Chicken and Sponge

Birthday Celebration With A Child With Autism

Why Samantha is holding a menu, we can only guess.  Perhaps to fit in.  But she already knew what she wanted.  She wanted what she alwayswants when she goes to "Salad Restaurant"  (that's Olive Garden, for those of you who don't know the lingo).  She wants, "WHITE NOODLES!" (Uh, yeah.  Translation:  fettucini alfredo).

I wanted to get home early.  I had permission to leave work early and start Sam's birthday celebration.  Now that I'm working outside the home, I'm kind of feeling like I miss a lot.  I probably don't, since the kids are in school for most of my work hours, but my free hours, when I used to shop, wrap, and plan, are basically gone.  So I wanted to get home early.

It was not to be.  Medical emergency at work.  An honest-to-goodness 911 call, the ambulance, and then a co-worker's family emergency.  And there I found myself.  The only staff with my three guys that I support (that's PCL lingo), and my napper was wide awake and inter-active.  My active guy was doing his usual--being very active and inter-active, and my third guy was still feeling resentful that summer is gone and wind and rain and cold are here.  I didn't know where the two o'clock staff person was (she was supposed to have the day off, it turns out) and so I was in a weird space, wanting to go home, concerned about what was happening with all these emergencies, and kind of twiddling my thumbs.  The phone kept ringing and then I'd remember that no one was on that side of the duplex and that I had to unlock the connecting door and go answer the phone.  Of course, every caller had managed to hang up by the time I got there.  Except for the person who I think is my supervisor's supervisor and naturally, my answer to all her questions was, "I don't know."  Luckily, it wasn't held against me.  I wonder how long I get to claim that I'm the new person?

So 4:00 rolled around, my relief person showed up, and I was off.  I was exhausted, too, but I knew I didn't have to cook or do dishes.  I walked into the house and there were dirty dishes.  I groaned at the sight.  "Don't worry," Mick said, "I'll do them after we get back."  He meant that he'd do them after we got back AND after he'd watched Game 1 of the World Series, but he did do them.  So I readily agreed.  My plans to shower and change were ditched.  Instead, I placed myself in that comfortable state of denial and just refused to think about what I'd been doing at work that day.  Plus, I'd Lysoled myself before I left.  I really did.  When my inner-Monk comes out, I grab the can of Lysol, spray the soles of my shoes, the tops and sides of my shoes, my pant legs, sometimes my  sleeves, and then I wash my hands and forearms furiously and apply hand sanitizer and disappear into DENIAL.

Sam was ready to go.  She hadn't snacked.  She was wearing the same clothes she'd gone to school in except for the underwear she'd slyly shredded beneath her leggings.  So that was almost a victory, except in the underwear department.  And she was vibrating with excitement! 

First one out the door as soon as her dad said, "Ok, let's go."  And Sam was in the car while I was still looking around trying to figure out where the dogs were.  Miranda was last.  "What are you doing?" I asked.  "Getting some music," she replied.  "There isn't going to be any fighting over music," I sighed wearily.

Once in the car, with Sam firmly demanding, "Rhona, Rhona" (Rhianna), and Mick saying,"Where's Miranda?"  "Getting music,".  "But..."  "I know," I said. "I told her that there'd be no fighting over music."  And there wasn't.  What Sam wants, Sam gets.  Whether it's her birthday or not.  So we rocked out to Rhianna.

On the way to Salem, the highway has been repaved in several places and the drive is pleasantly smooth.  In several other places the highway hasn't been repaved and has been patched in spots.  So the drive isn't so smooth.  I felt something disturbing, something not right.  "Please," I demanded, feeling quite irritated and thinking that I really didn't need anything disastrous now, "please tell me that it's just the pavement and that something isn't going wrong with our car!"

"That's your daughter," Mick replied dryly. 

I turned around and looked.  Sam wasn't vibrating with excitement.  She was now throwing her body from side to side, in time with Rhianna, and the whole car was rocking.  Her face was joyous.

In the parking lot at Olive Garden, Sam skipped, hopped on her toes, chortled, and had to be told to slow down and look out for cars!

As we entered the restaurant, I immediately told the wary and startled-looking hostess, "It's her birthday and she's very excited". The hostess relaxed and gave us a barely-nervous smile.  I thought she should know that the large red-head who was bouncing on her toes, laughing without control, saying phrases that make no sense to the uninitiated, not to mention clutching Bunny-Frog (her small, beat-up, dog-chewed, eyeless stuffed frog with bunny ears) was actually a Birthday Girl, and not some deranged lunatic.

I continued to explain as we were seated.  It's not that I'm self-conscious nor am I embarrassed, but I do like the other diners to relax and stop looking as though they may have to evacuate at a moment's notice.

Dinner was wonderful. We skipped dessert.  That's unheard of and before anyone who knows us worries that body snatchers from a UFO have stolen the real Shockey family, we skipped dessert because Mick had bought a cake and candles that were waiting for us at home.

