My youth was the era of the sitcom. You’d sit down to slices of people’s lives far funnier than your own for only 30 minute bursts at a time. You’d see totally unrealistic situations play out for your own enjoyment and then you got up and walked away giggled a little and moved on with your life. (more…)
Of the thousand things that may seem hard to explain to another person (and parenthood being the role by which you are required to teach, explain, and define another person’s world), I may have just hit upon one of the hardest.
How exactly do you explain to a 4 year old, who has never encountered a bone in his chicken, how you eat a drumstick? I might mention that I seriously doubt that in his 4 years of life he has ever seen meat on a bone. (Am I a bad mommy for that?)
Why did it make more sense for him to hold the fat end and try to eat the skinny end?
What part of “we don’t eat the bone” was so hard to follow?
Why exactly was I trying to explain to my son that we don’t eat chicken bones? I mean we all figured out how to eat a drumstick somehow in our lives right? I don’t recall having to have the “this is how we eat fried chicken” talk.
For what it is worth, drumsticks are “heavy”, require “help” to eat them, and ultimately were consumed when the bright parent (me) stood up and removed the meat from the bone (and a biscuit was promised for his hard work).
Regardless of all of this, I turned my back on the table as I was loading the dishes into the dishwasher long enough for the youngest cat to steal the bone. It was almost as large as the kitten.
…it was a good week. Surely I could detail for you the stories of
But I really learned a lot during my time away from home alone. So, before I return to my normal life of posting, I thought we should review my list of stuff I learned while traveling by myself. (more…)
Updated with the photo link.
Ahem. Just in case you are ever in this position, learn from my experience. When in doubt the man in uniform with a gun will ALWAYS win. It is as universal a truth as bread landing jelly side down and when mama is not happy nobody is happy.
Allow me to explain. After a delightful week of hard, grueling work on the ship scouting and suffering for Sea Socks ‘08, I boarded a bus for Seattle airport. I boarded said bus in Vancouver and had to go a whole 158 miles and across the border. I was ready for a delay at the border, but not what happened.
First, we had the most negative bus driver in the world. He hated Canadians. He hated that he got a ticket the night before. He was not happy. He got on the announcements and said, “crossing the boarder will take between 45 minutes and 4 hours” then he kept on talking. He spun people up around me and I was forced (for my own mental health) to calm people down. we sat in line at the border for something close to 2 hours before talking to anyone. Then it happened.
Customs Guy boards the bus and says. “Ok, everyone will need to get off the bus, but you can leave you bags.”
Bus Driver argues: “But these people just got off a ship and we came directly here.”
CG: I understand, but it is procedure and I will try to make it as a quick as possible.
BD: This isn’t right….we are all Americans {note, this was not true}…
CG: Um, sir. You need to go park over there please.
At this point, the bus driver tells us that this has never happened before.
All of the doors to the bus were popped open. There dogs sniffing. There was a dog who wagged his tail four times or whatever. Next thing I know, we are off the bus with our bags walking through customs.
So, I’m standing there in my line, mentally calculating my total time in Canada since the beginning of the trip (less than 12 hours) Total purchases: One backpack.
A new ticked off customs guy walks up to the older gentleman next to me and asks for his bag. He proceeds to search it. What does he find? Prescription Meds. LEGAL Prescription Meds. Was it completely apparent that the only reason his bag was searched was because there was a greater chance that he had meds in his bag than mine? Oh, you bet.
We get through customs. Then everytime there was any sort of slow down on the road, the driver would get off the highway and drove surface streets. URGH.
My flight was at 3:16pm. We arrived at the airport at 3:10pm. Double URGH.
I planned on flying stand=by on one of the three later flights. The customer service lady told me “Not going to happen, the earliest I can get you out is 7pm tomorrow night.”
Um, yup.
Ok, so I got put up in a hotel for the night and while surfing the web, I found a routing through Portland that got me in 5 hours sooner. I took it. Finally, I got home — but what an experience.
The good news is that I met 8 wonderful women from Mexia, TX and we had a blast together during our side trip.
Oh, did you want to know what I saw on the cruise?
Ahem, Flickr to the rescue.
(Written at the beginning of the journey)
August 12, 2007
Sitting in the airport at the worst hour possible: 4:30am. The problems with this are HUGE. First, the coffee place is NOT open. Oh, there are people there playing with money and turning on the machines, but I am being taunted with the IDEA of coffee and none of the actual caffeine. Next, there is my bag.
You see I carry this lovely laptop in a backpack type bag. I picked it up to throw it on my shoulder as I exited the car this morning to discover one of the cats (and I have a theory) has sprayed it. I have ode to cat pee coming from one of the straps of my bag. And as you guessed it, there is NO bag vendor open at the airport at 4:30am. I briefly wondered if the kind people of the coffee place would let me move said laptop to one of their paperbags — but I fear the level of protection it would provide. At this point, I’m unsure of my course of action. Do I try to clean it, knowing full well there is no way to get the smell of ode to cat pee out of ANYTHING? Or does it get tossed just as soon as I can find a bag vendor with an option? Urgh, and my mind can not process any of this while the lovely Peet’s person is teasing me with counting change at a shocking slowly pace. Does this woman not understand that the Queen without her coffee is like a day without sunshine?
