Maybe it's just where I live, but I sometimes feel that manners and culture are falling by the wayside. There are times when one must look beyond his own needs and wants and consider what is good for the Order. Generally there are norms to which we all adhere so as to live harmoniously with others of our species. There are standards for behavior at home and standards for behavior in public, amongst the other earthlings. Unspoken Rules, you may think they are called, some call them Common Courtesies. Attending several recitals in the past few weeks, I have observed a breach in common sense on the part of the public. Here are some reminders to facilitate the entire congregation's enjoyment.
While attending a performance of the arts, it is customary to clap to show one's appreciation for the performers and their accomplishments. This applause should occur at the completion of the piece, not during. One should ascertain that it is indeed finished before expressing approval with abandon.
It is not customary to shout, "WOOOOO!!! WOOOO!! GO ASHLEY!", during the performance or even afterwards, no matter what the performer's name is. One should note that this type of exaltation is usually not enjoyed by the artist, nor the other patrons.
Equally frowned upon by other spectators is tapping in time to the music on the backs of their seats. This does not enhance their experience; rather, it detracts immensely from it.
Talking to one's companions during the presentation is also a distraction to other members of the audience. If one has more to say than, "Do you have a hanky?", or "That was wonderful!", to one's neighbor, it probably should wait until later. It is terribly shabby behavior to conduct an entire conversation while the artist is presenting himself to the world after months and weeks of preparation.
Allowing one's child to talk loudly, whimper, or cry, during the performance, is reprehensible. It matters not a whit to anyone in the audience if the child, or its guardian, is remotely related to the performer; the creature should be removed from the assemblage immediately.
When one considers the space-time continuum, cell phones have been around a relatively short amount of time. Consequently, the rules regarding cell phones and other electronic devices are proportionately new. However, it shouldn't be that difficult to turn one's cell phone off prior to a production of any kind. Any sort of activity for which a cell phone is used, be it communication by voice or text, playing games, taking pictures, searching the Internet or playing music, will be a disruption to the participants as well as to the constituents of the audience.
Of the six principles listed above, five of them were violated at the show I attended this evening. I found myself feeling bitter about the amount of money that I spent to procure the tickets; I realized I was fantasizing about living in a bigger city, where perhaps the audience members did not have such a personal connection to the performers; I became hyper-critical of those around me (particularly the giantess that was seated in front of both me and my daughter, who found it necessary to frequently lean to each side and whisper to her companions for lengthy amounts of time).
How sad that I have to give up gentility to shop locally. I would love to patronize the arts in my own community; there is a wealth of local talent to explore. How am I supposed to appreciate the artistry on hand when I am sitting chin-to-jowl with texters, talkers, trumpeters and tappers? How can I teach my daughter proper etiquette when it is not being followed by the majority of the population? It is a case of "Do as I say, not as they do."
FREEWAY FREELOADERS
*disclaimer: I have used the pronoun "he" throughout this post, not because my belief is that only the fellows are freeloaders, or the reverse, that freeloaders are only fellows, but because I prefer its use as a gender-neutral pronoun as opposed to the clumsy "he/she", or the more impersonal "someone", the unpronounceable "s/he", or the grammatical nightmare of "they".*
I have ranted to you before about those people forlornly standing at the exit ramps, holding their ratty cardboard signs that say things such as, "Homeless, son and I are just trying to get by", or "Please help, need money for gas", or some other lame excuse. Where did that permanent marker come from, anyway?
When did we all become so cynical? Well, probably when we noticed that the person holding the ratty (yet good enough to use again tomorrow) sign wasn't barefoot and dressed in dirty rags. Maybe when the person exhaled fumes from the fire stick he was smoking. Do you know how much a pack of cigarettes costs?
According to my limited research, in the summer of 2011 a pack of cigs in the Evergreen State cost $9.89. WOW! Yesterday, the 10th of December, I paid $3.39 for a gallon of gas. That really is food for thought: cancer sticks cost almost three times the cost of gas! So the next person who is smoking and holding a sign that says, "Ran out of gas! Trying to get to Portland!", is probably trying to get to Oregon because he heard that a pack of puffs only costs $5.59 there. Plus there's no sales tax. Now THAT'S savvy shopping. Get someone to pay your gas money so you can go down and buy your butts for cheap.
Running out of gas is really not that bad of a problem, not one that tugs my pity-line, anyway. My dad ran out of gas plenty of times and not once did we stand on the corner begging for help. Usually it was something we had anticipated, so we had a spare can of gas in the vehicle. There was one time on Highway 1, in the Canadian Rockies, in the middle of the night, when he had to steal a bike to ride to a gas station to get the gas. (I can tell you this now because the statute of limitations has run out on theft. And as you will see, it wasn't really theft.) The bike had two flat tires. He almost had a lift back to our vehicle with a trucker, but the guy wouldn't let him bring the bike. Instead he rode it and put it back where he got it. But the point is that running out of gas is not the end of the world.
The nerviest freeway ramp rustlers are the ones who say they are veterans, or have starving, sick babies at home. Those are the people that have no shame, and really lay the guilt on thick. I think if we knew that the person truly needed help, most of us would have no problem giving him money. On the other hand, if a person truly needs aid, aren't there organizations waiting and willing to provide assistance? Red Cross? Goodwill? Visiting Nurses? Various churches and missions offer food and clothing banks. I would think that that would be a much easier way to get needs met than standing in the cold and the wet, getting splashed by every car that drives by. Unless getting splattered and receiving the evil eye is a small price to pay for better benefits.
I'm not saying to stop giving them money (ARE you dishing out the dinero?). If you have to give, maybe you could give the guy something like food (a loaf of bread and peanut butter can last a few days), the business card of a charitable organization, some dry socks, or your old galoshes. Preferably something incombustible, so he can't smoke it.
I have ranted to you before about those people forlornly standing at the exit ramps, holding their ratty cardboard signs that say things such as, "Homeless, son and I are just trying to get by", or "Please help, need money for gas", or some other lame excuse. Where did that permanent marker come from, anyway?
When did we all become so cynical? Well, probably when we noticed that the person holding the ratty (yet good enough to use again tomorrow) sign wasn't barefoot and dressed in dirty rags. Maybe when the person exhaled fumes from the fire stick he was smoking. Do you know how much a pack of cigarettes costs?
According to my limited research, in the summer of 2011 a pack of cigs in the Evergreen State cost $9.89. WOW! Yesterday, the 10th of December, I paid $3.39 for a gallon of gas. That really is food for thought: cancer sticks cost almost three times the cost of gas! So the next person who is smoking and holding a sign that says, "Ran out of gas! Trying to get to Portland!", is probably trying to get to Oregon because he heard that a pack of puffs only costs $5.59 there. Plus there's no sales tax. Now THAT'S savvy shopping. Get someone to pay your gas money so you can go down and buy your butts for cheap.
Running out of gas is really not that bad of a problem, not one that tugs my pity-line, anyway. My dad ran out of gas plenty of times and not once did we stand on the corner begging for help. Usually it was something we had anticipated, so we had a spare can of gas in the vehicle. There was one time on Highway 1, in the Canadian Rockies, in the middle of the night, when he had to steal a bike to ride to a gas station to get the gas. (I can tell you this now because the statute of limitations has run out on theft. And as you will see, it wasn't really theft.) The bike had two flat tires. He almost had a lift back to our vehicle with a trucker, but the guy wouldn't let him bring the bike. Instead he rode it and put it back where he got it. But the point is that running out of gas is not the end of the world.
The nerviest freeway ramp rustlers are the ones who say they are veterans, or have starving, sick babies at home. Those are the people that have no shame, and really lay the guilt on thick. I think if we knew that the person truly needed help, most of us would have no problem giving him money. On the other hand, if a person truly needs aid, aren't there organizations waiting and willing to provide assistance? Red Cross? Goodwill? Visiting Nurses? Various churches and missions offer food and clothing banks. I would think that that would be a much easier way to get needs met than standing in the cold and the wet, getting splashed by every car that drives by. Unless getting splattered and receiving the evil eye is a small price to pay for better benefits.
I'm not saying to stop giving them money (ARE you dishing out the dinero?). If you have to give, maybe you could give the guy something like food (a loaf of bread and peanut butter can last a few days), the business card of a charitable organization, some dry socks, or your old galoshes. Preferably something incombustible, so he can't smoke it.
BREAKING NEWS!
(Disclaimer: this is from the WISHFUL THINKING files)
Smallpox has broken out in Olympia! That's right, it has been reported that a freak case of smallpox broke out in Olympia over the weekend. The number of cases is quite small, in fact only one, and the resulting quarantine has inconvenienced the afflicted woman enough that she was unable to attend the fabulous Christmas performance at the Washington Center for the Performing Arts. Confined to her suburban home in Olympia, she now contemplates how she acquired the event tickets.
Approximately one month ago, our patient attended a Silent Auction and Wine Tasting sponsored by Concern For Animals, a non-profit, charitable organization which helps thousands of animals in need. After tasting what some may say was excessive amounts of wine, our invalid sauntered past the tables displaying the auction items. Indifferently scrawling her bidder number and bid on random items, she made her way around the room. After completing the circuit, she hoofed it back to the wine tasting tables where she indiscriminately blew her wad of wine scripts and chatted up the vintners.
Meanwhile, a youthful, honest and unsuspecting woman, who shall remain unnamed, carefully made the rounds of the auction tables. She painstakingly read the description of each item, and deliberately weighed its pros and cons. Before making her bid, she conscientiously checked her bank account balance which was housed in the back of her mind. Upon reading the description of the holiday concert at the Washington Center for the Performing Arts, she mentally checked her calendar. The performance would be the day after her precocious and talented daughter's piano recital. It seemed to be the perfect reward after months of relentlessly practicing (and listening to) Deck the Halls, and We Wish You A Merry Christmas. Our lovely patron imagined the fun they would have dressing up and staying up late. She jotted down her bidder number and bid, already thinking about what they would wear and if they would go out for dessert afterwards. She toured around the remaining items, bidding on just a few others. Making one last pass past her most exciting bid, she saw that her name was indeed the last one on the paper, thus ensuring that she had won the evening out. "OKAY!", a woman shouted, "Time's up! Step away from the tables, please!"
Time stopped. Our unsuspecting claimant paused where she was, only a few feet away from the bid paper. Everyone in the room froze. A small woman wearing a pink sparkly shirt, wine glass in her hand, slithered through the crowd. Eyes were the only body parts moving as they followed her across the room. She made a bee line for the paper describing the Washington Center performance. Glancing quickly around, she snatched up the nearest pen and scribbled something below the last bidder number and bid. She dropped the pen and snaked her way out. She did not look up to see her horrified opposition standing there mouth agape, nor did she hear the curses that were tumbling from her challenger's open portal. Had she heard them, she would have dashed out to get a smallpox vaccination.
Cheaters shouldn't prosper.
Smallpox has broken out in Olympia! That's right, it has been reported that a freak case of smallpox broke out in Olympia over the weekend. The number of cases is quite small, in fact only one, and the resulting quarantine has inconvenienced the afflicted woman enough that she was unable to attend the fabulous Christmas performance at the Washington Center for the Performing Arts. Confined to her suburban home in Olympia, she now contemplates how she acquired the event tickets.
Approximately one month ago, our patient attended a Silent Auction and Wine Tasting sponsored by Concern For Animals, a non-profit, charitable organization which helps thousands of animals in need. After tasting what some may say was excessive amounts of wine, our invalid sauntered past the tables displaying the auction items. Indifferently scrawling her bidder number and bid on random items, she made her way around the room. After completing the circuit, she hoofed it back to the wine tasting tables where she indiscriminately blew her wad of wine scripts and chatted up the vintners.
Meanwhile, a youthful, honest and unsuspecting woman, who shall remain unnamed, carefully made the rounds of the auction tables. She painstakingly read the description of each item, and deliberately weighed its pros and cons. Before making her bid, she conscientiously checked her bank account balance which was housed in the back of her mind. Upon reading the description of the holiday concert at the Washington Center for the Performing Arts, she mentally checked her calendar. The performance would be the day after her precocious and talented daughter's piano recital. It seemed to be the perfect reward after months of relentlessly practicing (and listening to) Deck the Halls, and We Wish You A Merry Christmas. Our lovely patron imagined the fun they would have dressing up and staying up late. She jotted down her bidder number and bid, already thinking about what they would wear and if they would go out for dessert afterwards. She toured around the remaining items, bidding on just a few others. Making one last pass past her most exciting bid, she saw that her name was indeed the last one on the paper, thus ensuring that she had won the evening out. "OKAY!", a woman shouted, "Time's up! Step away from the tables, please!"
Time stopped. Our unsuspecting claimant paused where she was, only a few feet away from the bid paper. Everyone in the room froze. A small woman wearing a pink sparkly shirt, wine glass in her hand, slithered through the crowd. Eyes were the only body parts moving as they followed her across the room. She made a bee line for the paper describing the Washington Center performance. Glancing quickly around, she snatched up the nearest pen and scribbled something below the last bidder number and bid. She dropped the pen and snaked her way out. She did not look up to see her horrified opposition standing there mouth agape, nor did she hear the curses that were tumbling from her challenger's open portal. Had she heard them, she would have dashed out to get a smallpox vaccination.
Cheaters shouldn't prosper.
More Than A Mom Moment
We all have our hectic days. We oversleep, forget our purses, lock our keys in the car, can't find a matching pair of socks, don't pack a lunch. Mornings at my house seem to fall in the hectic category. There is usually a dearth of underpants and/or socks that match (each other, not the underpants). Hair needs to be fixed, lunches made, breakfast prepared and eaten, cats provided for, and of course, the fire has to be fed. All of this must happen within a 50 minute time period, or all heck will break loose. And don't let me forget to take my daily pill, without which my heart will launch into the mother arrhythmia of all arrhythmias. Did I mention taking a shower and getting dressed?
This morning was no different than any other of our frenzied beginnings. I hit the snooze button four times in a row, cutting that 50 minute window down to an even smaller amount of time. This meant that my shower was cut to a mad minute, and there could be no fashion show before donning the final ensemble. Sofie hadn't gotten herself dressed by the time I had popped out of the shower, so I had to shoulder that decision, too. Seemingly an easy task, it is not usually easy to gain the approval of her chic, seven-year-old eye. This morning, however, it was a piece of cake. Everything seemed to run smoothly, and amazingly, we were out the door on time. I caught myself preening at that fact. I should have understood then that there was more than one thing wrong.
Arriving at the babysitter's, I looked at my daughter. "EEEK!", I cried, "I haven't done your hair!" Indeed, she was sporting a bad case of bed head. As I finger-combed her snaggly hair into two new pigtails, I sealed the deal for Sofie to return to the babysitter's after school. Between her squeaks of indignation at having the snarls teased out with my fingers, I ascertained that she had the appropriate bus note for her teacher. I bent down to kiss her rosy cheek. "I'll pick you up on my way back from the dentist," I murmured. Another "EEEK!" issued from my mouth. "I forgot your piano music!" I dashed out the door, my arms propelling me to the car.
Backtracking our morning drive was easy. The hard part was when the gas light came on and I had to make the executive decision to not stop for gas in the morning. It took only seconds to dash into the house and grab the piano music. Heading to work from my house was a little trickier. You see, Doting Reader, the road is being repaired between my abode and my place of employment. Every day there is some change in the traffic pattern, whether it is in the form of cones, flaggers, new lanes, or even a detour. On top of that, I don't traverse that exact route in the mornings. As I approached the area in question, I saw cones on the left and a wide swath of road to the left of them. "Oh", I thought to myself, "they have divided east-bound and west-bound with the cones." This surprised me, for it left two spacious lanes for me and the other driver going my way. As we neared the overpass, I realized that the right lane must be a turn-only lane for drivers entering the freeway. As I was heading to go straight over the overpass, I got into the left lane. It was so roomy on the road for that split second, kind of like sleeping in my own bed without my kid forcing me to the side to "surf the edge". My eyes drifted to the left and I was startled to see the road in pieces on the other side of the cones. In the blink of a moment I was wondering where those east-bound drivers were supposed to be, and in the next moment I realized that I was driving on their side of the road. I swerved back into the right lane and tucked behind a driver who was doing his best to ignore my blunder.
