Kitties!

My mother is finally a grandmother. Nope, wasn't me. Or my brother. It was the most recent addition to the family - Goldy.

Sometime in January, Lady (our German Shepherd) was outside with Dad. She found something of intense interest under a tree in the front yard, and whined and carried on 'till Dad came over to see what she'd found. She had discovered a tiny gold kitten, shivering and half starved in the snow. Dad brought it in the house and Mom took over as medic, with Lady in attendance.

It didn't take very long for the kitten to recover, and become the typical manic ball of ever-moving fluff that kittens tend to be. It also didn't take very long for our long-suffering dog to heartily regret rescuing that animal. The kitten, now christened Goldy, considered Lady to be her mom, her nurse and her favorite jungle gym, all rolled into one. If she wasn't on the dog, she was stalking her. Lady was supremely good-natured about the whole thing, right up until Goldy decided that she should be eating from Lady's plate. Fortunately, the kitten was bright enough to realize that Lady's warning snarls were serious.

The vet wouldn't fix the kitten until she was six months old. My mother, in spite of the mean dogs and the proximity of the road, wasn't willing to keep the kitten indoors.

The end result: yesterday my mom left a message on my machine - Goldy was having her kittens in the middle of the living room floor. There are six of them, although one is a runt and may not make it. Three are gold, one is black and white and two are calicos.

Mom's keeping one, my brother will be taking one, I may take one and the vet has agreed to post pictures of the remaining kittens in her office. I have told Mom that I'll take one, conditionally. I'm not at all sure how my Sophia will react to a fuzzy little interloper, so Mom needs to have a buy-back clause.

But in the meantime, feel for my poor puppy. She thought she had it rough with one kitten in the house. Now, she essentially has to deal with seven of them.

Ode to an Edit...

So it occurs to me, as I look over the list of my posts, that I have a lot of them to finish...

Many, many lines of green look back at me.

"Edit me! Post me! Finish me!" they cry.

It's becoming quite a clamor.

They're stacking ever higher.

Will I ever end another post again?

Oh me, oh my!

Call it done, good enough.

Why is it so hard to stop?

Say it's good enough and move on to the next?

Never again, I fear, will I see "blog published successfully."

Is there a secret? Is it a trick?

To close, to finish and then move along - this is my goal, you see.

Shouldn't be hard, people do it every day.

Why must I edit? Who will see?

Must stop now and call it done.

Complete. Finished.

No really, this time I mean it.

Adventures in Surgery

Wow. My face hurts. Okay, not all of it - just the left side. And I'm not too swollen, although my jaw is turning a lovely yellowish black and it looks for all the world like I've been punched.

Last Thursday, I went under the knife (or pliers or whatever) to have my wisdom teeth removed. They came in late last spring - I was competing with my friends' kids for teething rings. At first, I tried to go to a surgeon recommended by my dentist at home but the timing just wouldn't work out. And I have to confess that I've been stalling. I've never gone under anesthetic before and it wasn't an experience I was looking forward to, not by any means.

But, I could feel them pushing and crowding for room, and I am not willing to go through another eight years of orthodontical hell to straighten out my teeth. Not again. Nope, nope, nope. Maybe not all orthodontists are sadists, but you couldn't prove it by me.

The surgeon was recommended by a friend, whose two teenagers had their wisdom teeth taken out within a few months of each other (and me, as it turned out). There was quite a wait for the first appointment - three months or so. Once I got in there though, it was all systems full go - it was less than a month before the teeth were coming out. It would have been a week or two, but I wanted a Thursday appointment as opposed to a Monday appointment. No sense in missing an entire week of work.

When your wisdom teeth come in, there are two possible problems. On the top, the tooth can grow into your sinus cavity. This happened to my brother. At the time, I found it hilarious - he couldn't get any suction to smoke. On the bottom, the tooth can grow very near or into a major nerve - leading to complications ranging from permanent numbness to partial paralysis of your face. Just my luck, on my right side, I have both. Yay for me. Fortunately, I guess, only the ones on the left have actually broken through, so the doctor made the decision to leave the ones on the right alone and just hope they don't come in. He did leave me with the cheery news that should they come in, and need removed, nothing I'm going through this time will compare to the agony of next time. Lovely. Thank you.

My mom flew in for my surgery (and that'll merit a post on its own - she's never flown commercially before) and first thing Thursday morning, we were in the doctor's office.

Wow, they've got GOOD drugs. He sprayed this freezey stuff on my arm and I never felt the needle for the IV. I watched the liquid come through the tube and the next thing I knew, it was two hours later and my mouth was full of gauze. I remember getting into my Jeep, 'cause I had to get in on the wrong side (my jeep = I drive, except this day). Then we flash to walking up the drive to my apartment. One of my neighbors was out on her balcony and I attempting, through the gauze, to introduce my mother. Then we flash to Mom waking me up to hand over the prescription meds that she had run out and filled. Then a couple hours later, I realized that the walls and ceiling were pulsing. Note to self - we don't like the prescription pain medication. Next stop - about 12 hours later, when I finally wake up and determine that yes, the ceiling is still pulsing. Walking across the floor was like being on a small boat, in the ocean, during a hurricane. Ugh.

Friday, once I was up and moving - around 3:00 pm or so - I felt fine. Mom and I actually went walking around the town, ate out (carefully, with squishy food, on my part), and rented movies. By the time we were walking home, though, my face hurt. I spent most of the first movie peering past the ice pack.

Saturday, Mom's plane left early so I dropped her off at the airport, came back and went back to bed. Sunday, I did laundry and slept some more. Of course, I must confess that this is pretty typical for me. I (along with the rest of my family) prefer to be nocturnal. This doesn't really agree with my company's take on things, so I tend to spend weekends catching up on the sleep I missed during the week.

So, all things considered, it went quite well. Mom and I actually got along in a small space for several days. I don't really hurt, and my face isn't too puffy, and hopefully the other side won't ever bother coming in. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, anyway.

It's Spring!

Yay! My favorite time of the year is finally here! I knew it was close a few weeks ago, when the robins arrived. I suspected it was creeping closer when the temperature hit 60 F. Now, it's here, it's here!

The spring flowers are blooming, the trees are budding, the frogs are singing, and the geese are pairing off.

And, even better, my daffodils are alive and sprouting. Our house has always had this particular type of daffodil, that I've never seen anywhere else. It has a double flower - almost looking like a small yellow peony, and is very fragrant. It's also very hardy. When I was a child, Mom thinned them out and ended up with a couple of buckets of bulbs. What she couldn't pawn off on the neighbors was finally tossed into the weeds - a couple of acres of scrub that we just left growing wild. The next spring, and to this day, that area is a blanket of yellow in the spring where the bulbs evaded the bunnies and planted themselves.

These particular blooms always signal spring to me. I can't imagine the season without them. Last year, I asked Mom for some to plant here, in my wee bit of dirt. I picked the bag of bulbs up from her at Labor Day, when she told me that she figured that she wouldn't be able to find them in the fall, so she plucked them out of the ground in the spring, right before their foliage died back. I took them back to Chicago with me, and they sat in that bag for another couple of months before I went outside and buried them in my clay. (One day, I'll get around to amending my 'soil' - poor little plantlets.) I also shared some of them with my gardening friend.

Generally speaking, these bulbs are quite early to break the ground and I've been outside looking for any sign of them for nearly two months now - to no avail. The crocus sprouted, and bloomed. Other people's daffodils sprouted, and bloomed. The tulips and the hyacinth have come up... but not my daffodils. I feared the worst - that being yanked out of the ground in the spring and banished to a paper bag for nearly five months was more than they could stand.

Then I went outside on a blustery day to start clearing the winter junk from my bit of ground and - low and behold - my daffodils had sprouted. When I went home for my birthday, they were barely two inches high - while Mom's are in full glorious bloom. I was so relieved to see them that I didn't even care (or so I told myself) if they didn't bloom this year. When I got back into town, however, the blessed little plants had buds! Every single one of them! Yay! Spring has arrived! And I love every petal of it!

George!

Last weekend, I was parked on my quasi-couch with the cat in my lap when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. When I glanced over, I spotted a house spider zooming across the floor - a sizeable one. Legs included, he was probably two inches across. It was almost under the couch when I realized that one of its little legs was crooked - it was George! And George has grown significantly.

I'm not sure when our adventures with George actually started, since I have always had a catch and release spider policy. Maybe I've only ever had one spider and he keeps coming back? In the summer, I shoo them outside, and in the winter I release them in the water heater room in my apartment building. (I've mentioned how much my neighbors love me, right?)

At any rate, late last summer, I noticed a spider behaving quite strangely. The cat was sprawled across the floor with her fuzzy little feet sticking up in the air, and this little spider was running up to within an inch of her and then doing this weird little bowing thing and then running away again.

This happened several times, with the cat remaining completely oblivious. (I have a PERFECT Garfield cartoon, if I can only remember to bring it in and scan it.) The cat looked over at me when I started laughing, and noticed the spider. That woke her up. She rolled over and kinda batted at the spider, which darted backwards out of reach and then immediately forward again. This continued for a while until finally Sophia rolled onto her feet and started following the spider. She wasn't really chasing it, per say, she just put her nose very close to it and followed it along the floor. This is not normal behavior for my cat, who usually considers spiders to be crunchy kitty yum-yums.

As I watched, fascinated, the spider scurried under a bookshelf. The cat stayed right there where the spider had disappeared, while the spider snuck out another side, circled around, and started that bowing thing behind her. Finally Sophia noticed and she whacked him - which is how his leg got all crooked to begin with. At that point, I intervened, scooped up George and dumped him outside.

