do you remember where you were?

September 11, 2001

I was working as an administrative assistant in a high-end hair salon in the city of Atlanta.  We had just had our morning coffee, and the customers were all coming in for their appointments, when someone said a plane hit the World Trade Center.  The first thing that went through my mind was that some idiot in a small plane had navigated themselves into the building somehow.  It had happened before.  Tragic, but comparatively insignificant to what really happened.  

It wasn’t until the second plane hit that we realized that this was no unfortunate accident.  This was our generation’s Pearl Harbor.

The phone circuits everywhere were busy, so we couldn’t call anyone to find out what was happening across the country, but the information we were getting was vast and exaggerated beyond the horror that was the truth.  The truth was...in addition to the two jets that hit the towers, there were other jets hijacked, and even Washington had been hit.  We could only wonder...where else was under attack?  People were saying that we were at war.  In wild exaggerations, we were told that the Capital building was hit, and even the White House.

And it wasn’t just New York and Washington that were at risk.  Atlanta was the home of the Center for Disease Control and it was suggested the CDC may be a target. My children were in school across town.  I wanted desperately to go to them.  If Atlanta was a target, I was unsure if they would be safe where they were.

And then the first tower fell.

It was worse than anything we were being told.  The one television in our building was surrounded by people trying to figure out what was going on.  The only thing we knew for sure was that nothing would ever be the same again.

Nothing.

Nine years later, nothing will ever be the same again.  But one thing is certain…those of us who survived that day will never forget.  We will never forget those who died in the attacks on our country.  And we will never forget the sacrifices made by those individuals who fought to keep us safe. 

Until the next time…a moment of silence for the lost souls…

in sickness and in health

I always thought that part said, in sickness and in hell...it certainly seems that way sometimes.  And I'm pretty sure it's no accident that the marriage vows include the phrase, “for better or worse.” 

We certainly hope for everything to be better, but sometimes…it’s just not.  Sometimes life is difficult, and we have to rise to the occasion. 

And so today, we spent the entire day feeling miserably sick with an assortment of flu symptoms that managed to bring us together. 

Life is funny…

We just need to laugh at it.

After a momentary bump in the road of life, we are back on track again.  I wasn't worried for a minute!  Well...maybe a minute.

I appreciate all the well wishes from my friends, family, and fans.   It was a pretty good Friday, and I’m looking forward to a great weekend.  But right now, I need to hit the sack and rejuvenate…with lots of aspirin and Benadryl! 

Until the next time…I’ll be dreaming sweet dreams again…

the fall of rome

Rome may not have been built in a day, but it sure did fall pretty quickly. 

I guess it’s true what they say…some things aren’t meant to last forever. 

My husband wanted to “talk” with me today.  He suggested that maybe things would be easier for us if we lived in separate households.  Easier if we spent some time apart...like a trial separation.  Like I didn’t know what that really meant.  It meant…"I don’t think I want to live with you anymore."

He wasn't saying that...not really.  I think what he was saying was, our lives are filled with too much conflict all the time.  Too much drama.  Not that it is all of our own making, but the combining of our two households has created more than its fair share of drama and conflict. 

But I always thought that at the bottom of it all, we had a pretty solid marriage.  When it was just the two of us, we were good.  Better than good.  But, when you have a blended family, it’s never really just the two of you, is it?  It’s the kids, the exes, the in-laws (or in some cases…outlaws), jobs, school, pets, mortgages…shall I go on?  It would seem that the stress of all those things had taken its toll. 

And suddenly it seemed as if my life was falling apart like a badly played game of Jenga.

I didn’t know what to mourn first…the loss of everything we had built over the past eight years, or the loss of the future that we had planned so meticulously—a future that would never be.  But I knew that ultimately, the thing I would mourn the most would be the loss of my best friend.  Because that’s what it really came down to.  I wouldn’t even know who to call and cry to, because my husband has been my best friend for almost eight years. 

After he dropped the bombshell on me, he waited for my reaction.  I’m not sure if he was hoping I would agree with him, or afraid that I would agree with him, but I wasn’t about to be the one who cast the deciding vote on something so monumental.  We didn’t sit down and talk.  Instead, we went off in different directions to deal with this new “option” in our own ways.  I dealt with it like a woman…I hid in my bedroom and cried.  He dealt with it like a man…he went to Home Depot to buy a part for something that needed to be fixed.  But an hour or so later we were back in the same room where we came to the separate conclusions that nothing would really be better if we were apart.  It would just create new problems.  And he didn’t really want to live without me…he was just trying to come to grips with the madness that is our lives. 

And truly, our lives are filled with madness.  We have teenagers…and PMS…and exes…and in-laws…and his stressful job…and a whole lot of other very complicated things that we deal with on a day to day basis.  It’s a wonder we’ve made it this far. And I do think it would be a terrible shame to have made it this far just to chuck it all right before the finish line.  Because the kids are not going to be teenagers forever…the exes aren’t even part of our lives anymore…in-laws are only as big a problem as you let them be…and if you live in a yurt in the woods, you really don’t need much money, and therefore probably don’t need a very stressful job.   

I think maybe we just need a vacation.  We’re taking a very brief one tomorrow…just one day, just the two of us.  Something we haven’t done in quite a while.  It’s very important to have that time together to remember why you are a couple to begin with.   Wish us luck!

Until the next time…I’ll be driving to the mountains for a day of rest and relaxation with my husband.

would you like some cheese with that whine?

My husband came home from work this evening, and poured me a nice glass of wine. It was completely unexpected.  He brought the wine home for me without being asked.  He must have seen the bells and heard the whistles of the PMS early detection system going off like the 4^th of July this morning, and he must have been afraid.  And the best way to protect oneself against PMS is to medicate the crap out of it. 