In the same instance that I was exhaling my breath of relief upon arriving to work in one piece, the thought hit me that I had failed to give my daughter money for lunch. Just yesterday we received both the phone call and the email, reporting that her food service balance was negative. I ground my teeth together and whipped out my checkbook. The time clock was ticking in my head, and I was most certainly late. Not only that, there was a major deadline in fifteen minutes, and I had not yet met it. Hastening inside, I found a worthy messenger to deliver the lunch money to the appropriate person at Sofie's school. The next stop was my coffee cup.
I wrenched the cupboard door open and snatched my cup off the shelf. Grabbing the can of precious instant coffee, my heart sank. I could tell there was not enough in it to make an entire cup. Peeling the lid off, I peeked in and confirmed my suspicions. I had just enough for 3/4 cup. Briskly I took my precious elixir of life and made my way to the all-important computer.
The remainder of the workday was rather uneventful, except for the fact that I read the wrong answers to my horrified students and that resulted in some momentary confusion regarding what was assigned and who did what and what was I thinking. In the end we sorted it out to everyone's satisfaction, but not after pointing out that it was I who had been at fault. I warned them not to entrust me with their deepest secrets or most treasured possessions, as I was a wild card today.
Over lunch, I detailed my morning and all of its mishaps to a co-worker. "Oh", she said understandingly, "you had a Mom Moment!"
After work I buzzed to the gas station before heading to the dentist's office. I felt pleased that gas did not shoot out of the tank and spray my pants and shoes, as has been known to happen. My Mom Moment was over.
Arriving at the dentist's office, I sat down with a magazine to wait my turn. Without my cheater glasses, I could read nothing. Instead I contented myself by looking at the other patients, wondering if they were having their teeth cleaned, or like me, did they have mysterious tooth aches? I didn't have to wait long and soon I was seated in the dentist chair. Taking an x-ray was the first order of business, and it was a little less pleasant than usual. Instead of marching into a special room, suiting up in a lead apron and having a hard plastic thing forced in my mouth, I was allowed the special privilege of having it done in the exam room. While this may seem like the royal treatment to you, Jealous Reader, let me point out that it still involved being smothered in the lead apron, and instead of the hard plastic thing jammed in the back between my teeth, it was some sort of contraption that seemed to be stuck on the end of a S'mores fork that had seen better days. The long handle stuck out of my mouth for at least six inches, and the part in my mouth felt like I was biting a metal cube on its extremely sharp corners. One of those corners dug painfully into the roof of my mouth. Of course, the first picture didn't take, so we had to repeat the awkward insertion and removal process. In the end, after numerous bites on various bits of plastic hardware and cotton wads, there was no gaping hole found in my tooth. My day had been rearranged for this appointment, and there was nothing wrong. I know, I should have been rejoicing that there would be no further work in the oral cavity. Instead, I was inwardly fuming about wasting time and gas.
I jumped back into the car, drove to the babysitter's at a regulated speed - this day would be topped off by getting stopped, wouldn't it? - and picked up Sofie. We headed for home for a quick pit stop and fire check before heading to the piano lesson (thus nullifying my trip home this morning and the subsequent errors in judgment made in the construction zone). Arriving home, we were met by the workmen who had been threatening to come for days, but had not called to confirm their actual start date. The house looked a shambles, with a trailer-full of moldy siding in front of the house, bits of trash all over the yard, plastic wrap surrounding the most exposed parts of the house. As the supervisor proceeded to tell me of the perils they had faced while working on my house and the problems they had found, my mind was mentally counting up the spare minutes we were allotted for this stop. I nodded whenever he stopped speaking, totally ignoring the words that were coming out. He finally left, allowing us about five minutes before we needed to depart for the piano teacher's house.
I used my five minutes to make myself a cup of coffee. Having had only 3/4 of a cup in the morning, and enduring a day like the one I had had, I knew I deserved that hot cup of heaven. I poured it into a travel mug and took it with me. Arriving at Miss Sally's, we took off our shoes and entered the studio, perfectly on time. I felt smug. A day like mine, and I was still able to deliver the music student punctually. For the next half hour, I sat cozily in the studio, sipping my coffee, bathed in Christmas songs, happy that for those thirty minutes, I had absolutely no responsibilities. I made my weekly sketch of Sofie on the piano bench and savored my well-earned cup of orange café. The day's events ran through my mind again, and once more I marveled at my ability to roll with the day's punches and cope with all that was thrown in my direction. In all, I had forgotten to fix my daughter's hair, failed to give her the lunch money, left her piano music at home, driven on the wrong side of the road, arrived late to work, and practically missed the all-important deadline; I had run out of coffee and nearly out of gas. I had endured the dentist, two trips on the freeway and a surprise visit from the remodelers. All of this and yet we had still made it in one piece on time to the piano lesson. Heading out the door, we paused to put our shoes back on. My eyes went to the whiteboard posted outside of Miss Sally's front door. "Absolutely no food or drink in the studio!", the sign read. "This means you!" My shoulders slumped and I heaved a sigh as I slunk toward the car. This day was definitely not a Mom Moment. This was a Life Moment.
This morning was no different than any other of our frenzied beginnings. I hit the snooze button four times in a row, cutting that 50 minute window down to an even smaller amount of time. This meant that my shower was cut to a mad minute, and there could be no fashion show before donning the final ensemble. Sofie hadn't gotten herself dressed by the time I had popped out of the shower, so I had to shoulder that decision, too. Seemingly an easy task, it is not usually easy to gain the approval of her chic, seven-year-old eye. This morning, however, it was a piece of cake. Everything seemed to run smoothly, and amazingly, we were out the door on time. I caught myself preening at that fact. I should have understood then that there was more than one thing wrong.
Arriving at the babysitter's, I looked at my daughter. "EEEK!", I cried, "I haven't done your hair!" Indeed, she was sporting a bad case of bed head. As I finger-combed her snaggly hair into two new pigtails, I sealed the deal for Sofie to return to the babysitter's after school. Between her squeaks of indignation at having the snarls teased out with my fingers, I ascertained that she had the appropriate bus note for her teacher. I bent down to kiss her rosy cheek. "I'll pick you up on my way back from the dentist," I murmured. Another "EEEK!" issued from my mouth. "I forgot your piano music!" I dashed out the door, my arms propelling me to the car.
Backtracking our morning drive was easy. The hard part was when the gas light came on and I had to make the executive decision to not stop for gas in the morning. It took only seconds to dash into the house and grab the piano music. Heading to work from my house was a little trickier. You see, Doting Reader, the road is being repaired between my abode and my place of employment. Every day there is some change in the traffic pattern, whether it is in the form of cones, flaggers, new lanes, or even a detour. On top of that, I don't traverse that exact route in the mornings. As I approached the area in question, I saw cones on the left and a wide swath of road to the left of them. "Oh", I thought to myself, "they have divided east-bound and west-bound with the cones." This surprised me, for it left two spacious lanes for me and the other driver going my way. As we neared the overpass, I realized that the right lane must be a turn-only lane for drivers entering the freeway. As I was heading to go straight over the overpass, I got into the left lane. It was so roomy on the road for that split second, kind of like sleeping in my own bed without my kid forcing me to the side to "surf the edge". My eyes drifted to the left and I was startled to see the road in pieces on the other side of the cones. In the blink of a moment I was wondering where those east-bound drivers were supposed to be, and in the next moment I realized that I was driving on their side of the road. I swerved back into the right lane and tucked behind a driver who was doing his best to ignore my blunder.
In the same instance that I was exhaling my breath of relief upon arriving to work in one piece, the thought hit me that I had failed to give my daughter money for lunch. Just yesterday we received both the phone call and the email, reporting that her food service balance was negative. I ground my teeth together and whipped out my checkbook. The time clock was ticking in my head, and I was most certainly late. Not only that, there was a major deadline in fifteen minutes, and I had not yet met it. Hastening inside, I found a worthy messenger to deliver the lunch money to the appropriate person at Sofie's school. The next stop was my coffee cup.
I wrenched the cupboard door open and snatched my cup off the shelf. Grabbing the can of precious instant coffee, my heart sank. I could tell there was not enough in it to make an entire cup. Peeling the lid off, I peeked in and confirmed my suspicions. I had just enough for 3/4 cup. Briskly I took my precious elixir of life and made my way to the all-important computer.
The remainder of the workday was rather uneventful, except for the fact that I read the wrong answers to my horrified students and that resulted in some momentary confusion regarding what was assigned and who did what and what was I thinking. In the end we sorted it out to everyone's satisfaction, but not after pointing out that it was I who had been at fault. I warned them not to entrust me with their deepest secrets or most treasured possessions, as I was a wild card today.
Over lunch, I detailed my morning and all of its mishaps to a co-worker. "Oh", she said understandingly, "you had a Mom Moment!"
After work I buzzed to the gas station before heading to the dentist's office. I felt pleased that gas did not shoot out of the tank and spray my pants and shoes, as has been known to happen. My Mom Moment was over.
Arriving at the dentist's office, I sat down with a magazine to wait my turn. Without my cheater glasses, I could read nothing. Instead I contented myself by looking at the other patients, wondering if they were having their teeth cleaned, or like me, did they have mysterious tooth aches? I didn't have to wait long and soon I was seated in the dentist chair. Taking an x-ray was the first order of business, and it was a little less pleasant than usual. Instead of marching into a special room, suiting up in a lead apron and having a hard plastic thing forced in my mouth, I was allowed the special privilege of having it done in the exam room. While this may seem like the royal treatment to you, Jealous Reader, let me point out that it still involved being smothered in the lead apron, and instead of the hard plastic thing jammed in the back between my teeth, it was some sort of contraption that seemed to be stuck on the end of a S'mores fork that had seen better days. The long handle stuck out of my mouth for at least six inches, and the part in my mouth felt like I was biting a metal cube on its extremely sharp corners. One of those corners dug painfully into the roof of my mouth. Of course, the first picture didn't take, so we had to repeat the awkward insertion and removal process. In the end, after numerous bites on various bits of plastic hardware and cotton wads, there was no gaping hole found in my tooth. My day had been rearranged for this appointment, and there was nothing wrong. I know, I should have been rejoicing that there would be no further work in the oral cavity. Instead, I was inwardly fuming about wasting time and gas.
I jumped back into the car, drove to the babysitter's at a regulated speed - this day would be topped off by getting stopped, wouldn't it? - and picked up Sofie. We headed for home for a quick pit stop and fire check before heading to the piano lesson (thus nullifying my trip home this morning and the subsequent errors in judgment made in the construction zone). Arriving home, we were met by the workmen who had been threatening to come for days, but had not called to confirm their actual start date. The house looked a shambles, with a trailer-full of moldy siding in front of the house, bits of trash all over the yard, plastic wrap surrounding the most exposed parts of the house. As the supervisor proceeded to tell me of the perils they had faced while working on my house and the problems they had found, my mind was mentally counting up the spare minutes we were allotted for this stop. I nodded whenever he stopped speaking, totally ignoring the words that were coming out. He finally left, allowing us about five minutes before we needed to depart for the piano teacher's house.
I used my five minutes to make myself a cup of coffee. Having had only 3/4 of a cup in the morning, and enduring a day like the one I had had, I knew I deserved that hot cup of heaven. I poured it into a travel mug and took it with me. Arriving at Miss Sally's, we took off our shoes and entered the studio, perfectly on time. I felt smug. A day like mine, and I was still able to deliver the music student punctually. For the next half hour, I sat cozily in the studio, sipping my coffee, bathed in Christmas songs, happy that for those thirty minutes, I had absolutely no responsibilities. I made my weekly sketch of Sofie on the piano bench and savored my well-earned cup of orange café. The day's events ran through my mind again, and once more I marveled at my ability to roll with the day's punches and cope with all that was thrown in my direction. In all, I had forgotten to fix my daughter's hair, failed to give her the lunch money, left her piano music at home, driven on the wrong side of the road, arrived late to work, and practically missed the all-important deadline; I had run out of coffee and nearly out of gas. I had endured the dentist, two trips on the freeway and a surprise visit from the remodelers. All of this and yet we had still made it in one piece on time to the piano lesson. Heading out the door, we paused to put our shoes back on. My eyes went to the whiteboard posted outside of Miss Sally's front door. "Absolutely no food or drink in the studio!", the sign read. "This means you!" My shoulders slumped and I heaved a sigh as I slunk toward the car. This day was definitely not a Mom Moment. This was a Life Moment.
This Is Not Table Talk
I have a love - hate relationship with toilets. Devoted reader that you are, I know you are wondering how a self-proclaimed, card-carrying, hand-sanitizer-wielding germophobe can love toilets.
It all started when I went to an alternative elementary school in Portland. The gist of it was that at the beginning of every week, the students planned out their schedules for the whole week. We were probably supposed to write things like "math", "reading", "art", etc. in the time slots. There were no rules, except that we had to do what we said we would do. Remember, this was the 70's. So, being in first grade, I wrote "play", "play", "play","play", "library", "play", "play", "play", all day every day, five days a week. And five days a week, I played played played played played in, of all places, the Bathroom! Sometimes I added in "art" for variety, but I spent most of my days at Metropolitan Learning Center in the basement "comfort station". [Gentle Reader, please be assured that, although I played for two years in the bathroom, it in no way affected my educational progress.]
It was a big bathroom, painted institution mint green. There was a lot of light owing to the windows near the ceiling that were at street level. There was also a big ledge under those windows, so if a person were to climb on top of the sink, a person could pull one's self up on to the ledge and sit up there, like Queen of the Castle, and survey the comings and goings. On a sunny day, the sun dazzled through the glazed windows and made for a warm window seat, perfect for reading a library book. Sometimes those windows leaned open to the inside, so a person could gaze out at the feet walking past on the sidewalk. Additionally, if a person were to go in the stall and stand on the toilet, a person could jump off the toilet and grab the bar above the stall door, like a trapeze artist, and swing back and forth. I gained a lot of upper body strength in first and second grades, but not because I ever went to P.E.
In third grade, I lived at my grandma's and grandpa's house. They had a cleaning woman, whom I'll call Mrs. Harper. FERPA and HIPPA laws dictate that I must protect her identity and privacy at all costs. Mrs. Harper was exceptionally fastidious in her cleaning duties. It was a well-known fact that anything that Mrs. Harper cleaned was most certainly cleaner than it had ever been before. I had such confidence in Mrs. Harper's abilities that I was compelled to prove it to my cousins. That's how it came to be that I washed my hands in the toilet one day, encouraging my kin to do the same. "It's clean water," I insisted, "just cold!" Oddly enough, I wasn't sufficiently convincing and they stuck to the old-fashioned method of washing. Looking back, I'm wondering how I held myself back from brushing my teeth there, too. The looks of disgust I received must have put a small chink in my faith in Mrs. Harper's attention to detail.
Fast forward to the present day. One modern upgrade to public toilets is the automatic flusher. Many people are of the belief that this is a wonderful feature on a toilet, thus preventing the user from touching an otherwise filthy flush handle, which is reported to house 40,000 germs per square inch fighting for a piece of the real estate. "What luxury to not mingle my germs with all of those germs", you may be thinking, as the toilet's sensor discerns that you have finished your business and begins the flushing process. Dedicated reader, you know what I'm going to say next. If you don't, please refer to the previous post, "Cover Your Mouth!" In the flushing process, germs of all walks of life are spewn up into the air, creating an invisible mist with a potential 4-foot radius. Depending on the sensitivity of the sensor, it may not be humanly possible for you to exit the stall before being be-dewed (really, no pun intended) with all sorts of unthinkable germs. If you are like me, your mind is racing back to the last time you were in a stall with an automatic flusher. "Did I get out in time?" "Are the germs on the back of my down jacket?" "My red purse?" "Was I facing the toilet or the door?" "Where did I put my purse when I got home - the kitchen counter?" The questions will come faster and faster as the reality sinks in, along with that panicky feeling of never being clean, ever again. You will find yourself tripping over your pant legs in your effort to escape the stall before the spritzing begins. Heaven help you if the sensor doesn't work and you have to flush it the old-fashioned way. Don't think that this free-for-all germ spouting action is restricted to automatic flushers - all toilets issue the germ-laden brume. Even in your own home, nothing is sacred. Do you have a toothbrush or comb nearby? Do you have a bathrobe hanging within that misty radius? Do you cover your soaking contact lenses at night? Where is your washcloth when all of this is going on? The questions are endless, and the more you ponder them, the more questions will be generated. You may lose sleep over this, don't say I didn't warn you.
