Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman

I just thought you should know

2007-03-30T17:34:00.000-07:00

This post has been in my drafts for a long time (since 10/17/05, apparently) because it didn't seem fair to post it as it was actually happening. But now that the crisis has passed . . .

Growing up, it seemed like I was constantly in charge of my younger siblings -- my parents frequently went out at night, and when I was in high school, my mom got a part time job, leaving me in charge of the younger ones most afternoons after school.

My youngest sister was born when I was just shy of twelve years old. So Steph spent the first five years or so of her life with me as her oldest sister, but also to some extent as her surrogate mother. I have a harder time knowing where the boundaries are with her than I do my other siblings. I feel far more responsible for her than I do the others. I'm able to accept them as adults and I'm intimately aware that we're all growing older. But I've blocked out Steph's aging, to the extent that I still thought she was nineteen the year she turned twenty-one.

She'll graduate from college this December, and then I expect she'll be starting her "real life". For awhile she was talking about either moving somewhere near my parents after graduation, or coming here to Iowa City. Of course, I'd rather she come here, and only partly for selfish reasons, but I was fine with either choice.

Then last month, she said maybe she'd move to Texas instead. It's not really my favorite plan, but this one IS mostly for selfish reasons, so I've tried to let it go.

Last night, PJ called. I could hear Abigail cooing on the other end of the line. "She sounds like a happy baby, doesn't she?" queried PJ. "You'd never know to listen to her that she only had one nap."

We were gabbing about not much in particular when I asked, "Did you know Steph's talking about moving to Houston?" "I know!!" PJ burst out.

Then I heard: "It's ok, baby girl, it's ok. I didn't mean to scare you." PJ was trying hard not to laugh. "She's so tired, she's really having trouble holding it together. Apparently my talking's ok with her, but being excited about it is not."

And then I heard Abigail start to cry.

Did you hear that Steph?? Talking about you moving to Houston made the baby cry. I just thought you should know that.

Ripped from an email to my sister . . .

2007-01-08T20:47:00.000-08:00

Can I just tell you that I cannot find anyone in this damned town who will actually cut my hair? I'm tired of what I've got, which is absolutely zero style, but I'm also unwilling to spend time looking at pictures trying to figure out what anything will look like on my head when past experience tells me that either one of two things will happen: a) the stylist will tell me that the style I've picked is completely inappropriate for my hair or b) NOT tell me, and my head STILL ends up looking NOTHING like what I thought it would.

So the last two times I've gone to get a hair cut (two different places), I've explained to the woman cutting my hair that I want something different, and given a few things I know I *don't* want, and explained what I don't like about the current do (or lack thereof). And both times, the woman in question has essentially spent 15 min trimming my hair and then sent me out the door. The one today didn't even bother to trim enough to get all of the split ends off (and then she had the gall to try and sell me a dye job). So pardon my french, but seriously, WTF?!?!?!

What do I have to do to get a freaking hair cut?? I would think these woman would be drooling all over themselves at the chance to actually use some of their expertise and "art" for once. But apparently not. *rolls eyes*

So tomorrow, I'm going to call and make an appointment at the beauty college, because maybe those girls are young enough to have some balls. Jeez! Will let you know how it goes . . .

(And you know at least 75% of my pissiness about this is that I'm mad at myself for walking out that door, instead of saying, "I'm sorry, but I'm paying you to cut my hair and this is not what I want." But I'm an American consumer and I refuse to consider that this might have anything to do with me!)

Before:

After (bonus facial expression showing just how thrilled I am with the "new" do):

And Sue was her brother . . .

2006-10-12T21:47:00.000-07:00

For a long time now, I've thought that Jonathan would make a very nice girl's name.

Unfortunately, I've yet to find anyone who agrees with me.

Updates

2006-10-10T07:38:00.000-07:00

So yeah, unemployed. Took last week off to try and get some stuff done around the house. Was moderately successful and it did miles towards preserving my mental stability. This week the job hunt was to start, but then the iBook died -- fourth logic board bit the dust. :(

And since it's over 3 years old, Apple doesn't give a flying fig. How did I show them? I bought a MacBook. In theory, FedEx is bringing it to my house later today (damn Columbus!).

So until then, I'm stuck borrowing Pukka's computer, which just takes longer, because I have to remember where to find things, how to do things, what my logins are, what that URL was, etc. . . .

Plus I didn't have real good luck finding openings when I was poking around yesterday. When I checked before, it seemed like there were plenty of openings places, and I was confident I'd be able to find something when the time came. Now the market seems to have dried up a bit, and I'm fighting the urge to panic. Grown-up voice says that what goes around comes around, and that if there were positions before, there will be positions again. Neurotic voice says I missed my one and only chance and now I will never work again.

In other news, you can wash a plastic shower liner in the washing machine, and all the gunk does actually come off!

Pukka's head is like a drain clog just waiting to happen, so our shower drain is almost perpetually in some state between slow and not draining at all. At the old place, we had a shower with a door, so it was just the tub that suffered. Here, we have a real shower curtain, and the bottom of it gets pretty grungy pretty fast. Up until now, we've just replaced it every six months or so. No big deal there -- they cost less than $5.

But then a girlfriend told me that I could just toss it in the washing machine. I was skeptical. I figured either it would rip to pieces, or else the gunk would prove to be permanently melded to the plastic. But I just tried it and it actually works! Of course, last week we bought a replacement. But that's OK by me too, since it means the newly cleaned old one can go in the linen closet to take another turn when the new ones gets gunky.

So that's life around here in short -- immanent arrival of a new computer (yea!), no job on the immediate horizon (boo!), and novel yet mundane domestic discoveries (???). Don't you all wish you were me?

Just wondering . . .

2006-09-10T21:10:00.000-07:00

. . . if you're trying to sell me a shirt made of duponi silk, why in god's name would you line it in polyester? Sheesh!

self-defeating

2006-08-02T14:59:00.000-07:00

So part of the "losing our jobs" plan at our house was that I was going to win $10,000 in a sudoku contest.

Ok, not really, but it was a nice fantasy.

My plan was to take care of my entry while I was on vacation this last week. The deadline for entries was 7/31, so I wanted to fill out the entry form early (I already had all the correct answers), rather than putting it off until the last minute. Of course, that didn't happen, because when have I ever NOT put something off until the last minute? But Monday morning I filled out the form and put it in the envelope. And then Pukka & I dropped it in the mailbox on the way to lunch.

Yesterday, it came back to the house for postage.

That's me -- smart enough to do sudoku, just not smart enough to lick a stamp!

making me crazy

2006-07-31T15:19:00.000-07:00

While we were at the beach, I got a sunburn.
I got a sunburn because I put the sunscreen on my back myself.
There are some parts of my back that I can't reach quite as well as I thought.
Now all those parts itch.

Argh!

home

2006-07-30T20:35:00.000-07:00

I've been trying not to mention how much life has grown beyond my capacity to cope with it. I tell myself I don't want to be a whiner, but the reality is that to write about it, I'd have to acknowledge it. Denial's not just a river in Egypt and all that.

In any case, in a nutshell: Pukka and I will both be losing our jobs before the end of year, courtesy of our employer shutting down our call center and retreating to their home office. Since September of last year, Pukka's been dealing with significant back pain. This has affected so much of our life it's not even funny -- certainly his physical health, both our emotional healths, our finances, our ability to get the damned lawn mown so we don't look like the trashiest house on the block, etc., etc.

We spent the last week on the coast in Virginia with my family, swaying with the waves, tasting her saltiness. For most of that time, I put all the stress away. The last two days, I started to dream frustrating dreams about fruitless job searching. Yesterday we came home, and I could almost feel the tension settle back around my shoulders, constricting my chest. In a strange way, it's not unwelcome. At least I know it. At least it's a truth of a kind.

Friday before we left out, we found out that our employer's motivated to get rid of Pukka sooner rather than later. They're denying him further leave, so the next time he needs to take a day off, he'll most likely be terminated. They also converted most of last week's vacation to unpaid leave for him, putting us even further in the hole than is usual these days.

Still, it's good to be home -- good to have kitties brush against our legs and rub their warm, fuzzy bellies. It's good to see that the heat hasn't gotten the best of most of my plants yet. Good to be back to just me and Pukka, without all my beloved family floating along with us. More than anything, this is the way I know he's good for me, that we're meant to be together -- that I value time spent alone with him more than time by myself.

It's good to be home.

Empty nest

2006-07-19T04:51:00.000-07:00

Sunday I climbed up to check on the babies and noticed two things:

Our wee visitors now appeared more feathery than fuzzy, although they still had some bald-looking patches.
The nest was getting quite crowded.

That was the last time I was able to get a good look at them. When I came home from work on Monday, it was so hot that they were all hanging their heads over the side of the nest, panting. I didn't want to bother them.

Yesterday when I left for work, mom was perched on the edge of the nest. We enacted our ritual, her freezing, moving only enough to continually give me the evil eye, while I kept my head down, pretending like I wasn't looking at her or her nest.

When I called home during the day, Tony told me that he had seen both mom and dad perched on either side of the nest. This was new. I had frequently seen his bright colors in the trees of the front yard, but I'd never seen him near the nest, even though my research said he should've been helping with the feeding.

By the time I got home last night, the nest was bare. I could hear a baby cheeping somewhere in the yard, but dad got really agitated when I went looking for him, so I finally gave up.

Later, I noticed dad behaving oddly on our front patio. I'm still not sure if he was seeing his reflection in the glass, or the cats, or what exactly was going on. I headed outside again for another tour through the yard.

Heard a baby again. Saw mom and got the evil eye yet again. No visual confirmation on any of the little ones though.

All said, I suppose that's for the best. There's at least one cat that wanders the neighborhood, and if I could've found the little ones easily, I would've fretted all night about the cat finding them too.

Pod-stalking

2006-07-17T14:55:00.000-07:00

When I was in college, I planned to marry a boy. Two months before our theoretical wedding date, we broke up. We were young and impetuous and couldn't handle each other, couldn't handle the commitment, could barely handle ourselves. That said, when I look back on my relationships with the benefit of hindsight, he's one of the few men in my life who have actually loved me well. (To be honest, it's not like I've had a better track record.)

Now it's years later -- he's a preacher, married, has a son. I'm married myself, and practice a religion that fluctuates but sure as heck isn't Christian. I get the feeling his wife would rather we not be close, which I can understand.

Every so often though, I wonder where he's at, how he's doing, how he spends his days. Last month, while Google-stalking, I discovered he and a few friends have been putting together an intermittent podcast. It focuses on issues within their denomination, something which doesn't interest me much and of which I have no knowledge.

But I download it and listen to it anyway. Because it has his voice, and his laugh. It reminds me of when we were young, and it makes me smile.

Update

2006-07-12T19:58:00.000-07:00

This morning when I left the house for work, the nest appeared empty, so I decided to do a quick climb up to check on the eggs. I don't understand why I do this. It's not as if they grow or change in any way. Or at least they hadn't until today.

This morning, instead of eggs, I was greeted by a nest filled with teeny-tiny, half-fuzzy, half-naked baby cardinals. One must have felt the vibrations because he lifted a proportionately huge head, wavering on a still under-developed neck. Eyes glued shut, he opened his mouth, hoping for a morsel of sustenance. I wasn't able to oblige him.

It took a few minutes to visually sort through the tangled mess of body parts in the nest, but it appears there are three chicks there. Woo hoo!

The bad news is that they'll probably fledge while we're gone on vacation. Right before he went to bed, I asked Pukka if we could skip the trip and stay home to watch the babies leave the nest. He just laughed.

Tenants

2006-07-08T08:51:00.000-07:00

An old-fashioned rambling rose shields the front door of our home. Last summer I did a little work pruning and retraining it to climb the full height of our trellis. This spring it bushed out nicely, filling in the bare spots and stretching to reach the eaves of the front porch.

There was just one small problem. A few branches of new growth escaped the thicket and reached out across the sidewalk to welcome anyone making their way to our front door.

Pukka and I danced around them for the most part, saying we should do something about them, but not actually getting anything done. But last weekend, Pukka's nephews were coming to visit. Imagining the three-year-old with rose scratches across his face was not a pretty picture, so on my way to the car one day, I stopped to try and quickly reintroduce our stragglers to the tangle of their brethren.

As I pushed one wayward branch into a small hole about a foot over my head, a female cardinal exploded out of the rose bush. She flew to the silver maple nearby and proceeded to cuss me out rather vehemently.

"Do you have babies in there, mama?" I asked, maternal instinct being the only reason I could think of that would give rise to such fiercely territorial behavior. I inspected the rose bush more carefully, but couldn't find any sign of a nest or baby birds.

The next day I was in the living room talking to Pukka when I finally spotted the nest. Since then we've enjoyed keeping track of mama's comings and goings. While she was off eating one day, I climbed up to take a peek inside -- three pale green-blue eggs with brown splotches. We should have babies this week most likely, and then it will be another week before they leave the nest.

I'm strangely proud of this arrangement. As if it's some kind of testament to my homemaking skills that we've been chosen by a cardinal for a breeding ground. Still, I get so much frustration from the local wildlife -- squirrels digging up my bulbs, rabbits eating everything in sight, voles excavating under the back patio -- that this has been a nice contrast. I've been unable to find out whether or not cardinals re-use their nests, so I'm not sure if we'll get a return visit or not. In any case, it appears there will be no pruning done on the rose bush this smmer.

terminology

2006-07-06T05:26:00.000-07:00

Abigail's word for my dad (grandpa) = humpa

That makes me smile everytime I think of it.

