Mayhem (while riding his bike today) had two separate snake incidents. And by 'incidents' I mean 'collisions'. I am not sure how he managed it - but he hit one snake head-on and then ten minutes later ran over another one. We're talking snake parts in bike spokes. ICKY!
I have ridden hundreds and hundreds of miles and I have never even seen a snake while cycling, much less run over one, much less hit two in one day! Not that I'm complaining (really I'm not, because I'll take the weirdness of this week over the meanness of last every time) but things have been decidedly odd in Lilymania recently! Like, Odd. Decidedly.
Peace.
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Plan B
Something I forgot to mention about my weekend:
Travel plans (in the form of a girlfriend getaway - me, Nurse Nice, and VBGF heading to Charlotte, NC to meet up with some of NN’s friends) were totally sunk by last week’s stress fest. So…Plan B!
We went to get NN’s nipple pierced by the world’s cutest piercer! And ran into a bunch of (<--by 'bunch of', I mean 52) drunk, nudist bikers who were also getting nipples pierced – and who were (sadly) ahead of us in line and who (also sadly) had camera phones and were not afraid to use them! They did have clothes on for the occasion – er, well, if you use the term ‘clothes’ loosely, as several of the ladies were wearing see-through blouses and apparently nudists just say no to bras – but hey! Some clothes are better than no clothes! Especially when it comes to bikers over forty with very few teeth! Just saying. There was one sober designated driver in the herd (I know you were worried about that) and I’m pretty sure he must have been driving a tour bus, because forget the Harleys, a full-sized van wouldn’t have worked. These folks were…zaftig! (<--Thanks DebR for the great word!) But nice. A nicer bunch of nudist bikers, you’ve never met.
I'm thinking of marketing myself as an 'alternative travel agent'.
Weekend plans fall through? Don't worry! Just call Lilymane's Plan B Excursions! 1-800-WHOA-WTF! (Nudist biker encounter free to first 100 callers!)
Peace.
Travel plans (in the form of a girlfriend getaway - me, Nurse Nice, and VBGF heading to Charlotte, NC to meet up with some of NN’s friends) were totally sunk by last week’s stress fest. So…Plan B!
We went to get NN’s nipple pierced by the world’s cutest piercer! And ran into a bunch of (<--by 'bunch of', I mean 52) drunk, nudist bikers who were also getting nipples pierced – and who were (sadly) ahead of us in line and who (also sadly) had camera phones and were not afraid to use them! They did have clothes on for the occasion – er, well, if you use the term ‘clothes’ loosely, as several of the ladies were wearing see-through blouses and apparently nudists just say no to bras – but hey! Some clothes are better than no clothes! Especially when it comes to bikers over forty with very few teeth! Just saying. There was one sober designated driver in the herd (I know you were worried about that) and I’m pretty sure he must have been driving a tour bus, because forget the Harleys, a full-sized van wouldn’t have worked. These folks were…zaftig! (<--Thanks DebR for the great word!) But nice. A nicer bunch of nudist bikers, you’ve never met.
I'm thinking of marketing myself as an 'alternative travel agent'.
Weekend plans fall through? Don't worry! Just call Lilymane's Plan B Excursions! 1-800-WHOA-WTF! (Nudist biker encounter free to first 100 callers!)
Peace.
Plan B Merchandise
As seen this weekend (and yet, as unable to be shown to you via a web link - what's up with that?):
An ecru shirt that says (in sparkly letters): OFF-WHITE TRASH
Bwah ha ha ha.
Peace.
An ecru shirt that says (in sparkly letters): OFF-WHITE TRASH
Bwah ha ha ha.
Peace.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Funny, Funny, Funny Get Your Chaos Here
You should very much worry if Chaos tries to tell you a joke. And you should also refuse to listen. His jokes are not funny. At all. He is so not funny, in fact, that his brothers and sister think he is hilarious (which does NOT help the situation). When he was little, his favorite joke was "What do eggs and bananas have in common? SLIPPERS!!!" We explained that his joke didn't make any sense. That it wasn't actually a joke. Clearly he had mangled the original joke that he'd heard somewhere. But how do you explain the mechanics of 'funny' to a four year old? Or for that matter (ten years later) to a fourteen year old? Because I have to tell you that whatever it is we said to explain 'funny' - did NOT take. You want proof? The kids went on a joke telling jag in the car last night. After a round of knock-knock jokes from the little ones this was Chaos' offering:
Why did the clown go to Vietnam?
Because he knew the Viet Cong were shooting at soldiers.
Yikes! And double Yikes! I tried to impress upon Chaos that there is NO WAY a joke with clowns and the VC in it could EVER be funny - no matter how interested in history he is - but I'm not sure I got through to him because the other kids had started in on blonde jokes. I nixed those and Havoc wanted to start a riddle game but Chaos wanted to tell a really funny joke first. I made him promise there was no ethnic weirdness, or people going into a bar, or death or ANYTHING remotely objectionable about his proposed really funny joke. He solemnly promised and then told the following 'joke':
What did the Flying Dutchman do when he crashed his ghost ship*?
He got a ghost car.
*I have to admit that for a split second there was quite a bit of inadvertent humor and horrified laughter because we all thought he said "goat shit" not "ghost ship". But, even so, I think you'll agree that this is nothing like a really funny joke. So we tried number jokes:
The Ninja Princessa (repeating Nurse Nice's favorite joke):
What did the zero say to the eight?
Love the belt!
Havoc (repeating VBGF's favorite joke):
Why is six afraid of seven?
Because seven ate (eight) nine!
Chaos (worrying me with the opening line, but actually going nowhere disturbing):
How is six like nine?
By standing upside down!
(Well, ok. A little disturbing but not like clowns and the Viet Cong!) "Chaos, yes we understand that a nine is like an upside down six - but it's not a joke. Yes, it's numbers but it's not funny! What do you mean, why not?!" More explanation about lines and word play and expected vs unexpected. "Arrrrrgh!" (<---Saying this led us to a round of pirate jokes.)
Mayhem:
What's a pirate's favorite letter?
Arrrrrrr!
Princessa (stealing Havoc's favorite joke and pissing him off so much that he put his thumb back in his mouth and refused to tell any more jokes):
What's a pirate's favorite type of socks?
Arrrr-gyle!
Chaos: "I have one, I have one!!"
(Oh god I don't think I can take it!)
"Please mom!"
(Gulp.) "Ok, go for it."
Chaos:
What did the pirate say when he saw 40 tactical nukes headed his way?
Mayhem:
Fetch me my brown pants? (<--I wish I could say I didn't bust out laughing at that.)
Chaos (slugging his little brother):
Arrrr-mageddon!
YAY!!! A joke! One that made sense and was a play on words and even fit with a theme! Never mind that Mayhem (who has a quick and sick mind and a great sense of timing) stole Chaos' thunder! Never mind that it had tactical nuclear weapons in it (we'll work on that later!) CHAOS MADE A JOKE! And we didn't even know that we were getting a jump on International Talk Like A Pirate Day!
Avast ye!
And peace, mateys!
(VBGF - Shhhh! If you read this before Chaos gets a chance to ask you what the pirate said..., don't let on! He's very proud of himself and wants to be the one to tell you his joke!)
Why did the clown go to Vietnam?
Because he knew the Viet Cong were shooting at soldiers.
Yikes! And double Yikes! I tried to impress upon Chaos that there is NO WAY a joke with clowns and the VC in it could EVER be funny - no matter how interested in history he is - but I'm not sure I got through to him because the other kids had started in on blonde jokes. I nixed those and Havoc wanted to start a riddle game but Chaos wanted to tell a really funny joke first. I made him promise there was no ethnic weirdness, or people going into a bar, or death or ANYTHING remotely objectionable about his proposed really funny joke. He solemnly promised and then told the following 'joke':
What did the Flying Dutchman do when he crashed his ghost ship*?
He got a ghost car.
*I have to admit that for a split second there was quite a bit of inadvertent humor and horrified laughter because we all thought he said "goat shit" not "ghost ship". But, even so, I think you'll agree that this is nothing like a really funny joke. So we tried number jokes:
The Ninja Princessa (repeating Nurse Nice's favorite joke):
What did the zero say to the eight?
Love the belt!
Havoc (repeating VBGF's favorite joke):
Why is six afraid of seven?
Because seven ate (eight) nine!
Chaos (worrying me with the opening line, but actually going nowhere disturbing):
How is six like nine?
By standing upside down!
(Well, ok. A little disturbing but not like clowns and the Viet Cong!) "Chaos, yes we understand that a nine is like an upside down six - but it's not a joke. Yes, it's numbers but it's not funny! What do you mean, why not?!" More explanation about lines and word play and expected vs unexpected. "Arrrrrgh!" (<---Saying this led us to a round of pirate jokes.)
Mayhem:
What's a pirate's favorite letter?
Arrrrrrr!
Princessa (stealing Havoc's favorite joke and pissing him off so much that he put his thumb back in his mouth and refused to tell any more jokes):
What's a pirate's favorite type of socks?
Arrrr-gyle!
Chaos: "I have one, I have one!!"
(Oh god I don't think I can take it!)
"Please mom!"
(Gulp.) "Ok, go for it."
Chaos:
What did the pirate say when he saw 40 tactical nukes headed his way?
Mayhem:
Fetch me my brown pants? (<--I wish I could say I didn't bust out laughing at that.)
Chaos (slugging his little brother):
Arrrr-mageddon!
YAY!!! A joke! One that made sense and was a play on words and even fit with a theme! Never mind that Mayhem (who has a quick and sick mind and a great sense of timing) stole Chaos' thunder! Never mind that it had tactical nuclear weapons in it (we'll work on that later!) CHAOS MADE A JOKE! And we didn't even know that we were getting a jump on International Talk Like A Pirate Day!
Avast ye!
And peace, mateys!
(VBGF - Shhhh! If you read this before Chaos gets a chance to ask you what the pirate said..., don't let on! He's very proud of himself and wants to be the one to tell you his joke!)
Monday, September 18, 2006
A New Week - A New Focus
Last week? Not so much fun.
I was a total stress ball. There were days when I sat down to blog and everything I could think of to blog about was negative: grouchy, grumpy, sad, no fun. Not that I want my blog to be all fakey fakey, everything is rosy but I don't want to wallow in a week that (besides the anniversary of 9/11) included a death in my family and an ex who was ridiculously icky (day after day after day and who, oh!, sent a sheriff's deputy to my door with a court summons just to make sure the fun and games continue). I certainly don't want to dwell on the undeniable fact that all was not right in football land yesterday. (Yay for my Colts - but the Redskins really, really, really let me down by forgetting to show up to the game in Dallas. DALLAS! I fucking HATE the Cowboys. Cartwritght with his 100 yard kick return is the only Redskin to escape my wrath. And the Titans? Apparently 'we're rebuilding' is a code phrase for 'we suck rocks'. )
But enough of last week. This week I'm concentrating on fun stuff.
Er - ok, so maybe it's more like weird, freaky stuff.
Like...what to say about the gummi bra and gummi thong the troll boys brought to game yesterday? Who knew there was a market for gummi underwear? (The package said 'single use item'. You think?)
And epsom salts. It's crazy what you can learn when you read packages. Epsom salts are marketed as a first aid product, a gentle laxative, and a gardening supply. What, no julienne fries? It's an odd trifecta to say the least.
And middle school students. I helped VBGF grade math quizzes this weekend. Who knew math quizzes could make you laugh out loud? Seventh graders are an ODD bunch of folks. One boy added comments to his quiz: the answer was 'v+8' and he wrote a little aside with an arrow "V8 is yummy!" Then there was the section where the kids had to name the property being demonstrated. The correct answers were associative of addition, commutative of multiplication, additive identity, and transitive. Some of the answers that were written on the quizzes (I kid you not): "Ass. of Add.", "communicative multifraction", "addictive identity", and "translative". The 'addictive identity' property is my favorite. It is AMAZING how much middle schoolers push limits. The 'ass of add' smart aleck (who turned out to be an ESL kid) got a little note saying to "please use 'assoc' as the correct abbreviation". The kid who tried to get away with "AOA", "COM", "AI", and "T" got a bunch of little red x's and zero points.
And football. Steelers vs. the Jags tonight. (This item rightfully belongs in the 'fun stuff' category, not the 'weird, freaky stuff' category. I do think it'll be a good game, but there's not much that's very weird about it - unless you count Troy Palomalu's hair.) Go Steelers!!
Peace.
I was a total stress ball. There were days when I sat down to blog and everything I could think of to blog about was negative: grouchy, grumpy, sad, no fun. Not that I want my blog to be all fakey fakey, everything is rosy but I don't want to wallow in a week that (besides the anniversary of 9/11) included a death in my family and an ex who was ridiculously icky (day after day after day and who, oh!, sent a sheriff's deputy to my door with a court summons just to make sure the fun and games continue). I certainly don't want to dwell on the undeniable fact that all was not right in football land yesterday. (Yay for my Colts - but the Redskins really, really, really let me down by forgetting to show up to the game in Dallas. DALLAS! I fucking HATE the Cowboys. Cartwritght with his 100 yard kick return is the only Redskin to escape my wrath. And the Titans? Apparently 'we're rebuilding' is a code phrase for 'we suck rocks'. )
But enough of last week. This week I'm concentrating on fun stuff.
Er - ok, so maybe it's more like weird, freaky stuff.
Like...what to say about the gummi bra and gummi thong the troll boys brought to game yesterday? Who knew there was a market for gummi underwear? (The package said 'single use item'. You think?)