Unrelated to any of the above:
For sale CHEAP, one kitty. Very friendly. Sweet and kind. Unsure which you may receive in the box as it could be a kitten OR an older cat ticked off at me for shoving meds down her throat. I will pack in bubble wrap and ship to the destination of your choice.
Also, unrelated to any of the above:
I’m suddenly seeking opinions for laptop bags. All thoughts welcome. Priorities include: lightweight, protective, easy to carry, fit in overhead OR under seat in front of me; and look as little like a laptop bag as humanly possible. I’m considering roller backpack. Bonus plan would be if it could also hold plane knitting and perhaps might be unattractive to a cat.
Updated to add:
There is a lovely, although slightly stinky ex-laptop bag in the Vancouver airport. I found a bag vendor there and paid probably too much for a CLEAN backpack, but I got the mission accomplished. I swapped out the bags and then had this horrible thought, someone is going to see me leave this OLD bag in the airport and there will be a bomb squad and everything. I thought about telling a security officer what was up — but frankly trying to explain that I brought cat pee over the border freaks me out a bit. So, I opted to shove it in a garbage can and walk away very, very quickly.
This blog entry is costing me per minute. I’d strongly suggest that you read it slowly to get the full effect and most enjoyment out of my pricey post.
First, I’m in Alaska. Folks, I’m closer to the Artic Circle than I am to you — except the reader from Alaska –which, hey, HI!!! I’m also, enjoying the sunniest 80 degree day that Juneau has probably ever seen.
I’ve done things I’ve never done before, including a zip line tour of a rainforrest — one line was 750 feet long and 150 up in the air. I LOVED it. I have seen both black and brown bears, killer whales, AND about 6 humpback whales. The latter of this list, I saw while feeding on herring and they are amazing. I will have photos for you when I’m back — prepare now to be in awe — and I don’t mean my photo skills.
Other things I’ve done that I never thought I would do. Travel alone. Yup, Prince and Duke are not with me — and I miss them HORRIBLY, but I have a feeling the boys have had fun this week too. Sent a bottle of wine to a complete stranger — Yup, well he is a client, and he sent me a bottle first. FWIW, Cakebread Cellars makes an awesome wine. Danced in the disco every single night of the cruise thus far. Yes, I said every single night.
I’ve got so much to tell you about this trip, but I must run away for a little bit. I return to normal life soon.
(and as our captain says with every announcement — Queen, Out. — Well, he says, just “out.” And he’s Greek an perhaps YOUNGER than me.)
Today, my fair reader, is my EIGHTH anniversary. Yep, Prince and I have endured living under the same roof for 8 full years now.
So, I buy him this VERY sweet card. It was cavity inducing.
Then this conversation ensues:
Me: Happy 8th. I’m SO happy that we are past our 7th year.
Him: Why?
Me: 7 was a hard year. It was the closest I’ve ever gotten to feeding you rat poison.
Him: Oh how sweet, you were thinking of poisoning me?
Me: Well, only a little and only for short periods of time. It isn’t like I planned it and purchased rat poison or anything. YET. (I say with that warning face.)
Him: Could you get me a cup of coffee, without the rat poison, please.
In case you were wondering, there is no amount of explaining that you were NOT planning on poisoning your husband — but making a joke.
(And in case anyone was curious, we don’t OWN any rat poison. Nope, none. Yes, I checked.)
…If only I had a whistle in my step… and wasn’t feeling like two of the Dwarves (Sleepy and Grumpy).
I 5 very specific reasons I’m both Grumpy and Sleepy. And what kills me is that I feed them, walk them or clean their litter boxes, and even snuggle with them. You know how they repay my love and affection? By taking over my side of the bed AND demanding I pet them at 2am (seriously, I don’t LOVE any furry animal enough to rub their head at 2am.)
I keep wanting to plan for a nap today, but frankly, I’m so tired, I don’t think I have the energy to nap. I need more coffee for sure. However, I totally have the energy to poke any cat in this house who THINKS about taking a nap today. Seriously, I may just be forced to take them all to the vet for fun. I don’t care how, but there is NO way there will be all day napping for the animals.
You interrupt MY sleep time, then I interrupt yours. That’s fair, right? And highly productive, right?
Since I’m still over the moon about the fort in my son’s room — and really, he’s lucky he’s cute because I’d SO keep it if that wouldn’t nominate me for the “Worst Mommy Ever” Award. For now, he gets to keep his fort, for now.
Anyway, the part of the story you really need to know (more…)
My boy, my FOUR year old boy, went to sleep last night talking about waking up and being FOUR. No, I have no idea why he wanted to be four so badly — other than he’s been looking forward to his birthday since April (not at all like his mother, who never mentions her upcoming birthday randomly and possibly to strangers). However, there is NO way that his dreams of being four included me working since 6:30am and being completely exhausted. (more…)