CaffeinatedThinking

...goin' up the country, baby don't you wanna go?

2005-07-13T21:03:00.000-05:00

Once again, I've let weeks go by without an update...it's not as if I have any readers, but my original intent was to write regularly so that I could work at my writing and get in the habit of making near-daily entries. This has been the most ridiculous summer so far; busy but boring, one step forward two steps back, waiting...always waiting for something. A check to arrive in the mail, a deposit to hit the bank, an answer to a question, a date on the calendar to come and go. We've finally learned that we need to be moved by the end of October, so that did take some of the pressure off getting us packed and out of here this summer. My oldest will start school in the fall at the neighborhood school and will end up transferring (provided we get out of the city) sometime in October or November. He's actually relieved that he won't have to start the first day of 7th grade at a new school. I told him what it was like when I moved as a kid (I was in 4th) and it was half-way through the school year. He'll be presented as "the new kid" which makes it easier, in a way, as there will be much more attention paid him than if he were wandering through the halls alone looking lost on the first day of the school year. He's very tall for his age, about 5'8", he's growing his hair long, and I'm not just saying this cause I'm his mom, but he is a really cool and good-looking kid. I think he'll have many people vying for his friendship. Younger son will simply start 2nd grade at his Montessori charter school which he will continue to attend no matter where we are in the county.

We have realized that we do not have to limit ourselves to the large suburb we've had our sights set on, and we don't have to resign ourselves to staying within the city limits. There are tons of gorgeous townhouse communities all over the county, houses for rent, duplexes, whatever...I reminded Mr. Caff of the college town 30 minutes from here where his sister used to live, a really nice area that's a mix of rural sensibilities and that funky university "feel" (hippie shops, coffee bars, Agway, a beautiful lake, cows, horses, a buffalo ranch, homecoming parades, an annual Highland Fling, Division II college football) and he got really excited.

I am a country girl at heart...I grew up in what was then the furthest reaches of suburbia with a dairy across the field out back of my house. Traffic stopped twice a day for the cows as they went to and returned from the pasture and the smell of cowshit was omnipresent. We rode our bikes to the dairy to get half-gallons of milk in glass bottles, fresh creamy whole milk kept icy cold, and our moms would always give us an extra quarter for an orange Push-Up or an ice cream sandwich. Sometimes we'd sit on the fence and watch the cows being milked through a big observation window, swatting flies and scraping shit off our sneakers. Once my friends and I ran frantically back inside the dairy to tell the woman at the counter that there was a cow with its' "guts hanging out of its rear end" only to be told that the cow had just given birth that morning and that was the "afterbirth." Nodding our heads sagely, we pretended we knew what the hell afterbirth was and compared notes the next day on what information we could glean from our parents. (We all agreed that it was gross and hoped we didn't have that afterbirth stuff hanging out of us if we ever had babies). Learning to ride a ten-speed one-handed was easy; learning to ride a ten-speed while carrying a heavy half-gallon glass bottle of milk was a little harder. It was inevitable that you would drop at least one bottle on the tar-and-chip road in your life, leaving a puddle of milk and shards of glass on the side of the road after getting too cocky and not respecting the heavy slipperiness of a cold milk bottle on a hot humid day. My parents were never the type to yell about things like that and when it happened I was simply sent back for a replacement with another dollar and a reminder to be careful. They both knew the treachery posed by overly zealous chipping (the laying down of small pieces of gravel on a freshly tarred road) and how the chips piled up into deep drifts at corners and on the side of the road, lying in wait to grab onto your bike tires and throw you down, hard. My sister fell on a freshly chipped road one afternoon (no milk bottle, she was too young) and scraped the hell out of her knees. My dad took a look at it and said to just spray on some Bactine and slap on a Band-Aid even though my mom thought she needed stitches. The next morning it was still bleeding and my grandparents drove all the way out to our house to take her to the doctor (my folks were both working then and I was old enough to take care of myself and my sister during the summers once I turned 14 - my sister was 8) and I rode along. Grampa took her into the exam room and I sat outside on the waiting room chairs with Gramma and listened to my poor sister scream as the doctor cleaned piece after piece of gravel and dirt from her knees before putting in stitches...it was awful, poor thing. She kinda hated Dad for a day or two since the doctor said it was so much worse almost 24 hours after the accident...but if I recall, he bought her a pretty sweet Barbie car or house or something because he felt so bad and she forgave him soon after.

The fields opposite the cow pastures belonged to a horse barn and tack shop. They boarded horses and gave lessons and the "horse crazy" girls in the neighborhood boarded their own horses there or learned to ride on the owners' horses. I was never a horse crazy girl, went right from Barbies to rock and roll, but I certainly enjoyed looking at them whenever they were turned out. I rode my bike up the hill past the stables for piano lessons once a week and I always stopped for a few minutes to pet some horse noses and flanks. One hot summer night, I must have been 12 or 13, I woke up with a jolt and knew that something was wrong. I laid there for a second and realized that I could hear sirens through my open bedroom windows, lots of sirens coming from all directions, and I jumped out of bed to run into my parents' room. A siren was very rare out that far, and lots of them in the middle of the night was terrifying. My parents and sister woke up at the same time and my dad pulled back the curtain on their bedroom window that overlooked the open fields and said, "Oh my God, it's the barn..." and I ran to get a look. The sky to the south was a bright orange and the entire horse barn was ablaze. It was a horrible, awful site. We could hear lots of voices outside so we all put on robes and sneakers and grabbed flashlights and went outside to join the neighbors.

Lightning had hit the barn, setting the dry hay and old timber structure on fire in seconds. From all directions we could hear people shouting and the sound of pounding hooves racing down the road as panicked horses got loose and took off running into the darkness. The young girl across the road from our house had already retrieved her horse and they had him in the driveway covered with a blanket as he snorted and whinnied and looked ready to bolt at any second. My dad pointed out flashing lights on the highway half a mile over from the barn and some people walking by told us that there were horses running down the highway and they had closed the road in hopes there wouldn't be an accident. I can't remember now how many horses died but I know that the only ones that perished were those unable to escape the barn. When daylight came you couldn't see anything but a pile of blackened rubble and the air was filled with smoke. It was oddly comforting to look across the road and see my neighbor's horse in the driveway wearing a plaid blanket, standing quietly while the grownups talked in solemn, hushed tones over coffee, their children passed out in sleeping bags on the lawn.

Today, the dairy is long gone, closed when convenience stores began to spring up and large conglomerate dairy companies stocked them with milk in unbreakable paper cartons. The horse barn was never rebuilt although the owners lived there for many years after the fire. The fields where black and white spotted cows grazed peacefully on one side of the road and chestnut mares, palomino stallions and appaloosa fillies kicked up their heels on the other side are filled with a planned community of "patio homes" for "empty nesters." My parents sold their house just a little over a year ago and moved into a smaller place, too. The neighbors are gone many years now, some have died, others have moved far away.

The week before my parents moved, my last time at the house, I stood in the back yard and closed my eyes and for a moment, I swore I could smell cow manure. I could feel handle bar tape on my palm and a cool breeze on my sunburned, freckled face. I could hear the crunch of bike tires on gravel and the heaviness of an icy jug of milk pulling me to one side as I nearly wiped out turning the corner one-handed. I inhaled again and smelled cut grass and steaks on the grill and I could hear the ticking of my dad's car engine as it cooled in the driveway. I could feel the strings from my cut-offs tickling my legs as I walked into the garage and heard my dad whistling out on the patio while he sat and smoked and waited for the steaks. My mom shouted out the front door for my sister to come on home and I set the sweating glass milk bottle on the supper table. After dinner, I rode around the subdivision on my bike with my friends and raced home seconds before darkness fell. Too tired to watch t.v., I changed into my summer p.j.'s and lay across my bed, too warm and sticky to get under the covers, so tired from my day that I fell asleep as my head hit the pillow...

I want that for my kids, even if it's just for a few years, even if we're only renting a place. I want them to have some country summers with crickets and fireflies and an old-fashioned Fourth of July fireworks display at the lake. I want them to hear peepers in the spring twilight and experience the thrill in winter when the schools actually close due to heavy snowfall. I want them to see the homecoming bonfires and walk to college football games on Saturday afternoons.

I want them to live in a small town for a time and know what it's like to live without the urban grit, wailing police sirens, heavily locked doors, gridlocked summer tourist traffic, concrete heat islands, and tightly shut windows of city life.

And who knows? We may even put down roots and decide to stay. There are worse things than growing up in a small college town with a lake.

Growing old there doesn't sound too bad either...

