Join Me in Snarkville

…I want to tell you all about my Christmas.  How perfect it was to have my family there and how special each and every day was.  I wouldn’t even be spinning a tale to tell you that — it was special and magical and nearly perfect in every single way.  However, I’m still totally exhuasted from Christmas.

I spent two weeks with the royal parents and they seriously made me work hard.  In trips past, the Queen Mum and I have had grand plans for things to do on the trip down. (Prince does too, but his plans involve where to eat so he can get foods we can get in Snarkville.)  This trip, on the first night when I was weak with the journey my mother pounced. “You know, we need to plan this better so we actually get the stuff we want to get done — done.” So, we began.

In the course of two little bitty weeks, we accomplished the following:

1. Trip to see Santa.  One photo taken — no fear of the man in red this year.  One type-A family in front of us in line, completely and totally made fun of.  (On a sad note, the family had an 18 month old girl who plopped herself down in the fake snow.  Her helicopter mommy and inattentive dad, never saw the perfect photo that made, while obsessing over if all the kids were smiling on Santa’s knee.)

2. Unpacked/handwashed/sorted/repacked some 1 billion dishpacks of stuff.  This one will never sound like the amount of work it was (sadly there are only 3 people who saw how much work this was — so sympathy for the sore muscles and whining was low), but we sorted through a metric ton of stuff.  My grandmother was our family historian and sorting through the final boxes (which were not small and did take us a solid three days to do) was like walking through memory lane beginning with my great-great-great grandmother and a few many times great aunts.  We dug, divided and then proceeded to handwash so much of it.  In addition to this, I washed, dried and ironed more Irish linen than I’ve ever seen outside of the Irish import store I worked in during high school.

3. I spent 4 hours getting my hair corrected.  You see, not long ago, in a fit of frugality, I bought hair color on sale.  Um, it was not the color I thought it should have been.  So, I went to see the guy who has done my hair since I was 15 and got him to fix it.  Just a note, things you never want to hear in a salon, “Perhaps you might not want to look right now.”  There was a period of time my hair was literally pumpkin orange.  It is better now.

4. Finished decorating the Christmas tree.  Since we didn’t put one up this year (travel and all), the Queen Mum saved a few ornaments for us to hang.  We did this and then packed away boxes so that the house transformed from just a house into “Christmas House.”  Duke took to calling one room “The Christmas Room” and we will see if that sticks the next time we go when the tree isn’t up in the room.

5. Completed Christmas crafts with Duke.  These included two placemats, one ornament, and lots of drawing and playing with clay.

6. Baked goods.  When I arrived, I annouced that there was a horrible lack of baked goods in the house, something that must be corrected NOW.  In the time I was there, we made and ate: 2 batches of cookies; one red velvet cake; one rum cake; cheesecake (well, it was store bought — but we ate it) and one pumpkin cake.  This doesn’t begin to cover the additional cookies that were brought in.  I will note that neither the Queen Mum nor I ate all of this alone — we had help.

7. Moved furniture and made beds.  In the course of my two weeks, four additional adults arrived.  We did more laundry, dishes, and random stuff than I can possibly explain.  I spoke to the Queen Mum the other day and she reports that her washer is on strike and the dishwasher is considering joining a union.

8. Went to the park, meet up with a high school friend, and rode bikes/scooters.  We worked on teaching Duke to ride his bike without training wheels — but I have to say he was awesome with the scooter.

9. Ate amazing food.  My dad outdid himself this year.  Not only did we have three full days of Christmas, including a Boxing Day affair — the food was over the top.  (And I made Yorkshire puddings.)

I’m sure there was a ton more — but for the life of me I can not type anymore.  Seriously, I’m exhausted just remembering all we did.

So, I shall end with the story, I’ve wanted to tell you all along. My parents had a small get together on Christmas night.  We had my whole family who were staying at the house and another couple.  When the other couple arrived, Duke looked up and declared, “You can’t stay over, we have no beds for you.”  That was true, we were officially out of beds — the good news was they lived around the corner.

A belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Ok, I promise to be done with this soon — but the more I think about Hobbes, the more I remember random things about this cat — funny things I think I might need to share:

1. Hobbes fell into the toliet in my first apartment twice.  Yup, he’d be running full tilt to hop up on the counter to chat with me while brushing my teeth and he’d use the toliet as a stepping stone — only to find out too late that the lid was up.  This led to one of the two cardinal rules in my house — “The toliet seat lid must be down if you aren’t using it.”
2. As a kitten, Hobbes liked the smell of beer.  I’m not sure if this is bad for a cat or not, but his love for the smell of beer led to the other cardinal rule in my home, “Never leave a beverage unattended.”  (He wasn’t always sure you didn’t have a beer until his face was in your water glass.)
3. He loved to drink the water from under my Christmas tree — when I still had a living tree.
4. His absolute favorite thing was stinky morning breath.  He would love to shove in my mouth when I’d yarn first thing in the morning.  You think morning breath is bad?  Try having a cat nose in your mouth.
5. Prince honestly believed he was afraid of heights.  In his later years he wouldn’t climb like he used to.  Prince met him when he was 3 — and he was already sporting a 16 pound frame.  But as a kitten he’d hang out on top of the fridge.
6. Hobbes loved the idea going outside, but had no idea what he ought to do when out there.  He escaped a few times over the years and never made it further than the steps outside the door.
7. When we got the dog, Hobbes was so offended that he slept on my head for a year.  I’m not kidding on my head.
8. As a kitten, he was an awesome alarm clock.  He used to burrow under my pillow when the alarm went off and push until I was somewhat upright.
9. He hated to ride in the car and was known to meow the WHOLE time the car was moving.
10. He loved vanilla ice cream.
11. He also loved freeze dried shrimp.  He loved these so much that if the package wasn’t locked away, the package would be ingested by a tabby.
12. About 6 years ago he lost a canine tooth (the big hanging down tooth), this meant his upper lip didn’t always cover his lower canine tooth — a look we took to calling “Evil Hobbes”  He also had a scar in his lip from biting his own lip.
13. My parents first introduction to Hobbes was during his early bout with fleas — not only did they think I was nuts for having a cat (expense when I had no pennies) I had a cat with fleas.  It was too much.
14. However, dealing with those fleas, I came to love advantage and borax (dust on carpet and it makes fleas explode — vacuum at will).

All in all he was a very good cat and friend.  But I’ve gone nearly 24 hours without crying — so alas, the sun will still rise.  And I’m counting my extra pennies from one less mouth to feed expensive food and one less butt pooping in the litter box.

Prince had the lovely job of trying to explain what happened to Duke.  I came home and was greeted by Duke at the top of the stairs screaming that he had to give me a hug.  It was sweet and I was getting choked up again.

Duke: Mama, Hobbes died.

Me: Yes, honey, he was old and it was his time.

Duke: Healy is still ok.

Me: Yes, buddy, the other animals are ok.

Duke: Healy doesn’t need to see the vet.

Alrighty then, we have our priorities.  Since this exchange I’ve been told that Healy doesn’t like the vet.

So, I’m ready for day two of 2009.  I’ve slept for nearly 12 hours, which makes me very happy — though going to bed at 7pm (I’m not kidding) was a lot weird.

Please forgive the extended absence, but things beyond my control have kept me away and then I got out of the habit.  So, I could bring you laughs a minute or I could tell you exactly what is going on in my brain.

The past 24 hours I’ve been smacked in the middle of my forehead with the concept of a blessing.  Oh sure, I could talk for hours about how I have a loving husband, an amazing child, my health, and many other trite things.  However, I’m thinking more in terms of when you think everything is off the rails and then (often on the other side of it) you realize that it was truly a good thing.

Yesterday, I spent the night without my luggage in Atlanta.  Why?  Because we spent 45 minutes waiting for a gate, only to have the gate changed to the furtherest gate from where we needed to be in ATLANTA.  We ran.  We missed the flight.  However, since it was the airline’s fault, we got meals AND an all expense paid trip to the local hotel.  Whoa, control the excitement.  (I ought to say that I didn’t sleep much last night and I may be a bit giddy.) I called my parents to tell them what was up and casually mentioned, “You know, this could be a good thing.  We won’t be on the road at midnight on New Year’s Eve.”  And I think I was right.  We had no delays, no gate issues and our bags appeared when we did.  Though the trip lasted 24 straight hours, I think it all worked out for the best.