Reason #62 I know I love my husband

2006-06-13T16:11:00.000-07:00

I can be pissed at him, go to the grocery store, and while I'm there, notice something, think, "I bet Pukka would like this . . .", pick it up and proceed to actually buy it for him, all while I'm still pissed. What's that about?

Rise and Feed Me!!

2006-05-07T20:36:00.000-07:00

For the past several months, we've been feeding Tigger canned cat food separately from his brothers. He has a tooth that's been giving him some trouble, and the vet seems reluctant to just pull it.

It took some time, but we've gradually fallen into a routine -- he usually gets fed at 6:30 am when Pukka gets out of the shower, again at 4:30 when we get home from work, and then again at 10:30 before I go to bed.

(Yes, I know that normally he should probably only be fed twice a day, but he only weighs seven pounds, so we cut him a little slack in that regard.)

There's just two problems with this whole feeding routine: Saturday and Sunday.

6:45 and there's a tickle of whiskers on my face. I grump and wave my hand around ineffectually. I tuck my hands under my pillow or the blankets to prevent being head-bumped and try to go back to sleep.

A few minutes later, and there's the tickle again, this time accompanied by a tentative "Brrrrt?" This time I'm awake enough to have found words. I reply, "Not before 7:30!"

A few more minutes go by, and the reinforcements begin to arrive. At any particular meal, when Tigger's eaten his fill, we put any leftovers down for the other two to finish off. (Experience has taught us that stashing them in the fridge for later consumption is a futile endeavour, even if they're re-warmed in the microwave.) Because of this, Grayboy is now personally invested in Tigger's meal schedule and around 7 am, he will join the wake-up call brigade.

Finally around 7:15 am, having had my fill of whiskers in the face and plaintive mewings, I give up and get out of bed. It's then that the kitty chorus reaches its peak, but Pukka sleeps through the whole thing. In fact, they don't even bother with him during the entire operation. They've worked out that it's a waste of time, and I'm the one to torment. I'm so looking forward to having children . . .

bzzzzz

2006-04-18T21:36:00.000-07:00

Saw my first bumble of the season tonight. It's been a bad week, so I picked up some plants while I was at the grocery store tonight. Came home, negotiated a later dinner-time with Pukka, and soon was happily grubbing about in the dirt. And there he was, fat and happy, buzzing about ridiculously, looking for something to eat. Tonight I'll pray for him that it doesn't freeze anymore this spring.

Bumblebees always remind me of toddlers. They're pudgy and inept in similar ways. Same ferocious temper if you cross them. Both are fond of bright colors. And both are full of impossibilities . . .

we're fine

2006-04-14T16:12:00.000-07:00

I've repeated these words so many times today, and I've been so grateful to say them:

We're fine.
The house is fine.
Those we know and love are fine.

The weather here over the last few days has been in the 80s and into the 90s. In April. That's not right. And when the weather's not right, bad things happen.

The carnage is just unbelievable. And I think I aged Pukka at least five years by being across town when the storm hit. I got to spend over an hour in the basement of a coffee shop with some friends and complete strangers. Fun times.

wriggling

2006-04-12T05:24:00.000-07:00

Growing up, all of us kids were expected to help out in the garden. There were two primary topics of conversation in the garden. The first: "Where did all these rocks come from? I thought we cleared them all out last year." And the second: "Worms are Our Friends"

See, PJ & I both went through phases (probably repeatedly) where we were grossed out by the little guys. Dad would patiently walk us through all the beneifts the worms gave us, loosening the soil, providing fertilizer, etc.

These days I have my own yard, and the digging is done voluntarily. In all of the digging of done so far this spring, I've found worms in plenitude, and they always make me smile. Fortunately, not so many rocks.

anticipation

2006-04-06T15:21:00.000-07:00

We first saw our house last April. I have vague memories of seeing the remains of spring bulbs along the east side of the house then. This year, when spring began, I went around to check for sprouts. Sure enough, there they were, and there were just tons of them.

Every weekday morning for the past several weeks, when my alarm would go off, I'd grumble a bit, put my glasses on, stand up and peek out through the blinds to see if I had any flowers. And every morning so far, the answer has been, "not yet."

On Saturday, I made a closer inspection. I wasn't certain what exactly I was looking at -- maybe daffodils, but the leaves weren't pointed at the top. Not wide enough to be tulips. Too tall to be most of the other spring bulbs I'm familiar with. And then the little voice in the back of my head said, "Isn't that where the surprise lilies bloomed last summer?"

Checked with Google and mom, and sure enough, that's what they are. The foliage should die back later this spring, and then I'll be back to waiting, waiting, waiting until they finally decide to bloom.

In August.

reminiscing

2006-04-02T07:59:00.000-07:00

Remember when I used to post? Wasn't that nice?

I've got excuses, but I don't know what the reasons are. The words just won't come these days. I have things to say, but so many of them are beyond my ability to express.

Pukka's back is f-ed up beyond belief. For the last month or six weeks or so, it's been questionable on any given day whether or not he'll actually make it to work. It's screwing with our relationship. It's hard to see him in pain and be unable to do anything about it. It's been stressful worrying about money. Although we've got enough savings for now, it's not going to last indefinitely. So much time wasted dealing with doctors and insurance and bills. I'm tired of it -- tired of putting a good face on things, tired of handling the house on my own, tired of not knowing when it will ever end.

Work's a challenge. It's good for me to be in charge of something more than Pukka and the kitties, but it is a stressor. So many crises every day, so much politics to play. But at the same time it's good -- almost every day I'm called to find my assertive voice and use it, and that's definitely some practice I could use.

So yeah, I don't know. Maybe I'll just write regardless, which is pretty much what you got today. Not everything has to be pretty, yeah?

In the meantime, I think I'm going to go to the store and get some new cabinet hardware. I need a project that can be done with minimal fuss so that I can feel like I've accomplished something.

Geekiest words to come out of my mouth today

2006-01-30T16:57:00.000-08:00

(by far)

"If I make myself a composed salad tonight, do you want me to make you one too?"

people spoilers

2006-01-29T18:48:00.000-08:00

Pukka got American Gods for Christmas, and when he finished it, he loaned it to a friend of ours. Last week, John gave it back and Pukka started to tell me what he had thought of it.

"Shhhh!" I admonished him. "Remember I haven't read it yet."

"Oh no," he reassured me, "it's more about him than about the book."

Which made me start to giggle, as I imagined a world where we worried about people spoilers. When someone set you up on a blind date, you would say, "Oh no, don't tell me. I want to find out for myself!"

I explained my amusement to Pukka. He looked at me very seriously and said, "Well, I hate to spoil it for you, but John does die in the end."

not yet

2006-01-02T20:59:00.000-08:00

When PJ's judged that too much time has gone by since my last email to her, she'll send one to me with no text in the message, simply the subject line, "Dead???" In recent history, I've taken to heading her off at the pass, whenever I know I've been remiss in my duties by firing off my own message with the subject "Not yet . . ."

So yeah, December was fun, but now it's over and it's back to work so to speak. Some thoughts on Oregon tomorrow hopefully.

Taste Test

2005-12-06T16:42:00.000-08:00

This weekend, PJ and Abigail came for a visit. Friday we went out for lunch, and a squawking Abigail was insistent that PJ share her root beer.

"You're not going to like it," she told her.

Finally, she relented, saying, "But you're not going to become one of those babies who drinks soda from a sippy cup!"

Abigail refused the side of the cup PJ presented her, instead reaching for the straw.
"You don't even know how to drink from a straw," we told her as PJ turned the straw to face her. We watched to see what she would do. Abigail placed her lips delicately on the straw, then almost instantly released it from her mouth without managing to draw a single drop of root beer from the glass. She leaned back in her high chair, a self-satisfied grin on her face, and pronounced, "Mmmmmmmmm . . ."

Lost and Found

2005-12-01T20:30:00.000-08:00

One day at camp, we decided to take a hike through the prairie. There were forty acres of tall grasses along one border of the camp, with these winding, self-referential trails mowed through it. Usually it was used for trail rides and not much else, but this day we decided to take our kids through it on foot. Being smart and well-trained, we got some jugs of water and some fruit together and set off.

At camp you walk in single file, one counselor in front, one counselor in back. I don't remember who led us in that day, but as we regrouped after our snack, we decided I should be the one to lead us out. I started off on a path that seemed to be headed in the general direction of home. Sometime later, it became clear to me that we weren't getting anywhere real fast. Sometime after that, it became clear to the kids as well. "We're lost," one complained. "No, we're not," I replied automatically. "Then why is this the third time we've walked by that bush?" he countered.

The fourth time we passed the bush, I gave up. We were out of water, it was hot, and I was apparently clueless. I called for a rest break. "I know where we need to go," I told my co-counselor. "I just can't figure out how to get there. None of these paths lead where I think they should."

"Do you want me to try?" he asked. "Sure," I said, swallowing my pride. I didn't know what else to do, and he had been a boy scout. Surely that counted for something.

A half hour later, we were home, safe and sound. The kids all headed into the tents to change, and I turned to him and asked, "How did you do that?"

"You're sure you want to know?" he queried.

"Of course," I replied, expecting some tidbit of boy scout wisdom.

He blushed and said, "I just followed the dog."

Yard

2005-11-12T14:26:00.000-08:00

Today I finished the last of my fall planting. For the record, here's what's new.

In the front yard in our new quarter circle perennial bed:

one Bugbane Hillside Black Beauty

three Gaura Pink Lady

three Geranium Midnight Reiter

one Lamium Orchid Frost

ten Tete a Tete daffodils

twenty? (I'm having a hard time remembering for sure) Lavender Mountain Lilies

an undetermined number of Snow Crocus, thanks to the goddamned squirrel

some burgundy and gold pansies I got at Lowes for a quarter per six-pack

Next spring I'll probably fill in with more pansies in the spring and impatiens in the fall until the perennial can get more established.

Along the west side of the house:

ten giant Allium

twelve assorted bearded iris

Around back, scattered in the "Arizona garden":

ten winter aconite

Under the lilacs in back:

twenty-five Early Snow Glories

Now that I took the time to list that all out, I feel better about how long it took me to finish it all!

More, more

2005-11-07T19:56:00.000-08:00

When I was younger, and so was he, I took him to the park to swing on the swingset. He wasn't quite a year old, and he loved to be outside more than anything. It was an unseasonably warm day so I thought we'd brave the nip in the air.

After swinging for awhile, he started to fuss. I had grown lax with my pushing, and thought that he just wanted to swing higher. But after a few minutes of pushing harder and harder, he was still fussing. I stopped the swing and pulled him out, thinking he was tired of swinging. He cried harder and waved his little arms towards the swing. So I put him back in the swing and pushed him some more. He was still crying, and I was stumped. I had absolutely no idea what he wanted, and he didn't have the words to tell me.

I was trained to be a speech pathologist. It's really not something that comes up often in my day-to-day life anymore, except for once a month when we pay my student loan bills. But that day it came in useful. Because that day I remembered that very young children understand a lot, but lack the fine motor skills to speak. However they do have the gross motor skills to use sign language.

"Do you want to swing more?" I asked him, as I brought the tips of my fingers together. "Or are you all done?" I asked as I brought my hands down. I repeated this a couple of times, until he finally brought his fingers together in a gross approximation of my sign. "OK, then," I said with a smile as I moved behind him to push the swing some more. And that was the way we spent the rest of the afternoon in the park.

That night, he was sitting in his high chair eating while I watched TV. When he had finished what I had given him, he banged his spoon on the tray to get my attention. "Oh, do you need more?" I asked, my attention more on Law & Order than on him. But then he brought his fingertips together again. I laughed. "Alright then, more it is."

That was years ago, and these days, it's not uncommon for parents to teach their young children some basic signs. PJ and I had discussed it when Abigail was much younger, and I knew PJ had used a few signs with her off and on. But to my knowledge, Abigail had never signed back.

This weekend, Pukka and I went home for a visit. I was feeding Abigail some blueberry buckle when she started to fuss. "Are you done?" I asked her. Of course, no answer was forthcoming.

Then I remembered. "Are you all done?" I asked again, and this time, I made the sign at the same time. "All done," I told her, and moved her hands in the same motion. Then I asked her again, "Are you all done?" and waited. No response, but at least she'd stopped crying and was watching me with some interest.

"Do you want more?" I asked her then, as I made the sign for "more". I started to move to take her hands again, when she made the correct handshape and then brought them together on her own. "That's right! More."

Of course, PJ wasn't there when all this happened, and I wasn't sure Abigail was up for a repeat performance. She has a habit of doing something new, then waiting awhile before she'll show it to you again. But she was more than happy to repeat the sign in response to us saying "more" several times that weekend.

We're still not sure whether she's making an actual request for more of whatever, or if she's just enjoying watching us freak out about her mimicing us. But I'm sure she'll get the hang of it eventually.

fences

2005-10-23T17:33:00.000-07:00

This weekend the neighbors started working on putting up a privacy fence. We're trying hard to convince ourselves that it has nothing to do with us.

Whatever happened to "The customer's always right"?

2005-10-19T15:19:00.000-07:00

Last night I went to the store to get groceries. The total came to $95.01. I had some twenties and a couple of fives. So I handed the checker five twenties and a five, then told her to wait while I got her a penny. When I handed her the penny, we had this conversation:

Her: Your total's 95.01
Me: Yeah
H: You gave me 105.01
M: Yeah
H: I don't need this. [tries to hand me back the five dollar bill]
M: Yeah, but I don't have a ten. [Looking back on it I can see how this confused her even more, but at the time I was just getting frustrated because she was arguing with me.]
H: [stares at me blankly, then tries again] Your total's $95
M: Yeah, I know
H: I don't need this.
M: Fine, just give it back to me.