Updates, Lifehacks, & I allow my esoteric side to come out

2005-06-22T22:53:00.000-05:00

I didn't even look to see how long it's been since I posted last. My original intent was to update this blog daily and it's abundantly clear that I was (as usual) completely deluding myself about my available time and my level of self-discipline. I added a counter a while back and most of the hits are my own but there were a few from other sources and it seemed as if someone was interested in what I had to say since there were some return visitors. I hope I haven't blown my chances with those people by not updating more regularly and I'm going to work hard to carve out a chunk of time every day or at least several times a week to post some updates.

In explaining why I've been away from here and why I'm up to my neck in shit in the real world I could take up vast amounts of space but I'm trying to be more efficient in all ways so I will be brief and hopefully succinct. My husband is permanently and totally disabled since 2001 with RSD/CRPS which developed following a total knee transplant(L) due to severe bilat degenerative osteoarthritis as well as numerous other medical problems. By the autumn of 2001, life as we knew it was never going to be the same. Fast forward to now, and after much soul-searching, we are getting out of this money-trap of an old house and returning to the world of renters. The boys are fine with it, especially since it looks like we're going to get the beautiful townhouse we've been hoping for. Rent is $400 less than our mortgage, the utilities will be 1/3, there will be no worries about the leaking roof, leaky plumbing, rotting window frames, and the hundreds of things needed to bring this house into the 21st century. No lawn to mow (although I will miss my gardens, I already have some container gardens planned for our patio and terrace and front stoop and I'll just put that green thumb to use creating an indoor jungle for us). No driveway to shovel, no sidewalks to salt, no property taxes and homeowners insurance, no busy street a few houses away...I can honestly say that none of us (the kids included) will miss this place. But moving is hard, there's much to do (I'm having the first of several moving sales this weekend) and I'm busy all the time.

I don't feel like we're leaving a beloved home as much as we're starting fresh, clean and new. I believe that buildings hold onto the energies of those who have lived in them and this house feels filled with pain, anguish, rivers of tears, anger, despair, fear...it's true that the good times here did outweigh the bad; after all, both our babies came home to this house right out of the hospital and all the joy and laughter and love we have shared with them still echoes through these rooms.

Were it not for that happiness this place would be unbearable. My husband has lived in crippling, devastating pain for more than half the years we have been here...our hopes and dreams of our future died here...I went through a dark depression for a year sitting in this basement office, hiding from the world, convincing myself that no one really needed me and abdicated all responsibility without letting anyone know that I didn't pay a single bill for nearly 12 months. When I finally climbed out of this depression the damage was done and our finances were destroyed, I had killed friendships, alienated my family, and damn near lost everything. When a caretaker of many feels invisible, taken for granted, and alone, that person will often cease performing all that others have come to depend upon. It wasn't until my husband and children made me see how much I was needed and loved and cherished that I started my journey back to the living and saw the mess I'd made of it all.

So we are leaving this house and setting off on a different path. We plan on spending 3 years minimum at this new home getting ourselves back on track. It feels like we are entering the world again. It will be nice to look forward to weekends with the kids when we can choose what we want to do instead of always having some sort of half-assed, jury-rigged home maintenance that I need them to help me with.

Oh yeah - I said I was going to put in a lifehack so here's one: Mr. Caff uses Molskine notebooks and discovered that using a liquid paper correction PEN to write the contents on the binding of his black books, he has a bright, easily read (white against black) and neat way of labelling his many, many Molskines. After it dries and sits for a day, he then paints over it with a thin coat of clear nail polish and voila! A cheap, easy way to label his notebooks. Give it a try!

I'll try to write again soon...I'm not even going to take the time tonight to insert hyperlinks in the many places I should, although I promise I'll do better next time. But now it's time to go watch an episode of Dead Like Me on Showtime before bed.

Goodnight all.

"We have kept the Republic"

2005-05-24T01:52:00.000-05:00

History may prove that Senator Robert Byrd was absolutely correct and the following 14 United States Senators, seven Democrats and seven Republicans, took the first steps in reclaiming our Republic on May 23, 2005: Democrats Byrd, Lieberman, Nelson, Pryor, Landrieu, Inouye and Salazar, and Republicans Warner, McCain, Snowe, Collins, DeWine, Graham and Chafee.

These men and women were responsible for reaching a bipartisan agreement that stopped the Republicans from taking away the Democrats' power of judicial filibuster, in case you missed the news.

I started looking for news stories on the agreement because I wanted to learn the names of all 14 Senators. The first headline I read stated that Conservatives are "outraged" at the seven Republican Senators who "sold out" the GOP. I'll bet they're outraged. Foaming at the mouth Cujo-style angry...how dare these seven defy them?

And defy the Social Conservatives they did. They publicly distanced themselves from the RRR (Radical Religious Right) forever with their actions and in doing so have joined the enemy. This quote is so ironically ignorant: "14 Senators are allowed to speak for America and pick and choose the nominees they find accceptable?" (Lanier Swann, Concerned Women for America.) Gosh, it was only four and a half years ago that 12 Supreme Court Justices spoke for America and decided Bush was the acceptable choice for President. These Conservatives have such selective memories, don't they?

Of course, what really angers the Social Conservatives is that they have been laboring under the illusion (delusion?) that they don't have to abide by this Nation's laws, and if they find a law that doesn't suit their purposes they just have it changed to their liking. Many Social Conservative activists truly believed that the filibuster struggle wasn't going to be a problem and Bush was going to deliver bushels of Conservative judicial nominees. Getting a little too comfortable they were...she said in a bad Yoda imitation.

What's alarming also is that apparently those seven Republican Senators are the only ones who get it. "It" meaning that the day will come - please God, make it sooner than later - when the Democrats take back the Presidency, and every single law they've passed, tweaked, or destroyed to serve their purposes will come back to bite them in their collective lily-white asses.

I read that Senator Santorum (the idiot Senator from PA, MY HOME, who continually makes me wonder just how low are the IQ's of half my fellow Pennsylvanians) said that the Democrats had "no right" to demand that Republicans follow the standard rules in changing Senate filibuster rules and that he used a Hitler comparison that made no sense whatsoever to illustrate his point. Please, God, if you're still reading, can you increase the intelligence of enough people here so PA doesn't re-elect Senator Stupid McRetard next time? Thanks bunches.

The Republican party is losing its base and quickly. It's always been the party of "business" and the businessmen are losing patience with the GOP's focus on social issues at the expense of all other matters. Like, um, fiscal issues.

And finally, FINALLY, the "no big government, stay outta my bidness" wing of Republicans have begun to understand that an Administration that passes the Patriot Act, which was designed to circumvent civil liberties and allow the government free reign in your "bidness" like never before, is the very defintion of "big government." I think this type of Republican watched the Terri Schiavo mess in horrified shock and realized for the first time that sharing their party with the Radical Religious Right was a big mistake.

What's happening is that the Republicans are showing us that they have not paid attention to anything for 20 years or so. Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past, that is a fact. The GOP has allowed an extremist wing of their party to dictate policy in exchange for getting them elected, exactly like the Democrats did when they catered to the leftist elite and lost much of their base to the Republicans who were at the time a much more centrist party.

It's amazing, isn't it?

I'll be watching "the seven" Republicans very closely from now on. And I'm keeping my eye on the Democrats, all of them, because they'd better not blow this opportunity to derail Bush's second-term agenda.

I have a new nephew!

2005-05-17T15:31:00.000-05:00

I don't know much as I haven't spoken directly with my sister, but she had a C-section at 2:00 p.m. this afternoon and her little boy was born. He was indeed a big baby, weighing in at 9.2, and he has loads of black hair. Sounds just like my youngest, who was born with so much hair I could have braided it. His name is Wyatt - I love that name. Big brother Hudson was jumping around in the background shouting "Out! Out! Baby Out!" while my mom tried to talk to me. He is very excited because his Dad's on the way to take him to the hospital to see his beloved Mama...I'm going down in the morning to see my sister and the baby, hopefully when there aren't a whole lot of other visitors. There's nothing more annoying than a roomfull of your sibling's in-laws cooing over the new baby, reluctant to share him with the "other side" of the family.

Here's a Lifehack regarding older siblings of new babies to share: Two weeks ago I gathered up a bunch of small toys from my house: a rubber snake, a brand-new stuffed animal that no one had claimed, and some Hot Wheels cars. I also stopped by the drugstore and snapped up a handful of little items such as a box of crayons, an activity book, a little bag full of jungle animals, altogether about 10 items. I also gathered up all the little gift bags from the past few birthdays and Christmases and put each item in a gift bag. I gave them all to my sister who took half to the hospital with her and left the rest at home in a handy but hidden spot. Now whenever Hudson sees the baby get a present, she or my brother-in-law can make sure he gets something, too. And if anyone shows up at their house and brings a baby gift Hudson will have something from the stash she has waiting there. This way Hudson will feel special too. No matter how much loving, cuddling, and "Now you're the big brother/sister" comments you give them, the older sibling is going to have a hard time with it all. A little token in a shiny gift bag can mean an awful lot when you're two and a half and your life has been turned upside down.