A small note of interest and complaint.  We'd been at Olive Garden.  I'd had two glasses of wine, water, and dinner, and hadn't used the restroom as we left the restaurant.  Therefore, I needed to use it when we got home.  THEY WENT AHEAD AND LIT THE CANDLES, SANG THE DAMN SONG, SHE MADE HER WISH AND BLEW OUT THE CANDLES--all while I was in the bathroom and I was fast!  They couldn't wait two minutes?
And that is why there is no picture of Sam blowing out the candles on her cake.  Next year, do a better job!  Be considerate!  Wait.

Sam was thrilled with her presents, too.  One thing about autistic people, they are very definite and straight-forward about their likes, dislikes, and what they want.  Autistic people are not wishy-washy.  Sam grabbed what interested her most:  markers, princess books, coloring book.  Later, I checked on her and she had her Wizard's of Waverly Place magic crystal ball and all her new Barbies and Bratz spread around her on the bed in a sea of markers, books, and coloring.

The next morning, Mick got a call from the school, right at the time school starts.  Sam was being unmanageable.  Her teacher isn't there right now and she has a new aide.  She wouldn't cooperate at all and they didn't know what to do with her.  So Mick went to school, prepared to bring Sam home, but not willing to give in that easily.  He took one look at her and realized that Sam was playing them, she was testing the limits and seeing what they were made of.  Mick made her knock it off and she got back to work after a bit.  "You know," he told the aides, "yesterday was her birthday and she's got a whole lot of crap back home that she wants to play with."  The pieces fall into place. Light bulbs light up. Sam resigns herself to her duty.  Mick returns home.  And Sam plays with all her new stuff, still silly, still vibrating with excitement, though at a lower frequency, when she gets home and into the night. 

Sam had an excellent birthday.  She is 13 years old.

Read above and you will know why I'm a little irritated.  I missed all the ritual and arrived in time to find Sam licking off the candles.

The birthday girl in a sea of presents and paper.  There was another picture that I like, but I didn't want to hear Mick complain that "this picture makes me look fat!"  And Sam doesn't care.

Yeah, yeah, back at Olive Garden, but I really like this picture.

I Don't Believe In Coincidence

Not sure if I know what this is or not.  I think they're wild Icelandic Poppies, but then again, maybe not.  I found some growing wild out in our grass and knew Mick would just mow over them and then eventually poison them.  So my bright idea was to transplant them as a border around my very large flower garden.  Well...they did spectacularly all summer long.  Then, on closer inspection, while perusing the weeding that needs to be done in the future, I saw that they have spread all over the ENTIRE garden.  So now Mick doesn't like them and refers to them as "those weeds" that I planted.  They're not weeds.  They are just healthy and they procreate vigorously.

I mentioned two posts ago that this family had had a rough weekend.  It was not only full of tension, a little resentment, and misunderstanding, but it was full of just plain weird.  By that, I mean, it was completely out of character for us as individuals and for us as a family.  That just isn't our dynamic.  Excuse me, but we pride ourselves on being extremely dull.  We relish as little drama in the household as possible.  Given the fact that Samantha finds multiple means of keeping us on our toes, we sometimes have little say in being visited by DRAMA.  Like the kid sticking the hearth broom into the wood stove and then setting the living room carpet on fire.  Sorry to say, it wasn't the first time.  It wasn't even the second time.  Let's not talk about that time in Pelican when she set the bar floor on fire after throwing her queen-sized comforter into that wood stove.  Yes, that is why there are nine blue tiles in a sea of brown.

But that isn't a daily drama.  The underwear/ outerwear clothes-shredding is a daily headache, but it happens with such regularity that it really can't be considered dramatic.  Sometimes when Sam gets off the school bus resembling a plus-sized pole dancer in a 1960's fringed go-go- dancer outfit (that began the day looking like a normal, school-girl outfit), well, then, that can be a bit dramatic.  As is my reaction.  Probably my blood pressure, too.  I also give in to fits of colorful language and much sighing and eye-rolling.  So, maybe a little drama, a little melodrama.

Mick and I have both had people in our lives, in our pasts, who thrived on drama, chaos, and destruction.  It will wear you out.  Neither of us have any desire for the kind of excitement some people seek by being outrageous, blowing up at each other, storming out, and then having the big melodramatic makeup scene.  No thank you.  We'd rather just have some dinner, watch some TV, and be in bed at 8:30.  Then I turn down the TV if he goes to the bathroom or rolls over and falls asleep.  And he turns it back up if I go to the bathroom and then...after we've both gone to sleep, if one gets up to use the bathroom, the other one wakes up and uses it right after and to listen to this routine, you'd think Mick and I were a couple in our eighties, living in a retirement village.  But no, we're just dull.  And mostly content.

So what happened this last weekend?  It was so awful that I now feel like I've been at work for almost two weeks straight.  It's like I didn't even get a weekend.

Life improved as Sunday progressed.  For which we are all grateful.

This will seem like a small subject change and some of you will groan and say, "oh, give me a break!  Not this crap!"  But yes, this crap...I subscribe online for my horoscope.  I try to get it in the wee hours so I have my horoscope for the day.  Why this doesn't work is beyond me.  After all, if I sign up to receive it at 1:00 a.m., you'd think it would be there by 9:00 a.m. at least.  But no, I usually don't get my daily horoscope until my day is long over.  It usually arrives in my email by 8:00 or 9:00 p.m.  I mention this so you don't think that I was unduly influenced by what I read and therefore caused last weekend's weird state of affairs.

