Sarajoy FRESH!

I want you to meet my friend:

2012-02-02T10:16:00.000-08:00

I like the U of Idaho's Women's Center. A more progressive, inclusive, visionary project can not be found. This place is all over all the gender issues of our time. And so I feel honored to be invited to occasionally guest blog for them.

Here is my latest: BOY WHIPS HAIR BACK AND FORTH - WORLD ENDS IN FLAMES!!!!!
And here's a previous: The Stay-at-home-Feminist

I hope you enjoy!

2009 Pullman crazy hair day

And also. This morning. It was very icy. Rain had frozen. I salted the stairs when I did my morning chores. Blue's carpool arrived. In that endearing way of all preteens, she screamed at me for putting her coat on wrong... as if I'd actually touched it and am actually in the habit of helping her put coats on. I believe she was six months old when she forcefully relieved me of that duty. In the mayhem, both front doors were opened and kitty Cosmos escaped. I ran after him in my socks. Slipped on the the front porch, the part I didn't de-ice because no one ever steps there. The kitten ran inside. The concerned carpool lady got out of her car. My neck, wrists and butt hurt. And I there I am, standing in my velour, leopard print leggings which I love and which fit nicely under my barn overalls, but still, they are for immediate-family eyes only. And I'm wearing a hot pink shirt. I am Peggy Bundy. My pride is seriously bruised.

2009 Barter Hair

Another thing about Blue is that her hair is just like Huck's hair, blond and easily dredded. She must comb it every day, twice a day to avoid dreds. And for years I have counseled her on ways to make this task easier. Having recently reached my limit on hair drama, Huck stepped in. And together they worked out the knots. That girl game down stairs, fluffing her hair and talking about how it was great to finally have combed out hair and to finally have gotten decent instructions from someone who actually knows her type of hair. Huck. HUCK! The man, for the 12 years I've known him, either has dreds or a shaved head. Yes, THAT Huck. On what planet does Huck know hair care? And all he does is repeat THE EXACT SAME INSTRUCTIONS I'VE BEEN GIVING FOR YEARS! But coming from Huck, well, they were believable and doable. I don't even know why I live here some times.

Sunset saved me!

2012-01-29T12:26:00.000-08:00

Ebey's Landing c. 1997

Oh thank GOD my Sunset mag finally arrived! I was feeling so lost without it! I had completely frozen up in confusion and indecision: What should I plant this spring? What wine should I drink? Oh... dear god... if you love me at all pleasepleaseplease make Sunset arrive! I'm a lost wretch without it. I need Sunset, my life depends on it, to tell me what to do, to try, to eat and where to go. I can't figure it out on my own! Oh! Help me! oh god....

Sunset's calling is to tell us all what is hip and how to be hip. That they ever mention anything specific in Portland baffles me. All they need to say is "Portland." Check out this Portland cupcake nook in Portland. This Portland store has the Portlandiest aprons. I feel so Portlandy in these recycled underroos. Portland is so Portland that the last time I was there (less than a year ago) I ended up at a nudist co-op, hot-tubbing under the stars, in the middle of the city. And that's only because the Queer Square-dancing was cancelled (queer: in ALL it's possible meanings), so my host jogged us a few blocks over for relaxation among strangers-in-the-buff.

In this issue, Sunset dictates to me that they've, "Found your new hometown!" Oh yes! Yes! Did you find me a job there too? Or are you saying they've got a tiptop homeless shelter? They also have a series of stereotyped "Westerners" in cartoon format, unironically called "rugged individuals". Fleece vest, black lab, designer kicks. Thanks. We're all just caricatures now.

St. Edwards State Park grotto

My loathing for Sunset is also about how they reveal all my sacred spaces to the world. It feels as if this beautiful glossy rag shows up, you open it, and some how it's all close-ups of your vj. It feels invasive, shocking, insulting. St. Edwards State Park (where we had our unofficiated, unrehersed, unplanned, improper unwedding), Ebey's Landing, Taft Beach, and Ainsworth Hot Springs. I'll never get a good room there now! It's disgusting. All the Northwest secrets spots, EXPOSED. Is nothing sacred?

But here's my favorite: "5 Sparkling Wine Customs That Must Die". Coming in at Number Five is this very helpful hint: "The mason jar: serving sparklers in canning jars was fun for five minutes in the '80's. Get over it." Sweet! Personally, canning jars are kinda expensive and I would never risk chipping one in the hum drum daily grind of champagne quaffing, not when I can get perfectly good glasses for $.50 at Goodwill. But snarky Sunset! shit! And that comment comes after a little montage of readers' favorite things about the Northwest including: no one cares who your Daddy and Mummy were, people who don't worry about ironing their clothes, friendly people who make eye contact and positive attitudes, and ALSO people who are very concerned and critical about how others drink their bubbly. Yes, my favorite thing about the Northwest is that I have Sunset to save me from my quirky self by telling me just what not to drink out of. Where once I was lost, now I am found, twas Sunset that saved a wretch like me.

Wedding cake with shaggy friends

Why do I get Sunset? It was a gift I requested: Gardening Porn. That's the main point.

With fashion magazines, I'm impervious to the usual, well-researched malaise and self-loathing that most women experience after their first five minutes of perusal. I had this experience when I was a teen where I was looking for an article in my stack of Seventeen's. After an hour, I hadn't found the article, but I did have an entire page listing beauty products I absolutely MUST HAVE. After criticizing myself in the mirror for a while, I suddenly realized that before I read those magazines I felt okay. And the only thing possibly responsible for the shift was the magazines. They are advertisements designed to make you unsatisfied with life as it is and, like all good proselytizing, they then have a handy solution for the problem they just manifested. Just $10 for the right mascara! After that, I regarded them as a nuisance or a joke. And they have little to no affect on me...I think...for the most part...except they're part of this larger cultural thing that does affect me.

Taft Beach (that's my sister; I'm taking the photo)

Sunset does too. It deals in envy. After just 15 minutes of gazing at orderly walkways, burgeoning flower gardens, ecstatic garden art, impossibly kept vegetable rows, I can get really down on my weedy plot of chaos, my less than organized house, my un-white walls, my un-crisp lines. A mowed weave through the weeds is my path. Just like the before/after photoshop pictures of models circulating these days, I'd like to see before Sunset-photo-set-up-crew photos too. These gardens can't be pristine 365 days a year, right?

How about this article? How Does a Family Manage to Produce Only Two Handfuls of Trash Per Year?
Answer: by being insane and lying and then making you feel like a hog who wantonly lets their children use our world's precious resources to make ART, of all the useless things.

Sunset's Next crass exposure: Cashmere

I actually do like their loco-vore angle. And how they make superstars out of sustainability and DIY foodiness. Their healthy, quick recipes are good for a spin and I can usually find one vegetarian/gluten free thing in each issue that replaces a worn out regular on our menu.

Sunset: I love you. I hate you. You are a hot mess, as they say. But you can't save me from myself. I'm going to have some beyond-Portland homemade hard cider in a mason jar now, just to watch you freak with envy and angst.

The Can Can

2012-01-25T14:39:00.000-08:00

Huck's been out of town and it's given me a chance to appreciate my friends who have kept me company, stepped in to help with child care, and hosted us for good times. And you all seem to enjoy my canned goods, too. What more can a girl want?

Canned goods are subject to a wide array of responses and as an avid canner, there's only one response I like.

Huck thought to honor my 2011 collection with a photo

"OH. Home made pickles. John, look. Sarajoy brought us Home Made Botulism! How thoughtful!" "John" takes jar in latex-gloved hand directly to garbage. His face says he wishes the toxic waste disposal station was open at these kinds of hours, in these kinds of crises. End Scene.

Botulism happens. Obviously. And I'd like to point out to "John" that that's how I got the name Botulism Mom. That's how I roll. I feed my kids homegrown hospitalization on a regular basis. What about tubes down the throat isn't healthy for kids? 9-1-1 is on my speed dial. And I consider a weekly chat with my local EMT squad an essential part of The Good Life.

But if "John" dear insists on the "safety" of the global food system which hasn't ever produced a death (except for ecoli spinach, crazy cantaloupes, etc), what can I say? I'll just keep my canned goods to myself or circulate them among people who can (harhar) appreciate that I planted, fertilized and weeded every damn strawberry, cucumber, beet and ALL the salsa ingredients. I picked, stemmed and washed them. I made jam and salsa and then processed these things in jars I pre-sterilized. Maybe I am crazy.

I've been canning low risk, high acid foods for 10 years. I use the most recent USDA recipes and recommendations. And I'm not canning meat or beans or bathtub hooch. Yes, I was taught canning by a nearly homeless man with Hep C back in my Seattle Daze. He also taught me how to make pumpkin pie from scratch and he was the original guerrilla gardener, before it became hip. So he was a bit hygienically challenged, but when your salsa is made with the world's best disinfectant (vinegar) and boils for 30 minutes before you seal it up in 20 minutes of boiling water, you've kinda covered your bases.

Coyote '05: my commitment to a sanitary conditions is unquestionable

While cooking, I try to conjure up a feeling of love for the eaters of these dishes. Or I used to. I'm getting a little sick of the parental cooking grind and so I've backed off on trying so hard with the love in the dishes because that's just too much effort and intention for three meals a day with a hefty side of complaints. But when I "can", there is no love left. All the love went out the open windows long ago. It's usually a hot August day and instead of lounging beach-side with a Pina Colada watching the life guard watching my kids, I've CHOSEN to hole myself up with two pots of boiling jam, vinegar, or salsa, and two larger pots of boiling water. I have spent hours already assembling and prepping ingredients and disinfecting my kitchen before I even start this process. And now I am, damn it, going to effing can until midnight. I Pump Up the energy and Jam with some '80's pop, but all too soon my pizzazz turns dark and I begin cursing. "Those effers better LOVE this shit! I hope they taste the sweat of my brow in every goll dern bite. Why the hell do I do this to myself?" My enraged insanity is probably the most dangerous ingredient in this stuff.

A friend suggested we "can" together and I could show her the ropes. But I'm not sure our friendship could survive it. I barely do. However, I'm still enjoying my 5 1/2 gallons of green tomato salsa (you gotta build your unripe tomato recipe repertoire in this climate). My pickles are inconsistent, but when you hit a good jar it's like heaven/orgasm. And my strawberry jam tastes like you've gotten distracted on a warm summer day and are laying down between the rows of strawberries, sniffing their sweet scent, staring up at the imaginative clouds, listening to the ecstatic hymns of birds, and occasionally sitting up to eat berries by the handful out of the bucket you were supposed to bring back to the house to make jam out of.

So a big thank you to all of my brave and wonderful friends who bravely try and seem to enjoy my canned goods. Never mind that bitter taste, it's so full of good that you should survive psychically unscathed by that last push to preserve the holy revelations of our good earth.

In addition to canning, I do make my own cheese and yogurt and sometimes icecream and butter. I also grow and wild harvest then dry a ton of herbs and mix them into yummy teas (that my kids prefer over any other kind) specific to whatever we need: immunity boosts, stomach calming, anxiety relief, cough, fever, migraines, afternoon with friends, etc, etc. I was making tea for a friend I'd known a few years and she wandered in to the kitchen at the moment I was opening my herb cupboard and she stood in awe of my collection of medicinal herbs. And she asked, "How come I never knew you did this too?" I don't know. I just never comes up. So, now you know. I have a lot of cupboard space devoted to the glass jars and parts of my basement look like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

Some herbs in my basement 2011

The high school I attended (for the first two years) in Bellingham was close to "down town" where I had a job at Bellingham's first espresso place (pure conjecture... I can't prove it... but I'm pretty sure that it was) called The Cookie Cafe. My dad took me to The Cookie Cafe once when I was about 8 or 9 and I immediately went home to journal about how much I wanted to work there when I was a teenager. I did not remember that until a month ago when Blue and I found and read that journal together. And I said, "OH MY GOD! I DID work there!" ...for a totally lecherous boss who later lost the business to a class action sexual harassment lawsuit (that's what I heard anyway and I believe it). But the point is that between school letting out and my shift starting at the cafe, I'd have some time to wander around and one day I wOndered into Wonderland Teas, an herbal apothecary, and I was hooked. I fell hard. I visited often. I tried many of their teas. And herbs have been an essential and evermore potent part of my life lo these 21 years since.

I felt obligated to tell you that so that you'll never be able to say to me: Why didn't I ever know that was such a big part of Sarajoy's life? How come she never told ME about it!? I told you. So now you know: I'm a crazy DYI home maker.

Sell me Something Good

2012-01-07T09:41:00.000-08:00

Actually, I'm not done talking about Christmas.

Let's talk about Christmas shopping, shall we?

I know my face doesn't announce money. You can tell I've had no work done (See prior blog post), the hallmark of wealth apparently. I'm sure I've benefited from lookism at some time or another, but I don't notice those times. I just notice the times when some one looks at me, assesses my monetary status and then ignores me, pecuniary lookism. In ye old '94 Oldsmobile, I experience a lot of income-profiling. Pulled over 'cuz my blinker seemed a little weak. In largely white communities, white privilege doesn't exist. Income is the thing. Imbeciles turn to money to judge a person, because judging must be done, right? How else can you tell the right people from the wrong people?

I've been told the income of my youth and my current bank statement are written all over my face for those fluent in that language. We poor folks have an openness, an innocence, a void where presumptuous superiority should go. And somehow these shop keepers can see that.

Another job in sales: 3yrs at Seattle Farmers Markets. I'm now gluten-intolerant

The Kitchen Engine, is repeat offender number one. I've been in there frequently enough to know this ain't no accident. The first two times, I gave the benefit of the doubt. But the last three can't possibly be a mistake. Here's how it goes: I walk in and set to browsing or looking for that thing I need. And no one says a thing, no howdy, no can I help you find something, nothing. And that's fine, at least they're not shadowing me around the store making sure I don't pick anything up. The problem begins when I hear the click click click of high heels enter the store. And here comes a fancy looking lady, a RICH lady. And suddenly all three staff members surround her and ask her what she's looking for, they offer her coffee, they beg to help her. And so that is why I resolve to buy all my specialty kitchen gear on line now, where people can't tell how much money I have and they don't care. No, I am not looking for an expensive knife set and I no longer want fancy pie plates because I just can't handle the pain when they break.

My revenge is that these high-heeled prissy pants are a pain in the ass to help. Inevitably, they have no idea what they are looking for and whatever is offered isn't quite it. It really tickles me to see them give the staff such a hard time... because they can.

And that's what befuddles me. We're talking STAFF. Not owners. Not investors. We're talking non-commission employees who are snooty to people who are a lot like them. It doesn't make any sense, to violate your own good sense of equality, your own "class," for the sake of the shop owner, who enjoys fine cognac in her hot tub thanks to the sales you make. You say to the world, these people and me too, our class is not worthy. Anyway, I can't imagine sales can improve over cherry picking customers, worshiping some and making others feels like shit.

At "Van Cleef and Arpels" Cozumel. I am the white girl.

I was a commission-only jewelry sales girl on an island off Mexico. And I wasn't snooty to anyone, and kept open mind. And thus got my biggest sale ever. Among the crowds of super-sized cruise-ship tourists sorting through their multiple maxed-out credit cards for one that would take (seriously skewing my coworkers' perspective of Americans), wandered in a little old Mexican lady in Keds knock-offs. Her sales girl quickly ditched her, saying "Quien es la Ultima?" Who's the last in line? Because she wanted to queue up for another customer, a better one. I was at my station among the diamond bracelets and noticed this little old lady wandering around, abandoned. In my best Spanish, which I'd picked up in two months (two years of high school Spanish did NOT help, but hindered and was best forgotten. The best way to learn a foreign language is to have your life depend on it and to get drunk so you can loose your inhibitions. Drinking makes speaking foreign languages - among many other things - a lot easier.) She had some nieces, see, who were graduating and she needed to get them identical items. I showed her our cheapest rings. No, she said, something more expensive....something very nice. Incredulously, I worked us up to the diamond tennis bracelets, worth thousands and thousands. Those would do. I'll take four. Really?! Really?! Yes! Because this was apparently one of the wealthiest women in Mexico, on vacation from Mexico City where she owned several fancy girls' schools. She complimented my Spanish and my kindness and left me with a commission nearly large enough to pay for a plane ticket home.

After she left, a melee broke out with the first sales girl claiming I'd stolen her customer and all her Mexican comrades lining up behind her in solidarity -- just like a greedy American to STEAL a rich customer. And in my favorite Spanish tirade of all time (mixed in with some Mayan cussing I'd learned from my roommates), I let fly. Excuse me! But who here heard her say "Quien es la Ultima?" when that lady was still in the store? Everyone heard. But still...I'd stolen the highest paying customer they'd had all season. Buoyed by the bracelet-buyers compliments, I went on: just because I'm white and I don't speak Spanish as well as the rest of you, you think I don't know the rules. You think I can't understand the rules. You think I can't understand what you're saying. You think you can change the rules because I'm a foreigner, I'm just a stupid greedy white girl. But that's racist. Are you going to have one set of rules for Mexican employees and another for Americans? Everyone heard her say "Quien es la Ultima." And I found this lady wandering around without anyone even watching her... Their mouths were agape. The tide turned. Everyone was mad at the other girl for being so stupid... and slightly racist herself both against me, the white girl, and the Mexican woman.... everyone knows Mexicans don't have any money, right.

A later Mexico trip: camping/hitchhiking Baja with Huck and Blue

Not that I'm about to buy 12 sets of $1000 pots and pans. It's just a stupid idea to judge people by their looks and to treat anyone as "less-than" for any reason, money, color, gender, et al.. Judging them once you know something about them is called exercising good judgment. Good judgement doesn't have anything to do with money or the appearance of having it. I know you already knew that, or else you wouldn't be reading my blog. Only people with good and fair judgement read my blog. You could be reading some shallow blog about giving liposuction vouchers to your seven year old so that they too can avoid the cold shoulders of idiotic classist sales people. But instead, you are here.

Also, I need to update you on my picky-eater's latest issue. I get crap for Coyote's choosiness, like it's my fault. He's choosy, for guy with NO access to white bread or American cheese. He eats most fruit, many non-green vegetables and a good assortment of whole grains and cheeses and beans... as long as it's all separate. Blue picks salads for her Birthday dinners. She loves cooked greens. And eats her crusts first. Thank god we had a second, very different kid, or we'd think that was all our doing. Coyote's just picky and that's all. He's got hallmarks of a super-taster, as do I. He once told me that (lets see how I can say this without making it sound like that's all we give him....) he could taste sugar in some potato chips and so he wouldn't eat them. Incredulous, I read the ingredients and he was right. So at his class holiday party, they were to make Reindeer sandwiches and eat them. Believe me, I asked a lot of questions and I'm still not clear on how a sandwich turns into a reindeer. At any rate, it involved something called Easy Cheese, like cheese wizz, but newer. And Coyote asked: if he made the sandwich, would he HAVE to use Easy Cheese? For some incomprehensible reason the answer was yes. And would he have to EAT said sandwich? Yes again. Coyote then decided that instead of participating in the party at all and being forced to eat Easy Cheese, he would rather read in the corner by himself. And so he did. That, my dear readers, is the right kind of picky eater. That boy can tell the good from the bad. He is a boy of good judgement.

Winter Dreams

2012-01-03T12:05:00.000-08:00

What could be more exciting than a January showing of Cows on Ice?

Let us review our thrilling Christmas adventures.

Finally time to wake up!

1) the Great Christmas Chicken Die off of 2011 will go down as one of Lucky Farm's more gruesome Christmas surprises. Chicken number 1 was eventually butchered, our neighbors tell us. Two of my remaining three chickens also came down with the mystery illness. A bazillion phone trees later I discovered that the cure for most chicken ailments is called: buying new ones in the spring. No one could figure out what was wrong with them. The state Avian office offered a necropsy on those already dead. All I had to do was OVERNIGHT the corpse of Goldilocks to Puyallup and for an additional $40, they'd do an autopsy. It left me with many questions chief of which was: it's legal to mail dead chickens? feces, diseases and all? I ended up spoon feeding my sick chickens antibiotics and vitamins. One made it and the other died quicker than expected. My neighbors visited on Christmas Eve to show me how to butcher my chicken. But when we grabbed her, she was already dead. "Thanks for coming by. Some other time maybe." And so I bagged her up and put her in the garbage can where she was festively buried under Christmas wrapping paper and then toted to the curb.

Christmas sunrise

The only chicken that didn't fall ill was my scrawny one, the one that lost feathers two years ago in an unfortunate molting and never grew them back. All farm visitors eventually say something like, "My GOD! What's wrong with that chicken?" My response now is "Who the hell cares? She not sick and she lays a good egg."

This whole affair required Huck and I to spend half a day sterilizing the coop in a memorable holiday family project.

2) Christmas morning began at 2 am, when footsteps on the stairs interrupted one of the worst possible uses of the dreaming subconscious known to man. It was a test dream. But it wasn't a paper test. I was standing in front of the kitchen drainboard being timed on how fast I could name each odd object in it and state where it went in the kitchen. This was followed by a test on the brands and uses of all my boxes of plastic wrap, aluminum foil, sandwhich bags, etc. I could be having sex with movie stars. I could be flying over the plains of Africa. I could be socializing with meteors on the Kuiper Belt (a dream still in my top 10), I could be chasing green snakes around the church sanctuary of my youth. But instead I was enduring a high pressure grilling on kitchen implements.

After intercepting the kids and putting a timer on them I went back to bed, but I refused to go back to sleep. If that's the kind of shlock my brain thinks up, I'm not doing it. At five I hadn't heard the kids yet, so I snuck up stairs and turned off the timer, only to hear a sharp. "Mom! What are you doing!"

YES! A digital dictionary! Geek Blue

3) In Huck's stocking he got a white chocolate candy bar and broke off a generous hunk for me. Which sent me in to immediate, debilitating and burning hives. I took a non-drowsy antihistamine and then endured my typical response to uppers of nausea and shaking. Merry Christmas. I went back to bed.

I've had low-grade abdominal hives for over a month. I think I'm allergic to "pea soup fog." Or Winter Solstice. Or underwear.

4) My parents and sister bravely trekked across miles of highway in my dad's seat-heated Audi. God bless their warm buns. With my family here an insane amount of dishes are dirtied and washed. They do almost all of the cleaning, but SOMEONE has to put them all away. The key is to keep on the drain board. And so it's like this Perfection Game (Watch the 1992 Ad!), the timer ticking and I have to get all the pieces in their slots before the next meal, where is all will explode in my face if it's not done. And if someone should try to help, I will have to describe the place where those skewers go, the tea strainer, the bottle opener: cupboard, drawer, left, right, up, down, corner, left of the sink, right of the oven, under the fridge. How do you describe a location on a Lazy Susan?

Opa shelving Cosmos

5) My dad bought Coyote a remote controlled helicopter. Needing more space then even our cavernous basement contains, my father took Coyote and the helicopter "Hank" out for a spin, despite 276 warnings on the box alone (not to mention the directions no one read) that it was an indoor toy ONLY. A few spins in the sun, and suddenly Hank was wanting his freedom. He shot up two hundred feet, changed direction, and headed straight to the airport: ten miles away. You can see the tower from our house. One wonders what the air traffic controllers thought as a minor helicopter spent the days after Christmas ramming against their window, perhaps one among a swarm of Christmas copters. Incredulous and sheepish, the whirly birders returned. Opa finally read the directions. The throttle on the thing is infra-red controlled and the sun has a lot of infra-red energy to command the copter. Also, the FAA won't let it have a closed channel, so once at 200 feet, Hank was taking directions from anyone he chose. And he chose the airport.

Women need power drills.

Also this January, I've been attracted to a book about autopsies. It's part text book, part "Real world CSI- behind the scenes." It's terribly written but the information is utterly enticing. It's my bedtime reading in hopes of preventing any more kitchen crap tests.

Happy New Year!

Chickens of a Lesser God

2011-12-21T15:33:00.000-08:00

Cosmos will be spades more adorable when he learns where to put the poop. Blue's Christmas present isn't yet clear on the fact that the Norfolk Island Pine in the dining room is not a fancy outhouse.

We visited several shelters to find Blue a kitten and when they didn't have one, the question was posed, "Why not a cat?" And I was tempted, yes, especially by the Main Coon calico. But the issue is that since holding our friend's baby, Blue has been wanting one of "our" own. Begging.
And I say, "Babies are a lot of work. I'm not really up for another round of that and I'm happy with what I've got." (Although some days I load the kids in the car and think, "That was too easy," so I momentarily look around for our "third" kid.)
So then Blue says, "We could adopt!"
giggle giggle "Making the baby isn't the hard part."
"Can I have a kitten instead?"
Baby vs. Kitten: Where would you tell your bookie to put your bet? It's not a turtle, lizard, bird or marsupial. We're already doing the "cat thing", living the cat lifestyle. We know a good cat-sitter. And maybe this will keep her from snooping in my room again and throwing out our birthcontrol method. So no, dear shelter workers in all your guilt-tripping glory, we aren't getting a cat this time. We're getting a kitten. King Louis, world's most glorious cat: gorgeous, charming, gopher killer and fully eligible for well-deserved narcissism, came to us from a shelter eight years ago. We love him. But Blue wants a kitten.

Coyote offering comfort to the King

The shelter also had dogs. I shocked us all by suggesting that out of curiosity and just for fun we walk down dog alley. The psychic energy hit me hard. The eyes, shaped just so. The silent doggie pleas screaming in to my head: I NEED someone to love. By the time I realized what was happening, it was too late. I was hysterically bawling.
"We're getting a dog!" I smeared the snot along my sleeve.
"We came for a kitten. We're not getting a dog." Huck held his ground.
"But we talked about getting a dog once, a few years ago!" WAAAAA WAAAAA.
"We came for a kitten. They don't have kittens. We are leaving. Now."
"Kitten, dog, whatever! These animals are in pain. And I can stop it. I am the Jesus Christ of dogs! I am their savior!" Cry. Whine. Sulk.

We finally found a kitten at the pet store. It was discounted and Blue couldn't figure out how it had been there for a whole month. Because I am her mother, she's well aware of the history of black-cat lore and not impressed with superstition. Norse goddess Freya, in a star-studded cloak, rode (rides?) in a chariot pulled by two black cats. When the Christians came to convert the Norwegians, they turned all the evil goddess stuff in to bad luck. Friday. Freya's number 13. And black cats. Luckily, they left the stars out of their religious wars. So it didn't occur to Blue that black cats should be left on the shelf.

Cosmos has amazing vertical leap. You might be standing in the kitchen and suddenly there are claws in your back and you scream in a key not known to man. Or maybe you are eating breakfast and Cosmos wants to jump on your lap but he doesn't want to hit his head on the table again, so suddenly you find a kitten with crampons climbing up your leg. Maybe a baby would be less taxing.

The kitten wrote a little poem this morning while he was waiting for people to wake up:

Kitten of a Lesser God
There is an emptiness
in my bowl and my belly
and someplace else.

My god sits and turns the pages so slowly.

She could fill my silver bowl
with gold stars and I would be so happy.

Am I not a good kitty?
Do I not train hard for the hunt?
Am I not soft and are my eyes not the greenest?
Do I not poop in my box most times?

My god says I am good.
My god loves me.
So why do I feel this hunger
so deeply, for so much.

What can be filled are my lungs.
What can be said is Meow.
And I will go to the parents of my god
and I will say
all night and
all night:
Feed me.

Something comes, something leaves. My last Buff Orpington, Goldilocks, has joined the living dead. She keeled over nearly two days ago. My chicken's head went limp, her eyes are black x's, and she's been curled up in a pile of chicken shit for two days. The smell could kill anyone. So I kept moving her head, but she obstinately shoved it back in the pile. Again and again. But she's still breathing. For TWO DAYS. No food. No water. Huck even tried preparing her a grave, but the ground is too frozen. "She'll be dead by morning." "She'll be dead by the time Huck gets home from work and then he can bag her up and put her in the garbage can." "She'll be dead by morning. She has to be." So this morning when she was still breathing, I knew enough was enough. I have no idea how to kill a chicken. I mean, I could do it lots of ways: suffocation, sledge hammer, lawn mower, saw, ax (if I could lift it). But I didn't feel like it for some reason. My neighbors butcher chickens all the time. Maria was at work, but said Sergei could do it. I boxed her up and delivered her like a neighborly Christmas gift. I was expecting to learn how to kill a chicken. To watch and see just what Sergei did. But Sergei was heading out the door and just shoved the box in his garage. He barely speaks English, so I was wondering if we had a language-based misunderstanding, after all the whole point was to put the thing out of it rasping, shuddering misery. "That a sick chicken." He says. "Are you going to kill it?" I ask. "Later. I have to go now." And Sergei leaves. So instead of dying among it's familiar piles of chicken shit, Goldilocks is laboring through her last gasps in a strange garage down the street. Luckily chickens can't make their eyes go puppy-dog and there isn't much wracking of sympathy on this owner. May the chicken valkries have mercy on me. May they understand I tried to help, even if I wasn't particularly emotionally attached to the process.