And I took the five back from her, so that she could give me my change with another five, so that I now have two fives instead of one ten, which is what I wanted.

And while I totally understand that this is a stupid, trivial thing, and now that I've had time to think about it, I also realize that virtually no one in this state has ten dollar bills anymore, since all the ATMs only give twenties and fives, I still don't understand why she didn't just punch in 105.01 on her cash register and give me my change instead of standing there arguing with me about it.

Yard Work

2005-10-17T19:25:00.000-07:00

Saturday Pukka and I did some work in the yard. He raked up a few leaves and a bunch of dead grass while I ripped up turf for the area I'm planning to turn into a perennial bed.

Getting the grass up was mostly easier than I had feared. At least three quarters of it peeled up almost like carpet once I got an edge started. The last of it, which appeared to be a different type of grass, was rougher, but thankfully there wasn't much of it. Even the squealing about the grubs was minimal. (And I only threw one at Pukka!)

Still, it was tiring work and about two thirds of the way through, I lay back in the lawn to have a little rest. It was simply a gorgeous day -- the sky a brilliant blue in perfect contrast to the clear golden yellow of the neighbor's ash, the sun making its way through the leaves to warm my skin, the smell of fresh earth drifting over from the new garden space. I've always loved fall, and this was just the perfect day.

I tried to get Pukka to join me, but he wasn't having any of it. I'm sure the neighbors wonder about me now, but I don't regret a second.

Austin

2005-10-10T17:54:00.000-07:00

Things of note about Austin . . .

Less than a mile from the airport, we saw a store prominently advertising ammo. I guess they figure since you can't bring it on the plane, you have to restock ASAP once you hit the ground.

We also saw a sign advertising Japanese tapas. We're still trying to parse that one.

I know it's a cliche, but everything in Texas is BIG. Unbelievably big. If you come from any other part of the country, for God's sake, order the small of everything unless you want your food/drink served in a bucket.

When you go to the movie theater, there will be a sign advising you that handguns, concealed or otherwise, are not allowed on the premises.

Austin not only expects you to make U-turns, it will force you to do it. Some of the weirdest, most inconsistent traffic patterns I've ever seen in my life were on this trip. One minute, there are helpful signs indicating the name of the crossroads prior to the intersection. The next, the road at the intersection isn't even marked.

Although most of the signage we saw was in both English and Spanish, almost everyone we saw was Caucasian, which makes us wonder how integrated Austin is. Granted, we spent the bulk of our time in/around our hotel or at wedding related activities, so we may have a skewed perspective.

All in all, I don't think we got a real good feel for Austin in the short time we were there, so I don't think we'll be crossing it off the travel list quite yet. I did get a damned fine margarita while we were there though!

Update

2005-09-29T13:31:00.000-07:00

The plumber came today and put in our new faucet for us. He had a pretty bad time getting the old faucet off. That made me a little happy, since I would've felt bad if he'd walked in and got it off without any trouble. So we're back to hot and cold running water in the kitchen now. Woo hoo!

Now I just need to clean the sink. The new faucet's so new and shiny that the sink looks like crap.

What's wrong with me?

2005-09-28T15:46:00.000-07:00

You might think that a girl who walks into the salon saying that she has no idea what kind of haircut she wants would be happy to take whatever she gets.

You might also be wrong.

Problems

2005-09-26T15:23:00.000-07:00

In my handwriting, it's sometimes a little difficult for me to be sure if I meant a 3 or a 5. It seems like that shouldn't be a problem a thirty-three year-old person would have, but I do.

In fact, a lot of things that don't seem as if they should be problems turn out to be one. Take our plumbing, for instance. Last Thursday I discovered that our toilet was leaking. Truth be told, at first I was a little happy to make this discovery. Our water bills have been higher than I thought they should be, and a leaking toilet would certainly go a long ways towards explaining the issue.

I got my tools out and set to work. Down on the floor trying to work in the nine inches of space between our toilet and our vanity, I discovered why normal people call a plumber. But I persevered, and managed to get the thing taken apart enough to realize that I was going to need a replacement gasket from the hardware store.

The hardware store wouldn't sell Pukka just a gasket, so we ended up with a whole new fill valve. It was ~$10 though, so whatever. Then we began the ten hours of installation. OK, not really ten hours, but it sure as heck seemed like it. Here's pretty much how it went:

Step 1. I tighten things under the toilet, while yelling random and fairly incomprehensible directions to Pukka, who's holding the things inside the toilet tank still while I tighten.
Step 2. I turn on the water.
Step 3. I cuss as water comes spraying out all over.
Step 4. I remember that it's probably best to turn the water off since this obviously isn't working.
Step 5. I turn off the water.
Step 6. I curse some more for good measure.
Step 7. I yell at any cats that have made their way into my field of vision to get out of the way.
Step 8. Goto Step 1.

After several attempts, we finally got everything back together and working without any water sprayage or obvious leakage. Apparently, Pukka'd had some communication difficulties between himself and the directions. In any case, we went to dinner as very happy people. However, that night before we went to bed, I touched the tile under the toilet, and sure enough, it was wet again. The toilet was still leaking, although much, much slower than before.

And so on Sunday, I found myself back under the toilet again. This time since we knew what we were doing, the whole operation took fifteen minutes tops. And I'm very happy to report that since that time, the bathroom floor has remained dry.

BUT, brilliant me says, "As long as we've got the water shut off, let's change the kitchen faucet like I wanted to."

I'm not even going to go into the events that transpired after that. Really, there's only three things you need to know:

1) There are good reasons why plumbers charge the hourly rate they do.
2) At this moment, we have hot running water in the kitchen, but not cold. Again, don't ask.
3) I'm heading immediately to the hardware store after work, and if the kitchen gods are kind, #2 will no longer be a factor by the time Pukka gets home from work tonight at 7.

Wish me luck!

Crap!

2005-09-23T10:31:00.000-07:00

Pukka and I don't own a dog. We think we might like to someday, but for now, it's just us and the kitties. One of the benefits of not owning a dog is that you don't have to pick up dog crap out of your yard. At least that's what I thought until earlier today . . .

Apparently I'm going to have to keep a closer eye on the neighbors.

Austin

2005-09-20T06:52:00.000-07:00

Pukka & I will be visiting Austin for the first time early next month. We'll be there for a wedding, so we may have a limited amount of free time. Still, please leave us a comment if you've got any advice of what we should see, do, or eat while we're there.

Green beans

2005-09-18T21:25:00.000-07:00

We grew various things in our family garden when I was growing up, but there were two constants: tomatoes and green beans. The beans were a little more troublesome than the tomatoes. There's a beetle that will chomp the leaves and destroy the plants if you let them. It's not hard to spot a ripe tomato, but beans blend right in with their foliage. And to add insult to injury, they tend to hide under the leaves. No matter how thorough we thought we were, mom could always find a bean or two to prove our sloth.

Still, to this day PJ and I have an obsession with fresh green beans that borders on a fetish. The ones you get from the store are rarely fresh enough -- they've already started converting their sugars. But beans fresh off the bush, or at least picked earlier in the day -- delicious! Cooking them is a cardinal sin. We just snap off the stems and pop them in our mouths.

Saturday, my last stop at the farmer's market was to pick up some green beans. As I approached, I heard the seller telling another customer these would be the first and last beans from this planting. "Our three boys all left home within the last two weeks, so we went out and bought a bean picker," she explained.

"So you replaced your picker, is what you're saying," I countered.

"Yeah, and this one gives me a lot less trouble. Those boys always complained non-stop about picking beans."

I laughed. "I picked beans when I was a kid, and I can't say as how I blame them."

The woman next to me, probably in her sixties, smiled at me. "I picked beans when I was a kid too. I know what you're saying."

Then we all laughed and went on our way.

turn, turn, turn

2005-09-06T13:59:00.000-07:00

Never thought I'd see the day when I would be glad to pay three dollars per gallon for gas, but it came this weekend.

Friday night when I headed to my parents', the beans were still green in the fields, with one or two notable exceptions. Monday afternoon when I came back, they had mostly begun to turn. Lot of a difference a couple of days can make.

Here and there, also saw a few trees displaying fall leaves already. For the most part though, still green. It's not the uniform green of summer anymore though -- there's subtle differentiations of color now, hints of who will be scarlet or golden in another couple of weeks.

Stories of PJ's garage sale this weekend to follow . . .

truth in advertising

2005-08-29T15:25:00.000-07:00

Lately, campaign signs have started popping up for the upcoming school board elections. My favorite so far simply reads: "Crooks for School Board"

Insulated

2005-08-24T20:37:00.000-07:00

It's finally cooled off these last couple of days, and we've opened our windows, letting in cool air, letting in breezes, letting in the neighborhood.

It's late and I can hear the neighbors in their yard yelling, but I can't tell why. Are they mad? Or just exuberant? Or maybe drunk? Or some combination?

I wonder what I'm supposed to do. Do I just ignore it? Do I walk over and ask them politely to quiet down? Do I call the police for such a little thing, simply because I'm afraid to take care of it myself? I fantasize about standing in my darkened window, yelling "Shut up already!" into the anonymous darkness . . .

Since we've moved here, it's been breath-sucking hot and humid. In the morning we walk from our air-conditioned house to our air-conditioned car. We drive to our air-conditioned work where we sit amongst the cubicle walls until it's time to drive our air-conditioned cars back to our air-conditioned home. We're insulated -- cut-off. Now the windows are open and we're all living a little closer.

I worry about it. About the way we can pick and chose who we want to be with. If you bother me, if you're different, if you make me think, and I'm too tired, too apathetic, too threatened, I just turn towards my work, my car, my house and shut you out.

It's less authentic, but it feels like safety. I'm just not sure that's a good thing.

Public Notice

2005-08-24T15:58:00.000-07:00

If you're running a business, and your business has a website, and that website includes a contact email address, you need to check your damned email once in awhile.

It should not take more than 24 hrs to respond to a simple email request for info. And I really have no patience for the folk that never respond at all.

(And by the way, the iBook? Broken. Again. Yes, that's the third time in fourteen months. No, I'm not happy.)

No, it really doesn't

2005-08-09T11:36:00.000-07:00

Awhile back, Pukka and I had lunch at a fast food chain. He ordered a salad with chicken on it. Now at this particular place, the salad comes separate from the chicken, so the hot stuff can stay hot and the cold stuff cold, until you mix them yourself and then everything becomes uniformly lukewarm. Yum!

As we're sitting there eating, I happened to notice some small text across the bottom of the pouch that held the chicken. There it said, and I swear I'm not making this up:

"Chicken contains soy and milk."

home

2005-08-02T12:54:00.000-07:00

Last week Pukka and I visited the Johnson County Fair for date night.

We ate corndogs, funnel cake and fresh-squeezed lemonade. Pukka offered to win me a stuffed animal. We saw my favorite kind of cow (I think they look like they should give chocolate milk!). We touched some rabbits and saw a peacock egg. We watched the 4-H egg races, saw some pigs, and checked out the garden that the Master Gardeners keep there.

As dusk fell, we sat under a big tent and watched the last class of the youth talent show. The first place winner in each class gets to compete in the state fair, so it's a big deal to these kids and their parents and supporters. We listened to girls in formal dresses sing beautifully while the smell from the ag barns wafted on the breeze.

This is how it is in Iowa. I wouldn't live anywhere else.

Sad, but true

2005-08-01T19:58:00.000-07:00

I was looking at Flickr thumbnails from Blogher tonight when Pukka got home from work. "Whatcha doin'?" he asked. "Nothing," I said, as I started to ask him how his day was. "Hey! Is that Blogher?" he asked before I could get another word out.

Yes, we're geeks.

Life Lessons

2005-07-29T10:21:00.000-07:00

They say you should learn something new every day. It's a little after noon, and I've already got a couple under my belt:

If you're going outside with the intention of pruning the rose bush, for God's sake woman, put on some shoes!

We have one rose bush in the front bed, not two like I'd previously thought. Clever disguise, rose bush, but I've figured you out!

If you have the bad habit of putting your tongue between your teeth when you're concentrating, and if you went to the dentist this morning and your entire mouth is numb, you probably shouldn't work on pruning the rose bush until after you get the feeling back in your mouth. That is if you ever plan to use your tongue again.

You may think you're a kind and patient person when it comes to plants, but a climbing rose will quickly take it right out of you.

It's been a busy day.

And she's buying a stairway . . .

2005-07-25T19:53:00.000-07:00

As all good children must, at some point in our lives, my siblings and I each, individually, in small groups, and collectively, took it upon ourselves to drive our mother stark raving mad.

PJ and I both took piano lessons for eons (ok, maybe just years). And the number of times mom took it upon herself to remind us to practice our lessons was at least a bizillion (that one's literally true, I swear). Browsing the sheet music at the local mall one day, PJ and I happened upon a piano transcription of "Stairway to Heaven". We bought it, took it home, and proceeded to play it as a duet, quite loudly, at the slightest provocation. We imagined my mother, whose musical tastes ran to Barry Manilow, Anne Murray, and Neil Diamond, hands over her ears, gnashing her teeth in agnoy.

Flash forward to a couple of weeks ago. PJ, Steph and my parents were all here to help us with the painting of the new house. I'm up on a ladder, roller in one hand and brush in the other, when I realize my mother's singing along to the radio:

"There's a lady who's sure, all that glitters is gold . . ."

I locked eyes with PJ, who's on the other ladder, and we both busted out laughing. Mom locked up at us: "What?!"

"Nothing mom. We just never realized you were a Zeppelin fan."