Also, just in case you didn't know, this is a predominantly Scorpio household.  Miranda is the one human member who is a non-Scorpio since she is a Gemini.  But Mick is 10/26, Sam is 10/28, and yours truly is 11/11.  So get this ( and I didn't read this until Sunday night):

Quickie

Go ahead and march to your own drummer. Let everyone else go their way.

Overview

You may need to step out of the house at some point today -- if only to escape the weird energy! It may be social or it may just be a function of the house itself, but the malaise should pass pretty soon.

And that was so true.  Weird energy.  And getting out of the house did help.  It helped my head and it was a catalyst to returning to normal.  I know most of the people I know don't set any store by astrology and that's fine by me.  I'm just not one of you, that's all.  And I'm glad we're back to normal.  Now I have to go because it is almost 10:00 p.m.--far past my bedtime.

Father-Daughter Moments With Fire

This is Mick and Samantha having a father-daughter moment.  Mick loves to burn.  Sam, most unfortunately, loves fire.  She is fire-obsessed.  Here, she is wearing Mick's bathrobe and that's it, but that is a big concession for her.  Although I must admit, she is much better these days about putting on some kind of clothing before going outside.

Sam seems to barely tolerate me these days.  She kept telling me, "Mom, the door", which is her way of telling me to get lost.  So I corrected her and said, "Tell me to 'back up'".  So she said, "Back up.  Mom, back up!"  And when I didn't back up far enough she'd point and repeat firmly, "Back up!".  So I wasn't feeling very loved.

I'm not sure why Sam decided to lie down.  The fire radiated heat.  Lots of heat and you couldn't get too close.  I walked around picking mushrooms and throwing them into the fire while trying to ignore Sam's dismissal of me.

I know, I know.  The pictures are all very similar.  My family gives me very little cooperation in the picture-taking department these days.  Future posts may be picture-less if everyone remains as helpful and excited as they currently are.  I had to listen to Mick complain (over and over, so help me) that I was taking unflattering, fat-exposing pictures of him and why weren't there any fat pictures of me?  Because I'm the one taking the pictures, perhaps?  Not good enough for him.  Anyway, besides trying to get rid of me, Sam seemed to enjoy herself.  I hoped a supervised encounter with fire would satisfy Sam and keep her entertained for the afternoon.  She still asked for Red Robin, but with her birthday just a couple of days away, I think a rip-roaring bonfire may have been entertainment enough.  Hopefully it's enough to keep her out of the wood stove.

Good Weekend Gone Bad

Irises are like middle-aged, cheap prostitutes:  flashy, showy, gaudy, tough as can be.  You can neglect them, abuse them, and they keep coming back for more.  I didn't use to like irises, but now I can't help but admire them.  This is my favorite and it's called Immortality.  It is a re-blooming iris and it's even more beautiful in the spring.  However, I missed getting a picture this spring, so here is a fall sample.

The weekend started out great, unbelievably fantastic because...[drum roll, please], Sam slept in until almost 7:30 a.m. which means yours truly did also!  In fact, if I weren't so perpetually exhausted from my body and mind being unaccustomed to that four-letter word (no, not that word, WORK, I'm unaccustomed to WORK--of the paying-and-showing-up-on-time variety of WORK), where was I?  Oh, yeah, 7:30 a.m.  Well, I would have been trying to peak in Sam's door and make sure she was still breathing or hadn't been abducted in the middle of the night.  At the very least I  guess I should have taken her temperature Saturday morning.  I will cherish the memory of that restful moment.

Friday night was pretty good, too.  Working 8--4, monday through friday, makes certain activities more difficult.  Like birthday shopping for Sam.  Her birthday is on the 28th and I probably should have done catalog shopping.  It is, after all, all I used to do for birthday and holiday shopping, when we lived in the middle of nowhere, the back of beyond, the hinterlands...but I have become so committed to our new life that I am now able to procrastinate like the rest of the general population.  So I procrastinated and realized that I had very few opportunities left for this shopping.  And birthdays are important to Sam, for now and forever more.  I have had recurring nightmares of forgetting my children's birthdays and I tell you, for me, this is much worse than that dream of going to work or school without any clothes, that dream where I run around trying to get a professor to let me drop a class I haven't been to all semester, and it's even worse than the dream where I am using a toilet in a completely exposed, public place in a crowd of people!  People, I can't even pee when one of my dogs comes into the bathroom!  So the thought of not having gifts for Sam is beyond awful.

Mick and I left to go shopping right after I got home on friday.  We realized we needed to eat and decided to self-indulge.  Just a little.  Discussion on the way.  Where to eat?  Where to eat?  I almost feel guilty eating out at all without Sam because she loves to so much, but she couldn't go shopping with us.  We decided on Applebee's.  I  went from hungry to unable to eat anything more in about 30 seconds.  We had a ton of food because that is what Applebee's does, but that isn't a problem.  I couldn't eat much because I really did decide to indulge and I had a drink.  Make that two.  I think it was called an apple sangria and it was lovely and large and potent.  Or that may have been my empty stomach that made it seem so.  Anyway, this is the GOOD weekend part.  We actually enjoyed ourselves, in stark contrast to the rest of the weekend.