And epsom salts. It's crazy what you can learn when you read packages. Epsom salts are marketed as a first aid product, a gentle laxative, and a gardening supply. What, no julienne fries? It's an odd trifecta to say the least.
And middle school students. I helped VBGF grade math quizzes this weekend. Who knew math quizzes could make you laugh out loud? Seventh graders are an ODD bunch of folks. One boy added comments to his quiz: the answer was 'v+8' and he wrote a little aside with an arrow "V8 is yummy!" Then there was the section where the kids had to name the property being demonstrated. The correct answers were associative of addition, commutative of multiplication, additive identity, and transitive. Some of the answers that were written on the quizzes (I kid you not): "Ass. of Add.", "communicative multifraction", "addictive identity", and "translative". The 'addictive identity' property is my favorite. It is AMAZING how much middle schoolers push limits. The 'ass of add' smart aleck (who turned out to be an ESL kid) got a little note saying to "please use 'assoc' as the correct abbreviation". The kid who tried to get away with "AOA", "COM", "AI", and "T" got a bunch of little red x's and zero points.
And football. Steelers vs. the Jags tonight. (This item rightfully belongs in the 'fun stuff' category, not the 'weird, freaky stuff' category. I do think it'll be a good game, but there's not much that's very weird about it - unless you count Troy Palomalu's hair.) Go Steelers!!
Peace.
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Teachable Moments And Football
Havoc and I were reading my NFL football magazine when we came across an add for poker (a website? a tv show? I couldn't tell.) It was a picture of a woman's cleavage and a pair of melons. Nice, eh? Havoc says, "I don't get it." I say, "It's an add for poker. Two pair." (Sidenote: My ex (Mr. Tapioca Head) taught Havoc and his brothers to play poker years ago.) Havoc says, "I still don't get it mom. What's the second pair?" I say, "Boobs." "Boobs? That doesn't make sense. Why not watermelons or at least fruit? A pair of BOOBS? To go with a pair of cantaloupes?" he is aghast. I tell him that if he is going to watch football or read football magazines then he's going to have to get used to seeing boobs even when it doesn't make sense. "Why?" "Well, grown men like boobs so advertisers use boobs to sell things like beer and trucks. If you look on the sidelines you'll notice that the cheerleaders aren't actually leading any cheers for the team. They're dancing around in outfits that show off their legs and boobs. It sells the game." "OH!" he says. "Like the way commercials during kid shows are either for toys or sugar or more tv, football has beer and trucks and boobs?" "Yes," I say, "exactly like that." He puts him thumb back in his mouth and thinks for a minute. "Mom. I don't really like trucks or beer or boobs yet. But I still like watching football with you. Is that ok?" "Yes, pumpkin. It's more than ok. It's exactly right."
Peace.
Peace.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Things That Go Beep In The Night
Sweet Hubby is in Kiwi-a-gogo-land for the month. I miss him. A lot. Especially at night. Because I can't sleep. I could be all romantic and say that my sleep is dependent on having the curve of his body against mine. It would be a romantic thing to say but it would also be a lie. While I do LOVE the curve of his body - I usually sleep better on my own. Not this time. This time is very different. This time there are things - THINGS - in the room interfering with my sleep. Beepy things. Beepy-in-the-middle-of-the-night things! Beepy and blinky and flashy things even!
Maybe twenty minutes after I fall asleep the first night there is a loud "Ba-whoosh" and a green flash. SH's computer and monitor come alive and demand passwords. The computer seems as disoriented as I feel - as if we're both staring at each other thinking "Why the hell did you wake me up?" The only possibility I can come up with is that the dog must've bumped the desk and jiggled the mouse and woken us all up. I get out of bed to turn the thing off and hear Wasabi startle awake in the other room. He comes running in to see what's going on. Eeeek. Now I have NO IDEA how (or why) the computer woke itself (and me and the dog) up. Bad dream? Maybe not but it sure doesn't want to go back to sleep! I can NOT get it to hibernate or suspend or anything. I know better than to try to turn it all the way off because SH has it programmed to do regular maintenance (supposedly during the day!!) and also to record 'Eureka' - the only TV show I've cared about in almost ten years. I finally think to turn at least the monitor power off. The computer is NOT happy. Actinic light is frantically flashing from the computer's brain box on the floor. I throw a pillow at it (and miss and have to throw two more) to block whatever message the machine is trying to send. I am so NOT in the mood to decipher. I want to get back to sleep.
I finally drift off again. A nanosecond later there is a strange electronic trill. I am wide awake. (Again.) I listen. I wait. I hear silence. And more silence. Twenty minutes more silence. And then five more minutes. And then I have no idea how much more because I fall back asleep. Beep, beep, beep-be-beep. Grrrrr. I sit bolt upright. I throw a pillow at SH's computer. After launching the pillow at the computer on the floor, I wake up enough to realize the peppy chirping is coming from the TOP of the desk and to the right. In addition to the location differential here, at this point I have a large enough statistical sample of sounds to compare and the indignant, crackling sh-sh-ing and small, muffled, whumping sounds now emanating from the floor are nothing like the sound that woke me this time. Hmmm. Maybe he left his phone? But no. I know all of his phone's sounds - and this is not one of them. Besides, I distinctly remember handing him his phone and watching him tuck it into his carry on. I go back to sleep. For maybe an hour. There it is again. Dammit!
This is getting annoying. Worse is that the sound itself is pleasant. It is not the mournful, eeyor sound of 'low battery'. It is not the Chicken Little cry of text message 'alerts' zapped to SH's phone to warn of downed servers in the OR. This sound is...sweet. If it weren't repeatedly waking me up in the middle of the night I would not be contemplating hurling a hammer at whatever it is.
I finally get up and locate the bugger. It's a pager. On his desk. I have no idea why there is a tiny pager hunkered down under a stack of papers. I don't even know why pagers exist now that there are cell phones with text messaging capabilities. Poor, obsolete thing. That I still want to smash with a hammer. I don't though. I have mercy. I smother it with my next to last pillow and go back to sleep.
In vain. The phone rings. Wrong number. I contemplate the effort it would take to introduce a bill to Congress that would make calling the wrong number at 4:17 a.m. a federal crime with the death penalty attached to it. I fall asleep just in time for my alarm clock to wake me up with its horrendous, broken-sounding buzz. (Aside: It sounded broken even before I threw it at the wall this time - because, er, um, it is not the first time I have thrown it against the wall. I have LOATHED the sound of this alarm clock since we got it. I hate it enough that I usually wake up and turn it off the split second before it's set to make that horrible sound. The problem arises on days when I'm too tired for the split second timing bit to work well. On those (i.e. bad) days, when I am awakend by the screechy-buzzy-makes-me-want-to-beat-the-fuck-out-of-somebody sound, I typically sling the alarm clock across the room in the split second before I am awake enough to realize the poor machine is merely doing what I asked (i.e. forced) it to do when I clicked the 'alarm on' button the night before.)
Mama is not happy. (Neither is the alarm clock.)
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
I am even more not happy after two additional nights of this. SH's computer is still frantically trying to communicate with me (or maybe with aliens) in the wee sma's. I have managed (with some help from my buddy Mat-a-tat-tat) to make the happy pager shut up. But for some reason (and Mayhem is his name-o) the timer on the kitchen stove took up where happy pager left off by buzzing in the middle of the night (and scaring the shit out of me). ("Uh, I thought I set the timer for 8 minutes. I guess I set it for 8 hours. Sorry mom.")
I have glared individually at all the noise-making appliances in the house and put them on notice. If one of them so much as makes a little, bitty peep or flashes one, tiny LED tonight...it's Hammer Time (only without the parachute pants.)
Peace.
Maybe twenty minutes after I fall asleep the first night there is a loud "Ba-whoosh" and a green flash. SH's computer and monitor come alive and demand passwords. The computer seems as disoriented as I feel - as if we're both staring at each other thinking "Why the hell did you wake me up?" The only possibility I can come up with is that the dog must've bumped the desk and jiggled the mouse and woken us all up. I get out of bed to turn the thing off and hear Wasabi startle awake in the other room. He comes running in to see what's going on. Eeeek. Now I have NO IDEA how (or why) the computer woke itself (and me and the dog) up. Bad dream? Maybe not but it sure doesn't want to go back to sleep! I can NOT get it to hibernate or suspend or anything. I know better than to try to turn it all the way off because SH has it programmed to do regular maintenance (supposedly during the day!!) and also to record 'Eureka' - the only TV show I've cared about in almost ten years. I finally think to turn at least the monitor power off. The computer is NOT happy. Actinic light is frantically flashing from the computer's brain box on the floor. I throw a pillow at it (and miss and have to throw two more) to block whatever message the machine is trying to send. I am so NOT in the mood to decipher. I want to get back to sleep.
I finally drift off again. A nanosecond later there is a strange electronic trill. I am wide awake. (Again.) I listen. I wait. I hear silence. And more silence. Twenty minutes more silence. And then five more minutes. And then I have no idea how much more because I fall back asleep. Beep, beep, beep-be-beep. Grrrrr. I sit bolt upright. I throw a pillow at SH's computer. After launching the pillow at the computer on the floor, I wake up enough to realize the peppy chirping is coming from the TOP of the desk and to the right. In addition to the location differential here, at this point I have a large enough statistical sample of sounds to compare and the indignant, crackling sh-sh-ing and small, muffled, whumping sounds now emanating from the floor are nothing like the sound that woke me this time. Hmmm. Maybe he left his phone? But no. I know all of his phone's sounds - and this is not one of them. Besides, I distinctly remember handing him his phone and watching him tuck it into his carry on. I go back to sleep. For maybe an hour. There it is again. Dammit!
This is getting annoying. Worse is that the sound itself is pleasant. It is not the mournful, eeyor sound of 'low battery'. It is not the Chicken Little cry of text message 'alerts' zapped to SH's phone to warn of downed servers in the OR. This sound is...sweet. If it weren't repeatedly waking me up in the middle of the night I would not be contemplating hurling a hammer at whatever it is.
I finally get up and locate the bugger. It's a pager. On his desk. I have no idea why there is a tiny pager hunkered down under a stack of papers. I don't even know why pagers exist now that there are cell phones with text messaging capabilities. Poor, obsolete thing. That I still want to smash with a hammer. I don't though. I have mercy. I smother it with my next to last pillow and go back to sleep.
In vain. The phone rings. Wrong number. I contemplate the effort it would take to introduce a bill to Congress that would make calling the wrong number at 4:17 a.m. a federal crime with the death penalty attached to it. I fall asleep just in time for my alarm clock to wake me up with its horrendous, broken-sounding buzz. (Aside: It sounded broken even before I threw it at the wall this time - because, er, um, it is not the first time I have thrown it against the wall. I have LOATHED the sound of this alarm clock since we got it. I hate it enough that I usually wake up and turn it off the split second before it's set to make that horrible sound. The problem arises on days when I'm too tired for the split second timing bit to work well. On those (i.e. bad) days, when I am awakend by the screechy-buzzy-makes-me-want-to-beat-the-fuck-out-of-somebody sound, I typically sling the alarm clock across the room in the split second before I am awake enough to realize the poor machine is merely doing what I asked (i.e. forced) it to do when I clicked the 'alarm on' button the night before.)
Mama is not happy. (Neither is the alarm clock.)
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
I am even more not happy after two additional nights of this. SH's computer is still frantically trying to communicate with me (or maybe with aliens) in the wee sma's. I have managed (with some help from my buddy Mat-a-tat-tat) to make the happy pager shut up. But for some reason (and Mayhem is his name-o) the timer on the kitchen stove took up where happy pager left off by buzzing in the middle of the night (and scaring the shit out of me). ("Uh, I thought I set the timer for 8 minutes. I guess I set it for 8 hours. Sorry mom.")
I have glared individually at all the noise-making appliances in the house and put them on notice. If one of them so much as makes a little, bitty peep or flashes one, tiny LED tonight...it's Hammer Time (only without the parachute pants.)
Peace.
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Havoc's Collection
When we took the kids to the science museum at Easter, Havoc spent all of his money ($22!) on a round, handblown glass paperweight. Sweet Hubby tried to talk him out of it. After all, Havoc's seven. The paperweight is glass. In the shape of a ball. There are all manner of bad combos there. Havoc would not be swayed. "It's a beautfiul orb! I really, really, really, really want it. Pleeeeease! I promise I'll take care of it." Orb?
Turns out Havoc collects* orbs. He has one. This one.
So the other day, Havoc and I were eating breakfast together after the big kids had gone to school. Havoc turned to me and said, "You know what I'd like to try?"
I said, "What would you like to try?"
"Bats."
"Bats?!"
"Yep."
"To eat??"
"Yes."
"People don't eat bats."
"Well, maybe not for breakfast, but they do for dinner."
"Yuck. They're like mice that fly. People do NOT eat them. For breakfast or for dinner."
"Mom, they don't fly. They swim!"
"Bats don't swim. What are you talking about?!"
Pause. Blink. Blink.
Giggles poured forth from my child. Howls followed. When he could finally get a hold of himself somewhat, he said, "I don't want to eat baTs. I said 'bass'. The fish! You know how we're going fishing with Cub Scouts? FISH! You thought I wanted to eats BATS! You are sooo weird." Me? Forget the bat part, he's the one who was thinking about eating bass for breakfast! I'm weird? This from a kid who collects orbs! Speaking of...the Orb of Confusion: it was sitting on the kitchen counter right behind us. I pointed to it. I asked him if THIS is what he used it for. That set him off again. He absolutely dissolved into belly laughs. "BATS! You thought I wanted to eat a bat." The child could NOT stop laughing. I asked him if he had added to his collection. I wondered if perhaps he had acquired the Orb of Silliness when I wasn't looking. "Mama, you are soooo weird." He made himself snort he was laughing so hard. Just when I thought he'd pulled himself together, I heard him say "Bats!" while he was putting on his shoes in the other room. He got on the bus and shouted out the window, "Bats for breakfast!"