Let's recap. In my early years, I was attracted to bathrooms. I played, read, exercised, and hid in the powder room. I washed my hands in the toilet with confidence. I dropped numerous items in the toilet and happily fished them out bare handed. The toilet was my friend. As I became more aware of the hidden dangers of the world, i.e. germs, the toilet and I grew apart and went our separate ways. I recognize the importance of the toilet in Western culture, but I no longer have that soft spot in my heart for the porcelain goddess. We are no longer friends. We are frenemies.
It all started when I went to an alternative elementary school in Portland. The gist of it was that at the beginning of every week, the students planned out their schedules for the whole week. We were probably supposed to write things like "math", "reading", "art", etc. in the time slots. There were no rules, except that we had to do what we said we would do. Remember, this was the 70's. So, being in first grade, I wrote "play", "play", "play","play", "library", "play", "play", "play", all day every day, five days a week. And five days a week, I played played played played played in, of all places, the Bathroom! Sometimes I added in "art" for variety, but I spent most of my days at Metropolitan Learning Center in the basement "comfort station". [Gentle Reader, please be assured that, although I played for two years in the bathroom, it in no way affected my educational progress.]
It was a big bathroom, painted institution mint green. There was a lot of light owing to the windows near the ceiling that were at street level. There was also a big ledge under those windows, so if a person were to climb on top of the sink, a person could pull one's self up on to the ledge and sit up there, like Queen of the Castle, and survey the comings and goings. On a sunny day, the sun dazzled through the glazed windows and made for a warm window seat, perfect for reading a library book. Sometimes those windows leaned open to the inside, so a person could gaze out at the feet walking past on the sidewalk. Additionally, if a person were to go in the stall and stand on the toilet, a person could jump off the toilet and grab the bar above the stall door, like a trapeze artist, and swing back and forth. I gained a lot of upper body strength in first and second grades, but not because I ever went to P.E.
In third grade, I lived at my grandma's and grandpa's house. They had a cleaning woman, whom I'll call Mrs. Harper. FERPA and HIPPA laws dictate that I must protect her identity and privacy at all costs. Mrs. Harper was exceptionally fastidious in her cleaning duties. It was a well-known fact that anything that Mrs. Harper cleaned was most certainly cleaner than it had ever been before. I had such confidence in Mrs. Harper's abilities that I was compelled to prove it to my cousins. That's how it came to be that I washed my hands in the toilet one day, encouraging my kin to do the same. "It's clean water," I insisted, "just cold!" Oddly enough, I wasn't sufficiently convincing and they stuck to the old-fashioned method of washing. Looking back, I'm wondering how I held myself back from brushing my teeth there, too. The looks of disgust I received must have put a small chink in my faith in Mrs. Harper's attention to detail.
Fast forward to the present day. One modern upgrade to public toilets is the automatic flusher. Many people are of the belief that this is a wonderful feature on a toilet, thus preventing the user from touching an otherwise filthy flush handle, which is reported to house 40,000 germs per square inch fighting for a piece of the real estate. "What luxury to not mingle my germs with all of those germs", you may be thinking, as the toilet's sensor discerns that you have finished your business and begins the flushing process. Dedicated reader, you know what I'm going to say next. If you don't, please refer to the previous post, "Cover Your Mouth!" In the flushing process, germs of all walks of life are spewn up into the air, creating an invisible mist with a potential 4-foot radius. Depending on the sensitivity of the sensor, it may not be humanly possible for you to exit the stall before being be-dewed (really, no pun intended) with all sorts of unthinkable germs. If you are like me, your mind is racing back to the last time you were in a stall with an automatic flusher. "Did I get out in time?" "Are the germs on the back of my down jacket?" "My red purse?" "Was I facing the toilet or the door?" "Where did I put my purse when I got home - the kitchen counter?" The questions will come faster and faster as the reality sinks in, along with that panicky feeling of never being clean, ever again. You will find yourself tripping over your pant legs in your effort to escape the stall before the spritzing begins. Heaven help you if the sensor doesn't work and you have to flush it the old-fashioned way. Don't think that this free-for-all germ spouting action is restricted to automatic flushers - all toilets issue the germ-laden brume. Even in your own home, nothing is sacred. Do you have a toothbrush or comb nearby? Do you have a bathrobe hanging within that misty radius? Do you cover your soaking contact lenses at night? Where is your washcloth when all of this is going on? The questions are endless, and the more you ponder them, the more questions will be generated. You may lose sleep over this, don't say I didn't warn you.
Let's recap. In my early years, I was attracted to bathrooms. I played, read, exercised, and hid in the powder room. I washed my hands in the toilet with confidence. I dropped numerous items in the toilet and happily fished them out bare handed. The toilet was my friend. As I became more aware of the hidden dangers of the world, i.e. germs, the toilet and I grew apart and went our separate ways. I recognize the importance of the toilet in Western culture, but I no longer have that soft spot in my heart for the porcelain goddess. We are no longer friends. We are frenemies.
Cover Your Mouth!!!
I'm a germophobe. I have been for a long time. They say that the first step to getting better is admitting that you have a problem. I don't like to take bites off of other people's food, and I don't want anyone attempting bites off of mine. I don't share beverages and I know that re-dipping is a cardinal sin (see Forbidden Act). I think feet - my own included - are incredibly creepy and if I had my way, flip flops would be abolished and replaced by protective, thick socks and heavy boots. The protection is not FOR the feet, but FROM them. I supply all the sinks in my house with anti-bacterial soap, against my pharmacist brother's medically sound advice that it kills good germs as well as bad. In the same vein, I have hand sanitizer on my desk at work, in my house, in my car, in my back pack, and in a handlebar bag on my bike. I'm a hand sanitizer junkie.
I consider hand sanitizer to be the be-all and the end-all, and it has multiple uses besides creating the apocalypse for all germs, good and evil, on my hands. For example, it is very handy when One is logging and needs to remove pitch from One's hands (if you are wondering why One would be logging, you haven't read this blog very thoroughly). Ditto for anything else that is sticky, including those nasty price tags that you try to remove from gifts before you give them. Also the unpleasant smear and residue that is left behind, after you have picked away the nasty price tag. Gum on your fingers? Hand sanitizer is the answer! Your pen exploded? Hand sanitizer is a great option! Leftover residue from that sandwich you ate in the car? Hand sanitizer! Slug slime? Hand sanitizer! Between frequent sanitization and washing constantly, I would argue that I have the cleanest hands around.
The other night I saw that the World's Dirtiest Man was showing on the Discovery channel. I was drawn to the program like a moth to the light. I was repulsed, yet could not tear myself away. I was mesmerized by the disgusting truth that no matter how clean I think I am, I am surrounded by, and covered with, germs. It was hosted by Mike Rowe, the host of the popular program, Dirty Jobs.
The first thing that I learned was to always put the lid down before flushing the toilet. The scientist on the program turned off the bathroom lights and turned on his special scientist light and then flushed the toilet, and along with millions of other viewers, I was horrified to see thousands of tiny droplets propelled up into the air from the toilet. These tiny droplets flew all over the bathroom in question, and even had the nerve to invade Mike Rowe's toothbrush. I'll let you do the rest of the math on that one. My mind immediately went to the automatic flusher that we have at work. Still relatively new to the employees, it startles most of us with its quick response. With my new knowledge about flushing, I am now falling over myself to get out of the stall before I am showered by, and with, the invisible germs from a community toilet.
Next, I learned that what my 1st grader told me last year is true: a human's mouth is dirtier than a dog's mouth. On a filth scale of 1 - 30, with below 9 being very sanitary, and above 30 being too germy to eat off of, the dog's mouth tested at 22. Mike Rowe's mouth was not exactly off the chart, but it was at a disgusting 31, a number that would shut down a restaurant. He didn't sugar coat his protests, pointing out that the dog's mouth could not possibly be cleaner than his, as it licks its hiney. The scientist stuck to the facts and insisted that these results were consistent with other, more scientific studies.
All beliefs regarding covering one's mouth during a cough or a sneeze were confirmed. A woman purposely coughed on Mike Rowe's face and then he was swabbed and measured against that filth scale I talked about earlier. His forehead measured 38. Interestingly, a cough can travel at 55 mph. You can be the life of the party with that sort of trivia. Add to it that a sneeze can travel at 100 mph, and you may even pick up a date at that party (besides some nasty germs, if you are on the other end of that sneeze). You guessed it, the woman then was coerced to sneeze on Mike's face. This time he topped out at 45. Pretty gross.
I can't even begin to discuss the demodicids that live on your forehead and in the follicles of your eyebrows because it makes my skin crawl so badly that my hands shake and I can't type. Nor do I wish to elaborate on the bed bug situation in America or the millions of dust mites that live in your sheets and eat dead skin. At this moment I am making such a face of raw repulsion that I can't even see the monitor. I am secretly hoping that the wrinkles and scrunches made by my face are trapping and suffocating the forehead monsters.
If you find these hygenic revelations interesting, you may wish to visit the Dirtiest Man in the World website and see some clips from the show, or take quizzes about parasites and microorganisms. If you need me, I will be in self-imposed quarantine, scrubbing with anti-bacterial soap, rinsing with bleach water, and following up with a hand sanitizer.
I consider hand sanitizer to be the be-all and the end-all, and it has multiple uses besides creating the apocalypse for all germs, good and evil, on my hands. For example, it is very handy when One is logging and needs to remove pitch from One's hands (if you are wondering why One would be logging, you haven't read this blog very thoroughly). Ditto for anything else that is sticky, including those nasty price tags that you try to remove from gifts before you give them. Also the unpleasant smear and residue that is left behind, after you have picked away the nasty price tag. Gum on your fingers? Hand sanitizer is the answer! Your pen exploded? Hand sanitizer is a great option! Leftover residue from that sandwich you ate in the car? Hand sanitizer! Slug slime? Hand sanitizer! Between frequent sanitization and washing constantly, I would argue that I have the cleanest hands around.
The other night I saw that the World's Dirtiest Man was showing on the Discovery channel. I was drawn to the program like a moth to the light. I was repulsed, yet could not tear myself away. I was mesmerized by the disgusting truth that no matter how clean I think I am, I am surrounded by, and covered with, germs. It was hosted by Mike Rowe, the host of the popular program, Dirty Jobs.
The first thing that I learned was to always put the lid down before flushing the toilet. The scientist on the program turned off the bathroom lights and turned on his special scientist light and then flushed the toilet, and along with millions of other viewers, I was horrified to see thousands of tiny droplets propelled up into the air from the toilet. These tiny droplets flew all over the bathroom in question, and even had the nerve to invade Mike Rowe's toothbrush. I'll let you do the rest of the math on that one. My mind immediately went to the automatic flusher that we have at work. Still relatively new to the employees, it startles most of us with its quick response. With my new knowledge about flushing, I am now falling over myself to get out of the stall before I am showered by, and with, the invisible germs from a community toilet.
Next, I learned that what my 1st grader told me last year is true: a human's mouth is dirtier than a dog's mouth. On a filth scale of 1 - 30, with below 9 being very sanitary, and above 30 being too germy to eat off of, the dog's mouth tested at 22. Mike Rowe's mouth was not exactly off the chart, but it was at a disgusting 31, a number that would shut down a restaurant. He didn't sugar coat his protests, pointing out that the dog's mouth could not possibly be cleaner than his, as it licks its hiney. The scientist stuck to the facts and insisted that these results were consistent with other, more scientific studies.
All beliefs regarding covering one's mouth during a cough or a sneeze were confirmed. A woman purposely coughed on Mike Rowe's face and then he was swabbed and measured against that filth scale I talked about earlier. His forehead measured 38. Interestingly, a cough can travel at 55 mph. You can be the life of the party with that sort of trivia. Add to it that a sneeze can travel at 100 mph, and you may even pick up a date at that party (besides some nasty germs, if you are on the other end of that sneeze). You guessed it, the woman then was coerced to sneeze on Mike's face. This time he topped out at 45. Pretty gross.
I can't even begin to discuss the demodicids that live on your forehead and in the follicles of your eyebrows because it makes my skin crawl so badly that my hands shake and I can't type. Nor do I wish to elaborate on the bed bug situation in America or the millions of dust mites that live in your sheets and eat dead skin. At this moment I am making such a face of raw repulsion that I can't even see the monitor. I am secretly hoping that the wrinkles and scrunches made by my face are trapping and suffocating the forehead monsters.
If you find these hygenic revelations interesting, you may wish to visit the Dirtiest Man in the World website and see some clips from the show, or take quizzes about parasites and microorganisms. If you need me, I will be in self-imposed quarantine, scrubbing with anti-bacterial soap, rinsing with bleach water, and following up with a hand sanitizer.
Open Letter to the Old Geezer
Dear Old Geezer,
My daughter and I had been looking forward to our day off for a long time. After considering all of our options, we had decided that we wanted to go to a movie. Our dream come true would have been to go see Puss N Boots, but it wasn't out yet, so I checked to see what was playing in our neck of the woods. Luckily we were able to agree on A Dolphin Tale. As a rule, I don't like animal movies - I am a cryer. Flash back to Bambi, Old Yeller, Black Beauty, Marley and Me.... animal stories in general are bad news. I wasn't looking forward to it, but I was happy to spend some time with Sofie and to have a good time.
At the concession counter, I broke down and bought the kid box, with popcorn, a soda and some Skittles. We were seeing it in 3-D, so we juggled the straw, napkins, the precariously filled box of popcorn, and our 3-D glasses down to theater number 8. We were overjoyed to discover that we were the only ones in the theater. We debated which seats were the best in the house, and did a jig down the aisle in celebration of getting the prime real estate in the theater. As we watched the preliminary ads reminding us to turn off electronic devices, Sofie happily told me that we could text or talk or dance to our hearts' content, as we were alone. We contentedly hunkered down for the previews when You walked in.
I am sure that you could see all of the seats in the glow of the previews. How many seats do you think there are in a theater - 100? 200? A lot, that's for sure. You must have seen us, our faces bathed in the dim light, the 7-year old gobbling up the popcorn and the mom relaxing in the reclining movie seat. It really is beyond my understanding why you chose to sit right in front of Sofie. After you had made yourself comfortable, she and I looked at each other in disbelief. I raised my hands, palms to the ceiling, and shrugged, shooting daggers at the back of your head with my eyes. "I CAN'T SEE!" Sofie hissed at me. You may or may not have noticed that we had to move down a few seats. We were disgruntled that we were no longer in the exact center of the universe.
I was convinced that you were a pervert, waiting for the right moment to jump up and expose yourself to us. I made a mental note of all of the exits, and what I had in my purse that would make a good weapon if I were in need of one. I spent the entire first half of the movie peering through my 3-D glasses, and then lifting them up for a better view, keeping a squinty eye on you. I was sure that your nearby presence was somehow going to further mar our moviegoing experience in a manner which I was not yet able to imagine. It was bad enough that you started off in our space bubble, I hated to try to think up what else you were capable of doing. Don't think that I ever forgot you were there. There wasn't a moment in that Dolphin Tale that I wasn't aware of you, two seats over and in front of us, the only other patron in the audience.
Old Geezer, I have my eye on you. It may be dark, and my 3-D glasses may or may not be scratched up, and it's possible that I might have tears in my eyes (it is an animal movie, after all), and my contacts may be acting up if my eyelids happen to be puffy, but Old Geezer, I am watching you.
My daughter and I had been looking forward to our day off for a long time. After considering all of our options, we had decided that we wanted to go to a movie. Our dream come true would have been to go see Puss N Boots, but it wasn't out yet, so I checked to see what was playing in our neck of the woods. Luckily we were able to agree on A Dolphin Tale. As a rule, I don't like animal movies - I am a cryer. Flash back to Bambi, Old Yeller, Black Beauty, Marley and Me.... animal stories in general are bad news. I wasn't looking forward to it, but I was happy to spend some time with Sofie and to have a good time.
At the concession counter, I broke down and bought the kid box, with popcorn, a soda and some Skittles. We were seeing it in 3-D, so we juggled the straw, napkins, the precariously filled box of popcorn, and our 3-D glasses down to theater number 8. We were overjoyed to discover that we were the only ones in the theater. We debated which seats were the best in the house, and did a jig down the aisle in celebration of getting the prime real estate in the theater. As we watched the preliminary ads reminding us to turn off electronic devices, Sofie happily told me that we could text or talk or dance to our hearts' content, as we were alone. We contentedly hunkered down for the previews when You walked in.