Shopping had its highs and lows.  The lows were the Barbie selections.  We went to the Evil Empire because we are currently currency-challenged.  It never fails that something happens at Walmart to thoroughly tick me off and this visit was no different.  Once again, it was the parking lot.  What is it with Walmart customers?  I swear, must you be white trash to shop there?  OK, here it is, huge PET PEEVE:  there are racks for returning shopping carts EVERYWHERE.  I mean it, they are EVERYWHERE, and guess what?  Shopping carts are EVERYWHERE but in the racks!  The parking lot is littered in carts!  Shopping carts obstruct most of the available parking places!

Mick puts the car in park, gets out of the car and removes a cart, and then finishes parking.  We enter the store.  Not so bad.  Deeply disappointed and let down in the Barbie aisle, so we skip it.  I don't settle.  We move on to the markers and I can't find what I want so we move on.  Then we go to movies and music.  Jack pot!  Cheap, cheap, cheap.  Some of the selections are a little off, a little weird, but Sam's taste is definitely eclectic.  We move on to clothes and get a pajama set and a tunic and leggings.  That's all we could dig up in the Evil Empire and decide to finish another day.

Walmart Pet Peeve #2:  Where are the checkers?  I mean it, where are they?  You want me to shop in your store and you have two checkers and eight closed check stands?  There is a recession going on or supposedly just over. Hire some checkers!  Unemployment is sky-high!  And you expect me to use Self Check-out!  Oh!  How I despise Self Check-out!  I do, I really do.  But we used it and I hated every second of it!

Birthday shopping mostly done, we head home, and we get a great night's sleep.  Unfortunately, our great Saturday morning disintegrated.  I sewed like a mad woman.  The sewing room had reached critical mass and Sam's drawers were dismayingly empty.  So I had to do something and something meant spending most of Saturday sewing.

I accomplished much.  I really did.  HOWEVER...while changing thread color I realized that the machine wasn't running quite right and that is when I noticed a bunch of thread twisted around a machine part deep within the machine.  I gained access and tried to remove the thread.  I couldn't get it.  It wouldn't come loose.  So I got Mick.  He couldn't get it loose either.  Then I'm not sure what happened.  Whatever happened wasn't good.  The thread came loose, but a screw broke off.  While still in the machine.  A screw that holds an important part of the machine together, that allows the needle to go up and down.  Broken.  My heart throbs painfully even typing the word.

We have three sewing machines.  Not a one is working.  And I've got the demon clothes shredder from hell for a kid.  Come pay day, I have to round up enough money to take one of those machines in for servicing.  It's time to get acquainted with the sewing machine repair man.

Money's tight, I'm sleep-deprived, and I'm also conflicted about my job.  It takes a lot out of me.  If you think about the nature of the job--supporting adults with developmental disabilities, and in my case, adults who are profoundly disabled, and then you combine that with the conditions of our home life i.e. child with autism and all the fun that can entail, and you can see why I'm a bit conflicted.  Or at least exhausted.  So I could use a little help and sometimes more than a little.  I could use some patience.  I mean patience with ME.  Because my patience is often used up by the time I get home.  I know we all have our trials.  I know we all have our challenges.  I know we all have things that we are touchy about.  But I really can't take being barked at.  I'm really not up to an argument.  But I'm not going to just take it.  I'm sure my horoscope must have said something about staying in bed for the weekend and pretending to have swine flu.  That is what I should have done.

Saturday's topper was bedtime.  I was making Sam's bed and the smoke alarm went off.  We all ran for the living room which was filled with smoke.  Sam had taken the wood stove's little hearth broom and set it on fire and then dropped it on the carpet.  I didn't think it was really possible for that carpet to look worse than it already did, but I was wrong.  It looks worse.  That is due to the hole that burned all the way through to the concrete.  It looks like someone set a flaming pop can down on the carpet, the circle is so perfect.

Well...that's enough, isn't it?  Does that qualify as a good weekend gone bad?  Oh, there's more.  But far be it for me to whine incessantly about piddly, inconsequential stuff.

We finished shopping on Sunday morning.  Some of this shopping was at Target, where they actually hire people to help you and run the check stands and even though the Barbie selection was still poor, I was so happy to be in Target.  Poor Sam doesn't understand that we can't go to restaurants all the time and is a bit disgruntled.  We'll go on her birthday.  Don't know when I'll get those presents wrapped, but it may have to be tonight.  Thirteen hours until I have to get up and go to work.  And tomorrow is Mick's birthday, poor  man.  Because he gets nothing.  If he's lucky, he can have a day without conflict, without drama, and without a house fire.  Maybe for Mick's birthday, I'll be in a good mood.

Domestic Miracle

This is not the picture that I would like for this post.  That picture was never taken.  Explanation below.  This, however, is Mick with Zeus and Louise at Central Bark.  The dogs are riveted by the comings and goings of the canine friends.

The picture I would have liked for this post would have been the evidence of a miracle that took place right in our household on Saturday, after returning from Central Bark.  The picture was not taken, though.  I wasn't going to do anything that might interfere with the completion of the miracle.  After four years of dog ownership, Mick has now given the dogs a bath.