We're having hamburgers for dinner tonight. I think I'm going to be hard pressed to keep myself from slipping a plastic bat underneath the top bun on Havoc's plate. I'd do about anything to make him laugh like that again.
(I try not to imagine a thirty-year old Havoc explaining his childhood. "Well, there was this one year when my parents gave my brother a toilet seat for his birthday and then my mom served Batburgers for dinner. ")
Peace.
Turns out Havoc collects* orbs. He has one. This one.
(*Sidenote to St. Ann - I know, I know. Apples don't fall far from the tree, do they? I told him that if he called it a proto-collection and whined about how he'd been trying for YEARS to collect them, then suddenly he would have orbs galore.)
Havoc LOVES this orb. I have (on more than one occasion) found it in his bed. We had to put a stop to that though, since braining Mayhem (who sleeps on the bottom bunk) in the middle of the night would not be cool. Mostly Havoc's orb lives on my desk when he doesn't need it. Need it? He giggled gleefully when I asked him what he could possibly 'need' it for. "It's the Orb of Confusion, mom." With that non-explanation, he snatched it and ran. He's cute but weird. I may have mentioned that before.So the other day, Havoc and I were eating breakfast together after the big kids had gone to school. Havoc turned to me and said, "You know what I'd like to try?"
I said, "What would you like to try?"
"Bats."
"Bats?!"
"Yep."
"To eat??"
"Yes."
"People don't eat bats."
"Well, maybe not for breakfast, but they do for dinner."
"Yuck. They're like mice that fly. People do NOT eat them. For breakfast or for dinner."
"Mom, they don't fly. They swim!"
"Bats don't swim. What are you talking about?!"
Pause. Blink. Blink.
Giggles poured forth from my child. Howls followed. When he could finally get a hold of himself somewhat, he said, "I don't want to eat baTs. I said 'bass'. The fish! You know how we're going fishing with Cub Scouts? FISH! You thought I wanted to eats BATS! You are sooo weird." Me? Forget the bat part, he's the one who was thinking about eating bass for breakfast! I'm weird? This from a kid who collects orbs! Speaking of...the Orb of Confusion: it was sitting on the kitchen counter right behind us. I pointed to it. I asked him if THIS is what he used it for. That set him off again. He absolutely dissolved into belly laughs. "BATS! You thought I wanted to eat a bat." The child could NOT stop laughing. I asked him if he had added to his collection. I wondered if perhaps he had acquired the Orb of Silliness when I wasn't looking. "Mama, you are soooo weird." He made himself snort he was laughing so hard. Just when I thought he'd pulled himself together, I heard him say "Bats!" while he was putting on his shoes in the other room. He got on the bus and shouted out the window, "Bats for breakfast!"
We're having hamburgers for dinner tonight. I think I'm going to be hard pressed to keep myself from slipping a plastic bat underneath the top bun on Havoc's plate. I'd do about anything to make him laugh like that again.
(I try not to imagine a thirty-year old Havoc explaining his childhood. "Well, there was this one year when my parents gave my brother a toilet seat for his birthday and then my mom served Batburgers for dinner. ")
Peace.
Monday, September 11, 2006
Above And Beyond Whelmed
Overwhelmed is an understatement.
September 11th.
I'm sure there will be brilliant and heart rending posts today.
Not here. Not mine. I feel sad and scared.
Sad when I look at the hole in the NYC skyline. Sad to think that even a hole that big can't represent the holes left in people's lives.
Scared when I think about how many terrorists we've created in the last five years. Scared to think that our administration has wasted thousands and thousands of lives (American and otherwise) on a course of action that has made the world a worse place. I'm trying not to be scared that my sweet husband is on a plane over the Pacific at this moment.
He says that he can't think of a better day to fly. I guess he's right. There are bound to be many who wouldn't dream of flying today. And I'm sure airport security is as 'tight' as it can get. I also admire a certain amount of the 'we'll show 'em' attitude. All the same, I'm looking forward to his call this afternoon to let me know he arrived safe and sound.
Peace. Peace. And more Peace!
September 11th.
I'm sure there will be brilliant and heart rending posts today.
Not here. Not mine. I feel sad and scared.
Sad when I look at the hole in the NYC skyline. Sad to think that even a hole that big can't represent the holes left in people's lives.
Scared when I think about how many terrorists we've created in the last five years. Scared to think that our administration has wasted thousands and thousands of lives (American and otherwise) on a course of action that has made the world a worse place. I'm trying not to be scared that my sweet husband is on a plane over the Pacific at this moment.
He says that he can't think of a better day to fly. I guess he's right. There are bound to be many who wouldn't dream of flying today. And I'm sure airport security is as 'tight' as it can get. I also admire a certain amount of the 'we'll show 'em' attitude. All the same, I'm looking forward to his call this afternoon to let me know he arrived safe and sound.
Peace. Peace. And more Peace!
Friday, September 01, 2006
Calendar Mom
Usually I like being the keeper of the calendar. Sometimes it wears my ass out. Recently it's been much more of the latter than the former.
Collecting the information to put on the calendar can be somewhat of a challenge. My boys seem to lack the ability to transfer information from the school to the parent in any reliable way. Chaos will say things like, "Hey mom. There's a dude coming to speak at the high school sometime and they said to make sure to tell you about it. He's an expert." Date? Time? Subject of Mr. Dude's talk? "I don't know, mom, that's all they said." I used to think that when Chaos said the words "at school they said..." that he was telling me about an announcement made at assembly or over the intercom. Knowing my child and his Calvinesque ways, I was not surprised that the pertinent facts were either garbled or completely absent.
I convinced myself that I had to make do with Chaos' paltry hints about middle school happenings. My options (as I saw them last year) were to use his vague, factless statements as diving off points for major research projects or (more often than not) miss events entirely. The middle road between those two extremes involved comparing rumors with Chaos' friends' mothers and seeing if we collaboratively could arrive at an idea of what was going on at the school. My saving grace was that the REALLY important stuff goes on the sign in front of the school which is on Main Street and hard to miss. (And er, well, you do receive a personal phone call from the Vice Principal when your son gets OSS.)
We are only three weeks into the new school year, but the tides, they are beginning to shift! The ratio of elementary schoolers to middle schoolers having gone from 3:1 last year to 1:3 this year means I have a new resource at my disposal: the Ninja Princessa.
Here is a sample of how the new system works. (Sidenote - the family rule is that they have to participate in ONE school-related extracurricular, be it a sports team for a season or a special interest club for the whole year.)
First Shot:
Me (the first week): So, what club did you decide on and when does it meet?
Chaos (age 14): I want to play paintball.
Me: Yes. And you can. But that is not an organized school activity. I repeat, what club did you decide on and when does it meet?
Chaos: I guess I'll join the Geography Club. They go out to eat.
Me: Ok. How often do they meet? When is the first meeting? Do they eat out every time? How much does that cost?
Chaos: I don't think it costs anything. They said at school that it would probably start meeting in September but it's during the day so we don't have to worry about it.
Me: What's during the day? The meetings? Well how do they go out to eat? How often do they meet?
Chaos: I don't know Mom! They just said it would start in a few weeks. I'm sure I'll find all that out at the meetings.
Me: (silent but with raised eyebrows)
Chaos: Ok, ok - don't spaz. I'll ask my homeroom teacher.
Next Victim:
Me (just a few minutes after the conversation with Chaos): So, what club did you decide on and when does it meet?
Mayhem (age 12) : Club? I have to join a club?
Me: Yes, remember we talked about this? A sport or a club - but something social at school.
Mayhem: Oh yeah right. I remember now. Ok. I'll join the Math Club. Math is awesome.
Me: Great. Math Club. You sure they HAVE a Math Club? Did they make any announcements about it? Did they give you any papers? When does it meet? How do you sign up?
Mayhem: I have no idea. No one has said anything about it. I KNOW they have one because my friend was in it last year. (Sidenote: anyone Mayhem has talked to once, even if it was for one second, he refers to as 'my friend'.)
Me: Your friend was in the Math Club at the elementary school last year? We need info on the middle school Math Club.
Mayhem: Mo-om. My friend is in the seventh grade. He's older than me. (Sidenote: my child is rolling his eyes at me.)
Me: Ok. So what else did he say about it? Or wait - really what we need is official info, buddy. Has your homeroom teacher said anything or passed out anything about sign ups?
Mayhem: Nobody has said anything except my friend. But I'll find out. Math is awesome.
Final Victim:
Me (just a few minutes after the conversation with Mayhem and one final sidenote: the Princessa and Mayhem are in the same homeroom): So, what club did you decide on and when does it meet?
Ninja Princessa (age 11): I want to join the Writing Club! It doesn't start until September 6th at 2:45 in Ms. Crawford's room but I want to start working on something before then. We meet twice a month - on the 1st and 3rd Wednesdays, I think, I'll have to double check - but Heather and I were thinking that we could get together on the other Wednesdays and have a writing club of our own outside of school. What do you think about that? Oh! And here's the paper that our homeroom teacher gave us yesterday about all the clubs. I would have given it to you last night but I was copying it all into my planner. Oh! And here are two forms that don't have to be turned in until Friday, but we get extra credit if we bring them back tomorrow. Oh! And they made an announcement about the parent information website. It has a new address. I wrote it down for you. Here. Oh! And on that sheet - it says the sponsor for The Something Something Club is Ms. Soandso, but it's not really, it's Ms. Suchandsuch so if you ever need to call her be sure to use the right number and not mix them up. Can I go over to Rachel's?
My head almost exploded at this most unusual and unexpected influx of actual information.
I know my temper exploded. The Princessa and Mayhem are IN THE SAME HOMEROOM! They are exposed to the EXACT SAME information. The are given the EXACT SAME papers.
"I promise Mom. I've never seen that paper. I don't know where she got it!" Grrrrr. We're in the process of developing better systems so that everyone acquires some organizational skills - but the Ninja Princessa is certainly helpful in the checks and balances department! Also - I just have to add that the Geography Club does NOT meet during school, but after school just like every single other club does.
And then! (Tapioca warning - my apologies for letting the rancidness ooze twice in one week - but if you only knew how much I could say and don't!!!) My ex (Mr. Tapioca Head) has a fucking HISSY fit that I didn't tell him about the Open Houses!
Lucky for you I have just erased about 6 paragraphs but the gist of it is - I sent the man paper - hard copy - black and white notice! I handed him a bag full of papers including forms and calendars. I had gone out of my way to xerox standardized test scores (which I could have made him request directly from the school). I even put in two papers that I only had because my step-daughter (i.e. NOT a child he and I have in common!) gave them to me. I instructed the boys to be sure to show their dad the schedule in their agendas. (The school requires that the kids keep these planner/agenda thingies and write down all of their assignments. It's a fabulous tool and I check it all the time now. But honestly, it was a long shot that either boy would remember to show their dad the planner. It was only a layer, a side item, not the main dish.) Mr. Tapioca Head received not only but extra. Lastly, he has the exact same access to the sign on Main Street, the website, and teacher email that I do!
And what do I get from him? I get a completely sarcastic, vile email (that I could read but not respond to) saying he is done trying to work with me as a co-parent. He has found out about the open houses in spite of the fact that I did 'tell' him about them. When I do finally have a way to respond, I send the NICEST email possible. Not chummy - but very polite. Not apologetic - but rational, and calm- explaining that I did indeed 'tell' him. I mean it - my letter should be sent to the Nobel committee. What do I get back? A completely UNHINGED response. The most bizarre part of which is where he chides me about my opinion of the sexual orientation of one of our sons! Um - WTF???? (For the record, I have formed no 'opinions' as my boys don't seem to be much interested in girls or boys 'that way' and when they do get interested, I promise you I don't care which orientation they choose!!) The least bizarre thing the man said is that he's scheduling appointments with the principals of the schools (presumably to tell them what a terrible mother I am and how I am trying to keep him out of his sons' lives).
Being Calendar Mom is a difficult and unrewarding job. I think I'll put in for a transfer. Do you think there's an opening in the Rich, Bon-Bon Eating, Margarita-Drinking, Has Maid Service Mom department?
Peace.
Collecting the information to put on the calendar can be somewhat of a challenge. My boys seem to lack the ability to transfer information from the school to the parent in any reliable way. Chaos will say things like, "Hey mom. There's a dude coming to speak at the high school sometime and they said to make sure to tell you about it. He's an expert." Date? Time? Subject of Mr. Dude's talk? "I don't know, mom, that's all they said." I used to think that when Chaos said the words "at school they said..." that he was telling me about an announcement made at assembly or over the intercom. Knowing my child and his Calvinesque ways, I was not surprised that the pertinent facts were either garbled or completely absent.
I convinced myself that I had to make do with Chaos' paltry hints about middle school happenings. My options (as I saw them last year) were to use his vague, factless statements as diving off points for major research projects or (more often than not) miss events entirely. The middle road between those two extremes involved comparing rumors with Chaos' friends' mothers and seeing if we collaboratively could arrive at an idea of what was going on at the school. My saving grace was that the REALLY important stuff goes on the sign in front of the school which is on Main Street and hard to miss. (And er, well, you do receive a personal phone call from the Vice Principal when your son gets OSS.)
