days lounging around together, reading or watching romantic movies, sharing a carton of ice cream, falling asleep together on the couch. But not me. No. FFR was perfectly comfortable, if neither handsome nor sexy. Why jepordize a nice, stable relationship. I'm not that sort of person.

And then, there I was, of an early Friday afternoon, killing time while Lilian was doing her time in rehab (cardiac, not ilicit substances; what kind of folk do you think we are?), wandering around the town's Shopko, looking at this and that, and what do I spy? A table with these young, nubile, soft robes piled on top. On sale. Before I knew what I was doing, I was fondling them. Surely there won't be one in my size.

There were two.

Surely they must be flawed: Bad breath. Some odd ink stain on the front. Dry clean only. But no. Pretty, washable, no embarassing ink tattoos in visible places, and a cheap date at under $ 20. Before I knew it, I had chatted him up, plopped him in the cart, whisked him home, washed him (who knows whose grubby hands had been on him before I found him?) and, before dinner was even thought of, I was wrapped in his arms. And since then, I've looked for any excuse to curl up with him. Instead of a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, when I come home, it's straight for him. He's had to be washed twice in two weeks after two unrelated food incidents marred his good looks, and he just gets softer. I find that wearing him over sweats just isn't nearly good enough and have taken to wearing shorts and a t-shirt in Wisconsin in January, so I can feel him snuggly 'round my arms and legs. If I lived alone, I'm sure I'd wear even less, channeling that wretched Brooke Shields / Calvin Klein ad from 20 years ago, "Nothing comes between me and my {obscenely soft robe}."

And the worst of this? Where have I installed Obscenely Soft Robe? In my closet, on the same hook as Faithful Flower Robe. FFR has to know about us, despite my tale of telling him that OSR and I are just friends and that I'm doing OSR a favor by spending time with him when I'd clearly rather be with FFR. I mean, they must talk, mustn't they? The sweaters on the facing shelf must also be aware, them and the shoes (such a clique-y bunch, the shoes) which means the rest of the closet knows. How can FFR hold his head up? I should do the right thing and just end it all, once and for all, with OSR, but here I am, on the couch, wrapped in his soft embrace and I know I'm not strong enough. Plus, I can't return him. I've lived in him for two weeks and I'm pretty sure I've (ahem) lost the reciept.

But there may be another side to this, which occurred to me as I saw them together this morning, sharing a hook, sleeve-by-sleeve. I wonder if OSR may possibly be sharing his affections when I'm not around.

If so, I don't want to know.

So Far, I'm Liking 2008 Much Better

Hush.

Do you hear that? That's silence, that is. Golden, diamond-studded solitude. Well, except for the dog. There's always The Dog. Sort of like a shadow whose nails click on the floor. She'd really like for you to either just stay where you are, so she doesn't have to keep getting up from her nap to follow you to the next room, or she'd really like for you to go outside and play in the snow. But you're used to that sort of presence and judgement in your life.

But the rest...it's so quiet and peaceful.

Remember back at the end of the summer? School was to start, and for the first time in 9 years, I was to be alone in my own house for more than a couple of minutes at a time? I'd get to watch trash on TV without constant haranguing from the small handed ones. I'd get to nap in silence (yes, yes, except for The Dog). I could eat ice cream and chocolate for lunch and no one would be the wiser except for me and my sucrose-ill self. I could finally pee in solitude, no small girl barging in no matter how I explained that "Mommy really would like some privacy, NOW!"

And all that lasted, I believe for 2 whole days: a Thursday and its following Friday. Then Lilian had her fall and her heart attack and came to be with us, along with all my darling parents in succession, with surgery and recovery and meals on trays and visiting nurses. Everything fell together very fortunately, with minimal work lost, no permanent placement in an assisted care center, no daycare.

But, no solitude that I'd looked forward to with the same gleam in my eye that a prisoner has as he counts the days until release in hatch marks on his cell wall, listening to the living noise of his cell mates day in and day out.

Cell mates that he may actually adore; whose company he may have sought out and actively recruited, but everyone (and by 'everyone' I of course mean 'me') needs, nay craves, solitude.