Hence the wine. 

And if ever I needed a glass of wine, tonight would have been the night.  Nothing much happened.  It was a very blah day in a week of blah days…all two of them so far.  I was supposed to have a lovely girl’s night out, but as things happen sometimes, it didn’t pan out.  There is no one to blame other than life itself…perhaps the “shit happens” mantra should be inserted here. 

Instead of having dinner with my friends, I sat at home and curled up on the sofa with a good book.  Well, good may have been a stretch.  It was one of my favorite authors, but it wasn’t her best work.  I suppose the writer in me can’t help correcting grammar and typing errors, especially when those sorts of things are supposed to get caught by the editors before they go to print.  As I type that, I wonder how many typing errors have gotten past my editor (me) and made it into the blog recently.  Don’t tell me…I don’t really want to know.

And now back to our sponsor, wine…

I have barely worked my way through a single glass, but I can feel the warmth coursing through me, healing my aching body as it goes.  I’ve decided I like wine.  In small doses anyway.  

I wouldn’t mind a second glass tonight.  Maybe I would sleep really well, and we could all use a really good night’s sleep now and then couldn’t we?

Until the next time…there will be more wine!

the blog that almost wasn't

I don’t want to write a blog tonight.  In fact, I don’t want to do anything but read a book while lounging in my bed, listening to a pre-recorded thunderstorm, in my pajamas.

Today I had the classic, post holiday weekend blues. 

It wasn’t as bad as say…the day after Halloween…or the day after Christmas.  It was a mild version, but it was the post holiday blues, nonetheless.  I think it may have had something to do with all the excitement of the weekend—having company adds to the spectacle of a three day weekend immensely.

I had a great time this weekend, so when I rolled out of bed this morning and realized that my day would consist of vet visits, laundry, and dishes…I was most disheartened.  I didn’t want to clean the house.  I wanted to find something fun to do.  I wanted to shop, and eat in a restaurant, and flirt with celebrities.  Or at least get a pedicure with a girl friend. 

I had no such luck on the pedicure front today. 

Instead, I took Indy to the vet first thing this morning for his weekly weigh in—he is now tipping the scale at 64.4lbs.  Does that deserve an exclamation point?  It is certainly getting more difficult to lift his backend onto the bed when he decides he wants to check out the view from the pillow top.  After grabbing a quick bite of lunch, and swapping dogs at the house, I was back at the vet for the second appointment of the day.  I sat by her head as the vet tech cleaned black stuff out of my geriatric Labrador’s ear—and cringed as she shook her head and the cleaning solution bathed me in eau d’apple ciger vinegar.  Still, it could have been worse…at least she waited to shake until the black stuff was all cleaned out.

So finally, with my vet appointments behind me, what was I to do with my post Labor Day Tuesday? 

After running assorted errands, I took a quick trip to the antique mall on a quest to find a grain sack (just like the one I was talked out of buying on Saturday.)  I didn’t find a grain sack, but I did find fresh organic chicken eggs.  Amazingly, the owner of the antique mall has chickens, and is now selling the free-range, organic, just laid yesterday, eggs.  I bought two dozen eggs for less than what I would have paid at the grocery store, and mine still had a few feathers in the mix.  Mike was, of course, thrilled.  His suburban homesteader self would like to be harvesting our own eggs, so getting any eggs fresh from the source was a delight to him.  It’s just one step away from having chickens of our own.

The rest of the day was spent doing nothing of importance whatsoever.

As I waited for Mike to finish work for the day, I observed the dogs in their daily routines—this, in and of itself, was somewhat interesting.  Indiana Jones, (still the reigning puppy even at just under sixty-five pounds) has developed the curious habit of stealing my underwear and placing them in his water bowl.  I can only imagine that he has concluded that they need to be washed…and since he is harvesting them from my dirty clothes basket…he would be correct.  He has also decided that his favorite toy—his stuffed piggy—needs a drink.  The piggy was placed strategically over the water bowl to aid in its ability to have said drink of water.  Sadly, the piggy did not get anything other than wet.  Much to Indy’s disappointment, the underwear and the pig were each put back to where they belonged. 

After a very late dinner, Mike and I set out to find books on barn houses.  There are sadly very few in existence.  Of course, if I was willing to live in a yurt, there are many choices to choose from. I would rather pick from the slim barn pickings—and we did actually find one that satisfied our needs (and I picked up a new book for myself…the one I was going to read instead of write tonight’s blog, in fact.)

On our way home, we were almost rear ended by an old man who was paying far more attention to the distant lights of the local Wal-Mart than he was to the brake lights in front of him.  Mike had to swerve into the intersection, and the old man ended up alongside of us, where I gave him dirty looks as Mike scolded me.  I wanted to take a picture of him (the man, not Mike) but I was cautioned to look away.  I don’t know why, but maybe it had something to do with the scary movie we watched recently where some woman was cursed and dragged into the fires of Hell for something far more obnoxious than taking a picture of someone.  I guess one can’t risk bad karma just for nothing.  So no pictures for me. 

All in all it was a pretty boring post holiday Tuesday.  I have nothing exciting to report, nothing funny to write, and so I guess I’m not going to bother with tonight’s blog at all…or…well…I guess I already wrote it didn’t I?

Until the next time…I’ll be hoping for a more exciting Wednesday!

all's quiet on the Atlanta front

I had a lot of elaborate plans for this weekend. Plans that, on paper, were well thought out and exciting.   After all, my high school friends were visiting.  I hadn’t seen them in almost three decades, and I couldn’t squeeze into my skinny jeans. 

