In less than a week, we'll be taking a driving vacation across many states. (The "many states" part is still new for me. I'm from a place where one can drive for 9 hours straight and still be in the same state.) There is MUCH to be done before we depart.
Packing, for one thing. I honestly don't know if I have enough summer items that aren't "garden" wear ... light summery tops that I could wear to a cafe, for instance. I have a single pair of shorts. As in ONE. I don't have sandals of any kind. (I'm not a fan of open-toed shoes so this isn't a new thing and, up until this vacation, it hasn't mattered. But if I don't have sandals, I'll need to wear my short-heeled black pumps for "dressing up" and they kinda require nylons and heck - YOU try wearing nylons in summer heat. It's not fun.)
Cleaning, for another. I'm not a fan of leaving home without cleaning it up first because (1) it means I'll return to home that hasn't been cleaned and (2) whomever cares for the home or pets or plants while I'm away will - of course - see (and judge) the uncleanliness.
(Sidenote: That "judge" thing above? That's crap and I know it's crap. Anyone who I trust enough to care for my home, pets or plants wouldn't pass judgement on the cleanliness or lack thereof of my home. Just like that cop who is pulled off on that side street isn't gonna start up his car and tail me for blocks on the off-chance I may speed. And yet, I still slow down and study the rear view mirror, questioning if the police car LOOKS like it's moving.)
Oh, and planning, for a third. The Awesome Boyfriend may be experienced in traveling to other states via car and stopping along the way and such, but this is a new thing for me and I want to be educated enough to say "I want to visit Town X to see the world's largest ball of used twine". Or, yanno, maybe something actually interesting.
So yes - we'll be leaving in (checks calendar) four days. Four short days. Three really, as we'll be departing early on that fourth. And two, honestly, because it's gonna take most of a day to pack, and sort, and recheck, and pack more, and unpack that stupid thing that I'll NEVER really wear, etc. And what, from the list of chores to be done both as stated above and still in my head, have I accomplished?
I've sorted out a weeks worth of cat treats and cat crunchies and written cute little cat instructions and set out the cat carrier (just in case she needs to be mobile) and restuffed her favorite toys with fresh cat nip and labeled what food happens on which day and in which bowl it gets served in.
In less than a week, the Awesome Boyfriend and I will be leaving on vacation and only one living being in our home is ready ... the cat, who actually is NOT going anywhere.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Thursday, June 24, 2010
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.
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.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
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.
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.
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