And today, I have it. 5 whole hours from bus pick-up until bus drop-off.

I feel like a new woman. A new woman with rumpled hair from curling up on the couch, reading. A woman with no make-up (because...why?) a woman who's clothes may be a bit ripe but are comfortable.

I don't have the full 2 days at the end of each week that I'd planned on. Lilian still has her rehab that she needs to be ferried to each Friday afternoon, and tomorrow I've got to take The Dog to the vet, as well (Diarrhea. Dog and Diarrhea.) so that'll blow the Fridays, but if I can just have the Thursdays, I will be satisfied.

Happy New Year to me.

------------------

And speaking of years that are new, you'll be glad to know that I've already achieved my one and only resolution:

As I am beyond tired of shirts that are too short. I have declared war on shirts that are too short. I have purged my closet, shelves and drawers of any and all shirts that have a tail less than a full 8" below my belt line. I have freed myself from the drafty, horrifying double whammy of raising my arms in the course of living and exposing my white, dimply bare midriff to the chill and to the offense of the eyes of others.



I will accept words of gratitude from the general public.



I will look for some sort of award for Special Services To Humanity in the mail.



I will NEVER buy an inadequate shirt again.



Should anyone wish to start a fund to hunt down those who've perpetuated such misery in the name of fashion, I will gladly contribute time and resources.

And kindling.

42

"Forty-two is the number Deep Thought gave as being the Ultimate Answer."

"Yes."

"And the Earth is the computer Deep Thought designed and built to calculate the Question to the Ultimate Answer."

"So we are led to believe."

"And organic life was part of the computer matrix."

"If you say so."

"Ford," he said suddenly, "look, if that Question is printed in my brain wave patterns but I'm not consciously aware of it, it must be somewhere in my unconscious."

"Yes, I suppose so."

"There might be a way of bringing that unconscious pattern forward."

"Like how?"

"Like by pulling Scrabble letters out of a bag blindfolded."

Ford lept to his feet.

"Brilliant!" he said. He tugged his towel out of his satchel and with a few deft knots transformed it into a bag.

"Totally mad," he said, "utter nonsense. But we'll do it because it's brilliant nonsense. Come on, come on."

Arthur closed his eyes and plunged his hand into the towelful of stones. He jiggled them about, pulled out four and handed them to Ford. Ford laid them along the ground in the order he got them.

"W," said Ford. "H,A,T...What!"

Arthur pushed three more at him.

"D,O,Y...Doy."

"Here's the next three!"

"O,U,G...Doyoug...It's not making sense I'm afraid."

Arthur pulled another two from the bag. Ford put them in place.

"E,T,doyouget....Do you get!" shouted Ford. "It is working! This is amazing, it really is working!"

"More here." Arthur was throwing them out feverishly as fast as he could go.

"I,F," said Ford, "Y,O,U...M,U,LT,I,P,L,Y...S,I,X...B,Y...N,I,N,E..."Hi paused. "Come on, where's the next one?"

"Er, that's the lot" said Arthur, "that's all there were."

He sat back, nonplussed.

He rooted around again in the knotted up towel but there were no more letters.

"You mean that's it?" said Ford.

"That's it."

"Six by nine. Forty-two."

"That's it. That's all there is."

"I always knew there was something fundamentally wrong with the Universe."



--abridged from Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe




Today, I am 42. The Ultimate answer to the Ultimate question.


I am expecting great things from this year, starting with dessert, of course.

In Which I take Leave Of My Senses

I present living proof of my insanity:

Paper mache.

Really.


In my kitchen. Dripping on my table. Puddling on my floor (which, thank God, is a faux-marbled paper-mache colored ceramic). Coating each of us.


See, I'm home with the little angels for 2 whole weeks. Actually, what with the Labor Day weekend at the end and the fact that I only work the first 1/2 of each week, it's a day shy of 3 weeks. Our lovely summer sitter, C, had to selfishly get her little self off to college the middle of the month and modern society frowns upon 8 year olds and 4 year olds being taken care of by adolescent dogs, no matter how good their intentions are.