I cleaned my house, made a far overdue appointment to have my roots done, and picked them up from the airport. 

My niece caught me in the kitchen early the next morning to ask me if it felt awkward having them visit. She had to whisper the question as my friends were asleep upstairs.  My answer was a resounding no. 

And then I thought about it.   

Over the course of the next few days I thought about my niece’s question.  As we headed out to Labor Day festivals, sold out trains, and last minute rescheduling of my wonderful (unfulfilled) plans, I turned the question over and over again in my head, always coming up with the same answer.  It was definitely not awkward.  But it really could have been.  It could have been very strange and awkward.  And maybe with two different friends from high school it would have been.  But it was actually quite natural to have them visit.  Even my notoriously introverted (bordering on antisocial) husband seemed to enjoy their company.  He wasn’t on edge.  He wasn’t giving me those behind the back looks that I know so well...the ones that mean, “I want my house back!”  Mike was even engaging my friends in conversation.  He was interacting with two virtual strangers as if he’d known them for ages.  He was actually enjoying himself. 

A very notable first. 

I think he might have even liked them to have stayed longer.  We both would have really.  But I’m sure everyone was glad to get back to their normal lives.  Having friends visit is wonderful, and traveling is such fun, but nothing beats running around in your own home in nothing but your underwear. 

Not that we do that or anything.  We have teenagers.

Teenagers that were mostly on their “second” best behavior all weekend long.  There was a small dose of drama, and a few mild tantrums, but all in all they were fairly normal teenagers trying hard not to embarrass us. 

As wonderful as the weekend was, I am thoroughly enjoying a quiet evening at home drinking a nice glass of wine and watching the food network on TV.  Life has to get back to normal eventually…and the dog hair is beginning to build up again.

Until the next time…I’ll be back to vacuuming in the morning.

maybe today was inside out day!

How do “underpants” end up as a recurring theme in my blog?  Easy…I have a serious issue with wearing mine any other way than inside out.  But there is no conpiracy.  This is a simple matter of happenstance.  I do not purposely wear my underwear inside out.  It just seems to happen all on its own. 

It happened again today. 

It’s not like it’s a major issue.  It’s just underwear after all.  No one sees them but me…and my husband on occasion.  I often don’t even discover the state of my panties until the middle of the day.  Today was no exception.  I was on a day trip with my friends, visiting the North Georgia Mountains, on this beautiful Labor Day weekend. I found myself trapped in a public restroom, thanks to a broken doorknob, and all I could think about was the discovery that my underwear was inside out. 

I WAS a bit worried about getting out of the bathroom for a minute.  I stared down in mild shock at the small doorknob in my hand.  It was one of those old Victorian-type brass doorknobs, and when I tugged on it (a little too vigorously) it just came off in my hands.  After a few deep breaths, I carefully pushed the stem back through the hole, trying not to knock the knob on the other side of the door out, trapping myself completely.  Then…after a momentary struggle…I managed to escape the small closet of a restroom.

This little moment seemed to put a fine point on our day.

We had driven an hour and a half to the mountains to take a train tour of the region only to discover that the train was sold out.  In fact, the door to the ticket booth swung closed just as we approached.  A hand written sign was our only clue that the train was indeed, “sold out.”  So, instead of a leisurely ride on a train, we took a tour of the quaint mountain town of Blue Ridge.  All in all, the day was enjoyed by everyone.  We even took a detour on the way back home to tour an area known for great views and mountain cabins. 

This is the reason I may need to double up on my blood pressure medicine tonight. 

The narrow gravel path that passed for a road was especially rough going today.  The road was washed out in several places, and we almost got stuck more than once.  I was, of course, pleading and whining the entire way.  My fear of heights is fairly irrational and overblown.  I can easily say this now that I am back in the safety of my own home. 

Broken doorknobs, inside out underpants, and terrifying treks into the wild aside, it was a pretty wonderful day.  I have thoroughly enjoyed having Chet and Chris visit, and I hope they have enjoyed being here as much.  It’s hard to believe that our weekend has almost come to an end.  Tomorrow is their last day in Atlanta, and if we’re lucky, we will find ourselves touring the downtown area in the hours before their flight departs. 

After all…we haven’t even gone to the Big Chicken yet!

Until the next time…I’ll be turning my underwear right side out and heading to bed!

underpants and sticky floors

Day two of Chet and Chris visiting from New York.

We took in a lake festival in the northern Atlanta suburbs, eating barbeque, drinking sweet tea, and snickering at the southern accents.  For the first time in ages I was surrounded by “Yankee’s,” like me.  We got to talk about the differences between northern and southern cooking, and for a change, someone held up my side of the “grits or no grits” argument.  I’m against grits as a food group, in case you were wondering. 

After spending quality time at the little lake festival, and a short rest period, we ventured back out to take in one of the best restaurants in Atlanta—Henry’s Louisiana Grill.

It was an hour wait for a table, and just about that long again before our food was brought out, but it was well worth the wait, as usual. 

I love Henry’s—the atmosphere, the food, the friendly people, even the architecture of the ancient building…right down to the original wood floors.  I do wish they would clean the floors a little better, though.  I found myself in an unusual predicament while walking to our table in the back of the restaurant.  My lightweight flip flops were sticking to the floor.  And, I’ve walked across a sticky floor before.  This was different.  I was forced to grip the rubber sandals with my toes to keep from walking right out of them.  With each step, I could feel the flip flops being ripped away from the floor as if they had been glued down.  By the time we sat down, I was exhausted! 

