This past Monday night I was busy around the house after work, doing dishes, some light housework that had not been done over my busy weekend of sitting around drinking coffee and shopping, and earlier that evening I had turned the TV on in the living room to keep my four-year-old Dachshund company. She was looking at me with those sad, lonely eyes, the same way my boyfriend looks at me when I have spent too much time working on the computer and not enough time sitting by him while he watches TV. Annie was begging for some company in there, and I was determined to finish what I had started, which is a very rare occurrence for me.
In the kitchen, I was washing dishes, carefully drying them all and putting them away, when I heard domestic violence in the living room. Rushing in there, I found Annie sitting in the recliner facing the television, her elbow resting on the arm of the chair, and one foot on the remote. She tried to regain her composure quickly enough to turn the channel back to the Animal Planet, but I caught her watching "Wife Swap."
Have you not always wondered what your dog watched while you were gone or otherwise occupied? Well, guess what? They apparently are watching "Wife Swap," an embarrassing, obviously sometimes violent and demeaning little reality show that no adult human should watch, much less the home's four-year-old! Okay, okay, she IS a dog, I know that. And when I wrenched the remote away from her, she actually, I swear, cried. I guess that might have been because I got her toenail caught in one of the buttons, but it had the proper effect on me.
What choice did I have then, but to sit down with her and watch the rest of the show, right? I made us a bowl of popcorn and never took my eyes off the TV screen. This was the conversation going on with myself, oh and with Annie:
"That's disgusting! That jerk! He doesn't DESERVE a wife! WALK OUT ON HIM, WALK OUT ON HIM!!"
Annie was very satisfied with herself. I think she knew all along what she was doing. If you cannot get the human's attention with the sad eyes, get her with "Wife Swap."
That crafty little dog! She even set the DVR to record the show! Dogs are definitely smarter than we give them credit for.
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Friday, February 09, 2007
Household Appliances
About a month ago the belt on my clothes dryer broke. I cannot imagine why this happened. The dryer is only twenty years old and twirls about three loads of laundry each week, or more, since my children still think they have laundry room rights even though they have long ago flown the coup here.
With a load of jeans in there drying for about an hour, imagine my surprise when I quickly ran downstairs to fold them and hang them up before working, only to find that they were warm but undeniably, without question, still very wet. No amount of standing there feeling them and trying ton convince myself that they had not dried completely simply because the load was heavy, made them any less wet, and I finally resigned myself to the fact that a trip to the laundromat was in my future.
Having spent everything I had on a mid-winter vacation with AF to Miami, knowing that there was not going to be enough money to cover a repairman, I began the routine: This will be FUN! I love people-watching at the laundromat! It will save me tons of electricity at home! It will be like old times, like college, when...and this is where the downside of reality crept in...I was dirt poor and could barely find a dollar's worth of quarters to even DO my laundry. Sigh.
For a month, though, I carried a basket of wet, heavy clothes to the car and drove to the nearest laundromat. I made a couple of friends there; an old woman who seemed genuinely concerned about my welfare on the slick streets and in the bitter cold, and a Hispanic girl and her child. We could not understand one another's verbalizations, but we bonded over the rather boring task of throw it in, feed it money, take it out, put it back, feed it more money, take it out, put it back...finally folding it damp and getting out of there quickly.
Finally, after about the fourth trip to the laundromat, the newness wore off and all I could concentrate on was getting the dryer fixed. Boyfriend told me if I would order the part, he would put it on, so after a trip to Home Depot, only to return with the card with the 800 number for ordering parts for archaic out-of-style appliances, the belt was ordered. It arrived on Wednesday and I met Don at the door with it, threw it toward him and said, "You put this on and I'll go to McDonald's and buy our dinner."
To make a long story short, I returned home from the drive-thru line from hell to find that the dryer, after ten minutes, was repaired.
There is a God!! There was load of wet laundry sulking in the washing machine that I quickly transferred to the dryer. Standing there listening to it tumble around in the heat filled drum of the dryer, the dryer whirring and spinning happily after its long hiatus, my arms wrapped firmly around it, kissing it, there were tears in my eyes.
I sniffed and went upstairs to have my Quarter Pounder with Cheese and fries and was nestled next to my boyfriend on the loveseat when the dryer's buzzer sounded, and did not stop. No quick reminder that the laundry was dry, but a constant, consistent, loud, annoying buzz that would not stop.
Don looked at me and said, "Hmmmm...guess I'll have to fix that this weekend." And I was consoled and happy once again!
With a load of jeans in there drying for about an hour, imagine my surprise when I quickly ran downstairs to fold them and hang them up before working, only to find that they were warm but undeniably, without question, still very wet. No amount of standing there feeling them and trying ton convince myself that they had not dried completely simply because the load was heavy, made them any less wet, and I finally resigned myself to the fact that a trip to the laundromat was in my future.
Having spent everything I had on a mid-winter vacation with AF to Miami, knowing that there was not going to be enough money to cover a repairman, I began the routine: This will be FUN! I love people-watching at the laundromat! It will save me tons of electricity at home! It will be like old times, like college, when...and this is where the downside of reality crept in...I was dirt poor and could barely find a dollar's worth of quarters to even DO my laundry. Sigh.
For a month, though, I carried a basket of wet, heavy clothes to the car and drove to the nearest laundromat. I made a couple of friends there; an old woman who seemed genuinely concerned about my welfare on the slick streets and in the bitter cold, and a Hispanic girl and her child. We could not understand one another's verbalizations, but we bonded over the rather boring task of throw it in, feed it money, take it out, put it back, feed it more money, take it out, put it back...finally folding it damp and getting out of there quickly.
Finally, after about the fourth trip to the laundromat, the newness wore off and all I could concentrate on was getting the dryer fixed. Boyfriend told me if I would order the part, he would put it on, so after a trip to Home Depot, only to return with the card with the 800 number for ordering parts for archaic out-of-style appliances, the belt was ordered. It arrived on Wednesday and I met Don at the door with it, threw it toward him and said, "You put this on and I'll go to McDonald's and buy our dinner."
To make a long story short, I returned home from the drive-thru line from hell to find that the dryer, after ten minutes, was repaired.
There is a God!! There was load of wet laundry sulking in the washing machine that I quickly transferred to the dryer. Standing there listening to it tumble around in the heat filled drum of the dryer, the dryer whirring and spinning happily after its long hiatus, my arms wrapped firmly around it, kissing it, there were tears in my eyes.
I sniffed and went upstairs to have my Quarter Pounder with Cheese and fries and was nestled next to my boyfriend on the loveseat when the dryer's buzzer sounded, and did not stop. No quick reminder that the laundry was dry, but a constant, consistent, loud, annoying buzz that would not stop.
Don looked at me and said, "Hmmmm...guess I'll have to fix that this weekend." And I was consoled and happy once again!
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Behind Bars
When I go on vacation, generally, being stuck behind bars is not part of the plan, of course, but AF and I spent about an hour in that exact predicament on the second day of our sabbatical to South Florida.
At the desk of our hotel, we learned that parking was definitely not free and that the lot they used was down the street and to the LEFT. Now, one of us heard "right" and one of us was not paying a bit of attention to the directions. We will leave that distinction to the imagination, but anyone who knows the two of us, probably knows which was which.
Day two: Move the car from the prime parking space that was available in the front of our hotel, to go look at cadavers, come back after venturing into the bowels of Miami, Florida, try to find the parking garage our hotel uses.
"Turn here, turn here!" I was only the driver taking directions, so I turned there. The gate to the obviously private garage would not open, and as I was preparing to back out onto the busy street, of course, someone who WAS authorized to use that lot trapped me in from behind. He used his nifty little private gate opener and opened the gate, at which point I was forced to enter the garage and at which point, after his entry into the garage, the gate slammed closed.
We asked the guy how we could get out and his reply was a very friendly, "You can't."
He was cute, we laughed, he did not smile, and we realized we were stuck in a parking garage. He finally told us if we would go sit in front of the gate in our car he would call Security, which he failed to do, and he told us that the security people in that building were "Not nice about this sort of thing."
Finally, sitting in our blue Toyota Corolla with about forty miles logged the odometer, a very comfortable and cute car that we were starting to panic about never getting out of, AF got out and began posing and waving in front of the security cameras, which I am sure caused much laughter and probably people reaching for the nearest firearms, when another resident finally showed up and clicked the gate open so he could enter the garage.