Yes, he kept calling out questions.  No, I didn't get up and go find stuff for him.  I shouted the answers right back.  I didn't even point out that it's kind of foolish to have the dogs already in the tub and not have all the supplies ready.  I offered minimum, no, let's make that no assistance.

Louise is 56 pounds and our tub is considered a sunken tub.  Not easy on the back.  I like the dogs washed weekly, though it's more like every other week.  Don't like that doggie smell.  Not as bad as human b.o., but certainly pungent and unpleasant in its own way.

It started raining right as we were leaving Central Bark so Louise's head started to emit that lovely, nostril-burning skunky smell.  For some reason, I'm the only one who can smell it.  I don't know how this is possible, unless everyone figures that if I'm the one who can smell it, I'll be the one who is motivated to bathe the dogs.  Mick owed me, though.

While still in Pelican, he'd offered to bathe the dogs the day he got home and I would have gratefully taken him up on the offer.  If only I could have stomached the odor coming from the dogs.  They stank, plain and simple.  I couldn't wait even one more day.  So they were clean and shiny and soft when Mick got home.

Saturday they were again dirty, gritty, stinky and ready.

I'm hoping that Mick will take over the dog washing.  I don't have a lot of time these days.  And I tend to be real whiny about it, too. I'm whining enough so that people around here will just do whatever needs to be done, just to shut me up (that seems to work for other people).  Hopefully that will be motivation enough.  Because God knows I'm the only one with olfactory powers around here.  Stomach-turning stench doesn't seem to be enough.  So loud, incessant whining it is.

A ball-chasing, dirt-rolling dog friend.

 

Good times:  face-licking, butt-sniffing, grass-rolling fiends.  Yes, friends, as well.
 
 

The Importance of Families Eating Together

Mick, Sam, and Miranda waiting for me to hurry and take the damned picture and join them at the table.  Lower right-hand corner?  Laundry, of course.

The above picture is kind of a miracle in itself.  This was not taken at Christmas (despite the red table cloth) nor at Thanksgiving.  The miracle is that the laundry is off the table and we are all eating a meal at it.  Sam has been eating dinner at the picnic table on the porch for months now.  Mick usually eats at the table, alone, but for the ever-watchful, ever-hopeful animals and Miranda and I have been bad about eating in front of the TV.  I know better--I wasn't raised that way.  I know what they say on all the talk shows about how important it is for families to sit down and eat together.  I won't even make excuses--though I could.  But I won't.  Well, maybe a little.  Like I said, the table usually has laundry on it. Dreadful, slovenly, I know. The reason it always has laundry on it, besides me not putting it away, is because we have a huge pile of socks without mates and I can't bear to just throw them away.  As soon as I do that, sock mates start coming out of the woodwork.

I would like to find all the sock mates, though, because Miranda deliberately wears mismatched socks, relishing the unreasonable, illogical distress it causes me.  However, I don't have the time or energy to debate fashion or sock protocol with her.  I just try to not look at her ankles in the morning.  Life is stressful enough without seeing her wear one orange and black Halloween sock with a red and white Christmas sock (I'm not kidding.  She does this ALL THE TIME).

I can't say we live from crisis to crisis.  That would be gross exaggeration, though this year it is closer to the truth than what I like to think about. (I just cover my ears and hum whenever unwanted thoughts and worries enter my head.  Denial can be a useful survival tool.).  We do live with a lot of stress.  We live with a lot of irritants, too, but I've already promised to not obsess in writing about the underwear shredding anymore.  Suffice it to say, the shredding goes on.

Sam would like to eat out four or five times a week.  We can't afford it financially.  Our health can't afford it either. If we keep eating out, Frank is going to have to out-grow more of his pants and send them to me. I know that social outings are great for Sam's social development, though.  Sam has made such progress since we moved to Oregon.  She is so persistent, though, that it's difficult to tell her no.  We do tell he no, but she just wears us down.

I was about to give in and see if Sam wanted to go somewhere for lunch on Sunday.  I walked into her room to find her sitting naked on her bed, a pair of panties in her lap, and the waist band she'd just picked apart lying beside her.  On closer inspection, I found four more pairs of de-constructed panties on the floor.

I blew a mental gasket.

I shouted.  Sam covered her ears and hummed.  I waited, glaring.  She removed her hands from her ears and I started in again.  She covered her ears and hummed.  I waited, glaring.  She slowly removed her hands and I turned my volume down a notch and said, "That's it.  No more.  No restaurants.  Not when you tear apart your underwear.  No more!"  And Sam covered her ears and hummed again.  But she'd heard me.  And she knows what I mean.  Will the shredding stop?  I don't know.  Probably not abruptly.  Certainly not as fast as I'd like.  But it will certainly slow down the restaurant visits. [As of Tuesday night, I was once again feeling desperate to keep her clothed--an avalanche of torn and shredded clothing awaits me in the sewing room for my weekend entertainment].

Miranda and I have had long talks about restaurants, food choices, and Sam's weight.  We are all concerned.  We are all motivated.  But it won't be easy.  We think that part of what attracts Sam to restaurants is the atmosphere and the people-watching.  She loves the hustle-bustle.