Immutable Me: an anthem of Truth with a soaring crescendo of Glory

2011-12-15T12:26:00.000-08:00

See these photos of my mother? If you knew her really really well, had ever thoroughly pissed her off, or gotten tipsy with her, or watched her go through tough times with her "stoic" face on, or been embarrassed by her enthusiasm for life which you unfortunately inherited, then you'd recognize these faces as hers, always and forever. From the beginning, she has been Marjorie. She changes, she grows, she learns. And yet always she has this immutable quality, the Marjorieness that has never disappeared.

It's a complex question that's no longer under the purview of philosophy but belongs now in the schools of psychology and neuroscience: what is it that makes you you? is it continuous? does is persist in the afterlife? If you die and then come back as per Hinduism and Buddhism, do you come back as you? does an interruption in your existence alter you? Our cells change over in 7 years. Our ideas change. We change. We are the flow of life, changing, responding to the shape of our river beds, moving through the landscapes of time. And yet the Mississippi is the Mississippi and the Columbia, the Columbia. Like sports teams who change players, names and cities, but never, never their colors; we root for the colors and we align with the uniforms.

When asked, I'd always say it is nature + nurture. Neuroscience has found that experience can change our DNA, turning elements of it on or off. Very deeply, nurture affects nature.

But when thinking about myself, I've named nurture as my nature. A pastor's daughter, the middle child, a Libra with the rest of her chart in Aries except for the moon in Sagittarius, a female, a mother, an adventurer, a farmer, etc. I've looked to my past to describe who I am and how I came to be this way. I've sought an explanation for myself that is outside myself.

I remember a journal entry from middle school in which I wonder why it is I write in a journal at all. I suppose it's for the purpose of self exploration, self-discovery, and self-knowledge. And then I wonder what is the point of self-knowledge. My answer confused me even more. I supposed that the purpose of self-knowledge is to find your shortcomings and work to make up for them. This opened a new line of questioning where I wondered who says what "short comings" are? And why? My teachers said my impulsiveness was a fault, but then they're all about controlling the classroom environment. So their judgement had some serious self-centered motives. What are faults? And who's the judge? And where do we learn to call them faults? And shouldn't we be questioning that? And then I became bored with the subject and ran off to do something else. But the questions have lingered, unanswered and likely unanswerable, their value perhaps more in the asking than the likely pat, unsatisfactory answers we could shout out.

Although perhaps the pursuit of self-knowledge, if valuable (and how do we judge value?) might be in knowing what it is we love and what it is we ask others to love.

Although I have treated others as souls within circumstances (location, birth order, skin color, sexual orientation, gender, and astrological sign), I have not thought of myself as a person with some sort of unchanging and pure quality within circumstances. But I have always thought of myself as molded and shaped and reshapable. This is hopeful and true, but there's also something else true about me. Something I can't name, but exists. Something my culture can't direct and mold. Something that would have been there no matter where I fell in line with my siblings, if I'd had them, or if I was a boy, or (godforbid) a Scorpio.

I suspect that my immutable qualities are unnameable and perhaps unknowable. The circumstances which cradle my Self and are nameable include: female with a female brain with the feeling centers closely located to the expression centers, my farming life, my heterosexuality, my spousalness, my motherhood. But I suspect that the truest parts of me have no handle but are expressed in every circumstance my soul finds itself in.

It's time I had a talk with myself and the world. A coming out. I'm going to take myself to a beautiful little glen in the woods, near a small waterfall. I'm going to sit myself down on a mossy rock and tell myself the truth.

I've always been inspired by my gay friends who have this moment of truth with the world, a frightening moment to be sure, with the potential to take a bad turn just as in any birth. The truth is born and they say to the world, "I am who I am. If you have a problem with that, it doesn't change the truth. If you have a problem with me, that's your problem, not mine." I've found a lot of courage from them. As PFLAGG says, "You being you makes me happy."

And so I'm here in a similar way, to say the Truth which cannot be said, the immovable, non-relative Truth about me. It is the Truth that has no words, no description, and so I'm not sure what the point of writing about this is. But it's True none-the-less. I am me and you are just going to have to deal with that. My self-knowing is NOT about making your life easier and molding myself to your expectations, making your classroom manageable so-to-speak, and ridding my Self of things you call "faults". My Self will not always please you. My Self is difficult to understand, but that doesn't get you (or me) off the hook from trying. My Self is an odd collection of traits that don't fit any mold, like cayenne and lime with chocolate. I'm smart and I have enthusiasm (which resembles a 13 year old at a slumber party and is often confused for nievete and inexperience), plus follow-through, and that's a hard combination for people to wrap their minds around. But you're going to have to try. And I'm here to make you. Plus, that's just the stuff with names, that's not even the hard stuff that's more complex than language.

And in other news, I'm bravely posting some photos of Huck and I going out for his office party and a subsequent night on the town. I assumed that because the cruise was leaving from a fancy hotel that it would be a fancy cruise. But it was a solidly jeans and parka affair. I knew there was a risk of this going in to it, because I live in the Northwest and Every Gol Dang event here is a jeans and parka affair. A girl gets Sick of it. Knowing the risks, I dressed up anyway and even shaved my pits for the first time in 13 years. And I loved it (except for the pits part because they really itch now!). The camera does not do justice to how beautiful I felt. The flash and my general chronic unphotogenicness both destroyed my inner glory. It reminded me of how I wanted to be a rock star when I was 7 and spent a lot of time jumping on my bed belting out the only tunes I knew, "Jesus Loves Me," and "The B-I-B-L-E," until I borrowed my brother's tape recorder and cut my first track. And played it back. And, oh Jesus, I'm glad somebody loves me. I never dreamt of spotlights and spandex again. That's what these photos are for me, my brother's mean ol' tape recorder. But, in the corner of this boxing ring, cheering for my inner sensation, helping me beat down the reality and ouchy truth of cameras and tape recorders came an elderly rich-looking woman sweeping through the hotel lobby with her entourage and as she passes me she whispers in my ear sweet things that I cannot bring myself to repeat, they were so breath-takingly flattering. After seeing the pictures, however, I wonder if she wasn't just preparing to die by doing pennance for a life of hoity-toity harsh judgements by whispering incomprehensibly fabulous compliments to every little thing the cat drags in. Or maybe I really did look stunning and cameras and tape recorders are all liars. In which case, break out the the laser light show and hand me some tall leather boots and a microphone, I've got a song I'm ready to sing.

A fish story

2011-12-07T10:13:00.000-08:00

I cooked fish last night. This is a major accomplishment. I understand if it's no big deal to you, but I have never cooked fish and have barely cooked any meat at all in 17 years, so this was a BIG FREAKIN' DEAL to me. And it turned out Great! Even Coyote ate some corn-breaded cod. It took a minute to get my mind around the meat + side dish = menu ensemble that characterizes the meat-ed meal. This is the reverse of the mind warp non-vegetarians have to undergo to understand the complete vegetarian meal. They get stuck in meat + side and all they can imagine that we eat is sides. Sides and more sides and they can't figure out how we can be healthy eating nothing but corn and over-cooked green beans with a bun. Which we don't. We eat stews and soups and frittata and sautes and tempeh burgers and burritos and beans with rice or cornbread....etc... etc. We vegetarians eat a wider variety and more creative menu that those trapped in the clutches of the cults of meat-eating. So I underwent the paradigm shift in the opposite direction last night. And we had a side of home grown fries. Fish and chips.

I used to cook meat, for about 1 year when I was first married to my first husband. You cannot imagine the crazy stuff I did back then. I did this thing where I MADE HIS LUNCHES! I found it slightly humiliating, but I was 18 and was doing what my mother would do, my mother who's cultural heritage development has been seriously delayed by traditional values. Obviously, a good, virtuous wife makes her husband's lunches. It says so in Proverbs. So I made him 2 lunches a day for his 16 hour cannery shifts. And I felt really shitty about it. During this time, Jack in the Box was having its e-coli issues and so when I made the burritos, which had to include beef, OBVIOUSLY, I burnt the hell out of that beef. It was mostly just beef char that I scraped in to his burritos. And, scared of meat as I was, that's how I cooked everything. Fresh deer meat (we lived in various parts of Alaska during this time) was boiled then broiled in butter. Turkey was basted in one complete pound of butter... although that one was good. How could it not be?

I never liked the cooking of meat. My family raised our own beef. I bottled fed them every morning before and after school and then I was compelled to eat my pets. There is some boundary that gets betrayed when we get that close to animals and then eat them. It's like you eating Fido for dinner with your brother (who never liked Fido all that much) with a piece of Fido on his fork, making it make barking sounds. It would be like this: on a Saturday my mother would come in to my room, close all the curtains and sit on me. I would hear the shots, scream. And then I would have to stay in my room until the butcher truck left. Because my parents knew, and knew they did, that if I got a whiff of this conspiracy, I would chain myself to my beloved steer and hell no, I would not go. You'll have to shoot me first. This is why I now have a milk cow. I love cows, but I'm not eating my own. Having a milk cow has it's own special heart aches I've since learned.

I was also not allowed in the kitchen during the cooking of meat. While this did nothing to prepare me for the life of a new and virtuous wife, it did make dinner less dramatic. A Thanksgiving was seriously marred by my trauma when I cross the kitchen while the turkey neck was being exhumed. Imagine my joy when we moved to South Carolina and THAT's what was for Thanksgiving dinner at the home we were invited to.

I was saved from the seemingly inevitable destiny of meat by my brother's thoughtful Christmas gift when I was 19: Molly Katzen's magnum opus The Moosewood Cookbook. This book certainly contains some awful recipes. The more expensive the ingredients, the worse she messes it up. But it's also got my staples. I've used it so much, it fell apart and is now housed in a three ring binder. It opened my mind to a new life, a life without bloody patties and mystery hotdogs. I learned to cook from this book. I learned to make my own lasagna sauce and my own enchilada sauce. This book became my Bible. So when I ate enchiladas at someone's house a few years ago, I begged her for her sauce recipe and the entire table dropped it's collective jaw. Recipe? For enchilada sauce? It comes in a can, lady. A can. We open CANS of sauce. Wow. Thanks to Ms. Katzen, I didn't even know enchilada sauce existed. And now I've shaved over an hour of cooking time off enchiladas! And all 'cuz I asked for a recipe.

Unfortunately my brother and Ms. Katzen were unable to save me from making my husband's lunches. I was too immature yet to let myself not do that. I imagine I would have been trapped in the life of the Virtuous mother-y wife for eternity if he hadn't left me.

That was the thing that stuck in my craw the worst. I wailed, "AND I MADE HIS EFFING LUNCHES! HIS LUNCHES! THE HUMILIATION! AUGHGGHGHGH!" Despite being played a fool, being cheated on, being abandoned suddenly, it's the lunches that dug at me the most. THE EFFING LUNCHES. I burnt meat for that ingrate. Only once have I made lunch for a man since (excluding in a professional capacity as a pizza cook), and it resulted in lots of tears and anger. And long-suffering Huck just asked me not to ever do it again.

That's why I don't put Huck's laundry away. Because if he ever betrayed me, which he doesn't look like he's going to but if I've learned one thing in my not-so-short life it's that people can really surprise you when you least expect it, and that you can't REALLY know anyone. So, as far as I can tell, he's not going to up and leave all of a sudden, but if he did, it would be putting away his laundry that would make any betrayal even worse. I've explained this to him. And he has agreeably accepted the fact.

And that is the story of how I cooked my fish last night.

Outpost of Normalcy

2011-11-12T16:45:00.000-08:00

I feel a little odd today. I've been busy and now I'm not so much. And it seems a little: blank.

Last Saturday, I helped run a sheeshee auction for a hospital in Bangladesh, plus a certain Club. I got pulled into it by an amazing old man who loves my stories thereby qualifying him as awesome. In addition, his awesomeness also comes from being a surgeon who developed some prosthetic devices and with the money from that, founded this hospital in Bangladesh. I've run auctions before but this time, instead of doing all the 6 months of drudgerous labors required to set it up, I simply popped in on the night of and told all the volunteers what to do. I'd forgotten how good I am at that! And I joyfully received the kuddos for a job well done. Joyfully, because that kind, any kind, of thanks and recognition is lacking in my current position.

Thirteen of the volunteers were teens, and I was surprised to find myself liking them. I haven't worked with teens, nor barely glanced at their surly faces since I was one. These kids came from a poor, rural area, and from horror stories ... while supposedly waiting for "real life" to begin. They were amazing, competent, hard working, helpful. Of the three non-disadvantaged teens, two were gorgeous and frankly dumb as a box of rocks. When I introduced them to their third co-volunteer for the job of "runners", they all just stood around, staring at the floor, the ceiling, whatever. "Do you know each other already?" I asked. GROAN!! You've done business before, I see.

Two volunteer boys were talking about how unfair it was that girls can hold hand and kiss and it's all just silly messing around. But if boys do the same thing, they're called gay and made fun of. And then one boy turned to his friend, "That's all we're going to say about that. THAT'S ALL. NOW." 'Cuz that's the discreet way of dealing with it. Trying to help ease the awkwardity, I told them about the physical affection among men in India, holding hands and walking with their arms around each other, meaning nothing other than that they were friends. And I told them about my gay friend who went to India with me and how he spent two months trying to figure out "The Code": how to tell who was gay. I didn't care one way or another, but this guy was obsessed, and when he found out, it was a secret he kept carefully guarded. And these two boys found this story endearing and attached themselves to me. Oh, god help them.

I also did some doorbelling and phone banking for my friend who made a great showing in her first run for City Counsel, going from a no-name late-in-the-game to 45% of the vote in just a few short months. But anyway, phone banking is weird. The script I was given didn't roll out of my mouth with any ease, and so I spent a good 25 phone calls, stumbling around, trying to find my voice, stuttering and cringing the whole time because I knew I was interrupting their evening with my clumsy, stuttering spiel. Meanwhile, the guy in the cubicle next to me was clearly experienced, smooth, relaxed, entertaining. I felt ... inadequate to say the least. After I'd developed my own a script, I was tickled that guy started stealing my phrases.

And on the home front: I had a relaxing realization: my kids' issues are normal. Sassing, lying about toothbrushing, homework tantrums, complaining about dinner = totally normal. I learned all that from rereading Calving and Hobbes recently. All the jokes, so familiar, which could mean only one thing, right? Normal issues (Don't look now, sj but: Calvin? normal?). So, I'm not screwing that up too bad ...so far... it seems. Ukelele Solo of severe silliness here.

This is not a blizzard, just a perty hoar frost

And there was Halloween, which I might have forgotten in all the hecticity around here. But thank GOD for pictures! Coyote had two costumes, having lost most of his stuffing at the Sunday night Girl Scout Unicef party and having little left for Halloween night. We joined Coyote and his friend and his friend's mom and his friend's dad who both could be called "Ex's". It wasn't as awkward as I feared. The male had on a handle bar mustache, a subject I just didn't broach because who knew if it was standard procedure, divorce fodder or just for Halloween. Turns out it was for Halloween, thank god. They took us to MANITO. THE double boulevard de jour swarmed with hundreds, perhaps thousands of ghouls, wizards and Darth Vader. The street was blocked off for a 50+ practiced dancers of all ages and contumes doing the Thriller Dance (said breathlessly) beneath spotlights and big speakers. Ghost Blue had her first non-parental Halloween night out with her friend, running amuck in a more/less gated community, getting FULL SIZE candy bars... all of which I had to confiscate, obviously. Huck was a handsome devil. I was an earth goddess/ 1970's bridesmaid for the party but Sargeant Pepper for trick or treating. The change was due to me wanting to be warm, of all things, so I wore the Soviet sailors coat I bought off a sailor in Red Square for five American dollars in a secret alley deal back in 1992 when it was all collapsing. He also wanted to sell me his clothes, but I realized the sketchy situation I'd gotten my 16-year-old self in to, declined and fled.

And then the kids spent today Smashing (our own home-grown GIANT) Pumpkins to feed them to our cows... ah the cows... there's so much to tell, but that's another post. And in breaking news, we're having a blizzard. Right now.

So, over-all, we can sum it up as NORMAL. Normal Farm...that creeps me out.

Photos!

2011-10-26T12:11:00.000-07:00

GF pizza at Pacific Avenue Pizza in Browne's Addition

I feel like I'm standing directly under the Niagra Falls of time. The constant, gushing, flowing of time pounding down upon me and sometimes, I catch a breath.

Enjoying some gifts, including a bolster for my in-bed reading habit

I turned 36 the other day. The first birthday in which I was less happy the day after than the day before. The celebration itself was fabulous and fun and I got a camera, as begged for. And everyone was lovely and happy and good. After I got the camera, Coyote took my old one, which still kinda worked but had some funky problems. And he spent three minutes pushing buttons and checking it out. And fixed it. He's so proud and I'm a little ticked off. He brought it to his soccer game and was more interested in taking photos of the game than playing it.

The camera I got is great, however. And as my dad told me, the thing about technology moving so fast is that there isn't a camera for sale that won't be better than the one you've had for six years. And he was right.

And then I bought some make up, because I am now eligible for the senior discount, and I would like to stop looking like that. This process has actually been going on for some time. I trotted into Nordstrom the other day, all haywirey and grubby and announced bluntly that I hadn't worn make up in 20 years and I might find occasion to do that from time to time and could they help. So... they went to work like wolves on fresh caribou and "soon" I was covered in 3 different flesh-toned layers, plus extras. Just to note: sometimes working on one's logic abilities can also be rewarding. For instance: when some one says "I haven't worn make up", thinking through this thoroughly one could imagine NOT shocking and overwhelming them, but just starting them out with something basic, like they ASKED FOR.

Always a roast with Opa and Oma

I also didn't like the public nature of it. Everyone in the shoe department watching me flinch from twenty kinds of brushes. Not to mention the expense of getting started. The entirely new vocabulary: The E the 3 and the W. Sure. A friend offered to help me, which made me feel supported. But shopping is a Very Private thing to me, so I declined. It's similar to wanting to shut the door while you use the bathroom. Very Private. Do Not Disturb. And if your store is too public, with big windows on a busy street, I will not even go in to it.

After a bunch of research, some experimentation and then the usual final flair of head-long, rash, self-doubt-filled bravado, I did get some stuff to apply. My eyelashes now get stuck in my eyebrows (which I might pluck some day too!) and my face feels like it can't breath or move much. But I've only worn it twice, not including the experimental day here where I ran out and asked Blue's carpool lady if I got it right. Does this look normal? Yeah... all except the part where I am.

No one seems as shocked by it as I. I could not have tied my patties in a tighter wad over this. All this: what does it mean? Am I just giving in? Why do I want to start doing this? Am I not comfortable with who I am? Am I feeling insecure and inadequate? Or more secure? Am I putting my best foot forward, or just the one others seem to want to see? Am I doing this for myself, or for you? Am I uncomfortable with the aging process? Why do we wear make-up? Why not wear make-up? Why not experiment and experience life in other ways? Do I have to look the same my entire life? Why am I buying products? Do I have money for this? Do other women have such convoluted hang-ups about make up? How do you get it off? When do I stop thinking about it?

A starling problem, with a non-problematic moon

Hendrika posed for this. I kid you not.

What's up chicken butt?

Chocolatey Claire and Beignet

Balloon hilarity


Mousetrap AT LAST!

The Coyote who lives across the street

Oma at Slavin Reserve

My favorite tree, again.

skip church, go bowling

Peace at Turnbull

Add-ages

2011-10-10T14:40:00.000-07:00

I am still foggy after this weekend, a UU women's retreat which involved WAY TOO MUCH TALKING. Obviously. And every time I tried for alone time, someone else was already there, or following me, and thought we should talk. I even read a book about how to end conversations before I went. Admittedly, many of these conversation were fascinating and I didn't want to stop them. However, I couldn't even take a shit without someone in the bathroom chatting me up about UU issues the Board of Trustees needs to know about...while I'm laying a log. Seriously. And I thought privacy was hard to come by at home with two kids... sheesh!

So I find myself chatting it up with some ladies late in the drunken evening. And I end up telling this story, which I think is a knee-slapper. But then, that's all in the ears of the hearers, isn't it?

Here goes:
I was at Value Village and the cashier asks me if I qualify for the senior discount.

NOTA BENE: that's kind of it, that's the whole story, just a one liner. LAUGH NOW! Or Else.

"Um... uh... I don't think so? I mean what kind of generous policy to you have? What's the cut off?"
Snicker snicker, "55."
"Um... I guess not then."

I live in a world where people don't mess with other people just for fun. I live in a world where offensive comments are always accidents and mistakes, but they meant no harm. Up here, in my head, it actually took me 20 years to figure out that the "reputation" I had that prevented me from getting on Mat Maids (high school wrestling cheer leaders... never mind that I have no sense of rhythm, hate wrestling and hate cheerleading) was a not-so-good "reputation" fabricated by a competitor. So, the universe in my head is much nicer than the one out there. I like to stay in the mental one I maintain like a Zen Garden of grey matter. But some times I get a shock when I peak out into the real world.

Once I got to my car, the cashier's cackle still echoing in my mind, I realized she was funking with me! (sorry to bastardize the precious word "funk" here. I love funk.) And then I wanted to charge back in and take any old thing about her and say mean things about it. For instance, I enjoy the company of many over-weight people, and yet I wanted to ask her if she ever got the "grotesquely obese discount." And if she'd been skinny, I would have asked her if she got the "skinny, mangy, bitch discount." And, although I would probably like many people who work at thrift stores or are otherwise similarly employed, I might have asked, "Do you qualify for the I'm-45-and-I-work-at-Value-Village-Discount?" But if she'd been an attorney, I'd want to ask, "How about that I-use-antilogic-for-shit-loads-of-other-people's-hard-earned-money discount or the grade-grubber discount?" Oooh! Sizzle! I know how to sling mud!

Actually, I'm pretty bad at it or did you already figure that out? My sister has amazing zinger-mouth (she's in recovery) and I learned from an early age that zinging wasn't my forte and I'll never win a zing-contest... so generally when someone starts in with clever insults, I just shut up and go away, or scream incoherently when I've had more than I can take.

Buy you see, the joke is, this lady asked if I was eligible for a senior discount. Haha. ME? Haha! I mean, I know I don't look 16, but crapola, I'm not 55. That lady was just being mean! I'm not even 36, yet! Ha! Ha. Ha?

And the three women around me didn't say anything. They just silently scrutinize my face. For, like, MINUTES. And then one says, "Well! Ha! You couldn't pass for 55, at any rate."

Yes. So. When I was about 28, I jumped from looking 16 to looking an inscrutible age somewhere between 25 and 45. I have this thick gray patch that showed up on September 13, 1996 in a hotel in Wenatchee. But my face still looked juvenile enough for people to talk baby talk to me. The gray has gotten bigger. And I now have some smile (or are they frown?) lines.

A few years ago, coworker said she'd spent a lot of time trying to figure out how old I was. She had it narrowed down to 21, 28 and 40.

So I come home and regale Huck with the hilarity of these ladies having to pause a moment to consider if I did indeed look under 55 or not. Hilarious right?

And then Huck, a man who looks younger by the day, PAUSES! Dear Husbands, Don't do that! And at this point I'm yelling at him (yes, I am on the toilet pee-ing as I yell) to shut up when he's not even talking. I would NEVER ask, "Does this make my butt look big?" Because I know the booby trap I set for us. And I also know he would yell, "Hell, ya! BABY! Bring that big ass booty over here!" But this? I seriously thought this would be a no-brainer.

So he goes, "Um..." clears the throat, "You have an ageless beauty." Shithead.

I want an ageless beauty between 20 and 30, not 35 and 55.


An original T-shirt given to me by Marion M., an actual, real, old lady and heavy-weight feminist

I'll be 36 on Friday, but that doesn't apparently matter to anyone but me. And next time someone asks if I qualify for the senior discount, I'm going to say yes. What's it to me if everyone thinks I'm 85? I think I deserve a discount, at this point. And as a friend once assessed, I've lived three lifetimes in the space of 1/3 of mine (based on statistics, not actual foreknowledge of the age of my death). I qualify for 3 senior discounts, honey.

Paradise Stolen

2011-09-30T15:40:00.000-07:00

I did see that car. It was a sedan, dark blue or green, shaped like a Crown Victoria, barge-like. It was in my neighbor's drive way, parked at an angle. And when they asked that night if I'd seen anything unusual, the nearly forgotten inconsequential memory was slowly pulled from the brink of extinction. And as I examined the memory, I could see that yes, it looked odd parked that way. It wasn't a familiar car. I even saw someone run inside. So why didn't it raise any alarms at the time?! Why oh why didn't my little Poirot-esc brain cells perk up? My curiosity is so easily peaked, why not this time? Why not this time when some asswipe cleaned out my best neighbors?

I was busy. I was piling the kids in the car. It didn't even register as an event.

The neighbors have a lot of cars coming and going: contractors, piano lesson kids (that's who I assumed it was), heating/cooling guy, painters, sometimes a gardener, perhaps even a cleaning lady, maybe a relative or two. I don't know! It's a parade of cars and I couldn't keep track of them even if I wanted to! And when you park in your garage (instead of stuffing it with tools and toys) I cannot tell if you are home or not. And although I can be very snoopy and when I worked in a law office I was ordered to unleash all my snoopiness (it was great fun!), I don't want to snoop on my neighbors. I don't want to be the one who notices so-n-so's had that same trans-man over every day for the past several weeks and he's not carrying piano books. Certainly we've got the cocaine/gay party house in cognito as a country estate and don't think I'm being judgemental here; I didn't get that knowledge from snooping; 50 cars full of men can't be wrong. But over-all I try to strike a balance between snooping and being alert. And what with getting kids in the car and all, I guess I let the balance tip the wrong direction on Tuesday. And I feel just awful about it.

Although for my own personal safety, that might be for the better. Between fight or flight, when cornered I'm pure fight, apparently. I don't know why. When I was a babysitting teen, one of my charges screamed that someone was looking in her window. So what did I do with that adrenaline? 14 year old Sarajoy took a baseball bat and a flashlight around to secure the property. When a peeping-Tom ran from a shower stall in the Women's locker room at a pool at UW, a soaped up Sarajoy chased him down, OUT of the locker room, THROUGH the pool and nearly out the emergency exit before I realized I was still naked. I don't know what's wrong with me, but it might have kicked in on Tuesday. And the only thing worse the a robbery is a botched robbery cum murder. And they probably have a case of guns already. Because....

The house on the other side of us was robbed recently too. A gun case. A case of guns. That sounds to me like someone knew what they were after. So I wasn't on alert.

This weeks robbery was in broad daylight, during a two hour window. Someone knew someone's schedule a hell of a lot better than I do. And so it seems we are being spied on. And I have that penchant for running around naked. I figure the windows which usually catch me wet, running up from the basement to my room are along the road where people drive fast enough, they won't notice.

With our direct neighbors on either side being robbed, we have a strong sense of "YOU ARE NEXT."

So what's the strategy for a house made almost entirely out of French Doors? Oui Oui. Zee kind wit all zee vindows and zee doors zat "s'ou qui que" when zeey open. Because glass is so breakable, they installed dead bolts that open only with keys. So that if there is a fire, we first have to find the keys to get out and since I've already been through one massive structural fire (in Petersburg, Alaska, took the whole block, but spared the gas station but gave me lasting PTSD), this feels like a very real risk to take. In addition, this thief, which the sheriff informs us has almost finished cleaning out the entire neighborhood (oh! NOW they tell us!), has a special tool to use against dead bolts. It destroys doors. And if a thief came to our house that would be the most expensive thing to replace.

Taking a quick inventory and comparing it to what was stolen from the neighbors: all of my jewelry is plastic, clay, or rock (actual, non-valuable rocks) and fossil. None of our CD players work, nor does our iPod. Our camera, as you must have noticed my now, is broken. Of our two computers, one is running and that is 8 years old. Our TV is from craigslist and is non HD compatible and is attached only to a DVD player, no actual channels or anything. EVERYTHING we own was used when we got it. Goodwill is a revolving door for all of our possessions. It's like dust to dust: Goodwill to Goodwill, or sometimes Value Village to Goodwill, with a short or longish life in our house in between. And an occasional exotic item from Craigslist. So to prevent a broken door, I have been leaving it unlocked. They might have already been through, assessed the potential and left. This is one of the greatest benefits of having nothing anyone envies.

We might have also been passed over because although I adore my old house, in this neighborhood it is obviously NOT the house with the money.

The other reason why we might have been passed over by the angel of theft, is that our house is wide open. Our bereft neighbors have both put a lot of time and money into privacy screens. So that no one can watch them ... um ... live and stuff. Because of the configuration of powerlines and our lack of funds to hire people to constantly trim our trees, we have no privacy. You couldn't break in to our house and NOT have the entire world see it. It's a blessing and curse.

Or maybe it's the mask we picked up in Singapore that's meant to scare off evil and is propped against a window, looking out, menacingly, at all comers, with it's spiritual threat.

Whatever the reason we have been passed over, we still have the feeling that it's just a matter of time.

And then at the feed store today, I asked about all the new security measures. They said they've had huge huge problems with people taking off with LOADS OF HAY! "It's just going to get worse." They said. And then one guys turns out to live near me and he said that his road has had so many thefts there's a sheriff that drives it every day, all day long.