I am sure that you could see all of the seats in the glow of the previews. How many seats do you think there are in a theater - 100? 200? A lot, that's for sure. You must have seen us, our faces bathed in the dim light, the 7-year old gobbling up the popcorn and the mom relaxing in the reclining movie seat. It really is beyond my understanding why you chose to sit right in front of Sofie. After you had made yourself comfortable, she and I looked at each other in disbelief. I raised my hands, palms to the ceiling, and shrugged, shooting daggers at the back of your head with my eyes. "I CAN'T SEE!" Sofie hissed at me. You may or may not have noticed that we had to move down a few seats. We were disgruntled that we were no longer in the exact center of the universe.
I was convinced that you were a pervert, waiting for the right moment to jump up and expose yourself to us. I made a mental note of all of the exits, and what I had in my purse that would make a good weapon if I were in need of one. I spent the entire first half of the movie peering through my 3-D glasses, and then lifting them up for a better view, keeping a squinty eye on you. I was sure that your nearby presence was somehow going to further mar our moviegoing experience in a manner which I was not yet able to imagine. It was bad enough that you started off in our space bubble, I hated to try to think up what else you were capable of doing. Don't think that I ever forgot you were there. There wasn't a moment in that Dolphin Tale that I wasn't aware of you, two seats over and in front of us, the only other patron in the audience.
Old Geezer, I have my eye on you. It may be dark, and my 3-D glasses may or may not be scratched up, and it's possible that I might have tears in my eyes (it is an animal movie, after all), and my contacts may be acting up if my eyelids happen to be puffy, but Old Geezer, I am watching you.
Forbidden Act
It's a sin to double dip. I know this because as a child, I was warned not to on a regular basis. You may think you know what I mean, but let me clarify for you. First of all, I am NOT talking about using a tanning bed AND a sunless tanner to achieve a very dark tan (if you could see the luster of my skin, however, there would be no doubt in your mind that I know this is a sin, too). I am not hinting at the practice of simultaneously holding multiple elected positions. Nor am I alluding to the meteorological phenomenon of an "early high" temperature and a "late low" temperature in the same day.
I am referring to the dangerous act of poking a food item, such as a small vegetable or a chip, into a diplike substance, taking a bite, and then inserting same food item back into the dip. The diplike substance may be any creamy concoction, a salsa or guacamole, and extends into the dessert world to include puddings and chocolates that may be available for dipping. A person may be able to avoid the status as a "double dipper", for indeed the scornful label exists, by turning the chiplike item around, so as not to insert the "bitey" into the dip. The "bitey" is the problem, you see, for popular belief is that the "bitey" is adding disease-causing bacteria from the double dipper's mouth back into the dip. Thus it is classified as one of the most dangerous acts to mistakenly execute.
There are many factors that influence the danger classification level, including the formality of the event, the number of guests, the level of intimacy between said guests, as well as the social rank of the offender. As you can imagine, as the levels of these factors rise, the danger level ramps up exponentially. The exception to this axiom is the last factor mentioned, the social rank of the offender. Generally speaking, if it is Grandma or Grandpa double dipping, or the President of the United States, observers will say nothing. The universally unspoken rule is that only persons of equal or higher ranking may call out the double dipper.
Consequences have the potential of being quite severe in the event of being caught double dipping. As stated earlier, the mere label as a "double dipper" can be devastating to the accused. In extreme cases, the person may be shunned from further events involving dip. It is very difficult to shake the label and make a comeback after being identified as a double dipper, and many people have remained on the outskirts of the chips and dip displays for the remainder of their party years.
There are other, less obvious, consequences to consider in the event of a double dip. In most incidents when the infraction is witnessed by multiple people, the dip is seized and inspected. The bitey is isolated and removed. Further inspections ensue to assure all witnesses that the dip is bitey-free, and safe to consume. It is imperative that these inspections, as well as the disposal of the bitey, are done in front of the witnesses. Preventing mass hysteria is crucial, and the reputation of the dip must remain intact at all costs. In unusual cases with multiple or repeat offenders, the dip has been known to be discarded. This can occur with or without the approval of the dip maker. Even with precautions taken, it is still possible that the dip may be avoided for the rest of its table time by guests who suspect that the removal of the bitey was not adequate.
With the holidays rapidly approaching, there are double dip, or "re-dip" patrols on the rise. These clandestine units are generally self-appointed vigilantes who fear bacterial pandemics of the worst sort. They carry Handi-wipes in their purses or man-bags, and have hand sanitizer at the ready in their pockets. Mouth rinse lives in the glove boxes of their cars. There is no spotting these agents ahead of time. You will only know their presence by the calling card left standing in front of the dip bowl. In bold, colorful lettering, it will say, "NO RE-DIPS, YOU DIP!"
I am referring to the dangerous act of poking a food item, such as a small vegetable or a chip, into a diplike substance, taking a bite, and then inserting same food item back into the dip. The diplike substance may be any creamy concoction, a salsa or guacamole, and extends into the dessert world to include puddings and chocolates that may be available for dipping. A person may be able to avoid the status as a "double dipper", for indeed the scornful label exists, by turning the chiplike item around, so as not to insert the "bitey" into the dip. The "bitey" is the problem, you see, for popular belief is that the "bitey" is adding disease-causing bacteria from the double dipper's mouth back into the dip. Thus it is classified as one of the most dangerous acts to mistakenly execute.
There are many factors that influence the danger classification level, including the formality of the event, the number of guests, the level of intimacy between said guests, as well as the social rank of the offender. As you can imagine, as the levels of these factors rise, the danger level ramps up exponentially. The exception to this axiom is the last factor mentioned, the social rank of the offender. Generally speaking, if it is Grandma or Grandpa double dipping, or the President of the United States, observers will say nothing. The universally unspoken rule is that only persons of equal or higher ranking may call out the double dipper.
Consequences have the potential of being quite severe in the event of being caught double dipping. As stated earlier, the mere label as a "double dipper" can be devastating to the accused. In extreme cases, the person may be shunned from further events involving dip. It is very difficult to shake the label and make a comeback after being identified as a double dipper, and many people have remained on the outskirts of the chips and dip displays for the remainder of their party years.
There are other, less obvious, consequences to consider in the event of a double dip. In most incidents when the infraction is witnessed by multiple people, the dip is seized and inspected. The bitey is isolated and removed. Further inspections ensue to assure all witnesses that the dip is bitey-free, and safe to consume. It is imperative that these inspections, as well as the disposal of the bitey, are done in front of the witnesses. Preventing mass hysteria is crucial, and the reputation of the dip must remain intact at all costs. In unusual cases with multiple or repeat offenders, the dip has been known to be discarded. This can occur with or without the approval of the dip maker. Even with precautions taken, it is still possible that the dip may be avoided for the rest of its table time by guests who suspect that the removal of the bitey was not adequate.
With the holidays rapidly approaching, there are double dip, or "re-dip" patrols on the rise. These clandestine units are generally self-appointed vigilantes who fear bacterial pandemics of the worst sort. They carry Handi-wipes in their purses or man-bags, and have hand sanitizer at the ready in their pockets. Mouth rinse lives in the glove boxes of their cars. There is no spotting these agents ahead of time. You will only know their presence by the calling card left standing in front of the dip bowl. In bold, colorful lettering, it will say, "NO RE-DIPS, YOU DIP!"
An Alarming Episode
My daughter was going to be gone for the weekend. The bright spot in this was the fact that in the middle of the night, no one would be crawling over my head to get to the other side of my bed, or poking me and whispering urgently, "MAMA!", or jumping on the snoring monster in my bed. For the most part, I am able to ignore and sleep through those sorts of interruptions, but that last one was especially scary and it hurt, too. I was looking forward to sleeping until the morning sunlight, or semblance of it, danced around my room, and I could luxuriously stretch from one corner to its diagonal opposite without encountering any small limbs, or raising the ire of a small sleeping child. In short, I couldn't wait to go to bed and stay there for a really long time.
Before my daughter left, we had emptied some things out of the car, in preparation for the weekend soccer game, shopping trip, etc. You know how the car gets after a week of frantic running. One thing that I took into the house was a box that had been in the car since the road trip (see Three Mules Abreast). It contained the AAA travel books for Idaho, Oregon, Utah and Arizona, as well as the corresponding maps. As the box was not totally overflowing, I had stuffed a couple of random items in it from the back seat. This may or may not have included a jump rope, a cell phone that didn't work, a deck of cards, some candy wrappers, and a thing that I can only describe as part calculator, part electronic demon. This box was part of the mountain of things that I brought into the house on Friday afternoon, and it landed in a temporary spot in the hallway, outside my bedroom door.
My Friday night plan consisted of eating enough chicken nuggets to make me full, correcting tests, and drinking Mike's Pink Lemonade. I only achieved two of the above action items. However, I did them extremely well. I tried really hard to stay awake for the entire 2 hour special of Prime Time, but as always, I fell asleep and didn't learn how the woman in New Mexico killed her mechanic husband. I knew she had done it from the beginning, because whenever they interviewed her, it was a super-close-up shot of her face, so as to hide her prison uniform. By the time Prime Time was over at 11:00, I was alert again, proud to have detected that it was the wife that did the guy in, but disappointed to have missed the gory details.
After completing my evening ablutions, I snuggled happily into my flannel sheets and grabbed a book from the nightstand. I read for a while until I realized that I was reading with my eyes closed. This is a frequent phenomenon that happens to me, and I may have also mentioned it in a previous post, Sleep Becomes Me. The story was going along quite nicely, until I realized that I was one of the characters and about to come to a bad end. At that point I gave up trying to read and I turned out the lights, looking forward to unlimited, and uninterrupted, sleep.
Imagine my discomfort and confusion when I awoke at o-dark-thirty, to a tinny, obviously battery-operated rendition of The William Tell Overture, by Gioachino Rossini. You may know it better as the theme song from the Lone Ranger radio and TV shows. Gioachino will roll over in his grave when he discovers that his musical picture of life in the Swiss Alps has been programmed into a calculator, battery-operated, electronic tool of the devil. The odd thing is that even at that hour, I clearly and precisely knew that the name of the offending tune was the William Tell Overture, and that it was coming from that box outside my bedroom door. I covered my head with pillows. The finale penetrated the synthetic down blockade. The sound was like the buzz of a mosquito, piercing my brain. I convinced myself that it would come to an end, but it tirelessly started up again. This process repeated itself for what seemed like hours. I knew that if I got up to turn it off, I would not resume my relished slumber. I also knew that I would be rendered senseless if I had to listen to it until the morning sunlight danced around my room. With this music, the sunlight would gallop.
With what I am sure was a heavy, disgusted sigh, I heaved myself out of bed and fumbled toward the doorway. Without contacts, and at that hour, I was not at my light-footed best. I rifled through the box, throwing maps here and books there. Grabbing the devil's device, I stabbed at it with my finger, squinting through the dark, jabbing every possible button that I could detect. The sound stopped and the welcome sound of the silence roared in my ears. Throwing the offending instrument down, I took two large steps back to my bed and thankfully slid in. I closed my eyes. William Tell and his cavalry charged through my head, circled around and came at me again. I opened my eyes. The morning light had snuck in while I was fighting William Tell. "Roll over Gioachino, it's time to get up", I grumbled.
Before my daughter left, we had emptied some things out of the car, in preparation for the weekend soccer game, shopping trip, etc. You know how the car gets after a week of frantic running. One thing that I took into the house was a box that had been in the car since the road trip (see Three Mules Abreast). It contained the AAA travel books for Idaho, Oregon, Utah and Arizona, as well as the corresponding maps. As the box was not totally overflowing, I had stuffed a couple of random items in it from the back seat. This may or may not have included a jump rope, a cell phone that didn't work, a deck of cards, some candy wrappers, and a thing that I can only describe as part calculator, part electronic demon. This box was part of the mountain of things that I brought into the house on Friday afternoon, and it landed in a temporary spot in the hallway, outside my bedroom door.
My Friday night plan consisted of eating enough chicken nuggets to make me full, correcting tests, and drinking Mike's Pink Lemonade. I only achieved two of the above action items. However, I did them extremely well. I tried really hard to stay awake for the entire 2 hour special of Prime Time, but as always, I fell asleep and didn't learn how the woman in New Mexico killed her mechanic husband. I knew she had done it from the beginning, because whenever they interviewed her, it was a super-close-up shot of her face, so as to hide her prison uniform. By the time Prime Time was over at 11:00, I was alert again, proud to have detected that it was the wife that did the guy in, but disappointed to have missed the gory details.
After completing my evening ablutions, I snuggled happily into my flannel sheets and grabbed a book from the nightstand. I read for a while until I realized that I was reading with my eyes closed. This is a frequent phenomenon that happens to me, and I may have also mentioned it in a previous post, Sleep Becomes Me. The story was going along quite nicely, until I realized that I was one of the characters and about to come to a bad end. At that point I gave up trying to read and I turned out the lights, looking forward to unlimited, and uninterrupted, sleep.
Imagine my discomfort and confusion when I awoke at o-dark-thirty, to a tinny, obviously battery-operated rendition of The William Tell Overture, by Gioachino Rossini. You may know it better as the theme song from the Lone Ranger radio and TV shows. Gioachino will roll over in his grave when he discovers that his musical picture of life in the Swiss Alps has been programmed into a calculator, battery-operated, electronic tool of the devil. The odd thing is that even at that hour, I clearly and precisely knew that the name of the offending tune was the William Tell Overture, and that it was coming from that box outside my bedroom door. I covered my head with pillows. The finale penetrated the synthetic down blockade. The sound was like the buzz of a mosquito, piercing my brain. I convinced myself that it would come to an end, but it tirelessly started up again. This process repeated itself for what seemed like hours. I knew that if I got up to turn it off, I would not resume my relished slumber. I also knew that I would be rendered senseless if I had to listen to it until the morning sunlight danced around my room. With this music, the sunlight would gallop.
With what I am sure was a heavy, disgusted sigh, I heaved myself out of bed and fumbled toward the doorway. Without contacts, and at that hour, I was not at my light-footed best. I rifled through the box, throwing maps here and books there. Grabbing the devil's device, I stabbed at it with my finger, squinting through the dark, jabbing every possible button that I could detect. The sound stopped and the welcome sound of the silence roared in my ears. Throwing the offending instrument down, I took two large steps back to my bed and thankfully slid in. I closed my eyes. William Tell and his cavalry charged through my head, circled around and came at me again. I opened my eyes. The morning light had snuck in while I was fighting William Tell. "Roll over Gioachino, it's time to get up", I grumbled.
Firewood Warms My Heart
I have already told you how I love to freeze things, like the jars of cilantro, and that I enjoyed canning the beets because I felt like the squirrel putting the nuts away for winter. I feel the same way about firewood. There is something comforting about knowing that it's there, Just In Case. The funny thing is that I am slow to use up any of the stuff - I haven't touched a jar of beets yet, I haven't wrestled out a new jar of cilantro from the freezer. I want to save it all for "later". The trouble is that later doesn't ever come (this is a topic to explore at a later date). So I have a lot of food sitting in my freezer, waiting for that rainy day, or that day when I don't have any other food to use up. I had to throw out a lot of food from the freezer earlier this year. I did the math. It was older than my daughter, and she was born in 2004.
Firewood is different. I will put off lighting a fire until it is unbearably cold, and the guilt is overwhelming regarding making a small child live in a house without heat. But I WILL use it. In fact, I look forward to the day that I light my fire. This year I am aiming for the end of October. I anticipate lighting it then, and not having to light another fire until Spring. You see, I never let my fire go out. Unless, of course, we go away for a couple of days. Otherwise, we have a perpetual fire at our house. We wake up to a warm house, we come home to a warm house; we like to pretend we are in a cozy cabin, hunkered down for the winter.
I have worked a lot this summer with my chainsaw (faithful reader that you are, you know all about my chainsaw trials), sawing up what I call my brother's trash and my treasure. It's especially funny because his nickname is Man, so Man's Trash is My Treasure. Not just One Man's Trash, not Any Man's Trash, but Man's Trash. It's his trash because he doesn't like to deal with logs or downed trees that are under a certain diameter. He only cuts up trees that are 2 feet in diameter or more. Anything smaller is just not worth his time. It's my treasure because it is small enough for me to manage. I have a small chain saw, and it the perfect size for cutting up My Treasure. I have been scampering through the woods, happily cutting up small trees and my mom has been scampering faithfully behind me, making woodpiles with them or tossing them into the back of the truck.