We can't do much about that.  But maybe she likes restaurants, at least a little, because we all eat together.  And that we can do something about.  Our goal is to be a little more old-fashioned and to have old-fashioned, everyone-eating-together, large, weekend dinners.  Saturday's dinner also included some Brittany Spears pre-dinner music, which inspired a stark naked Sam to dance from the kitchen to the dining room and back again.  Over and over.  So, ok.  Not your typical, Norman Rockwell-type family dinner.  But we're trying.

Brotherhood of the Traveling Pants

Frank's pants, being worn by Frank.  Zeus, imitating road-kill.

I have to share this little anecdote because 1)  I obviously have no pride, no shame and 2) it absolutely mortifies Mick, and believe me, it takes a lot of effort and imagination to mortify that man.  So for my amusement and Mick's mortification, here you go:  Several months ago, Mick's older brother Frank came over to visit and brought three pairs of Levi 501 jeans of his that he gave to Mick.  I can't remember if they were too big or too small for Frank, but he thought Mick could get some use out of them.  A year ago, Mick could have.  But like me, Mick has eaten his way back up in weight.

So, as more of a joke than anything else, because I was hoping for a cheap laugh, I tried them on. Well... They fit.  I wear them now.  ALL THE TIME.  And who got a laugh out of THAT?  Not my husband, who gives me pained smiles and sadly shakes his head. 

Humiliating?  Perhaps.  But on the other hand, who am I trying to fool?  And besides, I need pants.  Pants that actually fit, not pants that either sit on a shelf, in a box, or cut me in half.  While I'm confessing, my little sister's inseam of her Levi's is equal to the waist measurement of mine.  Meanwhile, weight loss efforts are hampered by an inability to effectively exercise at 5:00 a.m.  Nor have I yet been able to accomplish that when I get home from work in the evening, but that is what I am working on. 

Currently, I get up at 5:30 in the morning and do yoga and that makes me feel surprisingly human.  I don't even feel sorry for myself after a yoga session.  I start out feeling like the Tin Man in Wizard of Oz and by 6:15 I'm fully human again.

My fashion challenges remain, though.  I have come to realize that I will probably never have a job which requires a nice, professional-looking wardrobe.  In fact, over the weekend, I went through boxes that had been destined for Goodwill and removed several items.  If I have to play with as much bleach water as I do, and deal with some of the challenging situations that I do, well, I'm afraid that I kind of look like I'm working at the Cold Storage again, but in fewer layers.  Honestly, I wish I had a pair of mechanic's coveralls.  At least Frank's pants have pockets.  My own pants rarely have pockets and the ones that do have pockets have useless, shallow pockets that objects fall out of.  Useless.

One good thing about work, it is hard to find the time to eat. And some of what I see and some of the situations I deal with, have the added benefit of being appetite suppressants.  I just need to NOT make up for that when I get home at night or fill my weekends with food.  I hope (plan) to no longer be wearing Frank's pants by summer.  Definitely hoping to be in a smaller size.   Meanwhile, here's to my brother-in-law's hand-me-downs.

Gophers--4, Mick--0 : The Battle Continues

While the carpet looks like the dogs are guest staring on That 70's Show, they aren't.  And though they may look like they've been out hunting gophers, they weren't.  They were simply getting filthy for their own selfish fun.

They lost my sympathy when they totally decimated my sweet potato plant and ate the evidence.  All further evidence of them in our little personal eco-system makes my jaw clench painfully.  The sweet potato wasn't the first fatality, of course.  It's just that the sweet potato was so glorious and magnificent and ready to harvest. I had babied it and admired it all summer. There were, of course, the six cauliflower starter plants that just completely disappeared from the garden in the dark of night.  Not to mention about five broccoli starts and honestly, I can't remember what else.

The gophers still have Miranda's sympathy and somehow, we can't seem to help blaming her for their continuing existence, despite Mick's best efforts.

We aren't trying to live-trap.

We've had it.

All except Miranda.  And the dogs, who frankly, aren't doing their jobs, not earning their keep.

We have lost about $200 worth of tulips and other spring bulbs.  THREE TIMES NOW!  This last spring we thought we had them beat.  The gophers are so much smarter than we gave them credit for.  And we are less smart than we credited ourselves.  Obviously.

We have had tulips planted in the two long beds that run parallel with the front and side border of the vegetable garden each spring.  Every year, we think "This is the year.  This is the year that the tulips will multiply and we will be able to split them up and continue with two more borders, and encompass the vegetable garden with a mass of spring color.

But as I weed those beds each summer, I discover--NOTHING.  Not a bulb in the bed.  Not one.

So we thought, mistakenly, that we were smart last fall.  We bought rolls of window screen and Mick emptied the beds of dirt, lined them with screen, covered each end, put the dirt back in and we planted our bulbs.  The tulips were gorgeous this spring.  And the bulbs had completely disappeared by early summer.  It turns out that those little miscreants, when encountering an obstacle, the equivalent of prison fencing, will wait until no one is looking, leave the safety of their tunnels, walk over to their desired feeding grounds and DO A SWAN DIVE!  And eat.  Eat non-stop.  Not a bulb left.  Once again, $200 gone.  For those of you not keeping count, that's about $600 worth of gopher food.

So there are the vegetables, the tulips and other bulbs ( they leave my gladiolas alone, though, poor lonely glads), but that is not all.  Oh, no, because there is the yard.  Or in our case, yards.