So yesterday, one neighbor notices two trucks parked out front the recently robbed neighbor's house. She parks, she rev's, she maneuvers forward and back to get a look at license plates. She's on her phone. She's in a lather. I know this because I am shoveling out carrots right next to her, not because I have any desire to stand behind my curtains and peek out at everyone with binoculars. And I couldn't figure out why she's doing this. Does she think the thieves came back in their TWO $50K trucks to take ...what? What's left? The Grand Piano and some unders? And they are using power tools on the front door?! And thieves have the ability to BUY $50,000 trucks, two of them? This is just how they make their payments. I mean, let's use our heads here. I can understand that we've all got our road lit up like a football stadium, although the theft took place in the middle of the day. But don't you think these trucks might be the locksmith? Or the contractors coming to repair the door? These thieves aren't going to hang around the neighborhood, much less hit that house again 24 hours later. But I also guiltily felt it as a rebuke, "See, Sarajoy, let me just show you what caring neighbors do!" They snoop, apparently.

We are all uneasy here on Paradise Prairie. Lucky Farm is nervously waiting our turn. Wondering if and when it will come. Wondering if we should lock our doors or just stick the broken laptop on the front porch. Hoping whatever happens, we don't get stuck in the middle of it. That no one is home. It's out of our hands. That delusion of control and our false sense of security is what they've already stolen. It wasn't worth much anyway. I wonder what they'll get for it on the black market?

Freak School

2011-09-19T13:57:00.000-07:00

I am officially NOT homeschooling as of two full weeks ago. So you can order me a cocktail now. And draw me a bath.

Blue's enjoying her special school a little too much. We are all relieved to see she has a posse of friends already, which has never happened for her before. These kids are no-mold weirdos who instantly get each other and most have had no prior friend experience due to being so different in normal schools. So that's exciting. And she's had two hours of homework per night. And only one total melt down, which we are getting used to. We just kind of make sure she doesn't break things or people. She gets that from me... and my extensive extended family. This seems to be the one identifying trait that comes through time after time. Much more dominant than brown hair, obviously.

So I get a call this morning, "Uh, mom, can you bring lemonade? I was supposed to bring lemonade today." This doesn't happen with homeschooling. I bring it, I'm heading in to town anyway. And I get chatting with her teacher.
"Blah blah blah... you know, I don't know what you're doing, but this is the smoothest we've ever done homework. She only had one melt down last week. This is one of the reasons we homeschooled: the sheets and sheets of repetitive garbage that I was just sending back to the teacher with a big "NO" written across the top. 'Don't bring that hell in to our house please!' Blah blah blah, stick-foot-further-in-to-mouth, blah blah. But she's really in to the homework you've assigned! And she's actually doing it! All two hours a night!"
"Oh dear!" Ms. M-M says.
Oh Dear? What's 'Oh Dear!' about this?
"Two Hours?!"
"Well, she's related to me so a good hour of that is staring in to space." Also a trait more dominant that brown hair. What's one got to do to get a brunette kid around here? I'd trade tantrums and spacing for brown hair in one of my kids.
"But I haven't assigned homework yet. That's just the stuff she hadn't done in class because she was talking to her friends. And it should have taken 15 minutes, max. Oh no... I don't know how she'll respond when I actually do assign homework this week. And I do assign worksheets too."
"Oh!"
"Oh."
"Oh. My."
"Call me if you have any problems this week."

Coyote also seems to have friends at school this year. They are boys, though, so "friends" is just shorthand for someone you exchange punches with who won't go tell the recess teacher... and will tell her you're just playing Starwars if she asks.

He started second grade with a project called "A Little Book About Me," which lets the teacher know many things: drawing skills, internal sanity level as revealed by subject matter, writing level, and just how messed up home life is. Did the child draw the table empty of food? Is a War scene in the kitchen? How many different fathers are pictured? Coyote came home and said, "Where I was supposed to draw us as a family was too small, so I just left papa out." What the hell do the Mormon kids do? "He's been working so much lately that he's not really part of our family. He's just kind of on the side." RIP A MOTHER'S HEART OUT! Holy shit.

True, Huck's been working a lot. Project work is hard to control. Sometimes you have no projects. Sometimes you have multiple deadlines. Since July was empty, we really needed this work to refill the coffers. So he HAS been working long hours and many of them are out of town too. But Huck is amazing at being present when he's home. When he's here, he's all the way here. He's not playing video games, watching tv, drinking, or whatever. He's playing with the kids, wrestling, helping with dinner and homework, etc. It's an amazing talent that I lack. Even when I was working only part time, I'd come home from a grueling four hour day and crash for three hours, then shuffle to the kitchen when Huck called me for dinner. Not so for Huck. He might go for a jog or do a little yoga, but that all brings him more in to the present. So I felt the sentiment was a little unfair of Coyote. But who am I to judge? This is how he feels, and I just wanted to listen to that.

So then he brings home the book. And reads it to me. Yes, there's our house, our cows, your toys. And here is the family. I braced myself. Three people. ALL of them BLOND! "Who are these people?" I ask, a double entendre.
"That's Blue. That's me. And that's dad."
"Where am I?"
"I didn't have room for you."
"It IS a pretty small space." That little crapper! I just spent ALL of his waking hours with him for three months straight! I make three meals and two snacks for him every damn day. I do ALL of his stinky, grody, skid-mark laundry. I read with him every day. I play games with him: Risk, Chess, Sorry, Uno, even the crazy no-rules games he makes up. I help him with projects. I gave him tools to disassemble his old bike. I even teach him how to clean and do chores, which I know he thinks sucks, but will actually be good for him. AND on top of it all, I let him have screen time! AND NOW HE LEAVES ME OFF THE FAMILY PORTRAIT!!

(Writing that reminded me that Huck and I are still marveling over this new-to-us division of labor. When I was working the chores were 50/50, childcare was 60/40 and cooking was 40/60. It was very even and without any score keeping. This is still so awkward for us. What do I owe "us" the Palmer family, of my time? Especially now that I have it. What percentage of my time goes for my own personal and career development and what percentage do I owe to the keeping of our house and life in order? When do I have to put my own projects down? What projects are MINE and what are OURS? Is staining the front porch US or ME? Is working on potential money makers US or ME?)

So, anyway, it turns out, I'd rather have Huck left off than me.

The kids were talking about the lunches I pack them. And the fact that we have no TV or game consuls/consoles/consuelos??? (hey, we have DVD's!) The health food. The non-commercial clothing (no cartoons or brand advertisements and no flashing shoes with toxic batteries in the soles). They talked about what kids say when they take out their sandwiches: "What is that? Did your mom pour molasses all over your bread? Why is your bread brown? Why do you have seeds on your crust?"
"What? Kids really say that?"
"Yeah, mom! Most of them have only ever seen white bread!"
"Mom!" Coyote yells, "You think you're raising kids, but what you're really raising are FREAKS!"
Yeah. That's right. FREAKS that leave their mothers off their family portrait!

"Help you, I can! Yes. MMM." - Cow Master CowYoda

2011-09-04T21:42:00.000-07:00

In preparation for the farming classes I will be teaching on behalf of the city of Spokane, I will prepare a lesson for ya'll folks.

Topic one: Field preparedness
It is important to groom your field prior to bringing cattle on it. Weeds prevent the proper growth of a healthy grassland and thereby reduce the amount of food your cows can get for free in an already challenged area where the free-grass-season is two hours long. The rest of the year pay you must for cut, baled feed. That much baling twine on a farm trips a person up, a lot. Expect bloody noses. As a direct result of not keeping your field free of weeds.

Should weeds invade your farm, you will need to remove them. You can do this by poisoning your cattle as your spray weed-killer on their food. Or by digging up weeds in the spring and breaking your back. No matter what method you choose, remember that every square foot of soil contains enough weed seeds to keep said square feet flush for over 100 years. It is a loosing battle.

Mugwart is a noxious weed, and a poisonous hallucinogen as well. It is a perennial and will get stuck in your field for millennia. Unfortunately, cows will not eat the stuff: 1) it reproduces without restraint and 2) your milk is never quite THAT interesting.

The other weed-to-watch is thistle. Remember that Eeyore was not a cow. Cows don't eat thistles. And so to reduce thistle, you will want to cut it down before it flowers. If you are late on this, you can also cut down the not-yet-seedy flowers and put them in a bag in your garbage can. You will want to select a thick bag as thistles are always pokier than you remember them. Do NOT select an old feed bag as your thick bag. Although it meets the requirements for padding, it also excites the cows who see you traipsing around their territory, unarmed, and carrying what can be reasonably interpreted by any reasonable cow as a 50# bag of feed.

Farming is all in understanding how the cow thinks. The cow thinks, "OH MY GOD!! FOOD!!" And then thinks, "How fast can I get to it?" Followed shortly thereafter by a more instinctual instruction to the legs to run as fast as they can while also kicking out to the side in a dance of joy,.

Farming is also understanding how to think like a farmer. The farmer thinks, "OH MY GOD!! CHARGING COWS!" The well-seasoned farmer responds with inexpert kung fu, shrill screaming, followed immediately by running away. The learned farmer will turn around periodically to threaten the cows in creative new languages that the farmer invents on the spot because the farmer is just that experienced. The farmer will also expertly wave a small hand-clippers at the cows mimicking the light saber and chanting, "Much to learn, you still have!"

Break out session: break in to small groups and discuss: If a cow charges, how should you respond? If a cow thinks you are carrying something tasty to eat, will she charge? What steps could prevent an over eager cow? The answers are very tricky and always wrong. Much to learn, you still have!

Topic two: automatic cow sympathy systems: who's side are you on?
Cows will sympathize not with the expert farmer, but with each other. Let's say you have separated one from it's calf in order to milk the next morning. The one you have expertly chosen is the quiet and docile, more cow-like cow, frankly. But the one who is free, with her calf, to roam the weedy wastelands in which you imprison her, may feel a kinship to what is likely to be both her daughter and lesbian lover who you've locked up. The other cow, this less cow-like cow, understands what the docile one does not, and that is that mooing desperately at 4 freaking AM is an effective way to bring neighborhood shame on her captor. So although one cow is locked up and fine with that, the other will provide urgent, ear-splitting sympathy moo's. The expert farmer will, however, not give in to this and soon, after several weeks, the cow will appear to loose her voice... her bellows becoming croakier and quieter. Neighbors may call cow-CPS at this point, so beware! A good idea at this point might be gifts to all neighbors: earplugs wrapped neatly in Far Side comics, perhaps.

The expert farmer will remain firm in her milking schedule, for to give in will create whiney and demanding bitches of her cows, who are already half way there. The expert farmer will occasionally consider slaughtering her spoiled cows but then wonders how she will teach cow classes if she murders her subjects and if this won't after all prove she is just an amateur psycho and not a real, expert farmer psycho.

Break out session: what do you think duct tape could accomplish on a farm? Could it be used to silence the herd? Do you own a large caliber gun? Are you willing to use it? Can you field dress a cow?

Someone HANDED me the bulhorn!

2011-08-23T13:29:00.000-07:00

I had just concluded that perhaps my place in this world was a very small place. A very small and insignificant yet cozy place, much smaller than I've ever envisioned or even currently occupy. Perhaps my place in this world is just my bed.

Two months ago, I felt that my life was on the cusp of making sense, or that I was at least on the cusp of making sense of it... of crafting a story around it, a setting, a bed of roses, to make it all smell nice.

And then I landed on last week. Monday, I had a pap smear. I actually signed myself up for it. It'd only been 7 years, but I was already excited for another! And it was just a fabulous as I remember it being. I'd go in to detail, but it's already been done.

Tuesday: This was our second week at a weak farmer's market near our house. Blue's hope was to sell bouquets. We planted flowers. We weeded. We watered. And then we picked and packed them up. And nobody came. This week, our friend who has the tent and the signs didn't even show up. So we sat, the kids and I, in the hot hot sun, in the barren parking lot, all by ourselves without even a sign to tell you what we were doing. The flowers were wilting. Coyote's robot was melting. HE was melting. One lady drives in, buys two patty pans for $.50 each (that's ONE WHOLE DOLLAR, for those of you too lazy to calculate). She then fingers a giant bouquet of at least 10 sunflowers and asks how much. $5. But that was just too much for her. I understand. It must be hard to feed the Escalade. And she doesn't owe us. But the way she asked and her sniff when I said the reasonable price... it brought back all those years at the Seattle Farmer's Markets: the burnout of too many haughty, stupid questions from the same idiots every week. ("What's in the bread?" Same Effing Thing As The Last Three Years and yet you ask EVERY DAMN week) What about selling something makes some people think they are better than you? And that's the thing with burnout, it comes back so Fast! We waited longer. We sweat in our chairs. And then we packed it in.

I FELT, "Good grief, why does nothing I do ever work out? Everything I touch wilts. Everything I try fails. There's really no place for me in this whole godforesaken world, is there? I have no talents, no abilities. I am probably just 68" of wasted resources."

But I know all about building resilience in kids, so I SAID, "Well, what a useful learning experience! We learned so much! What did we learn?" "That the Eagle Ridge Farmer's Market SUCKS and that we're never coming back!" Blue says. "Exactly! And we also learned that you always bring your own tent! And that flowers need ICE. And that some people are just too terrible to sell anything to!" And then I locked my door and flopped on my bed for a while. And then got up and went to a meeting.

(nota bene: this blogging has been interrupted about 100,765 times by urgent, violent children who are burnt out on summer vacation. Where's alien abduction when you need it?)

On Wednesday, I thought that I should probably be kicked while I'm down so I tried some thing else new. I went to a writers group. And it was just like every other writers group. It was a bunch of people I could relate to if I reallyreallyreally tried very hard. All the usual suspects were there. The non-strategic thinker, obsessing over possible translation glitches for a book he hasn't even written yet, much less published, much less sold a copy of... etc. etc. There was the girl complaining that people think she's whiny and unlikable... which she was... and no one disputed, but someone did say that lots of great writers were whiny and unlikable. There was the girl wondering more about personal problems than writing. At least two lecherous men, one of which was a classic blow hard who made a point to speak patronizingly to everyone. An ancient, confused old lady from New York. An MFA student with red hair and white eyebrows who knew A LOT about the necessity of sending everything to the Library of Congress to get a copyright stamp... cuz our stuff here is so HOT that people can't keep their plagiarizing mitts off it. Early on, this voice in my head, the clearest one I've got, said "LEAVE. NOW" But this other voice, sounds kinda like my mom, said, "Now now. Don't judge a book, or a shelf full of them, by its cover! You never know what you might learn!" And so I stayed and sank even further into my trough of despair. And then I went home and locked my door and flopped on my bed. My home. My place. My only place in this world.

And Thursday. Because I can't help myself (oh why oh why ever NOT?!) I tried something new. I went to a march today about the general state of the economy and the taxes certain multinational corporations aren't paying. This being Spokane, I girded myself for the worst: a measly turnout with a defeated attitude. The kids and I made a sign, "Those who benefit the most from a healthy, safe and educated workforce should help pay for it." And the almost amusing, almost sensical: "Tax cuts 4 multinational corporations don't work. People do." Seems hard to imagine how I could have used bigger words to convey that, huh? And off we went. What I found were a lot of people I know. The organizer, who I didn't know, handed me the bullhorn and said, "I can't lead the chants and do all this at the same time. Find someone who wants to use this thing." So I turned on the mike and said, "Well, folks, looks like this bad-ass proclaimator is all mine!" And off we went! (video here, possible if I did it right this time!) This would be the second time I sang an acappella solo in a week... me, who can't sing AT ALL (On Sunday I dressed up as Malvina Reynolds and gave a short speech to the congregation that involved solo-ing the first lines of several songs before I helped the kids make protest signs...Blue's said "less embarrassing parents" and I'm sure she wished she'd brought that sign along on Thursday!)

And then when we got to the U.S. Rep's office, they lent me a little soap box to stand on and give testimonial, as we all made a soup line along the street. I love me some good bullhorn, baby. And after I was done, someone asked me to speak at a feminist event this Friday. And then me and my family went up to our Reps office and complained bitterly about these fat cats not buying the cow cuz they've been getting the milk for free... and she's a chicken to not stand up to it (did I get the whole farm in there? I'm kidding. I used more sophisticated language.) Our Rep is confused and imagines that the Tea Baggers are the only ones who vote or have voices... so we just needed to remind her that other people in this world disagree and we have good reasons too.

We tried something new (protest, new? Sarajoy "Von Protest" - as I was dubbed in high school, where have you been all your life? HELLLLOOO!) ... new for our life in Spokane. And I came home and flopped on my bed and felt good for a few minutes before I got up and went back to work in the kitchen where I've been canning and cleaning for the last several days (except for the one I spent at the pool and the one I spent couponing). It looks like that's actually my place here, in this world Now... what will I say to the feminists?

P.S.: the camera is as broke as I am, so no photos until October, when my birthday provides the perfect opportunity to beg.

Better to have loved and lost and all that

2011-08-18T22:11:00.000-07:00

Ugh... it's getting time to choose between my two cows.

Contender #1: Hendrika: matriarch and total bitch. Her moo actually has a whiney edge to it. I've gotten milk from her these last few days but she's kicking and screaming the whole way and even made contact with my recently tetnus'd up arm. She won't let down and I have to yank on her to get anything. She inhales the grain and I've got only 5 minutes to get the job done. And she kicks - did I mention that? She's the one I bought off range-land lo these two years ago. She'd had no contact with humans and was basically as wild as a wolf. I was like Romulus and Remus - only imagine if the wolf is completely without compassion and doesn't want to give them milk. And she's still crazy. Last year at this time, she was calmer and was giving over a gallon a morning on our milk-share program in which the calf gets milk 1/2 the day and I get the other half. But now she's such a withholding expert that I'm getting barely over a quart. Hardly worth the stream of cusswords and rage I feel at 5 am. What a way to start the day, eh?! I feel like I'm the one getting milked for grain. I am so embittered at her 4 am bellowing me out of bed (world's most irksome alarm clock) and then kicking at my arms while I try to force a few ounces from her that I've started snapping the wet rags at her ass- ala boys' highschool locker room (the movie interpretations). She's a mutt and a bitch and can't be appreciated --- except by me, who admires her refusals to go along to get along, her questioning of authority, her rebellious nature, her basic anti-cow, anti-docility. And she's already been bred with miniature Jersey again.

Contender #2: Sukey: Hendrika's inexplicably mellow first born, now a mother herself. Sukey daintily nibbles at her grain. She pleasantly releases her milk. And never kicks. She's has the sweetest personality of ~~any cow~~ ANY BEING I've ever met. She is the perfect cow. Except she only gives a quart, but give it she does! Happily and freely. And she's beautiful - not that I'm shallow, it's just something you notice. She's got those dainty pink toes and that alabaster face and auburn hair and shapely calves (har har). She's so sweet, you can almost here her humming as she picks her way through the hay. I'm afraid if I sell her, her new owners wouldn't be capable of appreciating such a fine animal.

But I'm also worried I'll get resentful because the process of milking takes the same whether you get 1 quart or 1 ton from a cow. You've got time overhead costs: you scrub the teets with hot, soapy water; you milk; you feed the cows; you clean the barn; you strain the milk; you boil the rags; you sterilize the bucket. You may milk for 5 minutes or 15. 45 minutes of work for 1 quart? How's that going to feel in February? Will I get to make cheese? She'll produce more over the next couple years and hasn't even reached her peak for this cycle. We may get up to two quarts. But when it's time to let her go, won't I just love her more?

But then, how will my arms look in February if Hendrika stays?

Whoever I keep will be my cow for the next two years and then Chocolatey Claire will ascend the stanchion-throne. So two more years of wrestling and wrangling or two years of low-drama low-volume.

Why can't I keep both? Because that is insane. I don't need both. I don't have room for both. I don't have money to feed two full grown cows all winter. And I need to sell one in order to buy the hay for the other.

So, let's vote, please. Not binding, of course. Just a poll. To your right there. Who would you choose? It's like The Good Son. It's like those morality-in-a-life-raft brain squeezers. It's Sophie's Choice.

I'm a big kid!

2011-08-08T14:38:00.000-07:00


The extended gypsy fantasy included sleeping outside and lasted a week

The kids are gone for the week. I actually do miss them because I'm actually enjoying summer vacation with them this year! But ... have already found a few things with which to occupy myself. For instance, in the 36 hours since they left I napped on the porch with a beer, skinny dipped, hiked, polished my yoyo skills, kicked Huck's hiney at cribbage (TWICE!), and not done one load of laundry nor washed a single dish (it's getting a little obvious now too). I've slept, eaten, dressed and frolicked without fielding a single complaint! I've witnessed Huck read Neruda to 200 people. And I watched a hummingbird attempt to solicit nectar from every single one of my clothespins. I am trying my hardest to enjoy the absence of 130 collective pounds of responsibility. Meaning has been easily replaced with entertainment and simplicity. Oh... the trade-offs.

I've also watched two movies, Something something vs. the World (it was great) and the another of my fabulous movie-for-myself flicks... something Huck wasn't interested in and the kids couldn't watch. I've had two in recent months and Gollleeee! do I pick some winners! I've indulged myself in two gruesome lesbian/murder flicks: Boys Don't Cry and Monster. Both true stories which makes them in some ways worse... and in other ways if someone had made them up, I would be suggesting lock down. Both movies are such well done horrors that instead of letting myself flow along with the well-spun magic, I take firm hold of my emotions and don't let go. It seems that if I really allowed myself to fully move in to these stories, I would go insane. I would be plummeted into an existential crisis the like of which I have not seen since high school. I would become, permanently, uselessly, a total wreck. AND an committed atheist but definitely NOT a humanist. I would be left with nothing, hope-wise. These redemption-less stories sure do wreck what's supposed to be a self-indulgence. And yet I prefer them to things like Chocolat -- no matter how many Johnny Depp scenes they flung at that thing, it was never going to be better than awful and it did plunge me into a cravass of futility-of-existance and a desire to hurl rotten tomatoes at the creators -- or whatever you call such wasters of resources.

Also, with the kids gone, I've got the Calvin and Hobbes books all to myself. C&H were hilarious as a child. And now, as a parent, they are even (if it's possible) funnier. When I was young, I couldn't pick a favorite between Far Side and C&H. Reviewing them now, C&H stands. The Far Side was revolutionary and broke open the funny pages and has been mimiographed so completely that even my kids noted the similarities to Bizarro, Off the Mark, and others. (NOTA BENE: we are funny page connoisseurs sometimes necessitating purchase of several dailies in order to enjoy them all in their proper formats. Other kids favs: Garfield and Peanuts). Far Side is still hilarious, but the quirky humor element that so surprised us in the '80's is no longer so surprising and that dents the hilarity, but tips the hat to it's revolutionary success. Calvin and Hobbes, on the other hand, remains induplicatable. Philosophical, drawn to convey the Platonic-ideal of each expression, bridging the gaps between generations, it will never be surpassed.

The longer I am a parent, the less, it seems, that I remember being a child. And this is by some necessity. It will not do to understand the children more than I understand my own position and task. Yet Calvin and Hobbes manages to connect me to both, simultaneously. And Blue says, "I like how sometimes Calvin is just imagining a monster and other times there really is one, but his parents just don't understand." I remember thinking that as a child too.

wheat field across the street

I may not be an atheist yet, nor a committed theist, but I am a CalvinandHobbseist. I believe in the resurrection of monster snowmen. I believe in the attack of the stuffed tiger. I believe in Spaceman Spiff. And if there be a heaven, it will include Calvin and Hobbes, both, forever and ever, Amen.

Theories on The Worst Possible Thing

2011-07-27T15:34:00.000-07:00

Beignet is truly attached to his balls. Those things are papery-white, shriveled, and yet still hanging in there!
We thought they'd be gone by the time we got back from vacation, but there they are! Ghosts of their former selves, haunting Beignet, a bull-in-appearance-only now.

watching the green flash at sunset

Our vacation to Huck's ancestral lounging house at Mission Beach was so tremendously relaxing that when they changed our flight itinerary 375 times on the way home, we didn't care. We went through ~~Denver~~, ~~Pheonix~~, Seattle and from there to Spokane on a 30 second Horizon flight which served complimentary wine which we were all obliged to chug before the tray tables were snapped up for landing: it was nice. Through it all, our luggage hadn't been able to keep up and I was told to just come back the next day to see if it had made it.

While vacating, we talked of this phrase "wanting something bad enough." It was used to inspire my middle school basket ball team. I took it at face value; if I stood at the foul line and wanted to make a basket bad enough, I would. And it never, ever worked. I wanted, oh! Did I WANT! I LONGED to make a basket, just one! I ached. I stood on that line and quivered with desire to make a basket only to discover that my coach was an effing liar. It wasn't until maybe a few years ago that I realized that the "want" only works if you translate it into practicing, like, a LOT. And so, in that case, I didn't even want to want it bad enough. I would have been honest about that, given half a reasonable explanation of how this "wanting " works.

Pacific Beach combing

I've had all sorts of explanations for how the world works reeking havoc up here in my brain for decades now. It's been a slow process to unravel it all. I have to take a lot of breaks so I can laugh at myself. Here is my old-as-I-am explanation for how the world/god/fate works:

I grew up hearing these testimonies... lots of testimonies... in fact I could write a book about all the messed up junk I learned from testimonies: the importance of alcoholism, abusive childhoods, drug use, DRAMA, promiscuity, etc. etc. and what a GREAT story those things make!!! No one wants to hear the testimony of the good, obedient daughter finally realizing the error (where's the error? is it that speck of a swearword over there?) of her ways and then repenting, tearfully, and making a dramatic change in her um...life. BORING.

So anyway, one of the things I'd hear again and again went something like this, "I didn't think I'd ever be a ___________ (Christian, pastor, wife, human, sober, teacher, mother, etc) or do _______________ (missionary work, funerals, teaching, good stuff, dishes, etc) And I was sure I'd never _________________ (I'm drawing a blank on this one). But God has a funny way of MAKING (key word emblazoned on my psyche) you do those things you swore you never would!" Knowing laughter ripples through room. Why were those grown-ups laughing? What secret did they know? I determined to figure it out in the absurd isolation chamber of my little child-brain. Late at night. Laying awake in bed.

forts at the beach house

I would imagine the "worst possible thing" (WTP). And I developed a very special talent for this which persists to this day! I would then try to figure out how God would MAKE me do this or that.... would MAKE me get to the place where that would finally make sense.

WPT: I'd HATE to be doctor! Touching people's bodies, blood, bones, dead people dying right beneath your incompetent hands. And here you'd been thinking for decades about how god-like you were, saving people from the clutches of death, only to have the crushing realization one day, as Suzie bleeds uncontrollably in your human hands, that you are, in fact, impotent against the forces of death, and you realize that your life has been just an empty shell of work and student loans, a futile resistance to the one force in the universe stronger than life itself. And so you start taking your own pills, by the handfull, day after day after day, making horrifying medical mistakes but not caring because we all die. We All Die. Sooner or Later. So what's a few years off your insignificant lives anyway?

Barry's mega-castle format

Next step: Oh crap! Now God's probably going to MAKE me be a doctor! Well, there's really only ONE way he could do that!

Step three: Basically, God would have to make my mother or sister or dad or brother or ALL OF THEM die from some previously unknown disease and then I'd have to devote my life to a crusade to discover, name (that's the hard part: what would I name it? VanBoveniphilitis?) and eradicate this disease. I'd HAVE to become a doctor! Which brings us to...

Step four: THE ONLY WAY to save my family is to actually WANT to be a doctor before God has to smite them in his bid to force my hand. But then they'd never know or thank me for all that debt, medical school and depression that I forced myself to endure just to save their lives. Maybe I could just SAY I want to be a doctor and fake god out until it's too late for me to go to medical school or study science-y things.

EXAMPLE 2:

I HATE Michael Dolan ( probably a nice guy - no idea what he's up to these days and I have no idea why I didn't like him... he wasn't a jerk or anything.)! Which brings us to WPT: GOD now has to MAKE me marry him!! YUCK!!! Please, God, don't make me marry HIM!!! There's NO WAY! I'll become an atheist! I'll hate you to the end of time if you do that! (To this day: I wonder in what sneaky ways God could have made Huck be just like Mike Dolan! ACK!)

Pisco Sours on the Roof every night!

Step Three: God will have to destroy the earth. Mike's the last man on it. I'm pushing 80, so there's not much time I'd have to spend with him anyway. AND he had a brain injury that completely changed his personality. And his acne is gone. Then.... maybe.

Step Four: no step four.

I guess, life did turn itself strange on me. I didn't imagine I'd be a stay at home mom. Or be married to a blond, science-y guy. Or spend vacations in San Diego. Or drive a Honda. Or be Agnostic.... but then how couldn't I be? What with a god that MAKES your worst nightmares come true as a matter of course.

But as far as being a home-maker, I hadn't really imagined anything else, or actually SEEN anything else. I kind of thought I'd only-the-good die young, so tragic, so romantic. They have the BEST funerals. And then I was 24 and maybe that wasn't going to happen after all. And, oh shit!, what if I lived to 85? How could I afford 20 years of retirement? God's got 50 more years to MAKE me become a doctor and 45 more to MAKE me marry Mike Dolan. God could do that... if he WANTS to bad enough. Let's hope he just sits around wanting and doesn't actually wake up early on Saturday mornings to practice.