This blessed event caused AF to run to the car and try to get in so I could pull out, but I had the doors locked and could not find the button to unlock them. Thankfully the windows were down and she was able to climb in as I pulled madly out into the street before we were trapped again.
When we called her husband and said, "Guess where we are?" and he replied, "Jail?" we just looked at each other and drove off into the sunset to the parking lot on the LEFT side of the street with no gates and no pesky and nasty security.
Behind bars now has a whole new meaning.
At the desk of our hotel, we learned that parking was definitely not free and that the lot they used was down the street and to the LEFT. Now, one of us heard "right" and one of us was not paying a bit of attention to the directions. We will leave that distinction to the imagination, but anyone who knows the two of us, probably knows which was which.
Day two: Move the car from the prime parking space that was available in the front of our hotel, to go look at cadavers, come back after venturing into the bowels of Miami, Florida, try to find the parking garage our hotel uses.
"Turn here, turn here!" I was only the driver taking directions, so I turned there. The gate to the obviously private garage would not open, and as I was preparing to back out onto the busy street, of course, someone who WAS authorized to use that lot trapped me in from behind. He used his nifty little private gate opener and opened the gate, at which point I was forced to enter the garage and at which point, after his entry into the garage, the gate slammed closed.
We asked the guy how we could get out and his reply was a very friendly, "You can't."
He was cute, we laughed, he did not smile, and we realized we were stuck in a parking garage. He finally told us if we would go sit in front of the gate in our car he would call Security, which he failed to do, and he told us that the security people in that building were "Not nice about this sort of thing."
Finally, sitting in our blue Toyota Corolla with about forty miles logged the odometer, a very comfortable and cute car that we were starting to panic about never getting out of, AF got out and began posing and waving in front of the security cameras, which I am sure caused much laughter and probably people reaching for the nearest firearms, when another resident finally showed up and clicked the gate open so he could enter the garage.
This blessed event caused AF to run to the car and try to get in so I could pull out, but I had the doors locked and could not find the button to unlock them. Thankfully the windows were down and she was able to climb in as I pulled madly out into the street before we were trapped again.
When we called her husband and said, "Guess where we are?" and he replied, "Jail?" we just looked at each other and drove off into the sunset to the parking lot on the LEFT side of the street with no gates and no pesky and nasty security.
Behind bars now has a whole new meaning.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Looking at Fifty
One minute you are wrapped up in a quilt in your living room, drinking hot coffee, wishing for summer, poking at the fire in the fireplace, and the next you are in a sexy Victoria's Secret bra, a gauze island shirt, flip-flops and shorts wrapped up in a Burmese python on a street corner in South Beach Florida.
Life at fifty totally rocks so far!
After a busy day of communing with the cadavers at the Bodies Exhibit in Miami, AF and I boarded a bus for South Beach to have some dinner. It was at the point we began to salivate at the sight of a McDonald's that we realized how little we had consumed in the way of actual, usable calories in three days. Beer at the airport notwithstanding, we had eaten very little.
Standing in line at McDonald's to order Big Macs and Quarter Pounders with Cheese and fries was no easy task. We looked weak and starved, and we looked in the back of the line. Elbowing our way toward the front, really waiting until some mom had to chase her kid and then taking her spot one up in the line became a desperate game, and the food could not get to us soon enough. It was when we had consumed gigantic burgers, Cokes and fries, and AF went back for a second gigantic burger that I realized we were going to have to start eating on that trip.
We strolled Lincoln Mall and shopped at the street vendors' shops and enjoyed the warm, breezy South Florida night. It did not take long for one of us to mention the fact that English did not seem to be the language of choice there and decided to pursue the study of Suskatsusanian, our own private language. We coined terms such as "palm woody," "rundo," "squaro" and our favorite, "whoopsa!" and we spoke it for enough hours that soon we understood each other...and nobody else could. That came to a screeching halt when we ran into the man on the corner with the six-foot long Burmese python that he ceremoniously shoved in our faces. We were talking English pretty quickly after that with such well-known and accepted terms as, "Get that fucking snake out of my face!!"
But after a lesson about the nature of these creatures, we soon had the guy wrapped around our necks and were posing for a couple of fifteen-dollar Polaroid One-Step photos to commemorate our first encounter with what's-his-name.
A few days later, sitting in the relative safety of my own home, I began to ponder the ease with which that animal could have swallowed one of us, especially when he smelled those McDonald's burgers on us. Yikes!
And that was the first day.
Life at fifty totally rocks so far!
After a busy day of communing with the cadavers at the Bodies Exhibit in Miami, AF and I boarded a bus for South Beach to have some dinner. It was at the point we began to salivate at the sight of a McDonald's that we realized how little we had consumed in the way of actual, usable calories in three days. Beer at the airport notwithstanding, we had eaten very little.
Standing in line at McDonald's to order Big Macs and Quarter Pounders with Cheese and fries was no easy task. We looked weak and starved, and we looked in the back of the line. Elbowing our way toward the front, really waiting until some mom had to chase her kid and then taking her spot one up in the line became a desperate game, and the food could not get to us soon enough. It was when we had consumed gigantic burgers, Cokes and fries, and AF went back for a second gigantic burger that I realized we were going to have to start eating on that trip.
We strolled Lincoln Mall and shopped at the street vendors' shops and enjoyed the warm, breezy South Florida night. It did not take long for one of us to mention the fact that English did not seem to be the language of choice there and decided to pursue the study of Suskatsusanian, our own private language. We coined terms such as "palm woody," "rundo," "squaro" and our favorite, "whoopsa!" and we spoke it for enough hours that soon we understood each other...and nobody else could. That came to a screeching halt when we ran into the man on the corner with the six-foot long Burmese python that he ceremoniously shoved in our faces. We were talking English pretty quickly after that with such well-known and accepted terms as, "Get that fucking snake out of my face!!"
But after a lesson about the nature of these creatures, we soon had the guy wrapped around our necks and were posing for a couple of fifteen-dollar Polaroid One-Step photos to commemorate our first encounter with what's-his-name.
A few days later, sitting in the relative safety of my own home, I began to ponder the ease with which that animal could have swallowed one of us, especially when he smelled those McDonald's burgers on us. Yikes!
And that was the first day.
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
New York City by Way of Kansas City
I have a friend, who shall remain anonymous, who decided that in celebration of my fiftieth birthday we should travel to New York City. Never having been there, I am, to say the least, excited about getting this trip underway, even with the threat of noxious gases and bombs in the air.
We leave in a few days, and so this begins the chronicle of our journey. This is Story Number One. How can you tell a trip is going to be eventful? When the person responsible for getting you to your destination tries to route you from your airport in Louisville, Kentucky, to Kansas City, Missouri, to meet her.
Let's do the math, okay? First of all, I have to drive east of where I actually live, ninety miles, to my home airport. East, which is toward New York, and my AF (Anonymous Friend) has to fly from the West, one thousand one hundred and forty six miles west of my airport.
Stay with me here.
So, I drive ninety miles toward the city we are flying to. At first, AF wanted me to meet her in St. Louis. Well, okay, I agreed, even though I was going to go almost three hundred miles backward, small price to pay to meet my best AF for a four-day trip to the Big Apple.
But by the next day, something had happened. I guess because St. Louis and Kansas City are in the same state, she felt that it could not be too much further for me to meet her in KC instead. And her heart was in the right place, God bless it. She decided to fly me eight hundred miles in the wrong direction.
I had to put my foot down. I mean, I love her, and she is going all out to make sure that I remember the commencement of my second half-century of life, but I AM fifty. There are days when it is a bit of a struggle to go outside and get the newspaper, much less fly for ten hours to go a thousand miles. I want the memories to be which of us could spit the furthest off the top of the Empire State Building, you know, real grown-up stuff, not which of us cannot get out of bed because we are so tired from flying.
When I think about this flight plan she mapped out, it makes me wonder if she has maybe been living in her world a little too long. Her brother-in-law wanted me to "drop me off" in New Orleans on my way from Louisville to Albuquerque, New Mexico, once. And I just realized what I need to buy AF for HER birthday! A MAP!
Next installment soon...
