Chicken and Sponge

The Woman Who Fell Off the Edge of the World, installment 14

 

Must I say it again?  Warnings about offensive language and adult situations, but if you like it, go to the archives and start at the beginning.

By 3:00 break my ears were ringing.  Joy was a trip—blunt, abrasive, funny.  She was a non-stop talker, a non-stop asker of every question imaginable,  and a world-class non-stop whiner. 

            I nicknamed her Misnomer which she didn’t get ( and no one else did either, so it didn’t stick) and that pissed her off, making the whole situation even funnier.  Of course, I refused to explain it to her and that pissed her off even more, making me laugh even harder.  It was the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

            Yes, inexplicably, we hit it off.  We liked each other.  Joy was a straight-from-the-hip kind of woman—what you see is what you get—take it or leave it.  She was a breath of fresh air, pick your favorite cliché, particularly after dealing with Lauren who was complete fiction and all pretension.  I liked Lauren, more or less, even though she was so busy trying to invent herself that she had no idea who she really was.  But I didn’t trust her and didn’t feel like it would be wise to ever let my guard down with her.

            Joy was emotionally honest.  I’d decided all this within the first two hours of standing on the slime line with her.  The slime line can be like that sometimes.

            I like men.  Even after my experience with Steven Kane.  I’d thought I’d come to Alaska for adventure and escape, of course.  I never dreamed that I would miss women.

            I found myself sounding like all my co-workers who’d been getting on my nerves, but Joy didn’t seem to mind.  She liked to talk.

            “So what brings you to Pelican?”  I asked her.

            “Oh, you know…Seeing Alaska, the fishing industry, real men, totem poles and partying, wild life, fast money—you know, that whole Alaska Adventure.”

            I shook my head in disbelief.  “Do you know how much we’re making per hour?”

            “Not shit, is it?  I can’t believe I’m working for only $5.75 per hour and this is really fucking gross!  Petra, I don’t know if I can do this or not.?

            “Oh, sure you can,” I reassured her.  “Don’t worry, it all washes out.”

            “I can’t believe I just got off the plane and that girl—Lauren?—told me I had to come straight to work.  What time do we get off anyway?”

            “We usually break for dinner from five to six,” I replied.

            “Break?  Five to six?  Then what?  What time do we get off?”

            “No one knows for sure,” I told her.  I recognized growing panic and anger in Joy’s eyes.

            She sounded pissed.  “What do you mean ‘no one knows’?  What kind of stupid shit is that?”

            “Seems to be the rule around here,” I told her.  “I’ve been feeling like a zombie because it’s been every day, nine days straight, 7:00 a.m. until almost 11:00 p.m.”

            “What?”  Joy threw down her sliming stick and leaned across our work station.

            “Hey, don’t get mad at me,” I told her.  “I didn’t make you come work here and I don’t make the rules.  Just think of it as a variation on an Outward Bound program—you’ll gain character and stamina.”

            “Sounds like a bunch of shit to me,” Joy griped.  “I don’t think I’ll make it,” she whined.

            “Well, you have to,” I told her.  “That’s all there is to it.  You can do it.  My parents think I’ll never make it so I have to make it so that I can prove to them that I can.  We’ll help each other.  I’m in need of a buddy that doesn’t want to climb into my rain gear with me.”

            Joy gave me a sly look.  “I wouldn’t mind if some of these guys climbed into mine.”

            I gave her an evil grin in return.  “We’ll just have to see how sexy you feel at 11:00 tonight.”

            The grin dropped from her face.

            “Thanks a lot!  Like I needed to be reminded of that!  So what brought you here?” she asked me.

            I surprised myself and answered her fairly honestly.

            “Well..”  Where to start?  “A man.  A very bad, bad man.  I had to get away and this seemed like a place where he’d never think to look for me.”

            “You’re lying, aren’t you?”

            “No, no, I’m not, actually.  I should be in school right now, preparing to graduate.  Instead I took a couple of incompletes, packed my bags, and headed here, disappointing my family in the process.”

            Joy looked at me over the top of her black cod.  Her hands weren’t moving at all because it looked as though she were thinking.

            “You can’t leave it at that,” Joy informed me.  “You have to tell me more than that about the ‘very bad, bad man’”.

            “Why?”  I asked.  “Look, it just brings up emotions and memories that I don’t want to dwell on.  If I’d wanted to think about this guy I could have stayed put and let him continue to stalk me.”

            Thelma chose that moment to walk by.  Correction, to walk straight toward us with purpose in her step and disgust on her face.  She was shaking her head.

            “Keep your hands moving!  Don’t teach the new worker bad things!  And you guys, too!”  She pointed to the work stations around us and I realized that we’d acquired eavesdroppers.  “Christ!”  she muttered as she walked off, “and you guys can’t understand why we can’t get out of here before 11:00 every night.”

            I actually felt somewhat ashamed.  I’d been really trying to improve and felt like I’d slipped in Thelma’s estimation.  I was surprised at how much that bothered me.  I started scraping fish bellies and giving them my full attention.  Sliming felt therapeutic, but disturbing images from the past floated into my brain.

            Joy waited until Thelma had disappeared into the bowels of the freezer and then started in again.

            “Well?  You’re not leaving it there.  You are going to tell me something about this mysterious stalker.”

            I shook my head.

            “Come on, tell us a story,”  Tim urged from across the belt.  Jaimie and a couple of the other guys in the vicinity nodded their encouragement.

            I sighed.  I held up one finger to indicate that I was collecting my thoughts.

            “Ok.  Let’s see.  I had just broken up with an ass-hole that I’d gone out with for two years.  I’d thought I wasn’t really interested in getting involved with anyone.  After I broke up with him, I’d moved back into the dorms to torture myself, I guess.  There was only room in the freshman dorm, so my new roommate was the same age I am and we bonded.  We went out to a seedy little bar one night to get away from the dorm and that’s where I met my stalker.”

            “Name?”  Joy requested.

            “No,”  I replied.  “I’m superstitious and don’t want to name him.”

            Joy looked baffled, but Tim nodded knowingly.  You don’t name the demon for fear of summoning him.

            “So we’re at this bar and this good-looking, charming man makes a bee-line for me, and I didn’t even know what hit me.  He bought all my drinks and hung on my every word and acted like I was the most fascinating woman in the world.”

            “Oh, you are,”  Tim assured me, his eyes smiling.