We are only three weeks into the new school year, but the tides, they are beginning to shift! The ratio of elementary schoolers to middle schoolers having gone from 3:1 last year to 1:3 this year means I have a new resource at my disposal: the Ninja Princessa.
Here is a sample of how the new system works. (Sidenote - the family rule is that they have to participate in ONE school-related extracurricular, be it a sports team for a season or a special interest club for the whole year.)
First Shot:
Me (the first week): So, what club did you decide on and when does it meet?
Chaos (age 14): I want to play paintball.
Me: Yes. And you can. But that is not an organized school activity. I repeat, what club did you decide on and when does it meet?
Chaos: I guess I'll join the Geography Club. They go out to eat.
Me: Ok. How often do they meet? When is the first meeting? Do they eat out every time? How much does that cost?
Chaos: I don't think it costs anything. They said at school that it would probably start meeting in September but it's during the day so we don't have to worry about it.
Me: What's during the day? The meetings? Well how do they go out to eat? How often do they meet?
Chaos: I don't know Mom! They just said it would start in a few weeks. I'm sure I'll find all that out at the meetings.
Me: (silent but with raised eyebrows)
Chaos: Ok, ok - don't spaz. I'll ask my homeroom teacher.
Next Victim:
Me (just a few minutes after the conversation with Chaos): So, what club did you decide on and when does it meet?
Mayhem (age 12) : Club? I have to join a club?
Me: Yes, remember we talked about this? A sport or a club - but something social at school.
Mayhem: Oh yeah right. I remember now. Ok. I'll join the Math Club. Math is awesome.
Me: Great. Math Club. You sure they HAVE a Math Club? Did they make any announcements about it? Did they give you any papers? When does it meet? How do you sign up?
Mayhem: I have no idea. No one has said anything about it. I KNOW they have one because my friend was in it last year. (Sidenote: anyone Mayhem has talked to once, even if it was for one second, he refers to as 'my friend'.)
Me: Your friend was in the Math Club at the elementary school last year? We need info on the middle school Math Club.
Mayhem: Mo-om. My friend is in the seventh grade. He's older than me. (Sidenote: my child is rolling his eyes at me.)
Me: Ok. So what else did he say about it? Or wait - really what we need is official info, buddy. Has your homeroom teacher said anything or passed out anything about sign ups?
Mayhem: Nobody has said anything except my friend. But I'll find out. Math is awesome.
Final Victim:
Me (just a few minutes after the conversation with Mayhem and one final sidenote: the Princessa and Mayhem are in the same homeroom): So, what club did you decide on and when does it meet?
Ninja Princessa (age 11): I want to join the Writing Club! It doesn't start until September 6th at 2:45 in Ms. Crawford's room but I want to start working on something before then. We meet twice a month - on the 1st and 3rd Wednesdays, I think, I'll have to double check - but Heather and I were thinking that we could get together on the other Wednesdays and have a writing club of our own outside of school. What do you think about that? Oh! And here's the paper that our homeroom teacher gave us yesterday about all the clubs. I would have given it to you last night but I was copying it all into my planner. Oh! And here are two forms that don't have to be turned in until Friday, but we get extra credit if we bring them back tomorrow. Oh! And they made an announcement about the parent information website. It has a new address. I wrote it down for you. Here. Oh! And on that sheet - it says the sponsor for The Something Something Club is Ms. Soandso, but it's not really, it's Ms. Suchandsuch so if you ever need to call her be sure to use the right number and not mix them up. Can I go over to Rachel's?
My head almost exploded at this most unusual and unexpected influx of actual information.
I know my temper exploded. The Princessa and Mayhem are IN THE SAME HOMEROOM! They are exposed to the EXACT SAME information. The are given the EXACT SAME papers.
"I promise Mom. I've never seen that paper. I don't know where she got it!" Grrrrr. We're in the process of developing better systems so that everyone acquires some organizational skills - but the Ninja Princessa is certainly helpful in the checks and balances department! Also - I just have to add that the Geography Club does NOT meet during school, but after school just like every single other club does.
And then! (Tapioca warning - my apologies for letting the rancidness ooze twice in one week - but if you only knew how much I could say and don't!!!) My ex (Mr. Tapioca Head) has a fucking HISSY fit that I didn't tell him about the Open Houses!
Lucky for you I have just erased about 6 paragraphs but the gist of it is - I sent the man paper - hard copy - black and white notice! I handed him a bag full of papers including forms and calendars. I had gone out of my way to xerox standardized test scores (which I could have made him request directly from the school). I even put in two papers that I only had because my step-daughter (i.e. NOT a child he and I have in common!) gave them to me. I instructed the boys to be sure to show their dad the schedule in their agendas. (The school requires that the kids keep these planner/agenda thingies and write down all of their assignments. It's a fabulous tool and I check it all the time now. But honestly, it was a long shot that either boy would remember to show their dad the planner. It was only a layer, a side item, not the main dish.) Mr. Tapioca Head received not only but extra. Lastly, he has the exact same access to the sign on Main Street, the website, and teacher email that I do!
And what do I get from him? I get a completely sarcastic, vile email (that I could read but not respond to) saying he is done trying to work with me as a co-parent. He has found out about the open houses in spite of the fact that I did 'tell' him about them. When I do finally have a way to respond, I send the NICEST email possible. Not chummy - but very polite. Not apologetic - but rational, and calm- explaining that I did indeed 'tell' him. I mean it - my letter should be sent to the Nobel committee. What do I get back? A completely UNHINGED response. The most bizarre part of which is where he chides me about my opinion of the sexual orientation of one of our sons! Um - WTF???? (For the record, I have formed no 'opinions' as my boys don't seem to be much interested in girls or boys 'that way' and when they do get interested, I promise you I don't care which orientation they choose!!) The least bizarre thing the man said is that he's scheduling appointments with the principals of the schools (presumably to tell them what a terrible mother I am and how I am trying to keep him out of his sons' lives).
Being Calendar Mom is a difficult and unrewarding job. I think I'll put in for a transfer. Do you think there's an opening in the Rich, Bon-Bon Eating, Margarita-Drinking, Has Maid Service Mom department?
Peace.
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Ixnay
Ixnay on the Ishfay! I sooooo have to get one of these. There are other great fish here, but this is the one I have to have. It will go great (here in my studio) right next to my bumper sticker "So many Christians. So few lions." Here's the thing. I am a woman of deep, abiding, and somewhat complex faith. I LOVE church. I am ALL ABOUT liturgy. I talk to my kids all the time about values and faith. But Lordy, Christians know how to work my very last nerve.
Yo Ho, Yo Ho, A Gamer's Life For Me
"Mashed goblin heads." (<-- My older son's answer to my question, "How was game? What did you do?") That's what my kids did last night - they mashed goblin heads. Here in the Bible Belt, Wednesday nights are sacred fellowship time. Sports practices and school assignments are arranged to leave the night open. Most of my neighbors gather with their church families and pray. My family? We do gather. We gather our kids and their like-minded friends. We usually feast. And then we get down to serious family activities like goblin head mashing. (Praying is entirely optional.) I've mentioned it before, but it bears repeating. I am raising a herd of gamer geeks. RPG's R Us. I love it. My kids know how to follow a cross-referenced index; they have to use diplomacy to gather the party together and develop strategies; they have to write character backstory; they learn to speak up in a group; and they are whizzes at adding/manipulating the numbers on thrown dice. But there are times when I realize how sweetly not-normal my kids really are.
For example:
This summer when we helped VBGF move, she treated my crew to dinner out at the Chinese Buffet. My children LOVE the Chinese Buffet. They were dashing around, happily babbling, comparing choices, and racing each other to the best stuff. Did I mention that they LOVE the Chinese Buffet? Me? Not so much. I was sitting at the table waiting for the whole thing to be over when my youngest, Havoc, rushes to me holding one hand up with the other, blowing on his bright red finger tips.
"Lovey, what happened?!" I asked, as I scooped him up into my lap. With tiny tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes, he said, "I encounterd a steaming hot plate and suffered one HP damage." Then he held his fingers up for me to kiss it all better. I gave him extra squeezes and didn't let him see me chuckling. He is definitely sweeter and geekier than the average bear.
Peace.
For example:
This summer when we helped VBGF move, she treated my crew to dinner out at the Chinese Buffet. My children LOVE the Chinese Buffet. They were dashing around, happily babbling, comparing choices, and racing each other to the best stuff. Did I mention that they LOVE the Chinese Buffet? Me? Not so much. I was sitting at the table waiting for the whole thing to be over when my youngest, Havoc, rushes to me holding one hand up with the other, blowing on his bright red finger tips.
"Lovey, what happened?!" I asked, as I scooped him up into my lap. With tiny tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes, he said, "I encounterd a steaming hot plate and suffered one HP damage." Then he held his fingers up for me to kiss it all better. I gave him extra squeezes and didn't let him see me chuckling. He is definitely sweeter and geekier than the average bear.
Peace.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Better, Stronger, Faster And Also? Oozing Tapioca
My computer? She's ALIVE! (Again.)
We (and by 'we' I specifically mean Sweet Hubby all by his lonesome) had the technology to rebuild her. All that had to be done was to remove her brain and stick it in a smaller, sleeker, newer body with about quadruple the memory. The only 'hitch' is the possibility that a few recent, snarky emails from my ex (Mr. Tapioca Head) may have been lost forever.
Same brain but smaller, sleeker, younger body with a better overall memory and fewer specific memories of my ex?? SIGN ME UP, I say!
In other news - I've changed my self diagnosis from 'sporadic grammar nazi' to plain and simple 'word nazi' because really? (and obviously) I don't actually get punctuation. Fragments are cool with me. Spelling mistakes don't bother me too much either. (I have a cousin who is brilliant and a PATHOLOGICALLY horrendous speller. It fascinated me all through high school and didn't seem to hold her back as she went on to get a Master's from Harvard and a PhD from Vanderbilt.) But the 'wrong word thing' can make me twitchy. Previously, I've worried about my son's chances of getting a job (since he suffers dreadfully from a serious but common form of almost-malapropitis) but apparently I need not worry AT all. There are jobs a plenty (especially in the food service industry) for people who don't know one word from another. At Kroger's recently, I saw a sign posted that instructed folks making their salads at the salad bar to "disgard" any food that is dropped. (Aside from the 'ick' factor that they would have to post a notice like that - what were people doing before the sign?? - I have to admit that it COULD have been a simple spelling mistake.) My local bagel shop has posted a 'Help Wanted' sign that says they are looking for someone who is "friendly, able to follow instructions, willing to work weekends, and conscience of others." Jiminy Cricket!
And there is one other word confusion (non food service industry related) that has amused me this week. (It is possible that you will not be as amused as I was but to put my amusement in context you have to understand that at the time my other entertainment options were pamphlets about STD's, information on the state's most wanted 'deadbeat dads', and horrifyingly graphic posters informing me of the truth about meth bugs.) You see, I spent quite a while at the child support enforcement office this week trying to understand what the heck is going on with our 'case'. The case worker kept talking about garnishing my ex's paycheck. I tried not to snicker (really!) - but the image I kept seeing was of some official state personage drawing cute little doodles and pasting precious stickers all over his check. I know they use the word garnishee (to mean the person whose wages are being withheld) and I know that they use the word garnishment (to mean the amount they are withholding), but I was taught in school that the verb for withholding pay was 'garner' and the verb 'garnish' was along the lines of fancy restaurants decorating their signature dishes. It's possible that I was wrong to begin with. It could also be that the word usage has shifted thereby rendering my understanding archaic. I'm ok with language shift. I find it interesting and generally think it's a positive force in the world. However you'll just have to disreguard my chuckling at the silly pictures my archaic understanding paints in my head.
Back to the inordinately long time spent in the child support office on Monday: I've been trying NOT to blog about my ex all week but he has been such an icky, icky pain in the potatoes that short of not writing (like the past five days) I think I just have to let a little bit of rancid tapioca leak out into the blogosphere.
Here is the smallest peice of it:
For about the past three years, I have wanted to have my child support switched from being paid directly by my ex to going through the state. He and I have had any number of unpleasant disagreements over silly little things like my ex deciding he'd 'overpaid' me and skipping an entire check (at Christmas - twice!) or his trying to argue that he can't pay me anything for a month because he lost his job even though he has just received ELEVEN THOUSAND dollars in severance. Aside from the fact that the state and I agree that severance pay does in fact count as 'income' in terms of maintaining one's children - someone please explain how he could justify to himself having a fat bank balance while his kids get nothing on which to eat?! Anyway... each time I have suggested we let the state decide what's fair, he has bullied and badgered, wheedled and argued, and generally made life unpleasant in the extreme for me (and more subtly for the kids.) He has thrown hissy fits about how having his wages withheld by the state for child support would make him look to his employer like a 'deadbeat dad' which he is not. I bought that - because for all the financial shenanigans he's tried to pull - at heart, he is no where close to a 'deadbeat'. He does eventually come through with most, if not all of, what we agreed on. He is way more annoying than criminal. In the interest of finding compromise, I have protected us by getting the amount of child support officially updated by court order but never gone on ahead and turned the whole case over to the state. It's just not ever gotten to the point of being worth the inevitable price of extra emotional stress on the kids when he gets into passive-aggressive mode. So imagine my surprise when I get a postcard from child support services saying that a case has been 'opened'. (<-- Dated the day after our most recent mediation session failed, btw.) I could only assume that he had done this in an effort to get his child support lessened.
Apparently, once a case is opened, the state goes ahead and processes it and informs you about the outcome later. While I was biking, a lot happened. My stack of mail included:
*a request for me to provide a copy of my divorce decree (oops - missed the two day deadline on that one!)