We leave in a few days, and so this begins the chronicle of our journey. This is Story Number One. How can you tell a trip is going to be eventful? When the person responsible for getting you to your destination tries to route you from your airport in Louisville, Kentucky, to Kansas City, Missouri, to meet her.
Let's do the math, okay? First of all, I have to drive east of where I actually live, ninety miles, to my home airport. East, which is toward New York, and my AF (Anonymous Friend) has to fly from the West, one thousand one hundred and forty six miles west of my airport.
Stay with me here.
So, I drive ninety miles toward the city we are flying to. At first, AF wanted me to meet her in St. Louis. Well, okay, I agreed, even though I was going to go almost three hundred miles backward, small price to pay to meet my best AF for a four-day trip to the Big Apple.
But by the next day, something had happened. I guess because St. Louis and Kansas City are in the same state, she felt that it could not be too much further for me to meet her in KC instead. And her heart was in the right place, God bless it. She decided to fly me eight hundred miles in the wrong direction.
I had to put my foot down. I mean, I love her, and she is going all out to make sure that I remember the commencement of my second half-century of life, but I AM fifty. There are days when it is a bit of a struggle to go outside and get the newspaper, much less fly for ten hours to go a thousand miles. I want the memories to be which of us could spit the furthest off the top of the Empire State Building, you know, real grown-up stuff, not which of us cannot get out of bed because we are so tired from flying.
When I think about this flight plan she mapped out, it makes me wonder if she has maybe been living in her world a little too long. Her brother-in-law wanted me to "drop me off" in New Orleans on my way from Louisville to Albuquerque, New Mexico, once. And I just realized what I need to buy AF for HER birthday! A MAP!
Next installment soon...
Friday, December 01, 2006
My God, I've Turned Into My Grandmother
Growing up in a small town in Illinois, with all my cousins and aunts and uncles firmly rooted to the same spot, too, was, as I look back on it now, a wonderful era. However, being in the midst of it, especially during that awesome, wonderful, incredible (someone else's words, not mine) period of new-womanhood, I would be restless and bored and unhappy, thinking the grass most certainly WAS greener on the other side, and if someone told me once more that it was not, I was going to come unglued!
We were all spread out in the area, as I reflect back, sort of in a circle surrounding my grandmother's apartment building, and again, as I reflect on it, that was probably part of the Grand Plan.
Grandma was incredible. If someone needed a baby-sitter, she was there. If someone needed a few extra bucks, she was there. I didn't appreciate her then.
Being in the middle of her children really is a snapshot of what she meant to them, but she had one habit that pretty much drove everyone over the edge: Ambulance run phone calls.
From where she sat, perched high above the city, she had a bird's eye view of the comings and goings of every ambulance. My family lived east of the city, so the second she knew an ambulance had left the hospital and was headed toward our house, she would call to make sure it was not coming to rescue one of US. If we were okay, she would then call the relatives that lived a little farther east to establish nobody was dying there, and on and on, until she had touched base with every eastward relative. The next ambulance run was similar. But one thing was for sure, she had raised her children under very harsh, sometimes penniless conditions, and it was only fitting that she spent a lot of her life perched up there in the crow's nest of her ship with her binoculars, keeping watch over us all. Those were good days.
I think that, after she passed away, we all expected to find some elaborate tracking system hidden in her closet with dials and compasses and those voice-enhancing satellite-looking systems that you point toward someone and can hear what they are saying from several feet away. There were no tracking devices, however, of course, and I had to just accept the fact that she loved us so much that she had developed her own radar for keeping track of us.
Everyone needs a grandmother with that radar, so I seem to, unknowingly, have taken that on with my crew here. I hear the ambulance, I immediately want to call to make sure it is not going to pick up a child or grandchild or stepchild or boyfriend. The difference is, I stifle the urge.
We were all spread out in the area, as I reflect back, sort of in a circle surrounding my grandmother's apartment building, and again, as I reflect on it, that was probably part of the Grand Plan.
Grandma was incredible. If someone needed a baby-sitter, she was there. If someone needed a few extra bucks, she was there. I didn't appreciate her then.
Being in the middle of her children really is a snapshot of what she meant to them, but she had one habit that pretty much drove everyone over the edge: Ambulance run phone calls.
From where she sat, perched high above the city, she had a bird's eye view of the comings and goings of every ambulance. My family lived east of the city, so the second she knew an ambulance had left the hospital and was headed toward our house, she would call to make sure it was not coming to rescue one of US. If we were okay, she would then call the relatives that lived a little farther east to establish nobody was dying there, and on and on, until she had touched base with every eastward relative. The next ambulance run was similar. But one thing was for sure, she had raised her children under very harsh, sometimes penniless conditions, and it was only fitting that she spent a lot of her life perched up there in the crow's nest of her ship with her binoculars, keeping watch over us all. Those were good days.
I think that, after she passed away, we all expected to find some elaborate tracking system hidden in her closet with dials and compasses and those voice-enhancing satellite-looking systems that you point toward someone and can hear what they are saying from several feet away. There were no tracking devices, however, of course, and I had to just accept the fact that she loved us so much that she had developed her own radar for keeping track of us.
Everyone needs a grandmother with that radar, so I seem to, unknowingly, have taken that on with my crew here. I hear the ambulance, I immediately want to call to make sure it is not going to pick up a child or grandchild or stepchild or boyfriend. The difference is, I stifle the urge.
Land of the Shrunken Heads
During our getting-to-know-you period, you remember that, right? The time when you had so much to talk about that there was never any silence between you? The time that, after ten years or so, became marked by saying, "Shhhhhh, I want to hear what penalty the ref is calling!" Anyway, during that period in the first ten years of our relationship, Don and I learned that we had both always been fascinated by the idea of going to Mt. Rushmore. Every year when we received our new geography books, we learned that we would both thumb through and find the Mt. Rushmore picture.
So, now having a partner in crime to visit South Dakota with, off we went.
We saw some amazing sites during our trip to South Dakota: Huge rock formations that would take anyone's breath away, and we saved Mt. Rushmore for last, knowing it was going to be the highlight of our trip.
After running to the hotel to drop our bags and get checked in, I drove to the parking lot, which in and of itself was massive and very enticing, and we started the trek to the mountain carving that had intrigued us since our youth. The walk to the seating area was impressive. They had a huge walkway with a flag of each state hanging above it, and that was breathtaking. Don said, "Oh, my God, this is going to be soooo awesome!!"
Suddenly in front of us, there it was. The object of our affections. And it was very, very neat. Just listening to the history of it, learning about the carving process, was amazing. We sat there with a couple of hundred other people and listened and waited, and at dark, the lights were turned on to illuminate the presidents and show them in all their majestic glory!!
We were pretty quiet heading back to the hotel. The conversation was a little lulled by what we had just seen. About the only thing we said was, "Was that not just cool?" And "Yeah, that was cool."
Months passed. We were back in our respective routines of working, eating and sleeping, and then one day, as we were watching a show on TV describing the wonders of the world and they came to Mt. Rushmore, I could not keep it in anymore. I said, rather quickly, "I wasn't as impressed with Mt. Rushmore as I thought I would be...I was lying."
Don let out his breath and said, "Oh, GOOD! I thought I was missing something! The whole thing was cool, but the heads...they were...I don't know...like shrunken or something, just not as big as I was expecting."
So forever more, Mt. Rushmore will, at least in our household, be known as The Shrunken Heads.
And there is a moral here: The things you think are so huge when you are young, really ARE just anthills. Take it from me.
So, now having a partner in crime to visit South Dakota with, off we went.
We saw some amazing sites during our trip to South Dakota: Huge rock formations that would take anyone's breath away, and we saved Mt. Rushmore for last, knowing it was going to be the highlight of our trip.
After running to the hotel to drop our bags and get checked in, I drove to the parking lot, which in and of itself was massive and very enticing, and we started the trek to the mountain carving that had intrigued us since our youth. The walk to the seating area was impressive. They had a huge walkway with a flag of each state hanging above it, and that was breathtaking. Don said, "Oh, my God, this is going to be soooo awesome!!"
Suddenly in front of us, there it was. The object of our affections. And it was very, very neat. Just listening to the history of it, learning about the carving process, was amazing. We sat there with a couple of hundred other people and listened and waited, and at dark, the lights were turned on to illuminate the presidents and show them in all their majestic glory!!