            I  rolled my eyes.  “He laid it on thick and basically courted me for two weeks.  Then he started to reveal himself.  He’d get crazy jealous if he even thought anyone was paying attention to me.  Then he turned real cold to me, like it was my fault, and then after awhile he’d be as sweet as can be again.  It kind of creeped me out.  Then he got pulled over for a traffic violation and lied about who he was, said he didn’t have his license with him when I knew he did…went to a bar right after that where he got grossly drunk and ended up almost beating a guy to death.  Then he pulled me out of there before the cops came and he ended up taking it out on me. I broke up with him over the phone, because that was safer, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer.  Started following me and staking out the dorm.  I just didn’t feel safe and felt like I had to get away from him.  So now I’m here.  End of story.”

            Joy started to say something.  I know she was going to demand more details, but I shot her a look and it must have been quite the look, because she actually shut her mouth.

            Tim nodded his head thoughtfully and then twinkled at me again.  “Thanks for finally sharing.”

            “No problem, just don’t ever expect it again.  Steven isn’t someone I want to dwell on.”   Surprisingly, everyone seemed to respect my wishes and let the subject drop.

Not the Torture I'd Imagined: Chaperoning a Field Trip

 

One 8th grade girl is missing because we had nine between the two groups.  Must be taking a picture.  This is on the Portland Waterfront where workers were setting up for the Rose Fest.  Miranda is the one in the purple dress.

I will admit--it wasn't as bad as I'd anticipated.  I had been trying to figure out for about two weeks what on earth I'd been thinking of when I volunteered to chaperon a field trip of 8th graders to an event called the Portland Prowl.  I was beginning to fear for my sanity and more than that, I was afraid that my family would ignore my failing mental health and NOT send me to a sanitarium as I so desire. One doesn't get out of reality THAT easily.

Being the head case I am, I expected to not sleep much the night before because, well, this is a big deal for a 44 year-old woman.  Who would I talk to?  Would the other chaperons like me?  Would my feet hurt?  If I took a book to read would I look too anti-social?  Would I somehow lose my precious book?  What, oh what, should I wear?

Oy vay! ( No, I'm not jewish, but what a great phrase that so accurately imparts the precise emotions of a nutty mother).  I did sleep.  Yes, sorry, once again, you are getting a sleep update.  I'm sure you are just riveted by this.  Totally beside the point, I once read a book by Anne Tyler called "If Morning Ever Comes".  This is my favorite Anne Tyler book and in it a troubled, but endearing family doesn't sleep at night, night after night, as they each wander around the dark house, past each other, contemplating their own individual problems.  There have been times that I've greatly identified with that book.  However, I generally wander alone, unless Sam is up, too.

So, back to the sleep update:  I was sleeping as well as can be expected for someone who has a lot of body aches and pains and too much garbage welling around in her mind as we try to sell the bar and transition our lives.  Also, the weather has been much warmer and that makes temperature control a little dicey.  We start out too hot with all the windows open.  Then as the night progresses and the temperatures cool, I wander around and partially close windows, then go back to bed.  Mick and I now have a teeny, tiny fan pointed at the bed and that is quite soothing.  However, night before the big field trip, 4:00 a.m., as I was adjusting the windows, Mick was adjusting the covers.  I returned to bed and my covers no longer reached the edge of my side.  I got in and tugged.  In his sleep, he tugged back.  I tugged again.  He replied in kind.  Again, I tried to get the covers to cover my body and Mick tugged on them hard!  By now I'm just plain pissed off and it's 4:00 a.m. and I face a dilemma.  Do I stand up and yank all the covers completely off of him and take them, just to give in to my childish feelings of frustration?  Or...?  Yeah, I picked "or" and got up and got my own personal blanket, shooting him filthy looks the whole time.  I did notice that he didn't even bother to ask why the other blanket was on the bed in the morning.  Yeah, he can play ignorant, but deep down, he knows.

I lay there and seethed and tried to deliberately focus on relaxing my body.  I did manage to un-tense.  I didn't manage to fall back asleep and got up at 5:00 a.m.  Miranda and I had to leave the house at 7:00.

The day before, Mick and I had been sitting on the couch eating lunch when he looks over at me and says:  So, tomorrow's your field trip?

me:  Yes.

Wicked amusement enters Mick's eyes and he starts to quietly chuckle to himself while shaking his head.

Mick:  Man, you are going to be SO miserable!

This is what I thought about from 4:00 to 5:00 a.m.

I really hadn't known what I was getting myself in for.  This field trip was supposed to be a scavenger hunt and we were supposed to wander around three or four separate districts around downtown Portland and the kids were divided into teams, each with one booklet to fill out and questions to answer.  Oh, and thank God, they gave us a map.

I had four girls.  This would have been perfectly manageable and they'd probably have filled out their booklet.  However, there was another group of five girls that they were good friends with that they wanted to join.  The nice thing about this, I got a fellow adult to walk and talk with.  Miranda's best friend's mom was the other chaperon.  Fellow adults, particularly women, are few and far between in my life.  Shelly is also a psychiatric nurse and everyone knows nurses are kind of a twisted, perverse group of people, so I didn't have to worry about being judged too harshly and if she did, maybe she'd recommend that I check myself into her place of work.  No such luck there, but we had a very enlightening conversation on prescription mood enhancers that left me feeling quite envious.

If you know nothing about 8th grade girls, here is what you should know:  they aren't bad.  They are however, shrill, squeaky, giggly, scatter-brained, completely unfocused, and partially deaf.  Oh, and more energy than what is easy to stomach.  Yes, that is envy raising its ugly head again.

I was very relieved that at the pre-trip meeting I'd had to attend, that the teachers eventually said, after telling us about the different goals and prizes for this trip, that the overall objective was that these kids have fun. It wasn't really about how many questions they could answer correctly.  Good thing.  I'm not sure if our booklets even made the trip home.  And our girls certainly had fun.

 

This picture was also taken by the Waterfront.  Don't ask me the name of the fountain.  There were no prizes at stake for me.

Pioneer Square was the center of our expedition.  Drop off and pick up.  It also had the necessary restrooms that I think I used four times.  Miranda never once used a restroom to the best of my knowledge.  One other girl in our group went as often as I did, but I will spare her heightened sense of teenage embarrassment and not reveal her name.

While other groups of kids searched for clues and answered pages of questions, our girls tried on fancy dresses in a Jessica McClintock Boutique, took many, many photos of the high rises, revealed that they are even lousier than I am at reading a map ( and I discovered that I'm not so bad though we missed the one thing I wanted to see and we'd had to walk right past it--a glass arts gallery, because of course, with a kid like Sam who loves to break glass, my favorite art is glass art) and took one group photo after another, hamming it up the whole time.  Fine by me.

 

Downtown Portland has many cool sculptures all around and little mini parks tucked in here and there. No, no idea what this one is called or what it's all about either.