Vent-age Farmer on the Dell

2011-07-13T16:43:00.000-07:00

I have so much to say and little ability to recall it while sitting here at the computer, a laptop perched on a, literally, old school desk with an empty inkwell... the kind I sat in at school, although I'm not THAT old. The school I went to was old, both in thought and facility. When I sit at the computer, it's like there's this different world. Things I virtually commit to rarely make it on my real calendar. And things I mean to look up once I boot up the Farmer in the Dell, are often forgotten once I see the screen. There's an impenetrable veil between the worlds.

Today is Coyote's 7th birthday. It was a good birth, lo, these seven years ago. It was a quick, honest three and a half hours and out came a screaming 9 pound tub of discontent who didn't talk until he was 3 and cried for several hours every day for the first... um..7 years and counting. The only way to keep him quiet was to take a long bath with him for an hour a day for that first year.

Pomona (the latest name for our farmette) is again basking in the afterglow of several firsts. It's fun to have a hobby where two years in to it, I'm still having firsts. I like big, big projects.

First first: butter, thereby proving that I'm not a witch and not worth burning. Thanks for your patience. I'm temporarily having real cream and the butter is easy to make but intense. Our strawberries, peas, cucumbers, herbs, radishes, etc, etc, plus butter, milk and eggs are radically flavored. After getting over the spring shock of taste, I have a hard time understanding how everything store bought is so utterly bland. What do they do to these things that makes them so tasteless? Do the stores have taste sucking equipment? or is that on the truck that brings it? Does it keep us coming back for more, do they tease us with a fix and then ensure we leave less than fully satisfied?

Snow on Mt. Spokane ruins

Second first: sold a cow. Ginger was just over one and very ready to breed. She was short and fat with a wonky build and despite all that, I think I sold her for too little. That's classic me: under valuing all that I have to offer. It was sad to see her go. She is my most adventurous cow with a curious and playful streak. She seemed ready to see what came next, excited actually, as the trailer pulled away. I was sad, but the much needed cash buoyed my spirits. And I could actually say with some confidence that she was going to a better place with more acreage, taller grass, daily grain, lots of friends, and a bull.

Third first: castration. Beignet is a little... under the weather today. It took four of us. Huck and Sergei to hold him down and Maria to work the rubber band machine and me to fret and ask if there was something I should be doing, over and over again. But now I've seen it done... so I think that some day I could see someone else to it again. Only next time I could probably yell directions too: "Are they both in there? Hold the legs tighter! Keep his head down! Is he still breathing?" He was wild boy, big and strong and he wasn't that in to it. And I have to say that I do feel bad about that too. But I really have even less use for a bull than a steer, no matter how long his odd white eyelashes are, and how wild his soul.

Mt Kit Carson

I think I also wanted to say something about the light switches in this house. It's an old house and apparently, back in 1901, they really didn't get lights or switches or the whole concept. They thought, "Why would you want to turn the light on as soon as you walk in to a dark room? Why not just stub your toes all the way across the room, like we always used to, and rub your hands up and down the walls until you find the most unlikely possible place, and THAT will be your switch!" And I find this affects me when I go to hotels and other people's houses. I walk in to a room and immediately think, "Where's the worst possible place to a put a light switch?" And my hand instinctively goes there. I can see how 110 years ago, people might be new to this and hadn't worked out all the kinks. But in '97, the house got all new electrical wiring and I can't understand how they didn't think to fix this insanity then.

And since it's summer, I also wanted to address body hair, which I have hanging out all over the place here. Women always confide in me, "Oh gosh, I wish I could go without shaving too. It's such a pain!" And I always think, "Wait, do we have the Taliban... or Caliban or whatever here? Do you get stoned to death in the soccer arena for not shaving legs? Or are you full of shit?" I can't even believe it's an issue. Ladies: you don't have to shave. Period. Stop pretending you do. There's not even any blow back. No one has ever said a critical word to me about it... almost never. I had a boss who made me shave my legs to keep my waitressing job (see why I don't want to work!?). And my friend once asked me to shave my pits before clubbing, which I felt was fair enough. But as far as me waltzing around town in short shorts and a tank top: no one has ever said a thing, grimaced, spat, scowled, NOTHING. It certainly doesn't seem to put a dent in the assessments from the males. And the only thing the women ever say is: I wish I could go without. Then do. You're hair will start out dark, and you'll never get the original downy fluff back, but then the sun bleaches it and most people don't even notice. And the only comment you'll ever get is: I wish I could go without shaving. And if someone has a problem with you being a post-pubescent mammal, you don't need them. Now... I will say that if you aren't ready to do this, if your family is a little outspoken with their disgust at people being hairy, mammary-glanded animals (unlike mine who would be alarmed if I did shave), and if you don't care to engage in that conversation with them, by all means, let them bully you into wasting hours and hours and hours of your life dragging razors over your skin and numbing yourself to the breezes of life. Don't envy me. Don't hate me just because I don't give a shit. Just please stop lying about it. You too can stop shaving. Now.

Gotta go birthday party now!

If it pleases you...

2011-06-28T21:08:00.000-07:00

Sukey, world's best cow

oh pshaw! I hasn't been THAT long since I last monoblogged. It's summer vacation, the kids are home, the garden is lush with weeds, the cows are needing all kinds of help, and I've been sick. And in the midst of it I've got massive cerebration going on up here. I've been changing so fast I'm just a blur even to myself. I've been busy shedding my people-pleasing, one layer at a time. Not to say I've totally mastered this new skill, but mostly, I think I'm over the change-hump. I've been waiting a long time for this.

Lots of thinking and reading and some good therapy... I have a long simmering brain and my back burner is where it's at. So here, right now, I'm busy. But things I learned a year ago are sinking in. I'm like that. Art has been a good, physical manifestation of this. Every year I don't work on something makes it richer and better and finally I go back to it, and every thing I learned technically years ago is in full flower, actualized. My motions one with the thought. So don't worry if I learn something new but can't apply it right away. I quit working so hard, put it in the crock pot and when I get home from church, it's all savory and melts in my mouth. (This is how, over the centuries, countless hoards have tried to convince me to get a crock pot. Like I'm all about roast beef. I get bitchy just at the thought of adding one more thing in to the morning while cajoling kids in to underwear and clothing and making sure they've gone pee before we go because I hate the crotch-grabbing-dance they have no qualms about doing in front of large, and largely anonymous audiences... So OKAY - I am not making ROAST BEEF for lunch at 8 am when I'd rather be showering. But I've realized that if I stop the discussion and tell them how NOT interested I am in crockpots (there's also the minivan-like cliche-mom issue and the not-enough-enough-cupboard-space-for-yet-another-too-specific-giant-piece-of-crap concept to consider) then we end up with even more vehement crockpot-proselytization... Just give me the damn recipe which I can write down as "blah blah blah" in a way so that no one can really read my hand writing. Or maybe I should just slap them until they shut up. Okay, perhaps my new personality needs to go in my mental crock pot for a few more years to get a little more toothsome. Or perhaps that's just the people-pleaser in me that's thinking WAY TOO MUCH about you and your love of all things crock pot.)

Too many cows

Farm Notabilia:
Hendrika gave chocolate milk for a good 10 days. We did not drink it. Because Chocolate milk actually from cows is not made with chocolate. When her milk came in, her udder stretch a little too much, blood vessels were burst and viola: chocolate milk. We turned it in to eggs, however.

We dehorned Chocolatey Claire (also, not TRUE chocolate), This was not as gruesome as I feared and involved ONLY: catching her, caging her, roping her, roping her again, roping her again, getting kicked and head butted, shaving her marble-like horn buds, smearing a caustic paste on them, then reading the directions, then smearing some of the paste off, and then listening to her mother (the venerable Hendrika) moo her head off for six hours until we could let her back out with the cows. I felt remiss in not bringing in a mohel. Why dehorn at all? Isn't that inhumane, etc, etc? I'll tell you what would be inhumane: getting gored. Literally, inHUMANe. Especially important if she turns out to be anything like her mother, by who's head (if it'd had horns) I'd have been hari-cari-ed several times over. She did not appear to be in any pain, FYI. Claire will be my milk cow in 2 years, if all goes well. And I want her as me-friendly as possible.

Beignet

Beignet, however, has no horn buds, he being slightly more Hereford than Claire. He will, however, get castrated soon enough, which Huck insists I'll have to do without the dubious benefit of his likely-hysterical self. We'll let Beignet recover from his mysterious and inconvenient illness first, however. We were alerted to a problem when Sukey wouldn't stop mooing for a good 6 hours. Finally, off my fevered and achey duff, I found Sukey's bag to be full and Beignet to be stumblingly ill. His ears were perky. No scours. But not nursing. Not interested in milk at all. Thinking Sukey had mastitis and the milk was gross, I milked out her over-flowing teets, squirting some in the direction of a non-plussed Beignet. Sukey is my favorite. She is beautiful and perfect with a benign personality that I thought would make a great milker. But now I realize, that a hand-milk cow is made, not born. Sukey nearly destroyed the stanchion, the pail and me and didn't have all the much milk to spare. And Beignet is fine now. No idea what happened, except for a lot of worry and research on my part... and all this when Me, yes even ME, was ill.

And also, I am helping my friend run for City Council. It was such an exciting conversation when she was asked to run! And I couldn't help but get involved. I've been part of campaigns before, but not this close, and not this kind. Whereas being on City Council sounds curiously interesting (although I myself live outside city limits) raising money and campaigning are, close up, even more unappealing than I imagined. It's like Amway meets gambling: turn all your friends and family in to money and then put it all on your name. She's a brave brave soul who's love for campaigning is honorably weak, although she rallies!, and who's name I will not mention least it be sullied by my prior dabblings in fully-clothed chore-photography.

And I am now on the Board of Trustees for our church. It's likely as close as I'll get to the prescribe, high school future-job-match fill-in-the-bubble questionnaire. Back in '91, the computer told me I would make a good pastor! This cracked me up primarily because they failed to ask what religion or denomination I was which would have instantly alerted the early-type computer that I was not a good candidate based on gender. However, I now understand that I probably answered those questions however I felt I Should. Back then, personality was to me a matter of right and wrong. Not for you or anyone else. But for me there was a right way to be and a wrong way to be. And I think I answered those questions in a way that I felt would most please my parents and would make me a "right" person... who was just like them, a pastoral dynamic duo. KA PoW! People-pleaser, that was me. I obviously got all the answers right! And was prescribed the Perfect profession. Or perhaps the computer wasn't as dumb as I thought and realized what was going on: people pleaser questing for what is right and perfect = pastor who gets a sex change to please the church.

I hope you like my blog post, even though it was a little long. I really really hope you liked it. THANK YOU SO MUCH for reading it! Oh my god, I feel so blessed that you would read my BLOG. Thanks for putting up with my self-centered moment here. Did you really like this post? I really hope you did. I really really do.


Coyote knew how proud Louis was of his catch,	so he snapped a photo to honor the moment

Of Mice and Women

2011-06-11T12:18:00.000-07:00

Chocolaty Claire getting a scrub down

I could have stopped it. I knew what was going to happen. I knew what I needed to do. But I hesitated. I sat down in my thinking chair. And I sighed. Because I am a mother. And I give life. I encourage the thriving of children and friends and plants and cows and even, yes, mice. When I saw that baby mouse, blindly feeling it's way across the barn floor, I had my opportunity to kill. I held in my powerful hands a pitch fork with not one, but four, stabbing points. Yes, I knew, I was unearthing a mouse nest in the barn. I could foresee the mice, scores of them, scurrying in all directions, even over my feet and up the pitch fork handle. I could see myself screaming and running out into the rain. I know that some day they may even give me hanta virus, and yet, I did not kill. They will eat my grain and chew off the bark of our fruit trees. Yet I did not kill.

I am cleaning out the barn because, as we have discussed before, Huck is deathly allergic to the 8 now-vanished tons of Timothy Hay I bought last year and hasn't been in the barn since. So with self-interest in the forefront of my mind, I set to take on one of Hercules's Herculean labors: a full-on, no-straw-left-behind barn excavation. Whereas I was daily getting the chunks, the straw matted several feet thick. A process so gradual, I didn't notice until now. And so I am shoveling and forking and huffing and puffing because this stuff has become concrete and I am not Hercules.

I am also cleaning out the barn because we have two new babies who need clean nurseries! Hendrika's came a week ago and after much fighting and a confusing Facebook vote, we've named her Chocolaty Claire. Not my favorite, but I know when to stick Helen back in my pocket. (Some day! Some Day! I will have my Helen!) Hendrika birthed loudly (she gets that from me) and seemed confused by the small size and brown color of her baby. Unbeknownst to her, I had her bred with miniature Jersey. I mean, I'm pretty sure she was aware of Frank-from-Craigslist having his arm all the way up her tush. I just don't think she would have picked a miniature Jersey if she'd been in charge of the mating process. She'd probably gone with ye' old standby, vanilla, Hereford.

She and Sukey and Ginger all seemed confused. "Brown?!" Said my red cows, "Who ever heard of a brown cow?!" And when she didn't get up quickly, the cows became even more skeptical of her worth. And when she finally went to nurse on Hendrika, Sukey stepped in and started ramming her. By the time Huck got Sukey and Ginger into solitary lock-down, the baby was scared to death of cows. Huck fed the front end of Hendrika, while I helped the baby up and put her on a teet. And then the bonding and happiness and joy of a new babe happened and Hendrika accepted her calf Hendrika also ate the birth sack and placenta, raw. She gobbled it up, belching and grunting. And... omg... I can't even talk about it. Because the whole process and the memory of it starts my digestive tract going the wrong direction. NEW TOPIC!

Chocolaty Claire getting some colostrum

I read with great envy that cows give birth ON their due date. That is almost all wrong. Whereas Chocolaty Clair came on her due date, Beignet was nearly a week late. Sukey gave birth quickly and quietly to an enormous bull calf who got up right away and started nursing within 1/2 hour of birth. Sukey daintily snacked on her afterbirth... which still sent my dinner in the wrong direction. The next morning I couldn't find Beignet and set out to check on Sukey, laying in the field. Did she have the dreaded milk fever? Had she overlayed him? But there he was, curled alongside her belly. And there they stayed. It was interesting watching Sukey become a mom for the first time. She too seemed to have an "OH SHIT!" moment shortly after the shock of birth had waned. That "Oh SHIT! This is mine! I'm responsible for it!" clearly crossed her face. Unlike Hendrika, she rarely leaves her doomed little boy. She stares at him constantly and keeps him cuddled up next to her.

You may call this anthropomorphizing, however, if one holds evolution to be at all true, then certainly our emotions, their expression, as well as bonding hormones, et al, did not just blossom at the the moment homo sapiens sapiens became a distinct genetic entity. These things came from somewhere, emerged at some point before the HSS human and it is only logical that such feelings would both exist in other mammals and also be expressed on their faces, much like ours are. Unless, of course, you believe in ex nihilo creation via divine edict. In which case, skewer me for my anthropomorphizing as you wish.

And thus begins the season of culling. Five cows are way too many for five acres. I wept when I thinned my corn and I'm not sure how well I'll weather the thinning of the herd. So when the mouselet emerged, I sat in my barn-based thinking chair. I am not well suited to the brutality of farming. I think I would do better if I did not suspect that humans evolved with emotions and that our close genetic cousins, the mice, also have similar electrical and hormonal states. I think farmers must believe in God and must believe in their divine right to rule these lesser beings and must believe that humans are a giant step away from animals both emotionally and spiritually. Because when a farmer-ette does not entirely buy that line of thought, she is somewhat doomed in her efforts to dominion-ate the earth.

I gathered my courage and I destroyed that mouse mansion made of cow crap. And I endured their lightening quick zip over my toes by screaming and dancing. And then there was one, toddling along, cling to life. And he paused and crouched and appeared to put his paws together and pray.

Dear God,
Where is my cat? Where is the owl? Where are these things born to kill?
But for me and my shovel, we must serve the living, the children, the corn, the cows, the mice.

We must go inside and have a nice calm cup of tea and forgive ourselves even as we forgive those that trespassed over our toes.

Dancing with the Meteorites

2011-05-27T11:11:00.000-07:00

I apparently dislocated my hip by two feet

Last night at the Knitting Factory, Huck played backup for the local, randy group Pasties and Paddles. They've also played back up for big "belly" dancers and the Roller Derby. Basically, if it's a freak show, they're in. Last night, it was an S&M exposition group which he claims reminded him of High School skits but worse. I don't know what drives one to be an S&M exhibitor in Spokane, WA.

relocating hip with playground vicegrips

Meanwhile, down on the farm, I was wondering why we can't seem to find a dance hall here. Huck and I began our relationship with a foray into Tango. We get the giggles just remembering. Tango is not the place to start. I have no sense of rhythm and Huck has an intimate and exhaustive understanding of rhythm. He IS rhythm, whereas I'm just thankful my heart remembers to beat some times. And Tango being rather... sexist. And us just getting together. The whole thing was bad. I knew from experience and from watching other's experience that one needs to start a new relationship with boundaries and expectations in place. It's sometimes necessary, but dangerous, to go switching these things around after a few years. You have to be yourself, firmly, from the get go. So, I was loath to start our relationship with me being THAT submissive for hours on end every week. And yet I have a void where kinesthetic intelligence should go. The combo of my disobedience and lack of dancability created a mosh-pit type experience in the ball room. And when I became a pregnant bear, Huck decided to preserve his life and we just stopped.

Two kids later, we waltzed. The first few brutal turns involved elbows and bruising. And I turned to him and hissed, "Why the hell are you trying to beat me up?" And he, just as mad, says, "Why would I beat you up? And in public?" "THAT's What I'm asking YOU." And then we changed partners, thank god. Eventually I learned that I was going to have to submit to my leader, and soon, my lip-licking concentration gave way to a zen-y zoned-out-ness. I look like I've just had a lobotomy. And in a way, I have. In order for me to follow, I must turn off every spigot of thought in my brain and let my body respond to the jerks, squeezes, and after several years of work, the gentle nudgings of my partner. I become a dancing blow-up doll.

But sometimes, I want to "re"gain control of my body, which is really a stupid impulse because of my total lack of ability to control my body. I had a dawning sensation once that I was no longer feeling fancy, or graceful as I'd learned dancing could make me feel. And I said to Huck, "Darling, it feels like I'm just walking backwards. What's going on?" "We're dancing," but his teeth were gritted. "This doesn't feel like dancing. This feels like walking." "You were having trouble with the rhythm so I've simplified." "Well, it feels like BS."

I like the partner switching of dance lessons. You get a feel for the overall personality of all the men in the room. Control freaks and wet noodles and all spots in between. Since I'd been to India, I always liked chatting with this one guy from there. But he was extremely short, even for an Indian. And I happened to be his partner when we learned a dip. Yes, the tallest girl in the class and the shortest man in what turns out to be a physical impossibility. I was feeling large and I'm sure he was feeling puny and I think we were both thinking the same thing, "HELP!" when the male instructor finally glanced our way and screamed like a girl: "OH MY GOD! Switch Partners!"

Since there's no ballroom here, we take what we can get and Huck sometimes has to ply me with wine (but not a stumbling amount) to be the first and only dancers for a band, because when you are that, you join the entertainment and people stare at you and clap at you which lets you know they are watching which isn't what I want to know. And occasionally the band thanks us, from the microphone on the stage. I know I am not that good and that people are watching me be not that good and sometimes thanking me for being not that good. But with Huck's now expert handling, I do sometimes feel graceful and lovely and all that, if a little self-conscious.

Costume Party

2011-05-20T18:34:00.000-07:00

I have a confession to make! And boy, is my mom's heart racing now! (Relax, mom! You probably won't even need your support group of mom's-who's-daughters-have-blogs for this one!)

Here goes: I change my clothes 266 times a day. And JUST like Hannah Montana, hilarious accidents happen! But I don't usually notice until it's too late. My first outfit is called "try-not-to-embarrass-your-son-at-the-bus-stop". He has final veto power and will protest if what I'm wearing looks suspiciously like my rosebud-wallpaper patterned pajamas with red, Quebec slippers (because I am a pajama and slipper connoisseur and would spend my entire life in these outfits if life let me). And why do I stand out at the bus stop with my son? He stands in front of the front window and I can watch him from there, clearly. But... mornings and the push to shove your children into clean clothes, clean breakfast and clean teeth before hurling them out the door can get a little stressful. And standing at the bus stop is a nice chaser. We chat, play games, or just huddle in silence. It is one of my favorite parts of the day which means I will not be skimping on it and if it requires a separate change of clothes, so be it.

Then come the barn clothes, old jeans, boots, cow crap... well, you've seen that one. So risque!

Then I have the clothes I'm going to wear to homeschool or the ones I'm going to drop Blue off in. Experience has taught me that if I am going to go in the car, I should wear a bra (I try to keep one in the car) and non-shit-covered boots and pants, because sometimes I drop by the grocery or hardware store on the way. And this is when it gets interesting if I've forgotten key items like: brushing my hair or teeth, the previously mentioned unmentionable, or clean clothes. The interesting part isn't what you'd expect. It isn't that people look at me funny, point and laugh, call the cops, the health department, or what-have-you. The interesting part is that this is when I am most likely to be hit on. It totally baffles me. Why not hit on the blond with the tall hair and mini-skirt? She sure looks ready for it. Why me? I tried to fix this nuisance by wearing a baseball cap low over my eyes, but that's not off-putting enough, apparently, and I just run in to things and can't find my way out of the store. This whole thing bewilders me because in addition to my clothes being dirty, I am usually filthy (not like THAT!) too. I can't seem to figure out when to shower: before the barn chores, before gardening? Never before bed, unless I want a week's worth of hair from hell that makes Medusa look like a cherub. I think my hair even bit someone last time. Stinky, grimy, wearing holey slippers or shitty rubber boots and all I can say is that I will never understand men. It's apparently not about the shoes for them... or maybe it is. I don't know. I'm usually in some spaced out reverie and won't even notice what I'm wearing until someone makes a move and then I go through this sudden self-consciousness: why is this happening? Is it something I'm wearing? (because I come from the dark ages and learned that it's all about what I'm wearing: everything men think and feel and do can be rightly blamed on my clothes: war, commerce, flashing, etc) And this leads me straight to: Oh! God! What AM I WEARING!!!???? So... I try to wear something normal and clean because some men just need all the help they can get in order behave and if I can remember, by golly, I'll help them!.

Then I change back in to my dirty barn/garden clothes (if I'm not still erroneously in them), or into something comfortable but not for public consumption, like my leopard print velour leggings. They are so cozy and comfy, but scare the crap out of me. I saw a photo of me wearing a hot pink tank top and these pants and I violently refuted that it was me as I would EVER wear anything so tacky! I tried to claim it was a photo of my sister... but that was even more unlikely. Horrified, I faced the fact that I am Peg Bundy. And yet, I find these timeless classics to be cozy and comfy and don them to do whatever it is I do all day around here when I'm trapped inside.

I did go out planting this past week in driving rain. And my rain coat, I noticed, was very skilled at collecting the rain and dumping it on my jeans and down my boots. And one has to ask, "Why the frack am I wearing this?" With the wind, the cold, the rain and the May being on the calendar, I broke into hysterical laughter while wrestling with some black plastic weed barrier. I clearly have a gardening problem if I'm willing to suffer this all and laugh in the face of weather's nastiest.

Then there's the pick-up-the-kids-clothes again, and then making-dinner-clothes which historically requires stainability as well as fire-retardation (although with the microwave, I have reduced my monthly kitchen fires by half!) And, I almost forgot! The soccer and track-mom clothes and another attempt to be socially acceptable. And then we get back to the real reason for my existence: pajamas!

On my bedroom floor are five piles of current outfits, none of which get tremendously dirty, or if they do, they are never TOO dirty for what it is I need them for and that is because I do most of the laundry around here.

This is a true behind-the-scenes confession of a farm grrrl and her outfits.

Dancing in Destruction

2011-05-10T11:30:00.000-07:00

Cows and fences. Owl and chickens. The cycles of creation and destruction continue to cause me to go insane... break down sanity, re-create insanity.

The cows are in the field peaceably chewing cud and sitting.... Oh wait, that's not quite sitting, more like frozen in mid-roll...like giant balls that need a few pumps for that minor deflation. They are pregnancy defined. They look like what all women feel like at this point in the similar nine month gestation. And they're kind of crazy too. Not that they scream about vacuum cleaners or throw bins of dried currants across the kitchen or sit around naked in open windows during 104 degrees of un-air-conditioned heat because who the frick cares who sees. The cows too have been wearing the same clothes for a very long time... they haven't, however, dribbled yogurt down the front and smeared chip powder on the sides.

The grass was popping up green everywhere, and for some reason, in the spring, or really all year, the grass seems greener just outside the fence. And our electric fence wasn't working, because sand is not a good soil type for completing a circuit, it turns out. And because I have no idea about anything electric. And because Huck's been out of town for most of the last six weeks. And what was I going to do? Say, "Hey sweetie! So glad of you to drop by for a few hours this week. Don't play with the kids. Don't do the dishes. Don't ... ahem... take care of me. Just go out and get this crap done!" NO WAY. Until... there they were, giant bowling ball cows going for the split, leaning so far over the fence, they'd smashed it down to two fully-surmountable feet tall. And panic struck.

Luckily, Huck was home and my parents were visiting. And between us all, we got that fence up and running. And the furry zeppelins haven't touched it since! Except for once.

Then the owl attacked. The good news was that Huck was home that night too and I needled him out to check on those screaming chickens. What he saw was a pile of feathers and only three chickens cowering in the hutch and a three foot tall owl on a post a few feet away. We were both glad there were no saucy remains to deal with and we set a spotlight on the coop. But in the morning, that crafty little chicken, Goldilocks, was there! She'd hidden some place far more clever than the coop and was only a little damaged. We've gawked at that owl a few times since, just feet from our faces. And I say to it, in my most dominion-ating voice, "Go." And it does. It's an uneasy peace, if that's what we can call it.

And we went to the sweet old neighbor lady's farm auction. 70+ years of accumulated farm stuff... on auction! And here were all these farmers,. checking out the crap of 10 out-buildings. This is how men work, apparently. They go hunting. They go fishing. They go to farm auctions. Call it useful. Call in necessary. And then they sit in a travel trailer, drink beer, and watch satelite tv for three days. No honey, I didn't kill anything this time. Maybe next time: heeheehee. The farm auction: men wandering around, coffee, donuts, chatting for hours with a few bids thrown in so they can call it work. It makes we wonder if women aren't really ruining work, upping the work bar. Now men have to actually WORK at work. Three martinis and wheelbarrow full of fresh chat is not longer considered work. No wonder so many resisted women in the "work" force.

And the auction itself! The habeeda habeeds habbadada 15 hoppity hoppity hoppity 20! Gave me anxiety in my chest and a pounding in my head. It think it's all part of the clouding of the brain that makes an auction so very profitable.

An auction is a nutty way to sell things you'd normally have to pay to dispose of. Old-school Craigslist. But not. Because the auction preys much more cleverly on desire and competition. Something that might have sold for $10 on Craigslist, is suddenly bid up to $85! Twice the price of new! Three half quarts of oil? Really? The curiosities: threshers from the 30's and 40's. And an oven from every decade since 1930. All in all, a fascinating waste of a day.

But when I didn't get that riding lawn mower, I realized that I actually wanted one. We currently have no working mowers, unless you count the push-reel mower which was great for our city lot, but can't do a thing out here, but make me sweat and curse. My friend's father-in-law bought a fancy new riding mower and needed to offload his old fancy riding mower. He named his price. And I said I'd check with Huck and our bank account to see if we could try for it. And then he says, "Listen, I just want the thing out of my garage. You should really negotiate with me. I'm going to be a push-over and I suggest you take advantage of me. I'll deliver it. I'll fix the wheel. You just name your price." Okay! So that was a cheap mower and I felt kind of bad about it.... but it was his idea! And I spent two blissful hours cruising around our property yesterday. Oh my god, what fun! Gave the kids rides, mowed weeds to keep the Noxious Weed Board happy for a while, and mulched through some failed projects involving manure in really stupid places (because, I thought, I'm not going to move it twice. I'll move it to where I want it and then... let the kids play tether ball in it until it biodegrades into...not manure.)

I've got my four chickens, my three (soon to be five) cows are contained, my 3000 square foot garden has increased to 4500 thanks to a work trade with the neighbor, and I've got a powerful, snazzy riding lawn mower. And my husband's home. I am a very happy, very dancing farm girl.

Spring Concert with soprano and bass

2011-04-29T13:12:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I was wondering where all the fulfillment is that those parenting ads promise. The kids bickered all afternoon, and all through dinner. Time-outs were issued. Threats made. Desserts rescinded. Screen time nixed. And yet the insults, the screaming, the crying, the pulling of the hair, the swatting of the bodies continued. I had no other option but to take my book ("How to be Idle"), with tea and cookies in the conservatory while they duked it out. And it wasn't even amusing squabbling either, not about evolution, god, or the afterlife, just bland stuff. Frankly, I don't even think I ever knew what it was about.