I don't water in the summer and we have an ugly proliferation of weeds anyway, but I do mow.  Thanks to the gophers I get to mow through mounds and mounds of dirt piles ( yes, yes, I try to even them out, but you know that is only going to do so much).  I get to abuse the poor lawn mower and I end up caked in dirt, my teeth gritty.  Thanks to the gophers.  As I mow, dust clouds float around the yard, looking like their own weather systems.

Mick hates these gophers.  He would poison them, but as mentioned before, our dogs will never be commended for their brains.  Their brawn, their gladiator spirits, yes, but brains...it's kind of like trying to find summer tulip bulbs in the flower beds.

I honestly don't remember what-all Mick has tried to eradicate our gophers.  I know we had garlic sticks for awhile.  And I know we still have gophers.  The latest has been a set of four traps ( he found them on the internet and it sounds like it was quite the sales pitch, but...).

The gophers had been busy totally screwing up what we refer to as our "immediate back yard" (as opposed to the far back).  It is unsightly.  Worst than that, it's insulting.  Those gophers are insulting our intelligence, mocking us, and they are winning.  So Mick started baiting and setting his four new traps in the immediate back yard.  Trial and error.  Reset.  Reset.  Reset.  Not one dead gopher.  Not even a maimed gopher.

And then I came home from work yesterday to find that Mick has gone mad.  One gopher, (whether it is alive or dead, I don't know, but Mick swears it must have crawled off and died somewhere and I think it is watching him from some secret vantage point and smirking), ran off with one of the traps.  Mick went to check his traps and now there are only three.  So he dug around.  And now there are still only three.  And when I got home, the neighbors had pulled chairs up to the fence and sat watching my husband use their metal detector and dig and search and dig and search and dig and search.  Mick found many nails, screws, and scrap metal. He didn't find, however, any trace of a fourth trap. Or any dead gophers for that matter.

I am afraid that it is going to come down to explosives.  I'm afraid that I'm going to come home and find that I'm married to Elmer Fudd and he is chasing the wabbit.  I am afraid.

The Woman Who Fell Off the Edge of the World, installment 32

Summary to date:  Petra, a college student from Montana, about to graduate and unsure of what she wants for her future, runs away to Alaska to work at a seafood company.  She is escaping from a stalker/ ex-boyfriend, and the pressures put on her by her family.  Alaska is turning into a much wilder experience than she'd ever expected.

    I was shocked, absolutely stunned into momentary silence.  I was going to be Lauren’s roommate?  My first reaction was  no way.

    I found my voice and sputtered, “But what about Jaimie?”

    “That little bitch?  There’s no way I’d have her live with me.  Oh, Petra, it’ll be so much fun.  You’ll see.  Better start packing, my guys will be here in a couple of hours to move your stuff down to the cabin.  See you, roomie!”

    After  Lauren skipped out, I looked around my room forlornly.  I stood and watched water run off the hillside right up against my window.

    My heart was heavy with loss.

  **************************

    Living with Lauren wasn’t so bad.  My first night in the cabin we lay on her bed, sipping whiskey, while she smoked pot.  I had decided to move forward, away from the grudge I had every right to feel, and tried to “make the best of things”.  I simply didn’t trust Lauren in the least.

    After the first night I didn’t see much of Lauren.  I knew she stopped by the cabin some time during the day because the place was always a wreck.  Lauren didn’t know how to hang up clothes and seemed to rarely wash them.  Some of her underwear were stuck to the carpet.  I tried to not think about it and kicked them back to her ever-growing heap of dirty laundry.  I wondered where she was spending her nights.  And with whom.

    One day while scrubbing or painting or doing some other mindless, crappy job (waiting for the next fishery to open), Thelma stopped by to talk to me.

    “So how are you getting along with The Goddess of Pelican?” she asked.

    “Just fine,” I replied.  “I only saw her on the first night that I moved in and I haven’t seen her since.  Just traces of her.”

    Thelma rolled her eyes.  “I thought as much.  I think she’s shacked up with her old boyfriend and is screwing with his head big time.”

    “Who is he?”  I asked.

    “You wouldn’t know him.  He’s the accountant for the company.  Nice guy.  That woman is poison.”

    I was inclined to agree, but didn’t do much but nod.  After all, I had to live with the poison.

    “Watch out for yourself,” Thelma advised.  “You never know what Lauren might pull.”

    **************************************

    When I went back to the cabin after work (hey, I could get addicted to these eight-hour days), Lauren was scrambling around throwing clothes into a suitcase.

    “What’s going on?” I asked.

    “Ooooooh!” She squealed, very animated even for Lauren.  “Billy called.  I’m flying to Anchorage to meet him and Thomas.  They have tickets to George Thoroughgood.  Thomas wants you to come, too.”

    I rolled my eyes.  “Oh.  I’m supposed to just hop on a plane and fly to Anchorage, just like that?”

    “He said to tell you he’d pay half.”

    I snorted my contempt.  “Reality check, Lauren.  I currently make $5.97 and hour and I wouldn’t go see Thomas if he paid the whole thing.  In fact, I wouldn’t even cross the street to see Thomas.”

    I could see cold contempt on Lauren’s face.  “God, you are such an unbelievable prude.”