Desperate to find something for us to do to take up a rainy morning on a day that was not my time-honored favorite "Let's Clean The House For Money, Kids!" Day, I agreed to have us make pinatas.


Yes. I am agreeing to do crafts.


I am not in the least little bit craft-y. Nothing personal, I just never saw the point. Knitting, sure. There's a use for that sweater. But a Popsicle stick napkin holder? Not even as a kid did I see that as anything but crap. (I was a shitty Girl Scout.) I apparently lack the gene. It must be next to the one on the "X" chromosome that confers the desire for expensive designer bags, which I also lack.


So, we blew up the balloons, and then made a quart of flour-based glue, which we dredged strips of paper in and plastered all over balloons. Which then had to drip-dry, indoors, so they wouldn't become large fly strips.



Here they are, dangling over the kitchen table where only a few pet indoor flies were present (drip, drip, drippity-drip).


Then they were tissue papered and painted. And glued and glittered.


Actually, when he realized that we WOULDN'T be filling them full to bursting with bags and bags of candy and then whacking them open and then stuffing ourselves on the bags and bags of candy, Colin rather lost interest and decided his would be an "egg". An undecorated chicken egg. (I owe him a pony or a car for that.) His is, of course, on the right.

Sara, however, took full advantage and glued and painted and glittered hers extravagantly. I am still finding green sparkles in odd places on my person, despite having had more than one shower since then. I'm not sure what Sara's pinata is. Neither is she. But it sheds the carefully applied glitter nicely, so I'm thinking it's a kindergartner from the egg dimension. Or a grade-school art teacher, from the planet Ovoid.

Today, we used the morning splitting my psyche in two as I attempted to fulfill the school supply requirements of both kids' teachers simultaneously at the local Shopko.

For some reason Sara must have a box of 8 crayons that are not the 'jumbo size', but the 'regular size'.

As far as I can tell, they make the box of 'regular sized' crayons 16 or 32 or larger and the box of 8 crayons 'jumbo sized', but not what is required. I'm thinking they can take the box of 16 and lump it. She also needs a box of 'pipsqueak markers' as she is a girl. What the fuck? The boys have to bring paper plates.

Seems like the parents of daughters, who will be subjected to multiple bizarre fashion demands over the years, should be the ones to bring the simple paper plates and the parents of the boys, who for the next several years will be happily dressed in a uniform of jeans and t-shirts, get to find the 'pipsqueak markers'.

Or maybe the teachers figure that the parents of girls need the practice.

Oh. I also realized that all the pairs of jeans I bought Colin are the wrong size. But that's OK. I can use up another morning exchanging them.

I think I don't have enough beer in the house.

No.

I know I don't have enough beer in the house.

In Lieu Of Our Regularly Scheduled Blog...

I almost never do this but THIS had me laughing so hard that I was unable to do more than make those sobbing little "eep" noises, which caused poor Colin much concern from the adjacent room:

Colin: "Mom! What's wrong?"

Me: "Nothing honey. I'm just reading something funny."

C: "But you sound like you're crying!"

M: "I am just a little but it's because this is so funny."

C: (After coming in to look at the computer monitor.) "Are you going to cook that????"

M: (Wiping the tears streaming from my eyes): "NO. God no. Don't worry. Not even I would make that."

C: "Good."

And now my question: Did these items really end up on the tables of Americans in the middle of the 20th century? And was that the reason for the heavy consumption of martinis? And what about the poor children?

Impatiently Waiting

Tracking the Package from the warehouse of Amazon, this morning, we couldn't help but notice that not only had the Package gotten to the Middleton, WI, UPS depot, but it had departed from the Middleton, WI, UPS depot. As we are only about 45 minutes by vehicle and beltline from Middleton, WI, AND historically, when we've ordered items from Amazon, they've gotten here a day ahead of the anticipated arrival date, it was with no little frisson of excitement that I realized that I just might hold the thing I've awaited most in the last two years in my hot little hands a full day before I had right to expect to.

It is now approaching 7pm and not one of the vehicles that's rumbled down our road has been the UPS truck.