Welcome to the world, Wyatt. You are going to love coming to our house, playing video games and hanging out with your cool, awesomely older and bigger cousins as much as your brother loves it here. Your Uncle is a really warm and loving guy who gives great hugs. And I look and sound like your mom enough that you'll be immediately comfortable with me. Plus, your Uncle and I know a lot about little boys so you won't have to worry about burping and farting around us, finding words like poopy and pee-pee tremendously amusing, and enjoying the great feeling of smashing Cheerios under your shoes on the kitchen floor or sprinkling your head with your sippy cup just because you can. It's all cool with us.

Can't wait to get to know you, Wyatt.

On Baby Watch

2005-05-16T10:49:00.000-05:00

My nephew is about to become a big brother any minute now. He came along 12 days early and his little brother is being very obstinate; today is my sister's due date and at the moment she shows no signs of imminent labor.

Little darling nephew is 2 1/2 years old and I just talked to him on the phone. I asked him how his mommy was and he said "OUT!" very forcefully because all my sister says now is "I just want this baby OUT of me!" I also asked him what he thought his brother's name was going to be and he said "Apple Doggie," which has been his choice for the baby's name since he was told his mommy was expecting. I hope he's not too disappointed that his choice has been overruled although I suppose he can call his brother Apple Doggie if he wants to. I love toddlers, especially when they're not mine, and all I can do is laugh my ass off when he acts up like he was doing while my sister was trying to talk to me.

They're at my mom's today as my sister has an appointment with the midwife at 1:00 p.m. and darling nephew was on a real tear in the background. During a 15-minute conversation, something was broken, he bumped his head and got a nice goose-egg, he hung up the phone twice and pushed random buttons until his mother yelled at him and made him cry, he opened the fridge repeatedly until my mother yelled at him and made him cry, and in general made a gigantic nuisance of himself. My father, in a fit of either wisdom or senility, booked a fishing trip a year ago (to be fair, my sister wasn't pregnant yet) and his ride was there when I called so he's out of here until Wednesday night. The only answer he gives when pressed about his insistence on going on this trip is "It's already paid for and I won't get my money back!" WTF? My mom gives in too easily because if he were my husband I'd have told him too goddamned bad, mister, you're not leaving in the middle of all this. None of the boys (my two and my sister's one) obey my mother at all and do whatever they can to drive her crazy, but they worship "Papa" and rarely disobey Papa's wishes.

The midwife will induce tomorrow if my sister wants her to do so, and understandably she is anxious to have this baby. But I'm all for letting nature take its course (within reason) and would never want an induction. I don't know what's going to happen at this point, but if she's not dilated a bit today at her appointment and everything seems alright with the baby, I think I convinced her to wait a little while longer and avoid induction if possible. I also told her to ask for a sonogram because this same midwife, as dear as she is, underestimated the size of my second son as a "seven pounder" and he weighed 9lbs, 8ozs and required vacuum extraction and nearly split me in half, I swear (my husband said he was terrified that he was going to lose the both of us and that the room looked like an abattoir until the cleaning crew came in). Too much information? Sorry...but birthin' babies is a messy business. Lots of fluids and guck and stuff.

I have a feeling this baby's coming within the next 24 hours though, in order to make his entrance in the most inconvenient manner possible because that's the way it usually happens. I'm running to the store shortly to buy my family some easy meals for the next few days because I think I'm going to be somewhat busy, and I LOVE it.

A new life is about to enter our small family group and I love my nephew something fierce so I can't wait to meet this little man and have another nephew to spoil and cuddle, play with and buy things for, kiss and hug, teach and learn from, laugh at and laugh with...and return to his parents for all the other stuff. I've been there, done that. Sat up night after night with a screaming infant, rushed sick babies to the ER, been covered with poop, pee and spit-up, held them down while they got their vaccinations and cried more then they did...I've been there and although I wouldn't trade a single experience there are many that I am glad I will not have to repeat.

Whenever I think of a newborn, I am reminded of the night when my oldest was about two weeks old, and my husband and I were sitting on the edge of our bed holding him and trying to get him to stop crying. We'd read all the books, waited till we were married eight years before starting a family, I was 31 and he was 35, and yet we were still completely freaked out. My husband looked at me and said, "We were woefully unprepared for this parenthood thing, weren't we?"

I looked back at him and burst out laughing, and so did he, and I realized at that moment that nothing can prepare you for the heart-bursting combined emotion of tremendous love and sheer terror that is parenthood.

Love to you, my boys; my sons and my nephew and my almost-here nephew. So much love...

Is there a Lifehack for "how to turn a bad day around"?

2005-05-13T19:08:00.000-05:00

Seriously.

There's got to be a way to stop that runaway freight train once it starts. The story of my day, Friday 5/13:

1. Tossed and turned all night long on shitty mattress and box springs that needed replaced years ago. We're moving soon so there's no point in getting a new one now, but I have been waking up several times a night with my lower back in spasm, sometimes my entire back. After the third awakening this morning in such pain that I wasn't sure I could even get out of bed, the clock said 5:30 a.m. and that was good enough for me. I struggled for several minutes to get off my back, onto my side and eventually feet on the floor then shambled like a zombie (moaning like one, too) down the stairs and to the kitchen for coffee. Thanks to the coffeepot timer I was able to pour myself a large mug (insulated, with a lid) and flop onto the recliner. I turned on the television and was holding my coffee, raptly watching a story on the local news, when...

2. My crotch is on fire! Holy goddamned freaking hell I fell asleep and dropped the 20 ounce mug of piping hot coffee upside down on my lap...oh dear lord, the pain. Our coffee pot makes coffee hotter than any pot I've ever had and I am not kidding when I say I was instantly sobbing in pain. My youngest heard me and hollered down to see if I was okay and I said, No, please bring me a towel and a pair of underwear and a pair of sweats from my dresser. Five minutes later he comes down with a hand towel, a sports bra, and the jeans I had on yesterday. I wanted to shriek at him but I just thanked him and went down to the basement where I knew I had clothes in the dryer. My inner thighs are still sore, like a bad sunburn, but the rest of the sensitive area seems fine. I think. Now I understand why that old lady sued McDonalds when she spilled the hot coffee on her crotch. If I could sue anyone other than myself for being an idiot, I would.

3. Kids are at school, I stop at Country Fair for a bacon/egg/cheese biscuit and a french vanilla cappuccino, a newspaper, and a copy of Vogue because I plan to pamper myself for a few hours after the day's rough start. I eat breakfast, drink 4 sips out of my cappuccino, and promptly fall asleep in my chair from 9:00 until noon. Great. Husband was in another area of the house, watching t.v. with headphones and surfing the laptop and had no idea what I was doing. I guess sleeping for 3 hours isn't such a bad thing, but I effectively shot any chance I had at getting much done before the kids started coming home from school at 2:30. I still haven't read the paper or opened the Vogue although I reheated the cappuccino which was yummy.

4. Afternoon uneventful...I hang out with kids and husband watching G4/Tech TV for a while then offer to pick up Subway for dinner since we just got paid. "Hoorays" all around - 3 toasted barbecued steak and 1 toasted chicken bacon ranch and I've got coupons! Cool!

5. I decide I have to pee before I leave...HUGE mistake. I lift up the toilet lid and I see that one of my children (we still don't have a confession but we're fairly certain it's the younger one since this isn't the first time) has used nearly an entire roll of toilet paper after pooping. I buy Scott single-ply only because we have a chronically sluggish toilet so you can imagine how much t.p. this kid used. It must have been a really problematic b.m. or else he forgot a book so he decided to see how many wads of t.p. he could get out of a roll to pass the time. Anticipating the worst, I holler for my oldest, grab the two ever-present plungers and use them to corral as much of the paper as I can, then, gulping, I flush. The moment I flushed I knew it was a really stupid move. By this time, older son comes in and I have him take off the tank lid and pull up on the ball. The water level has now risen to the point where no matter what I do, every plunge is going to send gallons of t.p. 'n fecal stew sloshing over the sides and onto the floor.

Which happened. Repeatedly. We used every towel we had in the bathroom, in the linen closet, in the hamper...but by sheer determination I plunged that bastard toilet with everything I had left and was rewarded with the sudden emptying of the bowl. I let my son leave go of the ball and the tank filled nicely. He ran and got a garbage bag for me to load all the wet towels into and grabbed a roll of Bounty and all my kitchen towels so I could clean up the rest of the mess. This took at least 30 minutes. I will skip the details, but imagine the worst overflow you've ever had, the kind in which certain solid material escapes the bowl and finds its way onto the floor and into every nook and cranny of the toilet and that's what I'm talking about.

