Wimpy And Silly Person

It was a wonderful day and evening. The Awesome Boyfriend surprised me by taking the afternoon off, surprised me again with flowers, and surprised me a third time with a new camera (that has about a hundred bells and whistles). We had a good dinner, wonderful dessert (made with his loving hands), and we slept soundly. An all-around perfect day.

So as I padded out to the kitchen this morning to get my day started, I wasn't ready for it. The buzzing. The almost-furious sound of something that was as mad as a hornet. In fact - it was a wasp, but it was as mad as a hornet.

It was silhouetted perfectly as the sun beamed through the kitchen window. I backed away slowly and happened to glance at the clock in the kitchen, which read 9:08am. I moved the cat into the bedroom, giving her instruction that her morning nap was gonna come early, and closed the door. I returned to the doorway of the kitchen and gave myself permission to freak out a little bit. And then I started to get a plan together.

I'd seen it done once, at a wedding reception when I was just a child. The bee that wouldn't leave the guests alone. The usher that rushed over with a champagne flute, tossed out the champagne and placed the open glass over the bee so as to trap it. Then watched, in awe, as he moved it to the edge of the table, swirled the glass around a few times to confuse and daze the creature, and then picked up the glass and placed a napkin over it. He then walked over to the water fountain and dunked the package - bee, napkin, glass and all. He did this as 'tho he'd done this a thousand times. Made it look so easy.

I can deal with a lot of things when pressed. Countless nests of cockroaches in abandoned houses in Mississippi, sure thing. The occasional cricket or spider, you bet ('tho I don't like being surprised by them). Even snakes - if I know where they are first, I'm alright. Hesitant, but alright. Something about buzzing flying things 'tho just unnerves me to no end. And bees are one thing but wasps? Hell, wasps can sting ya' all damn day long.

All of this was going through my head. How do you get a wasp outta your kitchen? Take off his hat? (No, that's how ya' get the Pope outta your Volkswagon.) I did what any reasonable person would - I grabbed the kitchen towels, my purse, and the longest pair of kitchen tongs we have. I also grabbed a medium-sized glass mixing bowl, in case I screwed up my courage to try the "wasp under glass" recipe that I'd seen so long ago.

I also called The Awesome Boyfriend.

Now I knew (and logic states) that there was nothing he could really do about our wasp in the kitchen. I just needed to give myself time to figure out my plan of attack. After a short conversation, it was back to me and the wasp.

And so it went.

For an hour.

I watched as it flew from one window to the other, giving me time to adjust the blinds on the first. I watched (from a hallway) as it left the kitchen to check out the living room. I turned on my laptop (to do research on "natural wasp repellents/killers one can make from common hallway items") and cringed as the wasp found our birthday flowers and visited each one. (By the way - there are no common hallway items that can be used to kill wasps. Maybe books, but one would have to be REALLY sure about their aim if trying that. And near to the wasp, too. I wanted to find something where I could be three rooms away and killing the wasp.)

I watched, now armed with my tongs holding a wadded up dish towel I'd soaked in liquid soap from the bathroom (an idea from the Internet search), as the wasp returned to the first kitchen window. I slowly moved to the other window and opened it, with a prayer of departure for the wasp. "Look - I don't wanna get close enough to hurt you or get hurt, and you don't want me to hurt you, either" I pleaded. "Just leave - and tell your buddies that this place isn't worth visiting" but there he sat.

I glanced out my now-open window and asked our neighbor if she had wasp killer (she didn't) and when I returned my gaze to the unwanted house guest ...

... it was not there.

Crap.

If there's anything worse than having a wasp in your house in full view, it's having one in your house that ISN'T in view.

I waited.

For about 15 more minutes I waited.

I got more brave and moved closer to the window. I gingerly moved the blinds. No wasp. I stared up to the top of the window, both praying to see the wasp and praying to not see it. I did not see it. I continued to wait and, after a few more minutes, decided that it had used the space between the window and the wall to depart from the indoors. I closed the window blinds, closed the other window, peaked in on the cat (who was deep into nap-mode), and left for my coffee run - an hour and a half later than I'd intended.

I passed our neighbor, who was watering her flower bed. She asked if I'd removed the pest and I said it'd removed itself. She then said that one had just started to buzz around her so I decided to believe it was the same one.

When I returned home later (from coffee AND from buying two different wasp-killing sprays), I carefully opened the door to survey the wreckage. The long tongs were on the counter, next to a soap-soaked towel and a glass mixing bowl. Blinds were askew or unopened. As I slowly started to return everything to normal, I marveled again at how calm that usher had disposed of that bee.

I may never be that brave ... but I'd be ok if I never have to find out.

To Me From Me

When I was a kid, I always figured that adults had all the answers. "Why is the sky blue?" I'd ask my father and I knew he'd know. "What did dinosaurs look like?" I'd ask my mother and I knew she'd send me to my room. (By the way - I really DID ask my mom that question, when I was going through my "dinosaurs are cool" phase. I still don't know how she kept a straight face with that one.) I don't know if I thought that, at a certain age, everyone got some kind of cheat sheet of knowledge or what, but I knew that one day, I'd know whatever was worth knowing.