    “Yes, I am,” I agreed, though, in fact, I didn’t agree at all.

    “You could hook Thomas so easily if you’d just work it a little.”  I started to open my mouth to vent some of my own venom at her, but she interrupted my tirade before I could start.

    “Oh, God.  I’ve got to hurry,” Lauren panicked.  “I can hear the plane.”

    She ran around and haphazardly threw stuff into her bag, without any apparent knowledge of what she was grabbing.

    “When will you be back?” I asked.  This was Thursday.

    “Sunday afternoon on the ferry.”  Lauren grimaced.  “We’ve got a bunch of new workers coming in, including those damned girls who were supposed to be here days ago, and Jeff is making me babysit them over here.  That’s why he’s letting me go to Anchorage.  Look, I’ve got to run.  You’re a fool not to come, Little Nun.”  And she was off.

    Peace and tranquility descended upon the cabin.

    That crack about my being a prude still smarted, and that Little Nun comment nagged at me, making me seethe.  It shouldn’t have, but it did.

    It was a beautiful day, though.  The sun was shining and the westerly had kicked up.  I didn’t have to work tomorrow if I didn’t want to.

    I should have been outside with friends, sitting in front of the Wet Goods, drinking Club Cocktails, but I wasn’t sure if I had any friends anymore.

    I opened the refrigerator to find a whole bunch of Club Cocktails (gin and tonic flavor—yum-yum), popped open a can, and headed back to my Little Nun’s cell.  I lay on Lauren’s bed, drinking and looking with appreciation at all her little trinkets and with distaste at the chaos she’d left in her wake.  I got up and took two more cans of gin and tonics—so I wouldn’t have to get up again so soon.  And I snooped.

    I hit the jack pot right away.  In a little box was a large stash of high quality, Lauren’s adorable little pipe, and a note.  It read:

    “Help yourself, Sweetie.  I’m going away for the weekend so try to enjoy yourself while I’m gone.  Would you please,  please, please do some laundry for me, doll?  Love ya,  Lauren.”

    Well, well.  Yes, I’d do some laundry for her, but I would deplete as much of her stash as I could to make it worth my while.

    I downed my last Club drink and headed for the shower.  I thought I’d swallowed enough courage to brave the bars on my own.

 

Newport, Oregon Part II of our Saturday

I am very fond of and drawn to amber.  I have a few pieces of really beautiful amber jewelry.  This, however is not amber.  It's a gross jelly fish that I thought looked like a huge piece of amber so I had to take a picture of it.  Then I had to poke it with my toe.

So, Saturday in Newport, Oregon with my parents, aka The Grandparents, was just what I needed.  The beach can be rejuvenating, especially when the weather is nice, rather than crappy.  It was nice the day we were there.  For the past two days (as I write this on Wednesday night), my parents have endured stormy weather and at the end of the week they head down Highway 101 to stay at a B&B near San Francisco.  Yesterday morning on the news, they showed people desperately stacking sand bags in Marin County.  Should be just a lovely drive and visit.

However, last Saturday in Newport, while brisk, was sunny and dry.  It took awhile to get our food at Mo's Annex, but as usual, the line was out the door.  There were a bunch of sailboats doing something outside, but our waiter wasn't sure what the occasion was, and up the road in Lincoln City was the Kite Festival, which is great fun to watch.  I watched about 90 seconds of it.  The first half of that was on my frantic walk to the restroom at one of the beaches and the second half was a more relaxed viewing as I returned to our car.  There is really no good place to pee between Dallas and Lincoln City.  Ah, to wear Depends.  Or have a bladder bigger than a walnut.

After eating our entrees at Mo's, it was time for dessert.  Sam had ice cream with whipped cream (it's a sundae with no sauce and not nuts), everyone else had marion berry cobbler a la mode, and I had half a slice of peanut butter cream pie (and my mom had a bite of the other half and my dad finished it off and then I felt righteous and holy for not making a complete pig of myself).

Miranda wanted to go watch the sea lions afterward, and honestly, everyone else did, too.  Mick, being completely contentious, made the statement that, "the only good sea lion is a dead sea lion", but we all ignored him.  I think he just doesn't want to give up his claim to Alaska Neanderthal Commercial Fisherman status.

The sea lions so obviously adore the sun and are so comical and entertaining to observe.  I could watch them for hours.  Really, there is a bar right there.

Unfortunately, what this picture can't show you is just how incredibly large these creatures are.  Think Volkswagen Bug.  Huge.  And LOUD.  LOUD content and LOUDER cranky.  And very engrossing.

Sam and Miranda went across from me to watch the sea lions in a less-crowded space.  I was shoulder-to-shoulder with other wildlife fans.  I just had to take this picture because they are so uncooperative these days that this may be the only frontal view of them I'll catch.  Being October, the area wasn't as crowded as in the peak summer season, but still, lots of people like to hang out down on the bay front, especially to watch the sea lions sun themselves.  This spot is right next door to the Undersea Gardens (and the bar I mentioned).  Note:  that little object in Sam's hand is Bunny-Frog, a chewed-up (thanks, Zeus) stuffed animal who MUST go EVERYWHERE with her.  It's the latest in a long line of MUSTS.