We were pretty quiet heading back to the hotel. The conversation was a little lulled by what we had just seen. About the only thing we said was, "Was that not just cool?" And "Yeah, that was cool."
Months passed. We were back in our respective routines of working, eating and sleeping, and then one day, as we were watching a show on TV describing the wonders of the world and they came to Mt. Rushmore, I could not keep it in anymore. I said, rather quickly, "I wasn't as impressed with Mt. Rushmore as I thought I would be...I was lying."
Don let out his breath and said, "Oh, GOOD! I thought I was missing something! The whole thing was cool, but the heads...they were...I don't know...like shrunken or something, just not as big as I was expecting."
So forever more, Mt. Rushmore will, at least in our household, be known as The Shrunken Heads.
And there is a moral here: The things you think are so huge when you are young, really ARE just anthills. Take it from me.
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
The Scottish Terrier Next Door
Yesterday morning I got up early and shuffled to the kitchen counter, poured my ritualistic cup of hot coffee and then raised the blinds and surveyed the small area visible to me, of my neighbor's side and back yards, also ritualistic as I've been standing in that same place every morning, pretty much, for the last twenty-two years. They have a hot tub I can see, a garden and a garage I can see from that vantage point, and a beautiful golden retriever named Rikki, who is, by that time of the day, wandering around the side yard surveying HER surroundings, too.
I never realized the neighbors owned a Scottish terrier, but there it was, standing quietly near the garden at the back of the house, apparently happy, staring off into space at something my human limitations would not allow me to see. I blinked and rubbed my eyes and looked again, and it was still there, standing perfectly still, it's little pointy ears straight up, it's little bobbed tail not wagging.
Rikki just ignored the intruder, as a matter of fact walked right to it and through it, like it was not even there.
Recently I have been watching a lot more TV, since it's cold and I am cooped up inside a lot, and one thing I always seem to tune to are the ghost shows. The haunting investigations. So when Rikki passed through the terrier in her back yard, I became excited and ran for the camera!
Quietly I propped the side door open with my right foot and balanced precariously on the step with my left foot, squatted to get the perfect angle, decided to change the setting on the camera to the "close-up" mode, to insure the picture was as awesome on paper as it was in my head.
Rikki passed back through the apparition doggy and disappeared into the garage, leaving me a perfect shot.
You can see the Ghost Dog in the photo. It really IS there! It really IS there! I probably am the first person in my neighborhood to see it, much less photograph it!
Boy, it sure stood still.
I continued to watch, sipping my coffee, and soon noticed that the little dog was changing shape as the sun began to travel across the sky.
Sighing, I rinsed my coffee cup and headed for the shower, very pleased with myself. I had taken a picture of a shadow in my neighbor's back yard. If I am lucky, the media will never find out about this. We all know how they would pounce on this on a slow news day.
Tomorrow I am going to start photographing UFOs.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Arm Flab and Skin Tags
My paternal grandmother, may she rest in peace and God bless her soul, was a fun-loving and energetic woman well into her nineties, even when that ultimate trick of dementia was played on her. She never lost her sense of humor. And when she was a fun-loving, energetic woman, I was a young stupid one.
After spending an entire Christmas Day viewing Grandma's arm flab unashamedly exposed by a sleeveless house dress, I remember saying to my boyfriend: "If I ever get flabby arm fat like that, shoot me."
At the age of fifty, being her one and only beloved granddaughter, I've realized I am destined to share traits with my grandmother. One, of course, is the sudden appearance of the beginnings of that arm fat. Not only that, but God has played an added bonus joke on me and has blessed me with a couple of skin tags under my boobs.
I can almost see Grandma and God in Heaven sharing a Budweiser and a high five as we speak.
After spending an entire Christmas Day viewing Grandma's arm flab unashamedly exposed by a sleeveless house dress, I remember saying to my boyfriend: "If I ever get flabby arm fat like that, shoot me."
At the age of fifty, being her one and only beloved granddaughter, I've realized I am destined to share traits with my grandmother. One, of course, is the sudden appearance of the beginnings of that arm fat. Not only that, but God has played an added bonus joke on me and has blessed me with a couple of skin tags under my boobs.
I can almost see Grandma and God in Heaven sharing a Budweiser and a high five as we speak.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Communities
This is a bit of a change from my usual blogging, but I just had to say this...
There are so many people on the Internet, at some of these community sites, who have so frickin' much time on their hands! I just joined a community called StumbleUpon. You rate websites, basically, and whenever you like one, you give it the thumbs up and it connects you with a group of people who liked the same one.
Today I was humming through websites and ran across one about making chihuahua shaped snowflakes. The guy was on there apologizing, "Oh, I'm sorry that it's not BLUE like all the normal snowflakes, but I lost this program and that color scheme and had to download all sorts of potentially virus-laden crap to get it to look just the way I wanted it..."
I thought, dude, the only thing sadder than hanging around a website making Internet snowflakes and getting that involved in it is...well, sitting here reading about your damned Internet snowflakes and enjoying it.
Well, I'll go stumble around a little bit more and see what else catches my eye. I don't think I'll be adding myself to this guy's little community of Snowflake Makers, though. I really DO have work to do.
There are so many people on the Internet, at some of these community sites, who have so frickin' much time on their hands! I just joined a community called StumbleUpon. You rate websites, basically, and whenever you like one, you give it the thumbs up and it connects you with a group of people who liked the same one.
Today I was humming through websites and ran across one about making chihuahua shaped snowflakes. The guy was on there apologizing, "Oh, I'm sorry that it's not BLUE like all the normal snowflakes, but I lost this program and that color scheme and had to download all sorts of potentially virus-laden crap to get it to look just the way I wanted it..."
I thought, dude, the only thing sadder than hanging around a website making Internet snowflakes and getting that involved in it is...well, sitting here reading about your damned Internet snowflakes and enjoying it.
Well, I'll go stumble around a little bit more and see what else catches my eye. I don't think I'll be adding myself to this guy's little community of Snowflake Makers, though. I really DO have work to do.
Friday, November 10, 2006
Academy Award
This year's nominees for best dying act are: The kid on "House" that saw aliens and the wasp in my kitchen window. And the winner is...THE WASP IN MY KITCHEN WINDOW!!! Applause!! Cheers!
"Oh, man, what a surprise! How thrilled The Wasp will be! Unfortunately, he couldn't be here tonight so accepting the award in his honor is the Academy Award winning actress...ME!"
I have never seen such a poignant death-grip scene in my entire life as the one I experienced this morning. My Dachshund, Annie, was doing her prairie dog act in the kitchen, sitting on her very generous-sized butt, staring first at the window then slowly, so as not to get off balance and fall over on her generous side and not be able to get up, turning her head to look at me to make sure I understood her gesturing, then turning back slowly to the window.
On one of Annie's head-turns in my direction, The Wasp she was pointing swooped out of the window and toward my head. Annie yelped and quickly abandoned the pointing position and just concentrated on getting her little short Dachshund legs and fat little Dachshund ass into the living room, leaving me behind to spray wildly in the direction of the flying Wasp with wasp and hornet foaming spray.
I knew I had won when The Wasp took to the blinds and started stumbling down the plastic rungs one by laborious one, but I covered him with the foam, just to be on the safe side, expecting instantaneous death, which did not come.
Spray.
Stumble.
Spray.
Stumble.
The Wasp began stumbling around on about the seventh rung up. At one point he was hanging on with his front legs, his back legs and thorax dangling, madly rubbing his little waspy eyes with his antennae. Thunk. He landed on the next rung down, on his back, his legs pumping in the air, and he rolled toward the side and thunk. Onto the next rung. He got up, shakily walked toward the edge and thunk. Down to the next rung, this time landing on the edge and rolling immediately off onto the next one.
I, the Wasp Condemner and Murderer, stared with horror as The Wasp gasped for air, his thorax thumping during what I was certain were his last few seconds of life, but no! He buzzed a little, fell to the cabinet, righted himself and started walking toward me. Armed with the hornet and wasp spray, all I could do was watch in total awe as this damned thing clung to life.
He tumbled into the sink where I knew the end was near, then got up and climbed onto the dishcloth, slowly dragging himself back to the cabinet. He fell off again into the sink, and this time I was prepared. I knocked him into the garbage disposal with an apple core, certain that I had finally won the war.