After our wonderful dinner, we headed back to the house to take advantage of the cool night air, and drink wine on the porch, where we discussed the proper term for one’s undergarments.  The men were in agreement that “panties” and/or “underpants” were not manly enough to describe what men wear under their clothes.  This is precisely why we will continue to refer to them in exactly those terms.  We women like to live dangerously, after all.

Two bottles of wine later, we all retired to our respective rooms for a good night’s sleep.  I’m thrilled that the usually hot and sticky Georgia climate has graciously agreed to give us a beautiful weekend with which to entertain our out of town guests.  I would go so far as to say that it was just short of a perfect day, if only due to a flare up of an old back injury.  And we have even more fun planned for tomorrow!

Until the next time…I’ll be sleeping with the windows open!

about that time machine...

Talk about your time warps!

I picked up two friends from high school at the airport tonight.  We hadn’t seen each other since the end of tenth grade, and despite the distance in time and geography; it was like we had never lost touch.  We are different people than we were in days gone by, but at the same time, haven’t changed at all.

Friendships are like fine wine, they get better with age. 

We sat at the kitchen table for over an hour, pouring over our 8^th grade yearbook, reminiscing about old friends and former teachers.  Some we still keep in touch with, some have passed on, but all of them have made an impression on our lives.

I will say it again…you can attack the internet and Facebook all you want, but without those two things I would have been lacking in the friend department this evening.  There is no way I would have been able to reconnect with two such good friends had I not had the benefit of modern technology. 

Modern technology has little to do with good wine, however. 

I had two glasses of what may be the best red wine I have had in a very long time, and while I thoroughly enjoyed it, I will surely regret it in the morning.  Can I just say that blogging under the influence (BUI) is very bad.  I don’t recommend it to those of you at home. 

I am expecting a full day of sightseeing and other touristy-type excursions tomorrow, so I need to grab what little beauty sleep I have available to me tonight (or shall I say, this morning.)

Until the next time…I will wait patiently for the room to stop spinning so I can fall asleep!

get me out of here Scotty!

I think I have just been beamed into a truck stop.  Well, to be more specific, the restroom in a truck stop.  The nastiest restroom in all of the truck stops across America.  And something about this truck stop restroom is awfully familiar.  Wait a minute…I’m not in a truck stop bathroom…this bathroom is inside my house!

Day two of cleaning the guest bath.

Yes, it’s true…my children have all become truckers.  Next thing you know, they will be swearing like truckers!

I’m not going there.

When I tackled the upstairs bathroom yesterday, I knew I had my work cut out for me.  My bedroom and bathroom are on the main level of the house.  I don’t go upstairs unless I have to.  The kids are responsible for their own rooms, and bathrooms.  They are supposed to keep things “relatively” clean.  Apparently, the two offspring who shared this bathroom didn’t understand the meaning of the word “clean.” 

The tub didn’t look like it had been scrubbed in ages.  The sink was covered in a layer of dust and toothpaste.  And the mirror was smeared and spotted with I don’t even want to know what.  I really wish that was the worst of it. 

It wasn’t.

Today I decided to tackle the toilet.  In my defense, I was out of toilet cleaner yesterday, and the lid was down, and I WAS using the space to hold my array of cleaning supplies, rags, and assorted other tools.  I ran to the store to pick up toilet cleaner this afternoon, and thank all that is holy that I did!

I have seen a lot of horrible restrooms in my life.  I have even narrowly escaped the trappings of said nasty restrooms.  But nothing in forty plus years had prepared me for the mess in store for me.

Ok, maybe I am exaggerating a little.  But just a little.  I will spare you the details, but suffice it to say that I have never been more grossed out cleaning anything in my life.  I would have tossed up my hands and forced the culprits to do their own cleaning but unfortunately, neither of them lives in the house permanently at this time.  All I can say is…it’s a good thing I don’t have to clean truck stop restrooms for a living.  I would starve!

Thank goodness nowhere else in the house was that dirty.  Otherwise I would still be cleaning.   

Until the next time…I’ll be relaxing until my guests arrive!

it is times like these when I wish I had a maid

All of my procrastination has finally caught up with me. 

I spent the entire day cleaning my house today. 

Today is Wednesday—only two days before the last weekend of summer—and I have out of town guests coming in…and I have so much yet to do. 

Today I tackled the guest bath upstairs.  A room I seldom frequent, and therefore had no idea how truly disgusting it was.  My son used to use this bathroom before he moved out, but now it is used solely by my husband’s youngest child when she stays with us every other weekend. I’m not entirely sure who was the culprit responsible for most of the mess, but regardless, I had my work cut out for me. 

Thank goodness I had a full arsenal of cleaning products at my disposal. 

The house is relatively clean now, except of course, for the remaining ninety some odd pounds of pears that are still left in barrels, baskets, and buckets on my counters. 

I will have to do something about the pears by Friday.  Eating them all is obviously out of the question, but we will have to make some sort of arrangements for them.

Tomorrow is another day of housework.

I have to set up the guest room.  We don’t often entertain overnight guests who aren’t family, so it’s very exciting.  Especially since I haven’t seen my friends since high school! 

This means the house isn’t the only thing that needs attending.  I will surely need to schedule a salon day between now and eight o’clock Friday evening.  Gray hairs and unattended eyebrows are NOT acceptable when seeing friends after several decades apart!

And so, I should tuck myself into bed to get what beauty rest I can with only a few days left before their arrival.  Every little bit helps…

Until the next time…I’ll be dusting the cobwebs from my old yearbooks!

one hundred pounds of pears on the floor

For anyone new to my blog…my husband, Mike has a blog of his own “The Suburb Homesteader.”  On his blog he documents his efforts to grow as much of our own food as possible, while still maintaining a very stressful, high responsibility, full time job.   

