And Now Something Interesting

A&P were camping and backpacking this weekend in the rain and gale. It's all good and it builds some character- just like when I had to walk to school past the creepy houses when I was 4. This is why I am so twitchy.

Back to A&P, I was concerned that they might get wet so $300 and a trip to Bass Pro later, I felt a little better. Although everything is waterproof, I still had to have the can of waterproofing spray. It felt like insurance.

Long story short, I never had time to do anything with the waterproofing spray so off they went with the manufacturer's statement that they were waterproof. The spray languished on the counter.  After A&P left, I said to myself, "I should really put that away in the cabinet." But then I got distracted by some Mexican food and a carload of girlfriends. Nevermind.

A&P arrived home today no worse for the wear until Peter tried to wipe me off the planet.  (Let's take a moment and recall that Peter is the clown type offspring who turned my dryer into abstract art. He's been on my list.) I walked into the kitchen, minding my own business, not hollering at anyone or even being annoyed despite having just put in a load of rain and topsoil, soggy laundry. Oh no, who cares about that, it builds character.

When what to my wondering eyes appear, but Peter precariously holding a 12 ounce can of waterproofer.  Before I could even draw a breath to swear at myself for neglecting to put it away, he dropped it on the floor where the lid and the white push cap popped off and flew across the kitchen along with a 4 foot stream of high pressure waterproofing silicone spray.  With catlike reflexes I lunged for the can thinking I could turn it upside down in the drain of the sink before it turned my kitchen into a glazed toxic waste dump. I grabbed the can and spun around to leap to the sink only to lose contact with the now waterproofed kitchen floor. I went flying and then THUD. Or maybe it was KA-THWACK. Or ARE YOU KIDDING ME, NOW IS WHEN I SELL YOU TO GYPSIES IF THEY'LL EVEN TAKE YOU. 

I managed to crawl off my floor which was now a giant skating rink and dump the can upside down in the garbage disposal.  Peter says "Hey, sorry about that." Ya, speak up, and me too because I won't be able to move for the next three days.

On the upside, the kitchen sink is wicking water rather nicely.

Head in the Dryer

Thanks to my Number 2 son, the inside of my high efficiency dryer is purple. 

My husband walked in the the laundry room to remove a load of clothes for Peter to fold when suddenly there was screaming.  "Oh my Gosh, this is awful!" and "Oh, come quick!"

I thought the laundry room was on fire.

Alas, there were no flames or billows of noxious gas. But the inside of the dryer looked like a monochromatic Jackson Pollock experiment.

"Did you check the pockets?" I hollered.

Indignantly and probably correctly my husband responded "No! I told him too!"

"Since when is a 14 year old trustworthy with any large appliance?" This is the kid who turned chicken nuggets into charcoal by microwaving them for 22 minutes.

After the yelling and accusatory statements, it fell to me to figure out how to keep the laundry from turning blue or purple for the rest of our lives. I briefly thought about buying a new dryer, but then I remembered an old Heloise trick for removing ball point pen with hairspray.  So with my head in the dryer and a 14 year old cloth diaper turned rag, I began spraying the inside of the dryer with hairspray.  The fumes were off the hook. I think I saw Jesus in the back of the dryer.  Miraculously, whether Jesus was there or not, the ink dripped down in long blue and purple lines. It came off, mostly.  We decided the next step was to sacrifice a load of kid laundry before we dared wash a load of white shirts.  So far, so good.

I read a short story once about a lady in England who became so depressed that she turned on the gas and stuck her head in her oven.  I wasn't depressed, but angry, and it wasn't a gas oven but an electric dryer filled with an entire can of aerosol hair glue.

If anyone asks, it's art.

Easy Ways to be Sick & Tired

I was laying around today catching up on some stuff that I apparently didn't read back in February.  I don't even remember what I was doing back on February 7th but it obviously wasn't reading the New York Times Magazine. Lucky for me it was buried under a pile of other junk, including but not limited to a Family Circle magazine that I don't remember buying. As soon as I saw the Family Circle I realized why I bought it. "Easy ways to lose 10 pounds fast." What a crock of cat litter. It was a bunch of stuff like "don't eat the leftover fries that your kids leave behind" and "stop swilling wine like a drunken sailor." Really, Family Circle, you can do better.