The amazing thing on this trip was the loading and unloading of the buses.  I had no clue what was going on or where we were supposed to be.  There were a lot of kids on this trip and several buses.  I knew we were on bus five and I knew what a few of the other people looked like that were on our bus.  I also knew at what time we were approximately leaving and I made sure we were at Pioneer Square in plenty of time.  But when the time came, people started heading in all directions.  Pioneer Square is a busy place at lunch time and there is no good place to load and unload the buses, so there was more than one spot.  I just followed the group of people I recognized.  It was a mad house and then the teacher was waving us onto the bus frantically, go, go, go, roll call through the chaperons and then to the driver, go, go, go, and we were on our way.  Unbelievable.  It worked.  They made the kids chant thank you in unison to the chaperons and to the bus driver (who was thanked for doing such a good job, even though five people had just had to yell, stop, stop, stop! as she tried to drive through a red light and we were about four feet over the cross walk.  But who am I to complain?  That's one job that you really couldn't pay me enough!).

We made it.  I collapsed and realized that I was exhausted.  I also realized that I need more variety on my ipod and that those little earbuds kill my ears.  Also, next time, bring a book so I don't have to steal my daughter's.  Did I really just say next time?

 

I have no idea who this umbrella guy sculpture is or is supposed to represent.  Perhaps the poor residents of Portland who get rained on with some frequency ( and have nothing to whine about since they don't live in Southeast Alaska where it REALLY rains).  I read no placards.  However, when we returned to Pioneer Square, where umbrella guy lives, and the girls were having a great time being goofy with him, they all lost it in helpless giggles when I told Miranda to make this a really romantic photo.  By the way, Miranda turn 14! tomorrow on May 29.  Unbelievable!

Vicki's Home Made Clam Chowder

In the interests of giving myself a break, and I'm going to need one, I have decided to occasionally share some recipes.  For dinner on Memorial Day, while drinking wine, which makes the whole process so much more enjoyable,  I made clam chowder.

VICK'S CLAM CHOWDER

4   medium white potatoes

3  large carrots

3 stalks celery

1/2  an onion

Clams,  fresh if you have them, canned if you don't, however many you like--3 to 4 cans, or I had about 2 cups fresh.

1 anaheim pepper

1 pkg or about 1 1/2 cups sliced, fresh mushrooms

4 cups fat-free half & half

margarine or butter

salt, about 2 teaspoons

Season salt (we use Johnnie's No MSG), about 1/2 a teaspoon

cayenne pepper, 2-4 shakes

nutmeg, 3 good shakes

green onion and grated cheese to top

 

It looks like brains, but it's not.  These are cooked clams.  If you buy canned, you don't need to worry about it, but if you have fresh clams, boil them beforehand and let them cool before you chop them as small as you can.  Also, if fresh, please let them clean themselves out properly before cooking so that you're not eating sand and they have less, well, dark poop in their bellies.  Also cut off the dark necks.  They're gross.

Cube your potatoes really small.  This is why drinking while cooking is recommended.  It alleviates the boredom of all this fine chopping.  Put cubed potatoes in a microwave-safe dish, cover with water, and nuke on high for about 10 minutes, however long it takes to get them soft, but not turn to mush.  Drain.

Chop really fine the carrots and celery.  Saute in a skillet with butter or margarine.  (Usually I use olive oil for everything, but not for this.  It just doesn't taste right).

Finely chop the onion and anaheim pepper and add to skillet.  After a few minutes, add in the mushrooms.  Cook everything until it is soft, but not burnt or mushy.

This is toward the end of the sauteing process.  Note that the mushrooms are just barely cooked, they still have some firmness to them, but the carrots are quite soft.  Although everything ends up in one pan, do NOT throw everything in at once or you will have crappy chowder and it won't be because I didn't warn you.

Now it is time to assemble.  Get a BIG pot.  Nothing worse than trying to fit everything in something that is too small and just don't think about what a hassle washing that pot will be.  Console yourself with a refill on your wine, if need be.

In your big pot, dump your potatoes, clams, contents of the saute pan and about 4 cups or so of the fat-free half & half.  Turn on the heat.  Keep it medium to low.  Please don't cook it on high.  Everything is actually already cooked at this point.  You don't want to cook the ingredients of a cream-based soup in a cream.  You will get under-done vegies and scorched milk if you do.  So everything is cooked before hand and then assembled. This also makes for more complex flavors.

Seasoning:  throw it all in.  Of the above-listed ingredients, I mean.  Salt, season salt, cayenne pepper, and nutmeg.  That's all.  Simpler is better.  Trust me on this.

While your chowder heats through, bring just to a boil or simmer, chop up green onions for garnish and shred whatever cheese suits your fancy.  I have a thing about cheese and can think of all kinds of good, smelly possibilities, but I'm also a lazy soul.  I bought a bag of pre-shredded 4-cheese Mexican blend, which has nothing really to do with Mexican food.  You're done.  Maybe make or buy some rolls to go with it.  Enjoy!

 

The finished product.

 

My vegetarian became a piscatarian for one meal.

 

Another happy camper--and a fellow cheese addict.  Notice that you can't even see the chowder for all the cheese on top.  This chowder was quite good, but cheese can cover up a multitude of sins.

Foot note:  I need a break because today I am a chaperon on an 8th grade field trip/ scavenger hunt through downtown Portland.  Whatever was I thinking?  Mick just laughed yesterday morning, shook his head and said, "You're going to be miserable."

First Visit to Central Bark

 

Miranda briefly played with Louise at Central Bark, Dallas, Oregon's first off-leash dog park.

Keeping everyone happy and entertained in this family, without spending massive amounts of money, is truly challenging.  Recently, I became aware that Dallas actually has a fenced, off-leash dog park, and in the interests of killing time on Memorial Day, we were going to find it and visit.  At least the dogs would be happy.

Although it wasn't hard to find, I would never have found Central Bark just by driving around.  It is tucked away in a residential neighborhood and appears to be a fairly new park.  That is judging by the size of the trees that provide zero shade next to the one picnic table.  At the far end of the park are a few very large, very old trees that provide wonderful shade.  No picnic table, though, and after having tried to pick up Louise's poop, with the park-provided mutt mitts, I didn't want to plunk down onto the grass.  While I did indeed remove the poop, residue was left behind.  I sat at the picnic table in the heat of the sun without complaint.

Our dogs were ecstatic!  There were three other dogs at the park, all belonging to one couple, and they were of the herding variety, probably border collies, but I'm not positive.  The other three dogs were ecstatic as well because they got to try to herd something beside their uncooperative owners.