And then I became a teenager. I remember (and this is true, too) that my father found a refrigerator magnet that he LOVED and he'd point to it regularly when my sister and I were around. It read "Attention Teenagers: Move out now and pay your own way while you still know it all." I liked to think that it was directed more at my sister than at me, but I'm sure that we both had our moments of "our parents are sooooo stupid".

So it's in that line of thinking that I pondered last night: If I could sit my younger self down, what would I share? What advice would I give? What knowledge would I convey?

I came up with this:

Go play. Yes, you'll probably wind up breaking your arm ... ok, maybe both of them ... sure, possibly more than once ... but play anyway. It'll be worth it.

Pay more attention in school and try to get some good study habits going early. If ya' don't, you're really not going to enjoy the 8th grade all that much and you'll miss being able to be in some cool advance education classes by *that much* in high school.

That boy that swears he wants to spend the rest of his life with you is still in college and has no idea what "life" even is yet. Cut him some slack for breaking your heart - but it's ok to never forget how he'll do it (besides, it'll be a familiar lesson later in your life).

Speaking of boys, don't confuse them with men. Some will be harder to identify than others because of better camouflage, but - to use a hunters analogy - if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, and has feathers like a duck, don't tell yourself it's a swan. It's a duck.

Don't worry about questioning those who appear to be in a position of knowledge. If they're not secure enough to handle some innocent questions, they probably have less knowledge than you think.

There will be a natural disaster in the middle of the "00" decade that, for reasons you'll never understand, will compel you to get involved in a way that will change your life. I have no advice for ya' on this one, as you'll do the right thing.

And finally - and this is the most important part - if you change any part of your growing up journey as you become an adult, you'll never get to meet the love of your life. So - whatever you do - ignore EVERYTHING I've just shared with you and know that you will be loved ... more than you ever thought possible and better than any movie you've seen or book you've read. And if you change anything along the way, you won't be the same person and you'll miss out on it.

So just ... go play.

Feline Lost?

I tried to watch "Lost" a couple of times. I seem to recall that I knew enough about it to recognize that it was going to require far too much of my evening hours to understand what all happened each week, and so - after catching a few episodes here and there - I finally gave up on it.

And then, a few seasons later, it ended.

I watched the last "Lost" online, fast-forwarding through the stuff that made absolutely no sense to me at all, and actually I rather enjoyed it. Probably because I wasn't waiting for answers to every little detail. And also because after fast-forwarding, I was left with about 14 minutes of stuff.

Now, because the Internet takes things that are good and makes 'em even better, I have decided to give to the world the gift of found time. See, if one were to watch all the episodes of "Lost" from start to finish, it'd be something like a 220+hour project.

So my present to you ...

... the entire 6-season story line of "Lost" ...

... as acted by cats ...

... in 1 minute, 10 seconds.





You are welcome.

But wait ... there's more!

Picking up a series from February ...

• It means being comfortable enough to know your strengths (powering through on a task come hell or high water) and your weaknesses (slowing down to understand why the first way isn't working so great).
  
  
• It means finding better ways to say something. "What did ya' say?", for instance, can be something I say A LOT, due to hearing damage in one ear. So instead, I've started repeating back what I think I've heard, to thus far comical results. Just this morning "Heston Blumenthal" became "It's Wonder Dog!"
  
  
• It means doing - instead of thinking of doing - around-town stuff months in advance of a birthday ... and then finding yourself too excited to wait until the right day to share the gift.
  
  
• It means enjoying the quiet times, be it watching fireflies dance by the window or rabbits dart in the backyard, and realizing that you're honestly just happy to be beside your partner.
  

That's a few more moments of what it means to love someone.

Just Cause

Remember when I wrote this from February?

Well today, while thumbing through a newspaper, I found an article about a dynamic duo I'd never heard about ... "A Chance For Bliss". They do work that ... well, they might just be the bravest people you'd ever wanna know about. Oh, and they have a blog (which you'll find over there ------>) and they're also in the running to get a little financial relief from Pepsi (click here).

Now, before ya' say "awwww man - I gotta REGISTER to do this? It's too much trouble" and whine and bitch and decide not to, lemee ask you this one question:

Have you ever cried over the loss of a pet?

'Cause if you have, if you know what that feels like, if you ever had to make that difficult decision where ya' knew what the right thing to do was but it made your heart heavy ... well then, imagine voluntarily taking in animals who were near the end of their journey just so their last days would be good ones. Imagine voluntarily taking in critters who would probably be around just long enough to break your heart when they passed.

Right ... as I said, the bravest people you'd ever wanna know about.

Take the two minutes, sign up, use your "fake" email and don't check the "send me spam all day" boxes, and whatever all else you want ... but sign up and help these people continue to do the work they do. You're allowed to vote for 10 different worthy causes every single day ... I'm just asking for you to use one of those votes. Feel free to find other ideas closer to your heart (or towns) and give them your support, too.

But let's at least give bliss a chance, ok?