Guess it's a just punishment.

Driving to the grocery store this morning, Charles and I were quite amused to note the huuuuuuuge line in front of one of the chain bookstores at 8 am. I'm guessing that these are crazy people who not only reserved their copy of the Package in advance, but are waiting in line for the store to sell them their reserved copy 16 hours from then. Do they think the store is going to run out of the book that they pre-ordered and paid for? Why not arrive at midnight and wait in line an hour? Why not arrive at 11pm and wait in line 2 hours?

Had the Package mistakenly arrived early, as it has been rumored to have done if ordered by another online distributor, I must admit the temptation was there to have jumped in the car and driven by the hoards standing (none seemed to even be condescending to sit in lawn chairs, which would have at least shown a whiff of sense, especially if a well stocked cooler was in attendance) in line brandishing my copy of ill-gotten Package and then zooming away before they could swarm the car and take out their wrath upon us.

I've got my space at the ready: Couch up in the loft, pillows plumped. Floor vacuumed. Blanket at the ready. Plants watered. Table at arm's reach for snacks, pot of tea during the day, glass of wine during the evening, pot of tea in the middle of the night. Mad-Kitty has her instructions to curl up at my feet but not on my chest. Charles has plans for the small-handed ones and himself that involve a movie marathon in the basement. No dog, no children.

All is set.

You won't hear from me until I'm done.

It's been a long 2 years.

*giggle, giggle, clap, clap, clap*

Back about 3 years ago, before the blog existed and we were still young and idealistic, we moved out to our own little bit of Eden in rural Wisconsin. The house was in good shape, 3/4ths finished, just not as, er, pretty as we'd like it. We made a list of things that absolutely HAD to be done. Things like finish the 1/2 of the basement that was a big, open, dank, dog-shit-for-decoration cave lit by a single 25 watt bulb dangling from a light socket. It looked like a place that monsters would dwell and we didn't fancy living in a place with monsters. It's bad enough when your kids have nightmares. Don't need a real Freddy Krueger popping up the stairs in the wee hours to raid the fridge and torture you. Also, we replaced the light gray kitchen counters, put tile in the hall, kitchen and bathrooms in place of the ugly light gray vinyl, painted the soul-destroying light gray walls with a cheerier, warm (although not wildly dynamic), very light demi-peach paint.

(Note: We are essentially White Wall People, through and through. We adore color on the walls of the houses of our friends, we just can't fathom it on our own walls. We tried to make Sara's room a sunny yellow and the painters obviously thought it was horrible--because it was--and painted over it with the warm bland. Colin's room, we painted a nice blue, which looks, well, cold and blah. Shouldn't have put a sign on his door that said "Don't Paint Me" and let the painters cover up that mistake, too. We need to just stick with white-ish. Know your weaknesses. Choosing wall color is a failing with us.)

By the time we'd done all that, we'd exhausted our budget. Then we had to recover from the move (it's always more expensive that you think). Then we had the enormous vet bills from poor Emma's illness. Then there was the getting of the new puppy and kitten, and various other expenses that put our Next Big Thing For The House on hold.

But...finally! The stars and expenses lined up and, golly!, there was this amazing sale as we were poking around in the floor store on a whim and, well....

ONE!




TWO!!




THREE!!!



Ain't it purdy?

Why the builder ever put down carpet in the first place is beyond me. Although, as Charles and I decided last night as we stood in our new pose: smiling in the center of the room and slowly revolving to look at all the pretty, pretty wood, had they done so, they'd probably have put in weathered light gray driftwood to match the walls and counters and bathroom decor, and we'd have hated it but felt bad as it would have been hard to rip up new wood floors to put down new wood floors, right?

(The previous owners were very nice and, having designed and built the house themselves, apparently planned to live there forever, but then had a very, VERY nasty divorce. I think that it was all the gray that did them in. Sort of like The Shining but with 'light gray everything' rather than being snow-bound in an evil, possessed hotel.)

So, Charles and I are thrilled, as the floors are pretty and are not full of dog piss.