WHIRRRRRRRRRRR...grrrrrnnnndddddddd!
As I turned to the cabinet to find a cloth to start wiping all the leftover death foam from the window, the blinds and the cabinets, I noticed a slight movement in the sink drain and stood, appalled, staring as the battered little insect struggled to the rim of the disposal, at last lying down to die.
I shook my head and washed him down the drain, totally aware that the stinger that was going to be aimed at me while I slept some dark and stormy night was about an inch long and protruding like a medieval jousting sword as he finally went down the drain for the last time.
Looking at the directions on the killer foam can, I read, "Instantaneous death..." I tossed the can in the trash and dug out an old shoe to keep handy for the next attack.
"Oh, man, what a surprise! How thrilled The Wasp will be! Unfortunately, he couldn't be here tonight so accepting the award in his honor is the Academy Award winning actress...ME!"
I have never seen such a poignant death-grip scene in my entire life as the one I experienced this morning. My Dachshund, Annie, was doing her prairie dog act in the kitchen, sitting on her very generous-sized butt, staring first at the window then slowly, so as not to get off balance and fall over on her generous side and not be able to get up, turning her head to look at me to make sure I understood her gesturing, then turning back slowly to the window.
On one of Annie's head-turns in my direction, The Wasp she was pointing swooped out of the window and toward my head. Annie yelped and quickly abandoned the pointing position and just concentrated on getting her little short Dachshund legs and fat little Dachshund ass into the living room, leaving me behind to spray wildly in the direction of the flying Wasp with wasp and hornet foaming spray.
I knew I had won when The Wasp took to the blinds and started stumbling down the plastic rungs one by laborious one, but I covered him with the foam, just to be on the safe side, expecting instantaneous death, which did not come.
Spray.
Stumble.
Spray.
Stumble.
The Wasp began stumbling around on about the seventh rung up. At one point he was hanging on with his front legs, his back legs and thorax dangling, madly rubbing his little waspy eyes with his antennae. Thunk. He landed on the next rung down, on his back, his legs pumping in the air, and he rolled toward the side and thunk. Onto the next rung. He got up, shakily walked toward the edge and thunk. Down to the next rung, this time landing on the edge and rolling immediately off onto the next one.
I, the Wasp Condemner and Murderer, stared with horror as The Wasp gasped for air, his thorax thumping during what I was certain were his last few seconds of life, but no! He buzzed a little, fell to the cabinet, righted himself and started walking toward me. Armed with the hornet and wasp spray, all I could do was watch in total awe as this damned thing clung to life.
He tumbled into the sink where I knew the end was near, then got up and climbed onto the dishcloth, slowly dragging himself back to the cabinet. He fell off again into the sink, and this time I was prepared. I knocked him into the garbage disposal with an apple core, certain that I had finally won the war.
WHIRRRRRRRRRRR...grrrrrnnnndddddddd!
As I turned to the cabinet to find a cloth to start wiping all the leftover death foam from the window, the blinds and the cabinets, I noticed a slight movement in the sink drain and stood, appalled, staring as the battered little insect struggled to the rim of the disposal, at last lying down to die.
I shook my head and washed him down the drain, totally aware that the stinger that was going to be aimed at me while I slept some dark and stormy night was about an inch long and protruding like a medieval jousting sword as he finally went down the drain for the last time.
Looking at the directions on the killer foam can, I read, "Instantaneous death..." I tossed the can in the trash and dug out an old shoe to keep handy for the next attack.
The Robin on the Wire
See that speck there? It's right in the middle of that picture of wires and clouds. That is a robin. This morning I stood up from my desk and stretched and looked out the window into my back yard and was surprised to see probably one of every bird species that exists in my yard. It was probably my imagination that they were all in orderly rows on the lawn, staring intently at the house, waiting for food to appear. That really is not too far off the mark, though.
The winter birds are back. They do not forget which houses are notoriously generous with the food supply all winter long. They might have very tiny heads, but they must have big brains crammed into that little space.
It took years to give up the old film cameras and move on up there with everyone else and purchase a digital camera. I now have what I refer to as my "practice camera," and while the neighbors all suspected I was a little strange all along, now that they see me taking a hundred pictures of the same tree at different times of the day, in different kinds of light, with the sun shining, during a thunderstorm or even just against that dark blue sky, stopping and changing the setting from "landscape" to "sunset" to "dusk/dawn" to "fireworks" to the "night landscape" exposure, they are scratching their heads and moving the children inside. There is absolutely no doubt that this house will be considered the Strange Old Woman's House at some point soon, the house that the children take dares to walk in front of.
By the time I had gotten the camera and turned it on and selected the setting I wanted to try to photograph those birds, they were all gone. They got tired of waiting, most likely, or maybe they decided to just play a trick on me, but it has been two hours now, and despite the fact that I have put out piles of bird seed in strategic places all over the yard, they have not so much as landed to take a crap in the yard. That, in and of itself, is bizarre, since usually they hit my blue chair from 500 feet, several times a day, just in the process of flying over the house.
Anyway, I might go steal all the food away soon to show them who is boss, but in the meantime, that photo in the upper right hand corner is the closest anyone is going to get of a bird today, so enjoy that!
Thursday, November 09, 2006
How Things are Changing
Last weekend I had two of my grandchildren visiting. David is a year-and-a-half old and Kaylee will be five in just a few short days. In the living room, pushed back in a corner to try to maintain some semblance of this being a grown-up home and not a daycare center, is a plastic box full of toys. Several of them are things my own children played with growing up, and nine times out of ten, those twenty-five-year-old toys are the first ones dragged out of the box and into the living room. What a joy to realize that some things will always stay the same.
But don't get too comfortable with that idyllic scene, because in my office sits the five-year-old computer whiz. I used to think that she was playing secretary back there. She would have her cell phone wedged between ear and shoulder, her fingers flying on the keys of the keyboard while she carried on a very detailed fantasy conversation with the person connected somewhere by satellite, explaining why she could not accommodate their requests, usually. Kaylee is Little Miss Control Freak. We all know it. We just are a little wary of what she might be like at the age of, well, six or seven, much less the attitude she will exhibit when she hits puberty. The thoughts of Kaylee having PMS are frightening, to say the least!
Anyway, I used to think she was playing secretary, now I realize she was the President of the United States during all those hours of multitasking.
To my right, I was watching my little grandson play spaceman with a 25-year-old plastic rocket that belonged to his uncle, and on my left was my granddaughter saying, "Hold on a sec, will you? I'll look that number up for you."
Wanting to play, too, I went to my desk drawer and pulled out the big old phone book and told her I would look up the number for her. She spent a few seconds looking at me, then the phone book, then back at me, sighed a sigh of tolerance and began to frantically key something into the computer. Then, watching me like she was concerned I might explode any moment she said into the phone, "Uh, oKAY, I have that number for you, sir. It's 555-5555." Then she clicked Delete, terminated her call and ignored me.
I am perfectly aware that things are changing but when did THIS happen?
But don't get too comfortable with that idyllic scene, because in my office sits the five-year-old computer whiz. I used to think that she was playing secretary back there. She would have her cell phone wedged between ear and shoulder, her fingers flying on the keys of the keyboard while she carried on a very detailed fantasy conversation with the person connected somewhere by satellite, explaining why she could not accommodate their requests, usually. Kaylee is Little Miss Control Freak. We all know it. We just are a little wary of what she might be like at the age of, well, six or seven, much less the attitude she will exhibit when she hits puberty. The thoughts of Kaylee having PMS are frightening, to say the least!
Anyway, I used to think she was playing secretary, now I realize she was the President of the United States during all those hours of multitasking.
To my right, I was watching my little grandson play spaceman with a 25-year-old plastic rocket that belonged to his uncle, and on my left was my granddaughter saying, "Hold on a sec, will you? I'll look that number up for you."
Wanting to play, too, I went to my desk drawer and pulled out the big old phone book and told her I would look up the number for her. She spent a few seconds looking at me, then the phone book, then back at me, sighed a sigh of tolerance and began to frantically key something into the computer. Then, watching me like she was concerned I might explode any moment she said into the phone, "Uh, oKAY, I have that number for you, sir. It's 555-5555." Then she clicked Delete, terminated her call and ignored me.
I am perfectly aware that things are changing but when did THIS happen?