Some of our woodpiles are pretty cute because they have "antlers". This happens when I saw up a tree and I miss cutting a branch off on the underside, so when Mom picks up the logs, some of them have branches still attached. She stacks them with the branches pointing upward, and ¡VOILA! We have antlers.
Truck loads of wood are driven back to the house and split, with the log splitter, of course. A load is then hauled to my house and the wood is stacked in my woodshed. I am especially happy now because last weekend we finished filling my woodshed. Anything extra is now going to my holz hausen, a really cute kind of woodpile.
The holz hausen is thrilling to me because I am trying to get a year ahead in my firewood storage. Plus it is German, and attractive. What more could a person want in a woodpile? If I am a year ahead, all the firewood I burn will be properly dried and will burn to its potential, giving off nice, toasty, penetrating heat. It will not clog up my chimney with creosote and threaten to catch my stovepipe on fire. That's a bonus.
Every couple of days I mosey out to my woodshed. First I admire its design. I designed it after looking at different woodsheds on the Internet, and I quite like the looks of it. It allows air to circulate and dry the wood, yet protects the contents from the elements. Then I gaze in wonder at the construction. Man helped me get it started, and I finished the sides and roofed it myself. Then I proudly note the firewood that is inside. I stroll up to my holz hausen and openly stare at it, and it makes me smile. I know just how the squirrel feels. I am the squirrel.
Firewood is different. I will put off lighting a fire until it is unbearably cold, and the guilt is overwhelming regarding making a small child live in a house without heat. But I WILL use it. In fact, I look forward to the day that I light my fire. This year I am aiming for the end of October. I anticipate lighting it then, and not having to light another fire until Spring. You see, I never let my fire go out. Unless, of course, we go away for a couple of days. Otherwise, we have a perpetual fire at our house. We wake up to a warm house, we come home to a warm house; we like to pretend we are in a cozy cabin, hunkered down for the winter.
I have worked a lot this summer with my chainsaw (faithful reader that you are, you know all about my chainsaw trials), sawing up what I call my brother's trash and my treasure. It's especially funny because his nickname is Man, so Man's Trash is My Treasure. Not just One Man's Trash, not Any Man's Trash, but Man's Trash. It's his trash because he doesn't like to deal with logs or downed trees that are under a certain diameter. He only cuts up trees that are 2 feet in diameter or more. Anything smaller is just not worth his time. It's my treasure because it is small enough for me to manage. I have a small chain saw, and it the perfect size for cutting up My Treasure. I have been scampering through the woods, happily cutting up small trees and my mom has been scampering faithfully behind me, making woodpiles with them or tossing them into the back of the truck.
Some of our woodpiles are pretty cute because they have "antlers". This happens when I saw up a tree and I miss cutting a branch off on the underside, so when Mom picks up the logs, some of them have branches still attached. She stacks them with the branches pointing upward, and ¡VOILA! We have antlers.
Truck loads of wood are driven back to the house and split, with the log splitter, of course. A load is then hauled to my house and the wood is stacked in my woodshed. I am especially happy now because last weekend we finished filling my woodshed. Anything extra is now going to my holz hausen, a really cute kind of woodpile.
The holz hausen is thrilling to me because I am trying to get a year ahead in my firewood storage. Plus it is German, and attractive. What more could a person want in a woodpile? If I am a year ahead, all the firewood I burn will be properly dried and will burn to its potential, giving off nice, toasty, penetrating heat. It will not clog up my chimney with creosote and threaten to catch my stovepipe on fire. That's a bonus.
Every couple of days I mosey out to my woodshed. First I admire its design. I designed it after looking at different woodsheds on the Internet, and I quite like the looks of it. It allows air to circulate and dry the wood, yet protects the contents from the elements. Then I gaze in wonder at the construction. Man helped me get it started, and I finished the sides and roofed it myself. Then I proudly note the firewood that is inside. I stroll up to my holz hausen and openly stare at it, and it makes me smile. I know just how the squirrel feels. I am the squirrel.
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| My woodshed - front |
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| Side view |
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| Top view of holz hausen - how does this not make you smile? |
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| Side view - it's not finished yet! |
WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE?
I know a sure-fire way to make a million dollars overnight. It's legal in all states, it will bring no shame upon your family, and it will be something you can brag about to your grandkids. I have even shared this idea with several people. Do you know how they responded? They scoffed at me! I didn't even ask for a percentage of the earnings.
Here's how to do it: invent a starter for a small engine (lawnmower, chainsaw, weedeater, etc.) that does not involve a pull string, but a regular old key. Pretty simple, huh? I know for a fact that women all over America, and I don't use that name lightly - I include Canada, the United States, Mexico, Central and South America - will rush out and buy those newfangled machines. Maybe even women in (gasp!) EUROPE and (swoon) ASIA! Heckfire, I'll bet even ladies from AUSTRALIA!!!! would jump on this! I'm telling you, this is a big deal. I don't know any woman who enjoys pulling that string over and over and over and over.... to no avail. It is so frustrating! With several of those implements, I even have to put my foot on it to hold it down while I yank up on the string. Over and over and over and over and over. Hunched over, sweating, panting, and getting a sore arm from pulling that blasted string. I read somewhere that you never forget how to curse when you are a DIY homeowner. I maintain that the same is true when you do your own yard maintenance.
Those with the Y-chromosome have quickly snuffed out my idea by saying, yes, but you would add at least five pounds to the weight of the apparatus! Hey fellas! That's called INVENTING! Think outside of the box, for crying out loud! I never said that this millionaire idea would be easy! Good Gravy, if it were that simple, someone would have already thought it up and we wouldn't be having this exchange.
Last weekend I was mentally prepared to do some hard-core logging with my newly repaired chainsaw. I had my official logging Carhartts on (they could walk out to the woods on their own, I'm sorry to tell you, as they have been logging a few times this summer), my bar oil and gasoline in gloved hands. Mom and I lugged all of the equipment out to the woods, found the treasure and got set to work. Guess what. The chainsaw wouldn't start. There I was, all dressed up and no toolage (it's possible that I have made this word up, but just go with it). I tried and tried and tried to get that thing started as my mom looked on in dismay. We walked back to the house, picked up a bigger, heavier chainsaw and headed into the woods again. Back at the sweet spot, I bent down to the chain saw and heaved on the string. Over and over and over. By then I was ready to challenge a trucker to an expletive contest. Sweat was dripping in to my eyes and down my back. The cool morning was replaced by a hot afternoon and the horseflies had found us. I would have traded just about anything for a machine that would easily start. The sad ending to this story is that I didn't cut any wood that day. Chainsaws 2, Gretty 0.
By now all of you sharp minded ones shouldn't even be reading this, you should be jotting down numbers and sketches and ideas. The quicker you invent it, the sooner you'll be living the life of luxury. Please think of me as you are sipping those pink lemonade margaritas by the pool at sunset.....
Here's how to do it: invent a starter for a small engine (lawnmower, chainsaw, weedeater, etc.) that does not involve a pull string, but a regular old key. Pretty simple, huh? I know for a fact that women all over America, and I don't use that name lightly - I include Canada, the United States, Mexico, Central and South America - will rush out and buy those newfangled machines. Maybe even women in (gasp!) EUROPE and (swoon) ASIA! Heckfire, I'll bet even ladies from AUSTRALIA!!!! would jump on this! I'm telling you, this is a big deal. I don't know any woman who enjoys pulling that string over and over and over and over.... to no avail. It is so frustrating! With several of those implements, I even have to put my foot on it to hold it down while I yank up on the string. Over and over and over and over and over. Hunched over, sweating, panting, and getting a sore arm from pulling that blasted string. I read somewhere that you never forget how to curse when you are a DIY homeowner. I maintain that the same is true when you do your own yard maintenance.
Those with the Y-chromosome have quickly snuffed out my idea by saying, yes, but you would add at least five pounds to the weight of the apparatus! Hey fellas! That's called INVENTING! Think outside of the box, for crying out loud! I never said that this millionaire idea would be easy! Good Gravy, if it were that simple, someone would have already thought it up and we wouldn't be having this exchange.
Last weekend I was mentally prepared to do some hard-core logging with my newly repaired chainsaw. I had my official logging Carhartts on (they could walk out to the woods on their own, I'm sorry to tell you, as they have been logging a few times this summer), my bar oil and gasoline in gloved hands. Mom and I lugged all of the equipment out to the woods, found the treasure and got set to work. Guess what. The chainsaw wouldn't start. There I was, all dressed up and no toolage (it's possible that I have made this word up, but just go with it). I tried and tried and tried to get that thing started as my mom looked on in dismay. We walked back to the house, picked up a bigger, heavier chainsaw and headed into the woods again. Back at the sweet spot, I bent down to the chain saw and heaved on the string. Over and over and over. By then I was ready to challenge a trucker to an expletive contest. Sweat was dripping in to my eyes and down my back. The cool morning was replaced by a hot afternoon and the horseflies had found us. I would have traded just about anything for a machine that would easily start. The sad ending to this story is that I didn't cut any wood that day. Chainsaws 2, Gretty 0.
By now all of you sharp minded ones shouldn't even be reading this, you should be jotting down numbers and sketches and ideas. The quicker you invent it, the sooner you'll be living the life of luxury. Please think of me as you are sipping those pink lemonade margaritas by the pool at sunset.....
Three Mules Abreast
There are a couple of things you should know before reading any further. First of all, I love road trips. I especially love to take road trips with my mom and my daughter. We listen to loud music (Steve Miller Band is great Road Trip Music), yell at other drivers ("Thanks a lot, Stupid!" is one of our more famous sayings), marvel at majestic scenery (the Vermilion Cliffs and the Grand Staircase are amazing). My daughter, Sofie, will read voraciously in the back seat. She doesn't like to be interrupted while reading, but every once in a while we can get a "ROCK ON!" out of her, and she loves to repeat our outbursts of road rage (that's how we can have a famous saying). She's seven. The other thing you need to know here is that in spite of being such an advanced reader, she still gets the words "bra" and "breast" mixed up. Don't ask me how this is possible.
Last week the three of us were hurtling back from a quick visit to Flagstaff, Arizona. We were on our second day of the return trip, so we were getting a little rummy. Our road trip philosophy is basically to switch drivers every two hours, and at the switch we have to take care of any other needs: buy gas, get something to eat, use the bathroom. We drive for 12 or 13 hours in a day - that's how we can get there in just over a day and a half. So we were coming along I-84 (which, by the way is also called Old Oregon Trail Highway), passing by an abandoned cement factory in Lime, Oregon, and then continuing on through some desolate curves and dry hills. We came around a corner, wishing we would see a place offering up something to eat. Instead, we saw a little shack with a lot of old cars left around the outside, and driving up a hill away from it all was a covered wagon. As I was the driver on the curvy road, I couldn't stare too much at it, but both Mom and I were exclaiming and shouting, "Look, Sofie! There's a covered wagon! See it? See the horses? It's just like what Laura Ingalls Wilder rode in!" We were excitedly talking over one another and Sofie could hardly pull her eyes away from her book, but she did grunt in acknowledgement. Then Mom said with wonder, "Wow, a covered wagon! Look, it has three mules abreast!"
It was silent for a moment and then I began to snicker. Mom looked insulted. "What?!", she demanded. I started to laugh. "I can't even imagine what she thinks that means!" Mom realized what it was that she had said, and then she started to laugh, too. By this time I was crying from laughing so hard, and it was hard work to keep my eyes open to see the road. Finally one of us asked Sofie what she thought that had meant. "Well", she said, "I didn't really know. I guess it means three mules are next to each other and their breasts are touching." Of course that made me howl with laughter. Mom was trying to be very proper and not laugh, mostly because she didn't want me careening into a ditch. She explained what she had meant. An hour later, we traded drivers. I got in to the passenger seat and started giggling. I could hardly talk, but I managed to squeal, "Three mules abreast!" and then I dissolved with laughter.
A week later, after the first day of school, Sofie and I were home having an afternoon snack. There were some old lame balloons creeping around our house, and she grabbed two of them and stuffed them under her new copper colored tunic. "Look at my bras!", she exclaimed proudly.
Last week the three of us were hurtling back from a quick visit to Flagstaff, Arizona. We were on our second day of the return trip, so we were getting a little rummy. Our road trip philosophy is basically to switch drivers every two hours, and at the switch we have to take care of any other needs: buy gas, get something to eat, use the bathroom. We drive for 12 or 13 hours in a day - that's how we can get there in just over a day and a half. So we were coming along I-84 (which, by the way is also called Old Oregon Trail Highway), passing by an abandoned cement factory in Lime, Oregon, and then continuing on through some desolate curves and dry hills. We came around a corner, wishing we would see a place offering up something to eat. Instead, we saw a little shack with a lot of old cars left around the outside, and driving up a hill away from it all was a covered wagon. As I was the driver on the curvy road, I couldn't stare too much at it, but both Mom and I were exclaiming and shouting, "Look, Sofie! There's a covered wagon! See it? See the horses? It's just like what Laura Ingalls Wilder rode in!" We were excitedly talking over one another and Sofie could hardly pull her eyes away from her book, but she did grunt in acknowledgement. Then Mom said with wonder, "Wow, a covered wagon! Look, it has three mules abreast!"
It was silent for a moment and then I began to snicker. Mom looked insulted. "What?!", she demanded. I started to laugh. "I can't even imagine what she thinks that means!" Mom realized what it was that she had said, and then she started to laugh, too. By this time I was crying from laughing so hard, and it was hard work to keep my eyes open to see the road. Finally one of us asked Sofie what she thought that had meant. "Well", she said, "I didn't really know. I guess it means three mules are next to each other and their breasts are touching." Of course that made me howl with laughter. Mom was trying to be very proper and not laugh, mostly because she didn't want me careening into a ditch. She explained what she had meant. An hour later, we traded drivers. I got in to the passenger seat and started giggling. I could hardly talk, but I managed to squeal, "Three mules abreast!" and then I dissolved with laughter.
A week later, after the first day of school, Sofie and I were home having an afternoon snack. There were some old lame balloons creeping around our house, and she grabbed two of them and stuffed them under her new copper colored tunic. "Look at my bras!", she exclaimed proudly.
Let's Not Complain About the Weather
My daughter and I just returned from a week of camping in the San Juan Islands. I know, I know, it sounds so luxurious. If only the weather had cooperated!!! We drove up in the driving rain (no pun intended) on Thursday, it rained Friday and most of Saturday. It cleared for a little while on Saturday evening. On Sunday, it poured again. The nice weather appeared after noon on Monday, stuck around on Tuesday. By Wednesday it couldn't really stay nice, and it poured Wednesday night. We drove home on Thursday through pounding rain. Did you count the nice days? Two!!! I have been cold for 7 nights in a row!
Sofie came right home and announced that she wanted to get in to her pajamas at the same time that I was rushing around to each heater, turning all up full blast. She agreed to get in a hot bath first, and soaked in there until the dirt came out from under her toenails and fingernails. I made a cup of hot coffee and tried to scald my tongue.
We delightedly watched out the window as the wind blew the trees in the backyard, our first look at weather from inside in a week.
I have sworn this summer to not complain about the weather. While the rest of the country has been red on the Weather Channel's map, we in the Pacific Northwest have been green. While everyone else has been lying on the floor naked under their ceiling fans, we have been rifling our fleece drawers to find that medium-weight cozy sweater. While there have been tornadoes and floods in the Midwest, we have had the company of our old friend, Rain. Rain is nothing new to us, we know how to drive in it, how to live in it, how to deal with it. Stop moping about the lack of heat and be glad that we aren't going to stores with air conditioning just to stay cool, playing in public fountains along with everyone else to wash that stickiness away, or lying awake all night with no covers on, hoping for the faintest breeze to come through that open window. In the Northwest, we are still able to go on hikes and bike rides during the day without passing out after the first half mile from heat stroke, we can walk our dogs, send our kids out to play in the yard, and leave the windows and doors open to get some fresh air into the house. What is there to complain about???
Sofie came right home and announced that she wanted to get in to her pajamas at the same time that I was rushing around to each heater, turning all up full blast. She agreed to get in a hot bath first, and soaked in there until the dirt came out from under her toenails and fingernails. I made a cup of hot coffee and tried to scald my tongue.