Vacation List

2005-07-25T05:02:00.000-07:00

Things Pukka and I dared each other to say to our pilot while leaving the plane after our landing in Detroit on Saturday:

First day?

Don't worry, I'm sure you did much better on the written test.

I've been sober for three years now. Trust me, it does get better.

There were more, but neither of us can remember them now. And besides, I've got to leave for work. First day back after being gone for 12 days, and I'm pulling a 10 hour shift. I'm sure it's going to be excellent.

Secret Spaghetti Casserole

2005-07-14T20:30:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday, Pukka emailed me to let me know that a co-worker's son had been in a bad accident and was in a hospital. My family's Italian, so pretty much my first reaction was: "We should take them some food."

I emailed mom right away for the recipe I had in mind. It was a staple at the potlucks and community dinners of my childhood -- a dish that's easy to prepare and that satisfies even most picky eaters. She sent it back straight away, and that night, even though I had previously declared it too hot to cook, I put together the casserole and put it in the freezer so that we could take it into work with us the next day.

When did I become a grown-up?

Ok, so maybe not so much of a grown up, because it took us a couple of days to actually remember to take it into work. But we did finally remember and Tuesday night, Pukka came home and told me that John said his family loved the casserole. I was glad I'd thought to include the recipe for them in case they ever wanted to make it again for themselves.

I grew up in a small town. My mother grew up in one even smaller. When my grandmother died, much of the town came to the visitation. (Heck, half the town was related.) After the services, my mother stopped by the office of the director of the funeral home to thank him for everything he'd done. They started talking, reminiscing about my grandmother. And during the course of that conversation he asked my mom for the recipe for this casserole.

Every funeral dinner he could remember, my grandma had brought this caserole, but she would never give him the recipe. Would my mom give it to him now?

Mom did, and in exchange she got a prized recipe of his wife's, under the condition that she never share it with anyone else in Marseilles.

When I first remembered that Grandma had kept the recipe secret, I felt a little strange that I had given it to John's family so freely. I never even thought about it -- growing up, every woman that cooked for me knew how to make it -- how could it be secret?

In reality, the recipe's a fairly unremarkable thing -- simple ingredients thrown together with minimal preparation. As I thought more about it though, I realized that the power in casseroles are not in the recipes, but in their service. Because when you make one (or anything else for that matter) and take it to someone who is sick or hurting or in need, they can hear things like, "I care enough about you to sustain you." or "I want you to have the time to attend to the things that are most important." And that is an unbelievably wonderful and powerful thing.

So below you'll find the recipe for this casserole exactly as my mom gave it to me. The formatting of it is a little strange, almost like a shopping list and recipe combined. If you're so inclined, next time someone you know needs a little help, you can make them some casserole. All I ask in return is that you offer up a prayer to the gods of your choosing that my grandmother will someday forgive me for this.

Spaghetti Casserole::
1 1/2 pound ground beef
1 onion
garlic
28 ounce cut up or diced tomatoes
15 ounce tomato sauce
4 ounces of mushrooms
sugar
oregano
salt
basil
8 ounces of spaghetti
12 ounces of mozzarella cheese
parmesan cheese

Brown the following:
1.5 # ground beef
1 c. chopped onion
1 clove garlic- minced or sliced
Drain and add the remaining and simmer for 20-25 minutes:
28 ounce can of diced tomatoes (or cut up)
15 ounce tomato sauce
4 ounces of mushrooms-drained
2 tsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp oregano
1 tsp salt
1 tsp basil
Cook 8 ounces of broken spaghetti, drain and mix into sauce.
You will need to have 12 ounces of mozzarella cheese also.
Put have of sauce mixture into a greased 9x13 pan. Top with half of cheese. Then repeat. Top with Parmesan cheese. Bake at 375 for 30 minutes.

Simply beautiful

2005-07-11T20:20:00.000-07:00

So today I discovered, courtesy of my referral log, that if you Google "stubborness" and work your way down into the seventieth-some page of results, you'll come across me. That's just about as close to perfection as I've seen today.

Our own private "Cops"

2005-07-05T20:23:00.000-07:00

Sunday night, I asked Pukka if he wanted to walk over to our new local ice cream shop for some ice cream (it's easier to justify getting ice cream if you walk to get it), and he said yes, so we got our shoes on and headed over there. We had just got around the corner and a little ways down the street when we heard someone yelling. When I looked down the sidestreet, it looked like there was a dad with a little kid on his shoulders and an older kid walking beside him. So I just kept walking. Then Pukka says, "Doesn't that sound like, "Help! Help!"?" I said yeah, it did kind of, but that I wasn't sure and the kids had a grown-up with them (and it obviously wasn't the man yelling) so I thought things would be fine. We kept walking a little bit further, and Pukka remarked again that it sounded like someone screaming, "Help!" It was around then that we stopped at a retaining wall for me to re-tie the drawstrings on the ankles of my pants. By the time we finished, it was obviously, "Help! Help!", and Pukka said he thought the little kid was hurt because he had seen them running them into the house. But there was still this constant "Help! Help!" so when I finished tying my pants, we headed back towards the sidestreet. At the same time, a guy in a pick up turned onto the street and got out. There were people running around in the yard and yelling, and I wasn't sure what was going on. When we got there, we quickly realized that the shorter person I had assumed was a kid was actually a short full-grown woman. She was still hollering for help, and the guy I had seen carrying the little kid was hollering other things and the guy from the truck was on the phone. Pukka went up into the yard and asked what was going on, and she starts hollering about how the tall guy had hit her and took her kid and wouldn't let her in the house. Pukka looks at truck guy and says, "You on the phone with the police?" The guys nods.

So we're kind of standing there waiting for the cops to show up. The woman's very intersted in telling us all about how bad this guy is, and the guy's yelling about how she's a liar. Then they start screaming at each other and getting all up in each other's faces. She turned away from him and I thought that maybe if I could get her to come talk to me instead of yelling at him he'd go back up on the porch. So I asked her something, and she started to come over to me, but then he yelled something and she turned back around to yell at him some more. And the logical part of my brain said, "Don't do this, this is a bad idea." but a louder part of my brain was saying, "I am not going to just stand here and watch him hit her again." So I went over to remind them that the cops were coming, and we could sort it all out when they got there, but they weren't paying any attention to me, and they were getting more and more agitated, so I just stood between the two of them with my hands on my hips to take up as much space as possible and let them yell over top of me. For a brief moment, I wondered why neither of the guys were coming to help me, but then I realized that either of them would probably be perceived as a threat, which was not at all what we needed. So I just stood there with my eyes down, grounding all this excess energy as best I was able. Fortunately, the police showed up quickly, and since we hadn't actually witnessed any crime, they let us go right away after they took Pukka's contact info "just in case". Decided we still wanted ice cream, so we walked down there and had some really good ice cream, and then came home.

And that was definitely the most notable event of this weekend. I'm still unclear what it means or how I feel about it. I'm fairly clear that Pukka feels I was unwise. He didn't see me insert myself between them, as he had turned away briefly, so it was a bit of a shocker for him. He always talks about how hard it is for him to keep track of my five-year-old self at the store and such. I'm not sure he'd realized my thirty-three-year-old self can be just as slippery under the right circumstances.

revision

2005-06-30T06:33:00.000-07:00

Me, yesterday, to Pukka, summing up the synopsis I'd just given him of my "annual" review:
"So baby, you have a very good wife."

OK, well you have a wife who's very good at her job."

Maybe we should just say that you have a wife whose boss believes she's very good at her job."

bird brains

2005-06-19T13:57:00.000-07:00

Shortly after Pukka and I moved to our current location, I got a bird feeder. I filled it full of seed, put it outside and waited. No birds came. I waited awhile longer and still no birds came. I whined to my mother and listened to her advice. I started to move the feeder around a bit to try and find a more attractive location. I consulted the internet. And then one day, I looked around and realized that there were no birds to be seen in our neck of the woods. We live close to a major highway, in fairly new construction and it just wasn't such good birding territory.

We'd drive through other parts of town, parts with trees and birds, and I would yell at the birds, "Come to my house! There's plenty to eat there!"

Out of stubborness (or laziness), I left the birdfeeder where it was, and every so often, I'd knock the nasty seed out of it into the trash and replace it. Finally, about a year after the feeder arrived, I noticed a finch at it one day. Then for two weeks, no sign of anything. Then they started coming, slowly but surely. We have mourning doves, goldfinches, and either purple finches or house finches (I can't tell them apart -- maybe we have both?). We get chickadees and sparrows. Today I'd swear I saw some type of titmouse, but I haven't taken the time to look him up yet.

And then the non-seed eaters started moving in. Of course we get robins, and this year a pair of swallows nested in the eaves of our garage (and dive-bombed us whenever we had reason to go out there -- luckily we use it for storage and not our cars).

Logically, I realize that this phenomenon is mostly a function of time. The trees here have grown a little biggger. The sprawl has sprawled further, so we're less on the edge of town that we used to be. But I like imagining that my feeder had something to do with the renaissance. And if not, at least it's provided an endless source of entertainment for the cats.

"Can we buy a rubber chicken?"

2005-06-02T14:13:00.000-07:00

A few years back, this guy showed up to our local farmers market with a freezer truck of beef. It was a strange little bit of cognitive dissonance. In my mind, the farmers market was where you buy vegetables. But on the other hand, farmers raise animals as well as growing veggies. One day I finally broke down and decided to buy some hamburger patties from him. He talked me into some beef brats as well. We grilled them up later that week and were instant converts. I swear to you, I never knew meat could be this good. And we've indoctrinated others as well. My dad, who thinks brats are a waste of time, now has me bring some of these brats to him when we visit.

Yesterday, Pukka and I went to the farmers market for some beef and veggies. As we were making our way down the row, Pukka said, "Can we buy a rubber chicken?" I looked to where he was pointing, to see a man with a rubber chicken on top of a deep freeze. Sure enough, he was selling half and whole chickens. I'll be roasting one tonight and have high hopes it'll prove to be just as tasty as the cows are.

In other news, tomorrow will be one year since my first post. One of my biggest concerns when starting this blog was that it would be something I would do for a month or two, then give up on. There are so many unfinished projects in my life, and I didn't need another one. I haven't always kept up with posting as well as I could have, but overall, I think I've done OK. Here's hoping this next year is even better.

Updates

2005-05-27T04:55:00.000-07:00

Yesterday there was a terrible squawking outside. After I realized that it didn't appear to be getting settled anytime soon, and I noticed that all three cats were about ready to break their way through the screen door, I decided to investigate. It wasn't at all difficult to find the baby robin that was the source of all the racket. Apparently he'd managed to make it safely from nest to ground, but couldn't quite figure out how to regain the air. There's not many outdoor cats around here, and he had a parental chaperone, so there wasn't too much I could do for him other than leave him alone. Later I got curious, so I did a little research and learned that robins generally fledge at 13 days or so, but aren't competent flyers until approximately 10 - 15 days later. From my perspective, that seems like really bad design, but obviously no one asked me, and we have robins each year, so what do I know?

Some things you may not know about me:
* I went to grad school for three years.
* I paid for said schooling with loans.
* When I graduated, I was clinically depressed, young, and stupid. The combination means I managed to screw up my credit pretty badly.
* We currently pay as much each month for my student loans as we do in rent.
* For awhile, we talked about not legally marrying so that Pukka wouldn't be tainted by all of this.

So when we started really working on this whole, "We should buy a house" project, the first thing we did was go to the bank. We talked to a very nice man there who ran all of the numbers and checked our credit scores and told us everything should be fine and we were pre-qualified.

Without another worry, we set about looking for our house. And as you know, we found the house. Meanwhile, the bank changed names, and the very nice man no longer works at our bank. In fact, his replacement no longer works there either. His replacement's replacement is named Tym. For the record, that's his real first name because I don't like him well enough to come up with a pseudonym (or even change the spelling).

Our "friend" Tym called us on a Friday about a month ago and told Pukka that they would be unable to qualify us for any mortgage package because of the amount of my monthly student loan obligation. Never mind that they had known this information since January. Never mind that we had signed papers from the bank documenting that they had known this information in January and were fine with it. Never mind that we had made an offer on a house and had spent the last two weeks believing it was ours.

And of course, it was Friday, so there wasn't a whole lot to be done about it in terms of talking to anyone at a different bank. It was one of the crappiest weekends of my life. I'm pretty darned good with our money now, but I have a lot of guilt about how I've handled things in the past. Especially I have a lot of guilt around how we're now over $75K in debt for a degree I'm not using. So I was a mess.

When I went to bed every night, I would try to think of what to pray for. It was tempting to ask for the bank to explode after being struck by a fiery ball from outer space, but although personally satisfying, that wouldn't ultimately help us much. I've been schooled for years in being careful what you wish for, so I was reluctant to even ask for this particular house or that a particular place offer us money. I ended up asking simply for a home, a place where I could feel secure.

Monday found Pukka in the office of yet another bank, pay stubs, bank statements and W-2's in hand. The woman there started crunching numbers. She told Pukka that we did have a very high debt to income ratio because of the student loans. Then she frowned and said, "But wait, you get paid twice a month!"

(Yes, yes we do. That's why our paychecks clearly show that each one covers a range from the first to the fifteenth or the fifteenth to the thirtieth of a month. That's why our W-2's show we make twenty-four times the amount on one of our paychecks. Duh!)

So she multiplied our income by two and lo and behold, the debt to income ratio suddenly looked a lot better.

When Pukka got back to the office, he called Tym and asked if it were possible that he had neglected to notice that we are paid twice a month. Tym assured him that he would not have made that kind of mistake. And yet, in less that fifteen minutes, we had an email from him saying that while reviewing our application, he had found a miscalculation, and they would be able to offer us a mortgage after all.