Zeus is a complete nut.  Both of our dogs love other dogs, but rarely get to socialize.  Zeus's unfortunate habit of puking, peeing, or pooping in the car has discouraged us from taking him out very often.  These idiot dogs are so good-natured that they love to go to the vet.  Since they won't be summering in Pelican anymore (thank God!  I will not miss traveling with my own traveling, dysfunctional circus),they won't have their buddy Oz, a Bergamasco, to frolic with.  The dog park seems the perfect solution and it's not far from the house, so hopefully we can get to the park before Zeus's unfortunate tendencies come into play.

Zeus ran like crazy.  I think he was completely unaware that the other dogs were trying, or at least would like, to herd him.  He was just too fast and tore around the park like he was possessed.  We, in fact, suspect that he is possessed, but say nothing in fear that other owners will shy away.

 

Zeus and his freakishly large tongue try to find shade under Mick and the picnic table.

Louise was obsessed with all the smells when we arrived at the park.  She didn't really even notice the other dogs at first because her nose was pushed into the grass.  Then she must have smelled something quite inspiring because she assumed the position and took a huge crap.  I immediately had to locate the mutt mitts ( and I was relieved to find that they were what I thought they were) and clean up after Louise.  Even with the little bags, this is not a pleasant job.

Then all the dogs ran.  They ran in circles, chased tails, sniffed butts, all that good dog stuff.  Zeus ran three times more than the others because he ran circles around them.  Then they collapsed.  I had water and dishes ready.  After Zeus drank no other dog would drink out of the bowls because he gets so much spit in the water that it turns to clear slime.

The other dogs left.  We got ready to leave.  It was a short trip because our dogs aren't built for speed and can't tolerate the heat.  Plus, once the other dogs left there wasn't much point.  They have an acre of yard at home to run around when they want.  This was simply a social visit.

Sam had been good.  She had no interest in this outing at all, except that it got her out of the house for a short while.  Once she'd walked the perimeter of the park, she was done.  Promises of ice cream kept her manageable.  So to Dairy Queen we went.  Then home for our over-heated dogs to recover.

 

Louise recovers on the cool kitchen floor after her big outing.  That black mark on the carpet is where Sam opened the wood stove two years ago and a flaming log rolled into the living room.

We will return periodically to Central Bark and hope that other dog owners discover the park.  Dogs need play dates, too.

The Dogs' New Hobby and Can't Get Mercury Off My Mind

These two look far more innocent than they really are.

This whole three week debacle, known as Mercury Retrograde, will be coming to a close on the 30th.  It can't come soon enough for me.  My dad sent me an email, informing me that in Seeley Lake, Montana, Mercury Retrograde means snow in May.  Oh, if we'd been so lucky.

One is never supposed to deal with major business deals or sign contracts when Mercury is retrograde.  Sorry if this all sounds like new age-y crap, but the past two weeks are enough to make anyone a believer, and I won't even go into all the details.  Suffice it to say:  our closing of the bar is not yet complete and has my nerves frayed and negatively affects my appetite (unfortunately, instead of me not eating, I want to do nothing but eat); Miranda's computer was so messed up that we could get nothing but a black screen and white cursor on it and it took an emergency phone call to Randy to talk Mick through the clean-up process; Sam managed to effectively screw up an important program on Mick's computer and he had to start from scratch with it; a large check to me has been lost in the mail and has not arrived after being mailed from the state of Washington at least three weeks ago; I think there is a skunk living in the crawl space beneath the house.  No, that has nothing to do with Mercury being retrograde, but Mick refusing to believe my very logical assumption  does.

My logical assumption:  Our dogs, the ever-entertaining and infuriating Zeus and Louise, for all their faults ( which consist of furniture hogging, food scavenging, barfing, ugly butt, indecisiveness as to whether they want to be inside or out, as well as snoring, profuse farting, plus general smelliness and shedding) are not barkers.  That's right, the barking is minimal and if that weren't so, I probably wouldn't put up with them.  I'm not saying that they don't bark, just that it is rare and for a good reason.  So, twice recently, Zeus has barked up a storm and went tearing around the house to jump off the deck and poke his head into the crawl space and wait at attention.  Louise actually picked up her lazy carcass and ambled over to see what the fuss was about and perked up considerably.  She, too, waited at attention for a long time before losing interest.  That night, or more specifically, the next morning at 3:00 a.m., I awoke for the nightly bathroom break and smelled the distinct aroma of a skunk wafting in our bedroom window.  If Mick had been home, and not in Canada at the time, I would have awakened him for no good reason except to say, "see, THAT smells like a skunk".  This is not the first time that I have smelled skunk right by the house after dark.  The odor has always been strong and distinct and lingering.  This always happens when Mick is not home.  The second part to my logical assumption is that there is A LOT of road kill in these parts, consisting mostly of possums ( I admit, I don't know what they smell like), raccoons, and skunks.  Yes, cats, too.  There are so many of these flattened little creatures not running about that I have to wonder just where do they live?  I realize that raccoons and possums may live in trees, but I don't think that applies to skunks.  All of these animals are mostly nocturnal, so they have to bed down somewhere during the day.  I think the crawl spaces beneath homes are a logical choice.  However, I will be doing nothing to prove this theory because crawl spaces are also a logical home for spiders.

Does this matter?  No, not at all.  It does make me determined to keep those dogs in the house at night.  That is my only concern.  I don't mind sharing a little of my habitat with a critter who doesn't have that much natural habitat anymore.  I just don't want the dogs stinking like skunk, (that would indeed smell worse than their natural stink), nor do I want that smell in my  house.  Tomato juice baths for the dogs, yes, but what do you do if your house acquires that odor?

The next couple of weeks are going to be psychologically challenging.  The school year is also winding to a close ( winding like a tornado) and our routines will change.  In fact, we are going to have to establish new routines because this will be the first summer that the girls and I have spent in Dallas.  Much to accomplish and keep Sam interested and engaged at the same time.  Now that is challenging.  In the meantime, there are meetings to attend ( I detest meetings), a field trip to chaperon ( what on earth was I thinking?), Miranda's birthday, and then, of course, all that bar and boat crap  that must get resolved before I lose my mind.  Ok, that's it.

One last thing: Today's post was written in the same room (my bedroom) that Sam was entertaining herself in i.e. it was written while being baraged by excessive noise and distractions.  Please forgive me if my writing in any way reflects the challenging circumstances of my environment.

One more last thing:  Today is the birthday of Elva Cox.   Happy Birthday, Mom!

The Woman Who Fell Off the Edge of the World, installment 13

 

Some language and situations may be offensive to some readers.  Not too much in this installment, though.  For previous installments, scroll down or go to Archives to My Novel In Progress.