And it turned one's mind to foster care. You know? What about foster care? Just a weekend. I could pretend to be high, and then pull myself together real quick. I know some good families taking foster kids right now.

But it turned out to be Coyote's First Grade Musical night. Why do they always plan these things for after he needs a haircut and right before he gets one?! Not this time: I subjected that kid to the fastest, crookest shave possible. It was like a sheep sheering contest and when it was done I flung up my hands and looked for the score cards to show my standing. He'll need a secondary trim this evening. But at least we could see his eyes. The hair in front of them was gone and I hadn't poked them out, even though he was sure I would and squirmed enough to make it likely.

And then we got in the car and they fought the whole way to school, where we met Huck, and I buried my head in his chest and begged him to take me far from here. But instead we went in and sat on folding chairs which looked like they might spontaneously fulfill their mission while you were using them.

And suddenly: there was Coyote, gleaming in his white button down shirt, tucked in to gray pants, and goofing off like crazy with all his friends. Coyote, as you might glean from his name, is a rabble rouser. Every time I see that kid at school, he's organizing some rebellion or sneak attack. I was so proud and so smiley that my teeth and lips dried up and I got stuck open. There! YES! That is the reward! Watching your son push his teacher's buttons and create mayhem among the children. THAT, my friends, is the pay off. I was so glad to see he had friends. It's been a long, hard struggled and he won.

And then they stood up there on the risers and sang Rhyme-in-Time plus a bunch of Raffi songs which the people behind us found hilarious and I was thinking "Um... haven't we all just spent the past six years singing these ad nauseum until we long for death to all our senses, in particular our hearing?" But "O loke to ote ote ote opples and bononos" was knee-smacking funny in the row behind us.

And then... and then... I saw all those kids up there... in their Sunday best... smiling and singing their hearts out. And I saw all these weddings, and births, and funerals, and graduations, and firsts and lasts, all the big big moments. A lifetime of big moments for all 65 kids up there. And I just fell apart. I wept. I am not one for the weeping. But it was so intense and overwhelming and beautiful and perfect and sad and simply amazing. I tried to hold it together. I choked down my louder sobs. But the rush of emotion was so intense, the tears just shoved their way out, rammed down the walls of my stubborn Dutch stoicism and poured down my cheeks.

And Oh! There was Coyote. Happy incarnate. And clean. I could see his eyes. His freckles. His perfect soul reaching for the high notes.

Check out that bow!

And then it was over. Some kid barfed, of course. And we all went home.
And I felt as mercurial as the spring weather. Sunshine now. Storms again. And then a long long rain (or snow, whatever, it's supposed to be rain).

As I tucked him in to bed, he says, "Wasn't that a great concert, mom?" "Oh yes." "Didn't I do a great job, mom?" "Oh yes." "I really liked that." "Me too."

DOA

2011-04-21T19:28:00.000-07:00

Grim Reaper at Lincoln City

It's spring and in spring one's mind naturally turns towards death, as snowdrops turn their droopy heads toward the compost they sprung from. I don't know why death is so dear to me lately. Since high school, when our school's smartest and snarliest guy went all blase about someone's dear relative's death and drolled, "Death is just as much a part of life as life is," I've understood this concept. And I have contemplated it in detail. For what is life for, other than thinking about death? I am no aimless wanderer, I know just where all of this living is headed. I know where I am going and I think it behooves me to spend most of my journey contemplating exactly that. I'm kidding. Living, is just as much a part of death as death is. So, now we've figured out the destination but I'm still not sure which road I'm taking to get there. But I seem to be getting closer anyway. Maybe death is more of an as-the-crow-flies thing instead of an as-they-slapped-down-the-roads issue.

I've thought a lot about death. Not what comes after. There's no point in thinking about that. This doesn't keep my children from constantly arguing about it, however. While other people's kids fight over the remote control, mine come to blows over the afterlife. We had another round just this Tuesday, as a matter of fact. Blue: nothing. Coyote: heaven. Blue: nothing. Coyote: god.

Actually, I have thought about what comes after death, a pointless exercise or not. I just can't help myself.
And I've thought about how I'll die. Usually, what happens is, I get a runny nose. And my differential goes like this: Lou Gehrig's? Ebola? Alzheimers? Cancer? pre-cancer? I can usually talk myself down to "cold" but it might take an hour or two. Maybe it will be an industrial accident and that's why I don't want to go to work. Anyway, thinking about how I'll die is also kind of pointless. Thinking itself seems kind of pointless, frankly. But that never seems to stop me for doing it, and doing it too much. Perhaps THAT's what makes people go cross-eyed.

But back to death, I think lots of other pointless and ineffectual things about death. Such as how come we seem so opposed? Why do we keep making it legally impossible? Between the FAA and dragged out death scenes that go on for years, and sometimes decades, it seems the one thing we Americans can't tolerate is death.

And also, I think about why death exists at all.

Maiden, Mother, Crone

Of course, just like everyone else on this planet, I don't relish enduring the death of a loved one. Ick. And I don't really like to imagine them enduring my death, if they really love me like they say they do. And I tend to be superstitious about it. I don't imagine that in most cases it is pleasant to endure, whatever part you're playing. It's the suffering associated with it. It's the missing. And the finality. No one can make amends then. No one can say that one last important thing. And I fear and dread that aspect of it. The going-on when it's over for a part of you. So other than death totally sucking and being perhaps the worst part about life, there are other things to think about it.

I can think a lot of things about a lot of topics, as you can probably tell, but sometimes after thinking about something, reasoning it out, coming to logical conclusions (I did get a 4.0 in Logic) or not so logical, the truth of what I've thought-out will wash over me as an emotional/spiritual wave. And I'll suddenly get it, like a religious experience: oh my god! That's true! And I'll feel it all over, in all my buzzing little cells.


Death of a Ruddy Duck Pinata.

And that's death for me right now. I am so very thankful for death. Death is perhaps one of the greatest miracles (after living, of course) that any of us will ever take part in. Death is amazing. Death has done me well. A) It's made room for me here. Imagine 14 billion people on this planet. Nope. I never would have been born. And maybe my existence is great or not-so-great to you, but that's all pointless to contemplate. I'm here now and I've managed to find a way to think that's pretty cool, and I think you should too. B) Every thing I eat is dead. Plants, mostly. All dead. And they all grew from dead things. I'm out in my garden for hours every day now and I'm up to my elbows in death. Planting little seeds in it. Cute, ookey-bookey, lil' seeds. And killing quack grass, evil serpentine quack grass C) I am totally 100% post-consumer recycled product. I am ABC gum. Everything in me has already been caught, devoured, and released. And here I am.

And I feel it. I stretch out on my spring dirt. I make full-body contact with it. I lay in my garden rows, and I feel that dirt all along me. And that glorious death. A riot of death. A hootenanny of death. A bosom of death. Ahhh... bury me alive... in all this death...but leave a little air hole for now.

Henry's Lube Job

2011-03-30T15:26:00.000-07:00

I read that high power careers require at least two people, one to have the career and the other to get the groceries (or hire and manage the person who does) and clean the pool (or at least be home for the pool cleaner) and hook up the phone lines (or standby between 9 and 4 waiting for the schmuck who does) and to get the oil changed. Despite lacking "high power", Huck doesn't have time to do this crap. And what else am I doing but standing around looking like a dirty hamper for time-sucking banality.

Blue celebrates Mardi Gras

Since the Honda dealership can never seem to find my name in their computer (I was once eventually found in "corporate accounts" BECAUSE that was the Only way they could put my name in correctly BECAUSE the computer program deosn't recognize spaces in last names BECAUSE computer programmers are a bunch of crap-heads names Johnson and Johnson who haven't left their mother's basement in 12 years and have no idea there are O'Murphys and Van Cracks BECAUSE we have yet to revolt and slaughter them all BECAUSE we are weak and we continue to let them make us feel small.) and because I have to make an Appointment and because when I arrive no one knows I'm supposed to be there because, again, no one can find my name in the computer.

So this time, I decided to try the new place near our grocery store (I'd tell you the name, but experience tells me that would just result in a lot of comments from their marketers on my blog). As I drove up, I almost noticed the flashing yellow lights in the warning center of my brain: Something Is Not Right Here. And these signals came in the form of Natty Gan hats, tweed cutie pies which I myself own. "Oh Geez," I said to Blue, "They make them wear demeaning costumes." But when the grease monkey jogged to my car and handed me a menu, I realized that the hats were actually really HOT! And I almost asked him if he could perform my lube job by turning around and dipping a la Hefner's bunnies (Listen, I just finished his bio and all this trivia is still floating around my cranium). No bunny tails, however.

Bummer #1) that wasn't the guy who serviced my car, he was just the hostesser
Bummer #2) I was informed that at this special establishment, I would be sitting in my car while they worked on it. Meaning: no sharing a small enclosure with strangers as we take turns attempting to cajole the broken soda fountain to give up the goods. Meaning: no jogging through wind and cold to a holding tank that stinks of car farts and contains leering strangers. The bummer is sitting in my car.

He handed me a newspaper and I was good to go. Until 20 minutes later. I was still sitting in my car and I was still waiting my turn. But Oh! Turns out that was the good time.

I drive over the pit. And here is this screen right next to me with four live-action boys-in-hats views. I can see one bending over the hood and two below, all butt-shots that aren't entirely ready for their close-up, and I realize that this is the oil change of choice for paranoids and undiscriminating gay men. Here I have the opportunity to monitor their every move and pretend I'm making sure they do it right or just stare at their jumper-clad hinies. But I don't know what it is they do anyway and I can't see any meaningful details in the grainy butt-cams. What I do get, however is an earful of eavesdropped "office" politics. Let's just say the acrostic for TEAM here was, roughly, "Bite Me."

The other problem is that I can feel them working on the car. Beneath me. Beneath my butt. And this probably never occured to the man who dreamed up this plan, but the whole operation had a very gynecological exam feel to it and I actually squirmed and tightened.

Well, you say, at least you brought a good book to read. Fabulous, actually. Peter Sagal's hilarious and smart "The Book of Vice." Unfortunately (and here is where this business idea finally makes sense) I was interrupted every 30 seconds with "courtesy offers" and up-sales. I'd stupidly rolled right in to this trap. I was literally a captive audience and this grease-monkey-cum-wiper-shark kept interrupting the chapter on consumption to encourage new this and new that and flushing 8 different fluids and changing 12 types of filters.

As all trapped animals, I became snarly and started baring my teeth. And when I said no to another intervention, he says, "Oh, you had that done at your periodical, mandatory 120k money flush?" (I'm paraphrasing).

I don't do those. Because this is how it goes: I bring the car in, even though it works fine. I am inconvenienced all over town and several hours later, they give it back and it's still just fine but my bank account has a $600 gushing gash in it. And then three months later, I'm at an oil hange and they suggest I need all my fluids rearranged again. And I say, "That's impossible! I just had the 80k!" And they say, "Oh, but we don't do that at the 80k." "Then what the Hell do you do at the 80k for $600?" I hiss. So now, if it's dirty it gets changed and if it's not, we drive on by.

After a while, every time this capped kid opens his mouth, I just yell "NO." Nancy Reagan would be so proud. And once I got the rhythm down, I just yelled "NO" through my window every 30 seconds.

By the time we left, my butt was numb. I'd been sitting in my car for over an hour. Worse than Seattle rush hour. I'm kidding, at least I moved 10 feet. But for all that time, we could have been in Ritzville by now.

Deflections on the Good Life

2011-03-17T10:45:00.000-07:00

We hustled some hot muffins over to the octogenarian-ette neighbor because she's been laid up with an infected knee. She's about the sweetest and fanciest thing ever. She claims to be a city girl, although she moved out here to her husband's mega-acre farm when she was 17. She drove in to town every day to be a "big city" nurse and still claims to be clueless about farming. One admires the chutzpah to claim a life totally separate from your husband's. We adore her.

Seated in her living room, she relishes the company and launches in to a thrilling recap of her Bible Study Fellowship class. She fishes out her Bible and reads the week's verse, pontificating and expounding upon Isaiah's wisdom and ... how to put that...psychic?... abilities. I listen. I let her enthusiasm billow over me. I try to find points of agreement and stick with those. I tell her I'm so happy she's getting so much out of that. "Would you like to come some time?" She invites. There's a rabid faith in her eyes, a foaming pit bull who won't take "no" for an answer. A blood hound. Can she hear my panicked rabbit heart spasming? Can she smell the fear I am most certainly excreting from my freaked-out glands? How did we get here? How did I get to this spot where I have to tell this old sweetie pie to shove it? But rest assured dear readers, I have tools! I have giant deflectors.

I have become a master of deflection, a journeyman of dodginess. Here are the tools of my trade:

1a) I say, "I am very involved in my church and don't think I can fit another thing in!" I love saying I go to church. In this part of Washington state, it accords you privileges and dignity. People trust you. Like you. People think the best of you and you are free to go.

b) the second part of this tool comes when she asks, "What church do you go to?"
"We are Unitarian Universalists." I rely on her not knowing what that is, but assuming it's like Lutheran or Episcopal... close enough. It's camoflage: is that a shrub over there? or some chick army crawling under Jesus-barbed wire? Although I tell her the name several times, she clearly can't place exactly what it is. I like that.

2) As she rhapsodizes about her church, which in next to ours, and looks like a giant ark with mood lighting and remote controlled curtains, I take my opportunity to further deflect. I say, "My father is a Pastor."
"OH MY! What denomination?"
"Non-denominational Protestant generally, but now he's a Mennonite Pastor."
I try to feel no shame using my father's job as cover. I've done it before. It once landed me an apartment when I sorely needed one. When I use this tool, I feel like a feminist stripper: being a woman is such a crappy, bottom position in this society that I might as well fill my panties with money and make the most of it.
My father's job, unlike most father's jobs, has been my cross to bear... and not because of him. I recently chatted with someone who was talking about a pastor and his family as if they were all part of a package deal, a hero and his unpaid side-kicks. My visceral response vacillated between needing an air-sickness-baggie and dieing to bash heads together. People deny it when pressed, but it's true, the pastor's family is a special brood of gawk-worthy freaks who are just part of his circus act. I know he tried to shield us from this fate and I could probably fill a very tedious, self-involved book-length blog post about all this but I'll stop right here. The point is that although I no longer consider myself the Pastor's Daughter, it did impact my formative years as much as if my parents had tattooed my entire body to look like a tiger and made me jump through flaming hoops. So, if I can occasionally pull something out of that that works to my benefit, I have no... or rather, few.... qualms about doing so.

3) Deflection device three I didn't use here, but have accessed plenty. Another one of those: I-paid-the-price,-I'm-leaving-with-my-merchandise situations. This one goes, "I went to Bible College." Never mind that I engaged in so much youthful carousing and follies and pool my second semester at the U.S.'s smallest accredited college in the smallest town in central Alaska that when I told them I wasn't returning for a second year, they assured me that I hadn't been invited to anyway.

I feel a little unctuous and smarmy using these tools, like an over-priced, un-showered plumber.

As we left, she says at the door, "I am just so glad to know that I have such good, nice, Christian neighbors!" And Blue looks at me, "Uh...MOM!?" I smile huge, say SHSHSH, and kick Blue's foot, the universal mother-sign for: shutupshutupshutup. I turn to M and gush, "It was so good to see you. We'll come to visit again soon!"

As we walk down her driveway, Blue says, "But MOM! We're not Christians!"

Maybe I am a Christian after all!

"I know."
"But why didn't you correct her?"
"Because that is a very long conversation and I have to get dinner going. I didn't mean to be dishonest. I just didn't want to talk about it." And what am I supposed to say when she packages it all up that way? Oh, Sorry neighbor lady, but we're not Christian, we're not nice, and we're not good. But we are your neighbors, so good luck with that!
"You weren't dishonest," Blue assures, "You told her, like, three times that we're Unitarians."
"Yeah, but I was relying on the fact that she wouldn't know what that was."

There is hilarity and irony in this set of deflectors I have and I am sure there are many South Carolina mall-walkers who would be thrilled to gloat right now. I spent my teen years approaching strangers every Wednesday night, "witnessing"... sometimes to serious screamers whose feelings I now get. I "witnessed" on buses, airplanes, street corners, Lane Bryant. So I now understand the proselytizer's "thinking" and I sometimes feel it's my penance to put up with it all. I can't imagine how irritating and annoying I must have been, perky teen pushing "answers".

My Unitarian friends seemed split on how to deal with those of religious persuasions that won't just let us go to hell. For myself, I can feel the love of the Jesus-Converter; convinced I'm going to hell for eternity, what else can they do if they care at all? I don't mind if Mormon's induct me into their books or whatever. And I love to hear that people are praying for me... depends on what they're praying.

But other Unitarians are angered by the affront to their integrity and autonomy and tell all comers to shove-it. Some felt the noblest path was stating you are not a Christian and then allowing people to see you are good anyway. Be true to yourself! And yet, I felt that in this scenario, being true to myself was going home and making dinner.

Some Unitarians, including me, felt that avoiding the topic was a fine way to go, especially in the eastern side of the state and especially when dealing with 80-some year old widows who aren't known for changing their world views. We do this because we have other things to do with our time and energy, like making dinner. We don't want to get involved in these discussions willy-nilly as they are exhausting and frequently fruitless. And because many seem to then filter everything you do through the "Not-good, not-nice, not-Christian" filter. So we quietly deflect and move on with our lives, being good, nice, and dodgy Unitarian neighbors.

Dirty Farm Girl

2011-03-09T08:41:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a torrent of unnecessary stress as a friend informed me he couldn't access this here blog because it was flagged as porn. Yes, folks, life on the farm is porny. This was after I posted on Facebook "Loves Racking Off!" a term which means to siphon hard cider from one carboy to another, a term that sounds funny if you know what it really means, but frightening if you don't know...which apparently people don't. This all sent me into a frivolous tizzy, partly because my past is clogged with religious zealots eager to find offense. Although I find nothing flag worthy in here myself, some of them just might... I honestly don't know... it's hard to read the minds of the religiously insane.

Then I wondered if it wasn't a mix-up of all the other Sarajoy Fresh! items on Google's tap. That is one scary Google indeed! Sara Jay loves it all over her face! And then there's the misstep of simply Googling my entire name because there is a Dutch bestiality star by the same handle. She also specializes in hand spanking. I don't know... it's probably just an add for tires if you click on it. Someone else can do that and report back.

But as it turns out, it was a server problem (that NEVER happens at the Playboy Club! I recently taught Huck the bunny dip after reading Hep Hef's bio and now he serves me all my drinks by turning around and dipping down to set it on the table. Now for the tail!) and it was suggested that a workplace filter might filter out any blogspot addresses, just on the off chance.

But you know, I never did like being falsely accused! I was accused and punished in High School for going on a walk with a friend, because the Head Master (who resigned quickly and under a cloud a few years later) saw us head off down a trail in the woods and thought: "SEX!!!" The boy was suspended and we were banished from speaking for the rest of the year. Until we became the forbidden fruit, we never even held hands. And then I ill-fatedly married him post haste so that I could taste that there fruit without it being so forbidden. That person was pre-Huck.

A few years ago, I was pulled aside and given a private lecture by a woman who later turned out to have been "visiting family" but was instead routinely cheating on her husband via interstate orgies. And SHE had a problem with my few dorky jokes about carrots and shoyulong cucumbers. THAT was dirty, especially now that we had kids. Go figure!

All this to say that I HATE being falsely accused by hypocrites. If I'm going to do the time (even just by some random office filter) I AM going to do the crime. Hell, who am I to deny some search engine it's fantasy? Really. What am I waiting for? I have no job, no boss, no snow white reputation. I'm not looking for a spouse or a job (although this will be the first deleted post if I ever start!). I suppose there are corporate head hunters all around, but I doubt I'm in ANYONE's crosshairs. So what am I so afraid of? All those witch-hunters from my past who I accidentally friended on Facebook after an extended meditation after which I erroneously thought I could/should love everyone? (if you are reading this, I'm probably not talking about you!) Am I afraid of them? Hell no! I welcome the constant criticism! I throw myself willingly into their spikey, poisoned embraces! Criticize THIS!

I had a photographer come out this morning and take shot some shots of me working hard on the farm

Sarajoy finds this spigot is frozen shut!

oh! There is goes!

Every hard working farm girl deserves a break now and then!

This ground is so cold!

I left my pocket knife in my other pocket! Now I have to use baling twine to burn through baling twine!

Sarajoy loves the feel of fresh huge snowflakes on her cheek!

Sarajoy also loves the feel of rough, tough work gloves!

Sarajoy loves to lift humongous loads of Timothy Hay!!!

Time to get dirty!

Fresh cow shit!

I love cow shit!

Fresh, hot, steaming cow shit all over my face! Oh my god!!

Now, it's time for both of us to start breathing again.

You either have cows or money

2011-03-03T11:59:00.000-08:00

The cow went dry three months early. This is an operator error. I didn't know what I was looking for, how to time it, when to insist that The Inseminator come, etc. It sucks to be cleaning out stalls and tossing 1/2 ton bales of hay around without getting anything for my labors. The grain bill is down, but the grocery bill is way up. What can I say... I'm a novice and this is just the sort of mistake we are bound to make. I've learned to give lots of slack to beginners, to myself as a beginner. Unlike some people who have no patience for learning... a bossy megalomaniac (not Huck, no way) is getting on my nerves. Freshman efforts should be treated with gentle guidance. And I'm learning to give this to myself. I wish others could be so wise.

On another topic, I love all our contradictory and confusing sayings. When I was little I used to marvel at how the early bird gets the worm but good things come to those who wait. Both are true, some times, like a broken clock. But lately I've been looking at the aphorisms which we tell ourselves that aren't true at all. Our pastor recently said in a sermon, "No one ever said on their death bed that they wished they had more money." Ummm... no one you know, maybe. That could be because people with quaint death-bed experiences during which they relay their final advice usually had plenty of green, that's why they're in a bed, in a hospital.

I can think of several people, just off the top of my head, whose deaths were directly related to not having enough money. Take Coyote's midwife who died a year ago from a perfectly treatable breast cancer. But she didn't have health insurance or money, so she never got her symptoms checked out until the cancer was literally choking her and she died two weeks later. I think of the 35,000 people who die of starvation every single day or the 1 million yearly deaths associated with contaminated drinking water. Or those who die in the violence of poverty stricken ghettos. I think, on their death "beds," they may have wished for more money. But, since most of them are children, perhaps they didn't know the role money might have played in their plight. No... I think this idea that money isn't "what you wish you had more of" when you lay in your clean, remote-controlled bed with your family all around you (they flew in from all corners of the world to say their final farewell) is a fantasy we all have. And certainly, everyone should be so fortunate to die in such a peaceful, friendly way at the end of a long life. But the truth is that many people die every day who wouldn't if they'd had money.

There's also, "The best things in life are free." Again, see above mentioned food and clean water. Also health care. Baby-sitters. Perhaps, the next best things in life are free, once that life is secure.

And I love to hear this one: "You either have time or money." HA! This is always spoken by those who imagine that poor people are poor because they're lazy. People would tell me this while Huck was in school and I was working. And we had two kids. And were on food stamps. And drove my grandma's '94 Oldsmobile. We had neither. And yet people always said this, like since we were poor we must have tons of time we're not using wisely. Because it's March and it still feels like February, I just want to say right now a sweet little: FORGET YOU! to those wonderful people, bless their confused little hearts.

A girl in the religious high school I went to said that God had chosen to bless her family with money and if He wanted others to have some, He would just give it to them. So I asked, "What did my family do to deserve poverty?" She said: "That is between your family and God. I don't know what you did. But God does." At this point, thankfully, the panicked teacher told her to shut up, and not in a nice way. A probably still thinks that, but maybe she's learned to keep it to herself now. It's an ubiquitous idea, poverty as just punishment. Imagine, God's love equals money! That's what Jesus said, right?

To be fair, the poor have their sayings about the rich. The scum rising and all that, as was obvious in A's case. But that's another aphorism to make the bottoms feel better about their position.

Basically, if it's a cliche about money that people want to keep as theirs, it is going to stick around. If it makes the poor feel like they have nothing to envy, like poverty is a gift (Can't buy happiness!), like it's spiritual and/or simpler to be poor, or dirty to have money, we'll hear it again and again.

To be fair, I do know people whose wealth is kept in perspective and they know it says nothing of their value as a person. I aspire to be such a lucky wise one! And I promise that I'll always remember that although we work hard for our wealth, it doesn't mean that people without wealth don't work hard. I'm just saying here, watch those aphorisms, some of them are well designed to keep you down and loving it.

Winter Empathy Olympics 2011

2011-02-23T14:51:00.000-08:00

Sometimes when you need empathy for stupid crap, you really should be careful about where you go to get it.

This morning, my neighbor gave me a ride to pick up a car. And we each asked how the other was doing. I was going to complain about Huck working too much and being out of town too much and this rotting corpse of old man winter which has us currently mid-blizzard and diving down into the deep negatives (metaphoric and Fahrenheit both). But I had the impulse to hold back a little. Thank god. He told me his family has endured two deaths in the past week and one birth and he's headed out of town to deal with all that. Well... no body's died here so everything is hunky dory.

How I learned this lesson: several years ago, in February (a place where I like to stash my deepest depths of despair to dig up and revisit annually), I called a friend. I was bawling. She was surprisingly snippy. "What the problem?" I'm bored and it's February. This parenting stuff, this not travelling, this winter, this boring routine over and over and over, and work, and home, and errands, and work, and laundry and errands and work and dishes and errands. I'm not going to make it!! "Silence." Hello? Hello? (Icey voice) "My brother was just shot 17 times by the New York City police and YOU are crying to ME because your bored." Oooops!!! Of course, the boredom sometimes associated with the glee of parenting should be taken seriously and given loads of empathy. But she can certainly be forgiven her short temper with such a mundane ailment given the level of grief and outrage she was justly entitled to. Of course, I can't go around calling all my friends and asking them if anyone's been shot recently. There's no way I could have known, until she told me. Since then, I've been cautious about complaining about life's pedestrian nuisances (except on my blog! You are hereby warned).

Speaking of empathy Olympics, I have been hanging out with the world's most singlest mom ever. I know lots of mom's who are single but who also have these fabulous 50/50 kid sharing relationships with their ex's and/or live next to their parents. They frequently have way more breaks than I do and go on way more dates than Huck and I. Whereas I can feel bad for them that the relationship didn't turn out the way they expected, it's sometimes hard to cough up much sympathy for someone who's definition of "single mom" somehow includes weekends off and three weeknights out while grandma takes the kids. And sometimes I have to listen to a lot of angry envy and unrealistic wistfulness ("Gosh, I wish someone would hang my mirror for me!" Hire a handy man. Or were you saying you want someone to hang your mirror while also second guessing your parenting, or who's parenting you second guess? Yeah, I'd like a husband like the one you think I have too.

I understand disappointment and frustration and exhaustion but not the assumption that because I am currently married it's all easy and nice and dear hubby comes home from his supposedly high-paying job every night to relieve the nanny, bathe the kids, do the dishes, massage my feet and fix the faucet while I go out on the town with my friends. Parenting is damn hard, married or single. Honestly, I don't know what it's like to be a single mom and I'm lucky enough to have a pretty rad husband who doesn't make it tempting to find out. But I do know that I don't like being told how easy I have it by someone who gets every other week to herself, to travel, go out, ride mountain bikes, read books, and not do 4 times the amount of laundry and dishes.

I also know a lot of single mom's who do EVERYTHING and it's all on them. And a lot of single moms already know that marriage is a lot of work: some one always steals the covers, has different financial priorities, and leaves dishes in the sink, and they don't waste much time trying to tell me how great my life is compared to theirs. Generally, it's a waste of every one's energy to compare at all, however I'll admit that one's spouse being out of town is preferable to him being either dead or deadbeat.

Even though I'm still married, I do sometimes feel a little sorry for myself out here in Spokane. People don't generally move to this town because it stole their hearts (ala: San Fran and Portland). They move here because of family and/or jobs. Most people here have built-in babysitters (extended family) and it's hard to watch them have their free weekly dates while we get one every great so often, when family visits. Although I was recently the recipient of free babysitting from a divorced mom and also a hard working dad so it's not as boohoo-ey as it once was around here.

So, I met this German woman. Her daughter and mine are near twins. And she is so smart (aeronautical engineer: I find I get along GREAT with women engineers). She's an "older" mom and her family is all passed away. And here she lives in a foreign country. And it's just breath-taking, the utter single-ness. What if something happens to her? AND for ten years, she has not had more than a couple hours to herself. TEN YEARS! Holy crap. And you know what she says to me? After all the shit I've gotten for deciding to have my children younger rather than older. After all the pronouncements of Older Mom's being better with all their money and careers (I was shoo-ed out of a conversation among Seattle mom's because they were talking about careers and I "obviously don't know anything about that." Yeah... I HATED Seattle.) and security (there's no such thing) and supposed patience (that's a laugh). THIS woman says to me: "You were so smart to have your priorities straight at such a young age as to what really matters in life and to do this when your family was still alive and you were healthy." Which really was how my decision-making went. It's hard to complain about Huck being out of town too much to her, about my family, ALIVE, in Oregon, and about our twice yearly date nights.