I changed my clothes, washed my hands and feet and washed the bottom several inches of my ponytail (you don't want to know) and realized that I had NO LYSOL SPRAY anywhere in the house. I had used a foaming bathroom cleaner but there was no way this job was done until every inch of that room was saturated with Lysol spray. On my way through the living room dragging a garbage bag full of towels I informed the family that we would not be having Subway for dinner, that there were Hot Pockets and Chef B. and leftovers, and that after I threw the towels into the washer (20 minute wash cycle, hot water, Tide w/bleach, and they WILL be washed at least one more time the same exact way) I was running across the street to the convenience store for Lysol and a roll of t.p. and then I was going down to the basement office where I would remain until I damned well felt like it. No one said a word. Very, very intelligent choice on their parts.

I started the wash, went and got the Lysol and t.p. as well as a gigantic Nestle tollhouse cookie ice cream sandwich and a box of toffee Crunch 'n Munch, sprayed the bathroom, got a large cup of coffee, took a couple of my pain pills since my back was screaming (and one extra because Mommy was pretty sure if she opened her mouth again she was going to literally start screaming and not stop) and sat down to write this entry.

Sometimes your day's going to both suck and blow and there's nothing you can do about it. And I realize that there are people all over the world who'd trade my shitty day for their shitty day in a heartbeat; fleeing a volcano, tsunami, or approaching army, cradling a starving child, shielding your kids with your own body as rubble from your bombed home rains down upon you...believe me, I don't take myself seriously.

But as Lifehacks go, any advice like this regarding how to turn the average crummy day around and stop the cascading series of annoying events? My first thought is to make an abrupt change in routine or do something impulsive to alter the day's flow.

I'd love some comments...

I've got all I need for Mother's Day

2005-05-08T08:10:00.000-05:00

Every year for Mother's Day I ask for only one thing: that peace reigns o'er my house, and that no one makes me cry.

This is my 13th Mother's Day and as I type this peace reigns and I haven't cried.

However, it is only 9:10 a.m. and the day has just begun...in case you are wondering, I am 0/12 as far as receving a peaceful, tear-free day. Even my first Mother's Day, when my firstborn was all of 5 months old, was anything but peaceful and I probably cried at least 3 times. I had this brilliant idea that I would make brunch for my mom, dad, sister, my mother-in-law, sister-in-law, and of course my husband, son and myself. It was a really stupid idea...why on earth would I want to cook a meal, clean it up, and lose precious time I could have been spending with my baby? I learned a valuable lesson that day: I call my mom and he calls his mom and I spend the day however I want to.

Today I am hanging out in the office for a while but life does go on so there's laundry to do and assorted household tasks, but when I went grocery shopping yesterday I bought a delicious gourmet fully-prepared frozen pan of lasagna and a box of dark chocolate brownie mix so my 12-year old, J., will mostly handle dinner while my husband supervises from his wheelchair. The younger one who is almost 8 is obsessed with a new Xbox game so he's in some sort of Zen state. Cool.

I am ever hopeful that there will be no fighting and I won't cry today. It's bound to happen one of these years.

Truly, Mother's Day, Father's Day, and all those assorted Hallmark-sponsored holidays are totally sick and nothing more than another way to get us to part with our hard-earned money. There are mothers who demand tribute on this day, and fathers who do the same on their day to be sure, but I am NOT one of them and neither is my husband. I don't want to be taken out to brunch with a corsage on my sweater, I don't want candy or flowers, I don't want my husband to spend any money on me because I'm not HIS mother, and my kids are not self-supporting so how are they supposed to afford presents? I treasure those beautiful handmade cards or bookmarks or magnets or earrings bought at the school store for .25, I really do. If they went out and cut off all my tulips and put them in a vase and gave them to me I would not yell, I would love it. They could empty the dishwasher and vacuum the kitchen and dining room for me and that would be better than a "world's best mom" Hallmark picture frame with matching coffee mug. Way better.

Or they could give me nothing, and this day could pass completely unmarked, and I still would not care. As Mother's Day approaches every year, and they start getting nervous about getting me something, I gently remind them of the "no fighting, no crying" request and honestly, I think it's harder than asking them to bring me a strand of hair from a ringwraith's horse's mane.

So I've decided that as soon as I publish this post I'm going to go upstairs and tell them that I no longer require peace in the house and they can act however they normally act. I'm going to find a really sappy movie and cry my eyes out in a preemptive strike against anything they could possibly do to make me cry. Or maybe I just won't freaking cry at all, or stub my toe and cry like a baby because it really hurts. Who am I to ask others to take responsibility for my own tears?

Because by asking for those two things every year, and somehow knowing that they are impossible, I am as demanding as the mother who requires a day full of food, presents and ass-kissing.

Sorry, little dudes, for putting so much pressure on you all these years. The first thing you each said to me this morning was "Happy Mother's Day, I love you, you're the best mommy in the world."

How great is that?

Lifehacking Redux. My Eureka! moment.

2005-04-29T00:47:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking about the Lifehacking concept, turning it over and over in my mind, wondering why it seems so vitally important to me.

Tonight, I had a Eureka! moment and it all became crystal clear to me.

Lifehacking is about so much more than just cool websites, gadgets, or nifty Windows utilities. What's it about is this: If you figure out a really unique/thrifty/original way to do ANYTHING, and you share it with others, ALL OF US benefit, ALL OF US have the opportunity to improve our lives in some way. That's just common sense, right? It may be, BUT: As a culture we've been programmed to grab for the big bucks with our great ideas, our tasty cookie recipe, our idea for a new way to store jewelry or cook without fat. The ultimate goal of "the next big idea" has become a quick killing on The Home Shopping Network. The microwave bacon cooker, banana ripening tree thingy, the wonder mop; we as a culture buy these things by the millions and a year or two later sell them at our yard sales or throw them in the trash and add to the towering landfills outside of towns across America.

"The Great Inventor," like Alexander Graham Bell or the woman who invented Liquid Paper (the mother of one of the Monkees but I'll be damned if I can remember which one!) is a cultural icon, and many of these men and women did indeed change our lives for the better, forever.

But the past fifteen years (give or take a few) have seen the trivialization of the "great inventor" as Mrs. Fields made gazillions baking chocolate chip cookies and Amos got Famous doing the same thing. Another woman got sick and tired of her wet, sloppy mop and figured out a way to wring it out more thoroughly. That's all it takes: tasty cookies or a less disgusting floor mop, flashily packaged and sold to us via television by salespersons with the skills of "motivational speakers" or televangelists. I would not be surprised in the least if the home shopping sales "personalities" are schooled in the same techniques used by the aforementioned master manipulators. They used to call them snake oil salesmen. I don't see much of a difference, do you?

[b]Lifehacking [/b]is another example of our AWAKENING, don't you agree? We are now realizing the value in SHARING that which works well, that makes life a little better. Certainly it may involve a product or service that one could purchase, but just as often it is nothing more than a new way of doing something that doesn't cost a thing.

We are not just sharing ideas, we are sharing ways to CHANGE OUR OWN REALITIES. For isn't improving one's life intrinsically a step on the path to reshaping the reality in which we exist?

It is clear that the awakening process has ended and the time has come to use what we have learned. We are part of something much larger than ourselves, intertwined and connected to each other and capable of SO MUCH MORE than we have been programmed to believe.

"...sharing is a powerful positive good..."

"Invention inspires invention. Ideas are collapsing into each other, recombining, and having powerful effects. The Internet has always been a medium for democratization, and by reconnecting with our idealism we’re once again uncovering its poetry, nobility, and transformative power."

YES.

Lifehacking. Wow.

2005-04-28T20:00:00.000-05:00

Crossposted from FreedomCrowsNest:

Have been MIA from the forums for a while due to some major life changes and decision making (we're moving out of our old house and into a maintenance free townhouse cause this old wife can't do everything anymore, plus we need a place with multiple bathrooms that's wheelchair friendly since he's getting increasingly nonambulatory) and will be very hit or miss for the foreseeable future, BUT: In my online time devoted to all things moving/organizational I have found some websites devoted to "Lifehacks" that I must share with this group.

What's Lifehacking? First of all, "hacking" has in many ways lost its negative connotations and a "Hack" as defined by Lifehacker.com is "a clever shortcut or a lesser-known, faster way to get something done."LIFEHACKER is a blog (part of the Gawker Media blogging group) that exists for the following purpose: "A hacker believes that information-sharing is a powerful positive good, and that it is a hacker’s duty to share her expertise - so we will. The “life” part comes in because while the hacks you’ll find here will focus mostly on technology, they’ll also extend to things like how to get out of paying that parking ticket. The term “life hacks” was originally coined by the much-admired technology expert Danny O’Brien."