A couple of weeks later, he was back challenging the cat. She's never whacked him again - she just follows him around. It's the weirdest damn thing.

I hadn't seen George in several weeks and I wondered what happened to him. What is the lifespan of a common house spider, anyway? I hope that somewhere in his little spider brain he realizes that not everyone is as open-minded about spider visitors as I am. I'd hate to think of George scurrying up to a neighbor, bowing away, and getting squashed like... well, like a bug.

But for right now, I know where he is. He's under my couch, waiting to take on my cat.

Wicked

I just went to the Ford Center in downtown Chicago to see 'Wicked.' It was wonderful! The play is based on the book by Gregory Maguire called 'Wicked.' As the ads say, a lot happened in Oz before Dorothy dropped in, and this is the life and times of the Wicked Witch of the West. You'll never look at the movie the same way again.

But the play was fabulous!! A coworker bought tickets months ago and then couldn't go, so a friend and I bought them from him. The seats were great - front and center. I was fascinated by the set - it was really cool!

It was a clever play, very well done, and I definitely recommend that you go see it if possible. One word of caution - if you see it in Chicago, don't sit under the balcony as your view of the really cool dragon at the top of the set is cut off.

Here's a neat link with pictures and such for more information. (It's also where I stole the graphic above from.)

My Family... The Fahcowee Tribe

One of my dad's favorite stories is about the time that he and his best friend (Chuck) were eating in a diner somewhere. The waitress was wearing roughly her weight in silver and turquoise jewelry, and when Chuck commented on it, she made herself comfy and proceeded to spend the next 20 minutes or so of their lunch break regaling them with her entire Native American family history.

So Chuck told her that he, too, was part Indian. She got even more enthused and demanded to know specifics of what tribe, where, etc. Chuck told her that he was a member of the Fahcowee Tribe. At this, she looked puzzled and said that she'd never heard of them.

Chuck kicked back in his chair and proceeded to spin quite the yarn around the lineage, culture and traditions of his tribe. Finally, she asked if he knew how they had gotten their name. His answer was that his tribe was woefully lacking in any sense of direction, and that every now and then, they'd send a scout up a tree to look around and try to figure out where they were. As the scout was looking around, he would chant 'where the fuck are we?' and eventually, this chant was shortened to form the name 'Fahcowee.' This tale ends with the waitress belting Chuck hard enough to flip him and the chair backwards, and Dad and Chuck having to find another restaurant for lunch, but it leads in to my adventure last night. Sorta.

I cross-stitch, and I'm currently taking a class (My Stitching Treasures by Jeanette Douglas) at a wonderful little shop - that is unfortunately located a bit over an hour from my work. The class started last night at 6:30. We had to complete the border around all the boxes as homework prior to the first class. Since I procrastinated until the last minute, as usual, I had planned on spending the whole weekend doing it. Then a friend showed up unexpectedly to visit, and I ended up finishing the last box at about 4:45 am on Monday morning. I fell into bed for a couple of hours and then I was up and on the way to work.

So I wasn't exactly firing on all eight cylinders by the time I left work to head to the class. But the traffic light gods were smiling down on me and I went soaring right along - until a major intersection, where the light was down. Gah! You don't realize how much traffic lights help the flow of traffic until one dies and that intersection becomes a very backed up four way stop. Finally got through that, turned onto another road, that leads through a dinky little town and got jammed up again. I sat for 45 minutes, and the only time we moved at all was when someone snapped and turned around. The problem was that I don't know the area well enough to have any idea where to go.

After enough time had passed, however, I no longer cared. Screw it! I'll make my own road! I thought I could just block it and get away from the worst of it. Then I picked up a duckling, which always makes me feel guilty. [A duckling, in my world, is one of those people that decide that you must know where you're going, so they'll follow you as you attempt to make your own detour.] My poor little duckling is probably still wandering around out there somewhere. I tried to be logical about the whole thing, but the very curvy roads thwarted me. I got so lost! It was dark, and I had NO idea where I was and then the deer started jumping at my jeep... Oh, it was awful.

I spent significant portions of my life wandering around in an automobile with no real idea where I am. It's actually one of my favorite activities. But I don't like it when I'm already late to someplace that I'm supposed to be. And I really don't like it when I'm also cold, hungry and exhausted. I've never been so glad to see a speed trap! But, by the time I found a place to turn around (losing the duckling in the process), the cop had moved on. *sigh* So I continued on my way, and by this point, my sense of direction had abandoned me completely. Finally, I wandered into a small town, complete with - Oh happy day! - an open gas station.

I went into the station, and in a desperate rush babbled something frantic about how glad I was to find the station, and could you please help me find the city I'm supposed to be in, please, please, please?!? The attendant's response? "Hello. Today is Monday!" delivered with a big smile. When I blinked at him and tried again, it became obvious that he didn't speak enough English to help me. He was friendly though.

I gave up on him and moved on to the next gas station. The man working at that one told me that I couldn't get there from here. Crap. But, he called his cousin in the next town, who did know how to find the town I was headed for and then he gave me directions to that gas station. Once I arrived at the third station, the nice man there had already consulted maps and such and had directions written down and waiting for me.

Once I arrived in the right town, I figured out how to get to the store and I was there - and only an hour and a half late. I was so stressed and freaked out that the remaining hour is kind of a blur, and I was very glad to get home that night.

Before next week's class, I will have figured out an alternate path that will let me avoid that little armpit of a town. *grumble* As a special bonus, maybe I'll manage to get my homework for next week done before the night before. Okay, probably not.

Alone Again

You know that let-down feeling you get after you return from a too-short vacation? That I-prepared-like-a-crazy-person-and-this-was-it feeling where you're looking around wondering what the hell just happened? Well, that was my feeling yesterday.

For the last 2 weeks, I've been frantically cleaning in order to be sort of ready for my brother's visit last weekend. Most of my activity has been centered around the spare room, since that is also the guest room and I had it so stuffed with stuff that the door would only open partway. But the rest of the house merited attention as well. I unburied my kitchen counters, cleaned the bathrooms, swept the walls, scared all the spiders into inconspicuous corners and tried to convince the cat to not shed for a couple of days.

Friday I left work early to get home and do a final check of the homestead. At 6, I headed to the neighborhood Irish pub to meet friends from work. Scott finally managed to thread his way through Chicago traffic and arrived around 7. We stayed out late, staggered home and fell into bed late Friday.

Saturday, we didn't really show significant signs of life until well after noon. Then we foraged for food, and spent the rest of the day watching movies. We went to the theatre for The Libertine. We tried to rent The Ice Harvest at the not-so-friendly blue and yellow video store and they only had one copy, which was out! WTF?!? They have an entire wall of some movie I've never heard of (Into the Blue, Out of the Blue - something like that) and only one copy of the movie I want. Figures. So we went to a different one. That store had three copies, all checked out. At least the guy there was kind enough to call several other stores and try to find it. So we ended up renting The Man with Samuel L. Jackson and Eugene Levy. And after we finished that, I had a copy of Madagascar that a friend let me borrow. Then off to sleep.

Sunday, my plan was to go to the open house of the hideous mcmansion they planted on the former site of a beautiful garden. It's been on the market since before it was built. Maybe something about being able to hand your neighbor a cup of sugar through your nearly adjoining kitchen windows is a turn-off to the $1 million+ house buyer crowd? At any rate, by the time we got back from lunch, the open house was over and it was time for him to head back toward home. *sob*

Then I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the apartment, amazed at how empty it seemed. *sniffle*

The Significance of Stones

Years and years ago, at my grandmother's grave, my aunt and her husband put three oval river rocks, each the size of a small fist, on her marker stone. My uncle told me then that it was a Jewish custom, to let the dead know that you think of them. The third rock was for one of my other uncles, who lived far away and couldn't be there that day. It struck me then as being quite profound - one little rock holds love and loss and memories and grief. To look at that little row, you'd probably not realize how much it meant.

Through the years, I've spent a fair bit of time there. It's a beautiful spot - wooded and quiet, with carefully tended flowers. I've whiled away many summer afternoons, spending time with Grams and a good book. Now, more than fifteen years later, a single small rock remains on her stone to let her know that someone's thinking of her. I wonder where the other two have gone. Maybe a bored child, not really clear on the significance of where he or she was, wandered by and spotted the little row. Those rocks were the perfect size to pick up and play with, rolling them around in your hand, and slipping them into a pocket. I know, I've done it too.

I'll almost certainly never know where Grams' rocks went, but the idea sprouted in me then and flourishes to this day. Scattered throughout my little home, and stored in boxes in my parents' garage, I have quite the collection of stones, rocks, shells, etc - little bits of nature that I brought back to remember where I've been.

Anyone else would look at them and see just a bowl of rocks but to me, they are so much more. The small pinkish one is my last walk on a California beach with my now-ex boyfriend - the one that I thought might be the one. The perfectly flat brown one is from the lake where we vacationed every summer of my childhood. The little bit of gravel with the perfect tiny shell is from a walk with my best friend, right before she married and the wonderfully round green speckled one took me 45 minutes to discover on a beach on Puget Sound, visiting with my very aunt and uncle.

It's not just rocks - nestled among my pebbles are shells as well - like the odd looking white mollusk from a teenaged adventure on the shores of Lake Erie. There's a tiny, perfect pinecone from a trail along the Skyline Drive in the Smoky Mountains. Nearly everywhere I've been, I've collected some little bit to bring back with me.