 

            Time.  Working on a slime line does strange things to time.  One spurt of time will zip by.  Next thing you know the same length of time will take an eternity to pass. It may take forever for the meal break to come, the  next think I’d  know, we’d been doing black cod for six days.

            There were a couple of nights when someone would fill a couple of 5-gallon buckets with steaming hot water and bring one to whomever looked the coldest and most miserable on the slime line.  And then I’d get to stick my foot, slimy boot and all, into the bucket.  At first the ache would intensify, and then, oh God!, the warmth would begin to creep slowly up my leg.  I came close to crying with relief.  Only grudgingly would I relinquish the bucket.

            April Black Cod is damned cold at 10:00 p.m. or later in the Fish House, and the wind whipped and howled in the dark outside and snuck in through the unloading doors, where the boats never seemed to cease.  Bone-chilling cold.

            I did little talking by 10:00 p.m. if we were still working and we usually were.  My spirits were low by that hour, but I didn’t want to bring anyone else down.  The relentless bitching of some people almost sent me over the edge.  I resented them because they brought me down down further than I already was and I occasionally had violent fantasies about these people.  By 10:00 p.m. I was silently questioning my ability to hang, questioning my staying power.

            By day eight ( or night eight), I’d begin to feel as though Black Cod was never going to end.  Every morning we were on the slime line by 7:00 or 7:30 and worked close to 11:00 p.m. every night.  OK.  That’s a slight exaggeration, but only slight.  Thelma was trying to get us out by 10:00 p.m., but it never worked and we always went over by 20 to  40 minutes.  And we did work right up until 11:00 p.m. a couple of times.  And yes, I was quite sorry for myself, plagued with self-doubt.  Did I have what it takes and really, did I even care (by that point) if I had it or not? Luckily, I wasn’t sure how to go about wimping out so I endured the cold, the pain, and the revolting Enrico on a minute by minute basis.

            Oh, yeah, the pain!  How could I forget?  No, not the pain in my aching, ice-cold feet, but my hand and arm pain.

            On day three Tim taped my sliming stick to my hand because I could no longer hold it. 

            On day four, Davy, the lead man, took duct tape and thoroughly taped up my slime stick and arm so that my stick acted as a splint. 

            My arm would spontaneously fall asleep at any odd moment and began to feel as though it didn’t really belong to me.  Then it would wake up and hurt like hell just to remind me that it really was still attached to my body, with operational, damaged nerves.

            Day after day, night after night, black cod flowed over the dock, down the slime lines and into the freezers.  From the moment I opened my eyes in the morning until the final time I clocked out at night, I longed for my bed, a hot shower and then my bed.   My dingy, but homey, little hovel in the bunkhouse was my daily goal.  I felt as though I had no life.

            Then Lauren came prancing and winking into the Fish House after lunch on day 9 with a red-headed Amazon wearing brand-new, shiny-shiny yellow ( and cheap looking) rain gear.  The Amazon’s head was a spectacular mass of thick, long red ringlets and I was reminded of Autumn and red maple trees and perhaps forsythia.  Whoever she was, she was tall and large-boned and glorious.  However, she looked utterly repulsed by her surroundings and who could blame her?

            I was ankle-deep in blood and guts, my hat crusty, sleeves damp, and I had a fish scale stubbornly attached to the side of my nose.

            Thelma walked past, busy chatting with a fisherman and Jeff, the Plant Manager, gestured over to our newest recruit and pointed to her hair, frowning a thunderous frown at Lauren.  Once past, Lauren stuck her tongue out at Thelma’s back.  Definite tension, I thought and wondered what was behind it. 

            Lauren whipped out a hair net and futilely did her best to contain the red glory.

            “Hey, hey, hey!”  Lauren chirped at me, “here’s your new roommate!”

            I blinked.  Twice.  “Hi,” I said lamely.

            “Hi,” she croaked at me, “what’s your name?”

            “Petra.”

            She blinked.  “Well, don’t expect me to remember that.  What do people call you?”

            “Petra,” I replied in a steely voice.

            “Ok. Ok. Hop on up there and get to it.  Petra will show you what to do.  She’s an old pro now,” and Lauren chuckled and winked.  I truly detested her at that moment and wondered what she’d do if I flung some guts at her face?  Apparently my expression revealed some of what I was feeling.  Lauren shot me a startled look and pranced quickly away, pausing to whisper in a male ear, then another, squeezing a bicep on her way out.  She left most of the guys with their tongues hanging out.  Testosterone-laden idiots.  Lauren appeared to have picked all her mannerisms from some juvenile sex manual or Cosmo.  I was feeling like a murderous bitch.

            “What’s your name?” I asked my new roommate.

            “Joy,” she replied.  Deadpan.

            For five seconds we stared at one another and then I burst out laughing.

 

 

Managing My Time With Time To Myself

 

I love this tree, which I think is actually three, since there are three trunks, but it functions as one.  I took this picture about a month ago, but now the flowers are fading and shriveling.  No reason to post this today, but I wanted to share it because I think it's cool.

Time on my hands and no Mick to proof-read for me today.  Mick can usually find two, if not more, typos in each post.  Do I not know how to spell or type or proof-read?  One would think not.  Those typos always get by me when looking at my own writing.  So all mistakes are actually Mick's fault for not being here to point them out to me.

Mick and his brother Frank are on a road trip.  Fifteen or twenty years ago, my heart would have been filled with dread and I would have made sure I had bail money ( or perhaps not) ready for when they got their one phone call.  They are pretty tame these days.  Frank assured me that all his prescription medicine is legal, even when crossing the border, which is what they are doing.  Frank can't even stand up straight these days and can walk about 15 paces before he either has to sit or find a motorized shopping cart.  He can't get into too much trouble.  Or maybe he still can, but he certainly can't get very far, very fast.  Old age has tamed them both.

Mick and Frank are on their way to Canada to check out the fishing vessel Little Stormer.  Mick has earnest money on it and has seen it courtesy of the internet, but this will be the first time in person.  He is quite excited.  Little Stormer is owned by an old Canadian fisherman who wants to retire.  It sounds like he's one of those crotchety, finicky old coots who obsessed over his boat and gave it continual TLC.  Just the kind of person you want to buy something from.  So here's hoping that our expectations are met.  The guys will be home some time on sunday.