*a judgment setting our child support AT THE EXACT AMOUNT it's been for years. (Maybe that will change later, but it was a relief to see it reiterated all the same.)
*a copy of the form sent to my ex's employer requiring them to garnish his wages (as you can imagine, hello kitty stickers were envisioned but not actually included)
*a very serious looking (and confusing!) affidavit of income/expenses to be turned in NO LATER THAN Aug 28th (hence my time spent desperately trying to look at anything EXCEPT the meth bug poster!)
The case worker, who by the way had not returned any of my phone calls, despite the increasingly desperate messages I left as the deadline drew near - was GREAT in person. She answered my questions. But she was puzzled why I was asking so many. Why hadn't I asked all the procedural questions when I opened the case? I explained to her that I hadn't opened the case, my ex had. She looked at me. She looked at her file. She looked more closely at her file.
"But you're the custodial parent?"
"Yes."
"And you've always been the custodial parent?"
"Yes."
"But your ex - who pays you child support - opened this case?"
"I assume so. I didn't do it. I think he was mad at me when he didn't get what he wanted in mediation."
"Does he realize he opened a case with the child support ENFORCEMENT office?"
"Again, I assume so. Is everything ok?"
"It's fine - I've just never, ever heard of anyone opening an enforcement case against themselves."
She mentioned at one point that he could 'close' the case if he wanted to. I panicked a bit about that asking whether that meant he could decide to go back to paying me directly instead of through the court. "Oh no honey! He'll be paying the court for, um let's see, 11 years. There's no going back on that. But he could come back and close the enforcement case against himself." (She chuckled and shook her head, muttering under her breath "Lordy - a case against yourself." I really liked her.)
I told her that I'd gotten one check - but that it was short by several hundred dollars of the amount he was ordered to pay. She said that since it was the first one, the garnishment probably hadn't taken hold yet and he'd just mailed in a random amount himself. (Why he didn't mail in the amount he's been paying that happens also to be the amount he was ordered to pay - I cannot begin to guess.) She asked me if I wanted her to send a letter of contempt. Er - no. I just want the fair amount of money. She said he would probably make it up at the end of the month - but she reassured me that he couldn't 'skip' checks anymore. The amount in arrears would always show and he'd have to catch up or the state would take steps. (She said one of those 'steps' could be putting him in jail overnight. Heaven forbid!! Can you imagine how awful that would be for the kids (not to mention for him)? I suppose that's what makes it effective - but really! There is no way I'd be ok with that.) Her parting words to me were, "Well if you change your mind on Thursday - just give me a call and I'll send out that contempt letter."
If only I could convince her to garnish the letter with some 'my precious pony' stickers, I might be tempted.
Peace.
We (and by 'we' I specifically mean Sweet Hubby all by his lonesome) had the technology to rebuild her. All that had to be done was to remove her brain and stick it in a smaller, sleeker, newer body with about quadruple the memory. The only 'hitch' is the possibility that a few recent, snarky emails from my ex (Mr. Tapioca Head) may have been lost forever.
Same brain but smaller, sleeker, younger body with a better overall memory and fewer specific memories of my ex?? SIGN ME UP, I say!
In other news - I've changed my self diagnosis from 'sporadic grammar nazi' to plain and simple 'word nazi' because really? (and obviously) I don't actually get punctuation. Fragments are cool with me. Spelling mistakes don't bother me too much either. (I have a cousin who is brilliant and a PATHOLOGICALLY horrendous speller. It fascinated me all through high school and didn't seem to hold her back as she went on to get a Master's from Harvard and a PhD from Vanderbilt.) But the 'wrong word thing' can make me twitchy. Previously, I've worried about my son's chances of getting a job (since he suffers dreadfully from a serious but common form of almost-malapropitis) but apparently I need not worry AT all. There are jobs a plenty (especially in the food service industry) for people who don't know one word from another. At Kroger's recently, I saw a sign posted that instructed folks making their salads at the salad bar to "disgard" any food that is dropped. (Aside from the 'ick' factor that they would have to post a notice like that - what were people doing before the sign?? - I have to admit that it COULD have been a simple spelling mistake.) My local bagel shop has posted a 'Help Wanted' sign that says they are looking for someone who is "friendly, able to follow instructions, willing to work weekends, and conscience of others." Jiminy Cricket!
And there is one other word confusion (non food service industry related) that has amused me this week. (It is possible that you will not be as amused as I was but to put my amusement in context you have to understand that at the time my other entertainment options were pamphlets about STD's, information on the state's most wanted 'deadbeat dads', and horrifyingly graphic posters informing me of the truth about meth bugs.) You see, I spent quite a while at the child support enforcement office this week trying to understand what the heck is going on with our 'case'. The case worker kept talking about garnishing my ex's paycheck. I tried not to snicker (really!) - but the image I kept seeing was of some official state personage drawing cute little doodles and pasting precious stickers all over his check. I know they use the word garnishee (to mean the person whose wages are being withheld) and I know that they use the word garnishment (to mean the amount they are withholding), but I was taught in school that the verb for withholding pay was 'garner' and the verb 'garnish' was along the lines of fancy restaurants decorating their signature dishes. It's possible that I was wrong to begin with. It could also be that the word usage has shifted thereby rendering my understanding archaic. I'm ok with language shift. I find it interesting and generally think it's a positive force in the world. However you'll just have to disreguard my chuckling at the silly pictures my archaic understanding paints in my head.
Back to the inordinately long time spent in the child support office on Monday: I've been trying NOT to blog about my ex all week but he has been such an icky, icky pain in the potatoes that short of not writing (like the past five days) I think I just have to let a little bit of rancid tapioca leak out into the blogosphere.
Here is the smallest peice of it:
For about the past three years, I have wanted to have my child support switched from being paid directly by my ex to going through the state. He and I have had any number of unpleasant disagreements over silly little things like my ex deciding he'd 'overpaid' me and skipping an entire check (at Christmas - twice!) or his trying to argue that he can't pay me anything for a month because he lost his job even though he has just received ELEVEN THOUSAND dollars in severance. Aside from the fact that the state and I agree that severance pay does in fact count as 'income' in terms of maintaining one's children - someone please explain how he could justify to himself having a fat bank balance while his kids get nothing on which to eat?! Anyway... each time I have suggested we let the state decide what's fair, he has bullied and badgered, wheedled and argued, and generally made life unpleasant in the extreme for me (and more subtly for the kids.) He has thrown hissy fits about how having his wages withheld by the state for child support would make him look to his employer like a 'deadbeat dad' which he is not. I bought that - because for all the financial shenanigans he's tried to pull - at heart, he is no where close to a 'deadbeat'. He does eventually come through with most, if not all of, what we agreed on. He is way more annoying than criminal. In the interest of finding compromise, I have protected us by getting the amount of child support officially updated by court order but never gone on ahead and turned the whole case over to the state. It's just not ever gotten to the point of being worth the inevitable price of extra emotional stress on the kids when he gets into passive-aggressive mode. So imagine my surprise when I get a postcard from child support services saying that a case has been 'opened'. (<-- Dated the day after our most recent mediation session failed, btw.) I could only assume that he had done this in an effort to get his child support lessened.
Apparently, once a case is opened, the state goes ahead and processes it and informs you about the outcome later. While I was biking, a lot happened. My stack of mail included:
*a request for me to provide a copy of my divorce decree (oops - missed the two day deadline on that one!)
*a judgment setting our child support AT THE EXACT AMOUNT it's been for years. (Maybe that will change later, but it was a relief to see it reiterated all the same.)
*a copy of the form sent to my ex's employer requiring them to garnish his wages (as you can imagine, hello kitty stickers were envisioned but not actually included)
*a very serious looking (and confusing!) affidavit of income/expenses to be turned in NO LATER THAN Aug 28th (hence my time spent desperately trying to look at anything EXCEPT the meth bug poster!)
The case worker, who by the way had not returned any of my phone calls, despite the increasingly desperate messages I left as the deadline drew near - was GREAT in person. She answered my questions. But she was puzzled why I was asking so many. Why hadn't I asked all the procedural questions when I opened the case? I explained to her that I hadn't opened the case, my ex had. She looked at me. She looked at her file. She looked more closely at her file.
"But you're the custodial parent?"
"Yes."
"And you've always been the custodial parent?"
"Yes."
"But your ex - who pays you child support - opened this case?"
"I assume so. I didn't do it. I think he was mad at me when he didn't get what he wanted in mediation."
"Does he realize he opened a case with the child support ENFORCEMENT office?"
"Again, I assume so. Is everything ok?"
"It's fine - I've just never, ever heard of anyone opening an enforcement case against themselves."
She mentioned at one point that he could 'close' the case if he wanted to. I panicked a bit about that asking whether that meant he could decide to go back to paying me directly instead of through the court. "Oh no honey! He'll be paying the court for, um let's see, 11 years. There's no going back on that. But he could come back and close the enforcement case against himself." (She chuckled and shook her head, muttering under her breath "Lordy - a case against yourself." I really liked her.)
I told her that I'd gotten one check - but that it was short by several hundred dollars of the amount he was ordered to pay. She said that since it was the first one, the garnishment probably hadn't taken hold yet and he'd just mailed in a random amount himself. (Why he didn't mail in the amount he's been paying that happens also to be the amount he was ordered to pay - I cannot begin to guess.) She asked me if I wanted her to send a letter of contempt. Er - no. I just want the fair amount of money. She said he would probably make it up at the end of the month - but she reassured me that he couldn't 'skip' checks anymore. The amount in arrears would always show and he'd have to catch up or the state would take steps. (She said one of those 'steps' could be putting him in jail overnight. Heaven forbid!! Can you imagine how awful that would be for the kids (not to mention for him)? I suppose that's what makes it effective - but really! There is no way I'd be ok with that.) Her parting words to me were, "Well if you change your mind on Thursday - just give me a call and I'll send out that contempt letter."
If only I could convince her to garnish the letter with some 'my precious pony' stickers, I might be tempted.
Peace.
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Blogstacles
I finally have time in my studio to write, surf, and blog - and guess what??
My computer is sick. Really sick. Sweet hubby made me pull the plug. He tried to walk me through some patches or fixes or whatever and we discovered that my browser had been hijacked and the spybot search and destroy program was itself devoured by whatever's lurking. Until he can bring home some major diagnostic suite, he had me unplug her to make sure that whatever is going on can't replicate and eat the hard drive or randomly email anyone I've ever emailed. She might need the computer equivalent of chemo. Sigh. I guess I'm grateful that, unlike when the kids get sick, I don't have to do extra laundry.
I spent the first half of the morning moping around, whining (to Wasabi) about how much it sucks not to have computer access. I even railed against the gods of the ether who seem to enjoy sowing obstacles along my blogging path. I resigned myself to cleaning out a huge box of old paper/mail/random crap that's been skulking around since we moved (LAST YEAR!!!)
In it, I found an old address book. As I was trying to decide if I had the energy to sort through it or if I should just toss it, a card fell out. It was a nine year old Christmas card from the sister in my French host family. Twenty years ago (last month!) I stayed with her family and over the next ten years we kept in touch. I never got back to France, but I saw her when she was here. She (and later she and/or her husband) would stay with us or we'd meet her/them wherever they were going. That Christmas card was all about how she and her husband were finally getting to immigrate to the US. A few months after she sent the card, she called me and left me a phone message with her new address and phone number. Before I got around to writing that info down, a huge storm zapped our machine and killed it. We had just moved into a tiny (770 sq ft!) cabin and I was pregnant with Havoc. I couldn't keep any food down; I had two small boys at home; we had NO money (to replace the message machine, much less make an international phone call to her old number to try and get her new one); and by the time I sorted things out - I had no way to find her.
Her old number was dead and my letters got returned. I have mentioned my mad computer research skillz before, right? I tried Googling her a couple (er, well maybe 4 or 5) years ago with no luck. Her name is Roxane and Google would ask me if I meant "Roxanne". Her last name happens to be a past passive participle (? I think) of some irregular French verb. Aside from some odd French websites, I found nothing. When I saw the card this morning, my first thought was how sad I was that my computer was comatose. If my computer was working, I'd try again to find Roxane. I walked into the bedroom, stubbed my toe on SH's office chair, bumped his desk, and eeeked when his computer screen lit up. (RIGHT! That's a COMPUTER!) It's not MY computer, but hey, she won't mind. I have computer access again. YAY! (Go ahead, ask me how much more work I've done sorting through papers.)
I HEART Google! I got two good hits! The first one listed both her and her husband's names and gave their street address (and the name of the realtor who sold them their new house - but I didn't give a shit about that). The second one was her name (spelled correctly) in an elementary school PTO newsletter thanking her for her help with career day (computer science). BINGO! That's MY Roxane! AND the newsletter gave me the zip code so I didn't even have to look that up.
I called Sweet Hubby and bragged about my amazing research abilities (neglecting to mention the role my poor stubbed toe played) and do you know what he said? (Hint: it was NOT along the lines of "Honey, that's great!")
He said, "So did you call her yet?"
I said, "Um, no. I'm going to WRITE her. I have her ADDRESS."
He said, "Why didn't you use that to get her number? "
Aside from the fact that it hadn't occurred to me (and that even now that he's brought it up, I have no idea how to convert the one to the other), I realized I'd be too nervous to call. I think writing a letter is more up my alley. Chicken Street. That's where I live, apparently. Google me and I bet that's what you'd find. (Well, you'd find that and a question about a recipe for lasagna in French. If you want some serious fun (or are just trying to avoid a pile of year old mail on the floor), try having Google 'translate' that recipe into English for you.)