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Profile of a Chinese Throwing Star Smuggler
Would you like to know what a Chinese Throwing Star is? Evidently it is one of those star-shaped sharp Kung-Fu contraptions that superior martial artists can zing through the air at lightning speeds, piercing an enemy's heart from a hundred yards. You have probably seen those used in movies. The scene is usually about the same: A dark alley in a very unsavory section of some large city, graffiti on the walls in the background, a single streetlight shining a yellow glow in the rainy darkness. There are always gang members forming an unbreakable line of defense against a rival gang, and just when it looks as if World War III is going to commence in that alley, someone dressed in black leaps from the roof of a building and throws those Chinese Throwing Stars into one and then another of the bad guys' chests. When the scene ends, we see abusiness office in China where men dressed in high-priced business suits are given the news that the deed is done.
Would you like to know what a Chinese Throwing Star smuggler looks like? According to the TSA, she might look quite a bit like the woman pictured above.
My cousin and I were leaving Phoenix to make the short 45-minute flight to Burbank, California, a couple of weeks ago. We had two goals in mind after a wait in a two-hundred person line to check our luggage: Drink a beer.
Being the avid reader and rather compulsive person I am, I had packed my little one-quart zip-lock bag of carry-on toothpaste, make-up and perfume in less than four-ounce bottles for inspection by the security folks, had remembered to remove the bag from my backpack and place it in a bin by itself for x-raying and was very proud that they complimented me on getting that right, so imagine my surprise when, after heaping the praise on, they asked to see me in the secure secure area.
"Something in your backpack is upsetting the screeners," the rather large man with the weapons attached to him said.
"Well, you can go through it," I said in my most confident big girl voice.
"Stand against that wall and don't touch your bag," he said, smiling a terse smile. I could almost hear him thinking, "We've got you now."
Tracy had zipped right through security and was partway to the gate before she realized I was no longer with her. She wandered back into the security area to find me standing with my hands in my pockets, trying not to grab the backpack and empty it out and go through it myself.
"What happened, Cousin?" She smirked at me.
The TSA official said, "Do you wear jewelry? Maybe a broach?"
I said, "The ring on my finger is the only jewelry I ever wear. No, there's no broach in there.
"Well," he repeated, "Something in your backpack caught the attention of the screeners. Are you sure there's not a broach in there?"
Finally, after it was already too late to get that beer that I REALLY needed now, I remembered what was in that bag that was making the "screeners nervous." The proverbial light bulb probably popped on over my head. I giggled, the officer still did not find anything funny about the fact that he had a five-foot tall, one-hundred-twenty-nine pound grandmother of three under suspicion for trying to smuggle a weapon onto the plane.
"I know what it is. It's in that birthday card, sealed up. It's a pewter flower-shaped rear view mirror ornament. It's a gift for my friend's fiftieth birthday. Go ahead, you can open the card if you need to." I was not sure if I preferred he open the card or if I prefer he not, since the card not only contained the pewter ornament but also a picture of a nude man.
He said, "Okay, no, I don't need to open your card. I'll just take it and x-ray it."
As I was preparing the bag to go again, being released from the grips of the TSA at last, I quipped, "I'm sure glad I didn't ask if I could bring my cross-stitch onboard with my little sewing scissors." I laughed a condescending little laugh and the security officer said, "Well, that would have been okay. You can bring scissors onboard."
My cousin smirked and said, "Well, isn't that special? You couldn't take your Chinese Throwing Star on there but you could take a pair of scissors. What a joke."
Out of the side of my mouth I was whispering things like, "Shut UP, please."
Mr. Security now seemed to see the humor in this, though, as he explained to me that yes, a pair of scissors no more than four inches long from the pivot point, would have been allowed.
Does anyone else see the stupidity in this?
The mystery was solved, but the rest of the time spent at Sky Harbor Airport was a fantasy for me. I had always wanted to be the bad guy. I had always wanted to smuggle Chinese Throwing Stars into Burbank, California. I was bad. Everyone knew I was bad. Screw the airline, they could wait for us to board the plane because we were really bad characters and in the movies, they always wait for the criminals.
I corralled Tracy into the nearest bar, slapped down my money and ordered us drinks. Then I took a long swallow of my Corona to wash down my Xanax. It was proving to be a long memorable ride to The City of Angels.
Monday, November 06, 2006
Monday, October 02, 2006
Relaxing Hobby
My daughter is a huge dolphin fan...the animals, not the football team. It really is important to make that distinction because if you happen to mention the football team, she gets agitated and starts to mutter things about the Tennessee Titans.
She has loved dolphins for as long as I can remember. School shopping was simple: Every notebook, binder, pencil bag, shirt, towel and watch had to have a picture of a dolphin. If she had to settle for just a plain-jane ring binder because we waited too long to go shopping and all the good pre-decorated ones were sold out, she would draw her own dolphins on the cover. Christmas shopping for her was simple, too, until she had a houseful of kids and pets and ran out of room for cute dolphin sculptures and make believe aquariums. Now I am back to square one on that one.
This past weekend, though, the two of us made the journey to what I lovingly refer to as Hell, what most people probably call Wal-Mart, to do our weekly shopping. For some reason it is simpler with two than alone. With two hormonal women on the loose in the store, one of them most likely is not going to take that stopping in the aisle and visiting with your sister-in-law you see at least three times a week at work, Sunday dinner and next door behavior for long and will get a hot flash and ram into the crowd with their cart, effectively opening a passing space for the other one.
While we jockeyed for space in the crafts aisle, I heard my daughter's breathing quicken and she grabbed for a cross-stitch sampler kit with, you guessed it, beautiful dolphins playing in moonlit waves, handed it to me and said, "You are so good at doing these! Could you please make this for me?"
After all these years, she can still look at me with those big eyes and long lashes and pouty mouth and get whatever she wants.
"Well, gee, sweetheart. I've not really done any cross-stitch for years."
"Please?"
"I work 45 hours a week and that really doesn't leave a lot of time for hobbies like this."
"Pretty please?"
"Sigh...okay, yes, give it to me."
I have to admit, it was rather exciting to me, the thought of having my old hobby back. I started recalling cold evenings in front of the fire, cross-stitching the night away; remembering the satisfaction of completing a project, framing it and hanging it in my guest room.
When I got home with the little kit, the little "fast, easy cross-stitch project," I ripped it open, excited to relearn. They had enclosed a "handy thread color sorter" and a tangle of threads, all blues. I thought, "Okay, minor setback, no problem. I'll just take my time and sort the thread."
About an hour later, I was cussing. All the blues were looking alike. I was supposed to have five strands of light blue purple and three strands of pale blue purple and eventually decided NOBODY CAN TELL THE DIFFERENCE!
Finally, the stitching could begin. I opened the other little envelope to remove the fabric to find that it was black. Before even attempting the first stitch, I went to my closet and dug out the handy little magnifier that hangs around your neck I purchased when my eyes first started failing me, for projects like this one, hung it around my neck and sat down to count the squares to the middle. By now two hours had passed and I had yet to make the first stitch. One, two, three, four, doorbell. One, two, three, four, five, the phone. One, two, three, the dog jumped up and knocked all the sorted threads into the floor.
I turned on the football game and had a beer and contemplated the fact that my eyes were really, really getting bad.
When finally a stitch had been made with the very dark blue, and yes, there was also a dark blue and blue and light blue and pale blue), I discovered that I could not even see the stitches in the natural sunlight, with a sunlamp bulb directly on the fabric and with a magnifying glass so sexily poised around my neck and resting its little legs against my belly or my boobs.
Calculating my losses, I tossed the entire project in the trash. I will take up another hobby that is not quite as stressful as this one, get a little relaxation going in my life for my after work hours, like manufacturing a hydrogen-driven automobile for GM. She wants dolphins? I am pretty sure I can find that little picture premade somewhere on the Internet, order it, have it delivered gift-wrapped to my front porch, give it to her for Christmas and take credit for it. Trust me here. The hydrogen-fueled car will be a piece of cake compared to that cross-stitch project!
She has loved dolphins for as long as I can remember. School shopping was simple: Every notebook, binder, pencil bag, shirt, towel and watch had to have a picture of a dolphin. If she had to settle for just a plain-jane ring binder because we waited too long to go shopping and all the good pre-decorated ones were sold out, she would draw her own dolphins on the cover. Christmas shopping for her was simple, too, until she had a houseful of kids and pets and ran out of room for cute dolphin sculptures and make believe aquariums. Now I am back to square one on that one.