Mad-Kitty is happy, as things she bats around go skittering all over the surface.

Molly-Dog is not-as-happy, as she skids over the slick surface.

But Colin is really, really happy, as he gets to sock-slide from one end of the hall and across the room in one 'go'. He's teaching his sister the finer points, too.

Works for me. The sock-sliding dusts the floor.

Next up? Replace the light gray tile surrounding the fireplace. I mean, really. Gray, again. We're thinking a nice, warm granite or something. Shouldn't be too expensive. There's not much to do.

The Bestest Day Of The Year (so far)

And just why would Superbowl Sunday be such a great day, Diana? You've not followed football with any rabidity since the '80s and '90s, when the Seattle Seahawks kept breaking your heart and you and Charles lived on a dozen donuts and coffee for your entire Sunday's nutrition. (Well, donuts, coffee and beer in the evening.) You aren't one of the ones who watches for the commercials.

Ah, sillies. It's all about the guacamole.

This is the day when you get to eat all the guacamole you desire (and that's a large amount of guacamole, sweethearts). As Charles and I didn't go anywhere to watch the big game, we also didn't have to share the quart of fresh guacamole I made with anyone but each other. As I put the generous quart of guac in a wide bowl, there wasn't even the need to alternate our dipping activity, one after the other. We just put the bowl between us on the couch and dove in. To keep the guac company, I also made a big platter of nacho fillings for scooping with the chips.

I am now retaining water like a sponge from all the sodium, and farty from all the rest, but the glorious memory lingers on. (There are also leftovers. Leftovers that will spoil if not eaten in a timely fashion. Like for dinner, tonight.) Good thing I had a large green salad for lunch.

We also led off the festivities with a little taste test. Charles, 1/2 Yank, 1/2 Canuck that he is, is a fan of beer. Make that good beer. Not the stuff that looks like dilute pee. Here in the delightfully white-bread-and-neon-yellow-mustard region of the Upper Midwest, they drink Bud. And Bud Light. Sometimes a Miller. Corona if really, really being highbrow.

It distresses us greatly, especially Charles, as he is an altruistic soul and it truly pains him to see people imbibing such awful stuff.

We do not call it beer, for it is not.

He shows up at parties with good beer in hand, which sits in the fridge and, I am sure, is passed around later, after we've left the party, as a good joke. He is almost evangelical in this. Me? I'm less concerned about the immortal souls of my pals. If they can't be bothered to enrich their lives, well, their loss.

Which leads us to the collection of beers in the photo. We have 3 varieties of American 'beers'. 1 Bud regular, 1 Miller Light, 1 Bud Light. 2 bottled, 1 canned. A reasonable representation. These were given him by 2 'friends' to drink at the Superbowl, as, they reasoned in their quaint way, an AMERICAN INSTITUTION requires and AMERICAN BREW. (And by 'American' they mean 'bad'. We all know there are scads of excellent American beers.) So, we had a taste test. Not to see which was best. No, no. That would imply that they weren't all deeply flawed to begin with. I merely wanted to know if there was any gustatory difference between them.

We didn't bother to blind ourselves as to brand. We were equally biased to all. We also didn't bother to rinse the glass between brands. Why artificially add flavor by mixing our tasty well water with such offerings.

With trepidation, we took a sip, figuring that anything that looked identical to what leaves one's kidneys, should taste like what leaves one's kidneys.

And the results? Charles felt that the Bud and Miller Light were 'tasteless' and the Bud Light in the can was 'tasteless and slightly sweet'. Me? I disagreed. I thought the Bud 'tasteless' but BOTH the Lights 'sweetly tasteless'. We did try them both (literally) iced and warmed up a bit. This wasn't intentional, actually, but we'd left them in the green room, where we keep our boots and some gardening stuff and the outside toys (it's off the kitchen, sticking out on the back deck, and is barely insulated and not heated) and everything froze. Guess that's what happens when the outside temperature gets way below zero F. (Was -20F driving in to work today, with windchills of -35! Woot!) Unbeer freezes. So, I put the bottles/cans in the sink, watching as the contents foamed out the top when they were unstoppered. Seeking to thaw enough for true testing purposes, I put some warm water in the sink, which worked, of course.