Now for the bitter sweet one.  This morning we had five animals, 4 cats and a dog.  Yes, I fully accept we are insane.  The eldest of the animals is *MY* cat.  We got a call while we were gone that he wasn’t doing well.  I have known for some time that he was declining and the time was coming.  I never expected that I’d come home from my trip and need to take him to the vet.  Tonight, we have four animals — a nearly respectable 3 cats and a dog. Read the rest of this entry »

(For reasons I can not explain, I found a TON of posts in my draft file and not published.  I’m trying to go on and get them up — since sadly, some people call when I don’t post for a month —oppps.

I have been traveling in the ‘friendly’ skies for years.  I think my first commercial flights began when I was REALLY little, since I don’t remember them and by the time I remember flying as a child, I was an old hat and flying alone to visit my grandparents.  In all those years, I’ve not seen my flight details changed until this past year.  In the past year the airlines have taken to this idea that it is totally ok to change all sorts of flights (and often).  When I booked this most recent trip, I made sure that I had at least an hour layover in Houston in BOTH directions.  However, the airline decided to move the last flight UP and decrease my layover from an hour to a mere 35 minutes.  Have you seen the Houston airport?  It is large and confusing and REALLY big.

So, we planned.  We prepped Duke that one of us would carry his backpack and the other would carry him. (He was not pleased with this plan.) We planned our food by packing leftovers from our early Thanksgiving meal.  We were as ready as we could be.  And yet we worried.

Then we boarded flight one.  It literally pushed back from the gate 10 minutes early.  Ten full minutes early the doors were closed.  Now, I read the fine print, most airlines close boarding 10 minutes before the plane departs, which means that this plane was not letting on new passengers 20 minutes before the posted departure time.  Um…WHAT?

Next our pilot refused to obey any of the speed limits up in the skies.  We touched down in Houston nearly 30 minutes before we were scheduled to.  Prince and I take a deep breath, but then we worried that the next flight would be on this odd leave 10 minutes early plan.

So, we rushed across the entire length of Texas (or just the airport, who could tell the difference).  We got to the gate a full hour before the next plane was to leave.  URGH.

But we are home now, so I can begin to plan my Thanksgiving meal plus the meals of December.

On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, we remember.

In the UK, they wear poppies to remember.  And today, in the UK, 1 million poppies were dropped over the decks of the QE2.

Remember a vet today — remember a ship — just remember.

I’ve been a wee bit quiet on the education front of my wee off-spring.  Oh sure, Duke is surely being educated, but I’ve been quiet because I really have a fear of the competition.  Frankly, I don’t want to hear that your wee one was conjugating Latin verbs at 3.  While that might be fine for you, I don’t care and I refuse to feel that I’m in a battle of who’s the better mommy.

Then there was tonight.  I decided last night to sit down and make a real effort to read a non-picture book for bedtime.  I decided to read A Bear Called Paddington.  Prince and I purchased this book for Duke in London years ago.  I’m pretty sure we got it when we were there and I was pregnant with him, but it could have been the time the three of us were in London the first time.  I have never read this book to Duke*.

So, last night I curled up on his bed and endured the complaints about the lack of photos and we began to read.  Now, I’ve noticed lately that Duke’s comprehension of the stories is getting really strong (he had a real physical reaction to the Giving Tree — sadness–and I nearly cried myself watching him empathized with a tree) and he was paying attention**.  A page in his “reading finger” came out and pointed to the words as I read them.  Slowly, I would pause on words I was pretty sure he’d know.  The first one was “Brown” (and in Mr. & Mrs. Brown), then came another and another.  Sight words mostly, but seriously many more words than I thought he knew.

As we read that first chapter, he would read a few words here and there.  At the end of the chapter (and trust me those chapters are LONG if you are reading them with a reading finger and one word at a time), I hugged him and told him what a good job reading he is doing.  And I promptly didn’t think about it again, until Chapter 2.

Tonight, he declared that he could read some of the words.  He would follow along closely with the book and if I read a word he knew, he’d make me back up so he could read it.  I have a mental tally of the words I’m not allowed to read — much like I used to have a mental tally of the words he could say, until the number got too great for me to count.  He sounded out a few words he wasn’t clear on, but he wasn’t guessing.  He knows the words.