Several years ago, a friend and I went to an exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of Art entitled 'Treasures of the Vatican.' For the first time ever, some of the most prized items from the Papal vaults were on tour. One of the most heavily protected was a small box of rocks. At the time, I thought it was ridiculous - did they really need to have this little thing behind heavier glass than the solid gold, jewel encrusted cross with some saint's finger bone in it? Then I learned that, to prove how faithful you were, you had to venture forth on pilgrimages AND you had to bring back a receipt. So all of the faithful went on journeys to holy places and shrines and then they chipped off a bit for their shrine box. So many did this that a lot of the holiest of the shrines and holy places no longer exist. The little box of rocks was some ancient pilgrim's souvenir box and it was so important to the Church because it was all that was left from hundreds of years of people visiting and then taking a chunk home with them.

So I suppose I should rethink my collections. I've managed to convince myself that it's different. I haven't ever chipped a piece off of something else, but I guess that if enough people go seeking stones on the beach, Arizona will end up with waterfront property. Then I'd visit, and hunt down a pebble to bring home with me...

Here, Have Some Cardboard...

My apartment is driving me insane. Gah! Everywhere I go, clutter. Piles of stuff on every flat surface, including the floor.

And the cardboard, God save the Queen, it's everywhere! I went through over 20 boxes of books. I sorted them into piles - children's, sci-fi/fantasy (hard and paper back), fiction (hb and pb), cookbooks, art books, how-to books (banished to the spare/craft room), an engineering degree's worth of math/science/etc, other non-fiction, comedy, etc.

So, now I have all those boxes added to the foot-high stack of broken down moving boxes. Oh, and the massive cardboard towers that housed the two bookcases I've managed to assemble. And the waist high pile of unassembled bookcases. And the boxes of candles and other assorted junk still not organized into anything other than a random pile. Then you have to take into account the piles of books everywhere. And the two end tables that I dumpster-dived over a year ago and haven't taken to Goodwill yet.

My plan for the weekend after my brother is here is to make a trip to the cardboard recycle place, and to Goodwill. Hopefully that will help a bit. And maybe Ikea, for the corner bookcases.

I did manage to fill one of the bookcases, but the other one needs to be the one in the dining area with my cookbooks. That's because I managed to put it together backwards, and I realized it after I had securely nailed the back to the front. Whoops. It'll be fine, it'll hardly show at all, as long as the bookcase is by itself and not near one of the others like it.

Even the cat is having a hard time getting around. I have too much crap! Arrgh!

Ever laughed so hard it hurt?

Last Friday, I laughed so hard so often that my stomach and sides still hurt on Saturday.

I have a circle of friends here at work. (Fortunately, since I know no one else in the state!) We celebrate the tres every month. This started last May when three of us went out on the third of May instead of the fifth of May. When June rolled around, we decided to go out on the third again - it made a convenient excuse. And so our tradition began.

This month, we had a game night at someone's house. Everyone brought food (and alcohol) and we set it up like a buffet in her kitchen. We began the evening's festivities by descending like a small hoard of locusts on the foodstuffs, then we retired to the living room. Let the games begin!

We played 2 games of 'Scene It!' - which is really cool. It's a board game with an accompanying DVD, so you divide into teams, roll the dice, and have to answer a question from a card (a la trivial pursuit) or answer something from the DVD. If it's an all-play, then it's a free-for-all. Sometimes they show a clip and you have to answer a question, sometimes you have to put movie titles in chronological order, and so on. The first team around the board wins. We had the movie furby on our team so we won before they made it a quarter of the way around the board. I think the fairest way would have been all of us against him, and we probably would have lost.

From there we moved to 'Thumper,' which is supposedly a game taught at girl scout camps. You sit in a circle, everyone had a sign. (Mine was smelly tepee, where I held my nose, then made a triangle over my head; someone else's sign was humping bunnies where they make the v-for-victory sign with both hands and bump their fists together; another sign was claimed to be the official American sign-language symbol for bullshit and so on.) You start the game slapping your hands on your thighs in unison (or approximately so), and the leader says "What are we playing?"

Everyone chimes in with "Thumper."
Then the leader says "How do we play?"
"Dirty"
"How dirty?"
"F*ck*ng dirty!"

Then the leader makes their sign and then someone else's. That someone needs to make their sign and then another, and so it goes until someone goofs up. This was usually due more to laughing too hard to move than anything else.

After several rounds of "Thumper" we played "Catchphrase," which is another hysterical game. You sit in a circle and there are two teams. If you're sitting like A, B, C, D then A and C are a team and B and D are a team. The catchphrase gizmo looks like a handheld videogame. You pass it around and when you have it, you have to get your team to guess the word. There's a timer built in and the team not holding it when the timer goes off gets a point.

From "Catchphrase" we moved on to "Family Feud" then to a drinking game called "Zoom" then to "Pictionary" [one highlight - "Obviously that is a horse with a group of f*ck*ng men in it!!!" to describe an attempt at 'trojan horse.' The other team got it when their draw-er sketched a condom and a horse-like creature.] then to a card game called "Oh Hell." This card game is similar to Eucher, but you bid on how many tricks you think you'll take. The first hand deals one card, the second hand two and so on. Points are awarded to those who are correct in their bidding. It's complicated, and I'll probably not ever be able to do the scoring on my own, but it was fun.

The evening ended late in the night, and our group has a host of new inside jokes. I don't think I've ever had so much fun in a single evening. Gameplay stopped at several points during the night because several of us were laying flat on the floor laughing so hard that we couldn't breathe. I can't wait for next month!

Yay, Furniture!

I have already shared the adventure that led me to my wonderful china hutch. Not only do I love my hutch, so does Sophia. That shelf is hers, and anything that I've attempted to put there has been unceremoniously removed.

Well, that hutch was the start of it all. I managed for quite a while without real furniture, but once I had that hutch, I got itchy. Suddenly I cared about things I didn't have. I've been rather haphazardly meandering through furniture stores for a couple of years now. The things I found that I liked the best were in Nashville. *sigh* That figures, doesn't it?

Then I went home for Thanksgiving. A store was going under that I used to spend a fair bit of time in - they started as a quilting store and then branched into interior design. I quilt, and I have gotten quite a bit of fabric there over the years. I happen to have a backlog of quilting to do and I'm in need of fabric. At the time, all fabric was being advertised as being 40% off so I went in to root around. I walked into the store and, just like with the hutch, a light shone down and a choir sang and I've mentioned my imagination before, right? Anywho, there was a really cool dresser sitting right inside the door. I did not need a dresser. I need a couch, a chair, something to sit on for crying out loud.

So, I called my mom and told her that I needed her to come talk me out of this dresser. A few minutes later, she comes in, sees the dresser and starts 'oohing' and 'aahing' over it. Ma, talk me out of it remember? The salesman oozed over and said that no reasonable offer was being refused. Mom, in the meantime, noticed the mirror attached to it, and started cooing over it. (My mirror is different that the one in the picture. Mine's prettier.) The salesman went on and on about how it was a Vaughan-Bassett and solid wood and heirloom quality and so on and so forth. So my mother, the strong one, the one here to convince me that I do not need a dresser, looks over at the salesman and says, "She'll give you $900 for the mirror and the dresser." Um. Wait a minute. The long and the short of it is that my mother ended up talking me into a dresser/mirror. It's beautiful, but it's going into my craft room to hold art supplies. Right now, it's living in a storage unit in Ohio.

While I was in line to buy my dresser, I overheard someone saying that there would be a final auction to dispose of all inventory on December 29. Coolness! I was planning on being home for Christmas all that week!

First thing that morning (okay, well, not first thing - I had a dentist's appointment first), I arrived at the store. It was a grey, cold, misty day but I still had to make my own parking across the street from the store. There was a food vendor set up out front (with very yummy fries, I might add) and the whole atmosphere was like a party. I had mixed feelings - I like the lady who ran the store, so I felt bad for her, but I was excited over the idea of furniture. So I wandered around and got an idea of what they had. I even made a list of what I wanted and how high I was willing to go. Then, of course, I caught auction fever and all that went out the window - but I should get credit for trying, right?

Oh goodness, it was a very good day. I had so much fun. And by the time I was done (stayed 'till the bitter end, too), I had quite a haul. Now, all I need for my apartment is... a couch and a chair. *sigh* But, here's a list of my new furniture:

• 4 drawer locking file cabinet (for Dad, for his manuals and such that live in the garage)
• Cherry end table (okay, technically it's a bedside table)
• Cherry coffee table (huge, but really pretty)
• Console/hallway table with matching mirror
• Sweater Chest (matches both the previously mentioned dresser and the dining table - which works 'cause it's going in the dining area to supplement my palty kitchen storage)
• Dining room table with 4 chairs
• Red oak mission entertainment center (The kind meant, I think, for a bedroom 'cause there's room for the TV in the top and bins underneath, but my VHS collection will fit quite well.)
• Blonde oak dining room dresser thing with wine rack (which will look wonderful in my brother's kitchen)
• Pale maple butcher-block table with leaf that is perfect for my sewing machine
• Cute little table with a lamp built in
• Two rugs - a smaller cream floral rug and a huge area rug with nifty birds around the edges
• Two pictures - the one I wanted, which was a pretty daisy and this other hideous picture with a ballerina frog holding a teddy bear. (The frog went with my brother to a friend of his with a thing for frogs.)
• A shelf of glassware including 2 pretty glasses, a wine bottle (o-O), and the really nifty large glass ginger jar thing that was what I wanted
• Four boxes of really ugly Christmas ornaments
• Seems like I'm forgetting something, but can't think of anything else

The really ugly Christmas ornaments were the first, auction fever-crazed thing I won. After that, I simmered down and mostly kept to the list. Most of this is currently living in the storage unit with the dresser. Not bad for around $2200 total, IMHO.

Then, Ikea had a sale and I picked up 6 bookcases. As far as my craft room, a friend gave me a dresser, which is now loaded with office and art supplies. I also won an auction at work and have a four drawer metal filing cabinet for my important papers, and a four drawer lateral filing cabinet that is perfect for all my needlework charts and patterns.