We delightedly watched out the window as the wind blew the trees in the backyard, our first look at weather from inside in a week.
I have sworn this summer to not complain about the weather. While the rest of the country has been red on the Weather Channel's map, we in the Pacific Northwest have been green. While everyone else has been lying on the floor naked under their ceiling fans, we have been rifling our fleece drawers to find that medium-weight cozy sweater. While there have been tornadoes and floods in the Midwest, we have had the company of our old friend, Rain. Rain is nothing new to us, we know how to drive in it, how to live in it, how to deal with it. Stop moping about the lack of heat and be glad that we aren't going to stores with air conditioning just to stay cool, playing in public fountains along with everyone else to wash that stickiness away, or lying awake all night with no covers on, hoping for the faintest breeze to come through that open window. In the Northwest, we are still able to go on hikes and bike rides during the day without passing out after the first half mile from heat stroke, we can walk our dogs, send our kids out to play in the yard, and leave the windows and doors open to get some fresh air into the house. What is there to complain about???
I Think I Can, I Think I Can!
At the end of last summer, my aunt passed the canning torch to me: she gave me my Nana's pressure cooker and an over sized box of assorted sized glass jars, along with various and sundry lids and rings. I have been looking forward to canning all year; it makes me feel kind of like a squirrel gathering nuts for the winter. It's the same feeling I have about logging for firewood (surely a blog entry for another day), making batch after batch of freezer jam, experimenting with pestos, and making and freezing zucchini muffins. It's the pioneer part of me coming out, and I think about how my ancestors used to do the activity; usually it's how DID they ever do this without modern conveniences?
Today my mom and I picked up her farm box that she gets every week from Helsing Junction Farm, and we bought additional beets at their farm stand. They were beautiful, purple beets, of a uniform size - perfect for our day's project. All together, I think we bought 17 pounds of beets. We had read all sorts of directions and how-to guides on line, as well as the original cookbook that came with the canner (very good recipes for squirrel, if you are interested) about how to can beets. We had all the jars we needed and we bought an extra box of lids and rings just to be on the safe side.
After reading every instruction under the sun, we put a pot of water to boil on every burner, and felt that we were prepared to deliver a baby as well. A pot to sterilize the jars, a pot to boil the lids, and two pots to cook the beets - already we were out of burners! How did people used to do this? We were wishing for our old wood cook stove at this point. Once one pot of beets was cooked then we could swap that out for a pot to boil the water to pour over the beets in the jar.
Mom's job was to peel and slice the beets after they were cooked. My job was to remove the jar from boiling water (with special jar tongs, I felt pretty important), fill it with freshly sliced beets, pour hot water over the top of the beets, leaving an inch of head space, of course. We felt very intellectual using our new vocabulary. I wiped the rim of the jar, used a magnetic lid grabber (another fancy tool!) to retrieve a lid from boiling water, put it on the jar and screwed on a ring. I'm sure for people who have canned before that this is not a big deal, but I was sure I was splitting atoms or decoding the human genome.
After I filled 7 pint-sized jars, we were ready to put them in the old pressure cooker (which we had gotten professionally tested earlier in the summer - a post for another day). We followed the directions to a T, loading the canner properly on to the rack, putting the lid on tightly, and leaving the petcock (more fascinating vocabulary) open until steam escaped for 10 minutes. Then the petcock was closed and we started watching the pressure gauge rise.
I had no idea it would be so nerve wracking. We waited for the pressure to get to 11 psi, then set the timer for 30 minutes. The pressure continued to rise past 11 pounds. Trying to hold down our panic, as well as the climbing pressure, Mom turned the temperature down. The pressure paid no attention to our efforts and continued to increase. We moved the canner to the side of the burner. The pressure advanced steadily toward the 15 psi mark. We yelled at Sofie to not come through the kitchen until we got the situation under control. By the time we arrested the ascending temperature, I felt like I had just saved the space shuttle. It was difficult to hold at bay the visions of the canner lid shooting off the top, blowing a hole in the ceiling and knocking me to ground in the process. Mom called out to me that there were only 13 minutes left and we remarked about the relief we both felt that it was over half-way through, wiping the sweat from our respective brows.
Meanwhile, we still had a truck-load of beets. The directions that we had been following had been a little lax in accurately detailing how many beets we would need to make a load in the canner. Mom put another pot of beets on to cook. She washed up some quart jars and I continued to fill them. We marveled at the difference in speed that the quart jars made in our process. I could easily keep up with her; I felt like a professional.
By the time we started the second batch, we were able to juggle the lids, the jars, the beets, the canner, and the hot water like pros. We were still not managing our nerves very well, but the important part was that we hadn't blown up the house. When the last timer beeped, and it was time to remove the jars from the canner, we lovingly extracted each one with the jar tongs and placed it on the marble slab. Each one was cooed over, as we exclaimed how beautiful it was.
As we ate dinner, we smiled proudly each time we heard the tinny POP coming from the beet jars. We knew the feeling of satisfaction that the squirrel feels when he sneaks the hard-earned acorn into the cache, knowing it will be there when he needs it in the winter. As we ate the beets on our dinner plates, I was already planning what we would can next.
Today my mom and I picked up her farm box that she gets every week from Helsing Junction Farm, and we bought additional beets at their farm stand. They were beautiful, purple beets, of a uniform size - perfect for our day's project. All together, I think we bought 17 pounds of beets. We had read all sorts of directions and how-to guides on line, as well as the original cookbook that came with the canner (very good recipes for squirrel, if you are interested) about how to can beets. We had all the jars we needed and we bought an extra box of lids and rings just to be on the safe side.
After reading every instruction under the sun, we put a pot of water to boil on every burner, and felt that we were prepared to deliver a baby as well. A pot to sterilize the jars, a pot to boil the lids, and two pots to cook the beets - already we were out of burners! How did people used to do this? We were wishing for our old wood cook stove at this point. Once one pot of beets was cooked then we could swap that out for a pot to boil the water to pour over the beets in the jar.
Mom's job was to peel and slice the beets after they were cooked. My job was to remove the jar from boiling water (with special jar tongs, I felt pretty important), fill it with freshly sliced beets, pour hot water over the top of the beets, leaving an inch of head space, of course. We felt very intellectual using our new vocabulary. I wiped the rim of the jar, used a magnetic lid grabber (another fancy tool!) to retrieve a lid from boiling water, put it on the jar and screwed on a ring. I'm sure for people who have canned before that this is not a big deal, but I was sure I was splitting atoms or decoding the human genome.
After I filled 7 pint-sized jars, we were ready to put them in the old pressure cooker (which we had gotten professionally tested earlier in the summer - a post for another day). We followed the directions to a T, loading the canner properly on to the rack, putting the lid on tightly, and leaving the petcock (more fascinating vocabulary) open until steam escaped for 10 minutes. Then the petcock was closed and we started watching the pressure gauge rise.
I had no idea it would be so nerve wracking. We waited for the pressure to get to 11 psi, then set the timer for 30 minutes. The pressure continued to rise past 11 pounds. Trying to hold down our panic, as well as the climbing pressure, Mom turned the temperature down. The pressure paid no attention to our efforts and continued to increase. We moved the canner to the side of the burner. The pressure advanced steadily toward the 15 psi mark. We yelled at Sofie to not come through the kitchen until we got the situation under control. By the time we arrested the ascending temperature, I felt like I had just saved the space shuttle. It was difficult to hold at bay the visions of the canner lid shooting off the top, blowing a hole in the ceiling and knocking me to ground in the process. Mom called out to me that there were only 13 minutes left and we remarked about the relief we both felt that it was over half-way through, wiping the sweat from our respective brows.
Meanwhile, we still had a truck-load of beets. The directions that we had been following had been a little lax in accurately detailing how many beets we would need to make a load in the canner. Mom put another pot of beets on to cook. She washed up some quart jars and I continued to fill them. We marveled at the difference in speed that the quart jars made in our process. I could easily keep up with her; I felt like a professional.
By the time we started the second batch, we were able to juggle the lids, the jars, the beets, the canner, and the hot water like pros. We were still not managing our nerves very well, but the important part was that we hadn't blown up the house. When the last timer beeped, and it was time to remove the jars from the canner, we lovingly extracted each one with the jar tongs and placed it on the marble slab. Each one was cooed over, as we exclaimed how beautiful it was.
As we ate dinner, we smiled proudly each time we heard the tinny POP coming from the beet jars. We knew the feeling of satisfaction that the squirrel feels when he sneaks the hard-earned acorn into the cache, knowing it will be there when he needs it in the winter. As we ate the beets on our dinner plates, I was already planning what we would can next.
Cilantro Pesto
Let me just tell you, I am hooked on making pesto, as well as eating it. I made that basil batch that I told you about in July, and then I made another batch and froze those jars. I have already gone through almost a whole jar. I read somewhere that you can use it wherever and whenever you would use butter. I have tried it on toast (yum!) and sandwiches. Most of it has been used up with pasta. Princess of one-pot meals (I can't take the title of Queen), I cooked up some noodles, drained them and then added pesto, a can of chicken, and some frozen peas. I moistened it up with some (fat-free) sour cream. Cottage cheese works, as does cream cheese. I did a similar thing another night, only instead of adding chicken, I added some smoked salmon and also some smoked cheese.
Yesterday I bought some bunches of cilantro at the store and came home and whipped those into pesto. I rinsed a bunch, stuffed it in the processor, added 1/2 cup toasted almonds (no use chopping them) and a bunch of spoonfuls of minced garlic. No point in measuring garlic with teaspoons or tablespoons. I mixed that up, then added 3 TBSP olive oil. In the first batch I added some Parmesan cheese, but I thought that added a salty flavor, so when I worked on the second bunch, I didn't add any cheese. I had read somewhere that if you add salt to it now, it will just turn a very dark color. What's wrong with that? I don't know, but I left it out. Two bunches of cilantro made three jam jars (4 oz.?) of pesto.
What will I do with cilantro pesto? Spread it on fish, chicken, pizza, pasta, and sandwiches; add it to soups, dips and sauces; put it on nachos; add it to a salad. Wherever you use cilantro, you can put in some of this pesto. Think of it in some beans on a winter night, or in some hot stew in the crock pot. It will be that reminder of summer when you are feeling bad about dark winter nights.
Yesterday I bought some bunches of cilantro at the store and came home and whipped those into pesto. I rinsed a bunch, stuffed it in the processor, added 1/2 cup toasted almonds (no use chopping them) and a bunch of spoonfuls of minced garlic. No point in measuring garlic with teaspoons or tablespoons. I mixed that up, then added 3 TBSP olive oil. In the first batch I added some Parmesan cheese, but I thought that added a salty flavor, so when I worked on the second bunch, I didn't add any cheese. I had read somewhere that if you add salt to it now, it will just turn a very dark color. What's wrong with that? I don't know, but I left it out. Two bunches of cilantro made three jam jars (4 oz.?) of pesto.
What will I do with cilantro pesto? Spread it on fish, chicken, pizza, pasta, and sandwiches; add it to soups, dips and sauces; put it on nachos; add it to a salad. Wherever you use cilantro, you can put in some of this pesto. Think of it in some beans on a winter night, or in some hot stew in the crock pot. It will be that reminder of summer when you are feeling bad about dark winter nights.
Blessed Event
Mowing the lawn seems to have become an exciting, anticipated event at my house. I am not sure how that happened. As the idea of mowing is dawning in my head, Sofie is simultaneously hopping around, shouting, "Yay! Mama's going to mow the lawn! Woo hoo!" I am not nearly as thrilled. I see it as sweating on a hard, plastic seat for at least an hour, leaning uphill (we do live on a ridge) as necessary, avoiding sticker bush tendrils, and breathing dust from mole hills over which I have grumpily sped. Sofie's follow-up to the jumping and squealing is, "You're going to be outside with me!" It's not like we are communing in any way while I am on the mower. She generally plays out of the way on the swing set, happy to twist and swing, climb and slide, while I am not happy to lurch over the bumps and holes in the yard. She shouts, "Look, Mama! Look at me!", and I wave, bellowing, "I can't hear you!!!" I don't consider it a bonding experience. It's more of a time of reflection.
Today I reflected on my good job of spraying Round Up around the house and yard (mental high five for that one), the state of the siding on the house (better make some calls), the incredible number and precise placement of new mole hills (is that really coincidence?), and the fact that my mowing may have something to do with the earth's frogs becoming extinct (use your own imagination). I wondered why my neighbors think they are doing me a favor by mowing the grass at the end of my driveway - the part with the wildflowers that (used to) greet me at the entrance. I hoped another neighbor noticed how careful I was not to blow the grass clippings on to his side of the fence. I also questioned how many more years my lawnmower can limp along, getting taped and held together with Velcro and bubblegum each spring.
This year I waited too long to call the lawnmower shop, so I had to wait until the end of July to get it back. Meanwhile, visitors thought I had converted to Quakerism and was raising hay. I had to get control of my lawn before the rains came, so I called a local lawn maintenance company to come and spruce up the yard. A few days later, three guys arrived and got right to work. Two wielded weed eaters while the third rode the mower. Although I was ecstatic to have my view back, I have to admit to being a tad bit disappointed that the professionals waving the weed eaters failed to recognize several plants in my landscape scheme. A butterfly bush and a couple of hardy fuchsias took it for the team that day, as did at least one soaker hose which was lurking under some tall grass. I can look back on that day without bitterness and say that it all turned out OK. The bushes are coming back with gusto and the soaker hose never wound coiled in the right direction for me, so it's all good.
I guess it probably was a blessed event the day that the lawnmower came home from the hospital. I joyfully greeted it, caressing the hood and gently tipping up the seat so it wouldn't get too hot. I suppose I was the one who was jumping around, singing, "I get to mow the lawn! I can't wait to mow the lawn!" I happily filled up every available gas can and rushed home to fill up the lawnmower's tank with fresh fuel. Putting around the yard in a swirl of grass and dirt, I was gleefully shouting, "Look at me! I'm mowing the lawn!! Woo hoo!"
Today I reflected on my good job of spraying Round Up around the house and yard (mental high five for that one), the state of the siding on the house (better make some calls), the incredible number and precise placement of new mole hills (is that really coincidence?), and the fact that my mowing may have something to do with the earth's frogs becoming extinct (use your own imagination). I wondered why my neighbors think they are doing me a favor by mowing the grass at the end of my driveway - the part with the wildflowers that (used to) greet me at the entrance. I hoped another neighbor noticed how careful I was not to blow the grass clippings on to his side of the fence. I also questioned how many more years my lawnmower can limp along, getting taped and held together with Velcro and bubblegum each spring.
This year I waited too long to call the lawnmower shop, so I had to wait until the end of July to get it back. Meanwhile, visitors thought I had converted to Quakerism and was raising hay. I had to get control of my lawn before the rains came, so I called a local lawn maintenance company to come and spruce up the yard. A few days later, three guys arrived and got right to work. Two wielded weed eaters while the third rode the mower. Although I was ecstatic to have my view back, I have to admit to being a tad bit disappointed that the professionals waving the weed eaters failed to recognize several plants in my landscape scheme. A butterfly bush and a couple of hardy fuchsias took it for the team that day, as did at least one soaker hose which was lurking under some tall grass. I can look back on that day without bitterness and say that it all turned out OK. The bushes are coming back with gusto and the soaker hose never wound coiled in the right direction for me, so it's all good.
I guess it probably was a blessed event the day that the lawnmower came home from the hospital. I joyfully greeted it, caressing the hood and gently tipping up the seat so it wouldn't get too hot. I suppose I was the one who was jumping around, singing, "I get to mow the lawn! I can't wait to mow the lawn!" I happily filled up every available gas can and rushed home to fill up the lawnmower's tank with fresh fuel. Putting around the yard in a swirl of grass and dirt, I was gleefully shouting, "Look at me! I'm mowing the lawn!! Woo hoo!"
Sleep Becomes Me. When I Get It.
We had an interesting night the other night. By "we", I mean my daughter and I. She went to bed at her regular time, maybe 8:00 or a little later, as it is summer. I had a huge To Do list going on in my head: I was going to bake brownies in the morning to deliver to a party by noon, I wanted to make some cupcakes for my mom's birthday the next day, I had just agreed to make 4 cakes' worth of cupcakes for a big party that was three days away, and I also had to finish scrapping a memory book for the same birthday party. So, I did what anyone else would do: I watched TV until about 11:00, and then I decided to work on the memory book.