Problem with that is that another mortgage broker in town offered us a better rate, so we'll be going with them, both because it's the smart thing to do, and because it gives us a chance to spite the idiots at our current bank.

They took my house from me. Even now that this is settled, I still can't go back to believing that the house will be ours. Until we close next month on the 21st, there's always going to be this niggling feeling in the back of my mind that something could happen to take it all away. It's not fair. I want to be excited about our new place, and instead I just have this huge ball of anxiety.

Luckily for Tym, I've never actually met him, and would be unlikely to recognize him on the street from Pukka's description. I say that because if I ever see that man, I'm going to kick him.

Sign #4672 of PMS

2005-05-26T16:00:00.000-07:00

You get a little choked up when you hear Joe say, "Evidentally fear is not a factor for you."

I really need to get a grip.

The chicken or the egg?

2005-05-23T21:33:00.000-07:00

A recent post over at Rurality got me to reminiscing about my summers at camp and our chickens there. (It also got me craving chicken and noodles, but that's another story.) We had a "farm" at camp, with a hodge podge of donated animals. Some lived at camp year round and some were donated for the season. There were always cats and kittens hanging about. Each year one of the neighbors loaned us his smallest calf (and collected it at the end of the summer bigger than any of its kin from being hand fed). One year we had goats, another we had a pot-bellied pig. The year before I first came, there had been llamas. There were horses and a donkey and fish in the pond. And there were chickens -- a rooster and his hen harem. The first summer I was there, my bunkmate decided it would be fun for the kids to raise some baby chicks. We had an impromptu pow-wow that night amongst the inpost staff to see what we knew about raising chickens. The answer was not much.

Dealing with the adult chickens was fairly easy -- you let them out in the morning, put them in at night, fed them, and picked up the eggs. The bare backs of the hens let us know the rooster was doing his part. But we weren't real sure how we were supposed to get from there to babies. We had some vague notions about the hens sitting on the eggs and candling, but were pretty lacking in specifics.

So we decided to stop collecting the eggs to see if maybe that would encourage the hens would nest. It had been a few days, with no obvious nesting activity taking place, when the cook noticed that we had not been delivering any eggs in the morning. When she found out what we were up to, she suggested we call AnnaMarie.

AnnaMarie was in her seventies and spunky as a teen. She lived in a farm house on the corner. Whenever any of us left camp, we were required to honk as we passed AnnaMarie's house -- one honk for each person in the car. When we came back, we'd honk again. If you forgot to honk and she caught you, she'd give you an earful next time she saw you.

So we called AnnaMarie up, and told her that we wanted to try our hand at raising some baby chicks, but weren't sure just how to go about it. There was a long pause, then she said, "Well, you'll need a rooster . . . "

(The real answer we finally got from her, if you're curious, is that you need a "setting hen". Apparently some hens are just more maternal than others. Of course, they have to get a moment's peace from the rooster before they're willing to sit still on eggs. Nothing you can do to convince a hen to set; you just take advantage of them when they do. We never did manage to get any baby chicks. Guess it's a good thing I live in town nowadays; I would've made a lousy farmer.)

Observation

2005-05-21T05:29:00.000-07:00

How come the computer always seems to boot faster when I'm turning it on to dial into work than when I just want to play?

Turning out OK

2005-05-12T21:44:00.000-07:00

Whenever I raise issues regarding how I was raised with my mom, the response I always get is: "Well, you turned out OK." I used to hear that as: "You're fine. Quit your whining." The older I get (and the more I think about having children of my own), the more I wonder if it wasn't intended to be heard as: "We had no freaking clue what we were doing and were making it up as we went along. You're lucky you aren't dead."

Shortly after Abigail was born, PJ and I went shopping for fabric to make curtains for Abigail's room. Her nursery is blue with yellow stars, mostly because we didn't know before she was born if she would be a girl or a boy. As we shopped, PJ kept gravitating towards pink and daisies. Finally she said to me, "Sometimes I wish I had known she was going to be a girl ahead of time so that we could have a pink nursery." Without thinking, I replied, "Well, now that you know you could always redo it. Not like it's something that's going to change."

And then my sister who lives in the same tiny midwestern town we grew up in, my sister who attends a church where they speak in tongues, my sister who proudly voted for W., this sister of mine leaned over the stroller and without a hint of jest whispered to her sleeping child, "And even if that does change someday, I'll always love you and you're always welcome to come home, no matter what your father may say."

I know she's told me that sometimes she feels like she has no freaking clue what she's doing and is making it up as she goes along. But somehow, I have a feeling Abigail's going to turn out OK.

Recognition

2005-05-05T12:24:00.000-07:00

For awhile now, Pukka's been convinced that people throw trash into the back of his pickup. I haven't exactly disbelieved him, but considering the amount of our own trash that's back there, it's been hard to say. That is, it was until yesterday.

See, when we left for lunch yesterday, I caught a glimpse of something in the back of the truck glimmering in the sunlight. A quick look revealed a rather large trophy with a figure riding a motorcycle on top.

Pukka's quite proud of his latest accomplishment and took the trophy back into work after lunch, where it's now sitting in a place of honor at his desk.

Marked

2005-05-01T11:44:00.000-07:00

As a kid, I remember being fascinated by my parents' wedding bands. They're not anything fancy -- just relatively plain bands with a beveled edge. Mom said that when they'd married, the bevels were plated with white gold. But ever since I'd been old enough to remember, the bands were a uniform yellow gold. I would spin mom's ring around and around her finger, looking for a trace of the white that had once been there.

On the day I married Pukka, I carried my grandmothers' wedding bands. Both of them enjoyed more than fifty years of marriage. After all those years, their bands were worn so thin that I could've easily snapped either of them clean in half without hardly any effort. Such a simple thing -- the work of the day pitted against the relatively soft metal, wearing it own across time.

When Pukka and I were shopping for wedding rings, he asked the jeweler about the hardness of white gold. The jeweler admitted that gold was softer than some other metals relatively, but then point to the ring I was holding in my hand and said, "You're looking at at least a fifty year ring there."

That struck us both I think. We knew we were in this for the long haul, but no matter how you slice it, fifty years is a long time.

One year ago today Pukka first put that fifty year band on my finger. Since that day, both our rings have lost a little of their shine. They're marked with tiny scratches and dings; the things we've had our hands in for the past year have taken their toll. But they're still very much intact.

I'm looking forward to the day when our daughter spins my ring around my finger and asks in disbelief, "This used to be square?"

COUNTDOWN

2005-04-29T07:58:00.000-07:00

A couple of months ago, as we drove by the local elementary school, we saw that they had used plastic cups in red, white and blue to spell out the word COUNTDOWN, followed by a colon and then a number. (I wanted to take a picture of this for you all, to give you the full effect, but I can't get far enough away from it to fit the whole thing in the frame and still get a clear shot.)

At first I just assumed that they were counting down until the last day of school, but at some point, enough of my math skills were in the same room for me to figure out that we were going to hit zero way before the end of the schoolyear. It was around this time Pukka noted that they seemed to be counting down to our anniversary. the math on this worked out correctly, but somehow I doubted the little ones cared much about commemerating our marriage. This led to much idle speculation about what master plan the third grade set had for taking over the world. Finally, last week, my curiousity got the best of me, so I emailed the school secretary:

To: nice elementary school secretary lady
From: nice, non-threatening, child-loving, but not in a creepy way, me
re: Countdown to what?

Every day, my husband and I drive by your school on our way to and from work, and we've been spending the last couple of months speculating about what you're counting down to. I found the school's website this afternoon and was hoping I'd find an answer there, but couldn't locate one. Maybe you could help us out? We're hoping it's not anything drastic since we only have a few days left! :)

Thanks!

my nice and oh so professional sig that was recently dictated to me by the corporate empire that will soon be paying our mortgage

The next day I got this reply from the school's webmaster:

To: the lady asking the weird questions of the school secretary
From: really nice webmaster guy
re: Countdown

Ms. Turner,

Thank you for your recent correspondence. Thanks for looking up the
website, and for inquiring about the countdown.

On Saturday, April 30, our school will celebrate a new piece of playground
equipment. Some day, when you drive by, you might notice a large piece of
equipment for the kids to climb on.

Thanks for your interest!

sig of the really nice webmaster guy

Isn't that cool? So now we all know. No littles bent on world domination, just a cool new addition to the playground.

The full story, in case you were wondering

2005-04-21T21:34:00.000-07:00

Tuesday at 3:05 pm, our realtor emailed us a listing that looked promising, mostly because it included an indoor pool. Since that time, "It has a pool!" has been the beginning and ending statement of practically every conversation we've had. Pukka was scheduled to leave town Wednesday morning and not return until Friday evening, but we decided that we didn't want to wait until the weekend to take a look at this house. We've been having trouble moving fast enough to get what we wanted, and this time we wanted to do everything we could to make sure someone else didn't buy it before we had a chance to even decide what we wanted to do.

So we asked our realtor to set up a showing for just me. Our plan was that I would take a look at it, and if it looked OK, we would schedule a second showing this weekend when Pukka was home so he could see it as well. We figured that way we could at least get our foot in the door. She asked if I could come over at 9am on Wednesday (yesterday). I said I would be there. Then I asked Pukka what time he was actually leaving for Chicago. Turned out he wasn't leaving until 10am, so he would be able to come along. I don't even want to think about the number of times "It has a pool!" came out of my mouth that night.

Yesterday morning we arrived at the house at the specified time. It's in a nice, quiet part of town, only a block away from the Jr. High and a couple of blocks from a big park with a rec center (including another pool!). From the outside, the house is a dark brick one story house (it's a ranch, but it doesn't really have that long skinny look I typically associate with ranches) and there's nice big mature trees in the yard. As we walked up to the front door, I pointed out the lush old-fashioned rose to Pukka, and it grabbed at my hand with thorny fangs because I just couldn't resist touching it on our way in.

Inside, things were essentially as we expected them. There's no basement, so everything is on the one floor. There are three bedrooms of varying sizes, but all fairly usable with a good amount of closet space, especially for a house that old. One bathroom of decent size. Separate living room, dining room, kitchen and family room areas. And of course, there's a pool. The pool is indoor in-ground. It's supposed to be 3.5 feet at the shallow end and 5 feet at the "deep" end (we did not test that out!). It's not really big enough to swim in -- I would probably hit the far wall on my second stroke -- but it would be excellent for pool parties and just generally cooling off in the summer. Also, there's a fireplace in the family room, so we'd also have special features for winter entertaining as well. The kitchen is a little small, mostly because it's filled with appliances, including the washer & dryer, but it should be workable. The dining room has one wall filled with built-in bookcases/cabinets. There's nice patio and garden spaces in the back yard and the back hedge is lilacs that were all in bloom (just for us, of course).

We stood in the kitchen and talked about it, I wandered back through the house while we talked about it, we sat in the dining room and talked about it some more. Overall, we really liked it. It will probably not be suitable for us in the ultra-longterm, but for the near future, it will be really nice. I always thought I needed to live in a house with a basement, but did I mention that this house has a pool? Finally we decided we wanted to make an offer.

I drove Pukka back to work so he could leave for Chicago and then I drove over to the realtor's office to start signing papers. I left there around 11:30. I went home and waited. Then I got tired of waiting, so I took a nap. At 2pm, I woke up because the phone rang. It was our realtor, and she said our offer was accepted.

I was so excited! I couldn't wait to start telling people, but I thought Pukka should know first. He was going to call me that night, but I wasn't sure I could wait that long. So I called the hotel to see if they would pass a message to him at the convention. The woman that answered the phone said he hadn't checked in yet. So I asked if they could give him a message when he checked in. She said they would and so I explained that we had made an offer on a house this morning and it was accepted. She said, "Oh, that's great news!" and told me they would give them the message.

So imagine Pukka, checking into the Hyatt, and they tell him he has a message. When I talked to him later he said that initially made him a little concerned. Then they gave him the message, and he was so excited too! He told everyone who would listen about our new house (and swimming pool, of course!).

Barring any unforeseen difficulties, we'll be closing June 21st, so there should be a pool party before the summer's over! Woo hoo!!

Around five last night, I stepped out to get our mail and saw that there was a piece of paper taped to our door. It said that the property management company was planning to show our unit tonight at 6 pm. Now, I probably haven't mentioned this before, because it's not really something I'm proud of, but both Pukka and I tend towards the slobbish end of things, especially when we're stressed, which we have been lately. And I'm a giant pack-rat in a human body. Suffice it to say that our place was nowhere near ready to be seen by other people.

I called the property management guy to hand him a clue, hoping he'd have an empty unit to show or some other backup plan. He just told me, "I'm sure it's not the worst I've seen." It was all I could do to keep from snorting in derision.

I just bought my first house. My husband's out of town. All I wanted to do was go out and have a little fun and celebrate. Instead I got to spend my night panic cleaning. Fortunately, Tigger's girlfriend was kind enough to stop by and lend her assistance and we got the worst of things taken care of.

Yesterday was quite the day. I'm really looking forward to the weekend.

Room with a pool

2005-04-20T10:51:00.000-07:00

Do you remember the incident with the Lustron home, where I wandered around for days afterwards saying, "It's made of metal."??

Well, now we've met a house about which all I can say is, "It has a pool!"

Ok, so that's not entirely true. I can say other things, but the pool factor is always included: "Yes, I know there's no central air, but baby, it has a pool!" "I really like the closets in the bedrooms. Hey, did you know this house has a pool?" "There's no basement, but if a tornado comes, we could hide in the pool!" "Do you smell the lilacs? I bet you can even smell them from the pool!"