Right now, my apartment is in total chaos while I go through boxes, organize everything, and find places for things to live. But I'm getting there. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I still need to get a lot of stuff, but for the most part, I know what I want and where to get it.

Still to get:

• Couch (okay, no real clue here, but I'm looking)
• Chair (the one I want is expensive so this may have to wait)
• Baker's Rack (I have a plan...)
• Leaning bookcase
• 3 corner bookcases
• Some sort of cabinet for my plant stuff
• Corner display unit (or cat tree, haven't decided)
• Davenport (desk, not sofa)
• Lowboy
• Plant stand (I don't think I can buy the one I want anymore, so I may have to build it.)
• Possibly a couple more bookcases

All things considered, it's not that much. Really. I know exactly where everything is going to go, it's just a matter of getting there.

My first step had to be bookcases, 'cause I had a HUGE honkin' pile of boxes of books taking up a significant portion of my floor. I have gone through all those boxes and sorted the books into groups. I have two bookcases put together. Now I need to move the one bookcase into position and anchor it to the wall. Once I get it filled, I'll have enough room to assemble another bookcase. Then I really need at least one corner unit. This should keep me out of mischief for a while. I can't wait for it to be done! It'll look like someone lives there for a change.

Holy Packrats, Batman!

Wow, I have a lot of stuff. Weird, strange, why-in-the-world-did-I-keep-this stuff... and I'm emotionally attached to all of it. Every shred of paper, every tattered movie stub, every magazine, every book... okay, not ALL of it - but certainly more than what's probably healthy.

My brother is coming to stay in a couple of weeks. That means that my spare room must become a guest room in fairly short order. This presents something of an issue 'cause while I've been organizing the rest of my little abode, everything that I can't figure out what to do with has landed in a pile in the spare room. It currently takes a fairly significant effort to reach the closet light. (And, as an aside, what braintrust came up with the idea of linking light switches to electrical outlets and then not including any light other than the closet in a room?!?)

So I started in on the closet last night, thinking that if I could get that organized, a lot of the stuff in the middle of the floor could live in the closet. I found things that I had given up as lost forever... and things that I have no memory of at all. I am once again in awe of the interesting and different logic patterns apparently inherent in the minds of my movers. A box titled 'Kitchen' in fact holds a cook book, as well as the first 3 Harry Potter books, a small box full of paper and binder clips, a plastic bag full of leaves, 2 sweaters, a small stuffed dog, a portable CD player, a number of audiocassettes, 2 boxes of old canceled checks, a flashlight, a box of chalk, a handful of loose change and an assortment of movie stubs and programs. Okey-dokey.

But I can't blame the movers for other things. I had 26 plastic bags squirreled away in my closet. Here's the really sad thing - I only managed to throw one away. I keep them to recycle since they're really nice bags, only to forget I have them.

Most of the closet floor was taken up with luggage. (I include suitcases, garment bags, tote bags, backpacks and any other soft-sided storage vessel in this category.) I have the luggage that my parents gave me for my 21st birthday. It was an okay set, ten years ago, but it consists of actual suitcases with wheels on them and it is quite ungainly. I have four backpacks, two of which I never use; four or five different briefcase/laptop carriers - all with the tags still attached. I've mentioned that I'm compulsive before, right?

I have a dresser in storage that will be living in my spare room specifically for craft stuff (beads, ribbons, wood cut-outs, fake flowers, googly eyes in several sizes, pom-poms, felt, etc etc etc) but until I get that transported, I guess I'll pile it all into a box. Right now, it's all in several plastic bags and a laundry basket in the middle of the floor.

Then there's the several boxes of fabric. Most of that was given to me by a wonderful lady who was moving to Florida, but I have bits and bolts stashed here and there. This includes a leaf bag full of baby clothes that I will be converting into a memory quilt for a friend. I've settled on a pattern, and I have all of the materials - I just need to find the time to actually do it - sometime before the child enters high school would be good.

The spare room is also my repository for all the stuff I buy in bulk - like toilet paper, tissues, paper towels, napkins, garbage bags, multi-packs of ziplock bags in an assortment of sizes, cleansers, laundry paraphernalia, etc.

In the meantime, I really need to get to the cardboard recycle place. I have a stack of boxes to my ceiling. The cat and I have both been buried under an avalanche of boxes at some point in the last couple of weeks. I have to be strong 'cause I'm really attached to my box collection as well. It hurts me to throw away a perfectly good box that I know I can use again.

What would be really cool is if my apartment was like Mary Poppin's bag - same size on the outside, palatal on the inside. That would rock! Until I get that figured out though, I'd better plan on spending every day this week sifting through the debris of a stuff-obsessed life in progress. The week is not going to be long enough!

Birds, Birds Everywhere

I wander through several blogs on a near-daily basis, and one happy day I'll figure out that blog-roller-thing and can organize 'em. That'll be cool. At any rate, today I stopped by to visit Rurality, where she had posted a bit about her budgie. Her pictures of her birdie chowing on a banana took me back to the birds I've known. [Whoot! I think I've figured out linking! Yay, me!]

When my mom was young, she had a parakeet named "Teako." (I'm pretty sure I just spelled it wrong.) One winter day, Mom and her mom were sitting in the living room and heard something tapping on the window. When they went to look, there was a little green parakeet perched, half-frozen, on the window sill. Mom opened the window and let him in and so began a close relationship that lasted for years. Her mother didn't believe that the bird would ever talk, but Mom worked diligently with him for weeks. One morning, Grams was greeted with 'hello, I'm a pretty bird' when she uncovered his cage.

Fast forward many years, and Teako was a fond memory. During a stop at the pet shop for rodent food, Mom saw a beautiful pair of finches called 'red cheeked cordon bleu finches.' (Uraeginthus bengalus for the more technically minded.) Thus begins our family's adventures in birding.

Shortly after the finches moved in, my brother got a parakeet named Fancy and I got a Fischer's lovebird named Bippo. Bippo was very loving and friendly, but he was an escape artist extraordinaire. We had to tape his water and food dishes to the cage, and put a padlock on his cage door, and he still figured out ways to get out. Most mornings I would wake up to find him sitting on my pillow over my head, grooming my hair. I hadn't had him long when he caught a cold and was gone before we could get him to the vet.

Fischer's lovebirds were difficult to find, and some time passed before we went to the pet store and came home with Aurora. I've come to believe that Aurora was wild caught, because she was so scared of us. As much as she seemed to want to make up, she just couldn't bring herself to total trust. She was less scared of my dad, since the big-giant-hand-that-grabbed-at-her never came from him. She lived in the same cage that Bippo had for a while, and she was also very capable of exiting it any time she felt like it. Her favorite perch was my ceiling fan. She was hang over the edge and chatter at me. If I pretended to be asleep, she would fly down and land next to my head and creep closer until she could feel along my face with her beak and tongue. It tickled and my laughter would cause her to skitter back and take flight.

Aurora loved salad greens, millet, pasta, eggs, and picking the seeds off a strawberry. The leafy tops of celery were her favorite, but she dove into more than one salad bowl. Poor little thing - one of the most traumatic occasions during her life with us was when she dove into a bowl of salad - with dressing on it. The traumatic part was the bath I had to give her to get the oil off. She learned from that to test for dressing before diving into the bowl. We learned to make up a salad bowl just for her, set on the table close to the door of her cage so she could escape to her cave if any of us ventured too close. It was an arrangement that worked well for everyone.

She and Fancy did NOT get along. We couldn't let them out at the same time. As soon as my brother would open Fancy's door, he'd fly over to Aurora's cage. She would chase him all over and bite his feet, then they'd get into squawking battles. My little darling won the noise wars handily.

A couple of years after she moved in, I noticed a bald spot under a wing. In fairly short order, her feathers were gone. She looked like a tiny little chicken, although some of the feathers on her head remained. We had her for several more years, but her feathers never returned. I used to make bridges for her from yard sticks so she could explore beyond the kitchen table. She got very good at zipping along those pathways, and she never seemed to really mind her lack of feathers. We hung a soft toy in her cage that she cuddled up to at night. One winter day, however, someone came in the kitchen door and left the metal door open. She caught a chill and was gone soon after.

Fancy was my brother's bird and didn't really care for the rest of us that much. He talked when he wanted to, and fought with all the other birds, and generally didn't make much of an impression on me. We had him for several years, and he'd been an adult when we got him, so I think it was just old age that took him away in the end.

We'd had Aurora for a couple of years when Mom went to the pet store to find that they had just gotten in a clutch of cockatiels. They weren't full grown yet - less than a year old. One in particular ran over to Mom and zipped up her arm to coo at her from her shoulder. Not looking to add a fifth voice to the zoo, she put him back and walked away. A man came over and tried to get the same bird to climb onto his hand, and the bird would have none of it. He tried to fly to Mom, even though he didn't yet know how and ended up crashing to the floor. Mom was hooked, and Fred came home with her that day. (I could, and probably will, babble on about Fred - he was such a little character.)

We are a nocturnal family, and the birds in our lives were the same. Even the finches went to bed around 10 pm and got up around 11 am. We had to have strict rules about where the bird cages spent the night, because we had a cat. A 25 pound Maine Coon cat that REALLY liked birds and was strong enough to disassemble cages to get to them. As a matter of fact, Mom brought home a pair of green singing finches that were smaller than we thought - they could get between the bars of the cage. That night, they got out... and the cat had little birds for a midnight snack. At any rate, Aurora went upstairs with me at night, Fancy went upstairs with Scott and then the finches and Fred lived in Mom and Dad's room. Even after Snuggles (hey, I was six - cool pet names were beyond me at that age) was gone, the finches and Fred went to the bedroom for the night.