I stayed up until about 2:00 AM, printing and researching things that happened in 1931. Al Capone was sentenced to eleven years in jail for tax evasion, New Delhi replaced Delhi as the capital of India, Thomas Edison filed for his last patent, the first Dracula movie came out, and China had horrible summertime floods that were deemed the deadliest natural disaster in history. I cut, arranged, glued, re-arranged, sorted - all the things you do when you make a scrapbook. I was pretty happy to finish the last page, one about how much things cost in 1931. I went to bed but I didn't feel tired, so I thought I would read a little of this book on my nightstand, Straight Man. I had been slogging through it, a little a time, trying to get to the good part. If there is one.
Anyway, I was on my left side (this is important!), holding the book in my left hand, on the left side of the bed. At some point my hand got cold and I turned over to the right side, held the book in my right hand, and scooted toward the right side of the bed to be closer to the light. I snuggled under the covers to warm my left hand. Now comes the tricky part. I would swear to you that I was reading away, maybe once or twice I was reading with my eyes closed, but finally I decided to close the book, turn off the light, turn back to the left side, put in the book mark, store the book on the night stand, and turn off the light. As I was about to turn off the light, I noticed the living room light was on. It was about 3:45 AM.
"That's odd," I thought to myself. I was sure that I had turned all of the lights in the house off before retiring to bed. I got up to turn off the light and I realized that my daughter's light was on. Even stranger. Imagine my surprise when I entered her room and found her on the phone!!! "MAMA!", she cried out in relief. "Where were you?"
I was befuddled. It was the middle of the night, my house was lit up like a church, and my daughter, who refuses to talk on the phone, was doing just that. "I was in my room", I replied confusedly.
Here is the other side of the story. My daughter woke up in the night. She came looking for me. She may or may not have been fully awake. She saw that both bedside lamps were on, but when she looked at "MY" side of the bed, I wasn't there. She went to the TV room, which was dark. She thought maybe I was watering the garden, but she saw that the sliding door was locked. She examined the lock to the front door and ascertained that it was also locked. She was calling my name and I didn't answer. She asked herself if she should call 911. [OK, pause for a moment and think about my side of the story. Can you imagine how horrified I would be to be awakened by policemen banging on my door in the middle of the night?] Instead, she called my mom. As it was 3:45 in the morning, that phone was not answered right away, and, being a little kid, she didn't realize the logistics of having a phone downstairs when you are sleeping upstairs. So she hung up and dialed her dad, who was two hours away. She told him she couldn't find her mama.
He had her look all over the house, check the garage for the car, make sure the garage door was closed, double check the doors and the bathroom. He had put on his shoes and was ready to drive down when I appeared, bleary-eyed, in her room. He told me that he had also contemplated calling 911 (horrors!), as well as the neighbors (still - horrors!).
The thoughts of the neighbors banging on the door, inquiring as to my whereabouts in the middle of the night, were enough to keep me awake until 5 AM, as my little daughter snuggled next to me, happy that I was found. I was pretty happy to be found, too.
I stayed up until about 2:00 AM, printing and researching things that happened in 1931. Al Capone was sentenced to eleven years in jail for tax evasion, New Delhi replaced Delhi as the capital of India, Thomas Edison filed for his last patent, the first Dracula movie came out, and China had horrible summertime floods that were deemed the deadliest natural disaster in history. I cut, arranged, glued, re-arranged, sorted - all the things you do when you make a scrapbook. I was pretty happy to finish the last page, one about how much things cost in 1931. I went to bed but I didn't feel tired, so I thought I would read a little of this book on my nightstand, Straight Man. I had been slogging through it, a little a time, trying to get to the good part. If there is one.
Anyway, I was on my left side (this is important!), holding the book in my left hand, on the left side of the bed. At some point my hand got cold and I turned over to the right side, held the book in my right hand, and scooted toward the right side of the bed to be closer to the light. I snuggled under the covers to warm my left hand. Now comes the tricky part. I would swear to you that I was reading away, maybe once or twice I was reading with my eyes closed, but finally I decided to close the book, turn off the light, turn back to the left side, put in the book mark, store the book on the night stand, and turn off the light. As I was about to turn off the light, I noticed the living room light was on. It was about 3:45 AM.
"That's odd," I thought to myself. I was sure that I had turned all of the lights in the house off before retiring to bed. I got up to turn off the light and I realized that my daughter's light was on. Even stranger. Imagine my surprise when I entered her room and found her on the phone!!! "MAMA!", she cried out in relief. "Where were you?"
I was befuddled. It was the middle of the night, my house was lit up like a church, and my daughter, who refuses to talk on the phone, was doing just that. "I was in my room", I replied confusedly.
Here is the other side of the story. My daughter woke up in the night. She came looking for me. She may or may not have been fully awake. She saw that both bedside lamps were on, but when she looked at "MY" side of the bed, I wasn't there. She went to the TV room, which was dark. She thought maybe I was watering the garden, but she saw that the sliding door was locked. She examined the lock to the front door and ascertained that it was also locked. She was calling my name and I didn't answer. She asked herself if she should call 911. [OK, pause for a moment and think about my side of the story. Can you imagine how horrified I would be to be awakened by policemen banging on my door in the middle of the night?] Instead, she called my mom. As it was 3:45 in the morning, that phone was not answered right away, and, being a little kid, she didn't realize the logistics of having a phone downstairs when you are sleeping upstairs. So she hung up and dialed her dad, who was two hours away. She told him she couldn't find her mama.
He had her look all over the house, check the garage for the car, make sure the garage door was closed, double check the doors and the bathroom. He had put on his shoes and was ready to drive down when I appeared, bleary-eyed, in her room. He told me that he had also contemplated calling 911 (horrors!), as well as the neighbors (still - horrors!).
The thoughts of the neighbors banging on the door, inquiring as to my whereabouts in the middle of the night, were enough to keep me awake until 5 AM, as my little daughter snuggled next to me, happy that I was found. I was pretty happy to be found, too.
Baking. It's What I Do.
If you have read my profile in depth, you know that I like to bake. Specifically, I like to bake for people who like to eat. I consider my specialty to be cakes, although I do dip my measuring spoons for bars and cookies at times. I don't even say cupcakes, because I consider them to be the same as cakes. My "signature cake" is Banana Snack Cake. You are probably wondering what makes the BSC my signature cake.
In another life, when I lived at home, we had a milk cow. The drawbacks of having a cow included 6 A.M. milking, poopy tail swishes in the face, and getting stepped on. Advantages included all the fresh milk a family could drink, plenty of cream, and the opportunity to make butter, among other things. When our cow dried up, we couldn't bear to drink store milk, it tasted like water. To solve our problem, I made a deal with a neighboring dairy man: I traded him homemade cookies for milk. This was a sweet deal all around. Every couple of days I would go down to the dairy with a couple dozen cookies and our milk can, drop off the cookies in his office, and go home with a gallon of milk. This lasted until his wife learned of our deal - she had been wondering why he had been gaining weight! After that, I gave the cookies to her and she froze them. That was probably the beginning of my baking career.
Things really started cooking after I bought one of those cookbooks at the cash register - you know, the impulse buy. It was a cake recipe book by Pillsbury, with a picture of a whole wheat Bundt cake (quick flash to My Big Fat Greek Wedding) on the cover. It was loaded with good recipes. Not knowing how to make anything else, I often opted to bring a dessert to dinners and potlucks, and soon I had developed quite a repertoire.
My repertoire has grown a lot since those beginning days. Now I frantically write down recipes as I watch Martha Stewart (Triple Chocolate Brownie Cupcakes are a hit with the younger crowd!), scan the Internet for unusual recipes (Green Tomato Cake is delicious, no matter how it sounds), and beg for recipes of desserts of which I have heard rumors (Pink Lemonade Pie). Every once in a while I go back to that original Pillsbury book and find something new and outstanding (Coconut Macaroon Cupcakes) or go out on a limb and try a recipe included on a box label (German Chocolate Cake). For a while I was on a tear making cheesecakes, and last summer I made Chocolate Truffle Bombs, to the delight of my daughter.
There are some people who really love my cakes, and I do something special for their birthdays. I give them "cake credits". I make a card and write in there something like, "This Card is Worth X number of Cakes". I keep track on a chart at home of how many cakes each person has. Whenever they want, they call me up and order a cake. I have given them a list of my ever-expanding repertoire, and I make notes on my own list, to remember who likes which one, and if they like it with or without the frosting, nuts, etc. To get back to my original point (can you remember what it is?), the cake that gets requested the most is Banana Snack Cake. Certain individuals like this recipe made into cupcakes, because that means automatic portion control. Others like the recipe as it is, in a glorious 9 X 13-inch cake pan, so the pieces can be custom cut.
Recently I agreed to make cakes for a birthday celebration to which over 100 people attended. I have never made four cakes in one day before, and I developed an assembly line attitude to get the job done. The initial step is to whip egg whites into stiff peaks. Stiff peaks used to scare me until I started making the Coconut Macaroon Cupcakes, and now they are a piece of cake. Pun intended. So instead of whipping up the egg whites in the mixer, then adding the rest of the ingredients and messing up the bowl, I whipped up four sets of egg whites and had them sitting around the kitchen in various bowls. Then I dirtied the bowl four times in a row. It surprised me that it was an all day enterprise, but frosting is not something I make very often (see Dixie Spice Cake). All that baking and cooking and then everything has to cool before the two mediums come together. People were horrified that I would make four cakes in a day, especially after (I didn't tell you this part) I made a batch of Ultimate Brownies and a batch of German Chocolate Cupcakes the day before. I don't see it that way. I like to bake.
In another life, when I lived at home, we had a milk cow. The drawbacks of having a cow included 6 A.M. milking, poopy tail swishes in the face, and getting stepped on. Advantages included all the fresh milk a family could drink, plenty of cream, and the opportunity to make butter, among other things. When our cow dried up, we couldn't bear to drink store milk, it tasted like water. To solve our problem, I made a deal with a neighboring dairy man: I traded him homemade cookies for milk. This was a sweet deal all around. Every couple of days I would go down to the dairy with a couple dozen cookies and our milk can, drop off the cookies in his office, and go home with a gallon of milk. This lasted until his wife learned of our deal - she had been wondering why he had been gaining weight! After that, I gave the cookies to her and she froze them. That was probably the beginning of my baking career.
Things really started cooking after I bought one of those cookbooks at the cash register - you know, the impulse buy. It was a cake recipe book by Pillsbury, with a picture of a whole wheat Bundt cake (quick flash to My Big Fat Greek Wedding) on the cover. It was loaded with good recipes. Not knowing how to make anything else, I often opted to bring a dessert to dinners and potlucks, and soon I had developed quite a repertoire.
My repertoire has grown a lot since those beginning days. Now I frantically write down recipes as I watch Martha Stewart (Triple Chocolate Brownie Cupcakes are a hit with the younger crowd!), scan the Internet for unusual recipes (Green Tomato Cake is delicious, no matter how it sounds), and beg for recipes of desserts of which I have heard rumors (Pink Lemonade Pie). Every once in a while I go back to that original Pillsbury book and find something new and outstanding (Coconut Macaroon Cupcakes) or go out on a limb and try a recipe included on a box label (German Chocolate Cake). For a while I was on a tear making cheesecakes, and last summer I made Chocolate Truffle Bombs, to the delight of my daughter.
There are some people who really love my cakes, and I do something special for their birthdays. I give them "cake credits". I make a card and write in there something like, "This Card is Worth X number of Cakes". I keep track on a chart at home of how many cakes each person has. Whenever they want, they call me up and order a cake. I have given them a list of my ever-expanding repertoire, and I make notes on my own list, to remember who likes which one, and if they like it with or without the frosting, nuts, etc. To get back to my original point (can you remember what it is?), the cake that gets requested the most is Banana Snack Cake. Certain individuals like this recipe made into cupcakes, because that means automatic portion control. Others like the recipe as it is, in a glorious 9 X 13-inch cake pan, so the pieces can be custom cut.
Recently I agreed to make cakes for a birthday celebration to which over 100 people attended. I have never made four cakes in one day before, and I developed an assembly line attitude to get the job done. The initial step is to whip egg whites into stiff peaks. Stiff peaks used to scare me until I started making the Coconut Macaroon Cupcakes, and now they are a piece of cake. Pun intended. So instead of whipping up the egg whites in the mixer, then adding the rest of the ingredients and messing up the bowl, I whipped up four sets of egg whites and had them sitting around the kitchen in various bowls. Then I dirtied the bowl four times in a row. It surprised me that it was an all day enterprise, but frosting is not something I make very often (see Dixie Spice Cake). All that baking and cooking and then everything has to cool before the two mediums come together. People were horrified that I would make four cakes in a day, especially after (I didn't tell you this part) I made a batch of Ultimate Brownies and a batch of German Chocolate Cupcakes the day before. I don't see it that way. I like to bake.
Raccoons Are Supposed To Be Nocturnal!
You are aware that I have a raccoon family living in my neighborhood, and that my acreage has its name because of our acquaintance. This year Mama Raccoon has four babies. She began bringing them to the back door earlier in the summer, training them in the fine art of picking cat food from between the boards of the deck. You are wondering how I know that it's the same raccoon that has visited me for several years. Well, it's because she is blind in her right eye; it is cloudy white. I have just a slight feeling of pity for her. Poor Mama Raccoon, a single parent, she is blind in one eye and has a family to feed.
The problem is that she is getting way too familiar with my surroundings and my schedule. She knows that the cats eat first thing in the morning, so she shows up shortly thereafter to clean up what they are still trying to eat. She washes her hands in their green, depression-glass water bowl, turning their cool drink to a light mud color. Then she goes out to inspect under the bird feeder. The grosbeaks are such pigs that they spill black oil sunflower seeds all over the ground. After the squirrels have had their way with the bird feeder, it's a wonder that there is anything left in it! A perfect all-you-can-eat buffet for Mama. She will stay up there a long time in the morning sun, scrabbling at the seeds and making a terrible bare spot in my already ugly lawn. If I try to sneak food to starving Simone and trembling Teeny, she makes a bee line back to the deck. She also stops by in the evenings, when I'm watching TV, to say hello and to scarf down any leftovers that Simone and Teeny may have neglected. I'm told that the hole she is making in my siding means that my siding is rotten; it has nothing to do with her "extremely dexterous front paws" or her "non-retractable claws". This is the least of my problems.
She is now training her four kits to scavenge under the bird feeder, pick through the cat food, and perk up their ears at the sound of the sliding door. Since their ears can hear the sound of an earthworm underground, I'm sure the sliding door sounds like a locomotive sounding the call to dinner. While they aren't so interested in leftover bird seeds, the kits are terribly excited to climb the trees in the back yard. While Mama is gorging herself on seeds, they are scampering up and down the tall fir trees. Did you know that they can climb upward, as well as climb down FACING DOWNWARD?
Mama is no longer afraid of me opening the door and yelling, so I have resorted to kicking shoes at her. Even when the first one flies past her, she won't budge until the second one makes contact. She only runs under the deck, and as soon as I close the door, she is up in an instant, defying me in the broad daylight.
So far, she and her bandit babes have left my junior vegetable garden alone. The day they touch a zucchini or taste a tomato, I am afraid the real war will start. Mostly I am afraid because I have read about the raccoon's amazing intelligence, incredible memory, ability to swim and stay in the water for a couple of hours, excellent tactile ability, and outstanding sense of smell. The only thing I have up on Mama Raccoon is that I have opposable thumbs.
The problem is that she is getting way too familiar with my surroundings and my schedule. She knows that the cats eat first thing in the morning, so she shows up shortly thereafter to clean up what they are still trying to eat. She washes her hands in their green, depression-glass water bowl, turning their cool drink to a light mud color. Then she goes out to inspect under the bird feeder. The grosbeaks are such pigs that they spill black oil sunflower seeds all over the ground. After the squirrels have had their way with the bird feeder, it's a wonder that there is anything left in it! A perfect all-you-can-eat buffet for Mama. She will stay up there a long time in the morning sun, scrabbling at the seeds and making a terrible bare spot in my already ugly lawn. If I try to sneak food to starving Simone and trembling Teeny, she makes a bee line back to the deck. She also stops by in the evenings, when I'm watching TV, to say hello and to scarf down any leftovers that Simone and Teeny may have neglected. I'm told that the hole she is making in my siding means that my siding is rotten; it has nothing to do with her "extremely dexterous front paws" or her "non-retractable claws". This is the least of my problems.