Peace.
My computer is sick. Really sick. Sweet hubby made me pull the plug. He tried to walk me through some patches or fixes or whatever and we discovered that my browser had been hijacked and the spybot search and destroy program was itself devoured by whatever's lurking. Until he can bring home some major diagnostic suite, he had me unplug her to make sure that whatever is going on can't replicate and eat the hard drive or randomly email anyone I've ever emailed. She might need the computer equivalent of chemo. Sigh. I guess I'm grateful that, unlike when the kids get sick, I don't have to do extra laundry.
I spent the first half of the morning moping around, whining (to Wasabi) about how much it sucks not to have computer access. I even railed against the gods of the ether who seem to enjoy sowing obstacles along my blogging path. I resigned myself to cleaning out a huge box of old paper/mail/random crap that's been skulking around since we moved (LAST YEAR!!!)
In it, I found an old address book. As I was trying to decide if I had the energy to sort through it or if I should just toss it, a card fell out. It was a nine year old Christmas card from the sister in my French host family. Twenty years ago (last month!) I stayed with her family and over the next ten years we kept in touch. I never got back to France, but I saw her when she was here. She (and later she and/or her husband) would stay with us or we'd meet her/them wherever they were going. That Christmas card was all about how she and her husband were finally getting to immigrate to the US. A few months after she sent the card, she called me and left me a phone message with her new address and phone number. Before I got around to writing that info down, a huge storm zapped our machine and killed it. We had just moved into a tiny (770 sq ft!) cabin and I was pregnant with Havoc. I couldn't keep any food down; I had two small boys at home; we had NO money (to replace the message machine, much less make an international phone call to her old number to try and get her new one); and by the time I sorted things out - I had no way to find her.
Her old number was dead and my letters got returned. I have mentioned my mad computer research skillz before, right? I tried Googling her a couple (er, well maybe 4 or 5) years ago with no luck. Her name is Roxane and Google would ask me if I meant "Roxanne". Her last name happens to be a past passive participle (? I think) of some irregular French verb. Aside from some odd French websites, I found nothing. When I saw the card this morning, my first thought was how sad I was that my computer was comatose. If my computer was working, I'd try again to find Roxane. I walked into the bedroom, stubbed my toe on SH's office chair, bumped his desk, and eeeked when his computer screen lit up. (RIGHT! That's a COMPUTER!) It's not MY computer, but hey, she won't mind. I have computer access again. YAY! (Go ahead, ask me how much more work I've done sorting through papers.)
I HEART Google! I got two good hits! The first one listed both her and her husband's names and gave their street address (and the name of the realtor who sold them their new house - but I didn't give a shit about that). The second one was her name (spelled correctly) in an elementary school PTO newsletter thanking her for her help with career day (computer science). BINGO! That's MY Roxane! AND the newsletter gave me the zip code so I didn't even have to look that up.
I called Sweet Hubby and bragged about my amazing research abilities (neglecting to mention the role my poor stubbed toe played) and do you know what he said? (Hint: it was NOT along the lines of "Honey, that's great!")
He said, "So did you call her yet?"
I said, "Um, no. I'm going to WRITE her. I have her ADDRESS."
He said, "Why didn't you use that to get her number? "
Aside from the fact that it hadn't occurred to me (and that even now that he's brought it up, I have no idea how to convert the one to the other), I realized I'd be too nervous to call. I think writing a letter is more up my alley. Chicken Street. That's where I live, apparently. Google me and I bet that's what you'd find. (Well, you'd find that and a question about a recipe for lasagna in French. If you want some serious fun (or are just trying to avoid a pile of year old mail on the floor), try having Google 'translate' that recipe into English for you.)
Peace.
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Idea Bunnies
I have started about twenty entries this morning and haven't been able to settle into any one of them. I seem to be having the opposite of writer's block. Or maybe not exactly opposite. It feels a bit like chasing mental rabbits. I dash into a herd of them and they scatter. When I try to run one down, it manages to dart ahead and hop to the side. I chase and chase and no joy. I give up. I flop down (huffing and puffing) with no idea bunnies in sight. If I stay here quietly, I suspect they would slowly surround me again - but to be honest - I have WAAAY to much housework to do to sit here and wait for the mental rabbit herd to regather.
So I'll leave you with this - yesterday I was on the interstate behind a Batesville Casket Company semi and on the back it said, "Drive safely. Heaven can wait."
Isn't that great?
Peace.
So I'll leave you with this - yesterday I was on the interstate behind a Batesville Casket Company semi and on the back it said, "Drive safely. Heaven can wait."
Isn't that great?
Peace.
Sunday, August 20, 2006
Fun Facts About You - It's A Middle School Thing
Apparently, every single teacher gave the kids a 'Fun Facts About You' sheet to fill out in class on the first day. My two sixth-graders and my one eighth-grader complained mightily about how 'boring' this was and they implored VBGF (whose school doesn't start for two weeks) not to torture her students this way. She told them it really helps her to know her students as individuals and besides they're often hilarious and teachers need all the laughs they can get.
Wondering if my kids were more on the 'boring' side or the 'often hilarious' side, I asked them what kind of questions were on the sheet. The Ninja Princessa said that one of her teachers asked her to list her three favorite foods. She answered (honestly): pomegranates, tofu, and cabbage.
That's my girl. Her favorite foods are a weird, seedy, fruit thing; a gelatinous, bland, non-meat thing; and a stinky, vegetable thing. I'm not an expert, but I suspect her answer will stand out amid her classmates' answers of pizza, chicken fingers, and french fries. Chaos' favorite movie answer ("8 Legged Freaks") might stand out too, but then again, it might not. I'm pretty sure that all of Chaos' friends love that movie too. (But did they write it down, that's the thing.)
I know teachers at the beginning of the year are incredibly busy. Do you think they could possibly have had time to READ all of those answers? If teachers had unlimited time, just imagine what they could do with all that information! They could know who was in which friend clique. They could spot new pre-teen trends. They could compare this year's answers with past classes and chart subtle, historical shifts in adolescent attitudes. They could entertain themselves by playing guessing games tomorrow evening at Back To School Night - matching incoming parents with student sheets before reading nametags!
But surely the teachers have only had time to skim. Right? Right?
Oh Lordy. I might need some fashion advice. I need something clear, but understated. Something classic. I need the kind of outfit that says, "I really do cook normal food" and "He must get the gene for loving mutant, alien spiders from his father."
What do you think? Black, strappy sandals or closed-toe flats? Hmmmm?
Peace.
Wondering if my kids were more on the 'boring' side or the 'often hilarious' side, I asked them what kind of questions were on the sheet. The Ninja Princessa said that one of her teachers asked her to list her three favorite foods. She answered (honestly): pomegranates, tofu, and cabbage.
That's my girl. Her favorite foods are a weird, seedy, fruit thing; a gelatinous, bland, non-meat thing; and a stinky, vegetable thing. I'm not an expert, but I suspect her answer will stand out amid her classmates' answers of pizza, chicken fingers, and french fries. Chaos' favorite movie answer ("8 Legged Freaks") might stand out too, but then again, it might not. I'm pretty sure that all of Chaos' friends love that movie too. (But did they write it down, that's the thing.)
I know teachers at the beginning of the year are incredibly busy. Do you think they could possibly have had time to READ all of those answers? If teachers had unlimited time, just imagine what they could do with all that information! They could know who was in which friend clique. They could spot new pre-teen trends. They could compare this year's answers with past classes and chart subtle, historical shifts in adolescent attitudes. They could entertain themselves by playing guessing games tomorrow evening at Back To School Night - matching incoming parents with student sheets before reading nametags!
But surely the teachers have only had time to skim. Right? Right?
Oh Lordy. I might need some fashion advice. I need something clear, but understated. Something classic. I need the kind of outfit that says, "I really do cook normal food" and "He must get the gene for loving mutant, alien spiders from his father."
What do you think? Black, strappy sandals or closed-toe flats? Hmmmm?
Peace.
Friday, August 18, 2006
What I Did This Summer
Biking 450 miles from Central Vermont to Montreal (and back) is fantastic. You should do it. However, if you decide to, here are a few bits of advice:
(Pre-Bike Trip Advice)
Do:
Bike the Blue Ridge Parkway for a couple of days on your way up to Vermont if you happen to get stranded in Wytheville, VA and towed to Roanoke on a Saturday after all the mechanics have left and won't be back until Monday.
Do:
Get your hair cut by the Vietnamese barber on Williamson in Roanoke. He's open on Sundays, charges $10, and cuts hair like Edward Scissorhands. Really. (Also, if you tell him you want your hair to look like Armando's from the Mexican restaurant, it'll be short enough to fit under your bike helmet and be much cooler (temperaturewise) - but it'll be spikey on top, which is fun. Even if you don't remember until later that you have no hair gel and no room for hair gel in your bike bag so it'll really only be spikey that first day. For ten minutes. Before you put your bike helmet on to ride back to the hotel.)
Don't:
Believe the mechanics who think they might be able to find out what's wrong with your car and get you on the road by Thursday.
Do:
Go right ahead and rent a car and drive yourself the rest of the way to Vermont on Saturday. It'll save you the cost of hotel rooms and you won't have to put off your bike trip to Canada by almost a week AND you won't miss your nephew's first birthday. (Alternatively - if you don't take the advice about the rental car and you do take the advice about biking the parkway - DO wear sunscreen because then you'll be able to ignore some of the advice once you get to Montreal. Keep reading and you'll see.)
(Actual During The Bike Trip Advice)
Do:
Bike with your Very Best Girlfriend. She rocks.
Don't:
Talk to her after breakfast and before actually getting on the road. (Especially if that amount of time is a long time because you haven't gotten your poop in a group.) VBGF's rock in general, but take it from me, they're a leetle grumpy at that particular time of day.
Do:
Get a good map before you go.
Don't:
Assume a map obtained at a bicycle shop, written by cyclists, for cyclists qualifies as 'good' or even that it will be remotely helpful. (On the other hand - DO get this 'cyclist-specific' map if you are the type of person who doesn't want to be bogged down by pesky details like names of cross streets or beside-the-point information like, say - that the bridge you have to take is CLOSED and the ferry that runs only runs NEXT MONTH. In fact, if you are the type of minimalist person who would want to make do with such a map, shoot me an email and I can hook you up, baby!)
Do:
Follow the cycle shop's advice to enter Canada at "quaint" crossing stations.
Don't:
Be put off by the fact that what appears to be a tiny, stone outhouse in a corn field that smells overwhelmingly of cow poo is in fact the 'crossing station'.
And Do:
Get so excited about your very first border crossing that you make the tiny, wizened, old, French-speaking man stamp your passports even though he is irritated beyond belief at having to do so.
Don't:
Get freaked out and run off the road just because there is a GINORMOUS, cow-manure spreading machine, driven by 10-year olds heading directly for you. (Instead, hold your ground - and your breath - and the boys will wave as they pass you with INCHES to spare.)
Also don't (this one is VERY important) - DON'T:
Pass up the first 'restaurant' you see just because it doesn't look anything like a restaurant. I promise you it may be the only food source in ALL OF CANADA - or at least the only one until Sabrevois which is 400 km from the border even though the well-meaning locals on the island in the middle of Lake Champlain just before the border will assure you that there are many, many amenities (like places to exchange money, pee, and get food - some food, any food) 'right as you go into Canada'.
Don't:
Believe any well-meaning locals.
Ever.
About anything.
Especially if you ask them "How far is ...?" and they look at you as you straddle your bike and then they proceed to tell you how long it takes them to drive it in their car and then they try to convert that into how long it would take THEM to bike it.
Do - by ALL means DO:
Bike the extra kilometer out of the way in Sabrevois to the 'restaurant' at the marina (even if it takes you 15 minutes to figure out whether or not the restaurant is open because (besides being in French and consisting entirely of abbreviations) the weathered sign at the crossroads doesn't list hours of operation or even days, it lists MONTHS of operation. Hint: it's Canada - and it's a restaurant at a marina. If it's warm enough for you to be pedaling, then chances are, you are there in a month warm enough for boating, which means that it is well worth your while to hie thee hither to the only food source short of your final destination of the day which appears to be
more than twenty miles away on your cyclist-specific map.
Don't:
Burst into exhausted, low-blood-sugar-fueled tears of relief when the nice little man and his wife who own the marina restaurant assure you that it is less than 10 km (not even 6.2 miles!!!) to your destination, no matter what your shitty (er, I mean cyclist-specific) map says.
Do:
Order this amazing Canadian comfort food from the nice little man and his wife who speak French AND English, take Canadian AND American money, don't get offended when you ask them twelve times if they are SURE of the distance (and they are not only sure but also RIGHT!) and who, incidentally, are completely wigged out by American girls who burst into tears.
Don't:
Be surprised (if you ignore my earlier advice about not bursting into tears) when the nice little man tries very, very hard to convince you to let him (and his wife if you don't trust him!) drive you by truck (that one right there in the parking lot) or by boat (that one right there at the dock) those last, little 10km even if you have stopped crying and pigged out on the yummy poutine and feel quite up to returning to the fray with renewed vigga (<--that last part being my beloved Grandpa Jack's phrase.) Do: Stay here. It is on the bike path, it's incredibly affordable, and is run by a wonderfully nice woman named Madame Boutine (which is NOT to be confused with poutine even though they rhyme and are both Canadian and comforting!) Really - Auberge Harris is a perfect cyclists' hotel.