Before the rosemary, the tomatoes, the pumpkins, the beans, the Swiss chard, and the sunflowers, my husband planted fruit.  The fruit was his first priority when we first built our house five years ago.  And not just any fruit…many, many different kinds of fruit.  We have at least three varieties of apple, two varieties of pear, a peach tree, two plum trees, multiple blueberry bushes, ground cover strawberry, brambles upon brambles of blackberry, a fig, and until they suffered a fate worse than death (being dug up and used for wreathes) we had grapevines. 

I hope I didn’t miss anything. 

I can’t say I have any complaints about the fruit.  I love fruit.  I picked and ate the strawberries as they became ripe.  Same with the blackberries, the plums, and when we had any…the peaches.  I look forward to the apples (they aren’t quite ready yet.)

But the pears?

I am so over the pears!

Don’t get me wrong…I like pears.  I can even overlook their mushy, somewhat gritty texture to reach the sweet juiciness of their delicious flesh.  But after collecting and transporting them from the tree to the kitchen, then weighing, and ultimately, washing exactly one hundred pounds of pears…I don’t care if I ever see another pear again!

Unfortunately for me…they are still in buckets, baskets, and plastic tubs on my kitchen counter…where they will undoubtedly stay for the unforeseeable future. 

Even though the pears are yet to be quite ripe enough for me, Mike has been eating them in pairs (forgive the pun).  But even he can’t seem eat them fast enough.  In fact, he is making groaning sounds on the sofa as I write…most likely from an unhealthy overdose of pears!  It appears that pears have been used for centuries as a natural laxative. 

Who knew?

Perhaps my distaste for the pears is a lingering resentment left over from last year.  We didn’t get as many pears then, just over half as much, but we found ourselves testing our creativity by making pear butter, pear sauce, and other assorted pear concoctions.  And still had plenty of pears to eat.  I have no idea what we will do with the bounty we have been blessed with this year.  I think Mike is trying to get rich by writing an entire cookbook of recipes featuring pears.  I won’t stop him.  As long as he can find creative ways to present them, I’ll play guinea pig for the taste tests. 

Anyone for grilled pear steaks topped with goat cheese and pecans…and drizzled with hot maple syrup?

Sounds tasty…but I doubt even THAT will make a dent in my pear coffers. 

I suppose we could open up a little pear stand at the end of the driveway.  It could work.  Kids have been selling lemonade that way for YEARS! 

The good news is…I have company coming to town for the weekend, and so is my mother…so pear gift baskets may be in order.  If you live close enough, give me a shout out…I might have a few left over for you…if you dare!

Until the next time…I’ll be having pear pancakes with pear butter and pear syrup (for breakfast, lunch, and dinner!)

how to procrastinate effectively

I have no excuse for the fact that my house is still not clean.  The girls were not here to distract me this morning.  My husband had gone to the office and was not here to complain about the sound of the vacuum.  I had no pressing engagements that prevented me from cleaning from the moment I woke up.

But who wants to clean from the moment they wake up?

What I wanted to do was to read a book, lounge in bed, and wait for the skies to clear to a beautiful clear blue.  They never did clear, but instead of clear blue I did get cooler air, and it was a worthwhile trade off.  As far as the book, I didn’t have one that I hadn’t read, and I wasn’t able to lounge in bed for more than a few minutes once the menagerie had awakened—not more than ten minutes after my husband cleared out for the day.  So I dragged myself up and proceeded to procrastinate around the kitchen, cleaning things here and there until I discovered the source of the newest smell invading my house. 

This smell had nothing to do with puppies, or geriatric Labradors, or animals at all.  It was the smell of yesterday’s spinach fermenting in the pan it was cooked in.  It should have been put away, or tossed out, but was neither.  It was obviously overlooked in a rush to flee the kitchen and avoid the clean up last night.  But as we all know, you can’t run away from your troubles, they catch up to you eventually.  And when spinach catches up to you, you will wish you had run faster. 

Lucky for me, Henry Chow was still festering in a corner from his run in with something brave enough to attack a ninja kitty in his natural habitat.  Poor Henry Chow couldn’t be left to deteriorate in his favorite chair.  I just had to abandon the spinach clean up to take the ninja kitty to the vet.

Lucky for me, I have a standing appointment at the vet these days. 

As mangled as Henry Chow was, he was actually healing fairly nicely all on his own.  His wounds were bad, but not as bad as they could have been.  He was clearly the victor in his run in with whatever had been foolish enough to tangle with him.  He had a bite mark on his front arm, and his back toes.   I can only imagine what the other cat looked like.  Then again, if I have to give him the horrible tasting antibiotics all week long, I may resemble that other cat in a few days time.  He clearly didn’t appreciate having the liquid squirted into his mouth, and made his irritation known. 

After exhausting all of my avoidance techniques, I was back in the house—vacuum attachments in hand—saving my hardwood floors from loose tufts of fur and fluff.

But what about cleaning that pot filled with rancid spinach?

Thank goodness a jar lid got jammed in the drain in the big sink.  The pot will have to wait until tomorrow.  The spinach is long gone…I’m not that big of a procrastinator.  I don’t want to live with foul smells, or rotten food.  A soaking pot I can live with.  It will just be that much cleaner when I scrub it out…

Tomorrow.

Until the next time…I’ll be deliberating what to do first.

don’t drink and blog

I only had one drink.  One.  It wasn’t even a big drink.  It was one little drink.  One little insignificant, girly, flavored martini. But we’re talking about me here…it really doesn’t take more than one.  One drink and the room spins.  One drink and my face flushes bright red.  One drink and the keyboard is blurry. 