Back to the NYT, there was an article about a blogger that reminded me that I haven't been here in like a million years and some people must think I'm dead. I didn't enter a deep dark depression after the Squirrel died, but that really did suck.  We cried for days. Stupid $20 guinea pig.  I still blame the cat.

Back to the NYT again, so the article about the blogger made me want to sort out why I haven't been here in almost 5 months, or is it 6, and what I plan to do about that. Sometimes this thing feels like a rock around my neck. I have nothing to say, or I'm too tired to say it. Or, I can't say it because calling people names could make some people mad. I like the idea that if I wouldn't say it to your face, I probably shouldn't say it here.  Since last fall, there's been a lot of stuff I didn't want to say here, there or anywhere.  (This makes a girl's head really noisy.)

So I kind of gave up on the blog thing for awhile because as my mom says if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all. Just easier not to speak. I even kind of gave up on Facebook other than posting weird things like "I'm sorry I cannot hear you, I have a banana in my ear" entirely in Latin. I get a charge out of the people that can translate it.

Before I knew it was Christmas and I was tired. Really darned tired. Not only was I trying hard not to say inappropriate things in an online format that could haunt me forever, but I was really super tired. I even took naps. Lots of naps. Turns out there was a reason for the tiredness which leads me back up to why I still have reading material laying around from early February. I don't remember much of early February. I do remember that A&P turned 14, but I felt so lousy I'm not sure I really noticed. Then glory be, someone suggested a blood transfusion and wow, that was a good idea.

How do you talk about a blood transfusion in a blog? You don't want to freak people out. What if some readers are objectors to transfusions? What if people think you're channeling "Twilight" even though you've never read it?" I guess if you're sick enough to willingly take on someone else's half used up fluids, you probably don't care what anyone else thinks anyway.

Funny thing about being sick and tired is you kind of don't think about it. You go to work and keep doing stuff like going to the store but all the time self diagnosing with horrible diseases from faraway lands that you're pretty sure you picked up the last time you went to the Pottery Barn at the mall.

So here we are, writing some stuff and aren't we proud that blogger didn't just turn us off out of total frustration for the space we are taking up.  I started this whole thing back in 2008 during the financial crisis as a way to avoid looking at my perilously plunging portfolio that started to look like I spent a year in Antarctica on a sabbatical with 10 of my closest friends. So this was a hedge so I didn't look at the crisis and worry all the time. Miraculously, this has been an unexpected outlet except for all the stuff I can't say.

All You Need is Love

Squeaker, "The Squirrel", Atkins died earlier today after a sudden illness. He was nearly 5 years old and enjoyed every minute of his life with A&P after arriving on a snowy afternoon in February 2006. He was cute and sweet and shook the bars of his cage like it was a prison when he wanted to eat. All he was missing was a tin cup to rake across the bars. He liked to explore and especially loved visiting the refrigerator at our old house. Once we moved, it was more difficult and he tumbled down a step or two and then spent more time in his cage for his own safety. The house was not squirrel-proofed.

We are preparing a backyard service for our pig. I made Andrew dig the hole. The ground is harder than, well, dirt. 

Me: Keep digging
A: This is deep enough.
Me: No its not. The only people who dig shallow graves are serial killers.

We tucked him into a shoebox and waited for Peter to come home from his football game.  I could hardly get the words out "the squirrel is gone."

"Let's get this over with," Peter said. "I have lots of homework."

Off we trudged through the rain to the hole in the yard which was of course too small. He made it into the ground wrapped in his favorite towel. "You're a good squirrel, " they both said.

I must have been talking to the squirrel for 5 years and never knew it. As I worked around the kitchen I found myself talking to him and he's not there. Now I just sound insane.

Good Squirrel.

A Letter to #54

Dear #54:

How's it going out there on that field? Things are probably not as good in the stands as you might think, so I  thought I'd fill you in on the fact that you playing football  FREAKS ME OUT BEYOND ALL REASON.