This is the woman who fed me foie gras recently. She's got impeccable food ethics, except for this one snare she caught while living in France. It tasted like olive paste, but goose-poopier. This trial was part of my renewed thrust to try anything new, which includes reading a biography of Hugh Hefner (dweeb!) and trying out a Glock .40 (heavy).

So anyway, the winners of the Winter Empathy Olympics 2011? Over-all single moms are definitely on the podium, although some of them do need a reality check on how easy they seem to remember marriage being and the fact that the State of Washington enforces a parenting plan which is fairer than most moms get. I don't think I'm even among the medalists this year, although it's February and I feel kind of entitled to at least a bronze, if you can't tell. Maybe a dark chocolate medal will do.

Screw It Up Yourself

2011-01-28T10:23:00.000-08:00

In the three seconds
it stayed on the wall

I missed having an advent calendar for the kids last year. For this past Christmas I hunted around for one. In my price-range I found mostly garage-sale-fodder, crappy crafts made by enslaved Chinese nine-year-olds who would probably rather be in school. And these sorts of things do not make me feel festive. Apparently I am alone in this.

I checked http://www.etsy.com/ and found a ton of cutesoid stuff not in my price range. But! Hark! What was this? A 24 muffin tin Christmas Countdown calendar...for $45!! Golly, I could buy my own muffin tin for cheaper. And I did. A shiny silver one. The kids decorated circular labels. We filled each muffin with chocolates and sealed them in with the stickers. And I hung it up on the wall. It was festive! and fun to make! And it only cost me $10! And then the stickers started falling off one by one and the candy trickled to the floor. Not yet daunted, I pulled long strips of tape across the rows. It looked a little less cute, and the Kisses would be harder to pry out, but it was still kind-looking and homey and would do the trick. And then. Because all the covers were stuck together, the whole of them fell off at once and Kisses bombed the floor. And that is because they seem to only make NON-STICK muffin tins these days. Oh for the aluminum of yore!

DIY marshmellows took on a gruesome look

Then I tried making my own washing machine detergent. And it was a great success. For $5 and 20 minutes I get 6 gallons (150+loads, but I only make two gallons at a time) of earth friendly soap. Considering I have no income and some time, this is a bargain. It was immensely easy. And I felt like I'd been duped into buying pre-made stuff. Really, it's like buying pre-made water. The recipe is ubiquitous on the net. And all ingredients are easily found in the detergent section of any old grocery store. And here it is: 1 BAR SOAP (some people recommend Fels Naptha, but they don't list the ingredients and that stuff stinks to high heaven of toxic crap. If you use it, you're only supposed to use 1/3 of a bar) grated on your cheese grater and dissolved over medium heat with 6 CUPS OF WATER. Mix in 1/2 CUP WASHING SODA (not baking) and 1/2 CUP BORAX until dissolved. Remove from heat. In your 2 gallon bucket you have already put about 4 CUPS HOT WATER into which you now stir your soap mixture. You put in the rest of your two gallons (one gallon plus 6 cups, or add WATER to the two gallon mark). You can add a bottle of essential oils at this point, but that will more than triple the cost of your soap. It will gel over-night. And then you put 1/2 cup per load. I have heard that the consistency varies. And it should look like eggdrop soup. It had the texture of jello mixed with milk. And it works. We stink up our clothes really bad around here (Huck with his work, running and soccer, Coyote with his un-potty-training, me with my cows, and Blue just with having those feet attached to her legs) and they come out non-stinking. If you insist on having glowing whites, you should probably rethink that. A heck of a lot of mercury is released into the environment when it's made. And maybe my kids aren't the ones affected, but we're all stuck on this shrinking planet together and I'd like everyone to be functioning on as many cylinders as they've got. The other solution to the whites problem is to just stop buying whites! I think Coyote's the only one with much in the way of whites and those all get covered by shoes and pants. And I think white is just about the stupidest color for anything other than snow, milk, clouds, butts, and lilies. It's also a really stressful color. And that's how you make laundry soap!

Heartened by this success, I began looking around for other costs to cut. I've made my own facial toner, a supply which has so far lasted me four years. I do spend quite a bit on my one bottle of facial lotion, but that's because my face demands it. And that's my only cosmetic expense. But what of toothpaste? Coyote is picky and has to have expensive fennel stuff. But the rest of us...we could go cheaper. So I found this recipe: 6 parts baking soda, 1 part rubbing alcohol, 1 part liquid vegetable glycerin, and some peppermint oil, which I already had on hand. I think some parts of these directions were missing. I mixed it all up and loaded my pastry bag and leaned it in a bowl in the bathroom. The next morning, the oil, glycerin and alcohol had all flowed out in to the bowl and a bunch of dry, minty soda was stuck in the pastry bag. And do you know how SALTY baking soda is?! Oh my god. No one will touch the stuff, but me and I'm not going to let my $1/2 go down the drain! But I could drink an ocean after I brush now. No...not an ocean, a salt-free aquifer!

Story-tooting

2011-01-18T11:19:00.000-08:00

I recently read that blogs are all about people tooting their own horns. This must be a generalization and not a rule. Because on my blog, I toot my kid's horns and I tell you all about my farm failures, my irregular ass, and my massive existential malaise we're all so sick of hearing about but is on going and has been reduced to one impossible wish: that I were someone else, someone with clear goals, an obvious purpose in life, and lots of mentors. As it is, I remain me. And that's not a very good horn to toot, so I don't.

Unless it's GI-related and/or I am very tipsy, tooting is not an area of expertise for me A friend of several years got really upset to read an article about me in the paper detailing things I'd never told her because I just didn't want to seem like I was bragging. But now I'm wondering if perhaps bragging isn't sometimes in the eye of a jealous beholder. Otherwise, how should I let you know who I am and the experiences that have formed me? It's not obvious from the life I have now.

I'm watching this in my daughter, and it's difficult to just listen and not grab her by the lapels and shake her, screaming, "NOOOOO!!!!!" In her robotics class, she's way younger than the team she's on and she mentioned at step 4 that the thing looked crooked, but was voted down as too young to know what she's talking about. She did not insist. No, she did just what her mother would do and think.... oh well, no big deal for me if we do it over at step 4 or 18. She told me they're supposed to work as a team so she didn't push. But aren't the other kids supposed to work as a team too? So, the instructor chastised them at step 18 and they have to take the whole thing apart and start all over again. I asked her if she would do things differently next time and she shrugs and says, "What do I care? I'm in the class two hours a week whether the things works or not." ACK!!! THAT is just my style of thinking and it has not gotten me past the starting line!

So, here's a toot. This fall, I started a storytelling group to do the children's story at our Unitarian Universalist church. I am so passionate about this and got shot down, ("Over my dead body"), when I first asked if I could help with that part of the service. I wanted to explain that I'd done them at our church in Wenatchee, but no one had ears on. After that person was forced out of their power, I approached her replacement. And this time I asked if I could get more people involved. I'd love to do them every week but that's a lot of stress on my bladder (I get really nervous and pee 127 times before I speak) and I think church is a place for people to give their gifts, especially the ones that have no other place. And what if other people need to share stories too? I wouldn't want to hog. So, I asked around. I put on a well attended storytelling workshop a couple months ago. And, at least the technical aspects of this project are all going well!

I am very happy with how my stories have gone (aside from the photographer incident) and they have been well received and I feel that I have united with an important piece of who I am and my purpose here. So, you see, it's not ALL doom and gloom and 40 years in the wilderness up in my head.

And if you have to go now, I understand. But if you have a minute more, I'll share with you my latest successful story. I was flattered to hear that this story had been repeated many times at holiday gatherings. It is a true story. From my life. Blandly named "Sweet Sixteen." This is written as a telling story, with kids sitting at my feet, for our new member service.

Story:

Have you ever moved to a new town? Been to a new school where no face is familiar?

When I was 15, my family decided it was time to move. But they hadn't decided where when I left to volunteer in Africa for a summer. When I left, all I knew was that I wouldn't be coming back to the town I'd known my whole life. While I was gone, my parents move to South Carolina, on the other side of the country. I flew from Africa to Florida where I picked up my surprise plane ticket to my new home.

I was a few days late for my new school. It was my Junior year. And a couple weeks in to it, my mother said, "So, your birthday is coming up." (Saccharine voice)
"I know." (teen angst voice)
"You'll be turning 16."
"I know." Sixteen is an important birthday in our culture. It is supposed to be a big party with lots of friends. You get your driver's license. The world opens up.
"Do you want to have a party?"
"Who would I invite. I don't know anyone."
"Sure you do, honey. You MUST know someone."
"Nope."
"Don't you talk to anyone in the halls? There are people in the halls, right?"
"Nope."
"Well... let's think. Who do you have lunch with? You must have lunch with someone!"
"No one."
"Oh come on now, that can't be true. Who's at the table where you sit?"
"People who don't talk to me. People who already have friends. People who are probably going to have big gigantic sweet sixteen parties."
"Honey, there must be Some One! Put on you're thinking cap!"
"Nope. Face it. You just moved me across the country to a whole different place right before my birthday." And let me tell you, Columbia, South Carolina is VERY different from Bellingham, WA.
"I'm not having a party."
"Well, would you like to go out for dinner then?"
(Shrug) "I guess."
And soon my birthday was here.
No one at school seemed to know. I didn't tell any of the people I didn't know. But the secretary said, "Happy Birthday," as I passed the front office. I guess she had access to all that sort of vital information.

When it was time to go out for dinner, my mother had a pounding headache and just couldn't go. So my father took my sister and I out. I can't remember where we went, what we ate or even if the waitstaff clapped and sang Happy Birthday through the restaurant with a cupcake. What I do remember is that it was pathetic and I was bummed. I moped back home and trudged up the stairs to our apartment. Not the large farm house I'd known before, but a small, bland, city apartment. I was trying to be happy for clean drinking water and food. I was trying to be thankful for family and I was trying VERY hard to NOT cry.

And I opened the door.

And do you know what I heard? Get ready.

SURPRISE!!

And all around the tiny room were faces that I kind of recognized. Faces from school, from the tables I'd sat at, from the classes and the hallways and even an American friend I'd met in Africa.

It was quite a surprise. And I'm still surprised to this day!

How had my mother cobbled together this party? As far as I could tell, she'd made it out of thin air. But where I'd seen people sitting near me, she'd envisioned friends. Were I heard a thin "hi," she'd heard, "I could be your friend, if you want." Where I was waiting for friends, she saw how I could find them. And she'd called that secretary who'd known my birthday, and she'd asked her to keep an eye out and to report to her every person she saw me talking with and every person I'd eaten lunch near. And my mother called those girls, and invited them to our new apartment. Where the cake was chocolate, the balloons were bountiful, and the party of near-friends was only slightly awkward.

And that is the story of how I found a place for myself in South Carolina, how a bunch of girls made room for the new kid, and how, thanks to my loving and imaginative mother, I had a very sweet 16.

Who will wear the pants in this family?

2011-01-11T14:13:00.000-08:00

Coyote snapped this one

I HATE pants shopping. Not only are you standing 6 inches from a mirror and analyzing your ass, they no longer make pants that fit.
My body hasn't changed that drastically since hosting babies that something as basic as pants shouldn't fit anymore. My hinney has dropped to an average setting, which is fine by me. It always rode too high, like a hunched back. In fact, I like my post babies body way more than the one of my youth. So it pisses me off that no one can make pants for it.

With last year's style (maybe that was four years ago), I have to wear a belt because they end at the widest part and can't stay up. I can pull the pants up for a lovely set of camel toes and belt them there. Or I can cinch them on my hips where the belt digs into my bones and gets chucked out the car window an hour later. Now they come out with "skinny" jeans. You could put Ichabod Crane into a pair and even he'd look like Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dumb (check out those modern references! Yeah, I'm name-dropping) trying to cram themselves into a single pantleg. These are the stupidest looking pants ever. I tried a purple pair, and craved a platter of baba ganoush. I tried "shape holding" jeans that informed my body just where some designer wanted to remold my ass. I tried on "boyfriend" jeans. Apparently I'm dating someone from the fifties who is a foot and a half shorter than me. Maybe YOUR boyfriend wears those, meanwhile I'm thanking god I'm off the market.

I've got a pretty severe hip to waist ratio and I've always darted my pants. But every year it gets worse in the women's department. At the size that fits over my ass, I could fit triplets in the waistline: an un-dartable chasm. I have an bodaciously feminine build in the bottom, so how could it be that men's pants are the only one's that fit? What is the world coming to? Is it the End Times or What?

I was ready for something new, but something new is not ready for me. I finally marched into the old stand-by: Macy's Men's Levi's.

Mom (from who I inherited my bodacity) out for an early
ski while I model my milking/barn outfit: Land's End coat from
12 years ago. Huck's Carhart cover alls and a Goodwill hat
that falls over my eyes all the time.

I spit nails when I first went shopping with Huck for work shirts. THREE sizes PER SHIRT! The first time Huck went shopping with me, he was all: Where are the sizes? Right there, honey. You mean, that's it? S, M and L? Don't you guys all have different sizes of breasts and shoulders and torsos? Yes, we do. That's why I don't buy clothes. That's why you have to come along and hold my hand. That's why I hate the universe. And he asks: Why? I don't honestly know, but after all the conversations this shopping trip through Hades has spawned, I can't imagine who IS happy with their pants.

In the Levi's, I met the worst "sales" "ladies" ever. At the other stores, the women knew they had to help me and help me they tried. But here, they were all about deterents. "Who you shopping for?" "Me." "Are you sure you don't want to check out the women's section?" "I can't find pants that fit in the women's department." And they both snarled in stereo and one growled, "I can't see what the problem is. You're thin enough." As if I'm the one with the body dysmorphic disorder and not the entire clothing design industry. Where to begin? I don't see how she could tell, I was wearing my old Levi's which are all baggy, topped with a huge winter coat. And Don't EVER comment about other people's bodies, and certainly not while hissing. And finally, the problem is not with my body, the problem is with the design. My body isn't runway or airbrush ready, and I've got my insecurities just like everyone, but over-all it's fine for what I need to do with it which can be summed up in two words: NOT MODELING. No, I'm very clear that the problem is with the pants, not me.

Some jeans that don't feel good and fall off

The Levi's fit great. Unfortunately, they're the exact same ones I had last time, just in the Gluten-free size. I guess I'll just continue to look like an early 90's dyke, if that's what the fashion industry wants. It's too bad I can't do with pants what I've done with bras; since they can't seem to make one's that fit and look sweet, I'm just not wearing them (due to staring experiences, policy now excludes all non-vest-wearing moments in public).

fill in the blank

2011-01-10T10:49:00.000-08:00

Somebody got (_________________) a book of Pirate
   name of smallest child in room

(________________)-libs for Christmas this year.
   emotion

And he (_________________) right through them,
   verb: past tense

filling in the (__________________) with the typical
   noun plural

(_________________________) talk of a six year old.
   name of a bathroom fixture

Most of the blanks were (_______________)-in
   verb: past tense

with these three gems, (________________),
   6 year old dirty word

(__________________), and (_________________).
  dirty word dirty word

Through this exercise, I learned that (________________)
   person in a certain illegal profession

have wooden "weenrs". Which was possibly the most hilarious

(________________)-lib moment ever
   emotion

and caused a lot of coarse (______________) later.
   verb ending in "ing"

Then, Captain Black Stache, flanked by First Mate Stench, brandished his sword and asked me in a gruff growl, "Do you want to die by fire or sword?!" I gave up the candy and fled to the barn, where I keep a lounge chair I found on the side of the road that I like to sit and think in. I eventually decided sword, because it would be quick, if he was strong enough. And fire just sounds like the worst way to go. But by the time I'd decided, Black Stache had moved on to snacks.

break through

2011-01-04T12:53:00.000-08:00

my favorite tree: Duck Land's willow

Huck bundled me up, packed my fanny pack (yeah... I said fanny pack; what of it?!) full of goodies and sent me off to recover myself from the week. It was New Years Eve and I would have one last solo adventure for 010. To Duck Land I trotted. I've almost made it around the lake before, but in order to pick up my children on time, I've always turned back, curiosity still burning: does this trail go all the way around the lake or what? And on Friday I found out!

I followed ski tracks around the lake, analyzing them to determine if they were one skier who'd gone and returned, or two who'd passed this way once, completing the circle.

I remembered how to pee on these trails and worried I'd be found (hint: you don't take off your skis, nor do you leave the trail, nor do you do this at the top of a hill because once before I made a single yellow line all the way down).

I paused for the chocolates, apple and cheese Huck packed, taking my skis off to sit on a log.

And in the 7 whole, entire degrees, my binding froze open. I spent 20 minutes trying to get it to clamp down. Huck suggested later that I could have peed on it. Really? Just like a man to imagine that would be easy in a foot or so of snow. But it would take considerable effort, agility, contortionality, and dumb luck to have gotten that steaming delivery where it needed to go and then I'd have frozen pee all over my skis.

I couldn't use the one ski nor the one left over. I'd broken bindings before and knew that using one ski was worse than none. This could never be as bad as that one time: four miles out in central Alaska,snow thigh high, steaming wolf kill, in the dark. So I packed my skis up under my arm and headed: FORWARD, determined to determine if this trail was a loop or not, once and for all! If it wasn't a loop, I'd have to walk all the way back from the end, skis slipping from my tired grip. But if I didn't try it, the question of the loop would burn hotter. And these ski tracks I followed evidenced no returning pole holes. It HAD to be every hikers coveted find: A LOOP!!

long shadow with fanny pack

The tracks sloped down, towards the lake, towards the swamp. There, the ski tracks continued over the frozen wetlands. The lake ice might be harder, but there were no bipedal tracks over that, just coyote and bunny. And if it broke... those stakes were too high. Crossing through the cattailed wetland, the ice wouldn't be so hard, but the stakes would be lower, thigh high at the most. And these ski tracks I followed, they kept going forward. But I didn't like their route, so I strayed to more open ice, less climbing around grasses and cattails. And my plastic soled ski shoe binding slid out from beneath me. Humbled, I returned to follow the tracks and CRACK! My right foot jammed beneath the ice into the swamp up to my knee. And then went the left foot. And the right again. Whereas skis distribute your weight, plastic bindings consolidate it into a narrow line. If I kept moving, I wouldn't get too cold. And forward was by now much shorter than back and the land had to be coming up any minute, and if I didn't fall in any deeper than my knees, and if I could hold on to my skis through all this jolting and splashing and flailing, I would make it to 2011. And I did. Eventually, after walking miles and miles and miles and having to go around a new drainage channel. And I thought: At least I'll have good story. But I don't. It's a flat tell.

Heritage

I tried to regale my co-revelers at the New Years Eve rager but the story just settled at the bottom of the conversation. It's the sort of story you don't really know how to end. No ambulances or wolves or pneumonia or frantic phone calls or orbituaries, just a woman sloshing through it all, carrying too many long things, and following fools. Same old story, different setting.

Blue read Hawksmaid which led us to the Audubon society meeting last month which led her to want to do the Audubon Christmas bird count. This is dawn to dusk, counting birds. And so on Sunday, she jumped out of bed at 6 am. And off we went to join the crew of experienced bird watchers. I took a class in college, instead of the more hard core biologies. But that was shore birds: ducks, gulls, and raptors, no song birds. I have taken the kids bird watching a few times, but had no idea this was going to erupt so forcefully in Blue. The first bird she spotted turned out to be a very rare warbler that caused our leader to call the rare bird hotline. It was 10 degrees all day. And she loved every minute of it. We had to leave after 7 hours because I was so tired and feeling kind of ill, not yet fully recovered from the New Years celebration. As we left, our co-birders all said, "I've never even heard of a child that would do this without complaining." And she was ticked I needed to bail before dark.

I've listened to her recount every sighting for the last two days. That Heron, oh MOM! The dipper. The Cooper's hawk. The scads of magpies. She was giddy. She's still riding high. I asked if she wanted to join the Audubon society, and she mock-swooned with joy. And then danced around the house. I don't really get her passion for this, but I'm not going to stand in it's way. And because I'm the mom, I believe I'm going to learn every damn little song bird in this region. It's not the worse thing in the world. At least it's not baseball cards or ice skating.

AFTER 7 hours in 10 degrees

Can't wait 'til I'm 78

2010-12-27T16:58:00.000-08:00

Ooooh. Woweee! It's the 1980's around here now. I'm cruising through the 20th century. Vroom. Vroom. I got a microwave for Christmas from my mother! I've used it 20 times in two days. I've done two hours less of dishes per day. And instead of having my usual lunch of two fried eggs on polenta (the quickest gluten-free thing I can do around here) I've actually microwaved soup. My anti-microwave stance started to wane in the Wenatchee McApartment which came with one. I realized that it didn't necessarily have to reduce the quality of food we ate. And I duly noted that the longitudinal mass-experiment has 30 years of no documented cancer connection. So... throwing caution finally to the wind, I put it on my Christmas list! And bingo. Mama Santa delivered!

The Candy Cane girls choir

With a little help, Huck got me the world's BEST tea pot: a cherry red ipot It looks like it was designed by someone who actually drinks (if not grows and harvests) loose leaf tea instead of coffee. It's got everything a girl could want and cute to boot!

Coyote was confused by his coal candy on Christmas morning. Never mind that it was candy and it was on top of some pretty cool gadgets. In his most disappointed tone he said, "But I was so good yesterday. I wonder what he was thinking." And also from the Kids and the Darndest Things file... today in the grocery line Coyote was looking at the tabloids and asked, "Why do you suppose they put all these women in bikinis on the magazines?" And before I could explain anything about their constant need to be critiquing bodies as good and bad and how dangerous that is for all of us, he answered his own questions, "Oh. I get it. It's to inspire the boys." We might have another gifted one here, folks.

hiding in the bathroom cupboard

marshmallows or liver? Rachel needs to know

Coyote shows anti Rachel the video game he's writing

I was wondering what the next Chinese New Year might hold for me, and loving all things divinational and having found the predictions of the last two years fairly accurate, I looked it up. I am supposedly a rabbit. A wooden rabbit. So these last few years have really chewed me up and spit me out. But in January, we return to the year of the rabbit. And perhaps you'd think that was lucky for me. What I found was a life time luck-o-meter. Apparently, they said, I was born in very bad luck. The lowest possible. And the last decade has had medium bad luck for me. And it just goes down from there. Down. Down. Down. I thought it had been looking up for us as a family, if not for me personally. And I felt that we were due some upping-ness, not that life works that way, I just wish it did. But my damn chart just sinks me all the way down to the bottom, perhaps lower. I don't know. The graph mechanism wouldn't let me see that far down. Until I'm 78, at which point my luck-o-meter goes WAY UP. Seems like if I'm having that bad of luck for the next 43 years, I probably won't be making it to 78. But the way I'm feeling today, the sooner this human experience is over, the better...so I guess all my bad luck might just mean living to 78. I was trying to spin it like this: for the next 43 years I won't Need Luck because I'll be creating it myself. But by the time I'm 78, I'll start needing all the luck I can stand. Too bad I probably won't make it to 101, because then my good luck goes off the charts.

Christmas morning fat lip from jumping over boxes

But really, what the hell kind of astrology is that? A life time of hopelessness in one foul chart?

I prefer Rob Brezny's work. For instance, a few weeks ago, he said that a gallon of cow's milk requires over 300 squeezes. This, people, is inspiring. Because you'll remember that I was struggling with housework. And instead of conquering the kitchen all at once, I realized that perhaps it could get done 15 minutes at a time. And I did. It took four days, but bit by bit I got it done. And then I turned my attentions to the rest of the house and inch by inch it got all perky again.

Oma and Coyote at Duck Land

Simultaneously, in the segment of homeschooling I'm calling Psyche-Ed, we had begun reading a kid oriented book about perfectionism. Blue's work book contains a list of only five attributes of perfectionists, while mine is loaded with about 25. Mom, she says, I think this book is more for you than me. Indeed. And this is what, it turns out, is wrong with my housecleaning and yoga and yadda yadda yadda. I won't do it unless I can do it perfectly. My first husband used to come home sometimes and sigh and say, "Oh god. Did you try to clean the house today?" And there I would sit, crying on top of a pile of everything we own. I would put a book away then realize the book shelf was dirty and all the books dusty, so I'd take it all apart to clean it, only to find an earring and then go put that away only to find a messy pile of jewelry .... etc... ad nauseum. I've improved a lot over the years. But it's been work. When I was 30 I realized that perfectionism had prevented me from trying new things. So that year I learned to down hill ski, surf, and took up jogging (I've since bailed on all of them due to the following reasons: expensive, lack of waves and ocean, and mind-numbingly boring, respectively.) But this was the first time things coalesced to reveal my thinking about housework and yoga and the more mundane practices of regular maintenance.

I think my relationship to cleaning sounds like the way some people describe yo-yo dieting. This one method, you think you've got it. It's really going to stick this time. And then it doesn't and you feel like a failure and all crappy. And then another method catches your eye and you think this one. This One. It's really going to work this time. And then more failure.... and on and on and on.

And so my latest method which I anticipate failing is the fly lady, a hoot and a half. I love her radio posts, especially when she starts crying and gets all blubbery. It's so endearing and yet nutty. I am working through her baby-steps system. And I am realizing that I wasn't that far behind. My house wasn't THAT bad. My expectations were just THAT high, however. And this method... this one is really going to stick. I just know it. I just KNOW IT! Damn that Chinese astrology. I'm not Chinese anyway. This method is going to work until I'm 78, and then some.

Ho Ho Ho

2010-12-17T20:49:00.000-08:00

I witnessed the worst movie ever made last night. It was so painful, I started asking around for oxycontin. It was even worse than Soccer Dog. Seriously. Huck wouldn't believe me. But it's true.

Coyote's school hosted movie night. Kids in PJ's. Big screen. Popcorn and icecream 25cents each. Sleeping bags. And Huck took Blue to choir practice as they are both singing in the pageant. And that left me. I am frightened by large groups of children, especially excited ones. But my lil' Coyote was excited and what could I do? The movie was The Search for Santa Paws and is not really worth a full review. But it did include Santa, magic crystals, swirling magic sparkles, a talking stuffed dog who comes to life, dies and gets resurrected (no, it's not a cartoon), an orphanage out-fitted by Pottery Barn, orphans by Mini Boden, a plunger microphone, and a workshop full of Down Syndrome midgets and short Asian women. I treated my self to ice cream. Rolled off my chair (it's was just a cushion on the floor so no one was hurt) laughing when Santa's tear brings his dog to life and Mrs. Claus hammers us over the head with: "You see, Santa, your love brought life back to Paws," because Santa is stoooopid and couldn't interpret that himself. And I was horrified to see myself crying when Santa was on his crystal induced death bed. I NEVER cry at movies, not even terribly made, badly acted, horrifically written wastes of resources. The only movie before this that made me cry since Anne of Green Grables when Matthew dies,was La Vie en Rose, during which I bawled from opening to credit roll and not because it was bad but because it was sad. I pray to god my tears had something to do with PMS or the moon or all this darkness or some subliminal over-reach of Hollywood music or the whole hopeless mess of a movie. Because it really didn't have anything to do with me.

I see this movie as a kid version of Rocky Horror Picture Show some day. The kids will toss glitter at all the right moments, throw soft icecream at the cave crystal, Hoho's at Santa, and sing with the orphans into their own plungers from home. It has real possibilities for kid campiness. But I can't bring myself to say anything to Coyote who thought it was a pretty good movie.

So, in case you hadn't heard, Coyote and Blue were really naughty AND Huck was off cleaning up an oil spill this week and I got all exasperated and wit's-endy and grasping-at-strawsy and bluffed, "I see Santa's just going to fly right over this house without stopping this Christmas!! Bah Humbug AND Harumph!"
Coyote says, "No. Santa doesn't care how we behave."
WHAT?!?!?! WHAT??!?!?!
Coyote: "I was pretty bad last year and he still filled my stocking full."
And thus a major conundrum was created. The entitlement chafes. The not-even-trying-to-be-good chaps. But could I really drop a lump of coal in a six year olds stocking? Won't this Christmas then feature prominently in the therapy sessions? Won't I? But under what circumstances wouldn't I feature prominently in therapy? I'm the mother. No matter what I do, I'll always be a topic of psychological plunging.

And has he really been that bad? Worse than his sister? Other than first grade detention last month (well earned and a topic for a post of it's own), wantonly peeing his pants, hiding when it's time to catch the bus, waking up at midnight to play with his toys, and begging incessantly for video games and candy, what's so bad? Other than the fact that he seems headed to either be a spy, a ninja or a drug dealer, he's a good kid. And he upgraded his opinion to Santa only caring for the three days before Christmas.

But Blue's all on board with the coal. I took her along Christmas shopping, because she's home all day and I had to. And she kept trying to cheapen Coyote's gift. "That's too expensive." "You can't get him two things." "He doesn't deserve two things." "You can't get him that, I want that." "Well, if I get it for him, then I'm not giving him the thing I'm making, because he just can't get two gifts." "No, I think you've gotten him enough stuff for his stocking." "If you buy him that, you have to get one for me too." Okay. Fine. I'll just head out late some night next week WITHOUT his sister. And then maybe they'll both get coal. Hahahahaha.

slurpees

2010-12-06T15:42:00.000-08:00

I think I just really hurt my cows' feelings. I didn't mean to, obviously.