It’s a good thing I don’t look at the keys when I type.

It’s a good thing I wasn’t driving tonight. 

It’s a good thing I don’t have anything better to do than go to bed and sleep.

And I should certainly sleep well tonight.

I’m not sure how I ended up having a drink tonight, anyway.  One minute we were driving back from dropping Mike’s youngest daughter back to her mother, and the next we were sitting outside at a neighborhood café and I was ordering a pineapple martini.  It was pretty tasty too!  Even if it was just one.

And it was the nicest just one I have ever had.  I think it would be nice to do this on a weekly basis. 

I have decided that I want to have a love affair with the neighborhood café.  Especially the ones with an outdoor patio.  Especially when it’s as beautiful a night as it was tonight.  The temperature was kind enough to dip below eighty, and even graced us with a cool breeze just to put a lovely cherry on the top of our Sunday.

So we sat at our little café table, beneath an umbrella, on the patio of the cutest neighborhood café in the historic shopping district of Roswell, Georgia and sipped our drinks—my martini…and his imported beer—and chatted with the people at the table next to us.  They brought their dog.  It made me wish I’d brought mine.  Mike disagreed.  Indy might not be quite as well behaved at the table as the older dog at the adjacent table. 

But it gave me hope for the future.   

Hope for a day somewhere off in the (hopefully) not so distant future, when I can sit at a neighborhood café with a drink (probably just a coffee) and my dog.  Maybe even reading a book as I do.  Maybe with some really pretty mountain views, and temperatures somewhere in the low seventies even in the daylight hours. 

I don’t want much do I?

Until the next time…I’ll be sleeping off the pineapple martini!

to yurt or not to yurt

Today was a good day.  A ridiculously ordinary day, but a good day just the same.  Mike and I drove to North Carolina to spend the day trekking through the woods looking at property. 

We visited Murphy, North Carolina, and I think I might be perfectly happy to live there full time.  For years I have wanted to live in a quaint little town with a town square, and today we found just that sort of town.  So off into the woods we went to find the perfect piece of land for sale.

We found something we liked, and I suppose the conversation about the yurt will come around again, but honestly, I’m not about to live in a yurt.  I will however gladly live in a converted barn, so bring on the talk of barns.

Life is basically good.  The future is bright.  And things are mostly back to normal.  Well, as normal as things can get when you change how you do everything.  My puppy is growing at an amazing pace, and after another trip to the vet this morning (I seriously think my vet should put me at the top of her Christmas list as often as I am there) he is now completely free of worms. 

I, on the other hand, am not too sure.  Can people get worms from dogs?  And if so, should I just keep them for a while?  I mean, that’s got to be a great way to lose a few pounds right?  There’s just nothing like a stomach virus or an internal parasite to help shed those unwanted pounds. 

I’m kidding of course.  I don’t really want internal parasites…not even if it means losing a little weight.  And no, I don’t really think I have them.  This stuff is supposed to be funny.  Just go with it for a little while ok?

So as it was such a good day, I think I’ll turn in just a little early tonight.  Maybe even get a few good hours of sleep before tackling day two of the weekend.  I might even have something exciting planned!

Until the next time…I’ll be refreshed and ready to have fun!

I wasn't even looking at the donuts!

I was in the grocery store this evening, stocking up on food so I wouldn’t be tempted to go out for wings yet again, and just as I passed the bakery aisle, the email chime on my blackberry sounded, letting me know I had mail.  I know I could have let it go for later.  But I never do. I read them as they come in. 

Old habits die hard.

I clicked the screen and stopped cold when I read the subject line.  I looked over my shoulder, checking one side and then the other.  I didn’t see anyone I knew.  I didn’t believe anyone was watching me as I wandered past the pies and donuts and other assorted pastries.  And yet my email practically screamed at me from the screen. 

“This is why you’re fat!”

I wasn’t even looking at the donuts!  I certainly wasn’t planning on buying any. 

After further investigation, I determined that the email was spam.  Some sort of weight loss program sending out abusive emails and I was apparently on their list.  I wondered what I should make of that.  Is it some sort of cosmic reminder that I shouldn’t be drinking the diet Coke anymore?  Perhaps telling me that the French fries I ate the other day are very bad for me?  Not to mention the stuffed French toast I sampled a few days before that.

Ok…I admit it.  I’ve been out of control lately, and the evidence is in everything I wear. 

The first step is admitting you have a problem.  And now that I’ve done that, I’m ready to get to the serious solving.  I started out by having a salad today.  And I even passed on that diet Coke I was craving.  I have to maintain some level of willpower, but I’m determined to get back into my favorite jeans before the weather changes to fall. 

It could happen.

Until the next time…I’ll be eating a whole lot of lettuce this week!

stuff happens

I never liked that phrase… “Stuff happens.”  Especially the R rated version, “Shit happens.” And yet, lately, I find myself saying it on a semi-daily basis.  Mostly because it’s true.  Sometimes "shit" does happen. 

For example, my geriatric Labrador likes to sleep on the floor beside my bed.  She wants to be as close to me as possible at all times, no matter where I am.  She refuses to move just because there is an obstacle in her personal space.  So when Indiana Jones, the puppy, decided to stand above her—his back legs against her side and his front paws reaching onto the bed—she failed to move an inch.  She held her ground even as he passed gas directly above her face. It was a classic juvenile gag, and I admit it, I laughed. 

My laughter was short lived. 