The last pair of cordon bleus that Mom had developed quite the personalities. The female (Sarah) really enjoyed flying around the house and then landing among the plants in the sunroom. She'd spend hours picking around the plants and watching the outside birds (while the cat spent quality time in the basement, behind tightly shut doors). The male (Slash) would call frantically trying to get her to return to the cage. He was a homebody and never ventured out on his own, even with the door clipped open. They both loved their baths and would drench the entire kitchen flipping around. One day, a small moth fluttered into their cage. They both eyed it, but Slash flashed forward and snarfed it down. That was how we learned that they really enjoyed live food. From that point forward, regular stops at the bait store for maggots and mealy worms were in order. It was a bit disturbing to think of these tiny, delicate-looking bits of fluff as avid, skilled hunters but watching them take after their bugs was remarkably like watching the velociraptors in "Jurassic Park" moving in for the kill. Slash was a wife-abuser and so their cage was divided into 2 smaller ones to give Sarah some peace. Sarah spent a lot of time making eggs. Lots of 'em. We provided every possible source of additional calcium we could think of, but one morning Sarah was dead - we think she became egg-bound. Slash lived on for several years after that, well past the maximum age that the books said talked about.

Eventually, we were a one bird family and Fred was the undisputed head of the household. When Lady moved in, she seemed to respect that Fred had been there first. She was curious about him and was always trying to sniff at him. He bit her on the nose more than once for the indignity. She got her own back though. Fred's favorite place to perch was on Dad's shoes, and Lady would walk by and, in all innocence, whack him with her tail. Then he'd squawk and grumble, and I swear she laughed every time.

Fred was getting to be elderly when the calico cat moved in. She was a stray, and made it very clear that she considered Fred to be a foodstuff. So, Fred's outside the cage time was curtailed to when Dad or I put the cat in the basement. By then, Scott had been out of the house for a couple years. Then I moved here. Fred was so glad to us when we made it home. He's been gone for a bit over two years now, and I still miss him so.

I'd love to have another bird, but it's just not practical right now. I don't have enough space to contain the cat to give a bird outside the cage time, and I'm barely there enough for the cat. *sigh* One day...

The Licker

It has an interesting ring to it, doesn't it? So, as referenced yesterday, here's what happened...

Let's hop in the way-back machine, and travel to late fall of 2004. My baby truck finally gave up the ghost at Labor Day (*sob*) and I was driving my dad's Safari van. This is one of those minivans that has captains chairs with no console between in the front seats.

Whenever possible, my company would prefer that we not stay over when traveling for business so this particular day trip started at 4 am when I left for the airport for a 6:30 flight. (Just as a matter of personal quirk, I am not capable of paying $30/day to park in the garage at the airport. So, I always try to allow for enough time to park in the economy lot and take the shuttle over to the airport.) We flew to Atlanta, then drove two hours to the facility, were in meetings all day, drove back to Atlanta then took a red-eye back to Chicago. This flight, already leaving late in the day, was delayed for a couple of hours. So, I arrived back at the Chicago airport after midnight, heading into hour 21 or 22 of a very stressful day, lugging the four million and one things necessary in such meetings and I still had to trek to my car.

Of course there was a problem with the shuttle/train thing so it was nearly an hour later by the time I found myself wandering around the completely deserted parking lot, looking for my vehicle. I always get turned around after riding that tram and have to wander a fair bit to figure out which section is which.

I finally got myself oriented and headed in the right direction, and I found myself completely freaked out. I was utterly convinced that someone was following me. So I looked all around and couldn't see anyone, and I even altered my steps on the gravel and stopped a couple of times to see if I could hear anyone else walking. Nothing. You know those horror movies where it's quiet, too quiet? I was living one. I tend to be prone to the vulgarities of an overactive imagination, so I spent my walk trying to convince myself that I was just being, as usual, ridiculous and that by now I should really have outgrown this. No dice - I was still totally freaked out and all the hair on my neck and arms was sticking straight up.

An eternity later, I arrived at my vehicle. Standard operating procedure for me is to unlock the passenger side, dump my stuff on/around the seat, hit the inside unlock button, then circle the front of the van and hop into the driver's side. Well, I had gotten myself so creeped out that when I unlocked the passenger side, I leaped into the vehicle, slammed the door and hit the locks.

Then I laughed at myself for being such a ninny, turned in the seat, stood up and sat down on the drivers side. Still laughing at myself, I glanced up... and caught sight of the very large man standing directly outside my passenger window, looking in at me. Safari vans are high off the ground, and the guy was still looking directly across at me, so he had to be over six feet tall. I let out a shriek, that actually sounded more like a squeak and fumbled the keys into the ignition.

At that moment, I gained an all new appreciation for how a mouse feels, staring up at the cat and time kind of elongated. It took roughly four hours to get the keys in the ignition and start the van, and the whole time I stared directly into the eyes of the guy staring, unblinking, at me.

Now here's where it gets really creepy. Still holding my eyes, he bent down, put his tongue on the bottom of the window and licked all the way up the window. Gah! The van started and (Halleluiah!) went right into drive and I was so out of there! I think I skidded sideways into the pay lane.

He was long gone by the time I got to the pay booth. I told the girl working alone what happened and she called the airport security, but I don't think they ever saw him.

The next day, I told my boss what had happened and shortly thereafter, a memo went out saying that we were not to park in economy when our returning flights were expected after dark. As much as I was freaked out at the time, it wasn't until we were discussing it at lunch and someone else said something that it really hit me how lucky I was to have listened to my "overactive" imagination. I'm grateful now that I didn't manage to reason myself into circling the van to get in on the driver's side because whatever that guy was planning, he'd have had me before I made it. *shudder*

So, my thought o'the day is this: if your spidey senses are tingling and the hair on the back of your neck is telling you to run, do it. It's better to be silly and laughed at than to be a possible statistic.

My Weekend...

*yawn* I'm back from my trip home.

It's amazing the difference your general attitude can make, isn't it? I always get so freaked out and stressed by traveling that, if I were someone travelling near me, I'd cross to the other side of the plane to escape.

A few weeks ago, I flew to Nashville to visit my best friend. I left work early, although not as early as I'd hoped, only to get stuck at the train tracks while FIVE different metra trains came by, adding 20 minutes to my time. Then I dropped off my coworker and stopped at home momentarily before heading to the airport, only to get trapped on the highway. Due to inclement weather, there were several traffic accidents. It took me longer to drive to the airport than it takes to fly to Nashville. I was convinced that I was going to miss the plane. I called the airline and the customer service rep told me that there was another, nearly empty plane in an hour and to just relax. Riiiight. Anywho, I made the flight, by the skin of my teeth. I was the last one to board, and I was still getting settled when the plane took off. Whew! But the stress of the trip affected my whole visit. It takes me a while to calm down once I've gotten all twitchy.

Somehow, that experience made me much more relaxed this trip, so even though I had many silly things go wrong, it didn't phase me. I left work early, although once again, not as early as I'd hoped, dropped my coworker off and got home only to find that they changed the outside locks. So I buzzed the guy with the keys, listened to how he'd been broken into the day before, grabbed my stuff, dropped the new key off with the petsitter, parked in the spiffy new economy deck, shuttled over to the airport, made it through security, waited through the delays and was off. [I like that new deck, and not just because I think it decreases my chances of running into 'the licker' again. One day I'll tell you about him. *shiver* Odd things just happen to me.]

Once in Cleveland, I wandered around until I discovered the shuttle to the rental cars. (You have to wait outside, so learn from me and dig your scarf and gloves out of your baggage before going out to wait for the shuttle, 'cause it really sucks doing it outside when it's 10 F and there's an icy wind howling around you.) After arriving at the building where the rental cars live, I waited in line FOREVER for the one person on duty to help the couple ahead of me.

Finally, it was my turn. The desk lady fiddled around and finally handed me the contract, told me to turn right at the bathroom sign and help myself to any Alero out there. I spent 20 minutes wandering around outside in that wind, trying to find even a single Alero. (What the hell do those things look like, anyway?!?) Finally, I went over to the booth and begged for help. The guy there didn't know what an Alero was either, but he said they didn't have any. He did put me in his toasty warm vehicle and drive me over to the mid-size section. After pondering my choices for a while (Malibu? PT Cruiser? Strange little mini-van thing?) I decided on a G6, loaded all my stuff in and then spent another several minutes fooling around trying to fix the seat. Just out of curiosity, how do you drive with the back reclined like that? Is that to make room for a tail? And why do you have to leave it like that? *growl* Finally, I just plumped up the lumbar support enough to hold me upright and called it a day.

As I was zipping down the highway (that little car could move!), it occurred to me that I didn't get upset about any of the little setbacks that, while perfectly expected in travel, still usually manage to make my teeth clench. Maybe I'm maturing? Nah. Must be something else.

At any rate, I had a very nice, although very quick, visit home and made it back here before it was too late.

I've been trying to stick it out here until I managed to get my six sigma green belt certification. I've passed the test, so all I need now is to finish the project and get it signed off. Unfortunately, it's becoming the never-ending project from hell, so I think waiting on it is a mistake. Me thinks it's time to polish up the resume and start actively trying to get home. Someone around there somewhere must be in the market for a slightly cynical engineer, right??

Whine, moan, whimper...

Well, the creeping crud has me in its clutches - just in time for me to hop into a flying tin can for the (thankfully) short flight home. Yay, exploding sinuses. This snuck up on me while I wasn't paying attention and now I feel much like I've been hit by a bus. Ugh.