So in the meantime, here I am.  Because the weather is beautiful, I am in a quandary over what to do with myself.  If the weather were not so nice, I wouldn't feel so overwhelmed with options.  No, nothing fun like going to a beach or having a daiquiri party--those were my Pelican days of long ago.  I'm debating between weeding, organizing (in the shop), mending ( you don't want to hear it, it goes on and on, the endless stream of ripped underwear and now other clothing added to the mix), shampooing carpets, or just getting ahead on writing.  Also, I need to go to the store and I wouldn't even bother to mention that, but it's one of those necessary evils that cuts into everything else.  Weeding must be done soon, if I do it at all, because it won't take long and it'll be too hot to do anything.  If I wait until evening, there may be hordes of evening insects waiting for me to inhale.  Plus, something got Mick on sunday and now he has a red ping-pong ball-sized lump on his shoulder blade.  He managed to leave the house this morning without my checking on the current state of his deformity.  I just don't want a matching one.

Part of my time over the next few days will be spent putting music on my ipod.  This is one of those little techno-tasks that is supposed to be so easy a "child can do it".  I hate it when advertisers use that as a selling point.  It's so insulting.  Everyone knows that the children can do all that computer stuff with absolute ease, while people like yours truly somehow manage to blunder through the process, and maybe even learn something, but it never seems "so easy".  I spend most of my time muttering, "Now what?  How did he get that little box to pop up?"  No matter.  Blunder through it I will.

It's kind of like when I have to use Miranda's camera.  Now she has no trouble doing about anything with that camera.  It's supposed to be idiot-proof, just point and shoot. Not true.  It isn't idiot-proof and I am proof of that.  I still have trouble using it.  Too many options, too many different settings.  I really want to take pictures over the next few days, but had to give Mick mine to take pictures of the boat.  Now my camera IS idiot-proof.  That is why I love it so much, even though I want a different camera that will take higher quality pictures.

This has been a year of learning new skills, some minor, some not.  It's turning into a year of change for us.  While waiting is a drag and wears on the spirit, not to mention the bank account, major change is just around the corner for us.  It can't come soon enough.

I have two days at home alone while the girls are in school, four days with Mick gone (yes, time to sleep in the middle of the bed again and try to crush the continental divide that is developing), and then on monday, Memorial Day, we should all be together again.  I love to accomplish projects while everyone is out of my hair.  Today, that only leaves me four hours.  Time to get at it.

When Every Morning is Just "One of Those Mornings"

 

Humongous ling cod.  What you don't see in this picture is that he came out of the water with a half-swallowed halibut hanging out of his mouth.  Today, I feel like this ling cod--hanging in limbo has reached the point of being painful as my gills are quivering for oxygen, as my mouth opens and closes uselessly.  I don't enjoy transitions.

If you believe in the Law of Attraction, then you musn't waste your time and energy belly-aching about what you don't want and focus on what you do want instead.  Like attracts like.  However, those little movies we play for ourselves in our heads are only interesting to ourselves--unless one has psychotic fantasies and then that's interesting to so many people, like the police and psychiatrists and Hollywood.

So I decided today to indulge in some minor belly-aching.

Before my morning started, I was caught in one of those bizarre dreams where physical needs drive the dream with me looking and looking for a bathroom.  I was in a college building that had everything, crowds of people going to and fro to class, live music for some inexplicable reason, and no restrooms.  Every time I thought I'd found a toilet stall, it turned out to be something really useful like a shower instead.  I was walking through this building with one hand cupping my behind.  Humiliating, yes.  Restful sleep, uh, not really.

So usually one wakes up from a dream like this and realizes that their sub-conscious had been sending a message to wake up and get thee to a toilet before discovering what real humiliation is all about.  Well, not today.  I didn't have to "go".  So why was I blessed with such a riveting dream?

In this case, Louise, our English bulldog.  I pray that she isn't now like my familiar, considering how not-smart she is, and isn't able to communicate telepathically with me.  No, I'm hoping that I was just so soundly asleep, which would be truly rare, that I didn't immediately hear her stirring and grumbling and growling in her crate.  When I did wake up and realized that my plumbing was just fine and still sleeping, that is exactly what Louise was doing.  It wasn't quite 5:00 a.m.

Now, Louise, being not-smart (kinder than calling her stupid), is such a creature of habit that she only wants to go out the back door of the bedroom to go outside first thing in the morning.  This is her habit.  As previously mentioned, the back door is hooked up to the security system and emits a loud electronic voice that announces throughout the house: "Back master bedroom door!"  Completely obnoxious.  It was before 5:00 a.m.  Sam was actually still asleep.  Louise could not be coaxed away from that door to be let out the slider.  No way, nothing doing.  So I sighed and let her out anyway, prepared for Sam to pop out at any moment.

Nothing.  Nothing happened.  In fact, Hedwig wasn't anywhere to be seen either and normally she'd be underfoot ( if I was in a vertical position) or she'd be butt-in-my-face if I was still horizontal.  I really should have got up and looked to see if we'd been victims of alien abduction in the middle of the night.  Instead, I flopped back down in bed and drifted off--and not to dream about colleges without proper restrooms.  This is basically the end of this little story.  It wasn't long and I did hear Sam get up and get on Mick's laptop, head phones on, off-key singing.  Then she used the bathroom and I could tell by her quiet humming and shrieking, and I got up--to find Hedwig underfoot and yowling.  Well, one more night without an alien abduction.

Some things just BUG me; call them pet peeves, call them minor irritations, call them whatever you like.  You know what I'm talking about.  We all have different triggers, different little irritants, and some we share.

Maybe you are lucky enough to not dream about urgently needing to use a bathroom.  I also have recurring dreams about STILL being in school and realizing that I've forgotten to attend one of my classes all semester and now I have to go take a final.  That's just the dream department.  In real life, there are many more irritants present every day that we are forced to tolerate.

Super loud commercials.  Who do they think they are fooling?  Yes, it gets my attention, and it makes me so irate that I vow to not buy whatever product that the company is trying to deafen me with.  Along that line, I also do NOTlike sound effects that are louder than the dialogue.  I don't care if it's more realistic.  Realism is overrated.

Thunder sticks.  If you don't know what I'm talking about, thunder sticks are those white, inflatable tubes that they hand out at basketball games.  You get two per package and the object is to bang the two sticks together and distract the opposing teams players as they try to make free throws.  In reality, all those stupid thunder sticks do is irritate fans who don't like loud noise and don't appreciate getting bonked in the head repeatedly by over-enthusiastic, drunken and uncoordinated fans.  The players are professionals.  They make a lot of money.  They are going to make most of their free throws (that's why they're called free) regardless of a bunch of idiots banging inflatable tubes together.  Lose the thunder sticks.  Invest in a big foam thumb or something.