Unfortunately for Cybil, Indy didn’t just fart.  He was suffering from a mild case of diarrhea that day, and in a brilliant stroke of bad luck, he experienced a brief moment of anal leakage at the precise moment that he farted on Cybil’s head. 

Shit happens!

Thank goodness for baby wipes and fast thinking.  If I had been anywhere but at the scene of the crime, I may have had to deal with a mess of tragic proportions.  As it was, I just had to clean up poor Cybil, and then I headed straight to the vet for a prescription for Indy.

Fast forward to today.  After eating the most perfect wings ever the night before, I decided to tempt fate and order the same wings again tonight.  I know…eating out two nights in a row?  I have no excuse.  I’m getting groceries in the morning.  In hindsight, I should have gotten groceries today.  There is just no way to compete with perfection.  As good as tonight’s wings could have been…they were no match for last night’s, and therefore, I was disappointed.  I should have left well enough alone and ordered a burger…or better yet, a salad!  But shit happens! 

Shall I go on?

I was at the vet again today for the second day in a row, and I actually told my vet that I should get a multi-pet discount after paying the bill for Cybil's prescriptions and vaccines.  The good news was that all three dogs have now had all of their shots and yearly check-ups, and Cybil's incontinence is cured!  

But, just when I thought I was through swiping my debit card at the vet for a very long time, Henry Chow came home this evening with teeth marks in his arm.

Say it with me... “Shit happens!"

Who knows what has decided to take a bite out of my ninja kitty, but I certainly can’t leave him to rot or fester from the wounds!  Thank goodness Henry was up to date on his shots!  While I’m there tomorrow, I may ask the vet for a bigger discount.  After all, I did give her office their best laugh in a long time with the tale of Indy and the fart.  Or as my teenagers explained to me…the proper term is “shart.”  I doubt I will find that word in my spell checker or even in a proper dictionary, but I will take their word for it, just the same. 

I suppose I can only keep to my prior commitment to seek the positive in everything, and take this string of seemingly unfortunate incidents as excellent blog material.  After all…I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried! 

Until the next time…I’ll be looking forward to the next thing to happen, (I write this thing every night you know!)

the perfect wings

Mike and I went to the Olde Towne Tavern tonight for wings.  Not because they are always good, but because when they are…they’re perfect!  It had been a while since we’d been back.  After having three bad wing experiences in a row, Mike vowed to never set foot in the place again.  But, as the saying goes, time heals all wounds…even bad wings. 

I had craved the Olde Towne wings all day.  I was supposed to have lunch there with a friend today, but circumstances as they were, we had to cancel.  My craving did not subside when lunch was taken off the table, so I pleaded with my husband to give them another chance.  To let bygones be bygones as it were, and give it another go. 

He begrudgingly relented. 

The place was fairly busy for a Wednesday night, but not so packed that we couldn’t get a table straight away.  The menus sat in front of us for more than a few minutes, but I didn’t bother to open mine.  I knew what I wanted as if I had memorized the page.  I suppose I had.  I had eaten wings there many times before.

After trial and error over the course of more visits than I can calculate in my head, and after more “not so perfect wings” than I have mentally catalogued, I was prepared to order my usual wings…just the way I like them…even if that’s not the way they normally come prepared.

Mike absolutely hates when I make any changes to the standard menu, essentially blaming me for any substandard results due to my own exasperating criteria.  I don’t know what he’s talking about…it’s just a little tweaking of the house specialty, and if they tweak them just right they are amazing.  So despite the faces he was making, rolling his eyes and shaking his head at me, I ordered my usual—ten medium wings, extra crispy, with light sauce… “Just enough for flavor, but not enough to get under my fingernails.”

I hadn’t felt especially good most of the day—I woke up with the headache from hell and it hadn’t gone away by seven in the evening—so despite my new moratorium on diet Coke, I ordered one of those too. 

I had sucked down two by the time my wings were ready.

I saw the waitress coming from across the room, and even in the dim light of the pub, I could tell that these would be good wings. 

Like I told the waitress…I don’t like my wings to drip.  The sauce should be baked in, not splashed on.  And I could see from across the room that there was no glistening as the light caught the rust-colored wings.  No reflection…no gloss that said, “Way too much sauce.”  The finish was smooth, not sticky…dry, not dripping.  Just the way I like them.

The sauce to wing ratio was absolute perfection. 

She set the basket down in front of me, and I smiled.  Even without taking a single bite, I knew these were perfect wings.  It’s just something you can tell by looking. 

The only measure left was the crispiness.  The window of perfection there is a narrow one.  Cook them too long and they are too crispy, not long enough and they are underdone.  It only took one bite to know what I had suspected all along. 

These wings were perfect.  

All the times that I had ordered wings that failed to measure up were suddenly washed away by the pure flawlessness of the wings in front of me.  Even the sauce had outdone itself.  It was not too spicy, not too mild.  The blending of hot and tangy was a veritable symphony played out for my taste buds.

There was nothing lacking, or missing, or wrong with these wings.  I ate them slowly, savoring each bite, pausing in between to delight in the lingering burn of the delectable spices. 

I quietly sipped at my third (and forth) diet Coke as I slowly made my way through the basket of unmatched chicken wings. I was lost in the flavors and textures of my meal, barely noticing my husband as he ate across from me, eyeing my wings with something akin to lust. 

He was not brave enough to order the wings tonight.  He played it safe, ordering…well, I don’t know what he ordered.  I was too wrapped up in my ten wonderful wings to notice. 

I did save the last wing for him. 