I have goose bumps because I know he is peeking in the lock of a whole new world.  I can see how excited he is that he can read and wants to do it himself.  He is didn’t want to stop though he was so tired he would lay down between his words (even if they were next to each other).  I so remember when he began to speak and the three words he knew turned into sentences and suddenly he didn’t stop talking.  We have stood on the edge of this leap for a long time and finally, I’m watching the words come together.

*This is important because Duke has an amazing memory.  He can hear a book once and just know the words.  It will appear he is reading it, but sadly, it is all memory with the pictures as a reminder.  I know this is why he has picked up so many sight words so fast.

** The moment I knew he was into the book was when Paddington laments that his name is too hard to say in English.  Duke’s great response was “bummer.”

I so rarely look at my stats.  I try to ignore that I really have stats, because I write for me and when I have some thing to say.  But today, I was looking up something and I noticed that there are some people (who frankly, scare me a little) who find me in all sorts of ways.  I thought I’d answer some of their questions so they can move along quickly.

“I wish I could see my grandmother again”

Well, me too.  I know I will see my grandmothers again, but it will be awhile.  However, since I have a 5 year old — I’m pretty sure I’m not your grandmother.

“how I figure out my birthday in months”

First, try asking your mom what month you were born in.  Oh, were you asking how to do the math to figure out how many months you have been alive.  That’s easy.  Figure out the number of years you’ve been alive.  Multiply that number by 12 and add the number of months since you last birthday.  You might want to take your shoes off.

“mohair grandmother”

You have a grandmother made of mohair?  How sad for you.  I find mohair grandmothers are ichy and rather fuzzy.  Don’t get a mohair grandmother wet — she’ll smell like wet goat.

“november 10 is my birthday and nothing going on help”

I need to remind you that you make your own fun.  If you want to do something fun for your birthday, then, um, DO IT.  You bring your own party with you where ever you go.  I try to do this and find I’m never far from the fun.

“feeling weird on rollercoaster”

This is normal and way we go on rollarcoasters.  Enjoy the feeling and try to avoid throwing up on the guy next to you — it might not be appreciated.

“hello this is the kermit the frog sound”

Really?  I didn’t hear it.  Can you try again?

“grass growing between slate kill”

Oh, Yoda, it was nice of you to visit Snarkville.  My chemical of choice is Round-up, but some people seem to think that it isn’t good for you. I think your might want to consider the time honored tradition of weeding.  I think it very Jedi to weed.  The force be with you.

“how to gag without making a sound”

ICK. Why?  Wait, I do not want to know.

Pardon me, I need to retch a little now.

Ok, I want to wax poetic all about how you have to vote because it is the foundation of our nation and all that greatness.  But the reality (and we are nothing if not about reality here in Snarkville) is that failure to vote means you don’t get a right to complain.  Even if you vote for the guy who wins.

You see, I know the lines are insane and this ought to be a holiday for everyone in order to stand in line and be heard.  But I firmly believe that if you complain about government, taxes, health care, Wall Street, war, etc, the first question you should be asked is “Did you vote?” and if you can say yes I did, then you shall be allowed to continue.  If you say no (without the follow-up of “I can’t vote because I’m not a citizen, felon, or under 18.”) you should be forced to sit through a high school civics class until you understand that the right to vote is important, worthy of wars we have fought, and gives you the almighty right to complain.

I don’t love the candidate I voted for.  I don’t think he is the best man for the job.  But I have the right to complain about him or the other guy — because I cast my vote.  I think that’s more important than complaining about standing in line.

But I already have a complaint.  I vote absentee, since I don’t live in the state I’m registered (yes, it is ok/legal/whatever).  So, my vote was cast two weeks ago.  So, today, when everyone else will sport these cool “I Voted” stickers (that I see as translating to “I have the right to complain for the next 4 years” stickers.) I don’t have one.  I will go to the grocery store and the employees (who voted) will look down at me and tsk (I hear it — I know they do it) because appartently I’ve given up my right to complain.