And, before I leave tomorrow evening, I need to clean my kitchen, sweep, pay some attention to the cat box, dust, clean the half bath, wrap birthday presents, and pack - all tonight, after work.

And, once again, my attempts at planning and organization have been foiled. I bought my brother's birthday gift before Christmas. He's turning his mostly finished downstairs into a game room. He's got a pool table down there, and a very nice dart board (and I'm not just saying that because I gave it to him for Christmas a couple of years ago). So, for his birthday, I got him a corner stand that holds cues, and the triangle and has a table top for your beer. It is, fortunately, not assembled but now I have to figure out how to fly home with it, in its rather sizable box. *sigh* That was good planning. He's coming to visit me in March. He may have to wait for then to get it.

And, I just discovered that the cold medicine I took (that has done NOTHING for my symtoms) has apparently made me even loopier than usual. I left a message for someone at work to call me and I thought I was making perfect sense. When she returned my call, she played the message back to me and I am completely incoherent. Swell. So, I should probably not be calling suppliers this morning. I wonder how long this stuff is going to take to wear off. It's kind of a cool feeling though. Everything's all swirly. I'm glad it wasn't my day to drive in. I think that would have been an adventure... for everyone around me.

And, I have a sneeze stuck in my nose. I hate it when that happens. When it finally arrives, I'll probably blow the back of my head off.

And, somehow this weekend, I managed to rip a significant chunk out of the bottom of my little toe - right at the crease where it joins my foot. That has been a joy to keep bandaged. So, that side of my foot is throbbing in pain. I'll be very glad when it heals. Ouchie!

So, I think I'll go soak my head. It hurts too.

In Which I Apologize To My Mother, Sort Of...

As surely as the sun will set in the west and rise again in the east and the tides will rise and fall and so on and so forth, you probably have some issue with your mother. Doesn't everyone? And I think it is likely that if you are (or were) a girl, your issues are greater than your brother's are.

I am no exception to this rule. Between my experiences with my mom and listening to my friends, I've come up with a theory; a theory in which the act of giving birth plants a time-bomb in a woman's brain. At some point, somewhere down the road, she will go crazy. Her ability to reason will shoot straight out the window and never return. And, personally, I think my mom's bomb went off fairly early.

In my house, growing up, there was a set and distinct hierarchy. My father ruled the roost and his word was law, but he worked nights at *a really big tire company* and during the day when he wasn't asleep, he had an electrical contracting business on the side, so the day to day running of the household fell to my mother. My mother stayed at home and ran herd on my brother and I. My brother was her clear favorite, while I was daddy's little girl.

Looking back, I wonder if this arrangement came about because my mother never knew her father. My grandparents divorced when my mother was a baby, and her father had no place in her life. Her only memory of him is when she was 3 or so years old, she walked down a dock to where he was waiting for her, with a puppy named Penny. That's it. As a teenager, I nagged incessantly to meet him, with my father backing me all the way. When my grandmother called to tell Mom that her father was dead (Grams had seen the obituary in the paper), Mom's reaction was relief that Dad and I would finally get off her back about getting in touch with him. So, Mom had (and still hasn't) no understanding of the relationship between a father and a daughter.

She and my dad were married for seven years before I came along, Dad was the first person to really be hers, and I don't think she had any conception (and who does, really?) of how a baby would change their lives. My father (as fathers do everywhere) immediately decided that the sun rose and set in my eyes, and any time I was less than pleased, he went into full panic, must-make-it-better-RIGHT-NOW mode. As an example, we have several rolls of film - now slides - that my father took of my eyelashes when I was a baby. He remains convinced that no child ever had such long and angelic eyelashes.

And so, my brother was my mom's. I spent a fair amount of time as a child being punished for his offenses. Even if she admitted that he had done it, I, as the older child, should have been looking out for him. When he nearly cut his thumb off, trying to turn a cardboard box into a train at about 6 years old, I at nearly 8 was the one to wake Mom and Dad. I was also the one to get grounded for not taking the knife away from him. (I was using the huge kitchen shears and working on the engine of the train, and I had told him not to cut his fingers off when he got the knife from the block.)

One of our biggest disputes came about when I was around 14 years old. One of my greatest treasures was a tea set that my grandmother (my mother's mother)made for me. She did fantastic projects in ceramics, and this tea set was a child's dream. Cream colored with tiny pink roses and ceramic, it included the tea pot with a lid, four tiny cups with saucers, four dessert plates (the perfect size for easybake oven treats), the creamer and the sugar bowl with a lid. As a child, I had the Fisher Price kitchen - with the accompanying pots and pans and such. As a teenager, I no longer wanted those things in my room so I packed them carefully in boxes and put them in the attic. I included my tea set with those pots and pans (the same ones my mother had played with as a girl).

Mom has always made it clear that the house is hers and we existed there on her suffrage, and she told me that she wasn't willing to let me keep anything in her attic. As a typical teenager, I was horrified at the idea of having to keep baby toys in my room, where my friends could see them when they came over. It ended with an ultimatum - if I left those things in the attic, she was taking them to Goodwill. Given that most of those things were hers anyway, I didn't believe her, and I left them where they were. I came home from school one fine day shortly thereafter to her gloating news that those boxes were now in the hands of those deserving children who would appreciate them.

This led to a confrontation that had Dad and my brother both fleeing the house, and Mom and I not speaking for several days. The loss of that tea set has been a bone of contention for years, especially as my grandmother's arthritis progressed quickly and she had to give up ceramics.

The years passed and other, more serious events have taken place to drive a wedge between us. To this day, when I go home for holidays, I stay at my aunt and uncle's house, and only visit my parents. But through the years, the tea set has remained. As I got older, I mourned its loss more and more, and Mom professed to have no memory of getting rid of it. Indeed, she was sure that she wouldn't ever have done that... and the merry-go-round circles again.

So I called home last night to check in and see how the 'rents were getting along, and Mom told me that she has been hard at work, cleaning out my brother's room. This will be her craft room when she's done.

Growing up, I was jealous of my brother's room 'cause it was so neat. Mine was slightly bigger, but he had a built-in desk and a nifty closet that extended in steps over the stairs and, best of all, a tiny door that led to a small attic over the kitchen. This was a window to another world, the most perfect fort ever and the source of my ongoing envy. For Scott, as a child, it was a night-time source of terror as our old house creaked and groaned and more than one morning found me stepping on him when I climbed out of bed to discover him asleep on my floor. (Given that to this day, I sleep like the dead and would have been completely unaware of his arrival and we were very young, I still don't understand why he always curled up on the floor instead of climbing into the other side of my double bed.)

At any rate, Mom's been busying herself lately by cleaning out the detris of the ages from his room in general and that closet in particular. At the very back, lodged in a corner, she found a box marked 'knick-knacks.' It turns out that opening that box was much like Christmas morning, in that she found all sorts of things given up years ago as lost forever. This includes a portion of her Fenton collection, several horse statues (and if I'm not mistaken, they're the ones that I got grounded for breaking - we'll have to see) and, wonder of wonders, my tea set. She says she didn't find the pots and pans, but she hasn't gotten to all of the boxes either. So, my tea set is back from the dead, and I can't wait to get it back from her.

And, I'm sorry, Mom for believing you when you said you gave it to Goodwill and since you remain emphatic that you don't remember the argument or its aftermath, I guess we'll leave it at that. And if those statues are the ones that you told Dad that I destroyed to get back at you for something, I'll swallow hard and turn the other cheek... again... and let it go because it has to be enough that you overplayed your hand several years ago and Dad and I are fine and Scott and I are fine and bringing it all up again won't do anyone any good at all.

My Olive Garden Furniture Rant

Okay, so this happened a while ago, but I'm still shaking my head over it.

As you may have gathered, Gentle Reader, I am in the process of choosing furniture. This has taken me nearly 3 years to date, and I'm not finished. I have a vision in my head of what I want everything to look like, and I've been hunting for just the right pieces to accomplish that. So, I've wandered through countless furniture stores, antique malls, estate sales, and other assorted places where I may find what I'm looking for. *blink* Who knew I was so picky??

When I was home for Thanksgiving, a friend and I went to the Olive Garden in Canton - near Belden Village mall. There, of all places, I found exactly the baker's rack that I've been searching for - pretty, curvey dark metal, wood counter, 2 drawers, and a couple of metal racks. Hooray! And, of all things, it was outside, with planters on it.

So begins the procurement part of my quest.

The waitress and the assistant manager on duty at the time had NO idea where the baker's rack came from. I called later and talked to the store manager, who told me that it had come from an Olive Garden in West Virginia that closed and he had no idea where it had originated.

So, then I emailed the customer service people with my query, and this is the response I got:

"Dear Ericka: Thank you for visiting olivegarden.com. We are honored by the compliment you have given us in asking about our vendor source. However, this is proprietary information. Often we have agreements with our vendors for exclusivity. It is our way of keeping Olive Garden unique and exciting for our guests each time they visit. We trust that you will understand. If Guest Relations can be of further assistance, please write us again through olivegarden.com (www.olivegarden.com/feedback.asp ) or call us at 1-800-331-2729. We look forward to a future opportunity to serve you in our restaurants. With Hospitaliano, Andy Olive Garden Guest Relations"

WHAT?!? Are you freakin' kidding me?? Proprietary information? Unique and exciting? Hello, you are a chain restaurant - you wouldn't know unique if it reared up out of the pasta and bit you in the ass, although that would add quite a bit to the excitement factor... Just tell me that you don't know, or that you're too busy/lazy/apathetic to find out, don't try to feed me this line. Trust all you want - I am not willing to understand, not at all.

Since the baker's rack is in storage for the winter, my new plan will have to wait. But it involves a $99 Walmart baker's rack and a clandestine raid on an Olive Garden... Think they'll notice a difference in their 'unique and exciting' outdoor furnishings?