Through Lifehacker I have discovered that there are millions of people just like me and my husband who are combining technology with a "gentle" Ludism. In other words, we like our technology very much, thank you, but we like our 3x5 note cards and all manner of nifty office supplies. But Lifehacking isn't confined to only matters of technology, it is a large, community-based movement (I hate to use words like "movement" or "effort" because it makes it sound organized and/or political of which it is neither) wherein people make the effort to share with the world at large those things they have found that make life easier, nicer, more enjoyable, more efficient, simplified, or just plain fun.

I've been using hole-punched 3x5 notecards as well as 4x6's (punched by myself, of course) in small notebooks for a while. I record the addresses, my online ID's, passwords, etc. for sites where I am registered (forums, shopping, newspapers, etc.) and filing them in alphabetical order for years. I also use stacks of 3x5's held together with binder clips all the time. I have them in my purse, my car, on my desk, coat pockets, etc. They're my "Luddite PDA" LOL. I won't part with a regular Dayplanner type of book because it seems stupid to use a computer's desktop calendar to record appointments when all I have to do is open my book. I love gel pens, ultra-thin Sharpies in different colors, and "mechanical" pencils (I prefer the kind you refill to the disposables.) I adore Post-its and flags and the entire Post-it universe. We have literally dozens of Eldon black-mesh metal storage containers for every desk, table and surface in the house. I love the tall canisters to hold remotes, cell phones, cordless phones, spare taper candles, packs of incense...the little ones for paper clips and binder clips and rubber bands...the wide and not so tall canisters for pens, pencils, scissors...I love clipboards! I have the old-fashioned brown pressed-board clipboards in multiple sizes but have a few of the metal box clipboards. I love little zippered pouches, big zippered pouches, and any kind of utility bag. We WORSHIP Moleskin notebooks...I have 3 of them in use at the moment (my husband and kids have more than I do) which reminds me, it's time to order some soon!

So...anyway. I return from my tangent.

Lifehacking. Start at Lifehacker. Wander on over to 43 Folders and spend some time browsing. You'll likely find yourself at Monkeyfilter enjoying the hundreds of everyday tips to make life easier. I doubt you'll miss How to make fire from a can of Coke and a chocolate bar, How to jumpstart your day or The 46 Best-Every Freeware Utilities list, but be sure to visit all the recommended sites and links from every new site you land on. "del.ico.us" is a weirdly-named goldmine of a website that is a "social bookmarks manager." Don't miss it. Try to peruse Ask Metafilter's Community Knowledge pages. Mentat Wiki is "a collaborative environment for exploring ways to become a better thinker." Geeks to Go! is a free computer help forum where you can ask anything and not be made to feel stupid.

The internet has evolved. In many ways, it's almost new again. I've touched only on the way in which we use the internet but be aware that the technology has made a huge leap.

Are you ready?

“The Web as we know it is changing probably more than it has since the first graphic showed up… The idea of the webpage itself is nearing its useful end. With the way Ajax allows you to build nearly stateless applications that happen to be web accessible, everything changes.

What will happen when amateurization and folksonomies make their way into enterprise web applications? What happens when IT managers can tag Oracle’s product documentation with their own words? Where will our bookmarks go when the idea of the “webpage” becomes obsolete?

Invention inspires invention. Ideas are collapsing into each other, recombining, and having powerful effects. The Internet has always been a medium for democratization, and by reconnecting with our idealism we’re once again uncovering its poetry, nobility, and transformative power.

If you’re not yet amazed, inspired, and a little anxious, you might want to consider it. Then get a good night’s sleep and perhaps take a rejuvenating vacation. We’re going to look back at Spring 2005 as a milestone. Watch closely, ladies and gentlemen. Things are about to change in a very big way." (Janice Fraser, via adaptive path.)

The science project

2005-04-09T16:34:00.000-05:00

I'm writing this about 20 minutes before we have to leave to go to my younger son's Science Fair. He's in a Montessori Charter School and if you are familiar with the Montessori philosophy it's very hands-on. So even the youngest kids get to participate in the Science Fair, and he wanted his project to be about volcanoes.

He and I had lots of ideas and gathered all the materials after we settled on the classic vinegar and baking soda lava demonstration. Unfortunately, we completely forgot about doing the project during his entire 10-day Easter break so we really had to scramble to complete it by Friday the 8th. He colored and collected rocks and dirt and valiantly tried to help, but if you've ever been the parent of a 7 1/2 year old boy you know that even the prospect of using the glue gun pales in comparison to playing Star Wars Battlefront, anything on television, eating, pooping, sleeping, and all the things that commanded his attention while I struggled to make this project work.

Finally I gave up and sent him to bed, and his dad and I decided to stay up late and finish the project.

Unfortunately, we got distracted by any number of things including watching "Love Actually" at 4:00 a.m. Around 5:00 we thought we really had no choice but to finish this project. It was our own damned fault that we procrastinated all night long but we worked our asses off until it was done. You haven't lived until you've prepared "baking soda bombs" (baking soda mixed with leftover crystal easter egg dye and cherry kool-aid powder to achieve the fiery orange glow of lava, dropped into a square of toilet paper and twisted closed) at 6:00 a.m. while your spouse frantically glues sticks, rocks and gravel to styrofoam cups.

I always worry that I've done too much when I help them on a project and I end up practically doing the entire project myself, but my son told me yesterday afternoon that another first-grader had a volcano complete with push-button ignition for the lava. You just know that kid's dad or mom went overboard a wee bit, although I suppose the kid could be some sort of electrical genius, it's not likely.

Well, the varmints are ready and it's time to go.

(two hours pass)

Yay, we're home and we not only survived but enjoyed ourselves immensely!

The moment we got there we were mobbed by his classmates who had apparently been yearning to drop a baking soda bomb into a styrofoam volcano filled with vinegar since yesterday's demonstration. Had I not brought extra of both, we'd have run out in 30 minutes. As it is we used up the extra vinegar and although I had a giant, unopened box of baking soda on hand and they all begged me to keep making more bombs we had to stop. They asked me if we couldn't re-use the vinegar that had pooled all over the display and was sitting in the volcanoes, which gave us an opportunity for more science: No, we couldn't re-use the vinegar because it had been effectively neutralized by the baking soda and would not react. So they moved en masse to a papier mache volcano and used up all that kid's baking soda and vinegar. Yowza. Don't their parents ever let them play with household chemicals?

Let me tell you about the refreshments at a Montessori function. WOW. Mini-quiches (I ate seven), a Puerto Rican beans and rice dish, celery stuffed with cream cheese and smoked salmon, slices of chocolate cheesecake, gorgeous bakery cookies, assorted crudites, lemonade and coffee. Delicious.

I'm too exhausted to dish about the 4-year old girl dressed in a patent-pleather jacket, miniskirt, ankle boots and star-shaped sunglasses and her pretentious parents (there's still a tuition-paying Montessori school that shares the building with the charter school and many families are very well off) but I would if I could.

But now I need coffee and Tylenol. Stat. Followed by two kids in bed early and a movie with my guy.

Daffy-dills

2005-04-08T06:32:00.000-05:00

It's finally Spring! I want to burst outside and run in circles like Daffy Duck doing his woo-hoo woo-hoo woo-hoo crazy as a loon routine!

Winter was not about to give up easily; you may have read that parts of the country got socked by a snowstorm last weekend. We were smack in the middle of it and right here in the city we had about 14" of snow. Heavy, wet, miserable, crappy snow. It snowed so hard and so long on Sunday that our neighbor didn't get a chance to plow our driveway so I got stuck several times trying to back out and get the kids to school Monday morning. My usual tactic, if we haven't been plowed, is to just floor it in reverse and fly backwards out the driveway (after checking that no cars are coming, of course). I did this but failed to realize that the heavy wet snow had a coating of ice from some freezing rain overnight and the city plows went by throwing gigantic boulder-sized chunks of ice into the bottom of the driveway. I'm not exaggerating when I say the largest chunk was 3 feet across! I put the van in park and had my oldest get out and start removing chunks and shoveling frantically. Every few minutes I'd rock the van until I was finally freed enough to pull far enough back into the driveway that we could assess just how much snow and ice we were dealing with. Bless his little heart, my son ordered me to stay in the van and he chukked boulder after boulder into the yard, then shoveled as best he could with our last unbroken snowshovel until he had cleared a path. I had him wait on the sidewalk and give me the all-clear that no one was coming then I floored the van and rocketed backwards out into the street. It was so cool how the antilock brakes kept me from knocking over the neighbor's fence! Hee hee...the boy jumped in and we were off to school. I told him he was my hero and although he barely acknowledged me (when you're almost a teenager you really don't like being fussed over by your mom) I could tell that he was proud that he could help. The whole time this was going on, btw, the little one chattered nonstop (he does that all the time and it gets worse when he's nervous) and kept comparing my driving to one of their videogames. "This is just like Burnout, mom! Wow! You're driving like in Burnout, mom! Can I turn on the radio because they will have a song just like in Burnout on right now and it will be just like Burnout even more! Can I get out of the car because I don't like the sound the tires are making...mom? Mom, are we stuck? OHMYGODWILLIBELATEFORSCHOOL!!!!????" But I digress...Oh, one more thing. You know the little "ding" that sounds when your low fuel light pops on? I had about 1/4 tank of gas when this was going on and the fuel light comes on at 1/8. Apparently the rocking back and forth and the tachometer going bonkers temporarily confused the fuel sensor. For two days, the fuel light kept winking on and off and each time going "ding!" as I think it was trying to catch up all the times the level dipped below 1/8 when I was trying to get unstuck. It was hysterically funny to the boys but it was getting on my nerves...finally I stopped and put $10 of gas in and that moved it up to 1/2 tank which seems to have satisfied it. For now...and OMFG! I paid $2.25 a gallon for gas and that was the cheap stuff! WTF??? That's fucking horrible!