I want to scream that I voted; I’m done; I’m in the club.  I hoped that with the number of early voting places might end my suffering.  But alas, in the state of Snarkville, it appears they gave even their absentee ballot people the sticker (as seen by a guy on the news this morning).  Take that Swing State where I really vote — get it together and put a dang sticker in the mail with the instructions to DRAW a LINE in three languages!!

Not that I’m bitter — I just hate the pity looks from the grocery store people.

Prince has this delightful expression for those in this world who do things that would get normal people killed and yet somehow those people still survive.  He will say, “they are too stupid to live.”  And yet they do, so I’m not sure if his expression still applies, but let’s not dig too deep — I’ve only had one cup of coffee.

But in light of this expression, I thought I would share a few examples of how truly bright we are and why there are days it is a wonder that we remember to breathe, eat or otherwise walk upright.

1. On Halloween night, I took Duke to Trick or Treat in another neighborhood with a good friend and her daughter.  While I was gone, Prince held down the fort here in Frankhouse and since there was a serious derth of kids begging candy, he loaded the dishwasher.  Now, what he didn’t know was that we were down to the dregs of the detergent and I’d put the box on the counter to remind me to pick up more on Saturday’s run to Costco.  Upon discovering no detergent and knowing that he faced a sinkfull of dishes, he did was anyone channeling Lucy Ricardo would — oh, yes, he put “a little” dishwashing liquid in the dishwasher.  I came home to a kitchen floor covered about 3″ deep in soap suds.  The Queen Mum’s reaction?  “Well, that’s one way to clean the floor.”
2. We took a cranky, post-Halloween excited (though he was not hopped up on candy) to Costco on the first truly rainy weekend day in months.  We did this right after lunch and during a time that he really probably needed quiet time or perhaps a nap.  We not only dragged him around the store; refused to look at (read: buy) any of the toys; and made laps trying to find a few things.
3. I decided that we had enjoyed enough chicken and needed some beef in our life.  Thus I embarked on making a few beef items — let’s call this a mini-cooking session.  I chose FOUR meals (I might mention that the day I spent 7 hours in the kitchen making more chicken than I thought possible, I made 5 meals) of beef.  I went with things I was pretty sure we’d eat and enjoy.  I tallied the ingredients, bought some at Costco, and delayed going to the grocery until Sunday — at which time I broke the cardinal rule of shopping and cooking on the same day.  But that was ok, I was just making a few dishes.  I can truly announce that I have my first failure.  I tried to make shredded beef tacos, but the way they wanted me to make the beef (basically boiling/steaming in water forever) produced a tough lump of ick.  It is now in the garbage as I plan on just browning some ground beef and moving on.  However, unlike my first day of complete plans, this one was less well thought out.  Oh, I made all the meals and stored them properly, but I wasn’t on top of cleaning as I went like before (yielding us two sinks full of dishes and one more load in the dishwasher before I’m back to normal.  But that isn’t the best part.  I’m still trying to sort out the best way to store the food in the freezer.  The Queen Mum mentioned an article she read about pour food into ziploc bags that are inside a cereal box to make bricks instead of the blobs you get when you just put unfrozen ziploc bags in the freezer.  I tried this.  Warning: Do not even bother to try this yourself.  The cereal box is NOT strong enough to hold a box like shape against the weight of your food.  You WILL spill as you pour making the box WET and thus making it not slide off the ziploc bag.  And you will really odd looks from your family as you pour soup into a box for Cheerios.  (I’m thinking mailing boxes might work better, but I need two gallon bags to try that out.
4. Do not attempt to cut your child’s hair at bedtime on Sunday night.  Even though you’ve talked about doing it all weekend long and it REALLY needed to be done — just don’t.  Step away from the clippers.  I hope Duke likes his new buzz cut.

Finally, in case you were wondering, Duke had Halloween homework this weekend that required he sort and classify all of his candy.  This is a great idea IN THEORY.  However, in reality this is the WORST plan ever.  First, this means that he has played with the candy all weekend long and that’s just annoying.  Where normally I’d let him have a few pieces and then we’d move on by throwing out much of it or feeding it to Prince, Duke now knows everything he has and how much.  URGH.  We finally let him have some last night when the project was done.  I have never been more tempted to send a note into school saying that we don’t celebrate candy and would kindly like no more project to involve the fondling of sugar products EVER.