Yes, we found a house, in our price range, with an indoor pool. Who knew these things even existed?

And yes, I signed all the papers to make an offer about an hour ago.

I'm so nervous, I think I'm going to throw up . . .

. . . but hey, it has a pool!

ugh

2005-04-12T16:55:00.000-07:00

So fairly early this morning, I'm sitting at my desk at work, looking at my computer monitor (because that's what I do when I'm at work), when I see something moving out of the corner of my eye. I tell myself that that's impossible, and myself answers back, "Dude, I'm serious about this!" So I look over and there's a mouse starting to make his way up my wire book crates.

Yeah, there was a mouse.
On my desk.
Yuck.

And I was completely wigged out by it, not because I was afraid of it or anything but because a) I don't want it getting in my stuff and b) what if it makes a run at me?

Let me just repeat: yuck.

So I wheeled my chair back and just looked at it, dumb-founded. Fortunately, it noticed me looking at it (good thing about prey animals) and decided it was time to move on. So it runs across the back of my desk and goes down the crack (thank God I'd already wheeled back or I think I would've lost it at that point) and into my neighbor's cubicle.

I got up and walked over there to see if I could see it, but it had disappeared. "Dude, just so you know, there might be a mouse in your cubicle." He was a little more disturbed by this than I had expected. He's usually the guy in charge of killing the bugs for all of the girly-girls down here, so I didn't think it would bother him too much. I think it was because I told him that it could walk on our (fabric-covered) cubicle walls. I can't say that I blame him much. Mice on the floor are one thing. Mice that could launch themselves onto any part of your body are freaky!

Of course, our conversation attracted the attention of some co-workers, including one of the supervisors, C. She called the head of the center and he's going to get an exterminator to come out, so I guess that's the last we'll probably see of that little guy.

The weirdest thing is that I'm not 100% sure it was a mouse, because it looked bigger than I think of mice being. When I said that, C. really freaked out. "Like a rat?" she asked. "No, more like a gerbil," I told her (which was true). So now they think I'm nuts.

Passing

2005-04-11T18:47:00.000-07:00

Andrea Dworkin passed away this weekend. After years of being told what she'd thought and said, I had the fortune to hear her speak in person about five years ago. I certainly didn't agree with everything she said that night, but she did give me a lot to think about. Whatever you may think of her, she was definitely one who spoke her truth. If nothing else, that's a lesson I could stand to be reminded of most days.

Susie Bright says it (and more) better.

It's Metal!

2005-04-10T19:46:00.000-07:00

Saturday, Pukka and I stopped by an open house in town. We'd seen pictures of the exterior on-line and it didn't look very appealing to us, but since it was open, we decided to stop in and check it out.

We met the realtor in the breezeway and introduced ourselves. As I walked into the living room, she asked, "Have you ever been in a Lustron home before?"

"No," I said, the question having little meaning to me as I took in the fireplace in the paneled living room and the open kitchen. Behind me, I could hear Pukka saying, "This is a Lustron?!?"

It was about this time that I notice the hallway, and I finally began to clue in to what we were talking about. "The walls," I asked, "are they . . . ?"

"Metal," she finally finished for me.

Metal. It was all made of metal. The walls. The doors. All of it. At some point I looked at her and asked hopefully, "The roof?" "Metal."

Oh. My. God. It was just . . . metal. Words fail me.

I made the mistake of trying to open a door to look inside a closet. The grating of metal on metal greeted our ears. "Can you imagine when we have kids?" I asked Pukka. "They're going to get mad and start beating on the walls." I demonstrated. It was not a pretty sound.

As we walked into the bathroom, having completed our round of the bedroms, Pukka said, "Well, at least it looks like our bed would fit." (We have a king, and finding a house with a master bedroom large enough to hold it has been a bit of a project.) "You know, I hadn't even noticed," I told him. "Because everytime I walk into a room, all I can think is, 'Oh my god, it's metal.'"

Needless to say, we won't be making an offer. The search continues.

Aligned

2005-04-05T05:54:00.000-07:00

As I was growing up, my dad worked at a factory as a data analyst. In fact, just about everybody in town worked there in one capacity or another. At that time, they would shut the plant down for two weeks every July and virtually no one had to work. This time was commonly referred to about town as "Cat vacation".

Our family always went to visit my dad's parents and sister during that time. We would all pile into whatever car we owned at the time -- in good years it was a station wagon, or eventually, a minivan, but for awhile it was three kids in the back seat of a Buick Skylark with no air conditioning -- and we would drive. We would drive, and drive and drive. We stopped occasionally at rest areas, where my mom would feed us peanut butter crackers for lunch, and my dad would entice us to run around until we were exhasted. Then they'd load us back into the car and we would drive some more.

It takes about eighteen hours to drive from my childhood home to Richmond, Virginia, where my grandparents lived, and we did just that every year of my childhood that I remember. In my memory, those summer trips were epic. Many of our family adventures stem from that trip -- the time dad forgot to lock the cartop carrier and our stuff ended up strewn all over the interstate, the year my brother was sick the whole trip, the time our hotel reservation got lost and it took forever to find a place with a vacancy, the year we took a five foot stuffed rabbit along for the drive.

But eventually, we'd come to my dad's parents' house, and then things became different. My dad's folks were Southerners through and through. Papa was a preacher, tall enough to touch the sky, and always bigger than life. Mimi was above all things a lady. She took us to museums, tried to teach us a little poise and the nicer points of etiquette. Things at their house were quiet, genteel.

I remember sitting on Papa's lap in his wing-back chair in the library. I was old enough to be too big for most laps, but he was a big man and I was his first grandchild and always a little girl in his eyes. He'd pat his knee, enticing me to join him. I remember the smell of him combined with the scent of the leather of the books. I would lay my head on his shoulder quietly and he would watch the news.

As we sat together, I would try to synchronize my breathing with his, inhaling as he inhaled, exhaling as he exhaled. I imagined that if I got it just right, our breaths would remain in time while I was away. For all of August, September, and October, our breathing would be in synch. In November, December and January, we would be thousands of miles apart, but breathing in concert. February, March and April would find us still breathing alike. We would continue this way through May and June, right up until the time I saw him again in July.

I don't remember ever telling him my plan. I think it was a way for me to try and connect as a small one to a man I never really felt like I understood. At some point, I realized the failings of it all on my own and stopped.

But still, sometimes late at night, I try to match my breathing to Pukka's, inhaling and exhaling at the same pace he does. Even now, I still believe in some way it will bring us closer together, connect us.

What I didn't miss

2005-04-01T20:47:00.000-08:00

Today Pukka & I ate at Taco Hell for the first time in probably well over a year.

We had been boycotting in support of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. The boycott actually ended earlier in March, but I didn't clue in until Monday of this week. The goods news is that the workers picking tomatoes now get a penny more per pound of tomatoes, which amounts to some crazy insane increase in their standard of living (I remember it being 33%, but I can't find the stats to confirm or deny that now). And it's costing YUM! (Taco Hell's parent company) 100K annually to do it. That should be a drop in the bucket to them -- it never ceases to amaze me how far corporate America will go to make a buck.

Anyway, when I first swore off the Bell, it was hard. They were in our regular lunch rotation, and for a long time habit would find us heading towards their door. Eventually that passed, but there were some commercials that almost did me in. For awhile we'd find ourselves tempted whenever we were visiting another town. Then we'd remember that our local place wasn't the issue, but the corporation as a whole. Fortunately it eventually became habit not to go there. All of our friends knew better than to suggest it unless they wanted a lecture on the plight of agricultural workers in this country.

Then we flew to Oregon in December, with a layover in Vegas. And in the airport (or at least the terminal we were in) there was literally no place to eat but sit-down restaurants and Taco Hells. Our layover was not long and I was starving. I said to Pukka, "You know, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas . . ." He took pity on me and found the one place that had hot dogs (a questionably better choice).

So today, we walked into the place free and clear for the first time in forever. I stared at the menu, trying to find my old favorites and decipher the new choices. I finally made my order, Pukka made his, and we got our chance to enjoy what we'd been denying ourselves for so long.

And I've got to tell you, it was crap.

But it only cost us eleven dollars, so we'll probably be back.

Bait and switch

2005-03-30T19:53:00.000-08:00

In general, my weeknight bedtime ritual consists of stumbling into our dark bedroom, stripping off any unneeded clothes, putting my glasses on the top of the dresser next to our bed, sliding my hand out to feel for the kitten, and then laying down for sleep.

Monday, when I reached out, I touched a fuzzy kitty instead of a sleek one lying on my pillow. Apparently GrayBoy had decided to steal the kitten's snuggles for himself that night. A quick hunt found the kitten at the foot of the bed instead of in his accustomed spot.

Miraculous

2005-03-28T20:10:00.000-08:00

Something amazing happened this morning. The alarm went off, and when I opened my eyes, the sun was already up!! Do you know how long it's been since that happened? And tonight when Pukka & I left work, we ran a few errands and had dinner, then drove home, and it was still light out! Who would've thought?? I guess spring's planning on making an appearance this year after all.

Last month, when I had my covenant group talk about celebrating winter, a lot of us talked about how we felt like we'd get along with winter better, if we had some kind of winter hobby, something we could do when it's cold and nasty out. And I realized that more than any other season, winter is the one that's most out of my control. Even the simplest tasks can get more complicated (especially in terms of motivation) when it's dark and freezing. In winter moreso than any other time, I can't always go where I want or do what I want when I want to do it. And for someone with control issues, this is a problem.

So here's to sunshine, flowers, and the illusion of control. Happy spring, all!

Something in Common

2005-03-27T14:54:00.000-08:00

I have a habit of taking my rings off whenever I'm cleaning or working on an ooky craft project. When Pukka finds them lying on the counter, he'll chastise me for going around "not married". The worst, as far as he's concerned, is when I go to Wal-Mart without my rings on. Apparently this is where I do my cruising. Who knew?

So when I heard the other day that Britney was spotted without her wedding ring, I just about drove off the side of the road I was laughing so hard. Thank god she didn't turn up at Wal-Mart!

Never thought I'd get to say this

2005-03-23T11:51:00.000-08:00

. . . but I've got a guest post up at feministe. Lauren was kind enough to share her space with us for the day and it's been a lot of fun. I'm in awe.

Darkness and Shadow

2005-03-23T10:50:00.000-08:00

When I first came to Iowa in my mid-twenties, I struggled with the dark aspects of life. I refused to thin the seedlings in my garden, and so they grew gangly and choked each other out. I was incapable of pruning the plants that did result, so they grew tall and lean instead of bushing out properly. When my then-boyfriend smashed his head and spent a week in a coma, I was way over my head.

I had recurrent visions in which I saw myself, only much younger (everyone saw me as younger than I was then), watching aghast as Atropos went about her work. I tried to deflect her, tried to force her hand away from those who were precious to me.

I knew it was vanity, but I couldn't help it.

That was just about ten years ago now, and a lot has changed for me since then. This January K. came to me and asked my help in ending a pregnancy. I concocted a witch's brew for her of plants that would help her towards her intention. When that didn't work, I took the day off work and went to the clinic with her. Two days later, I sat with her while she took the second dose. When she stood in the doorway of the bathroom and said, "I can't ask you to look at this." I said, "Yes, you can." I looked with her, then told her, "Yes, that's it. It's done."

Finally, instead of futilely fighting the unescapable truth -- death happens -- I was able to embrace it. I was reminded yet again how right it feels when I'm able to work with the current, rather than against it. And this time, I felt Her hand over mine, guiding me, showing me where to make the cut, showing me how to make it clean and as painless as possible.

Last month I sat in circle and S. invoked our inner divinity. She spoke of how, as women, we hold the power of life, of death and of rebirth.

This is common liturgy where I practice. This was not intended to be revelation. But for the first time in my few years, I could hear more of that statement not as potential or as metaphor, but as literal truth. I have held the power of life. And now I have held the power of death. And that night I cried tears of joy, hoping for the rebirth that will come in its time.

Homecoming

2005-03-20T20:40:00.000-08:00

Thursday night, Pukka and I left work and headed straight for my parents' for the weekend. Apparently, the kitties missed us. When we pulled up in the parking lot, Twiglet and Grayboy were watching us out the window. Then Grayboy backed up so that Tigger could get a look. Awhile ago, as I sat here watching TV, Tigger stretched the full length of his body against mine, reclaiming his territory.

Spent more time with Abigail this weekend. She has trouble getting to sleep without help, so I'd dance the length of my parents' formal living room, patting her little butt and singing her to sleep. Her favorite seems to be "It Had To Be You". She'd lay in my arms and smile up like me like a goon, before finally drifting off.

It was a good weekend. Tomorrow we're back to work and back to the house hunt. No rest for the wicked I suppose.

Notes

2005-03-14T20:28:00.000-08:00

You know you've stayed up too late when "Celebrity Justice" comes on. (No, I'm not looking up a link for that one.)

Anytime I use the word "apparently", there's a better than average chance that I'm pissed off about whatever it is I'm talking about.

Saturday, Pukka and I went to visit our first house prospect. It was so darned cute you wouldn't believe it. I'm (we're?) still having some trouble realizing this is actually going to happen, I think. It's weird -- I never had any second thoughts about the whole marriage thing, but this house thing scares the crap out of me. Some days I fantasize about just forgetting the whole thing and renting for awhile longer.

Of course, I'm also enthralled by the prospect of actually owning the place where we live. Mostly, I'm excited to have something where we can do what we whatever we want to it. When Pukka and I were talking about the house over lunch afterwards, we were bemoaning the lack of a deck/patio, and the lack of a good way to add one given the current house/yard/door configurations, until finally I said, "But we could just convert the dining room window to a door and build a deck off the back." Pukka was just blown away with the realization that we could do that if we wanted. We're both so used to renting that our mindset is more "make do" than "fix it".