The snow was melting by noon on Monday and except for some plow piles it's all gone today. It reached 55 Monday afternoon, 65 on Tuesday and almost 70 yesterday. My tulips are up and there are buds on the trees. No crocuses this year, although I suspect it's because the bastard chipmunk finally found all of them last autumn. Something about those crocus buds makes the chippies go crazy. I was so frustrated with him (the bastard chipmunk) that I actually dug up some daffodil bulbs and laid them around the yard so he'd leave my crocuses alone. Of course, the little bastard left them and dug up the crocuses anyway. I get the feeling that chipmunks are thieving little vandals and many of the bad things blamed on squirrels are actually the work of chipmunks. I would step out the back door and catch him in the act of plundering a bulb; instead of dropping it and running he would take his time and make sure he had it secured and then saunter down the wall of the garage and disappear into one of his many hidey-holes. The boys would collapse his entrance and exit holes, pile sticks and stones on top, and by the next day all the sticks and stones were tossed aside and his doorways were clean as a whistle again. I haven't seen him yet this spring and I can only hope that Tabitha (my neighbor's cat) got him or he simply died of old age over the winter. They may all look alike but I swear I'll know this one if I see him again because of his eyes. He doesn't have soft, brown, sweet little furry animal eyes. His are flat and black and lifeless, like a shark...a bulb-eating, hole-digging, furry striped Land Shark. *shudder*

ANYHOW...now that I've got all that off my chest...it's SPRING, damn't! Fuckin-A, the winter is over, we can throw open some windows and air out the house and enjoy the lovely fresh breeze and revel in running out the door without coats and boots and say "Looks like winter's finally over, boy, it was a long one, wasn't it?" to the neighbors who we see outside for the first time in months. We smile and laugh that we made it through another year of sub-zero wind chills and 140 inches of snow and dead car batteries and frozen car door locks and bag after bag of rock salt, and try not to notice each others' thousand-yard stare as "if I hadn't stopped the car in time I could have died" or "without that cell phone and AAA we might have frozen to death on that country road the night I drove us into a ditch" crosses our minds.

Like our ancestors hundreds of years ago, we rejoice that winter is over and we can forget about it for a time. We may have central heating and grocery stores and batteries, Gore-tex and Performance fleece, 4-wheel drive, front-wheel drive and jumper cables to make the winter more bearable, but at the end of the day, we are still at nature's mercy. When I step outside for a moment at midnight when it's 5 below zero and there's a fresh foot of snow I know with utter certainty that in a matter of hours I would be dead without shelter.

And in about two and a half months it will be the Fourth of July, 89 degrees with 90% humidity and many of us (my family included) will be holed up in our homes, air conditioners running full-blast, shades drawn against the relentlessly beating sun, guzzling icy beverages, doing whatever we can to beat the heat and stay cool. And I'll remember the deadly cold of winter, marveling that the temperature is 100 degrees higher than the morning I went out to start the van early and the thermometer registered minus eleven and my fingers began to ache through my zero-degree rated gloves within three minutes.

And I will begin to long for cool, crisp autumn days and the inevitable return of the long, dark nights of winter.

I cannot imagine living in a place without such extremes, where the time of year is nothing more than the date on the calendar or the decorations at the mall.

Happy Spring, everyone.

What the hell WAS that thing anyway???

2005-04-06T19:57:00.000-05:00

Cross-posted from my favorite internet forum, something a little strange that happened in my house. I'm getting some amazing replies if you are interested; click on the link to Crow's forum over there on the right to read the thread. Guests can read but not reply.

"Those of you who have known me for a while know that I am not prone to reporting apparitions, UFO's or anomalies of any kind. I have had a few experiences but not all that many. So it is very, very rare for me to come into a forum asking about this type of thing...

The following occurred about a month ago and it has taken this long for me to pry enough information out of my son and husband to research this. They both know very well that I have a long-standing interest in the "out of the ordinary" and that I have many contacts on the web to discuss such things with, so it is very odd that neither of them spoke of this incident to me until several days later, and that I did not pursue it either. The past few days, I would think about it and I then I would say to myself, "you must have dreamed this." A short while ago, during dinner, I felt the urge to bring it up again. This time I said to my husband, "Did you tell me that you and J. saw something in the living room one night, or did I dream that?" He said, "Yes, we saw something." J. kept eating and didn't react. I had to literally grab his arm and turn his face to me and say, "Could you tell me what you saw that night?" And he said, "well, okay, but it was no big deal."

It was early March, cold outside, around 9:00 p.m. No "weather" going on besides a cool night. Neither of them can pinpoint the exact date. They can't remember what they were watching on television, where I was, or where my younger son was. They "think" I was in the basement office and little one was in "the corner," an area that we have set up with an extra television, an X-box, a comfy chair and headphones with a room divider screen around it in the dining room. But they're not 100% sure.

Our living room is rectangular. J., our older boy, was sitting in a recliner against the east wall next to the (ornamental) fireplace. My husband was on the couch, which at the time was arranged with one end against the west wall (which is the front of the house) the other end extending half way into the room. They were both facing the television, my husband straight on and my son at an angle where he could see the west wall out of his peripheral vision (left eye) and the television (which is against the north wall).

We have interior wooden shutters instead of drapes on the windows in that room and they were shut tight. No windows were open either. To the best of their knowledge, it was not windy, raining, snowing or doing anything outside except it was cold.

J. saw something "dark and shadowy" out of the corner of his left eye and turned immediately toward this shadow. He saw a "slice" of darkness emanating from the area in front of the shuttered window, about half way up. This would be about four feet off the ground. He then saw a golf-ball to tennis-ball sized metallic orb, solid metal, very shiny, very reflective, seemingly appear out of the window and fly very quickly on a direct trajectory into the floor and disappear. It made no sound. My husband immediately turned around and said, "what the hell was that?" He says he felt it before he saw anything, and what he felt was a distinct "presence" that was moving "extremely fast" and he SAW the glowing orb reflected in the television screen. I asked him if it felt like when a bird flies behind you or a bee, and he said, no, I felt a "moving presence" and that's the only way I can describe it. They both said they heard no sound, felt no coldness or warmth or wind. Neither of them got up to inspect either the window or the floor. The general trajectory my son pointed out to me was a distance of about six feet; it moved from the window on a sharp angle to the floor and disappeared into the floor about two or three feet in front of the window.

To my husband's query of "what the hell was that?" my son said, "it looked like one of those spirit orbs in mom's photos." They looked at each other and went back to what they were doing, not mentioning it again.

Some days after it happened my husband briefly mentioned this to me, and although I asked him some questions I let it drop. That is VERY unlike me, btw, and I don't understand why I didn't pursue it.

Today, though, for some reason, I felt compelled to ask them about it. They didn't want to discuss it but I told them they really needed to tell me what happened. I kept saying, "Don't you guys think it's odd that, knowing me and where my interests lie, that you didn't immediately tell me about it? Especially since you think I was in the basement mere feet away from where this "thing" apparently went?" And they said again and again, "It was no big deal, it was nothing bad, we weren't scared, it wasn't negative or anything, we didn't feel that we needed to tell you." And I also think it's odd that when my husband mentioned it the first time *I* didn't pursue it any further until today. It's as if we weren't supposed to...

The orbs in my photos, btw, do not look in any way like metallic golf balls. They appear to be bubbles, some dense, some transparent, all of them quite different and totally unlike this object. I showed J. a photo and he said, "I see what you mean, but that's the first thing that popped into my head."

So...what do YOU guys think it was?"

Addendum:

"My husband just told me that he is absolutely positive that it was not a reflection of any outside light source, and that it was not ephermal or transparent in any way. He said he "perceived the presence of something that had weight and mass, moving at a high rate of speed, entering and then exiting" the vicinity. He saw its reflection in the television screen and said it looked like something "reflecting light rather than emanating light."