I was cross country skiing around our unfenced property, having misread the clock and thinking I didn't have time to go to the field at the end of our road to retrace my route from yesterday. So I was doing the loop around our house which involves a short stint in the neighbor's five acres (which are for sale and which I desperately want to buy and am hoping the economy stays down until our income is up enough to nab it) and I got bored and I looked across our flat field of virgin snow, eyed the cows lounging in the barn, and I went for it.

My skis are new to the last century and me, this year. We all got outfitted with 1980's sets of cross country skis from the ski-swap: this thing here in Spokane that takes over the entire fair grounds and is... just... pure mayhem. So my ski boots/shoes are Addidas: silver with royal blue stripes and trimmed with: hot pink, garish purple, hot yellow, and red. But seriously, these shoes are easier to put on, more comfortable and slip in to my skis smoother than any other pair I've ever owned or rented. So I was cruising around our ice-covered snow. Luckily we'd laid tracks a while back because when I put a new one down in the neighbor's field yesterday, I spent most of my calories on groin control and splits prevention. But there, just beyond my own fence, laid my own pure field.

Without even removing my skis, I performed the miracle of opening and shutting the gate behind me. The lazy cows looked up and smacked their cud. I slipped through their brown snow and on to the crust. I glided across the top, my skis just where I wanted them, my legs parallel, smooth, fast. At the end, I turned the corner hoping to make a big square. And just in time to see three winter fat cows RUNNING AT ME!!! They were hopping, skipping, leaping, twisting, and RUNNING. I suppose they'd kept themselves inside long enough. And I had inspired them. They were obviously playing, bellies bouncing, hooves flinging. Either that, or they're actually predators confused by my prey like motions of flight. But I'm family to them, so the natural thing to do would be to play with me too...or trample me.

Any time we're outside, they love to stand as close to us as the fence will allow. This summer, every time we played tether ball, bocci ball, baseball, frisby, horseshoes, or whatever. They were there, parallel playing in their field. Not those games specifically, but it was like they'd catch the mood and join as best they could.

So there I was... cornered against an electric fence with giant, cumbersome, dexterity and flight preventing sticks attached to my feet. I worried the cows would first stand on my skis and then trample me. So I popped one shoe out and stood on it. And that foot sunk two feet further into my grave. My foot secure again in the awkward feet-antennae skis, I turned to face my bashers. And I brandished my voice and my ski poles both. I learned pole weaponry skiing in central Alaska where I was always prepared for a moose or a wolf out there in the fire break. And I yelled the same things I did back then: "I DON'T WANT TO PLAY!!! I can't play with you. You'll kill me. You weigh five times more than me and I lack hooves!" Sukie shimmied in circles around me, kicking up her back legs. Hendrika stopped just short. "Thanks." Wild-eyed all of us, we stared eachother down. I head-faked to the right. She dodged. And there we stood, wondering what the other was thinking. We cooled off. I skimmed away. Only to be surrounded once more by the Swing Dance Heifers. Maybe it was polka and they needed a fourth for their square. They let me get a head start back to the gate. I turned frequently to make sure I was likely to survive the next 20 feet and they looked at me with big, sad cow eyes. The dejection of rejection written all over their long furry faces. They looked truly forlorn. And I felt truly guilty. Here I am, their family. Here they thought I'd come to relieve their winter boredom and all I could think about was myself, my own damn self and it's continued existence. Ouch. They charged again, once I'd crested the frozen shit pile. I stumbled and crashed out the gate before they were upon me. Huffing and puffing, I'm glad we all survived our exercise today.

A note about my world famous shit-ice pile. The two feet of snow (under which lies our hose, somewhere) got all slushy for a few days there, slid off the barn roof to make piles right in front of the barn doors. And this is where I had to shovel a very heavy, very special slurpee you can't get at 7-elevent (or maybe you can) twice a day, to open the doors in the morning and shut them at night. All the while mostly dodging the shedding ice sheets myself. If I'd had any faith the slush would melt within the next four months, I would have left it there.

I am having some trouble with the wheelbarrow in this stuff. I think I should designate a shit-sled for winter use. But the point is that I can't really load up my wheelbarrow (held together with baling twine) with that slush. So I just tossed it as far as I could with the shovel, thereby making these fabulous hasbrouck brown (or also: rootbeer candy) mountains that are now ice and are kinda in the way.

Isn't that enough for those cows, or do I have to risk my life and play with them too? Aurgh. The guilt never stops.

Kiss and make-up

2010-12-05T22:03:00.000-08:00

All yesterday I was in this terrible funk. I thought, when I saw the sun for the first time in weeks, that my funk should have lifted, but it didn't. It settled, a fog of discontent smothering my head. And I thought, "Damn it! It's always on these days when I have to go to some social function or party or whatnot and I SHOULD be perky and party-animalistic and all. But instead I have this irritating ire under my skin! What is wrong with this universe? And Yeah, I'm talking to you: god or planets or higher self or whatever!" Ah but the answer was in the question: that type of funk only happens on days when I have to go to a party where I didn't plan it and I don't know anyone. Huck's holiday office party. Could you invent a worse nightmare?

I remember one of my coworker/friends bringing her boyfriend to the clinic's holiday party one year (which we had in January because the party planner sort of forgot about December and all). And all I could think was, "Suffering succotash! Why in the world would you bring someone you love to a work party?!!" Unless you are conjoined in a surgically-defying way, this just seems like the worst form of cruelty.

The problem is they're Huck's coworkers. And they're his coworkers. This means that I don't know anyone there and can't drink enough to alleviate the awkwardness. And people you don't know are crazy. A room full of people you don't know is a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get: is it a moldy cherry covered in chocolate flavored poop? Or is it a cream-filled lecher? Does it look all fancy, a gilded delicacy who thinks you might be the same but then upon closer inspection is turned off by your unplucked eyebrows and cow-milking hobby (pure projection on my part, but you reach to explain behaviors sometimes)? And what could be worse than having to behave yourself and not embarrass your spouse in front of his coworker? Not that Huck is particularly embarrassable...

I was simultaneously helping to plan a party at church (which is now a comfort zone) while also arranging for a babysitting swap with another church family without once connecting the dates to be the very same. It's like the hemispheres of my brain are two ships passing in the night. So that got all kafoofled.

And what should I wear? A friend gasped at my empty closet. I don't buy clothes I don't love and I can't afford one's I do. So it leaves me wearing the same mostly lovable thrift store finds again and again and again. And then, what was I going to do with my face? Is make-up expected at these things? It's been two years, at least, since my last attempt. All I can really do is a little mascara and a little lipstick which both seem to sit on top and refuse to integrate. And the rest of make-up-dom is some foreign language I've never learned. I come from a long line of cover-up being interpreted literally: what's so bad that you have to cover-up? What are you hiding?

I tried once, when I had a pixie cut that made me look like a man and/or Liza Minelli and I tried to make up for it with make-up. And then in a powder room one day this 14 year old goes, "Ohmygod! Not like that. This is how you apply that!" I was simultaneously grateful and offended and ashamed. Application is apparently rocket science. I put the big girl tools away and haven't looked back.

In Mexico, I let my friend take me to an eyebrow shaper. And there was one incident at a spa in Seattle that left me with a red, swollen unibrow for days. And that's pretty much the extent of my experiences in beauty. That and these photos of Miss Teen South Carolina doing me up (she convinced my eager mother to let her) for my Junior/Senior in my Junior year. She also let me rent the dress from her! The look on my face is unrelated to my date, MQ, who was obviously just a nice, normal kid. And, probably deserving of a blog post in and of itself, the night commenced with a heated debate among people who knew me over who MQ's date could possibly be. One emphatic that I would NEVER be dressed like that and another pretty sure that underneath it all there lurked a Sarajoy. And also, boys who hadn't even glanced at me were scooping in on MQ's time. And they got an earload about how shallow they were. And here are photos at 18 (look at that glowing baby-skin) with a growing-out crew cut.

Last night, Blue donated some eyeshadow that she got from a spa party (the absurdity!). I didn't know what to do with it, so I artlessly smeared the most invisible-looking powder I could find on my eyelids. And then I suddenly wanted my eyebrows shaped, maybe a hair do, or nail polish, or some thing else... I didn't know. Maybe I could look a little more lively than I do. But where to start? Meh. Forget it. I live in the Northwest where 1/2 the women never wear the stuff.

The party was fine. I had enough wine but not too much. I purposefully got cornered by an extrovert who seemed not the least put off by a room full of strangers. I clung to Huck at times. I laughed with the room. And I kept silent otherwise. And I actually enjoyed myself here and there and we all made it through the mine field of the office party. Phew.

Except I still can't figure out how to get the mascara off.

Luck rules, mom drools

2010-11-29T20:55:00.000-08:00

Superstition lives down the road from religion, on the same block. Growing up religious, I sometimes thought they resided at the same legal description of real property.

My tiny, religious school experimented with volleyball in my eighth grade year. The old principal considered sports a distraction from the task of obeying God, an abomination, and a sin against productivity. My guess is he was always picked last. If I were team captain, I would've picked him last too. But the new guy was new. I have a long and contorted history with volleyball which, if you knew about it, you wouldn't be surprised to learn that I felt the need, very strong and virile, for a lucky charm to help my serves over the net. For this, I selected my mother's 1964 charm bracelet (get it? Charm!). It was confiscated post haste. Lucky charms are, apparently, bad luck religiously speaking.

And yet, even until my mid-twenties, I still craved a lucky charm. Guiltily. Because religious prohibition had turned into logical prohibitions and scientific shackles. I dreamed, literally, all night of lucky charms and statuettes. Luck, luck LUCK!!! Until finally, a lady in my dream, a lucky-charm shop-keeper, said, "You're right. This Chinese coin doesn't actually contain luck. What it is, is a symbol of intention. It provides a moment for you to focus, clarify and state your desires, what you really want, and thereby gives you an image of its possibility." Sometimes, I love those people that live up there in my dreams.

And I've since found studies to back that lady up. Studies that suggest that we do create some of our own luck. So I'm kissing this little marble turtle and pointing him south.

This gave me a new parenting tactic. Perhaps "luck" has been a shorthand explanation for complex cause/effect. Perhaps people couldn't always explain why something turned out good when you did it that way, but they noticed it and called it luck. Translated into modern parenting: after a reasonable explanation, the shorter one is called "luck"

At dinner, everyone says something they're thankful for, anything: a movie, a shirt, a dream, a person, the food, whatever. And if anyone balks, which they astonishingly do now and again, I might say, "It's bad luck to not be thankful." Which is true in a complex psychological way that I'd explained once before.

More luckitudes:
It's bad luck to not be happy for others, even when their fortunes are so much greater than yours.
It's good luck to be kind.
It's bad luck to criticize other people's bodies.
It's bad luck to not wash your hands with soap and water for 30 slowly-counted seconds.
And it really is bad luck to open your umbrella inside, because then your mother will confiscate it!
And it is good luck to care for your things because then you may receive even more such blessings.

This last one maxed out recently. I was being all feng shui-y and arranging and decluttered and all that jazz. But with this homeschooling and driving thither and yon and cows and chickens and effing holidays, I've not been able to keep up with the housekeeping. And this house, being at least a 1000 sq ft larger than I wanted, is way way way too big for a lady like me to maintain, while also having a life. I can't find things here. I mean, there are 1000's of perfectly logical places for me to put something like an alan wrench (how do you spell that kind of wrench?). I ached to chuck everything we own out the door if it WASN'T an Ellen wrench because everything that's not the wrench was obviously standing belligerantly in the way of me finding the dod gam wrench already.

And then came the epiphany: here I've been wanting a barn some day, a pink tractor, a hot springs, and this and that other thing would make this all so much easier But then I'd have to take care of this or that. I'd have to keep an entire BARN clean. I'd have to repaint it when it needed doing. I'd have to fix its hinges and battery-up it's smoke alarms. I mean, can you imagine the work involved?! Oh my god, I need another glass of wine just thinking about it.

So here's why I'm only half distressed about the state of my house. I don't need no more material blessings. I can't maintain the one's I have and until I can (or can afford someone else to do it for me) I'm just going to say no to everything. Including laundry.

I wish I loved to maintain stuff. A touch of OCD on this topic might be really beneficial. But as it stands, I lovelovelove a clean and spotless house but I still hate housekeeping, an eternal personal flaw worthy of the the personal flagellation I inflict upon myself for it. And it's not like I haven't tried forty bazillion methods to motivate, organize, encourage, hypnotize, and beat myself into it. But it's the repetition. It's so hard to find any iota of pleasure in doing the same things over and over and over again with no end in sight. When we first moved here, cleaning this house was all novelty and cuteness, but the honeymoon is over, Alice. Maybe if the dust were a different color every day. Or the laundry spoke with the voices of musical instruments. Or there were a vacuum cleaner that could handle even one strand of long hair before crying out for me to dial 911. On the double! Maybe then I could pick up the all the snow clothes and shove them someplace useful.

And Coyote says, "Mom! I need more pants!" Nope. Son, what you need is a mom that does laundry like it's novelty and gifts. A mom that gets endorphins from folding unders. Good luck.

cozy crazy

2010-11-24T11:28:00.000-08:00

I was going to ask, rhetorically, if there was anything cozier than a threesome of cows and a foursome of chickens cuddled up in a barn full of hay while the snow piles up outside. And then I quickly realized that, yes, a chaise lounger by a hot fire, with a cup of tea, is actually cozier.

The hay in the barn was "stacked" by a couple of crippled men and me. Those 90# bales are piled cross-ways, diagonal, sloping, etc. It's all pretty dangerous and the kids haven't been allowed to climb it... when I'm looking. The hay outside, covered tight with tarps, is molding to the extent that it's covered in mushrooms. I'm trying to clear it out quickly, but now it's covered in a foot or so of snow and is hard to get. Where did I go wrong?

In the barn, things were cozy, until the wind kicked up, blew snow into every corner and covered the "dry" hay with a pretty dust we call: Frosted Mega-Wheats. The 8 house finches that stayed are very unhappy with my schedule. They are ready long before I to see the light of day. And they fly at me when I open the doors in the morning. The other people more than ready for my arrival are the 40 or so quail who have set up their compound in our wood pile and would like to get some drinking water from the chickens' heated trough and pick up the crumbs they left. Yesterday, I saw two large white owls soaring over our property, so I ducked in to the barn to check on the chickens. But instead, I freaked out the quail flock which frantically flew into the walls and hay bales until most of them finally bashed their way out the other door. I don't want our chickens co-mingling so closely with these wild ones (no matter how adorable their plumes) due to bird flu and other avian ailments. But I can't imagine what I'd be willing do about it right now. The chickens are still laying, somewhat, but unless you get that egg a few minutes after it's laid, you can count on the frozen goop bursting the shell out.

This is the first time we've been hit by both snow and wind from the NE, so new parts of the house were tested. You'll remember that last year my father-in-law re-installed the french doors on the east wall. The foot tall snow drift in our green room reminded me that I was supposed to install the weather stripping, which I did mostly, but I wasn't sure I'd done it right. So I left the bottom foot off, for some reason that made sense to me a year ago but cannot be explained now. Anyway, I meant to ask Huck if I'd done it right before finishing it off and making un-re-do-able cuts. And so on Monday, I remembered that finally. Only too bad for us because the stripping was now frozen in an unhelpful position... nothing a little interior duct tape redecoration and some rolled up towels couldn't handle. Other than that, we've stayed pretty cozy.

Between homeschooling, Coyote being sick and Coyote's snow days, moments to myself have been non-existent. And I am now at that unfortunate place that makes it impossible to enjoy my children. I know. I know... some of you just think that a mom needing alone time is the biggest sin of all. What are we to do, we who need large swaths of empty time: never have children? It's a struggle for all of us who need clear space for the old cabezas and uncommitted time to mentally roam. Having children does pose it's difficulties to each personality sort, and for me, this is the biggest. At this desperate point, we're about to pile in the auto and head for the West Side. Unfortunately, such trips involve not only being cooped up in a confined space hurtling at unlikely speeds over ice, but once we get there, it's socializing non-stop with people you love, and no empty rooms. But if the weather and passes change my mind, then I'll be home in yet another snow storm WITH THE KIDS! Huck will be home for the next five days and I hope he can relieve this dearth of space, because I'd really like to get back to the place where I want to play with, cross-country ski with, and even look at others.

the uber-borrower

2010-11-13T15:12:00.000-08:00

About a year ago, I started reading books centered around the inhumane period of humanity in which every corner of the world seemed to be demon possessed and humus-being groups across continents inadvertently screwed themselves with high-caliber torture instruments while attempting to screw other earth-dwellers. And the collective human soul went through a self-induced apocalypse.

And after a while, I felt I'd looked the demon in the eyes for long enough and wanted to take a break, unfortunately every book I picked up turned out to be related somehow to WWII despite my intentions. Mean Little Deaf Queer, I figured, could NOT have anything to do with WWII, right? I picked it up because it WASN'T about WWII and it could be interesting. After all, I am neither mean, nor little (decidedly medium on all fronts), deaf, nor queer. And it was a fabulous, well written memoir, that starts in Stuttgart Germany, moments after WWII, with a spy-dad. Aurgh!

Finally, with Adrift: 76 Days Lost at Sea, I got out of WWII. We listened on CD in the car and the kids were enthralled. I was so enchanted that I'd listen to it after dropping the kids off here and there and then I'd listen to that part again when I picked up the kids. This led us into our latest in-car adventure with the Sussex, the tale that inspired Moby Dick.

Keeping on my theme of reading things way out of my areas of expertise and life experience, I then picked up The Widow Clicquot. No, not an actual bottle of her ancient bubbly, although it is on sale right now for a scant $70. No, for FREE, I borrowed it from the library. Huck's shocked that I have 54 books checked out. And it made him laugh. And I got all defensive: 54 books is NOT that many. And I'm borrowing them. I didn't buy them, although I might have. And I'm going to bring them ALL back! ON TIME! And then he's all, "Oh my gosh! Did you think I was laughing at you? I'm not laughing at you but at 54 books. I mean, that's a lot." No. It's NOT. Not when you consider all that I had to leave on the shelf!

So anyway, The Widow Clicquot is the exact opposite of me. I am NOT a highly competitive entrepreneur. But she reminded me of my lovely soapstress goddess, a cleaver and talented woman of some ambition. And it got me thinking about my own career malaise. Perhaps there is no problem, really. And I'm obviously doing what I need to do with my life right now and lofty ambitions would just interfere and distract. So maybe they're waiting in the offing for their cue to enter stage left. I hope they don't miss it!

On the other hand, the problem could be that I naturally lack ambition. But I think it's more that I lack ambition if I don't really want it. People say you have to really want something to do all the work and pay all the dues to get it. And I thought this meant that if you really WANT something, you make yourself pay the dues. But now I think that perhaps a willingness to do the work and an inability to see the obstacles are an indication of something you really want, not a result.

Huck's band played half-time for the roller derby recently. We all went. Seeing the roller derby now, in its current form, felt a lot like finally seeing Hedwig and the Angry Inch, 12 years after it came out. It was sort of like: ho, hum, cross-dressing, gay, ooooh-so-shocking, yawn, although it was very heart-y. (And I do often sing, when life presents the occasion, as it is wont to do especially considering laundry and kitchens: "Six inches forward, five inches back.") Anyway, the Spokane team was decked out in their retro bad-ass now-somewhat-cliche "uniforms" and they totally lost to the Bellingham team by something like 300 to 2. It was pathetic. And it was the most obvious manifestation I'd ever seen of seeing obstacles. Those girls (who could barely stay up on their skates and produced a pile-up during their introductory lap! Not that I should talk. I was a waitress on skates at a drive-in in South Carolina when I was 16. For ONE day. I didn't lie, per se, on the application. For a Bellingham girl (pre-roller derby craze), I could skate. But in the South... anything less than shooting-the-duck with a tray of food is for babies. And I didn't know how to brake, which the job application never asked about. So on my first delivery, I ran straight in to the blue Corvette and dumped an extra large slushy-type drink all over the interior. So... I'm not saying I could do any BETTER than the derby girls) could only see obstacles, not openings.

I see obstacles when I don't really want something. But when I really want it, I don't seem to see the problems. I become completely unable to calculate the basic math and obvious difficulties in owning milk cows. I can't imagine an single reason why I shouldn't go to India during my third trimester of pregnancy. I hop on a plane last minute to go work for some alcoholic wank in Mexico, because I really want to get out of this easy EnglishEnglishEnglish-nonchallenging-comfortzone-24/7-ness. If I want it, I'm totally deaf to the words "That's not going to happen." And that is how I know I want something. When I can't even see what for others are perfectly obvious problems. This is the way I work, so I don't even notice it when I'm being ambitious or taking big risks, because I don't see the risks. They just don't exist in my mind. So maybe I'm not a lost cause career-wise, perhaps blind ambition lurks in me as well?! I could make it, if I really wanted to... as long as I don't go whaling, right?

But sheesh, comparing careers is stupid anyway. And no one can really compare with the Veuve Clicquot. Nor with Mozart. I guess, if I really want to feel bad about the only part of my life aside from my bank account that is not some Disney fantasy, I could go on and on comparing myself to the uber-successes of humanity. And that is just about as depressing as spending a year wallowing in the uber-crap of humanity's uber-dark uber-night of our collective uber-soul: WWII.

ick

2010-11-05T20:55:00.000-07:00

Last night was dark, as nights are won't to be. I gave the calves their share of hay and popped open a new bale for Hendrika, in her separate stall. As the first section freed itself, hot steam billowed from the interior of the bale. Very hot. It was odd. But it was dark. And I could only feel, not see. So I hefted it over the bars and into her stall.

The steam, combined with our neighbors' yard-waste smolder that's been ongoing for the past smog-filled few days caused quite a dream.

I spotted a puff of steam from a dreamed-up pile of rocks in our field. As curiosity drew me closer, the steam cloud grew larger and stronger. And when I finally saw the hot, bubbling pool from which it sprang, I sank to my knees singing hymns of joy, in disbelief. "Could it be?! Could it be?! Could ALL my dreams be coming to reality, even the craziest?! For have I not said more than a few times that the only thing this property needs (other than a big red barn and a few dozen full grown maples) was a hotspring?! And here! Hark! At my feet such doth billow up thusly!" (NOTE: Blue and I have been watching Shakespeare lately) I worried, though, that it was one of those super acidic Yellowstone pools. So, cautiously, I reached in to feel the perfect 130 degree water. But what was this, at the bottom? A lid? A lid to what? A lid, of course, to a buried tank full of toxic waste. No, that was not water foaming up from the earth's breast. Yes, this property, in this dream, had formerly been an illegal toxic waste dump.

I left that on the pillow and trotted out, quite late, to milk. But what I found in Hendrika's stall was not very milkable. That girl had bloody diarrhea all night long. The stall was coated. I needed more than a few fresh air breaks to give my gag reflex a rest. I was (and am still somewhat) worried it was the beginnings of a miscarriage. Not only would a miscarriage be a big bummer, it would also mess up the schedule here. But when I fetched more hay for the girls, I may have found the source of the problem. The bale I'd opened the night before was STILL steaming. And covered in mold. I fed it to the cows again. Everyone says that cows can eat moldy hay... so I didn't really think much of it. Once I made the connection, I opened a new, non-moldy bale and they switch immediately. When given choice, cows will go for what they need. But, like us, when hungry, they'll just eat what's available and deal with the consequences later.

But it might not even be due to that. She could have sand colic, or metal in her gut cutting holes (cows eat everything and your supposed to give them a magnet at some point to keep all the metal together and inside. I haven't done that yet because I don't know when you should do that.) Or a miscarriage. The sperm was a little old.

Hendrika is still really bloated and squirty. I hope she's okay and pulls out of it. Her ears are warm. And I can't remember if that's good or bad. I think cold is bad. And she's sweet and bore my petting tonight. I wish there was a cow vet in the vicinity. I miss Pullman, where half of our friends were vet students. One vet friend said that if I was going to have a cow, I should also get a gun, because nobody wants to listen to a cow die all night. I don't think I could do either of those things.

I left her stall open tonight so that maybe she'll roam out of it and spray her stuff in the open air where I don't have to clean it. I won't milk her in the morning. I'll let the calf take care of that. Who wants milk from a sick cow? Except a hungry calf.

Trees Please

2010-11-02T12:30:00.000-07:00

Homeschooling is awesome. The chickens are free-ranging. The garden is tucked in. I've just wiped out my kids' entire stock of Halloween Almond Joy's. We saw Bugs Bunny at the Symphony. Life is good.

But what's really great are trees. I don't know what's with me lately...or maybe I've always been like this. Yes, I think I have. But it's really pronounced these days. Trees. I am totally in love. "Mom! STOP talking about trees!" "Mom! Watch the road not the trees!" Everywhere. Every hour. Every moment I'm gaga about trees. And this long fall has been the best. But it started even before that. All summer. All spring. I don't know what it is, but those trees are really getting to me.

Is it because we lack trees here? We've got two pines, three or four aspens, and three baby cherries, not to mention the 30 we planted but still can't see over the grass I never mowed. Am I suffering tree-envy? Is it because I'm still shopping for trees? Why do people pick the trees they do as their land mates? Is it their forms? Their colors? And, oh god, the way they move in the wind. I love them grouped with their friends. I love them grouped in contrasting diversity. And I even love them singularly.

They're so humanoid. Similarly life-spanned. Tall-ish. Reaching-ish. They have distinctive rhythms.

I checked out books about trees. Dangerous trees. A global history of trees. And they're so dry compared to the real thing. I returned the books before I was even done, disappointed they weren't bringing me closer to trees. I guess I wanted an interview with them. I want to hear their voices. Hear their hearts beating. I don't think I want to know About trees. I just want to be with them all the time. I like to touch them. I confess, I do hug them. I've named them. I've talked with them. I had pet trees in middle school. Consultant trees.
I loved to draw trees, back in the day. Their patterns would emerge and I would feel their pulse in that...dare I say spirit.

I choke up when I see power-line mutilated trees. Trees disfigured by human will and hubris. Not bonsai necessarily, although I am no fan, but the carelessly hacked trees.

I don't know what's going on here with me and trees. I don't understand it. I thought those books would clear it all up for me. But I couldn't even read them. I wondered if maybe I would find a career in trees, if that's what is going on. But I don't think so. I'm not talking about something that has to do with a W-2 form. It would be like trying to find a career in loving your spouse. What I know "for sure" is that I am enchanted. I am a slobbering fool for trees. I don't understand it, but it's been going on for a while now. My family is growing tired of my demands to "Just LOOK AT THAT TREE! OH MY GOD!".

I don't think I'm going crazy. I mean, it's not like the trees speak English to me. And I don't think I AM a tree. Entirely.

Homeschool nut

2010-10-20T22:16:00.000-07:00

Here's the truth. Your child is amazing. Your child should get the education she deserves. Your child should be recognized for all of her unique abilities. Your child run with it. I want to see your child go all the way, the way she was born to, the way her DNA tells her to, the way she must.

And so with Blue. She's brilliant. And I'm not hiding her light under a bushel any more. The schools may try to sweep her under a rug. Tell her to sit down, shut up and just be happy she's making A's. But it's not going to cut it. She deserves a free and appropriate education. Just like all children. As a society, we've codified this in to law. And that's why I'm homeschooling her. It was either that, or sue.

After years of waiting and seeing for someone to help her, I had to do something.

Last year, after she tested 10% higher that any other 3rd grader in the district on one standardized test or another, after I'd waited for the gifted program to kick in for most of the year, I finally found out about a special school in Spokane. And she tested in easily. So all was set, right? She'd go one day a week this year and hopefully go full time next year. It would be brilliant and finally her needs would be met.

A few weeks ago it all unraveled so quickly and horrifically, it left me gasping for clear air and made me cry like a drama queen. The school she was in wouldn't share her. Not only had they disbanded their gifted education, they didn't want to share 1/5 of her funding with the Spokane district. When Huck complained to the schoolboard, something got lost in translation and what the school heard was that they needed to slap together a gifted program in three days. And the woman to do it was a lady dear to us. And so a procedural fiasco turned into an interpersonal one.

And anyway, what kind of adequate program could they cobble together in three days? Even if the fabulous B was at the helm. And did I seriously want Blue's teacher all mad at her and stressed out like this? It's certainly fine that she makes the best use of her time and energy by teaching straight up the center of the bell curve. It'd be crazy not to.

This and three new facts:
*Blue had been asking, "Why am I so different from everyone else?"
*The Mormon kids at school had been refusing to play with her since she wasn't Mormon. I can only guess that this attitude comes from being told weekly that you are chosen by god. We Unitarians don't get those weekly ego boosts.
*And we received the Major State Test results. Passing and exceeding (A+) was a range of 60-80% score. Blue maxed out the test with 100%'s. There was no place for her to go.

Enter A... or re-enter A. She'd told me about the special school the year before. Having been entrenched in gifted education since she was born, she had a thing or two to say, a study or two to cite, and some curriculums to lend and a huge amount of information about the gifted homeschooling world. If aliens drop down in to my yard tonight and order me to take them to my leader, we're going straight to A's house. She found the Spokane homeschool school for us.