Don't:
Get in a HUGE fight with your VBGF within sight of Montreal (even if the fight is about the fact that you can SEE Montreal, but due to the shitty (er, I mean, cyclist-specific) map, you can't for the life of either of you figure out how to GET there.)
Also, don't:
(VBGF-like) Pretend to bike off forever but really just turn the corner out of sight and throw your water bottles at a wall. (They bust open and you have no water to drink and it doesn't get you into Montreal.)
And don't:
(Me-like) Cry for an hour trying to figure out how you're going to get back to the States all by yourself. (It makes your eyes swell shut and gives you a blinding headache and still doesn't get you into Montreal.)
Do:
Make up with your VBGF (if you ignore the earlier advice about skipping the fight altogether)and then (this is key) toss out the shitty, cyclist-specific 'map', listen to the advice of a friendly local cyclist*, and when you finally arrive in beautiful, incredible, fantastic Montreal - stay here. It costs a ridiculous amount of money but it's the perfect place to celebrate your birthday. With your best friend. With whom you don't ever, ever want to fight again.
(*N.B.: 'local cyclists' are altogether different from 'well meaning locals'. A local cyclist is not a person who tells you they just love to bike and do it all the time. A local cyclist is a person actually on a bike who claims to have just this moment come from the very place you wish to get to.)
Do (and I never imagined I'd have to give such weird advice as this, but...):
Watch out for odd, Canadian men named Rene on the Metro. If you ignore my earlier advice about the sunscreen then by this point in your trip you'll have had to put up with twelve million and two coments about your peeling sunburn (which people in Canada have apparently never in their whole lives seen). And if you're not careful, a very weird dude will reach over and peel skin off of your back while all of his very, very drunk friends laugh - and THEN he will chat at you and tell you he's a dermatologist and he will crowd onto the same Metro car as you and he might even sit on your lap to the next stop. Um, all I'm really trying to say here is - wear sunscreen in Roanoke.
Do:
Go sightseeing around the old town and port of Montreal. Soak up some of the culture. Practice reading the signs. They're in French but often have pictures accompanying them.
Don't:
Wonder why the security guard roars up from out of nowhere and pulls a little Dukes of Hazzard fishtail stop on his side of the fence if it takes you too long to figure out what the signs at the port say in French. (Hint: The signs say "STAY OUT. NO PICTURES. NO LOITERING. NO TOURISTS. YOU MUST HAVE ID BADGES AND HARD HATS. BIO HAZARD. TRESPASSERS SHOT ON SIGHT. " Those little pictures are fine and all but they don't give you a very clear picture of exactly how touchy Canadian officials are if you don't manage to decipher all of it quick enough and happen to stand with your bike looking at their port for too long - and there's not much point in today's tense atmosphere of trying to explain that if you don't have room in your tiny, little, bike pack for hair gel and panties then you are not likely to be toting around a bomb. Just smile and thank the nice Canadian official and move along. And don't even THINK about asking why there is a bio-hazard warning when the guide a mile away said they only shipped 'cereal' from this port.)
Don't:
Try to leave Montreal. Ever. Because as hard as it is to find your way into, Montreal is even harder to get out of, what with random policemen detouring you off the only bridge fit for sane cyclists and directing you over to the one miles and miles down the road that is even more miles up in the air so that you have to pedal for an hour uphill and then clamp down on your brakes to slow down to a mere 50 mph on the downside while trying not to get vertigo from seeing the St. Lawrence whooshing by thousands and thousands of feet below you.
Do:
Stay at Auberge Harris on the way back too, if you can. It's really that nice of a stop.
Don't:
Pick the hottest day on record in New England to ride 72.3 miles from Auberge Harris, out of Canada, down through upstate New York (yeah, that sounded weird to me too, sorry), and back to Burlington, Vermont. I know, I know - you're going to say (as did I), "but how am I supposed to know when I start out and it's 70 degrees that in one short week it could top 100 degrees?" I have no answer for you on that one.
However, to make up for it-
Do:
Stop here on the last leg. It is air conditioned; they'll watch your bikes for you; and they give out free samples at the end of the tour!
(Final Bits Of Advice, Post Bike Ride)
*I hope this advice will not apply to very many of you but...
Do:
Love your little sister and thank her profusely for letting you stay in her home while she is frantically busy trying to pack up her whole house so she can rent it to a family of six who are moving to Vermont from Oklahoma in 10 short days.
Don't:
Look too closely at your little sister - who works a more-than-full-time job with the county child/family services, and who has a one year old, and whose husband has been in France (i.e. not here helping pack the house) for the past two months - and definitely
DO NOT:
Notice that said little sister has not packed a THING.
Don't:
Kill her for breaking that promise about fixing the airconditioning in the Subaru you are taking off her hands and driving 20 hours back to the SOUTH in 100 degree heat.
Do:
(Especially if you have ignored that advice about not noticing that your sister has become a complete zombie and NOT PACKED or arranged for movers or anything) - Drop the Subaru off (after 20 hours of sweating and cursing) at home and turn around and fly immediately BACK TO VERMONT with your godmother to spend the weekend packing and cleaning like mad things.
Do:
Fly back home in time to hear about the first day of school and throw a big family party for Mayhem's 12th birthday.
(Completely Bonus Advice only for those who have wacky 12 year olds)
A bike is great - and Mayhem loves the new one we gave him. But this is the present that really brought down the house and will be remembered in family lore.
Peace.
(Pre-Bike Trip Advice)
Do:
Bike the Blue Ridge Parkway for a couple of days on your way up to Vermont if you happen to get stranded in Wytheville, VA and towed to Roanoke on a Saturday after all the mechanics have left and won't be back until Monday.
Do:
Get your hair cut by the Vietnamese barber on Williamson in Roanoke. He's open on Sundays, charges $10, and cuts hair like Edward Scissorhands. Really. (Also, if you tell him you want your hair to look like Armando's from the Mexican restaurant, it'll be short enough to fit under your bike helmet and be much cooler (temperaturewise) - but it'll be spikey on top, which is fun. Even if you don't remember until later that you have no hair gel and no room for hair gel in your bike bag so it'll really only be spikey that first day. For ten minutes. Before you put your bike helmet on to ride back to the hotel.)
Don't:
Believe the mechanics who think they might be able to find out what's wrong with your car and get you on the road by Thursday.
Do:
Go right ahead and rent a car and drive yourself the rest of the way to Vermont on Saturday. It'll save you the cost of hotel rooms and you won't have to put off your bike trip to Canada by almost a week AND you won't miss your nephew's first birthday. (Alternatively - if you don't take the advice about the rental car and you do take the advice about biking the parkway - DO wear sunscreen because then you'll be able to ignore some of the advice once you get to Montreal. Keep reading and you'll see.)
(Actual During The Bike Trip Advice)
Do:
Bike with your Very Best Girlfriend. She rocks.
Don't:
Talk to her after breakfast and before actually getting on the road. (Especially if that amount of time is a long time because you haven't gotten your poop in a group.) VBGF's rock in general, but take it from me, they're a leetle grumpy at that particular time of day.
Do:
Get a good map before you go.
Don't:
Assume a map obtained at a bicycle shop, written by cyclists, for cyclists qualifies as 'good' or even that it will be remotely helpful. (On the other hand - DO get this 'cyclist-specific' map if you are the type of person who doesn't want to be bogged down by pesky details like names of cross streets or beside-the-point information like, say - that the bridge you have to take is CLOSED and the ferry that runs only runs NEXT MONTH. In fact, if you are the type of minimalist person who would want to make do with such a map, shoot me an email and I can hook you up, baby!)
Do:
Follow the cycle shop's advice to enter Canada at "quaint" crossing stations.
Don't:
Be put off by the fact that what appears to be a tiny, stone outhouse in a corn field that smells overwhelmingly of cow poo is in fact the 'crossing station'.
And Do:
Get so excited about your very first border crossing that you make the tiny, wizened, old, French-speaking man stamp your passports even though he is irritated beyond belief at having to do so.
Don't:
Get freaked out and run off the road just because there is a GINORMOUS, cow-manure spreading machine, driven by 10-year olds heading directly for you. (Instead, hold your ground - and your breath - and the boys will wave as they pass you with INCHES to spare.)
Also don't (this one is VERY important) - DON'T:
Pass up the first 'restaurant' you see just because it doesn't look anything like a restaurant. I promise you it may be the only food source in ALL OF CANADA - or at least the only one until Sabrevois which is 400 km from the border even though the well-meaning locals on the island in the middle of Lake Champlain just before the border will assure you that there are many, many amenities (like places to exchange money, pee, and get food - some food, any food) 'right as you go into Canada'.
Don't:
Believe any well-meaning locals.
Ever.
About anything.
Especially if you ask them "How far is ...?" and they look at you as you straddle your bike and then they proceed to tell you how long it takes them to drive it in their car and then they try to convert that into how long it would take THEM to bike it.
Do - by ALL means DO:
Bike the extra kilometer out of the way in Sabrevois to the 'restaurant' at the marina (even if it takes you 15 minutes to figure out whether or not the restaurant is open because (besides being in French and consisting entirely of abbreviations) the weathered sign at the crossroads doesn't list hours of operation or even days, it lists MONTHS of operation. Hint: it's Canada - and it's a restaurant at a marina. If it's warm enough for you to be pedaling, then chances are, you are there in a month warm enough for boating, which means that it is well worth your while to hie thee hither to the only food source short of your final destination of the day which appears to be
more than twenty miles away on your cyclist-specific map.
Don't:
Burst into exhausted, low-blood-sugar-fueled tears of relief when the nice little man and his wife who own the marina restaurant assure you that it is less than 10 km (not even 6.2 miles!!!) to your destination, no matter what your shitty (er, I mean cyclist-specific) map says.
Do:
Order this amazing Canadian comfort food from the nice little man and his wife who speak French AND English, take Canadian AND American money, don't get offended when you ask them twelve times if they are SURE of the distance (and they are not only sure but also RIGHT!) and who, incidentally, are completely wigged out by American girls who burst into tears.
Don't:
Be surprised (if you ignore my earlier advice about not bursting into tears) when the nice little man tries very, very hard to convince you to let him (and his wife if you don't trust him!) drive you by truck (that one right there in the parking lot) or by boat (that one right there at the dock) those last, little 10km even if you have stopped crying and pigged out on the yummy poutine and feel quite up to returning to the fray with renewed vigga (<--that last part being my beloved Grandpa Jack's phrase.) Do: Stay here. It is on the bike path, it's incredibly affordable, and is run by a wonderfully nice woman named Madame Boutine (which is NOT to be confused with poutine even though they rhyme and are both Canadian and comforting!) Really - Auberge Harris is a perfect cyclists' hotel.
Don't:
Get in a HUGE fight with your VBGF within sight of Montreal (even if the fight is about the fact that you can SEE Montreal, but due to the shitty (er, I mean, cyclist-specific) map, you can't for the life of either of you figure out how to GET there.)
Also, don't:
(VBGF-like) Pretend to bike off forever but really just turn the corner out of sight and throw your water bottles at a wall. (They bust open and you have no water to drink and it doesn't get you into Montreal.)
And don't:
(Me-like) Cry for an hour trying to figure out how you're going to get back to the States all by yourself. (It makes your eyes swell shut and gives you a blinding headache and still doesn't get you into Montreal.)
Do:
Make up with your VBGF (if you ignore the earlier advice about skipping the fight altogether)and then (this is key) toss out the shitty, cyclist-specific 'map', listen to the advice of a friendly local cyclist*, and when you finally arrive in beautiful, incredible, fantastic Montreal - stay here. It costs a ridiculous amount of money but it's the perfect place to celebrate your birthday. With your best friend. With whom you don't ever, ever want to fight again.
(*N.B.: 'local cyclists' are altogether different from 'well meaning locals'. A local cyclist is not a person who tells you they just love to bike and do it all the time. A local cyclist is a person actually on a bike who claims to have just this moment come from the very place you wish to get to.)
Do (and I never imagined I'd have to give such weird advice as this, but...):
Watch out for odd, Canadian men named Rene on the Metro. If you ignore my earlier advice about the sunscreen then by this point in your trip you'll have had to put up with twelve million and two coments about your peeling sunburn (which people in Canada have apparently never in their whole lives seen). And if you're not careful, a very weird dude will reach over and peel skin off of your back while all of his very, very drunk friends laugh - and THEN he will chat at you and tell you he's a dermatologist and he will crowd onto the same Metro car as you and he might even sit on your lap to the next stop. Um, all I'm really trying to say here is - wear sunscreen in Roanoke.
Do:
Go sightseeing around the old town and port of Montreal. Soak up some of the culture. Practice reading the signs. They're in French but often have pictures accompanying them.
Don't:
Wonder why the security guard roars up from out of nowhere and pulls a little Dukes of Hazzard fishtail stop on his side of the fence if it takes you too long to figure out what the signs at the port say in French. (Hint: The signs say "STAY OUT. NO PICTURES. NO LOITERING. NO TOURISTS. YOU MUST HAVE ID BADGES AND HARD HATS. BIO HAZARD. TRESPASSERS SHOT ON SIGHT. " Those little pictures are fine and all but they don't give you a very clear picture of exactly how touchy Canadian officials are if you don't manage to decipher all of it quick enough and happen to stand with your bike looking at their port for too long - and there's not much point in today's tense atmosphere of trying to explain that if you don't have room in your tiny, little, bike pack for hair gel and panties then you are not likely to be toting around a bomb. Just smile and thank the nice Canadian official and move along. And don't even THINK about asking why there is a bio-hazard warning when the guide a mile away said they only shipped 'cereal' from this port.)