He said that my son NEVER mentioned that it was metallic or that a "slice of darkness" was involved until I questioned him today. They never spoke of it after my son said it was like a "spirit orb." I didn't ask leading questions in any way. Just "what happened/what did you see?" so this all came from his memory (J.'s).

My husband said he and my son were both completely unemotional about it. It just was there, and then it wasn't, and they accepted that it was real. He felt no further need to discuss it and doesn't even remember mentioning it to me a while after it happened."

This is number one on my "things that make me go Hmmm..." list at the mo'.

Eight Things About Me

2005-03-19T04:24:00.000-05:00

1. I have waist-length blonde hair and I haven't had scissors touch my hair in over three years. I started growing out my bangs in the autumn of 2001 and the former bangs are now below my shoulders. My hair is thick and naturally wavy so it must be kept on a tight leash, i.e., a single thick ponytail secured by a simple thick no-metal elastic. I stopped wearing scrunchies in public after the "Sex and the City" episode when Carrie lambastes Berger for having his main character, a Manhattan gal, running around the city with a scrunchie in her hair. My fondest wish is to wear my long hair in a thick, single braid down the middle of my back but so far, I am incapable of creating said braid. I have never had problems with manual dexterity before so this is quite perplexing. My braids appear to be created by a drunk with missing digits. This makes me feel like an idiot, as you can imagine.

2. I like wild nail polish colors. Wines so dark they look black, summery colors with names like "mango" or "candy apple," gold, silver or platinum, and anything that has a coppery or bronzey tint. I've never had a manicure because it seems ridiculous to pay someone to scrape an emery board, push back my cuticles and apply nail polish when I can do it myself while watching television, reading a magazine and smoking a cigarette. Yes, I know nail polish is flammable, but I've been smoking while painting for 25 years and I'm not about to stop now. I don't pay attention to fashion trends when it comes to nail polish or makeup, within reason of course. I'm not going to paint my nails blue and wear white lipstick or anything, but as long as makeup is applied with a light hand using newer products in colors that flatter, I don't think anyone has to slap on olive green eyeshadow and/or matte tomato-red lipstick just because it's "fresh," "right now" or makes my eyes or lips "pop," first of all because maybe .01% of women look good with matte tomato-red lipstick and secondly because I don't even know what "pop" means when it applies to my fucking face.

3. I smoke Marlboro Menthol 100's. If they're out of them, I will smoke Salem Black 100's. Should an emergency occur and neither are available I will smoke Newport 100's followed by Marlboro Menthol Light 100's. I do not like Newport Light 100's because whenever I smoke them I get smoke in my eyes. I don't know why.

4. I bought a Hamilton Beach BrewStation when my beloved black Mr.Coffee coffee maker broke and although it's cool as hell to push my cup against a button and have my java come out of the spout, the coffee basically tastes like shit because it sits in plastic instead of glass or metal. I had to run gallons of vinegar through it at first in order to get that "hot plastic" taste out of the coffee, which was annoying. And a word of advice: never, ever use a "rich french roast" in a BrewStation. You're better off to stick with columbian. I'm out $50 for this shitty new machine so I'm using the stupid thing even though I basically hate it. Next time I'm buying a combination espresso machine/coffee grinder/coffee maker with steam attachments, damn't.

5. I have bad feet. And they're big, too. Not Peggy Hill big but not petite either. Usually a 9 1/2 wide or a 10 medium. My feet are really deformed, too. Heredity sucks. I inherited my mother's horrendously bad feet so I have a bunion on each foot and on my right foot the toes are starting to cross like monkey feet. And I have multiple exostoses, or extra bones, plus (in the exact words of my podiatrist, I swear) "freakishly large" navicular bones which exert too much pressure and cause excessive pronation. Having bad feet is no fun because I can't wear very high heels or anything that shows my bunions like a cute pair of flip-flops or skimpy sandals. I'm stuck with my faux-Birkenstock Lands End slim style comfort band sandals, my Suede Hush Puppy ankle boots (they have a bit of a wedge/platform so they're stylish but they're no stilleto-heeled black knee-high fuck me boots either), my LLBean winter hiking boots, or men's sneakers. Here's a good tip: if you have bunions or just wide feet, men's sneakers fit SO much better than women's. I bought a pair of men's white leather sneakers that look like Keds from the Eddie Bauer Online Outlet last summer for less than $10. Target has cute shoes in wide sizes. My favorite pair of shoes is a pair of charcoal-grey boiled wool clogs with tiny Nittany Lions around the very top border, purchased new in the box at a garage sale for $2. I don't know the manufacturer but they wear like they're made of iron.

6. I love to burn Gonesh incense sticks or Yankee candles. My favorite fragrances in all things scented (including perfumes) are sandalwood, nag champa, spices (especially clove), patchouli, and cedarwood. The only florals I like are right from the source, as in flowers.

7. I love gardening. Flowers and some herbs, mostly, I don't have space for a vegetable garden on our 45x90 city lot. I only buy one flat of annuals for my various planters and the rest are perennials. I try to stick with native plants and wildflowers. I have lots of purple and white coneflowers, and hopefully this year my all black coneflowers will bloom. I love black-eyed susans and have several patches scattered around my property. I have some lovely thick ferns in the shady areas and tons of huge hostas which all descend from two original plants, and no matter how many times I divide these guys they manage to outgrow their homes every year. In the back of my garage, too small for a minivan so it's my all-purpose shed, I have planted some wild ginger and geraniums in the deep shade. I have a shade garden in that corner of the yard that has filled in so nicely on its own that I just let it go crazy. We have wild grape vines growing along the fence and one vine tries to choke my neighbor's skinny little maple tree every summer. He got so mad at the vine last year that with my blessing he went at it with a machete...but it will be back. It always comes back. Shudder. My wildflowers/native plants include red milkweed, Joe Pye weed, Queen Anne's Lace, cosmos (some advice: for every 1 cosmo you plant you will find five in a different area of the yard the following year because they reseed themselves), the aforementioned wild geranium and wild ginger, Prairie Blazing Star, and something called a "cup plant." The nice man who sells the native flowers, grasses and sedges told me none of the plants I bought would grow more than four feet tall. He must have forgotten that cup plants reach six-feet plus and grow leaves the size of dinner plates with disappointingly small yellow blooms. I have these behemoths at a corner of my front yard and I'm surprised I didn't have someone from the city come by and cite me for violating the "weed code." Note to self: move goddamned cup plant ASAP.

8. I have been married to the same man for 20 years; the first week of March it was 21 years since the night we met in a bar and ended up getting high out in someone's car together. We were engaged within six weeks and married within six months and every day I thank the gods that the man I married is not only my best friend but the most cunning linguist a girl could ever want who makes it his top priority that I hit at least #5 before letting me take care of him. And no, I'm not exaggerating. We've managed to produce two handsome, intelligent, alarmingly large sons, a sixth grader and a first grader, who besides eating us out of house and home are responsible for much joy, laughter and piles of dirty clothes.

I'll occasionally add to this list as things come up or if I've run out of things to talk about. Or, like tonight, I spend two hours on a brilliant post about love, sex and relationships that gets lost in the ethers because blogger said I hadn't logged in, which is a LIE or I wouldn't have been on the "create post" page, right? RIGHT? I'm wondering if Blogger times you out if you've been idle for too long. Well, lesson learned, and I'll be c&p'ing this into a notepad before navigating away from this page.

Have a (choose one or more) lazy/productive/quiet/stoned/drunken/sexy/busy/caffeinated Saturday, everyone!

2005-03-17T14:12:00.000-05:00

The Winter has been so very long, and I long for Spring. I've started thinking about my flower gardens, thinking about the feel of dirt between my fingers and the smell of rich warm earth and rain. It will be wonderful to see some color in the landscape rather than white, brown and dull, dark green...the evergreens even look sad. I have yet to experience a morning when I didn't have to scrape ice from my windshield. Children are restless...they want to run outside without a coat and not worry about slipping on ice and mud. Today, it is 40-ish, which feels balmy, but it doesn't feel Springy yet. The air still smells sterile and crisp, no whiff of Spring on the breeze; the ground is hard and frozen. Mornings, though, the birds are singing their little hearts out, doing their best to stir the life still sleeping under the frost, to coax the trees into budding and the insects and animals and frogs to awaken and join them. Crows that spent the winter in warmer climes have joined those who held down the fort here at home, and this morning a single arrow of geese flew northward toward the lake, low enough that I could hear them shouting back and forth to one another in a cacaphony of honks. But the sun shines feebly...the ice holds fast to the pavement...blackened rows of ancient snow dumped by an army of plows line the streets and parking lots, so dense that it will take days and days of 60-degree temperatures to melt...I have yet to see a single robin, surely the most definite harbinger of Spring...no chorus of peepers at dusk...not even a single annoying housefly to assure me that this winter will ever end.
I long to feel the warmth of the sun, to smell freshly cut grass, glimpse a tiny purple crocus, hear a Spring thunderstorm, see kids in yellow slickers, store the piles of boots and coats and gloves and hats...