This past weekend, though, the two of us made the journey to what I lovingly refer to as Hell, what most people probably call Wal-Mart, to do our weekly shopping. For some reason it is simpler with two than alone. With two hormonal women on the loose in the store, one of them most likely is not going to take that stopping in the aisle and visiting with your sister-in-law you see at least three times a week at work, Sunday dinner and next door behavior for long and will get a hot flash and ram into the crowd with their cart, effectively opening a passing space for the other one.
While we jockeyed for space in the crafts aisle, I heard my daughter's breathing quicken and she grabbed for a cross-stitch sampler kit with, you guessed it, beautiful dolphins playing in moonlit waves, handed it to me and said, "You are so good at doing these! Could you please make this for me?"
After all these years, she can still look at me with those big eyes and long lashes and pouty mouth and get whatever she wants.
"Well, gee, sweetheart. I've not really done any cross-stitch for years."
"Please?"
"I work 45 hours a week and that really doesn't leave a lot of time for hobbies like this."
"Pretty please?"
"Sigh...okay, yes, give it to me."
I have to admit, it was rather exciting to me, the thought of having my old hobby back. I started recalling cold evenings in front of the fire, cross-stitching the night away; remembering the satisfaction of completing a project, framing it and hanging it in my guest room.
When I got home with the little kit, the little "fast, easy cross-stitch project," I ripped it open, excited to relearn. They had enclosed a "handy thread color sorter" and a tangle of threads, all blues. I thought, "Okay, minor setback, no problem. I'll just take my time and sort the thread."
About an hour later, I was cussing. All the blues were looking alike. I was supposed to have five strands of light blue purple and three strands of pale blue purple and eventually decided NOBODY CAN TELL THE DIFFERENCE!
Finally, the stitching could begin. I opened the other little envelope to remove the fabric to find that it was black. Before even attempting the first stitch, I went to my closet and dug out the handy little magnifier that hangs around your neck I purchased when my eyes first started failing me, for projects like this one, hung it around my neck and sat down to count the squares to the middle. By now two hours had passed and I had yet to make the first stitch. One, two, three, four, doorbell. One, two, three, four, five, the phone. One, two, three, the dog jumped up and knocked all the sorted threads into the floor.
I turned on the football game and had a beer and contemplated the fact that my eyes were really, really getting bad.
When finally a stitch had been made with the very dark blue, and yes, there was also a dark blue and blue and light blue and pale blue), I discovered that I could not even see the stitches in the natural sunlight, with a sunlamp bulb directly on the fabric and with a magnifying glass so sexily poised around my neck and resting its little legs against my belly or my boobs.
Calculating my losses, I tossed the entire project in the trash. I will take up another hobby that is not quite as stressful as this one, get a little relaxation going in my life for my after work hours, like manufacturing a hydrogen-driven automobile for GM. She wants dolphins? I am pretty sure I can find that little picture premade somewhere on the Internet, order it, have it delivered gift-wrapped to my front porch, give it to her for Christmas and take credit for it. Trust me here. The hydrogen-fueled car will be a piece of cake compared to that cross-stitch project!
Thursday, September 28, 2006
The Microwave or the Smoke Detector?
I never really believed that as people aged they became more forgetful. It seemed pretty apparent to me that what happens there is that people get older, get sick and tired of playing stupid petty games and just simply choose more often to toss the information out instead of cluttering up their brains with it. Seems I have been wrong about that, in a way.
Last week was a pretty long week. The work just kept piling up, I had to put in a fifty-hour week and my daughter kept needing "days off so I can have a whole day to myself without having to go to work or worry about the baby," which translates into, "I know you're tired because you work fifty hours a week and keep your house and cook for yourself and sometimes for us, but my life is so much more difficult than yours, could you please take the baby for a few hours?"
After one of those phone calls, I shuffled out of my office, still in my blue bunny slippers and the red, white and black polka dot PJs a friend had given me for Christmas the year before (comfort clothes; and do not look at me like that...you all know you would love to have a job where you could wear your jammies all day if you wanted - jealousy does not become you), I shuffled out of my office and into my kitchen, poured a half-day old cup of cold coffee and stuck it in the microwave. I set it for one minute and shuffled back to my office, yawning, and settled in to type a couple of more reports.
After the first report was finished, I kept hearing a beeping noise in the house. It was annoying because it seemed perfectly timed to beep just about every half-minute or so. Now please keep in mind that a whole three minutes had passed since I put the coffee in the microwave, not to mention a ton of medical information had gone in my ears, through my brain and out my fingers in that three minutes.
BEEP!
I stopped typing, turned my good ear toward the door and listened...BEEP!
A report later, I could still hear the beeping off in the distance and then, laughing at myself, I finally realized what it was: The battery probably needed changed in the hallway smoke detector.
"I'll do that as soon as I do this next report. Ha-ha, what a relief to have figured THAT one out!" BEEP!
Finally, the workday ended. BEEP!
I stood up, stretched and started digging through the office drawer where all the batteries are kept. BEEP!
There was not one nine-volt battery in the drawer and it dawned on me that I was going to have to wander out in the rain and go buy a battery for the incessantly beeping smoke detector. It is just bad karma to take the battery out to stop the beeping and vow to replace it the next day. If there is one thing my mother taught me well it is that fire is just lurking around in the walls of the house waiting for the moment when the smoke detectors are malfunctioning, and I did not want to take that chance.
BEEP!
One of my rituals daily is to grab my cup of coffee, even if it is cold, and walk out the back door and onto the patio with my dog, to survey the back yard, especially at the end of the day. If it is raining, we scurry into the Beach House and listen to the rain thumping on the tin roof. It is relaxing for us both.
BEEP!
"That's funny," I thought. "My cup of coffee is missing! My cup of coffee is NEVER missing!"
BEEP!
I stood, then, underneath the smoke detector in the hallway, watching it, daring it to beep, when I heard it: BEEP! The insane beeping was not coming from the smoke detector at all. It was coming from the kitchen. It was coming from the microwave oven. It was, of course, the alarm on the microwave, which I had set three hours earlier, reminding me my coffee was hot and ready to be consumed.
Sighing, and looking around hoping there were no hidden cameras in my house with tapes of these escapades that could launch me to stardom on some home video show, I punched the thirty-second button on the microwave and went back into my office to put away my reference books. One caught my eye, and I sat back down in my chair and began to read an interesting article about DNA and in the distance heard BEEP!
My feet propped up on my desk, reading glasses employed, I kept reading and heard BEEP!
About a half-hour later I thought, "Wow, the battery must be dead in the smoke detector. I better change that."
And so it goes.
Last week was a pretty long week. The work just kept piling up, I had to put in a fifty-hour week and my daughter kept needing "days off so I can have a whole day to myself without having to go to work or worry about the baby," which translates into, "I know you're tired because you work fifty hours a week and keep your house and cook for yourself and sometimes for us, but my life is so much more difficult than yours, could you please take the baby for a few hours?"
After one of those phone calls, I shuffled out of my office, still in my blue bunny slippers and the red, white and black polka dot PJs a friend had given me for Christmas the year before (comfort clothes; and do not look at me like that...you all know you would love to have a job where you could wear your jammies all day if you wanted - jealousy does not become you), I shuffled out of my office and into my kitchen, poured a half-day old cup of cold coffee and stuck it in the microwave. I set it for one minute and shuffled back to my office, yawning, and settled in to type a couple of more reports.
After the first report was finished, I kept hearing a beeping noise in the house. It was annoying because it seemed perfectly timed to beep just about every half-minute or so. Now please keep in mind that a whole three minutes had passed since I put the coffee in the microwave, not to mention a ton of medical information had gone in my ears, through my brain and out my fingers in that three minutes.
BEEP!
I stopped typing, turned my good ear toward the door and listened...BEEP!
A report later, I could still hear the beeping off in the distance and then, laughing at myself, I finally realized what it was: The battery probably needed changed in the hallway smoke detector.
"I'll do that as soon as I do this next report. Ha-ha, what a relief to have figured THAT one out!" BEEP!
Finally, the workday ended. BEEP!