Here's the thing- I don't know where this football thing came from. One day it was like "Hey I want to play football" and I was like "Oh OK." (because I am dumber than a box of hammers at a rock throwing contest.)  I even asked your brother "Hey what's with this football thing, do you want to play too?" Without hesitation, Andrew bellowed  "ARE YOU KIDDING, I MIGHT BE SMUSHED LIKE A ROTTEN EGGPLANT!" 

So far you haven't been squished like a champagne grape in some linebacker's toes. But today you got knocked around a bit here and there and it reminded me when I let you roll off of the ottoman when you were a baby- it freaked me out but you were sufficiently squishy that it didn't cause permanent damage.

I'm not brave like Gage's mom. I'm a big chicken and I don't even know what to cheer for. I guess it's good when people get mowed down like bowling pins, but I'd rather you stayed upright. And, it's got to be better for your brain and the math homework to stay in an upright-y type position. Should I call the coach?

Anyway, you looked good out there- at least from what I could see between my fingers since I was covering my eyes and trying not to scream like a girl.

Love Mom

Frozen?

The phone rang on Sunday. It was my mother in law telling us to head for the river bed. She's not Moses and we're not fleeing an oppressive people, but we needed to see for ourselves how low the river was.  The Maumee River dumps into Lake Erie and after a day or two of 40 mile an hour winds and some weeks of dry weather the river is dried up like a giant rock filled raisin.

We had to obey so we ran to the car. Actually, me and Tim ran to the car. A&P thought we were insane. 

Me: Ma says you can walk across the River. Let's go check it out.
Andrew : Is it frozen?

Frozen? Have you been watching a few too many episodes of "Ice Road Truckers"? Seriously.

Here's Peter inspecting the river bed at Buttonwood. He looks skeptical. And angry. I think you're perennially angry when you're 13. Do you suppose 14 is any different?

We tried to get the boys to go with us to Grand Rapids, but they complained about homework or some such thing.  Had I not been wearing flip flops and if it were not nearly dinnertime, I would have walked across.

In Andrew's defense, it does look frozen.

Watermelon Shoes

Can I tell you a secret? I obsessively read obituaries. I've done this since I learned how to read. I stopped reading them for a while after my Uncle Steve died unexpectedly because I was chicken. Now I'm back to reading them and thinking about what a gift every darned day is.

So there I was, reading the obituaries on Saturday night, in the New York Times. (I am so Tim's dream girl!)The Saturday death notices are easier to tackle and I can read them with less "short attention span theatre" in my brain. At the end of the section was an obituary that commanded me to get up and do something IMMEDIATELY. That's  a new one- when have you been commanded by a recently passed away person to get up and do something- do not pass go- do not collect $200 just go do it right that very minute. 

The direction? Google "Watermelon Shoes." Fine, I'll google Watermelon shoes.

The first article that pops up is a NYC blog from May, 2009 about a cool old guy from Manhattan that wears shoes decorated like two watermelon slices. Eccentric, yes, but here's the best part, he only wore them 13 times a year.

Tim said, "Maybe he should have bought more than one pair and he could wear them as much as he wanted."

I guess, but that's not the point. He savored his watermelon shoes and wore them only on very obscure days that meant only something to him.  The last sighting of the shoes appears to have been some time in August of this year.

Riveted I plastered the instruction"Google Watermelon Shoes" on my facebook page. Not many people saw it or, knew quite what to do with it. I am strange like that. My friend Dan wrote back and asked "what would your 13 days be?"

In my tracks I stopped cold. I have no idea. Boxing day? My birthday? Or something pedestrian like Thanksgiving or maybe historic like April 14th when Lincoln was shot.   Or is every day special enough for watermelon shoes?

Got to get me some of those shoes.

The Watermelon Shoe guy just died of a massive heart attack. He was so proud of his shoes and the blog about him that he commanded everyone he met to "Google Watermelon Shoes."

Do it. Now.

Love from me and mine to you and yours.