Pete Hill, Where Are You?

Pete Hill is a guy my dad used to work with at the really big tire company. I never met him, but I owe him one. Several, actually. Pete apparently enjoyed word play as well as a good long yarn. He combined these into what my family calls 'Pete Hill Jokes.' Granted, the joke part may be a stretch. Here, you decide. (Keep in mind that Pete, and my father, drew these stories out for 20 minutes or more adding details, backtracking and sidetracking until the moment was just right for the big finish.)

(Disclaimer: I too add my own spin on these, as I think you should, so bear that in mind.)

Pete Hill Joke #1:

Once upon a time, a visitor to a European king spun stories about the amazing animals living in a far-away land called Africa. These animals were huge and ferocious and only the best of hunters could hope to survive against them. The king considered himself to be peerless in the realm and so decided that a trip to Africa was in order, posthaste.

Soon, the king found himself in a small village in Africa and there, he met the tribal chieftain. Being of a similar sort of man, they got along famously and the chieftain promised to take the king to the best spots to hunt. For several weeks, the chieftain and the king toured the countryside, shooting away at all the animals and the trees and the grasses and everything else unfortunate enough to move while in their view and the king had the most wonderful time he'd ever had.

Finally, it was time for the king to return to his kingdom and he thanked the chieftain profusely for showing him such a wonderful time. The king proclaimed that he owed a debt of gratitude to the chieftain and anything the chieftain wanted, the king would provide. So the chieftain thought about it for a while and he finally thought of something he really wanted.

The chieftain told the king that he wanted a throne, just like the king had in his courtroom and the king declared that it would be done. As soon as he returned home, he called for the finest craftsmen in the kingdom and ordered the creation of a throne, just as large and ornate and inlaid as his own, to be made for the chieftain.

In due course, the throne was completed and sent off to Africa for the chieftain and when it arrived, the chieftain had it placed in the center of his highest hut... where it promptly went through the floor and crashed to the ground below, in splinters.

The moral of this story: those who live in grass huts should not stow thrones.

What? You were expecting high literature? I love these things, although I have learned to position myself for a quick getaway before retelling them. It's amazing how quickly a crowd can become a mob.

Pete Hill Joke #2:

Once there was a man named Barney. Barney worked for a zoo, cleaning the aquarium walls of the dolphin enclosure and he had done this same job for years and years. Over time, he became very fond of the dolphins in the exhibit and he worried because the dolphins were getting older. He was very sad at the thought that one day, he would lose his dolphin friends.

Then, one morning as he was scrubbing the walls, one of the dolphins swam up to him. Screetch (the dolphin) waited for Barney to notice him and then Screetch spoke! He said to Barney, "You've been a good friend to us, Barney. But we don't want to get old. Would you help us?" And Barney said that of course, he would do anything he could for them.

So Screetch told Barney that the dolphins could live forever if only they had a certain food to eat. The kindly old man said that he would get whatever that food was so the dolphins would never die, and Screetch told Barney that if a dolphin eats a baby seagull, that dolphin will live forever.

Barney finished cleaning the walls and set off on his quest to find baby seagulls for his dolphin friends, and he had many, MANY adventures along the way for a baby seagull is not an easy thing to find, let me tell you! Finally, however, Barney triumphed and hurried back to the zoo with baby seagulls for the dolphins. It had taken a long time and he was worried about the dolphins, so as he rushed through the zoo to the dolphin enclosure, he took a shortcut through the lion cage. As he stepped over a sleeping lion, he was arrested.

The charge: Transporting young gulls over stayed lion for immortal porpoises.

I have others, but I do have to work at some point during the day so I'll save the others for later... when you least expect it and think it's safe.

Bwahahahahahahaha!

My Own Maximum Dad...

As with most things in my life, I stumbled into this blogging thing by accident. My cousin got me involved in an online community. From his tribe, I migrated on to others I found interesting, and one of them linked to Thomas, the Art Lad. (If I'm ever half competent with this thing, I'll link too!) From Thomas, I wandered over to the Masthead in which MM (the Art Lad's Dad) discourses about damn near everything. And from there, on a whim, I made my own - fully expecting to post once and never return. I had not reckoned on my addiction to my morning fix of the furthering adventures of that wacky magazine family.

I'm not a regular blogger by any stretch but I've become kinda fascinated with the idea of this blogging thing. It's like a message in a bottle except I don't have to strand myself on an island, get sunburned or remove sand from orifices.

So this evening, instead of going home and cleaning, I spent an enjoyable hour or so rereading some of my favorite "episodes" from the life and times of the Magazine Man. One that I totally relate to is about his blue-collar dad and his system of management. In this particular anecdote, his dad is threatened by a disgruntled newly ex-employee with a knife. I won't go into his solution, but it makes me think of my dad, and some of his exploits.

My father has been an electrician on the nightshift at a really big tire company for over 40 years. He went through an apprenticeship program and in turn had apprentices of his own. Keep in mind that I spent several summers working for my dad as a kid while he supplemented his income working as an independent contractor, so I sympathize completely with his hapless apprentices... like the guy Dad and his best friend strung up by his belt, ten feet in the air from a telephone pole near a major intersection, where they left him for nearly an hour while they went to lunch. It was the last time he threatened them with his ninja karate skills. Or the guy that was vehemently in favor of banning weapons, only to have Dad build a 'gun' in about 20 minutes that sent a ball bearing through a concrete block wall, 2 toolboxes and a workbench using odd and ends from his toolbox. Or the guy who never checked whether the current was really turned off - until after a well-planned jolt of 220 sent him flying backwards several feet. Or the guy...

Well, you get the idea. My father is something of a legend in the hallowed halls of the tire company - and his network is unbelievable! When I was 21, I went hairing off to California for several months. One evening, I was walking along the beach while wearing a jacket given to me by Dad that was well marked as being from that tire company. A large, leathered, Mr. Clean sort ambled over and asked where I got the coat. I smiled sunnily and told him that I stole it from my father, and I answered when he asked who my dad was... at which point he started laughing and demanded 'you mean *insert last name here* spawned??' Yes, thank you. I am *last name* spawn. He kept laughing and told me that it would serve the old man right if I was just like him. Yup. Two thousand miles from home, on a distant shore, and I stumbled across one of Dad's old apprentices.

You can't go anywhere without running across someone that he knows, and if he happens to be with you, you'd better add time 'cause people will come of the woodwork to reminisce about old times and some of the stories they know. It is a point of pride for his former apprentices that they survived him - rather like the t-shirts worn by those who've successfully navigated a class 5 rapids. Every one of them will regale you with tales of the abuse they suffered at his hands, and what a right bastard the guy is, and then they'll stop, kinda smile and say, 'but I learned more from him than from anyone else.'

His teaching methods may be a bit, well, rough, but if you made it through with him as your instructor, you are now a world class electrician. And, 20 years after he last saw you, he'll still give you ten kinds of shit about what you screwed up... but he'll do it while he's helping you fix your car, or your house or install a new furnace or whatever you need done.

He can be much like a bear - grouchy, occasionally downright surly, frequently impatient, prone to solitude, and physically imposing as well at 6' 3" and stocky. When I was a kid, he used to grow a beard in the winters. Between that and the flannel, he looked more like a lumberjack than most of the lumberjacks I've met. (It's no wonder I don't scare easily.) But he's the most intelligent person I've ever encountered. There is nothing the man can't fix, or at least jury-rig until he figures out some other solution. He just understands things, their function, their parts and what makes 'em tick. If I ever manage a fraction of his mechanical talent, I'll count myself fortunate indeed. And his favorite thing is to watch the light dawn on your face when he makes you understand what he just knows.

Truth be told, we are peas in a pod. I too am grouchy, impatient and prone to solitude - actually more so than Dad most of the time. My mother despairs of us - she is a social creature and when she has people over, you can usually find Dad and I off someplace else. Dad has to stay on the move, 'cause he's the sort of man that men respect and they want him to like them so they tend to follow him around. Every now and then, at one of Mom's parties, I sit in my corner and watch as Dad tries to find a quiet corner only to be followed by some number of guys determined to make him listen as they ramble on about their tractor or their car or interrogate him on how to fix the sump pump or the generator or whatever. And I have to laugh, because I get a visual of a duck surrounded by squawking baby ducks, all demanding attention. When he starts looking like he's gonna blow, I'll interfere and distract whomever has him captive while he makes his getaway to the garage. It's the job my mom assigned me when I was still a small child, because if he is trapped for too long, he will blow, and rain abuse on whatever person pushed too hard for his attention. He's done it before, and probably will again.

He gets frustrated - with people who get in his way, with things that don't work the way he wants them to, with the world sometimes and he's got a nasty temper. I know how much control he keeps over it, because both my brother and I inherited it. My brother has the holes in his bedroom wall to prove it.

I think sometimes that Dad enjoys the intimidation that some feel around him, but he's not a bully. He's the guy the bullies watch out for. Nature and its wonders fascinate him. The outside birds will line up on the window sill and peck the windows if he's late with their seed and suet (which really freaked me out as a kid - I've seen "The Birds" thank you very much). The gold finches at our house don't bother losing their yellow color in the winters - Dad keeps them well fed with a special diet of already shelled sunflower seeds. His special favorites, the chickadees, follow him around when he's outside and if he's too slow to fill the feeder, they'll land on him, and his scoop of seed. We have several cardinals, nuthatches, three types of woodpeckers, and a large flock of the stripe-headed meadow sparrows (or whatever they're called) that the rangers at the wildlife center near us swear are very rare. They aren't that rare, they just all hang out at our house. One summer, a young bird in the midst of learning to fly was flapping about in the yard, a feathered dinner bell for the area cats. Dad picked it up and put it back in the tree... and then spent most of the day doing the same thing as the little bird apparently realized that elevator service was a handy thing to have.