I can say with definity that warming the unbeers did NOT result in any improvement. Instead, they just got nastier, and by 'nastier' I mean oddly sweeter.

We then dumped the lot down the drain, with apologies to the plumbing, and each had an Optimator Spaten. Which was neither frozen, tasteless nor oddly sweet.

So that's how we spent our Superbowl Sunday in the Casa Del Piffle. Doing our part for science and farting.

When you think about it, it really is best that we don't inflict ourselves on others, isn't it?

Confessions Of The Obsessed

So, what have you been up to, Diana? We used to hear from you 2-3 times a week. We got non-stop drivel about the mundane and banal in your life and now you can barely condescend to throw something up once a week.

We are not sure what we are complaining about, as who needs to read about your trials with detecting which appliance was leaving the rust smears on occasional articles of clothing all those months (turns out it was the nefarious dryer). Or that the dog has been taking to grabbing 2-3 pieces of kibble in her mouth and just leaving them in a cluster here and there in the kitchen and dining room (there can be no possible answer for that). For a while, we kept hoping you would forget your vows of confidentiality and blog about the patients and all, for we all know that there must be scads of good work stories, but we've given up on such sensational and gruesome fodder. We are just wondering why the change.

Ah, dearest darlings, many reasons. Work has been busier, I've been duller, and I found something to replace the hours in front of the computer at home, at least for now.

Actually, that's not entirely true. It's sort of computeresque, it's just small and hand-held and I can curl up in the Big Chair with it and a blanket and consume hours and hours that way.

Yeah! Mama got a DS.

Actually, mama stole the Animal Crossing game her daughter got from Santa.

See, it has reading in it. Sara can't read. Therefore, Sara can't possibly enjoy the game as much as she should. Therefore, the game should, nay must, go to the one person in the family who would really enjoy it.

Me.

The control freak.

Well, actually, Colin would also enjoy it, but I'm bigger than him.

To be honest, I did let him play with the game for a short time and, as I handed it over to him, actually heard myself tell him quite sternly that he could on no account get that axe and cut down a single tree. OR trample a flower. OR pick any of the valuable apples or coconuts that I'd so painstakingly planted (the cheap oranges he could do with what he would). OR touch anything in MY house (which he shared).

That weekend, I went and bought him his own game. And, as I didn't actually have my own DS, we had to get me one, so I wouldn't have to share with the small-handed ones. Now we play curled up together in the Big Chair. Harmony.

Soooooo, what is the attraction to this game?

Tcha! It's brilliant! You get to inhabit your own little town and order it just the way you want. Sort of. Well, at least your house. Sort of. Actually, you are completely dependent on the proprieter of the single store for all your furnishing goods, and he only offers a few things each day. But! You get to run around with your shovel and fishing rod and butterfly net and catch fish and dig up fossils and catch bugs (Well, you can catch the bugs when the weather is warmer. Currently, it's snowy and the bugs aren't out. Except the flies.) The flowers still bloom, though, and the orange trees fruit, which is good. The coconuts do, too. On the snowy beach.

And you get to weed the town! And water the turnip plant that you hope to sell for a fat profit. (In fact, you'd really rake in the dough if that sow, Joan, would sell you more than just one turnip seed at a time.) And you get to re-arrange your furniture. And (squeal!) pay your mortgage! To the slumlord that also owns the company store (Anyone feel the urge to sing 16 Tons?)

You do get accosted by the other townies, who are annoying and animal-shaped, but you can ignore them or hit them with your butterfly net, which causes them to shun you for a bit. (Sadly, you don't get to wack them with the shovel.) Also, sometimes they give you stuff, which you can turn around and sell off. They have short memories and don't seem able to hold a grudge for more than 5 minutes, so pissing them off will only buy you a modicum of peace.

So, that's what I've been doing of an evening. Pulling weeds and watering the turnip.

Maybe, if I'm really, really lucky, I'll get to buy a lawn mower and mow the town. Or maybe a vacuum?