She is now training her four kits to scavenge under the bird feeder, pick through the cat food, and perk up their ears at the sound of the sliding door. Since their ears can hear the sound of an earthworm underground, I'm sure the sliding door sounds like a locomotive sounding the call to dinner. While they aren't so interested in leftover bird seeds, the kits are terribly excited to climb the trees in the back yard. While Mama is gorging herself on seeds, they are scampering up and down the tall fir trees. Did you know that they can climb upward, as well as climb down FACING DOWNWARD?
Mama is no longer afraid of me opening the door and yelling, so I have resorted to kicking shoes at her. Even when the first one flies past her, she won't budge until the second one makes contact. She only runs under the deck, and as soon as I close the door, she is up in an instant, defying me in the broad daylight.
So far, she and her bandit babes have left my junior vegetable garden alone. The day they touch a zucchini or taste a tomato, I am afraid the real war will start. Mostly I am afraid because I have read about the raccoon's amazing intelligence, incredible memory, ability to swim and stay in the water for a couple of hours, excellent tactile ability, and outstanding sense of smell. The only thing I have up on Mama Raccoon is that I have opposable thumbs.
The Buck Stops Here
I was driving through Aberdeen the other day and I saw this yellow sign mounted on an electrical pole. It said NO PANHANDLING. I wanted to take a picture of it, it was so wonderful, but I was trying to drive and fiddle (illegally) with my phone/camera, and the end result was not productive. The sign went on to say something about "keep your money because it will just go to alcohol and/or drugs". Not the exact words, but the general idea. I loved it!
When my brother and sister were little, eons ago, they saw the first panhandler in our area. They were on their way to the store with my mom, and there was the man on the side of the road with a sign that said something about being homeless and hungry. They were horrified. At the store, they convinced Mom to buy a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter for the guy. Needless to say, the guy was not overjoyed upon receipt of the donation.
I have seen a man at my intersection several times, and each time he has a sign that says something like "Just Need Gas". At first you would think that he is a stranded motorist, but I have seen him multiple times. It would be quite coincidental if he indeed has run out of gas in this area several times in the last month and has no money. The thing about this guy, and most of the other ones, is that they don't look hungry and they have decent clothes. My gas beggar - he has a really nice red and black jacket that he wears, and it looks clean. He also has a pot belly, doubtful the kind that is indicative of someone starving to death. The guy I saw this morning had some camo pants on. I have looked at camo pants in catalogs and stores, and they aren't cheap! He also had a haircut and was also quite filled out; he did not look gaunt or weak from hunger.
It's a sad thing that we don't help people any more because of these posing scam artists. They have lots of gimmicks, from sitting in a wheelchair (generally motorized), to having a dog with them, to a sign that talks about raising children. All different ways to get to your pocketbook via your emotions.
What do you do when you're the first one in the line at the stoplight and there is a panhandler standing there? Do you talk to your passenger, pretend to talk on the phone (hoping a cop won't come by), blow your nose for a long time, look interestedly at the cars going by??? Stare the person in the eye grimly? Do you give the person money?
When my brother and sister were little, eons ago, they saw the first panhandler in our area. They were on their way to the store with my mom, and there was the man on the side of the road with a sign that said something about being homeless and hungry. They were horrified. At the store, they convinced Mom to buy a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter for the guy. Needless to say, the guy was not overjoyed upon receipt of the donation.
I have seen a man at my intersection several times, and each time he has a sign that says something like "Just Need Gas". At first you would think that he is a stranded motorist, but I have seen him multiple times. It would be quite coincidental if he indeed has run out of gas in this area several times in the last month and has no money. The thing about this guy, and most of the other ones, is that they don't look hungry and they have decent clothes. My gas beggar - he has a really nice red and black jacket that he wears, and it looks clean. He also has a pot belly, doubtful the kind that is indicative of someone starving to death. The guy I saw this morning had some camo pants on. I have looked at camo pants in catalogs and stores, and they aren't cheap! He also had a haircut and was also quite filled out; he did not look gaunt or weak from hunger.
It's a sad thing that we don't help people any more because of these posing scam artists. They have lots of gimmicks, from sitting in a wheelchair (generally motorized), to having a dog with them, to a sign that talks about raising children. All different ways to get to your pocketbook via your emotions.
What do you do when you're the first one in the line at the stoplight and there is a panhandler standing there? Do you talk to your passenger, pretend to talk on the phone (hoping a cop won't come by), blow your nose for a long time, look interestedly at the cars going by??? Stare the person in the eye grimly? Do you give the person money?
Lost and Found
So I have this new favorite website, it is http://www.loseit.com/. Basically it is a tool to help a person lose weight. You enter your height and current weight, and your birthdate, and how much you want to lose. It sets up a calorie budget for you and you enter all the food you eat and the exercise that you do. I love keeping track of things, making lists and checking them twice, so this is right up my alley.
I was briskly striding along through the woods this morning, thinking proudly about how I was going to enter my exercise minutes, and this led to thinking about how people talk about losing and gaining weight. Funny, when a person doesn't have something, and then it shows up, she says that she "found" it. But we don't ever say, "Oh, I found two pounds last week!" "Finding" sounds like you were intentionally looking for it, and I know that is not the case with me and my pounds.
The word "gain", when used with a unit of weight, doesn't sound like a person made any effort in the acquisition of the poundage. I was pondering that as I swiped at the cobwebs in my path, and I thought of how to say "gain" in other languages. GANAR, in Spanish, commonly means to win or to earn, as does GAGNER in French, and GUADAGNARE in Italian. To "earn" pounds is a much more appropriate term, as you actually have to do something to get them. For example, I ate all the Pad Thai on my plate the other night and earned 1.5 pounds. It makes it sound like I deserved them, which I probably did.
Let's look at losing pounds. To lose sounds careless, or accidental. Let me tell you, I do not accidentally lose pounds. I work my rear off (pun intended). I would like to find a more appropriate word - one that indicates that I made an effort. After my 50 minutes of brisk walking, I sat down at the computer and read through various entries of the online Merriam-Webster dictionary, and moved on to the thesaurus. I passed up mislay, forfeit, scrap, cast off, abandon, abdicate.... none convey the hard work it takes to get rid of the pounds. I haven't found the right word yet, but when it surfaces, I'll be sure to let you know.
I was briskly striding along through the woods this morning, thinking proudly about how I was going to enter my exercise minutes, and this led to thinking about how people talk about losing and gaining weight. Funny, when a person doesn't have something, and then it shows up, she says that she "found" it. But we don't ever say, "Oh, I found two pounds last week!" "Finding" sounds like you were intentionally looking for it, and I know that is not the case with me and my pounds.
The word "gain", when used with a unit of weight, doesn't sound like a person made any effort in the acquisition of the poundage. I was pondering that as I swiped at the cobwebs in my path, and I thought of how to say "gain" in other languages. GANAR, in Spanish, commonly means to win or to earn, as does GAGNER in French, and GUADAGNARE in Italian. To "earn" pounds is a much more appropriate term, as you actually have to do something to get them. For example, I ate all the Pad Thai on my plate the other night and earned 1.5 pounds. It makes it sound like I deserved them, which I probably did.
Let's look at losing pounds. To lose sounds careless, or accidental. Let me tell you, I do not accidentally lose pounds. I work my rear off (pun intended). I would like to find a more appropriate word - one that indicates that I made an effort. After my 50 minutes of brisk walking, I sat down at the computer and read through various entries of the online Merriam-Webster dictionary, and moved on to the thesaurus. I passed up mislay, forfeit, scrap, cast off, abandon, abdicate.... none convey the hard work it takes to get rid of the pounds. I haven't found the right word yet, but when it surfaces, I'll be sure to let you know.
Hey Presto, It's Pesto!
I made pesto last night for the second time in my life. It was relatively uneventful and quite easy. I used the recipe I found on another blog, Towards Sustainability (see link below).
PESTO
4 cups basil leaves
1/2 cup freshly shredded Parmesan
1/2 slightly toasted nuts (I used almonds)
3 cloves garlic, minced (I put in lots)
3 TBSP extra virgin olive oil
Rinse and pat dry the leaves. In a food processor or blender, combine cheese and nuts. Add the garlic and mix again. Dribble in the olive oil and blend some more. Finally, add in the leaves and blend away. I put it in 3 little jam jars. Not a bounty, but it's a good start! You can freeze these jars, but on other sites people talk about not adding the cheese if you are going to freeze it.
What to do with the pesto? I think I will add it to any kind of noodles, and it is good spread on baguettes, or toast. The Food Network website has 50 Things to Make With Pesto. I do like the idea of putting it on a BLT, or a grilled cheese sandwich, and I think it sounds good to make pizza and put pesto on the crust before the other goodies. I am not wild about mixing it in to potato salad, or with green beans, or making pesto meatballs or fritters. Then I found another website, seriouseats.com, and they had some ideas like spread pesto on crackers, use any time in place of butter, spread on chicken before baking. I can't wait to start eating!!!
Helpful links mentioned in this post: Food Network and Serious Eats
PESTO
4 cups basil leaves
1/2 cup freshly shredded Parmesan
1/2 slightly toasted nuts (I used almonds)
3 cloves garlic, minced (I put in lots)
3 TBSP extra virgin olive oil
Rinse and pat dry the leaves. In a food processor or blender, combine cheese and nuts. Add the garlic and mix again. Dribble in the olive oil and blend some more. Finally, add in the leaves and blend away. I put it in 3 little jam jars. Not a bounty, but it's a good start! You can freeze these jars, but on other sites people talk about not adding the cheese if you are going to freeze it.
What to do with the pesto? I think I will add it to any kind of noodles, and it is good spread on baguettes, or toast. The Food Network website has 50 Things to Make With Pesto. I do like the idea of putting it on a BLT, or a grilled cheese sandwich, and I think it sounds good to make pizza and put pesto on the crust before the other goodies. I am not wild about mixing it in to potato salad, or with green beans, or making pesto meatballs or fritters. Then I found another website, seriouseats.com, and they had some ideas like spread pesto on crackers, use any time in place of butter, spread on chicken before baking. I can't wait to start eating!!!
Helpful links mentioned in this post: Food Network and Serious Eats
The Possum Tale
This true tale is from November 2010.
Monday was a rainy, cold afternoon. Sofia and I arrived home at 5:15 and it was already dark. We nervously scanned the garage, looking for clues that would tell us if the possum was still on the premises. We saw no scat, nothing where it shouldn't be. I poked around with a broom and didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Relieved, we went into the house, happy that the possum had gone home to its family through the crack we had left in the garage door all day. We closed the garage and were proud that we had not let any cats in the garage, it was free of animals.
Sofia went to bed at 7:30 and I settled in with my book. At 8:30 I heard a suspicious sound. Grumbling, I opened the utility room door to the garage. To my horror, there on the railing sat the possum, looking right at me. I shrieked and slammed the door. Taking a deep breath, I grabbed the broom, flung open the door and pushed the button to open the garage door. The possum was scuttling down the railing. I gave it a huge push with the broom, hoping to give it enough momentum to go tumbling out into the night. Instead, it landed on the cement with a splat and then scurried to the other side of the car. I could hear it rustling somewhere. I hesitated around the end of the car, worried that it would spring at me and bite my leg through my flannel pajama pants. It was a narrow spot between the side of the car and the wall, lined with tools, bags of fertilizer, and a potting bench covered with assorted gardening supplies. I couldn't see any sign of the possum. Poking with my broom, I shuffled along next to the car. Seeing nothing, I discouragedly went back into the house.
I decided to use the Hansel and Gretel approach. The possum had been in the garage for 2 days without food, so by all rights it must have been hungry. I took some Almost Alfredo from the refrigerator, inhaling a big whiff of the dinner we had eaten. Surely this would attract a hungry animal! I placed some on the inside of the garage door, and some outside, planning to close the door once the possum had followed the food outside. I stood at the top of the stairs, the garage door opener remote in one hand in my pocket, the other hand holding the broom. After 15 minutes I turned off the light. After 15 more minutes, I turned on the light in disgust. I put a paper bowl of dried cat food outside the garage door to further entice the hungry animal. I decided to move my car out of the garage so that I would be able to see the whole garage. After backing it out, I resumed my post at the top of the stairs. I imagined I could hear tiny squeaks, and I hoped it wasn't the quiet peep of possum babies. After another 30 minutes, I was tired, stiff and cold. I still had neither seen nor heard my enemy. I swept the food out the door, pushed the cat food so that it was outside the door, and closed it. I refused to feed that animal as long as it was hiding in the garage.
Entering the house, I left my flannel pajama pants on the washer, convinced that they had possum germs on the hems. I put on my robe and slippers after thoroughly washing my hands, and sat back down with my book. By now it was nearly 10:00 but I was no longer tired. I dove back into my Victorian mystery, but all the while, thoughts of the possum and its hiding place were in the back of my head.
After a half hour, I took off my glasses and set down the book. In the utility room, I quickly pushed open the door to the garage and flicked on the light. There was my prey, cowering in the front corner. Upon seeing me, it scurried behind the ShopVac. I tightened the belt on my blue fleece robe and quickly looked around for shoes. My tall rubber boots were right inside the door, so I kicked off my down booties and slid my stocking feet into them. Armed with the broom, I crossed the garage, saying, "I see you now! You can't get away from me this time!" I poked the nearby fertilizer bags with the broom. There was a small movement to the left. I pushed the broom hard into the sawhorses, which tipped backward into the soaker hose I had coiled up behind them. I spotted the scaly little tail and black hairy body directly behind the ShopVac. I grabbed one of the accessories that was sticking out of the base and wheeled the unit toward me. The possum huddled in the corner of the wall and the cabinet. I grabbed a long pole, originally designed to extend and assist in the changing of light bulbs, although I couldn't extend it. I poked at the possum and it hissed at me. I held a push broom in front of my feet, feeling safer behind the small barrier that it provided. I poked again at the possum, this time with my pole and my other broom. It bared its teeth at me and snarled. I managed to poke it towards the door, but instead of running out into the cold night, it opted to hide in the corner, only one foot from freedom. Also in the corner were numerous poles of various sizes, tiki torches, belly dance sticks and solar lights on stakes. The possum was hiding in the teepee created by these leaning against the wall. I tried for probably 10 or 15 minutes to encourage that animal to flee; poking, jabbing, thumping, pushing, pulling with every garden tool to which I had access. This included a rake, a hoe, two brooms, a long bamboo pole (which I think had some mystery poop on the handle, I discovered that the smelly way), a snow shovel, and the light bulb changer. The possum growled, hissed, bared its teeth, and snarled, but never played dead. The entire time that I was harassing this animal, I was shouting, "Get out! GET OUT! GET OUT!!" My task was further inhibited by the garage door sensor, which is bolted to the cement wall in the same spot as that foul animal. I could not flail with abandon (as I wished) because I didn't want to break the sensor or its bracket. I am against breaking anything that I can't fix, and I am unable to affix bolts into cement. So all of the poking, jabbing, thumping, pushing and pulling had to be done with a little care and in a confined area. I don't know what finally did it, I think I moved the bucket back towards me so the possum didn't feel so trapped, but it finally came out a little from the corner and I roughly encouraged it out the door. No sooner than it ran out, I shouted, "AND DON'T COME BACK!", I pushed the remote to close the garage door, dropped all of my tools and stomped inside. I kicked off my boots, ripped off my bathrobe and put it in the wash, and went to the sink to wash away every thought of the possum.
As you finish this story, you may expect that I am quite pleased with the outcome, and satisfied that I am done with possum extraction. Note that this was, in fact, the second possum I had discovered in my garage in two days. I believe they both entered on Saturday, when I had left the garage cracked open in the hopes that the cats would exit. When I got home Saturday night, one cat was in and one cat was out. The one who was out meowed at the sliding door, so I put her in the garage. I heard her meowing desperately at one point, but I just thought she wanted in the warm house. Sunday morning when I opened the garage door, one cat quickly escaped and I thought, "as soon as the other comes out, I am shutting this door." When I saw the second cat on the deck, I closed the garage, happy at last to have no more cats in the garage. Imagine my reaction when I went in to the garage and discovered the worst smell imaginable and a possum hiding among the tools! It took about an hour of sweeping and poking and moving tools to get that one out. I happily closed the door on Sunday, not knowing that there was yet another possum trapped inside.
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