Not because I couldn’t have eaten it—I could have, easily—but because I love him, and I could tell from his face that he wanted nothing more than to taste one of the most exquisite wings in existence.  After all…we may never get this lucky again.  It was like winning the lottery.  The wing jackpot.  And the thing is…you just can’t take it with you.  It’s not the same the next day.  It’s not the same warmed in the microwave.  You have to eat them while they’re hot, and savor them to the fullest. 

Life is a lot like that. 

You have to find the little things that make you happy and just grab on to them.  Some days your wings will be awful, and other days they will be beyond compare.  You never know what wonderful things are in store for you…you just have to keep going from one day to the next, giving life one more chance.  Letting bygones be bygones and moving forward.  After all…if I hadn’t given Olde Towne one more chance, I would have missed out on some damn fine wings!

Until the next time…I’ll be chewing a few Tums before bed to get rid of the diet Coke and hot sauce heartburn!

this is for the birds!

I got up this morning to a quiet house.  Everyone had gone to their separate places—school, work, chasing squirrels in the yard—and I was left to my own devices for a few minutes.  They hadn’t been gone long…the kitchen still smelled of fresh coffee, and the dogs would be back inside as soon as I filled their bowls with food. 

All stressful things aside, it was a nice morning.  My favorite kind.  The air outside was still cool from the night before, and gave me a sense of hope for a coming fall.  I love fall.  But it isn’t fall yet.  It’s still very much summer, and before I knew it, the cool air would warm up and it would be too hot to enjoy the outdoors again.

But for the moment, it was still cool, and I had things to do.

I pulled out my “to do list” and started checking off the things that had already been done, when I heard a funny sound coming from the laundry room.  This, in and of itself, was not strange.  The cats were fed in the laundry room, and they frequently made strange noises.  The difference was, I could see both of the cats from where I sat. 

I’ve watched too many scary movies in my day, and I would always criticize the victims for having investigated a strange sound when they should have run away.  I promised myself that I would never investigate; I would just call the police.  And you may recall that I did just that not so many weeks ago.  But this morning, I was feeling brave in the light of day, so I set out to discover the source of the sound. 

The sound was not coming from the laundry room, it was coming from the garage. 

The giant bird swooped down from up above almost immediately . It was like it was asking for help.  I didn’t speak bird. I did try to coax the bird back into the sunshine, with no luck.  Sometimes you just can’t help.  

I began to realize that my life had become this giant bird, swooping down from above, attacking when it just needed help to get out. 

I opened the garage door to the outside and went back inside.  There was nothing else I could do to help.  I just had to hope that the bird would figure out how to help itself.  Sometimes you just have to do things on  your own.  Life is like that. 

Until the next time…I’ll be working on my plan of escape from the garage of life.

waiter, there seems to be a fly in my cheese dip

After a ridiculously long day spent running errands and checking off the tasks on my “to do list”, I was able to spend a quiet dinner with my husband.  We needed it.  A night to ourselves.  I can’t even remember the last time we were able to spend an evening alone. 

But I didn’t intend it to be a night together that felt like we were alone. 

We drove aimlessly, not knowing where we would end up, or what we wanted to eat.  We didn’t have to wonder for long…we ended up at the local Mexican restaurant...because there is nothing better for stress than a nice bowl of melted cheese dip and salsa with hot greasy chips.

I love cheese dip.  It’s one of my favorite vices—it’s all bad, but so good—but tonight, I wasn’t hungry.  I just wanted a glass of ice cold water while I picked at the cheese dip and chips.

I took a long sip of my ice water through the straw before churning up the ice.  I like to use the straw to push the ice down to the bottom of the glass to chill the water down below.   Or maybe it’s just a nervous habit.  Either way, I was dunking the ice cubes with the straw when I noticed something floating in my glass.   Something with wings.

A bug. 

What little appetite I had was instantly gone.  I had just downed quite a bit of water from that glass and who knows if the bug had been alone in there. 

What was I going to do? 

I asked for a new glass, and drank more water.  I don’t know if that did any good.  If I had swallowed a bug it wasn’t going anywhere for at least an hour or so. 

I suddenly had to use the restroom. 

I had never been to the restroom in this Mexican restaurant before.  It was like a gas station bathroom in a Quentin Tarantino movie.  There was something splattered up the sides of the walls in the only stall that was clean enough to enter, and I wasn’t sure what that something was.  The fact that I couldn’t identify it was more disturbing to me than the fact that it was there.  It looked remotely like a bottle of ink had smashed, splashing dark black ink up the walls.   I was pretty sure this wasn’t something new, or fresh, so I went ahead and pretended it wasn’t there—no small feat, I can assure you. 

I have never used a public restroom that was quite so gross before.  The water in the toilet was so high, I was almost afraid to add to it.  At least it was clear water, but I certainly won’t say it was clean.  I did my thing as quickly as I could, and got out.  But not without washing my hands.  Unfortunately, the water pressure in the sink was so high that when I turned the water on, it sprayed all over the front of me.  I looked sort of like I’d been playing with a hose. 

When I got back to our table, I’m pretty sure my husband was relieved.  I took so long that I think he was afraid I may have fallen in. 

At least it gave us something to talk about. 

It’s funny.  After spending so much time dealing with stress, we had forgotten how to relate to each other as just a couple.  We didn’t talk much, other than to relay our day to each other.  There was far too much tension to relax.  I have great hope that this is just a temporary state of being.  But for tonight, it was alive.  It was like another person in the room.

But in keeping with my positive thinking model, I will say that tomorrow is another day.  Hopefully a day without bugs in my drink, or tension in my family.  It’s a work in progress.  Rome wasn’t built in a day.  Add your cliché here.

Until the next time…I’ll be trying to get to know that “other person in the room.”