I've started climbing the stairs at work on an hourly basis. This does a couple of things for me, but mostly it's an attempt to get a little more exercise than I do normally. The sad thing is when I walk by the elevator, often my little brain says, "Hey, let's take the elevator!" Then I remember that getting to the third floor is not the actual goal. It's a little disturbing to me how many times this cycle has played out in the last week or so.

Every once in awhile, I meet someone and instantly like them for no obvious reason. I'm sure other people do it too. It happened for me at our wedding with Pukka's cousin and her husband. The family gossip network failed to notify us when they got pregnant shortly afterwards, but remembered to send us pictures when the baby was born last week. All weekend I've been madly knitting away on a little sweater for her. I'd rather crochet, but I just couldn't find a pattern that spoke to me. My knitting skills suffer greatly from the long gaps between attempts, so I've spent almost as much time ripping out and searching for errors as actually making progress, but it is coming along despite the setbacks.

Unfortunately the knitting precluded all of the writing I was supposed to get done this weekend. Some of that is "must have" and will hopefully happen tonight, but the rest will most likely have to wait. I have an unfortunate habit of not finishing projects, so I've learned it's best to work with the momentum for as long as it will carry me, rather than trying to fight against it.

Echoes

2005-03-06T21:47:00.000-08:00

Pukka and I have friends who live with an African Grey. At times he chose to mimic some pretty unfortunate noises, like the time the batteries in the smoke detector got low while he was home alone for the day. After that, any time he thought he needed a tad more attention than he was currently getting, he'd start in with that piercing chirp.

Awhile back, the same household became home to a kitten, Iggy. There was some concern about the interaction between feline and bird, but they generally did fine. Last I saw them, the parrot would fly into the room, land on the floor and immediately call out, "Iggy, no!"

Similar things are going on these days in PJ's house. She and her husband have a dog named Gibson. Gibson is large, white, and generally believed to be not very bright. When she was pregnant, PJ was worried what he might think of the baby. In general, he seems to adore her. He's very protective and gets rather agitated when she cries. Given the opportunity, he'd lick her to pieces.

But any time he starts licking the baby, PJ immediately cuts him short with, "Gibson, that's enough!" When I was there, she told me she doesn't really care if he licks her once or twice, but she figures it takes at least three licks before her command penetrates his pea brain.

"I'm afraid," she confessed to me, "that Abigail's first sentence is going to be, 'Giboson, that's enough!' She certainly hears it more than anything else."

Sounds to me like Gibson and Iggy should form a tag team.

kitty food

2005-03-04T21:52:00.000-08:00

The kitten firmly believes that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Given the opportunity, he enjoys bran muffins and granola bars.

Grayboy's more of a junk-food guy (which you might've noticed by looking at his waistline). His very favorite people food is potato chips. If that's not available, generally anything salty will do.

For Tigger, it's all about the cheese. He'll indulge in other things, but give him cheese and he's happy -- cheese sauce, processed cheese, real cheese -- it doesn't really matter to him.

Note to Self

2005-03-03T20:48:00.000-08:00

I'll be the water when you get thirsty baby;
When you get drunk, I'll be the wine.

See how this is set up more like a palindrome, rather than being strictly parallel? Use that sometime.

(Yes, I know it's from a cheesy eighties song, but hey.)

On rootedness

2005-03-02T05:38:00.000-08:00

Friday my husband and I met with a mortgage "originator". He asked, "Are you planning to still be living in this house in five years? In ten?"

I don't know.

My mother's father lives on the farm that has been in our family for almost two hundred years now. I will never live there, nor will my siblings or parents.

My father's father settled late in life. His mother died when he was young, and he spent his childhood being passed from aunt to aunt. When he grew up, he was a preacher, and the conference moved him from town to town as he was needed. They bought their first house when he retired.

I grew up three hours from where I live now. My sister still lives in the town we grew up in. My parents still live in the house they bought when I was five.

Iowa calls to me in a voice that sometimes only I seem to hear. As we travel, I hear her sweet song when we approach the border. Always, always grateful to be home, but feeling also that home is grateful to have me back.

My teacher learned to ground in California using the tree of life meditation. Naturally she used the redwoods. Then she moved here, to the prairie. No redwoods here. Not even close. She had to start over.

What do I gain by being connected to this place? To these people? To these things? What do I give up?

Coming apart a bit

2005-02-22T16:25:00.000-08:00

Last week, I seemed to have a vendetta against my hands. I slammed my thumb in a dresser drawer. I touched a wood-burning tool and gave myself a nasty burn. I broke just about every nail on both hands by consistently and repeatedly ramming my hands into things dropping things and generally being clumsy.

At the same time, I've been accident prone and forgetful. There's the drawer and burn incidents cited above. I dropped Pukka's laptop and broke it. We drove to another state for a concert and I left the tickets at home.

For the record, I do not believe in some Greater Being who does bad things to me (or allows them to be done) so that I might learn some kind of lesson. However, I do believe that a pattern of accidents or illness in my life generally indicates some kind of underlying imbalance. If I can spot that problem and fix it, I can save myself some pain, and what's not to like about that?

So what's my problem now? Exactly what I'd like to know. Generally, when I've had a string of these things, I can sit down and think about them for awhile and evenutally an answer comes to me. Usually, there's a kind of "ah-ha" recognition to the right answer, but this time such recognition is just not coming.

First we have my hands. To me, hands mean work. Ok, so something's out of whack at work. The problem with this answer is that it's akin to noting that the sky is blue. I don't want to go into the details here, but I am so well aware that my job is fucked up right now that it's not even funny. I don't need to lose a digit to clue me in. Not to mention that the situation has actually been looking up since this little rash of injuries started.

Ok, fine, so let's try the accident/CRS angle. I have this come up a lot. Pat answer here is that I'm not being present. It's pretty easy to hurt yourslef when you're not inhabiting your space. But again, this answer just doesn't feel right.

So I'm left without much of a clue as to what's going on. I'd hoped that if I let this sit in the back of my mind for a day or two that I might come up with something, but so far, no dice. The good news is that, at least for the last couple of days, I've seemed to achieve a minimal/normal level of injury. So maybe whatever it is has worked itself out, at least until it comes up again.

Wintery inspiration?

2005-02-22T13:32:00.000-08:00

I'm in charge of finding readings for my covenant group's Thursday meeting this week. I've got some candidates so far, but nothing I'm incredibly taken with. We're trying to come up with some ways to celebrate winter, and not just surviving it until spring. If anyone has ideas on something I could use, I'd be more than happy to hear about it, either in comments or email.

Why I need an email editor

2005-02-21T16:50:00.000-08:00

Was writing to PJ today about our recent trip to IKEA and some pictures we'd picked up for the baby's room:

”They don't really fit in the theme of her room at all, but they totally crack me up. If you don't want them, we'll just save them for our theoretical kids. (Tried finding them on the website, but they don't appear to have them there, so you'll just have to wait to see them until we bring them home.)”

She replied, "……I thought you were talking about looking for kids on the website! Too funny."

I guess we'll all have to wait until we bring them home!!

The sad part? All this silliness just served to remind me of a site where it feels like you can "shop" for kids.

Shifting

2005-02-18T08:13:00.000-08:00

My mother has five cats in her house, as well as a varying number of feral strays she feeds in the backyard. When my father passes away, I'm sure she'll become one of those "cat ladies."

Awhile back one of the friendlier outdoor cats gave birth to her first litter of kittens no less than two feet from my mom's back door. Mom made a house for her and the new babies on the deck out of a cardboard box, some old towels and some packing tape. I was home for a visit before their eyes were even open, and my inner brat
had a field day, latching onto any available opportunity to handle the little fuzz-budgets.

"You leave those kittens alone! She's going to move them to the garage if you keep it up."
"But mo-om, I'm just checking to see whether they're boys or girls."
ad infinitum . . .

Momma cat did not move the kittens, in spite of my pestering. She and my mother proceeded to raise all four kittens until they were old enough to give away to real homes. And then momma moved from her box on the deck into mom's house.

One of the kittens ended up going home with Pukka. He said he didn't know if he could have a cat. He said he wasn't sure he wanted one. He kept reminding me he was allergic. But I took him outside and deposited the little furballs in his arms, one by one, until I saw the look that told me we were going to become a three cat family.

Two years and a little more later, and we still refer to him as "the kitten." (Sometimes I go as far as "momma's little baby," but he'd prefer we not speak of that.) Frequently, his name is expanded to "the gorram kitten. Occasionally, he's actually called by his name, which is Twiglet.

Despite our best efforts, the kitten is a biter. He doesn't listen and he's got a bit of an attitude. We think he may be part of the kitten mafia. We plan to try again with a dog, but people, if we don't do any better with the canine, we will never be having children.

On weeknights, Pukka goes to bed first, and the kitten follows shortly thereafter. By the time I make my way to our bed, I usually find not only a snoring husband but the kitten lounging on my pillow. It's aggravating, and not really all that conducive to me getting to sleep in any sort of reasonable time period since I always feel guilty clearing my spot by virtue of my greater mass and use of opposable thumbs.

Then one night I stepped into the darkness of our bedroom and was feeling around for my pajamas when the kitten opened his eyes sleepily from the nest of my pillow and reached out one paw as if to touch my face. I melted. Since that night, the kitten on my pillow was there waiting for me, not stealing my spot.

Pukka still snores though.

Can you believe I'm the smart one in my family?

2005-02-17T20:27:00.000-08:00

Last week I was explaining to an acquaintance that a friend of ours is currently working at a medical clinic in Guatemala.

"Nicaragua," Pukka corrected.

"Whatever," I responded flippantly. "How am I supposed to keep all of those four syllable South American ending in 'uh' countries straight?"

From the look on Marsha's face, I knew I was in trouble. "Central America," she corrected.

And before I had the good sense to quit while I was ahead, I pulled out the final nail for my coffin: "Yeah, but they're both south of here!"

So yeah, not only am I ignorant, but I'm way more American than I normally like to admit. Good to know.

Couple of quick things

2005-02-15T21:35:00.000-08:00

Oh my! Poor unfortunate souls have been finding their way here for awhile now by doing 'net searches regarding someone's unfortunate counting mistake. I feel bad for them, but really, what can be done? But now someone's come here by searching on "how do you know you are ready for children." I wish I could help with that one; I honestly do. If anyone's got the answer, be sure to let me know, because I certainly could use the info as well.

In other news, if you've been concerned about the FMLA thing, but just haven't felt up to composing something, the National Partnership for Women and Families has done it for you. All you have to do is fill in your contact info and it's on its way. (via Half Changed World)

Today I found myself exploring a new (at least to me) blog. I noticed that the first thing I did was not read any posts, but check the blogroll to see if it mentioned anyone I knew. How strange is that? I'd like to think I generally make my judgements based on merit, but at least this morning it seemed to be more about who a person's friends are. Nice. It also reminded me I really need to get my own list updated.

And last, but certainly not least, my niece is beautiful and wonderful and loves her mommy best. Friday we were at the fabric store trying to find something for curtains for her room when she began to fuss. I was carrying her at the time and she eventually worked her way into full-fledged wailing, making sure that everyone in the store was aware of her displeasure. Finally PJ said, "I can take her back if you want." I handed her ooer, there was a whimper, then blessed silence. I guess I know where I rank now.

The good news is that we got several things accomplished, including sewing a sling, so now PJ will hopefully be able to get more two-handed jobs done. I'm always 1000% more efficient when it comes to getting PJ's projects done than I am my own. Not sure what's up with that, although it should be noted that I'm getting really close to finishing my second afghan for Xmas 2005. Who knew I could actually be that stubborn? (Don't anyone feel compelled to actually answer that.)

Some business for a Friday

2005-02-11T05:49:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I know, it's Friday and we're all ready to start the weekend. But there's a little business around here to take care of.

First off, my job: Did you know that when I wrote my piece on abortion just a couple of weeks ago, the first Google hit for Roe v. Wade was to an anti-abortion site? I noticed it, but was too distracted to get sufficiently riled up to do anything. Fortunately, someone else did notice, and did get riled up, and then proceeded to get a bunch of other people riled up. One google bomb later, and things look a little more normal. Good news, as far as I'm concerned, for anyone looking for factual information on Roe v. Wade. I'm a little late to the party, so I figure why not start on that #2 spot?

Your jobs, should you choose to accept them:

Bush's budget calls for a 25% increase in funding for abstinence-only education. Now, abstinence is a darned good way to not get pregnant or contract STDs; I'm not going to deny that. The problem is that our kids seem unwillling or unable to practice it, and in light of that, they need additional information and education. Click here to tell your elected representatives what a bad idea this is.

Also, the FMLA (Family Medical Leave Act) is in danger. This is near and dear to my wanna-be-having-kids heart, since I was turned down for short-term disability for having been on anti-depressants in the past. Joy. Details on why this is a problem and what you can do about it are over at Half Changed World.

Alright, that concludes the work portion of this blogging Friday. Now that we've done our part to make the world a slightly better place, we can all go enjoy our weekend just a little bit more.

As for me, I'm off to bask in the cuteness that is my itty-bitty niece. Later!

Abigail's buttons

2005-02-09T21:47:00.000-08:00

On winter solstice my sister P.J. gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, the first child of my family's next generation, a princess from birth. We'll call her Abigail.

Friday I will be heading back home to see both of them for the first time since Abigail's birth. In the car with me will be several presents for the wee one. Pukka and I have big plans to be the "cool" aunt and uncle in both families, and we're starting early with Abigail, despite her current apparent lack of awareness.