One thing I noticed recently that really gets on my nerves involves restrooms again.  Big surprise.  I seem to be obsessed with my bodily functions today.  I have been in several public restrooms in the past month that have NO HOOKfor me to hang my purse on. ???? What is that all about?  I hate to be a germ phobe, but I kind of am.  I don't want to set my purse down on some nasty, old bathroom floor that has who knows what tracked all over it.  And then what?  I have to hold my purse in my lap again at some point?  I don't think so.  So I'm forced to try and balance my purse on my lap and pee at the same time.  Hey, I'm overweight--I don't have a lot of lap to deal with.  What if I'm wearing a coat?  No hook, so I'm forced to just bunch it up.  It gets crowded in those stalls.  Bathrooms without hooks are designed by men who are either disgusting and would just throw their own coat on the filthy floor and not care or they are men whose wives have to carry their wallets and reading glasses in their purses.  INSTALL HOOKS!  It's a matter of public safety.

My last complaint involves DRINKABILITY.  That is almost enough to make me quit watching TV.  Almost, but not quite.  For those who don't know, drinkability is a word coined by some sadistic idiot for a Budweiser commercial.  I'd threaten to not buy Budweiser anymore in protest, but I never did drink Budweiser or any other beer in the first place.  For the record, I hate made up words.

It could be argued that I have too much time on my hands if all I can do is complain about inconsequential stuff like this.  That wouldn't be true, though.  I really don't have that much time on my hands.  I simply don't use my time wisely.  There's a difference.

Is this the end of my list?  Ha!  Not by a long shot!  But that is enough for today.  Now I might need to find something productive to do.  I could even do some weeding and obsess about more things that irritate me.  Or maybe I should focus on what I do want instead of what I don't.  I'll weed and fantasize about clean public restrooms with lots of hooks and a world where the commercials aren't too loud and people don't make up stupid words.  A world where people wielding thunder sticks have perfect aim and never hit the person in front of them.  A world where my child sleeps in, the cat sleeps in, and the dog shows some flexibility.  That would be almost perfect.

Frustrations on a Sick Day

 

Everything is beautiful outside right now.  It won't be long and the countryside will turn tan, brown, bleached out, and dusty.  Except for Dallas City Park, which is where I took this picture and is my refuge during the heat and dust of summer.

If this post is filled with misspellings, it's not because I suddenly lost all ability to spell.  Sam and Miranda are both home sick today.  Yes, smart mom that lets her children swim in the icy spring run-off in the creek is paying the price today.  Part of that price is trying to type in the dark (curtains must never be open when Sam is home.  Don't ask me why), while Disney Channel is blasting away in my room.  It is a somewhat overwhelming sensory experience.

When I worked at Pelican Seafoods, workers were expected to be at death's door before they missed work.  I actually had one foreman tell me that he expected me to walk all the way down the boardwalk to the Crab Plant and puke on his boots if I expected him to believe that I was sick.  Believe me, I really wish I had.  That mentality and lack of intelligence has made it difficult for me to come up with a hard a fast  personal policy on sickness and attendance.

Miranda was going to go to school.  However, she even looked sick.  I'm never sure at what point to keep the kids home.  I've known people who keep their kids home for every sniffle and I just don't get it.  Sure, I don't want to get everyone at the school sick, but a slight and chronic sniffle isn't the swine 'flu.  But as I said, Miranda looked sick.  Plus her ears were plugged and they ached when she swallowed.  I had to talk her into staying home, but once the decision was made, I think she was glad.  Anyone who asks for a cough drop for breakfast should probably just go back to bed.

Sam, naturally, was up at 5:12 a.m. today.  I was actually grateful to see a 5 something and not a 4 something on the clock when I managed to pry my eyes open and focus.  However, early rising is not a sign of perfect health with Sam.  Sometimes, hell, often, you can't even count on flagging energy as a sign of illness.  For instance, right now she is waiting rather impatiently for me to finish and keeps repeating, "Grocery store, Safeway, car fast!", over and over.  Don't think that she isn't sick, though.  She's actually slowed down a bit, having been in my bed, under the covers, for most of the morning.  She's got a stuffy nose, but more than that, she has a really wet, rattling cough.

Sam is sick enough to keep home today.  It's one of those days where I don't want the people at school thinking, or saying, "what was the woman thinking?"  No one wants to get sick.  Sam is well enough to still make life somewhat challenging, at least when trying to accomplish any personal goals that she doesn't find the least bit interesting or important.  Not as important as "Grocery store, Safeway, car fast!"

Some days you just go with the flow and feel happy if you manage to get anything productive done.  This is one of those days.  If I get the laundry folded and put away, I will have accomplished something.  It's a huge stack of clean laundry that has over-taken the kitchen table.  I don't really want Sam to try to eat, "red spaghetti noodles and toast-bread-fire"  right next to clean laundry.  Oh, for the ignorant, that is spaghetti with garlic bread.  When Sam doesn't know the name of something, she strings together descriptive words that she does know.  I was impressed.  I probably should have given her the correct terminology, but I don't think any major catastrophe will occur if Sam calls garlic bread toast-bread-fire.

Folding laundry, waiting on kids hand and foot, trying to not scrape the skin off my finger where I accidentally branded it on the extremely hot heating element in the dishwasher.  Feeling a little sorry for myself...why not?  I had a phone consult with a tech person about adding some ads to my site.  It required the tiniest bit of tech understanding and even though they had great instructions for walking the techno-ignorant (that would be moi) through the process, I still had problems and the techie ended up doing it for me.  Just another reason to feel a little sorry for myself.  And frustrated.  I like learning new things.  A day that Sam is home and ruling the roost is probably not the ideal time to tackle new challenges.

 I'm not sick right now and I want to keep it that way.  It's terrible to say that I'd rather have my kids sick, but I would.  I can take care of them.  If I'm sick I still have to take care of them.  So the chorus goes that all mothers sing,  "Waa, waa, waa..."

Weekend Update in May: Hanging in Limbo

 

Before                                                                 After

 I don't think you can see what a huge difference there is between the two pictures, but trust me, there is.  This is the porch where we can finally enjoy spending time.

This is that time of year when you can sense that change is coming.  If you have kids in school, or know a teacher, you can feel that anticipation of things wrapping up.  I wouldn't say that things are winding down because that gives one the impression  of relaxation.  This isn't the quiet before the storm; it's the storm before the calm.  Teachers and secretaries and janitors are every bit as "bad" as the kids.  Even if you don't have kids in school, after a very long, harsh, and strange winter, spring is here, in some places with such a vengeance that it feels like summer.  Thank God.  Now I can complain about being hot, sticky, tired, and listless instead of complaining about being cold, achy tired, and ambivalent.