Sad. So very sad the life of an obsessive-compulsive control freak.

Joining The 21st Century

You all know me, you who've trotted along this blogging path with me, lo these couple of years. I am not cutting edge. I am lagging edge.

It is with great fanfare that I announce my latest purchase: A flippy-uppy cell phone!

Really!

Charles took today off work to do some chauffeuring and good-son-ing for his mom, and had a few hours at his disposal while she hung out at the medical center chugging bowel prep and watching a grainy TV, so we headed in to town and over to his 2nd home, B*est Buy.

See, we'd bought, well, gotten cell phones about 3 years ago, when we moved out with the cows, with an eye on the long commute and the kamikaze deer. They were 'free with plan indenture' and rather dorky and cumbersome. They were obviously jettisoning the old phones, as all the hip, new flip-phones were coming out for the holidays back then. This was fine, though, as neither of us are phone people and usually went months without using the things at all. Charles may have never actually used his, come to think of it, as it was stolen by a kid about 6 months after he got it. He thinks he knows which urchin, as the calls were made from Iowa, and there was only one student who transferred to Iowa at the time the phone was stolen. There was no real way to prove it, so we cursed the kid's name, cancelled the phone, and paid the couple of hundred bucks on the bill he rang up. (grrrrrrr. Ratbastardlittleweaselfuckingtwerp-mayyouhaveyourphonestolenbythelikesofyousomeday.)

We didn't bother to replace the phone, preferring to share the remaining one, which mostly lived in my purse. It worked, after a fashion. The calls were static-y, the shape precisely didn't enable you to speak clearly into the mouthpiece while listening to the ear-end and more than half of your conversation consisted of the word, "WHAT?" hollered over the ether.

With Charles in class, though, sharing a phone has become rather difficult. We only are able to carpool about once a week, now-a-days, and there've been many times we've really needed to each have our own phone to, well, talk to each other. I've also added some work responsibilities where it'd be a rather good thing that I be reachable when I'm out and about by those who need to ask my sage (cough, cough) and esteemed (wheeze) advice on this and that.

So, off to the electronics place we scurried and I chose a new free phone-with-plan-indenture. We had 3 plans to choose from and we chose the only one of the three that actually had coverage in the area we live in. (I did think it odd that the other 2 plans were even for sale as they both had 'iffy' to 'no' coverage where we bought them. I'm not sure if that was a trap or what. "What? You signed on to the indentured plan that doesn't even cover where you live?" "Yeah! but look at the cool phone! And it was free!" "Guess you really are too stupid to be trusted with a phone."

*smack*

We drove home, me noodling through the 200 page instruction tome, and suddenly I was struck by an urge I've never experienced in my life. I had the urge to make a phone call. I didn't have the urge to actually talk to someone, just make a call. The damn thing just fits so nicely in my hand and, when flipped up, fits so nicely that angle between my ear and my mouth.

I debated calling the automated 'time of day' number, but then realized that I didn't know what it was, and that calling information would be stupid, especially as I was wearing a watch, so I settled for programming in some numbers (Charles's work. My work. My cell number--I never remember my number as I never call myself and in the past have given it out maybe 3 times, total; the thing's never on and I don't have people calling me, anyway, probably because the thing is never on.) and taking a picture of my knee. I then tried to delete the picture, but instead transported myself to some other place in the menu, and lost the thing all together. I'm guessing in a couple of years that knee shot will surface and cause me all sorts of perplexation.

Anyway, it's now happily charging itself on the kitchen counter and I am shocked to realize that I can remember, for the first time ever in my life, its number. I'm even thinking of giving it a name, I'm so absurdly fond of it.

I'm sure it's a sign, just not sure what it's a sign of. Probably Armageddon.

Wanted: Advice To Ignore, Until It's Too Late

OK. I need advice. I probably won't take it, unless it corresponds with what I've already decided to do, but I need it, none the less.

See, I've undertaken to paint the front porch. It's your basic railing with spooled supports, wood, painted white. It's been about 9-10 years since it was painted. Well, that's when the house was built and I'm positive that its not been re-painted since the day it was born.