Last night I (finally) finished the crocheting of the sweater I've been making for her. My mother has knitted this child an entire wardrobe by this point in her life, but my sweater is a little different than anything Abigail has from her grandmother. No soft pastels from me. No sir. My baby sweater is fuschia and purple and periwinkle and fuschia some more. If I have things my way, my niece will not only be recognizable as a girl, but as the bold feisty girl I'm hoping she'll become.

Tonight I finished weaving the ends in and then set about finding the buttons to finish Abigail's sweater. One of the things I inherited from my grandmother's sewing room was a plastic shoebox full of buttons. I pulled this box out and began sifting through it, looking for something suitable. Fairly early on, I found a card with enough plain-Jane white buttons for what I needed. They definitely would do. But I wasn't satisfied with them. I set them aside for my fallback and kept looking.

I thought of P.J. Every time we visit a store with loose buttons, she's not happy until she's seen them with her hands. I'm usually distracted by fabric, but she always calls me over to share: "Put your hands in here. Doesn't that feel great?"

Using grandma's buttons had started as an exercise in practicality. Planning ahead is not my strong suit, and there aren't many fabric stores open at 10 pm on a Wednesday night. As I sorted with my right hand, I put the potentials in the palm of my left. Many of grandma's buttons were cut from worn out clothing. I know this because I know her, and she was not one for waste. I also know it because some buttons still have thread or a little scrap of cloth attached. Whenever I look through the loose buttons, I like to try and imagine where they came from. I make up little stories about them and the people that wore them.

Grandma died about six months before Pukka and I married. She met him, she cooked for him, and she beat him at cards. I think she approved. Some days it catches me fresh that our daughters will never meet her, and it never fails to bring tears to my eyes.

I looked into my left hand and found a motley assortment of buttons of varying sizes, shapes and colors. You never know how many matching buttons there are of any type in grandma's box. There may be twenty; there may be just the one. Who can say? In my hand there were only two matching buttons. They were white, slightly domed, the shank for sewing them hidden beneath. They were a little opalescent and rimmed with a narrow rough chunky gold border. My inner magpie had latched onto the first one I saw with a cry of "Pretty!"

There were two in my hand, but I needed three for the sweater. I sorted through the box with more intention this time. Three. Four. Five. That seemed to be all. I picked out the three that looked best to me, the three that seemed strongest, and I sewed them onto the front of Abigail's sweater, imagining the blouse of my grandma's that was their original home.

Friday I will take the sweater to Abigail. And I will tell her: "These buttons came from your great-grandmother. She was an amazing woman. And someday you will be one too."

Kitty Love

2005-02-05T11:28:00.000-08:00

Tigger is obsessed with our friend Marsha.
Marsha is, of course, allergic.

Still, they get along as well as might be expected for an interspecies relationship. That's not to say they don't occasionally have their little spats though. Once when Marsha came to visit, Tigger couldn't be bothered to spend time with her. Immediately after she left though, he went to the door and looked out plaintively. When I told her about it the next day, she asked me to relay a message to him: "You snooze, you lose, kitty."

Apparently Tigger's taken this to heart. Last night I was sitting in the living room with Tigger velcroed to my lap when we heard a car pull up and park in the lot outside. Tigger's ears perked up and he dashed over to the sliding glass door, peering intently out into the darkness. Sure enough, a minute later, Marsha appeared at the doorstep. Ah, kitty love!

You should be glad I don't audblog

2005-02-03T05:28:00.000-08:00

Last night

Me: College taught me to be able to write three to five pages on any subject in the universe. Grad school taught me to be able to write no more than one page on everything I know anything about.

Pukka: You still talk five pages worth though.

Turn of phrase

2005-02-02T05:07:00.000-08:00

So apparently a group of vultures is called a venue:

A venue of vultures circled overhead.

Who knew?

Circling

2005-02-01T07:11:00.000-08:00

When I first came to Iowa, I met my first vultures. A flock of turkey vultures lived in the woods between our camp and Lake Ahquabi, and on any given day you could see them circling high overhead, riding the thermals. I loved watching them up there, so big and lazy, watching me back. I learned that they lived in a "town" in the forest as one huge extended family group.

Once, for lack of anything better to do, I convinced a group of kids to help me ambush them. We lay on our backs on the top of the burial mound in the warm sun and waited to see if they would notice us.

I never imagined that the vultures would actually come. I never imagined that the kids would be able to lay still for that long.

They came, circling lower and lower, wings wider than my arm span, growing immense as they descended from the sky.

I knew I had to do something, but I was entranced. They came closer and closer until finally one of the girls couldn't stand it any more and sat up. The vultures panicked, flapping frantically to regain the sky.

See, all that lazy circling comes at a price. The vulture is far-seeing, but it takes them tremendous effort to reach the height that makes the vision possible. But once they do, they can soar for hours without flapping their wings. I guess life's always a trade-off, even for the scavengers.

Evolution

2005-01-28T12:06:00.000-08:00

I was brought up firmly planted between Mainline Protestantism and Midwestern Morality. There were many things that were not discussed explicitly, but I knew that certain things were Wrong, among them premarital sex, politicians, and abortion.

I remember the night I made some statement at the dinner table, assuming that the familial position was pro-Life. My mother, a plain, god-fearing, black and white kind of woman, was horrified to find one of her children turned against her. I was horrified to find my mother one of the enemy.

Mom took it upon herself to instruct me in the Way Things Were before abortion was legal in this country: the women who died, were maimed, or otherwise had their lives changed forever. She was the one who introduced me to the "not for me personally, but for anyone else who needs it" position.

I went to college and learned there were different ways to see things. I started to come around to my mother's way of thinking. I had my first scare and it taught me a little of the ache of the decision, and gave me compassion for those who truly have to make it. I began to call myself pro-Choice.

I grew even older, and my father's Libertarian views began to grow on me. On an individual level, I saw abortion as a personal moral/ethical decision. On a legal level, I couldn't comprehend making it illegal. I simply could see no compelling reason why it was any of the government's damned business.

I thought the question was settled in my mind. I thought I was decided. I thought I was certain. Then a few years ago, a friend came to me. She was on powerful prescription meds and had been warned against trying to get pregnant. Now she was late. She could not afford an abortion and had come to ask me for a loan. I had no financial reasons to object, but I didn't feel entirely comfortable giving her the money. It looked like things weren't quite as settled for me as I'd thought.

Last week, one of our friends asked me if she could request a favor. It's a little early to make the call, but it seems she's pregnant, and for a variety of complicated and personal reasons, this is not a child she can have. "I know what I need to do," she said, "but I don't think I can go by myself." This time there was no hesitation, no second thoughts. "No worries," I told her. "I'll take a day off and we'll do whatever you need to do."

Last Saturday marked the 32nd anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. For practically my entire lifetime, women have been called to make their own decisions and to come to grips with the consequences of those choices. I hope my daughters will have that same freedom, that same power.

Is this high school?

2005-01-27T11:03:00.000-08:00

Several months ago, I ran into an ex-lover online. We did a brief catch up thing during which he mentioned that he was looking for a new job. Long story short, one thing led to another and now he's working at my company.

Shortly after he started, he came down to thank me (and I'm sure to see what I look like these days). That was a few weeks ago, and I hadn't seen him again until yesterday.

Yesterday he came downstairs to shadow a coworker that sits near me. I walked by him on my way to the bathroom and we exchanged a little wave. When I got to the bathroom, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and this little inner dialogue ensued:

"Oh my god! I think this is what I was wearing the last time he saw me. Now he thinks that I only have one outfit." etc., etc.

Apparently, I really need to get a grip.

Present

2005-01-21T14:36:00.000-08:00

Sometimes it seems to me like the true secret to a long-term relationship is simply showing up over and over again, day after day.

Love feels nice and it's beautiful and it makes the world go 'round and all that, but Love doesn't really help when it comes to putting up with my mood swings. Love doesn't take out the trash. Love could care less about planning for retirement.

The only real work Love does in a relationship is to trick you into being present. Then when you get there you find out there's real work to be done if you want to stay. You work and you work and then you wake up the next morning and discover there's still more work to be done. But when you continue to show up every day, when you stay committed, when you keep bringing your best to the table, things tend to work out ok.

I'm blessed with a husband who comes to our marriage every day in all of his him-ness. No matter what happens, he's there and ready to work it through. He's appallingly honest and one hundred percent committed. He's always ready to try a little harder to give me whatever it is I think I need.

He's an awesome man, and I'm lucky to have him.

Happy birthday, love. I hope you have a wonderful year.

My name is Trish and I bought 102 skeins of yarn.

2005-01-18T05:19:00.000-08:00

Last Friday I went to Hancock's and bought 102 skeins of yarn. I'm not sure who I blame.

See, I was there earlier in the week with a friend and noticed it was on sale for $1/skein, which is a great price. We both bought some for miscellaneous projects that might come up.

Thing is, when I got home, I started thinking (always dangerous). Then I looked on-line and found a pattern for a quick/easy afghan using the yarn. There's 13 rolls of yarn in each 'ghan, and I told myself, "Hey if I could get some Christmas presents done for thirteen bucks, that would be a deal!"

So Friday I trucked my butt back over there and bought enough to make 8 afghans. (If you're doing the math, you know that would be 104 skeins of yarn -- apparently I counted wrong somewhere while I was pulling colors).

You know, it's not unusual for my husband to think I've lost my mind when I start a craft project. But when you're at the craft store and the employees and all of the people there think you're nuts, you should know you've probably lost it.

The good news is that all of this disparagement has made me stubborn, so I pretty much used all of my free time in the weekend to work on the first afghan and it's probably about 2/3 of the way done now. Hopefully I can keep up the pace and prove them all wrong. Although the bigger it gets, the harder it is to make any noticeable progress. Last night, it was taking me an hour to get through a round. I've still got eight or nine rows to go before this one's done and I can start #2!

"Whenever I go to the bathroom, I remember our honeymoon"

2005-01-14T11:26:00.000-08:00

Last weekend Pukka walked into the bedroom as I'm putting away laundry.

Pukka: "I'm so glad we got that Irish Spring."
Me: "I'm glad too, baby."
Pukka: "Because now whenever I go to the bathroom, I remember our honeymoon."

(Yes, this is actually what the man said. For his sake, I'll fill in the gaps and tell you that our hosts at our honeymoon cottage had stocked a half metric ton of Irish Spring in the bathroom. So it's now a scent with a very strong honeymoon association for us. But still . . .)

Pause. Pause. Then:

Pukka: "This is going in the blog, isn't it?"
Me: "Of course!"

Toddler Politesse

2005-01-10T20:48:00.000-08:00

When I married Pukka, I got a niece, Bucho. Unfortunately, she lives half a continent away, so we don't get to see as much of her as we'd like. But in early December, we got the chance to spend a week with her. Our conclusion? She's three years old and more polite than Pukka and I put together.

We first noticed it when we found that in almost every instance where I would've broken out with a hearty, "Du-uh!", Bucho says, "Of course!" with this little upward lilt that just melts your heart.

A day or two later, she and I were working puzzles. She had just finished her number puzzle, naming the pictures as she did so: "Four apples!" "Six frogs!" When she got to three, she said, "Three bananas!" Now I must tell you, this puzzle had the sorriest depiction of three bananas I'd ever seen -- all mottled brown and shortened. So when she announced it was my turn to do the number puzzle, I put some pieces in, then placed the three saying: "Three plantains!"

She looked at me with her serious face and said, "Aunt Trish, I think those are bananas."

Of course!

But the absolute best Bucho moment was at the end of our time at their house. Earlier in the morning, Kelsey, a preschool classmate of Bucho's had been dropped off for carpooling. When Kelsey arrived, she had started talked to me about her purple boots. Now, I would've called these boots pink (they were actually sort of a magenta color), but I was not about to pick a fight with a three-year-old, so I didn't say anything to her about her apparent color-blindness.

It's about a half hour later and the two girls are putting on coats and various accessories while getting ready to leave. Bucho notices Kelsey putting her boots on and says, "Oh Kelsey! You have such pretty pink boots."

"They're not pink," says Kelsey. "They're purple boots."

There's a moment as Bucho ponders this with a concerned look on her face. Then she smiles and asks in the high bright voice adults tend to use for animals and small children, "Sooo, what color are your gloves?"

Life Lesson

2005-01-07T07:39:00.000-08:00

When you use profanity to refer to the snow removal people, you shouldn't be too surprised to find your car plowed into its space in the parking lot two days later.

Notes from this morning

2005-01-05T06:31:00.000-08:00

Several inches of snow on the ground, and it's supposed to continue into the wee hours of tomorrow morning.

If it's going to snow, fine, whatever. But why does it have to rain first so that I have a nice layer of ice on my car under all the fluffy stuff?
Last night, I dreamt that my mother bought me a remote starter for my car. Given the amount of time I spent scraping ice off my windshield this morning, I really wish it had been prophetic.
Thing #56 I will not miss about our current place when we move: The landscape company our landlord contracts with appear to believe that snow removal is a 8 - 5, M - F job. Fuckers.
Last night, I was planning to write a post about the reasons I love my husband. One of them was going to be because he scrapes the ice off my car for me. This morning he abdicated his position as scraper. Ironic, eh?
When you're driving in snow/ice, you can either change direction or change speed. You can not do both at the same time. Please don't kill the rest of us by trying.
My inner nine-year-old should not be allowed to stay up late hoping for a snow day when my grown-up selves know there's no chance in hell. (She's still hoping to get sent home early from work today though.)

Enough of my griping. Back to work.

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