Don't:
Try to leave Montreal. Ever. Because as hard as it is to find your way into, Montreal is even harder to get out of, what with random policemen detouring you off the only bridge fit for sane cyclists and directing you over to the one miles and miles down the road that is even more miles up in the air so that you have to pedal for an hour uphill and then clamp down on your brakes to slow down to a mere 50 mph on the downside while trying not to get vertigo from seeing the St. Lawrence whooshing by thousands and thousands of feet below you.
Do:
Stay at Auberge Harris on the way back too, if you can. It's really that nice of a stop.
Don't:
Pick the hottest day on record in New England to ride 72.3 miles from Auberge Harris, out of Canada, down through upstate New York (yeah, that sounded weird to me too, sorry), and back to Burlington, Vermont. I know, I know - you're going to say (as did I), "but how am I supposed to know when I start out and it's 70 degrees that in one short week it could top 100 degrees?" I have no answer for you on that one.
However, to make up for it-
Do:
Stop here on the last leg. It is air conditioned; they'll watch your bikes for you; and they give out free samples at the end of the tour!
(Final Bits Of Advice, Post Bike Ride)
*I hope this advice will not apply to very many of you but...
Do:
Love your little sister and thank her profusely for letting you stay in her home while she is frantically busy trying to pack up her whole house so she can rent it to a family of six who are moving to Vermont from Oklahoma in 10 short days.
Don't:
Look too closely at your little sister - who works a more-than-full-time job with the county child/family services, and who has a one year old, and whose husband has been in France (i.e. not here helping pack the house) for the past two months - and definitely
DO NOT:
Notice that said little sister has not packed a THING.
Don't:
Kill her for breaking that promise about fixing the airconditioning in the Subaru you are taking off her hands and driving 20 hours back to the SOUTH in 100 degree heat.
Do:
(Especially if you have ignored that advice about not noticing that your sister has become a complete zombie and NOT PACKED or arranged for movers or anything) - Drop the Subaru off (after 20 hours of sweating and cursing) at home and turn around and fly immediately BACK TO VERMONT with your godmother to spend the weekend packing and cleaning like mad things.
Do:
Fly back home in time to hear about the first day of school and throw a big family party for Mayhem's 12th birthday.
(Completely Bonus Advice only for those who have wacky 12 year olds)
A bike is great - and Mayhem loves the new one we gave him. But this is the present that really brought down the house and will be remembered in family lore.
Peace.
Friday, July 21, 2006
Days, Weeks, Months - It's All Just Time, Right?
Turns out that it's hard for me to blog when I am not home long enough even to look at my computer. I remember seeing all the 'blog from your phone' banners and thinking 'who on earth would do that?' but now... I'm thinking 'why don't I get one of those phones??' Or...a laptop! But um, for now - my birthday tree is closed! I got this instead of anything to blog with.
Isn't she gorgeous? You'd think that the next thing that I'd tell you is that I've been too busy riding to blog - but you'd be wrong. Because (sadly) instead of biking, I've been driving. Everywhere. Or everywhere that goes through Knoxville. Seriously. In a span of four days I drove through Knoxville THREE times. And I live about four hours away from K-town. You wouldn't think it would be 'on the way' to that many places I want to go. (But you'd be wrong.) AND I'm going through Knoxville AGAIN tonight on my way to the Land of Ben and Jerry's. My ex gets the kids for two weeks so this car trip won't involve noxious games of Axe tag** or 14 year old 'vampires' saying things like 'pull my fang'. This car trip won't even involve grown up boys because Sweet Hubby doesn't have any more time off from work. This girls only car trip is actually a means of getting somewhere cool to bike! FINALLY! BIKING! VBGF and I are going drive up and help my nephew Thrasher celebrate his first birthday before my sister whisks him out of crazy, busy Central Vermont to go live in sleepy, podunk Paris, France for the next three years. After the birthday boy smears cake all over the place, VBGF and I are heading out on our bikes for a week. Yes. A week. We bought a general bike touring book (yesterday) that suggested we plan our route three to four months in advance. Plan? Route? Ahead of time? Yeah - my whole inability to distinguish between weeks, months and hours, days applies to more than just blogging. Sigh. Be that as it may - we are biking for a week. Up North. Normally I'm all about Dixie - but after a week of the heat index here being 105 with a humidity reading of 96% - I'm thinking that starting in Vermont and biking to CANADA sounds delightful.
On to another aspect of biking: I don't know if anyone followed the linky poo to see my gorgeous new bike - or if anyone who did noticed that tour bikes don't normally boast of being"super light for top-notch handling, effortless climbing and unparalleled efficiency". Tour bikes boast of comfort and stability. Guess what? For fifteen years I had a touring bike. For the last two years, it's what I've used to train and it's the bike I rode in my first triathlon. NOW I have a road bike that's capable of entry level racing, and what's the first thing I do with it? I go for a week long bike tour. (Natch.) I've tried to talk myself into taking my tour bike instead but there is NO WAY I can even think about that. Touring bikes are rigged so you can carry stuff with you. Lots of stuff. Fancy, new, entry level racing bikes are rigged so you can go fast - with nothing (certainly not anything so un-aerodynamic as paniers) holding you back! So...
I have one teeny, tiny little bag (think cell phone holder) hanging from my handle bars and one just-barely-bigger bag on a rack behind my seat - to hold my stuff for a WEEK. I'm the kind of girl whose overstuffed weekend carry-on bag sometimes cannot be forced into the overhead bin on the plane - and I'm cramming my stuff for a WEEK into a bag that could almost fit into my minivan's glove compartment. C-R-A-Z-Y! But fun. And exciting. And just the teensiest bit anxiety provoking.
News flash - I won't be blogging from the road. One of the many, many things I will not be taking with me is a laptop (not that I have one). But I also won't be taking my camera. Heck - I'm limiting myself to two pairs of PANTIES so you know space is at a premium! But I'm going to look awfully cute in this! I didn't even know they made those. But now I have one. So think of me - biking through Yankeeland - for a WEEK - with practically nothing but my best friend and my bike. Oh - and read this book because it's wonderful and I hope the stuff that happens to the guy in the book doesn't happen to us!!
Peace.
**For the record - Axe is almost surely lethal in confined spaces so if you have sons approaching middle school age, take my advice and BAN the game of Axe tag BEFORE you have to experience it. And also ftr - I do NOT EVER want to meet the girl who is drawn to the scent (or any of the nine or twelve scents) of Axe. I also do NOT EVER want to meet a grown man who wears this obnoxious spray that, in my little corner of the universe, is ubiquitous in middle schools. I'm happy to report that, in my experience, the girls seem to avoid Axe like the plague (which is the only reason I and other mothers I know continue to buy it for our sons.)
Isn't she gorgeous? You'd think that the next thing that I'd tell you is that I've been too busy riding to blog - but you'd be wrong. Because (sadly) instead of biking, I've been driving. Everywhere. Or everywhere that goes through Knoxville. Seriously. In a span of four days I drove through Knoxville THREE times. And I live about four hours away from K-town. You wouldn't think it would be 'on the way' to that many places I want to go. (But you'd be wrong.) AND I'm going through Knoxville AGAIN tonight on my way to the Land of Ben and Jerry's. My ex gets the kids for two weeks so this car trip won't involve noxious games of Axe tag** or 14 year old 'vampires' saying things like 'pull my fang'. This car trip won't even involve grown up boys because Sweet Hubby doesn't have any more time off from work. This girls only car trip is actually a means of getting somewhere cool to bike! FINALLY! BIKING! VBGF and I are going drive up and help my nephew Thrasher celebrate his first birthday before my sister whisks him out of crazy, busy Central Vermont to go live in sleepy, podunk Paris, France for the next three years. After the birthday boy smears cake all over the place, VBGF and I are heading out on our bikes for a week. Yes. A week. We bought a general bike touring book (yesterday) that suggested we plan our route three to four months in advance. Plan? Route? Ahead of time? Yeah - my whole inability to distinguish between weeks, months and hours, days applies to more than just blogging. Sigh. Be that as it may - we are biking for a week. Up North. Normally I'm all about Dixie - but after a week of the heat index here being 105 with a humidity reading of 96% - I'm thinking that starting in Vermont and biking to CANADA sounds delightful.
On to another aspect of biking: I don't know if anyone followed the linky poo to see my gorgeous new bike - or if anyone who did noticed that tour bikes don't normally boast of being"super light for top-notch handling, effortless climbing and unparalleled efficiency". Tour bikes boast of comfort and stability. Guess what? For fifteen years I had a touring bike. For the last two years, it's what I've used to train and it's the bike I rode in my first triathlon. NOW I have a road bike that's capable of entry level racing, and what's the first thing I do with it? I go for a week long bike tour. (Natch.) I've tried to talk myself into taking my tour bike instead but there is NO WAY I can even think about that. Touring bikes are rigged so you can carry stuff with you. Lots of stuff. Fancy, new, entry level racing bikes are rigged so you can go fast - with nothing (certainly not anything so un-aerodynamic as paniers) holding you back! So...
I have one teeny, tiny little bag (think cell phone holder) hanging from my handle bars and one just-barely-bigger bag on a rack behind my seat - to hold my stuff for a WEEK. I'm the kind of girl whose overstuffed weekend carry-on bag sometimes cannot be forced into the overhead bin on the plane - and I'm cramming my stuff for a WEEK into a bag that could almost fit into my minivan's glove compartment. C-R-A-Z-Y! But fun. And exciting. And just the teensiest bit anxiety provoking.
News flash - I won't be blogging from the road. One of the many, many things I will not be taking with me is a laptop (not that I have one). But I also won't be taking my camera. Heck - I'm limiting myself to two pairs of PANTIES so you know space is at a premium! But I'm going to look awfully cute in this! I didn't even know they made those. But now I have one. So think of me - biking through Yankeeland - for a WEEK - with practically nothing but my best friend and my bike. Oh - and read this book because it's wonderful and I hope the stuff that happens to the guy in the book doesn't happen to us!!
Peace.
**For the record - Axe is almost surely lethal in confined spaces so if you have sons approaching middle school age, take my advice and BAN the game of Axe tag BEFORE you have to experience it. And also ftr - I do NOT EVER want to meet the girl who is drawn to the scent (or any of the nine or twelve scents) of Axe. I also do NOT EVER want to meet a grown man who wears this obnoxious spray that, in my little corner of the universe, is ubiquitous in middle schools. I'm happy to report that, in my experience, the girls seem to avoid Axe like the plague (which is the only reason I and other mothers I know continue to buy it for our sons.)
Saturday, June 24, 2006
Re-Entry
The Earth has a face - and I fell off of it I suppose.
Actually I hit a wall. The blog wall. I didn't even know there was a wall in Blogland until I smacked into it - forehead first. But there it was. The divider between what's really happening in my life and what I think (thought?) was allowable to blog about. I run into a similar wall all the freakin' time in real life. I come up against the divider between who I really am, what I really think and feel and what is considered 'acceptable' and 'polite' in my rinky dink, red town in a red state. It's one of the reasons I left the shop to my mother. I'm not made for the fakey nice, nice that retail is. Not that I want to be in everyone's face with my private life.
I don't want to be obnoxious. I do want to be clear and honest.
I haven't figured out how to walk that line just yet.
I'm working on it. In real life and in Blogland.
So...
I'm back. And dealing with horrid things (like rancid Tapioca) and wonderful things (like a love life that is out of this world fantastic and a new piercing and a new tatoo and kids that make life worth living.) I've got medium level things perking along too (like figuring out how to make myself go to the VA's Sexual Assault Victim's counseling program right after getting a letter from the VA that my private information (along with 12 million other veterans') has been compromised.) I don't have any quilting to show for this year which surprises and somewhat saddens me. But I have purged and purged (and will purge some more) in the house and that gave me the clearance to begin a cobblestone/river rock mosaic in my courtyard. Mosaic being my other artistic passion and outlet. Oh - and my lovely internets - I've lost 12 pounds since last we spoke!
Shift and flux. Highlights and soft focus. Maybe tomorrow we'll zoom back in for the upclose and highly analytical. Until then...
Peace.
Actually I hit a wall. The blog wall. I didn't even know there was a wall in Blogland until I smacked into it - forehead first. But there it was. The divider between what's really happening in my life and what I think (thought?) was allowable to blog about. I run into a similar wall all the freakin' time in real life. I come up against the divider between who I really am, what I really think and feel and what is considered 'acceptable' and 'polite' in my rinky dink, red town in a red state. It's one of the reasons I left the shop to my mother. I'm not made for the fakey nice, nice that retail is. Not that I want to be in everyone's face with my private life.
I don't want to be obnoxious. I do want to be clear and honest.
I haven't figured out how to walk that line just yet.
I'm working on it. In real life and in Blogland.
So...
I'm back. And dealing with horrid things (like rancid Tapioca) and wonderful things (like a love life that is out of this world fantastic and a new piercing and a new tatoo and kids that make life worth living.) I've got medium level things perking along too (like figuring out how to make myself go to the VA's Sexual Assault Victim's counseling program right after getting a letter from the VA that my private information (along with 12 million other veterans') has been compromised.) I don't have any quilting to show for this year which surprises and somewhat saddens me. But I have purged and purged (and will purge some more) in the house and that gave me the clearance to begin a cobblestone/river rock mosaic in my courtyard. Mosaic being my other artistic passion and outlet. Oh - and my lovely internets - I've lost 12 pounds since last we spoke!
Shift and flux. Highlights and soft focus. Maybe tomorrow we'll zoom back in for the upclose and highly analytical. Until then...
Peace.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)