He built a ramp so that rodents and other small creatures could make their way out of the pit in the garage. We have several grey tree frogs - and Dad chirps back at all of them as he works in the yard.

To steal from MM again, Dad puts the 'ack' in back way - he never met a main road that he liked. He's got 'detours' to get anywhere, and as he goes along, he checks the status of the wildlife he's discovered along the way. Here we stop by the side of the road to watch the swans with their young, and there is where that blasted kingfisher perches. (Blasted 'cause it vanishes anytime Dad's got a camera with him. It's amazing - that bird knows when filming is imminent! It's a constant frustration for my father.) There's a fox family in that culvert - he sees them sometimes on his way home from work, as the sun is barely peeking over the horizon.

He's very protective of all those under his care - people, animals, machines, land, whatever, and he would be a happy hermit. If his family is gathered nearby where he can watch over them, he'd be happy to close out the rest of civilization.

When the boy came to pick me up for my first date ever, Mom had the camera ready. Dad was cleaning his guns at the kitchen table. He rambled on for a while about how good a shot he was, and then looked very pointedly at the terrified young man and asked what time he'd have me home. Poor guy didn't stop shaking all night. He told me years later (when he finally started talking to me again) that he was sure Dad was going to kill him if he so much as looked at me.

And, yes, he is gruff, but if you (if you are his family) catch him in the right mood, he'll sing along with the goofy 50s music he prefers. He can make that wah-WAH-wah noise from the Clint Eastwood westerns until you want to whack him in the head. He can wiggle his ears, independently. He's a dead shot with a rubber band. When I was a kid, he'd tuck me into bed so tightly I couldn't move, and I've never felt safer. This was after he'd hold my brother and I up high so we could crawl across the ceiling. Then he'd drop us so we'd fall into the middle of the bed. Mom was convinced we'd break our necks, but we'd whine and nag to 'do it again, Dad!'

Last November, he turned 62. His hair is more silvered these days (and it wasn't all my fault) and he feels the cold much more than he used to. I see him, mostly, through adult eyes, and I like and admire who I see. I'm very lucky in many ways, and he's at the top of my blessings list.

Thanks, Dad, for being who and what you are. Love you.

White Christmas

I've been inundated lately with a plethora of examples of the suckiness of the general population. It seems like every time I turn around, I see greedy, stupid, inconsiderate louts getting ahead and it makes evenings like last night's all the more precious to me.

It satarted with an off-hand invitation from a friend - they were going to the movies at the Trivoli, which is in my neck of the woods. The Trivoli is an old-time theatre in the best sense of the word - one huge screen, an organ at the front, and a beautifully ornate decor. When I accepted the invite, I didn't even know what movie was playing - I have never been, and everyone told me that I HAD to go. As it happens, the movie playing was "White Christmas" with Bing Crosby and I figured that my friends and I would be the only people in the theatre.

My friend told me that it usually gets really busy, so I arrived at 6:20 for the 7:00 show to find the theatre completely packed. I paid my $3 and wormed my way through the masses of people - all of whom were unnaturally cheerful about being crammed together like sardines - to the popcorn stand (featuring free refills!), through the line and to my seat. As I settled myself, a particularly complex bit of Christmas music was heralded by enthusiastic applause from the audience. That was when I realized that it wasn't a CD - there was a guy up on the stage, sitting at a complicated looking organ, pounding away. Every flourish was greeted with the same enthusiasm from the audience until it was time for the movie to start - with no previews, or commercials beforehand.

Even more amazing, there was not one cell phone/PDA/beeper ring during the entire movie. The only noise at all was a quickly hushed baby's cry. The last movie I was at, the person next to me talked on their phone for several minutes (actually, right up until I 'accidently' elbowed him hard enough for the phone to jump out of his hand and go skittering under several rows of seats - and I firmly believe that it went that far 'cause people kept kicking it further). Not here - when I looked around, everyone was completely focused on the screen. Well, not completely focused. When my very emotional friend started crying at all the military men marching around to honor their retired general, someone behind us quietly offered a tissue over her shoulder.

At the happy ending, wild applause again sounded throughout the theatre and then, something even more amazing happened. Everyone picked up their belongings and filed out. People stopped to let others go ahead of them, no one pushed their way around the elderly ladies shuffling to the front - as a matter of fact, a pierced and tattoed goth guy waited patiently for several moments to hold the door open for them - and there was someone waiting at the front doors to hand us a mint and thank us for coming.

As I walked away, a gentle fluffy snow started to fall - making the cityscape look remarkably like a certain magical final scene in a White Christmas classic. In the morning, the snow would no longer be picturesque and people would once again be rude and mean-spirited but one magical evening did a lot to restore this soul's eroded Christmas spirit.

I Hate Change

I went home for Thanksgiving, and mixed with my joy at being in my place again was sadness for the way things are changing.

"Progress" is not as bad in Ohio as it is here, but it makes my heart hurt to see farmland paved over and turned into yet another allotment of huge, ugly houses. Where the hell are all of these people coming from? And why in god's name is it now "underdeveloped" land?? When is it going to end? We are blessed to have some of the most fertile land on the planet, and it's sprouting townhomes, condos and mcmansions. Do you really think it's okay to buy all our food from China along with everything else? Maybe we should farm it out to India along with the tech jobs. Do you not understand what is going to happen to this country if we lose the ability to feed ourselves along with the ability to manufacture for ourselves what we need?

Go ahead and look down your pointy noses at the common man, the blue collar man - but he is what made this country great once. How did we come to a place where my father, who can fix anything and has worked for one company for 40+ years, is looked down on by white-collar parasites incapable of changing their own lightbulbs?!?

Unbelievable!

It's that time of year again...

I could be speaking of Autumn, when the leaves turn scarlet and gold and there's a nip in the air. I could be referring to the time immediately after Halloween, when the office is inundated with candy unclaimed by beggars or stolen from cavity-prone offspring. Heck, I could be preparing to grumble about the start of Christmas ads.

But I'm not.

I am thinking of the semi-annual infestation of my apartment. Now, I don't mean the spiders or the earwigs or the multi-legged creepy crawlies that abound this time of year - all of whom are looking for a warm winter abode. I mean the invisible (to me, at any rate) beasties that invade in the fall and the spring and send my cat into uber-hyper hunter mode.

I've had entirely too many weird things happen to me to doubt the presence of the unexplained, but this kinda creeps me out. Sophia and I have lived in this apartment for a bit over 2 years, and every spring and every fall the same thing happens. We'll both be chillin' on the couch, her with her four fuzzy little feet sticking up in the air, completely oblivious to everything when suddenly, she's awake and alert. Ears up, whiskers quivering, tail twitching, ready to rumble alert.

From alert, she goes to stalk mode - slither to the ground, flat to the floor, hyper-focused, creeping closer... closer... almost there and then the chase is on! Careening around corners, leaping over obstacles, her claws scrabbling for traction on my wood-like floors until the critter manages to dart under the couch, bookshelf, some shelter. Then the siege begins. Sophia crouches waiting patiently, sometimes for hours, looking like a very fuzzy sphinx, utterly intent. Finally, eventually, the pressure is too much and the critter snaps and the chase is on again. Most of the time, the chase ends with a pounce and a death shake. Then kitty noshes on her catch and cleans herself after.

This happens on a fairly regular basis with spiders aka kitty crunchy num-nums and someday I'll write about our continuing adventures with George, the suicidal house spider. But this is different because THERE'S NOTHING THERE. No noise to attract her attention, no creature to stalk and chase, nothing lurking under the furniture, nada zip zilch.

The bright orange caution sticker on her cage at the shelter and the wide-eyed astonishment of the staff ("You want THIS cat?!?!? But we have so many nice cats.") let me know early in the relationship that she was different from other cats, and one day I'll get around to sharing that story as well. My philosophy at the time was that I'd probably make a normal cat crazy, so I may as well start with a psycho one. And the first few times she hunted down and bagged her imaginary snacks, I figured that it was just a small delusion of a mouse or something.

But I've really begun to wonder. This seasonal migration begins around Halloween and will go until a week or so before Christmas. It will begin again in the beginning of March and last about six weeks into the spring. This fall is the third time in three years, right on schedule.

Also, I filled her food bowl yesterday. Normally, this would last about three days. During the migration, however, this bowl of food will last for a week and a half or so. She's not losing weight - this spring she actually gained a pound over the course of the hunting season. So, if her prey are just her imagination, what is she eating?

Witnesses believe that it is not a coincidence that I've never lost a sock in the laundry. They claim that my cat has decimated the population of the infamous sock faeries and she's a hero to sock-lovers everywhere.

I have a theory wherein my cat exists in more than one dimension at a time. I think that, were she to exist solely in this plane, she'd weigh about as much as your average tanker truck. My belief is that the small eight pound self that she shows me is a ruse. As evidence, I present my bruised kidneys. No one who weighs less than an average bowling ball should be able to generate the force with which she lands on me. I do bruise easily, that's true, but my legs are constantly decorated with an ever-changing array of colorful, paw-sized bruises from her landings. This is not normal. I've had cats my entire life and none of the other ones - even the 25 pound Maine coon - caused this much damage.

So I kinda think that she's hunting down and eating creepy crawlies from another plane of existence. I can't help but wonder what she looks like in this other place. Still the fuzzy croco-cat that I'm accostomed to? (Croco-cat since her fangs are too long to fit in her mouth) And if there are other planes, what the hell else is running around in my space?? And that, my friends, is the thought that really makes me wonder.