It looks like this, if you are really interested.

{An aside. I love old houses. With painted exteriors. I hate to do home repairs, though. Having a house that needs painting is beyond me. All my houses have had siding and I've loved the fact that I've not ever had to paint a house. This porch is putting me over the edge.}

Ok, now is where you break into your favorite Monty Python character (mine for such a time is Terry Jones) and slap me for being such a whiny little punk, because, when you were me, you wished you had a house to strip and paint. Oh, yes! You'd have paid the neighbor for the privilege of stripping and painting his 4 story house! Each and every year! Yes! You feckin' ingrate.

Am I the only one to hold Monty Python conversations in my head during times of sweltering, dull drudgery?

So, as I understand, it's important to strip off the old paint, especially if it's peeling a bit, before slapping on the new. Yes? So I did what any normal, anal person would do, and went to Home Depot and asked the paint guy what to buy and how to do it. He smirked only a little and drug me to the correct aisle, away from the incorrect aisle ("No, you don't want that.") and loaded me up with paint stripper that is supposed to remove anything but acrylic surfaces in "15 easy minutes" (bollox) and a conditioner (haven't used it, so can't mock its undoubtedly misleading claims) and a gallon of standard, non-glossy white exterior paint (I'm dull. Like the paint.) He told me to use a plastic spray bottle to apply the stripper (smirk) and to use a stiff brush (Sold me one as I hadn't cleaned the garage at the time and had no idea that I already possessed an identical one in the corner, among the cobwebs and bits of beetle.) to scrub off any stubborn bits of paint.

Easy as pie, was his implication.

Soooooo. Thursday last, I did as the instructions said, right down to laying drop cloths and shaking before applying. I waited the full 30 minutes before spraying off the loosened paint with the hose. (HAH! '15 minutes' is for only a few things, like removing a dusting of dust from your dust colored patio.) I used a spray bottle. (The extremely toxic shit is the consistency of corn syrup. Do you know how well corn syrup sprays from a spray bottle? It doesn't. Trust me. It dribbles erratically.) After a few hours of valiantly trying to get the fucking paint off the fucking wood, soaking meself down to the delicates in the process, I took my pruned and covered-in-protective-clothing-in-the-80-degree-weather-self inside and had a shower and a very cold drink.

The amount of paint removed was less than 10%.

I was dismayed, to say the least.

Today, I girded my loins, again in hot protective clothing, and did another assault, this time with a paint brush. I figured that maybe the spray bottle technique just didn't get it where it needed to be. So I personally put it there, me and my 2" paint brush. (That I found while cleaning the garage. HAH!)

Again, I followed the rules to a 'T'. I did manage to get pretty much all the paint off the horizontal surfaces, like the top of the railing, but only about 1% (and that's an enthusiastic estimate, let me tell you) off the vertical surfaces.

Fuck that.

So, I posed the situation to my beloved and supportive husband, who agreed with me, that it's just not going to be stripped further. Clearly, the paint looooooves the vertical wood and wants to stay married to it fooooooreverrrrr. Who am I to get between that? No love lost, apparently, by the horizontal surfaces, though.

So, next, I apply a corrosive acid to 'condition' the surface. It's supposed to be applied with a spray bottle and you make it foam. I'll be wearing my head-to-toe hot and sweaty wear, complete with safety glasses that cover my cheekbones. I feel like an elderly movie star when I wear them.

Then, I will paint. I will paint over the paint.

Now. Here is where I need your input, dearest darlings, whether or not you know what you are talking about. How badly will I regret doing this and not, say, renting a sandblaster to get off all the remaining old paint? I need to know, as recrimination is all the better if it is in writing, so it can be used in the future as an "I told you so!" Roll your eyeballs liberally. Recommend products that actually work. (I used Behr brand.) That way, I can choose not to go get them now, but can get them next spring when the porch railing looks like a rotting, anemic gopher's kidney. Ridicule me liberally. Ridicule is a powerful teaching technique.

Let me have it. I'm ready and wearing safety glasses.