I had to make this major, life changing and threatening decision in not much time. It was wretched. I wailed and cried and revisited that contract Blue and I made the first time I looked in to her slimy, cloudy eyes. Honestly, I haven't been a good advocate. I've been inappropriately modest on her behalf. I've waited and seed her blind. And it was time I pulled on my big girl panties and got demanding or at least ensuring.

Parenting is one of those endeavors. You want to leave it all on the track and not look back.. given the limits of sanity, time, and personal space, of course.

I know I'm not the only one who was looking at my life wondering when I'd find a career, when I'd fire it up and get going on my own path. I know I'm not the only one that was happy with my 8 hours a day to move it forward. But I'm 35 now. And one more year out of a non-existant career is not too much of a sacrifice. I give up no money, no power, no prestige, no recognition, not even water cooler chat time. Nothing... but a year of potential.

And even so, no career can top parenting for meaning. Equal? Perhaps. But I can't trade up, as far as importance and resonance.

And for Blue? Maybe a chance to find some peers? More than 10% of her life. An important time. For Blue it could be so much more. "You'd officially have the most screwed up elementary education ever, if we do this." "So what? It's already messed up. It definitely won't be worse." She wanted to homeschool so bad. And I didn't have anything better to do, that I could see.

I was scared, am scared. Fear blocked my path forward for days. The sacrifice I'm making is bigger than I'm letting it sound. It's a critical time for certain unnamed projects I've thrown myself into for years and years. I hope they survive.

So she goes to the special program now where they'll dissect sheep brains. She's so excited. She's my daughter and I am the girl who didn't touch a dissection in biology but let my lab partner (now a doctor) do it all. And two days a week, Blue goes to the homeschool school for chemistry, data analysis, book club, fiddle, gymnastics, lego science and writing. I'm doing math, spelling, vocabulary (her example for inhumane hurt very badly), sock folding, potato digging, and miscellaneous projects from the Dangerous Book for Boys (She declined on the Daring Book for Girls as, "oh that. It's not nearly as exciting.") Looking at the shopping list she handed me, I think she's making a time bomb.

It's true. I have been shy to talk about it. And this is why. I get a bunch of stupid responses. Number 1: so what? so she gets all A's and gets in to some great college and makes it rich. To which I long to have the bitchiness to respond, "OH! Looks who's not gifted!" These folks don't understand. They weren't labeled gifted or they lack imagination (such as is apparently the case with school district superintendents who disband gifted programs because they aren't improving test scores). Perhaps they were confused when the gifted kids smoked a bowl every day before math. They probably think that if they were just a little smarter/prettier/richer, life would be a cake walk. This thinking should be discarded as the dross of ignorance it is. A study recently found that most parents of gifted kids are eventually forced to shell out 20k a year for a private education to meet their kid's needs. Some one commented that the concerns of gifted parents were bourgeois and petty. But the concerns of the parents of disabled kids is what? Low brow? What kind of stereotypes are we running off of here? Yes, the parking lot of the gifted program does contain a lot of Lexi and Mercedes. But there are beaters there too. And average sedans. This is the assumption again: smart = rich = easy life. This is miscalculating life: underestimating hard work, luck, confidence, and the life-ness of everybodys lives.

Number 2: Oh, you think she's so smart? Well, my son, nephew, step-aunt-twice-removed, taught herself calculus AND Latin in Kindergarten. To which I long to respond: how nice, but we're not competing, thanks.

Number 3: supportive and understand: my favorite one. A said, "Welcome to the special hell that is gifted education." Thanks! As crazy as it sounds, that's exactly what I needed to hear. And most of you reading this, will likely find yourself in this category... unless you have "gifted bitches" in your Google blog search alert.

The homeschoolers are another level of delicate social embroilments. I'm not there because it's the right thing to do, because I love my kids more than all those other shmucks in public schools, because god told me to, or because this is my wildest fantasy come true. And because I'm not there for those reasons, I really should keep my mouth shut about what a pain in the ass all this driving is. I am finding some sort of kindreds here, however, thanks to a teacher who's putting together a group of kids and their parents who both homeschool and go to the special program.

So, our learning curve has been straight up. And now Blue knows about learning curves. And we plotted our place on it. And we are way at the bottom of this thing with a couple more weeks of confusion and frustration in front of us. But it's going way better than I thought. I love teaching her math. And vocabulary. I love her time bomb or whatever thing she's making. I love her creativity and her long intellectual reach. I love her questions. I love her. I loved her when I sent her to preschool. I loved her when I sent her to public schools. I love her now too. And that's why I'm homeschooling this year. In a nut shell. A very large, uncomfortable, nut shell.

Some notes on October's first weeks

2010-10-14T12:10:00.000-07:00

1) People are bringing their apples to our house and cidering. We keep the pomice (ground-up left overs) for the cows, but we've had more than the cows should eat and can't quite keep up. I dumped a bucket of obviously sparkling pomice in the field, thinking it was too far gone to interest the cows. Hendrika slurped it up in no time and then wandered around, approached me for some petting, stared in to space, just like a cow but a little more so. With a little extra swaying. Cow tipsy.

2) A day trip to the Barter Fair in Tonasket. The kids bartered cookies and my wild edible cards which were an inexplicably huge hit this year gaining toys, rocks, pelts, shirts, jewelry, truffles, and verjus. Lost my train of thought a few times. "Why is my mind so blank all of a sudden?" I wondered. My brother (who we met up with not knowing he'd even be there) said, "Because you're breathing Barter Fair air, obviously." On the way home we ate at Colville's locovore fancy pants restaurant, Lovitt's. I slurped a perfectly seasoned black bean soup.

3) Black beans and I don't get along much. I love the flavor, but the farts leak out without notice. Suddenly, sounds are coming from my ass and I'm the last to know. That's special to the black beans.

4) My biggest public speaking fear is letting one rip while on mike. I saw it happen to someone once and it's stuck with me, filed in a very special place.

5) Sunday, I had a public speaking engagement and spent all morning memorizing the children's story while doing the Downward Dog to get it all out.

6) Things went awry. The first service went well. It felt natural and good. And I didn't fart. Blue tried to correct my story in the middle of it, and I kicked her in the foot - fabulous public persona I have! I was utterly unprepared for the second service.

7) The congregation was much larger. And there were a hell of a lot more kids. All the familiar faces which I rely on to ground me during speaking were either behind me in the choir or in the Religious Education meeting. A photographer with a giant camera and a telephoto lens perched in the front row and started snapping photos of me using a massive FLASH!

8) Each flash was a reset button. I am on earth. I am human. I am standing in front of a couple hundred people. I am supposed to be speaking. What am I saying? Each flash lost my place in my memorized children's story. I had not practiced with a strobe light. It had been almost two years since my last children's story. I am not that experienced of a public speaker. I couldn't take it anymore and told the photographer to stop. Then, I was really lost and had to find my place in my notes. Then, I was so nervous my mouth went cotton-dry and I had to find a glass of water. I did not run off crying, like I wanted to. But finished the story, my mouth saying the words while in my mind a Greek chorus sang across the stage: "This is hell. Someone get me out of here."

9) In the afternoon, after delivering Blue to a party, I arrived home and dashed past the cidering neighbors and Huck and took some relief laying on the living room floor groaning at the fiasco which I'm sure wasn't that horrible for anyone but me. I don't actually know anyone who'd be cruel enough (except maybe that lady from a few weeks ago?) to tell me the truth of how terrible it did turn out. So far, they are only telling me that I dealt with a bad situation as well as I could.

10) Somewhat recovered, I go out to say howdy to the neighbors. Tell them I just had a bad public speaking experience and needed to recuperate for a minute. "Did you have some chamomile tea?" "No. This required rum and coke." There's something about mentioning hard liquor at 2 o'clock on a Sunday afternoon that drops jaws and renders speechless. Lesson learned: always lie about hard liquor consumption. In my defense, it was decaf coke, because I have learned that the dis-inhibiting alcohol mixed with any uber-energizer (such as one drop of caffeine for me) leads to really stupid things. Even just one. Also, unlike beer, rum and coke is 100% naturally gluten-free. (so are potato chips! FYI)

Seriously, I go through about one bottle of gin and one of rum a year. But I mention it every single time I do. You talk about alcohol consumption and some people want to peg you as an alcoholic ASAP. Deny it, and your double screwed. I am not an alcoholic, so screw me. I crave one drink about twice a week. But if I talk about it, it counts for a hell of a lot more apparently.

Public performances, as every priest knows, can sometimes require lubrication. I was running a fundraiser auction and someone wavered on whether or not the band got drink vouchers. Duh. I thought, but said: They're about to perform in front of a couple hundred people. Obviously, they get free drinks.

It's fine. We're all going to be okay. But today's my birthday, so I'm having another. And it's not even noon. Am I bad enough for you? Hendrika and I, here we sit, staring into space and swaying together.

11) Huck showed up with a moving van yesterday. He's a little understated. No, seriously. You have to pay close attention to what he's saying or doing or you might miss the most romantic comment ever about the color of your eyes. He's got no flair. His voice tone never announces: I am about to say the most swoon-worthy thing you've ever heard, PAY ATTENTION NOW! It took me a few years to figure that out. So... he shows up with a giant moving van, which is a giant yellow statement itself, but wasn't all: TADA! LOOK WHAT I DID!! No he's more like: don't get too excited... I don't know if your going to like it. What went through my mind was not, for the first time in Huck surprise: he's leaving me. So that was kind of a break through, because unlike any prior surprise, a moving van might actually have indicted that. It was: pony? king size bed? A corner office desk. Used. And I am totally thrilled! As he warned, it's not the prettiest thing ever. But boy, is it big and serious and fabulous and exactly what I wanted, but didn't actually imagine actually having.

12) Still figuring out how to tell you about why I decided to home school my daughter. Turns out, talking about it at all, with 95% of people, is offensive. And I'm nothing if not about not offending you. But just as a precursor, let me tell you what all but 5% of you are going to choose to hear: your kid is dumb and I hate mine. There, now we've got that out of the way. And I've successfully prepped us all for my next blog entry. Onward and forward with my birthday plans now! Which include: painting the front porch, washing dishes AND... TADA!! folding laundry!

Shocking!

2010-10-07T17:14:00.000-07:00

I thought I was joking when I called it Farm O'Death. But our foray into senseless slaughter has continued to mount into a grievous pile of dead things.

My neighbor came knocking. I was on the phone. I had girded myself that morning for an hour or two of boring paperwork, just to finalize Blue's school plans. And moments before she knocked, I was coming to the slowly, painfully, phone-call-by-phone-call-reveal-edly realization that I had just been plunged into School District Tartarus. What I could see ahead was a tangled bureaucratic mess that would eventually stretch into three weeks, become political, turn my life upside-down and make me a homeschooler. But enough of that. My neighbor was on my doorstep knocking. The only other time she'd shown up had to do with cows, out, eating her rose business. She began with pleasantries that I interrupted: "Just... um ... is this about my cows."
"Sort of."
"Where are they?"
"It's about the fence. It's killing gold finches."
Damned if you do. Damned if you don't.
Cavalier, I said, "I don't mind a few dead birds. We've got hundreds around here. They're eating my tomatoes (at this point, that's a blessing. We've had way too many. The kids actually used a box of them for batting practice). And if the fence keeps my cows in, I guess we'll just have to deal with a couple dead birds now and again."
"Twenty."
"oh my god."
The birds were landing on the electric fence, sagging, connecting with the pigwire fence, and exploding. Who could have known the would happen?!

A week later, my sister helped me rearrange part of the fence. I thought I'd turned off the fence, but when I first grabbed it, I sizzled and my arm went all twitchy . Serves me right, yes, I know. But the funny thing is, that even when the fence was unplugged, and I'd made my sister test it, the message had been so clear that every single time, all 50 of them, I squirmed and squinted and nearly peed my pants as I reached out to touch the clearly dead wire.

And today, I did the rest. And counted 54 bodies. Or parts indicating a body had once been there. There were severed legs hanging from the wire, still clinging to its executioner. About 10 whole fried birds hanging upside down. A few t-posts with feathers burnt on. And a bunch of bloody stools. It was terribly gruesome and I feel horribly bad about it. Bad. Bad. Bad. However, I would like to note that those birds ate all of my grass seed. Not that that justifies a slaughter, just saying...

The next day there was a mouse on the dining room floor. Just sitting there, enjoying the tortilla chip crumbs under Coyote's seat. I screamed. It ate. I screamed some more. It ate some more. I got the cat and put it on top of the mouse. It ate some more. The cat ran off somewhere. I got a jar and put it over the mouse. It ate some more. And then jumped up and bashed it's head on the top several times. The kids wanted it as a pet. ABSOLUTELY NOT! "But," Coyote pleaded, "it's so cute, and maybe, you know, you have something in common with it." Like what? "Maybe it's a mom too!" ACK!!! EEEK! That would mean baby mice!! The lid was put on tight and the mouse died by morning. Her baby, electrocuted in my little black box, the better mouse trap.

The next day, I felt a chill in the air and wondered about the our first frost, long over due- still. Weather Underground said 30. It was our anniversary. A full moon. And Huck and I worked hard in the garden, harvesting the "last" of the zucchini, peppers, basil. Huck lifted 6 tomato plants, whole, from the ground and piled them, dirt and all in the conservatory room. We tucked the rest under warm blankets. Whew! I'd almost missed the first frost. How lucky we were that I'd checked! I awoke the next morning, eager to see how low we'd gone over night. 48. What? 48? 48!! What the hell?! Exactly what Cheney town had I checked? And now I had a ton of dirt and 1000 green tomatoes in my house screaming for immediate, and yet totally nonexistent and unavailable attention and time.

The next night, I found a dead chicken. It looked perfectly fine. The body was in tact but dead. By the time the man of house saw it, the head was missing. Huck wondered if we could leave it out for owls or coyotes. But I didn't want them thinking our house was a buffet. So, as Huck took the bird to the field, I remained behind to inspect the area for clues to it's death. That is when the world's largest owl with, I swear, a 24 foot wing span dive bombed me. And I screamed my lungs out. The moon was still fullish. And Huck yelled from across the field, "Holy crap! That looked awesome!" "Not from these eye balls!" We hauled the chicken coop, chickens and all into the barn and then buried the limp Buff Orpington known as Nugget in a shallow grave, which took an hour or so, in the dry end-of summer concrete that used to be soil.

The next night, around 2am, I heard this terrible chickeny squawking outside my bedroom window. I leapt up and saw an owl flying away and a chicken stranded on the top of a telephone pole, screaming. I wondered if I should call the fire department like they do for kittens. It seemed kind of species-ist not to. But it wasn't one of ours and about five minutes later, the owl returned for it.

And then King Louis decided to start putting his gophers (he has a taste for gophers and birds, but NOT mice) in his food dish. Blood smears all over the floor.

And now our sump pump died and no one can take showers or do laundry until it's fixed for an exorbitant sum.

Death. Death. Death. Day in. Day out. That's the way it goes. It harvest time here, for the Grim Reaper too, I suppose. Maybe we're just making space for new things. Like invasive starlings and rats and really expensive shit-moving equipment you never see.

On a Mission

2010-10-04T22:08:00.000-07:00

Our anniversary fell on the fall equinox (as it always does and by design), the full moon, the school board meeting that made everything even crazier (a story for another day), and a mistaken identity problem (also likely to be coming soon to a blog near you). Huck had managed to make some celebratory mousse, but that was all.

So this weekend we jettisoned ourselves to honeymoon in Wallace, Idaho. Our initial reservations were for the well-signed Stardust Motel. Once we saw it in person however, we bailed for a more um... open, clean, and staffed place on the outskirts of this adorable historic little town that doubles as the crown jewel of one of the largest Super Fund sites in the U.S.

When we lived in Pullman, we'd head for Dayton. The first town in Washington, nestled in the bosom of wine country, a walking architectural tour through the history of gorgeousness, and bragging rites to an improbable number of amazing restaurants. And I'm nothing, if not a food bitch. Do not attempt to charge me an arm and a leg for opening a can and smearing the contents all over a Costco tortilla and Rosarita beans. Charge me a finger or two, and I'm fine, but if it's a cell more than that I myself will open a Costco-sized can of whoop-ass. Perhaps I've calmed down a little about crap being dressed up with some old parsley and called a meal. But Huck still gives gentle warnings like, "So... I've never eaten here before. I have no idea what the foods going to be like. Just so you know..." I realize now that it is unlikely that any restaurant I can afford to eat at will be serving anything comparable to, much less better than, what I make at home for my passel of ingrates. However, I can recognize the value of not cooking and cleaning up a meal myself... even if it is an over-priced experience that causes heartburn for a variety of reasons.

At first I was all: why are we going without the kids? Life's so boring without the kids. Who goes on a bike ride without kids? And Huck said, "You'll remember. You'll remember." And what I remembered was how much I ADORE antique shopping. When I was 12, I'd plead with my antique-appreciation-deficient mother to drop me off at the antique mall. And for my 13th birthday, I talked her in to buying me a 1920's satin debutant gown which I have never worn because it hasn't fit me since.

Oh gosh, did Wallace make me swoon. I picked up a shiny red, super old, drill called a brace that you brace against your shoulder. I love those things and so does Coyote who took it straight-away to the dining room table thereby reinforcing the difficult decision to decline on any more antique furniture.

At dinner, Huck wouldn't let me touch the water. He didn't physically prevent it, he just seriously advised against it. He tests their water and knows all that it contains. What happened in that valley is a disaster intentionally perpetrated by mining companies who dissolved after coating the valley with lead. 30 years later, the kids are called "leaded" and can't function. Now the town feels stigmatized. So they want the EPA out. They don't want anymore tests (Huck's equipment is routinely shot up) and they don't want any more clean up. They just want everyone to shut up about it. It's like homophobia. As if talking about it, as if knowing the truth were the problem!

So, Huck packed all our water in from home.

Saturday morning, we plotted our bicycle course. With the kids, over the years, we've repeated many parts of the Trail of the Couer d'Alenes, but not this eastern section. Huck wanted to start at the end, in Mullan. And I wanted to picnic at the Cataldo Mission. And if we did both, we'd cover the rest of the trail. And perhaps make it back in time for a tour of the Bordello Museum who's curious menu, posted out front from the good ol' days of 1988 mentioned a Straight, French, No Frills for $24, $2 for each additional position. What did it all mean? I wanted to find out.

Unfortunately, neither of us did the math on this trip. No one added it all up, except for perhaps our waiter, who recommended we cut the trip 20 miles short by turning around at the Snake Pit, an 1881 casino. But then we wouldn't finish the whole trail! Or picnic at the Mission! Or... um... make it back to the car before dark... or ride anything less than 65 miles.

The first 25 miles were pleasant enough. The red and yellow leaves crunched perfectly under our tires. Huck detailed all the toxins in the picturesque creek beside us. But the eastern end of the trail is not it's best side. Mostly, it hugs the interstate and the back sides of towns like Smelterville and Silverton. And if these towns don't look so hot from the front, the backside is... icky.

Huck and I traded bikes and I discovered this concept called: efficiency. His bike was so much faster than mine, that despite being in better shape, he couldn't keep up with me! I was furious at the fact that all those years, commuting 20 miles a day to work, I had been riding a tank, a leg powered tank, a Flintstone minivan. I'd dangled by the crotch and spun like a crazed hampster...on a gristmill. I was routinely passed by larger asses on skinnier bikes. And I'd wondered to myself, "What the hell?!" Yeah, well, it wasn't me. It was my dumb bike. My shiny red bike named Sinner. Sinner indeed.

And to make an ill-spawned journey worse, I'd forgotten Rico. How I could forget my padded bike shorts, I don't know, but forget him I did.

The last five miles was all about: "Not Quitting Now," - my idea. But after we perused the Mission grounds, marveled at the size of it's beams and agony of construction, regained feeling in our butts, and ate our salmon jerky and peanuts, I was entertaining secret fantasies about hitchhiking. When we returned to the parking lot to find a family jumping in to a big truck, I sprung into action. Huck's ensuing confusion botched my plan entirely. And we did, indeed, argue for a while there. After all, pre-"us", he hitchhiked the West coast and I, the Eastern Seaboard and the Rockies. Our first vacation with Blue (then 4 months old) involved camping and hitchhiking Baja. So...I was a little appalled when he turned up all bewildered at my plan. But then, he currently commutes via bike 20 miles a day, whereas it's been 2 years since I did that. So he was kind of wondering what the heck my problem was.

He eventually agreed that the whole way back, we'd try to find a ride. We met a lot of really nice people in really nice cars with plenty of room, going the other direction. We were miserable. Or maybe it was just me. And yet a quiet peace settled between us, if not between my legs. And this is what we figured out: we would not be alive today if it weren't for our children. Neither one of us has working brakes when it comes to adventure. After the first six months of Blue's life, we stopped doing these things, like hitchhiking in Mexico and backpacking in the Olympics without any supplies. Since then, all of our adventures have taken into account the finicky schedules of kids, their limited stamina, their need for food and water and shelter, etc. I mean, just this past summer, Huck and I had another night off and cruised out to Bagby hotsprings, arriving at night, via unmarked logging roads, without a map, and totally out of water and food. You see? We need our kids to ensure our own survival, without them, we're dead nuts.

All in all, the trip was a nice metaphor for our marriage thus far: unintentionally conceived and much longer and more difficult than either of us were looking for initially.

By the time he dropped me off at a beautiful but whacky restaurant in Wallace to wash the bugs off my face and dine, I was relaxed, yet in total pain.

The Jameson is just opening up and I hope they work out some of the kinks. The "fancy" salad was iceberg with three baby green leaves placed on top because the iceberg had sinned against lettucekind and was covering up for god. The liqueur license had yet to be procured, so the spiked grape juice was free and I'm sure the liqueur board will be very impressed with their ingenuity! And the menu was like sifting through the mind of a schizophrenic. It took several tries before I hit on something that existed. I did steer clear of the roasted vegetable aspic, although it was probably gluten-free.

Huck continued on his bike to Mullan and our car, as we had only one working head lamp between us and he was not yet dead. And eventually, we returned home alive to find my parents -alive!- who had managed to keep our children alive as well! It's a miracle.

Come on, now! Socialize!

2010-09-19T22:27:00.000-07:00

When I did the math on how long I'd be alone, daily, after Coyote finally went to school, I did it wrong. It's 8 hours, not 9 --which explains why my "to do" task-master-list is not being completed. This incompletion may also be due to the fact that my list is two pages long and not even an army of studmuffins could complete it in a week. I'm a bitch of boss.

But my point is that I do not see people for most of that time. Except for Friday's knitting group (I forgot how to knit over the summer hiatus!). I am apparently much less social than I thought. And either I've grown to be frightened of people or I've come to realize that the immense energy I exude when around people is terror-based and I've adapted by slapping up a fresh coat of smile on it and ... tada! I look like I love a room full of strangers! It's magic.

The bad thing about not being socialized is that I get out of practice. I forget to ignore and avoid. I forget my manners. I forget to suck-in my energy level. I forget to hide myself, basically. I forget to pretend I'm someone WAY more together, quiet and proper. When I'm in practice, I can sort of try to fit in. This has been a bigger challenge here in Spokane than anywhere else. Spokane is full of wonderful people. But it's different. I seem to get along a little better if I keep at least half of myself covered up in my magic, invisible cloak that the elves gave me.

(this photo is of me, incognito, and Coyote wearing his "night-vision" spy-gear that he found at Goodwill)

The Unitarian neighborhood potluck was right after church today and I thought I'd have time to go home, toss together my now-famous gluten-free clafouti and arrive in time. I'd convinced myself that this glorified flan recipe only took 20 minutes.

"Now how much time in the oven? 35 minutes! What that hell?! Nuts-a-roni! You dingleberry! Your conversion bakes ten minutes MORE than the original recipe. Not 10 minutes period." But a clafouti once assembled cannot turn back. What was I to do? I showed up at the potluck with my timer ticking, obviously. The moment I walked in with my timer in my hand, I realized I was going to have to explain myself, and I knew the gig was up. I knew there was no hiding the spastic lady I really am deep down inside. I knew there was nothing to do but be myself in all my unacceptable glory. And so I was.

Gleefully, most people seemed if not amused, then at least well-tolerating. And I enjoyed meeting lots of "new" people, most of them old, except for one younger wife. And lucky for me, they seemed glad for some new energy. Not all people are like this. I once had a writing professor direct me to get my thyroid checked, she thought my enthusiasm for her class was misplaced. I discovered that it was misplaced and my thyroid is the picture of health. At any rate, I enjoyed these people and their interesting lives and no one suggested I get my thyroid checked.

One woman and I were discussing our trips to Belize. In more obtuse terms, and thoroughly abbreviated, I related this story:

I worked in Mexico with a Belize girl and we thought it would be fun for me to visit her family for a week or so. We went on vacation together. Her family was Mayan and had a sugar plantation I checked out. We ate huge avacado's for every meal. Her sister-in-law taught me how to make tortillas. Her brother tattooed me with home made ink and a guitar string.

And we went to the fair. When in Rome, do as the Romans, right? That's how I roll, except in the U.S. So I let them pick out my clothes to match theirs, imagining that I'd just blend in in her satin, purple and very short dress and very high heels. Already being a foot taller than anyone in her town, the heels were entirely unnecessary and the dress-on-loan was WAY TOO SHORT considering the length of my legs vs. hers. When we rode the wooden Ferris wheel, the entire town assembled at the bottom to watch my butt poke through the slats. Then I danced with a doctor who kept telling me what wonders my dancing with him would do for his reputation because he'd grown up in that town as a total dork and even now that he was back as a doctor he still couldn't live down his dork reputation. Perhaps, I thought, that's because the problem persists. But I felt safe with him and he was polite, considering the songs. Caribbean music is... rather... um... crude. This dance had a caller calling out the moves and so it was: porno-meets-polka. "Pop the bunny in the hole to the left. Pop the bunny in the hole to right. Swing your partner and now it's three steps back and bury it in the beaver. Keep it there. Keep it there. Alright now."

"Hooo-ee!" I said after about three seconds, "I should really take a break! I'll go get something to drink."
"Yeah," he said, "I better go check on my mom. I think she wants to dance too."
I strode up to the bar and ordered a water. A man offered to buy me a beer. I declined because I was feeling a little disoriented and lost and wanted my full set of faculties just then... not that they did much good. Another man overheard and offered to buy me a beer too. I declined, but another man overheard and offered to buy me a beer. I declined. And then another man overheard and took matters into his own hands and just bought me a beer. I declined. So he poured the beer in to my water. A few to a couple hundred other men overheard this and also poured beer into this "super-tall white-girl's" cup. But then my cup overflowed, so they pressed in on me and poured beer all over my head, my shoulders, my arms, my hands. They were almost like a host of anointing angels, except the exact opposite.

And just when I realized that the situation was completely out of hand and looking extremely dangerous, someone yanked on my arm and pulled me out: my friend's brother. He shoved me into his van and told his wife to keep guard. Then he rounded up the rest of the family and we went home where the father and the family and I all had a frank discussion and they decided I should leave for my own safety. I didn't want to head back to my job in Mexico (because I had been threatened with deportation for working without documents), but aimed for Guatemala instead, which they all agreed would be much safer (and it was, for the most part, except for the bus back to Mexico that dropped me off in the middle of the jungle... but that's another story). I was driven to the bus station and given explicit directions. I was not to look out the windows and not to make eye-contact with anyone. Belize, they said, was too screwed up for a single traveling girl. And it was. It was the most colonialistically screwed up place I've ever been and that includes India and parts of Africa. I actually have many more stories from both that night and my week there, but this is the only one you get today. If you want more, you'll have to come out here and buy me a beer yourself. By the way: I'm sure the beaches and hotels of Belize are all fine tourist sanctuaries.

My potluck companion and I marveled at how different her trip was. And then this other lady of super-stiff demeanor says, "Well G, the difference is probably your personalities. Yours is so open and honest and hers is... well."

G interrupts, "Oh MY GOD! WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?! We actually have very similar personalities, more similar than what you'd think." G frantically shut her up and tried to erased her hurtful comment.

But what personality did that lady think I have? And why did she imagine she knew after having been in a room with me for an hour? Did this have to do with my timer? But the clafouti turned out awesome! I drove home, pulled it out of the oven just in time and drove back with a perfectly set clafouti. Here I was, resigned to being the off-putting crank that I am and the results were just as bad as I feared. But I can't be too hard on the stiff-lady because that's just the sort of foot-in-mouth accident I'm too familiar with myself.

G and I decided that the difference was 1977 and 1999, married and single, well-worn tourist-accustomed path vs. godforsaken village, and who knows what else?

Sorry there's no photos of this. There was an accidental viewing of that photo album and I decided it would be safer to put it in to deep storage and I have completely forgotten where that might be. It's probably for the best that I don't post these internetally. I might want to get a job some day.

Anyhoo... these pics ARE of our Saturday amble to the Spokane County Fair where spinning around backwards really fast thankfully did not have much of an affect on the curly fries, root beer float, and cotton candy in my stomach!