I, too, am eager for school to get out, as crazy as that sounds, just because I know it's coming and I'm ready to start a new routine, and basically a new life.  Right now we are hanging in limbo as we wait for the selling of the bar to close and the details of our new lifestyle to fall into place.  Mick has a permit lined up and a boat lined up.  Earnest money on both, but he hasn't seen the boat in person or taken it for a sea test yet.  That is on next weekend's agenda for him.  Since the boat is in Canada, he will do this next stage by himself.

So, I think our family members are all in a restless state, all for our own reasons.  The school year 2008-2009 is wrapping up.  Miranda had her last Activity Night at the junior high last friday.  I'd told her she could go, no matter what, with it being the last one, then I forgot and drank a couple of glasses of wine.  The school is close enough that she could walk, but I don't want her walking home in the dark by herself.  We've all seen too many horrible reports of kids snatched and murdered, and often in small, close-knit communities.  Luckily, Mick had no problem being the chauffeur and even managed to stay awake until the end.  Activity Night is basically a free-for-all gossip, hanging-out-with-friends, get-together.  There are activities to do.  They open up the whole school and have all sorts of things available for the kids, but mostly they just hang-out with their friends--instead of getting yelled at for whispering and passing notes in class.  This was Miranda's last time as a middle schooler.

Saturday morning started out like every morning in this household--way too early.  It's not even worth mentioning anymore because it seems to be a forgone conclusion that Sam and the cat will stir and be up and alert somewhere between 5:00 and 5:30 a.m.  In fact, her new schedule is now so entrenched that I lie in bed, semi-conscious, if not actually awake, at 5:00 a.m. or so and wait for a few minutes before I hear her get up.  Sam has had a squeak in her bedroom door since we first moved in.  Anyone else would probably oil it, but I appreciate the warning it gives. 

 One thing I want to do this summer is take Sam, and yes, probably the rotten dogs, too, on a walk every day.  Sam has a tendency to hang out in our room with the curtains closed all day long.  She dances and marches, does her art work and sings, but only wants to come out if it means going to a restaurant.  In an effort to promote a healthier lifestyle, Sam (and rotten dogs) went on a walk with me and Mick on saturday, and we managed to not go to a restaurant.  We did "Subway, eat fresh picnic park car fast" as Sam would say, but no sit-down restaurant.

  

The dogs were beginning to poop out and slow down.  Not the best picture of Sam because the glare of the sun was right in her face.  Our route is 1 1/2 miles long.

For the first time, on this walk, the dogs collapsed before we got home.  In the shade cast by a tree, in the middle of Hawthorne Avenue, the dogs fell into a panting heap and refused to budge for a few minutes.  We have to remember to take two bottles of water instead of just one.  Smash-faced pets can easily die from heat stroke.  Sam did great on the walk.  She likes to script the whole time, which sometimes draws odd looks from neighbors who don't really know us, but oh, well.  We developed thick skins many years ago.

In the wee hours of sunday morning, around 2:30 or 3:00 a.m., Mick nearly became a victim of divorce.  I don't really believe in divorce, but I was too tired for violence, though he was extremely vulnerable and there is no doubt that I would have been the victor.  What did he do?  He went to bed saturday night complaining about how hot it was in our bedroom.  And it was.  Not only does Sam take over the room and keep the black curtains closed at all times, she checks to make sure that the windows are closed periodically.  Our room can turn into a very large sweat lodge.  It's this strange game we play where we run in and quickly open windows when she isn't looking and then she comes back into the bedroom at some point and closes them tight again.  We do this several times a day, but one way or the other, Sam always comes out on top and our bedroom is ungodly hot at bedtime.  So we have been opening the windows wide at night.

Saturday night was the worst.  It really was hot and it was going to take a bit of time to cool off.  No way could we have the covers on.  So Mick fell asleep uncovered while watching the game and I read for awhile.  By the time I was ready to sleep, I wanted the sheet.  It  was disgusting, but we still had flannel sheets on the bed.  Mick slept away.  I woke up about 2:30 or 3:00 for the nightly bathroom break and it was kind of chilly.  It had definitely cooled off.  Let me explain something:  our bathroom is RIGHT THERE.  I don't have to trek across a mansion.  I don't have a flight of stairs to navigate.  The bathroom is right off of our bedroom and I was in there for no more than 60 seconds.  And as I said, it was actually quite chilly at that hour.  I got back to the bed and Mick was completely cocooned in the comforter.  He was wrapped up tighter than a burrito.  There wasn't even a corner sticking out to grab on to.  AND he was lying ON TOP of the sheet!  A wave of rage surged through my body and I quietly stood there staring daggers at him.  For what little good that did.  I considered sleeping in Sam's bed since the girls were camped out in the living room, and I would have if I'd had any trouble finding a decent blanket for myself. 

So last night, after changing the sheets to non-flannel, I offered Mick the mate to my blanket so that we could each have our own.  We'd still be sleeping in the same bed.  "That's just stupid", he said.  So, ok.  We put one blanket on the bed and he managed to not roll up in it while my back was turned.  But I kept my blanket where I could get it easily, if need be.

 

Miranda and Sam in our swim hole at Dallas City Park.  I'm not sure if this is a river or a creek, but right now it has a lot more water, very cold water, than it usually does when we've gone at the end of summer.  However, they weren't the only kids swimming.

We can't always go to restaurants and shop, even though those are two of Sam's favorite activities.  And she doesn't understand why.  To keep her happy, we have to come up with alternative distractions.  Swimming is a very successful distraction, especially if she gets to eat lunch in the park first.  It is probably way too cold to swim in that water right now.  It isn't like I took a thermometer and checked it out.  And I wasn't getting in, either.  That is one advantage to developing arthritis at an early age--I get to legitimately use it as an excuse.  So I don't know for sure how cold it is.  I figured it couldn't be colder than the Gulf of Alaska and Sam swam in that every summer.  But maybe it can.  After all, this is all spring run-off right now.  And now Sam has a very stuffy head.  And Mick just went and picked up Miranda from school. 

 Last night Miranda told me,"There's something weird happening with my ears."

"What's that?" I asked.

"When I swallow, I can feel my ears and it kind of hurts."

I rolled my eyes and sighed.  "That's called a cold".

"Oh", she replied.

So sometimes I'm not a grown-up enough grown up.  I let the kids do what I would have wanted to do.  I thought that colds were caused by germs, not by being cold.  I've been told that that was all an old wives' tale.  Yeah, right.  The scientific community spends time and money debunking old wives' tales and then they spend more time and money proving that our grandmothers were right after all.  So the kids will have to play in the above-ground pool at home, filled by garden hose, until the creek warms up.  And I'll have to be patient and realize that there are three more weeks of school and hanging in limbo is just a part of life.