I need a change of season. Wintry weather began in November and there has been little if any respite since then.

Where are you, Spring?

Let's talk about sex, baby

2005-02-27T17:47:00.000-05:00

There are some amazingly talented and incredibly horny columnists and bloggers thriving on the internet right under the noses of the Radical Religous Right's crusade against tits, F-words, and everything else that makes life interesting. It's all so reminiscent of Victorian England where the peeps were so very prim and proper on the outside and a bunch of sex maniacs once behind closed doors. The stronger the suppression of our natural urges, the more debauched the society becomes. There must be an outlet such as erotica or society would explode. Literally. Heh. I spent the first five years on the internet too paranoid to click on anything remotely resembling the "P-word" (or "pRon" as the cool kids say) and by accident I found Rachel Kramer Bussel's VV column when poking around the site after getting my weekly Michael Musto fix of celebrity gossip. It was very life-affirming to read such frank (and frankly sexy) stuff right after the '04 election.

On the off chance that you haven't heard of these writers, I thought I'd share three of my favorites with my new readers. Consider it my virtual Oscar night goodie bag for you.

In no particular order, please check out:

Lusty Lady
Rachel Kramer Bussel's monthly Village Voice column. The current column is "Personal-Ad Adventure: Girlfriend gives her guy a special gift: Rachel in a live lesbian sex show."

Savage Love
Dan Savage's weekly Village Voice column holds nothing back. Be brave. Not for the easily offended. In fact, none of these are for the easily offended, so just don't click.

Susie Bright's Journal
Susie is a "sex writer" who also happens to be brilliant. Her blog is not just about sex. You will find razor-sharp social commentary but more importantly, Susie is a wonderful person.

Now go read some dirty stuff.

Hunter S. Thompson

2005-02-26T13:07:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking a lot about Hunter S. Thompson's recent suicide. I sought out some of his essays, letters, interviews, and quotes, and found some excellent resources, like Gonzo.org which contains links to news stories and some very moving tributes, and Hunter S. Thompson's Wikiquote which includes some of his most famous (and infamous) quotes.

There is no doubt that he was (as are about half of his fellow Americans) very upset with the current Administration and the direction in which this country is heading. I've read more than a few comments that claim his true genius was only in his 1960s through 1970's reporting; that the accumulation of drugs and drink had done a lot of damage and his recent writings aren't to be taken as seriously as his early stuff.

I think that's absolute bullshit, and a very typical way for the bought-and-paid-for mainstream media in this country to dissuade people from paying attention to his anti-Bush tirades. Judging by what I've read of his recent material, he sounds no more crazed than most of the rants I see all over the internet on the so-called Alternative News sites. And by the way, I am really sick of seeing anything not from the major news sites labeled "alternative." Unless "alternative" is now shorthand for "real news." Huh. I guess it is, now that I think about it.

One article in particular (you can find it here) is a balls-to-the-wall tirade by Thompson and these sentences leaped off the page at me:

Okay. That's it for now. Read it and weep....See you tomorrow, folks. You haven't heard the last of me. I am the one who speaks for the spirit of freedom and decency in you. Shit. Somebody has to do it.

I can't help wondering now if Hunter S. Thompson took his own life because he knew it was the only way he could get his message out to the masses. I just read that sales of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and other favorites by Hunter S. Thompson have soared since the "gonzo" journalist killed himself Sunday.

What if? How many people have read his words in the past six days? People who might not have ever Googled "Hunter S. Thompson" thus never read what he has to say about the War in Iraq, the NeoCons, President Bush, and 9/11. His close and enduring friendship with Pat Buchanan, no fan of the NeoCons either, should lend credence to his words to "true Conservatives" and his close alignment with the "counterculture" should resonate with young people first exploring his works.

I do not know what was happening in the man's life, whether he'd recently received a diagnosis of a terminal illness, or a disease that would rob him of his mobility and independence. I do know that he had been talking about suicide for some time now with his wife, his son, and his friends.

There is no doubt in my mind (or in my heart) that, having lived a wild life of fantasies fulfilled and fantastic adventures both real and chemically induced, he made a conscious decision that it was time to go. And he knew that his words would be read in the following days and weeks more than at any one point in his career. Words that read like this:

Yeah, the mainstream press is...in the bag, in the pocket of Bush and the military and they seem to like it there...the press in general, the media, the TV, is doing a disgraceful job in covering this situation in this country and around the world. This is where I have to bring some subjectivity into it that I believe is right! A president that came in here, uhhh... about two years ago...Barely elected, yeah, and I guess it's only been two years, and he's taken this nation from a...prosperous nation at peace to a broke nation at war.

(via WRH)

and like this:

"There was one exact moment, in fact, when I knew for sure that Al Gore would Never be President of the United States, no matter what the experts were saying -- and that was when the whole Bush family suddenly appeared on TV and openly scoffed at the idea of Gore winning Florida. It was Nonsense, said the Candidate, Utter nonsense. . .Anybody who believed Bush had lost Florida was a Fool. The Media, all of them, were Liars & Dunces or treacherous whores trying to sabotage his victory. . . Here was the whole bloody Family laughing & hooting & sneering at the dumbness of the whole world on National TV. The old man was the real tip-off. The leer on his face was almost frightening. It was like looking into the eyes of a tall hyena with a living sheep in its mouth. The sheep's fate was sealed, and so was Al Gore's."

"[T]his blizzard of mind-warping war propaganda out of Washington is building up steam. Monday is Anthrax, Tuesday is Bankruptcy, Friday is Child-Rape, Thursday is Bomb-scares, etc., etc., etc.... If we believed all the brutal, frat-boy threats coming out of the White House, we would be dead before Sunday. It is pure and savage terrorism reminiscent of Nazi Germany."

"We are turning into a nation of whimpering slaves to Fear -- fear of war, fear of poverty, fear of random terrorism, fear of getting down-sized or fired because of the plunging economy, fear of getting evicted for bad debts, or suddenly getting locked up in a military detention camp on vague charges of being a Terrorist sympathizer."

"If we get chased out of Iraq with our tail between our legs, that will be the fifth consecutive Third-world country with no hint of a Navy or an Air Force to have whipped us in the past 40 years."

(via About.com)

I'm right about this. I know it.

See you around, Hunter S. Thompson. I never met you, never knew you at all, but you've had a profound influence on my life. And it looks like you chose this time to make a grand exit so that your words might influence millions more at a most critical time in our country's history. Hell, our family motto came from you:

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."

Thanks, man.

Welcome to my world

2005-02-26T04:25:00.000-05:00

Since it's very late, or very early depending on your point of view, my very first post will be severely lacking in the witty, sarcastic, blunt, profane, deeply moving, brutally honest and grammatically perfect prose that you will soon come to know and hopefully, love. Mr. Caff and I decided to pull an all-nighter tonight, you see, and I felt like starting up one of these blog-thingies I keep hearing about. Although we're waaaay past our college years, we pull all-nighters on a regular basis just to hang out together without the constant din of kids, cartoons and videogames that discourage actual communication beyond "Did you remember to..." "Yes, I called her this morning, and she..." "Wants me to come down and see what's wrong with her answering machine, damn't, I forgot about that. Oh, by the way, remind me to..." "I already put a note on your desk because I was afraid you would...WTH ARE YOU GUYS DOING OUT THERE? FINISH EATING, GET DRESSED, BRUSH YOUR TEETH AND BE SURE TO WEAR BOOTS AND GLOVES AND...you know, I think they're completely ignoring me." "They ran upstairs before you got two words out." "Sigh." "Sigh."

So we stay up all night maybe once a week or so and get movies on In Demand, or sit down here in the office on our computers, surfing and bullshitting, like we are tonight. It's very important to remain best friends with your spouse or life partner, because when the going gets tough, it's too damned easy to forget just what it was about that person that made you think you could spend the rest of your life with him or her.

LOL. I just realized that for many of you reading this, your first reaction to the thought of pulling an all-nighter with your significant other is a tingly feeling in your nether regions. Yeah, we've done that also, but we've been married for a long time and a good conversation can be as satisfying as a good roll in the hay...note that I said can be - we may be in our 40's but we're not dead yet. *nudge nudge wink wink*

I've been sitting here too long and my ass is getting numb, plus I have to pee, so this is it for my very first blog entry. Come back soon to see what I'm doing with the place.