I stood up, stretched and started digging through the office drawer where all the batteries are kept. BEEP!
There was not one nine-volt battery in the drawer and it dawned on me that I was going to have to wander out in the rain and go buy a battery for the incessantly beeping smoke detector. It is just bad karma to take the battery out to stop the beeping and vow to replace it the next day. If there is one thing my mother taught me well it is that fire is just lurking around in the walls of the house waiting for the moment when the smoke detectors are malfunctioning, and I did not want to take that chance.
BEEP!
One of my rituals daily is to grab my cup of coffee, even if it is cold, and walk out the back door and onto the patio with my dog, to survey the back yard, especially at the end of the day. If it is raining, we scurry into the Beach House and listen to the rain thumping on the tin roof. It is relaxing for us both.
BEEP!
"That's funny," I thought. "My cup of coffee is missing! My cup of coffee is NEVER missing!"
BEEP!
I stood, then, underneath the smoke detector in the hallway, watching it, daring it to beep, when I heard it: BEEP! The insane beeping was not coming from the smoke detector at all. It was coming from the kitchen. It was coming from the microwave oven. It was, of course, the alarm on the microwave, which I had set three hours earlier, reminding me my coffee was hot and ready to be consumed.
Sighing, and looking around hoping there were no hidden cameras in my house with tapes of these escapades that could launch me to stardom on some home video show, I punched the thirty-second button on the microwave and went back into my office to put away my reference books. One caught my eye, and I sat back down in my chair and began to read an interesting article about DNA and in the distance heard BEEP!
My feet propped up on my desk, reading glasses employed, I kept reading and heard BEEP!
About a half-hour later I thought, "Wow, the battery must be dead in the smoke detector. I better change that."
And so it goes.
Friday, September 01, 2006
The Dead Guy's Fridge
A month or so ago, Don's Uncle Lawrence, also Don's Godfather, passed away. There was a lot of family involved, of course, so like all deaths, it was sad and emotional. I paid my respects to Uncle Lawrence alongside my boyfriend, but I have to tell you, having been in the medical field my entire adult life, death is not a big deal to me. It is the next step of life, and believing that, I do not have a horrible emotional response to an old person passing away when his time has come, instead choosing to realize that life will go on for him in some form. Death has never really bothered me much within those parameters. At least, it never did until the old dead guy's refrigerator took up residence in the middle of my kitchen.
My old refrigerator, also a hand-me-down, is pretty much at the end of its term. All the food in the bottom freezes solid, which can be very annoying, and when it kicks on in the middle of the night, it wakes me up with its protesting whining. I knew it was about to blink out. It was fun going to Home Depot and shopping for a new fridge! And I picked one out. Unfortunately, my bank account groaned and moaned and refused to multiply by five overnight so I could afford the bright, shiny new refrigerator with ice and water in the door. At almost fifty years old, I had never had an automatic icemaker of any kind, and that became a big selling point.
Miraculously, as I returned home from one of these wishing trips, my phone rang and Don asked, "Hey, would you want Uncle Lawrence's old refrigerator out of his house? It's almost new and makes the little tiny one you're using now look like a midget."
I thought it through for about one second before asking, "Does it have an icemaker?"
Don said, "I don't know. I can go over and look, though."
Again there was a short pause from my end, "Okay, if it doesn't have an icemaker, don't bring it home."
An hour later Don called back and said, "It has an icemaker but just in the freezer, not in the door."
The important fact that I had demanded my next fridge have an icemaker and ice water dispenser in the door, flew right out the window with the next comment from Don, "It's free."
The next day Don's brother told him he could help bring Uncle Lawrence's huge, practically new Whirlpool fridge to my house, and when they offered that I said, "Oh, GREAT! I'll get in there right now and clean out the old one so you can take it away at the same time!"
Deafening silence emanated through the phone, and then Don informed me that they were just bringing the new one over, not taking the old one away. They would take the old one away in a week, on Saturday, when they weren't so tired from working.
"No, then, don't bring that over here because I..." Click. "Don't have room in the kitchen for it."
Within thirty minutes, the dead guy's refrigerator was planted in the middle of my small kitchen, and it IS big, trust me on this one, still full of whatever the dead guy was eating before he kicked the bucket. I could not believe that people actually eat Banquet TV dinners. Totally. I mean, as their complete diet. No wonder the guy passed away.
At least a dozen times a day I am forced into the kitchen with that monstrous box. Honestly, I have to turn sideways to get the coffee started, and it is necesary to step over a chair and onto the linoleum breakfast nook floor to get to my nightlight to turn it off and on. After two days of that I learned my lesson and just left it on. How much electricity can that little tiny bulb use, anyway?
I have that refrigerator plugged in and have transferred my meager contents from the other one into it and have learned that one of the biggest advantages to having it in there is that the grown children, who usually head for the kitchen and the food in the refrigerator like they have bungee cords attached between them, the second they show up, are a little put off by the comment, "Sure, go help yourselves to anything you'd like to eat out o the Dead Guy's Fridge." My grocery bill just dropped by about half!
Cheers, Uncle Lawrence! Come visit your kitchen appliance anytime you'd like! After all, it is yours. Grab yourself a beer and visit for awhile. Just don't get any ideas about taking the fridge back anytime soon. If it goes missing, I will definitely know there's a party going on somewhere and as soon as I get invited, I WILL find my refrigerator!
My old refrigerator, also a hand-me-down, is pretty much at the end of its term. All the food in the bottom freezes solid, which can be very annoying, and when it kicks on in the middle of the night, it wakes me up with its protesting whining. I knew it was about to blink out. It was fun going to Home Depot and shopping for a new fridge! And I picked one out. Unfortunately, my bank account groaned and moaned and refused to multiply by five overnight so I could afford the bright, shiny new refrigerator with ice and water in the door. At almost fifty years old, I had never had an automatic icemaker of any kind, and that became a big selling point.
Miraculously, as I returned home from one of these wishing trips, my phone rang and Don asked, "Hey, would you want Uncle Lawrence's old refrigerator out of his house? It's almost new and makes the little tiny one you're using now look like a midget."
I thought it through for about one second before asking, "Does it have an icemaker?"
Don said, "I don't know. I can go over and look, though."
Again there was a short pause from my end, "Okay, if it doesn't have an icemaker, don't bring it home."
An hour later Don called back and said, "It has an icemaker but just in the freezer, not in the door."
The important fact that I had demanded my next fridge have an icemaker and ice water dispenser in the door, flew right out the window with the next comment from Don, "It's free."
The next day Don's brother told him he could help bring Uncle Lawrence's huge, practically new Whirlpool fridge to my house, and when they offered that I said, "Oh, GREAT! I'll get in there right now and clean out the old one so you can take it away at the same time!"
Deafening silence emanated through the phone, and then Don informed me that they were just bringing the new one over, not taking the old one away. They would take the old one away in a week, on Saturday, when they weren't so tired from working.
"No, then, don't bring that over here because I..." Click. "Don't have room in the kitchen for it."
Within thirty minutes, the dead guy's refrigerator was planted in the middle of my small kitchen, and it IS big, trust me on this one, still full of whatever the dead guy was eating before he kicked the bucket. I could not believe that people actually eat Banquet TV dinners. Totally. I mean, as their complete diet. No wonder the guy passed away.
At least a dozen times a day I am forced into the kitchen with that monstrous box. Honestly, I have to turn sideways to get the coffee started, and it is necesary to step over a chair and onto the linoleum breakfast nook floor to get to my nightlight to turn it off and on. After two days of that I learned my lesson and just left it on. How much electricity can that little tiny bulb use, anyway?
I have that refrigerator plugged in and have transferred my meager contents from the other one into it and have learned that one of the biggest advantages to having it in there is that the grown children, who usually head for the kitchen and the food in the refrigerator like they have bungee cords attached between them, the second they show up, are a little put off by the comment, "Sure, go help yourselves to anything you'd like to eat out o the Dead Guy's Fridge." My grocery bill just dropped by about half!
Cheers, Uncle Lawrence! Come visit your kitchen appliance anytime you'd like! After all, it is yours. Grab yourself a beer and visit for awhile. Just don't get any ideas about taking the fridge back anytime soon. If it goes missing, I will definitely know there's a party going on somewhere and as soon as I get invited, I WILL find my refrigerator!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
