Momomama
I just got an email for
Hook and Hackle's "Valentine's Specials." Because nothing says I love you like a package of flashabou, a dozen pheasant rumps, and a box of mirage dome eyes. Unless, of course, you love the man I do. (No, not C**** F******)
Tonight...one and a half blessed hours of C**** F****** on the Surreal Life. I fear even typing his name, as we all know what happened last time! Nonetheless, I enjoy the antics of the C-list celebrities (though it pains me to refer to Gabrielle Carteris SLC '83 as such.) I like the reality tv because I can do a million other things while it is on - read, knit, sew, write letters, do my taxes (thanks for the refund, Feds!) The more ridiculous the better, I say. This is why I love The Surreal Life and Joe Millionaire, but never watch Survivor. And speaking of Joe Millionaire, it turns out one of the Joe Hos has appeared in fetish videos. (Read all about it
The Smoking Gun) She was fully clothed in all the videos, which feature bondage, tickling, and feet...dirty feet. Now, I saw the pictures at TSG, and I have to say. This bondage looks so not sexy to me. The people are tied up like suitcases with broken latches! "Just lash the rope around him once or twice, Bob! That oughta do it!" It looked like the binders (is that the word?) took lessons from the people who tie up the kidnap victims and stool pigeons in made for tv movies. I mean really. If someone offered me money to sit, fully clothed, tied to a chair, with my dirty toes hanging out, I'd do it. In a heartbeat. Not the tickling, though. That's where I draw the line.
Usually, the headlines at yahoo stay the same all day long. I check my email there six times a day or so and always the same thing, day after day, "Weapons Inspectors Keep Looking." "Like Yesterday, Still Looking", "'Nothing Yet', Say Weapons Inspectors." Suddenly, after last night's speech the headlines about Iraq have changed eight times:
Iraq Denies Any Connection to Al Qaeda
Blair Says He Knows of Iraq Links with Al Qaeda
U.N. Nuclear Body Wants to Finish Job in Iraq
Bush Asks U.N. to Hear Fresh Iraq Evidence
U.S. Says 15,718 More Reserve Troops Called Up
Washington Pledges Last Push to Avoid Iraq War
Bush Urges World to Pressure Saddam
U.S. Says It Would Help Saddam Find Place of Exile
Are we really so dumb as to confuse a White House Press Release with news? Yeah, I thought so. And where is the evidence I was promised? I bet we'll see that about the same time they squeeze $15 billion out of the budget to fight AIDS.
I am in desperate need of another project. Alana suggested mongrammed hankies, I was thinking about embroidered hand towels, Bill wants a wall hanging, and there's a baby on the way that could use a sweater or a quilt. Without a project, I am lost. I spend way to much time wasting time, because I have no project to get on with. I seem to have lost my ability to entertain myself without doing something with my hands. And also, my new obsession is scrapbooking. I am obsessed because I don't understand it, and all I can associate with it are those damn cutesy papers in the craft stores...you know the ones, with the bears and the ballons and the bubble letters..."First Birthday!" "Gone Fishing!" I can't imagine a cool scrapbook, though I know that one must exist, right? This was a really lame blog, I know. It's because I don't have a project. See what I mean?
Starlings. They are starlings. And they are taking the place over!
My apartment complex has been taken over by birds. They started in the two holly trees at the far end of the front courtyard, but now they have spread to four other trees. They poop all over the walkway and chirp, loudly, all night. (Well, maybe not all night, but they do it when I pass.) There must be tree hundred, or more, of them in the trees. And this makes me miss Bill. Because I am a sap. And because he knows what kind of birds they are, and he told me, but I forgot already. And I can't just call him and ask. I have to wait til he calls me. And so I hate those birds. If I had a shotgun I'd make like Tom Skerritt (? I think?) in Steel Magnolias, and shoot them out of them there trees.
Of course I finished it. Was there any doubt? Maybe my next quilt will take less than a YEAR from start to finsih, but I doubt it.
I've got plans, people, plans. This weekend I WILL finish my quilt. It's been a year. All I have to do is hand quilt the last two and a half blocks, Machine quilt the border (i know it's cheating but that was the plan from the beginning so it's not like I decided to do it at the last minute to save time), and do the binding. It can be done. It's cold as hell and I'm broke as can be (damn the six weeks between december and January paychecks! It seems so great in december....) so I have nothing else to do. My quilt was inspired by
this one, in color at least. (The pattern is 12" pinwheel blocks - which are blue and brown, blue and white, and seafoam green and white. The border will be blue stripe, brown stripe and the binding white stripe.) Denyse Schmidt makes such beautiful quilts. And this weekend I will finish my own beautiful quilt. As I told Alana, "Even if I poke my finger with the needle like snow white's mom and kick it, that quilt will be done first! I'll push through the tetanus and the gangrene. I vow this!"
It's the little things that get to me! I have had the same pair of glasses for ever...six years on the lenses, eight or more on the frames. I hate, hate, hate them. I also need new contacts. And of course with my vision plan I get one or the other, and I can't even get new glasses frames until NEXT year, for a reason I can not understand. I've never gotten frames from them! So how can I not be eligible for them? Even if I've gotten contacts the last two years...why would that mek me not eligible for frame for two years? I am so confused! So it looks like if I want new glasses, all I can do is use the insurance for the contacts and pay out of pocket for the new glasses. How come the politicians never talk about presciption eye care? America is being robbed! And it's dangerous for me to be unable to see!
And another thing! I forgot to moisturize this morning and my legs are itching like I've got the poison ivy. Would it be weird if I took my hand lotion in to the bathroom, dropped trou and slathered up my legs? Thought so. Maybe I'll just get to what I can reach my pulling UP my pants legs.
In other news, I started reading
Them: Adventures with Extremists by Jon Ronson last night. The man is brilliant. It's amazing how he manages to convey both the strange logic and craziness of people like Omar Bakri and Randy Weaver. I have to say that even though I consider myself aware of the news and the current events and all, I never really understood just what had happened at Ruby Ridge until I read Ronson's chapter on it. Oh, and did I mention this book is laugh-out-loud funny? It is.
Your chance of flurries ain't cuttin' it, Mr. Winter.
My boss, Sally, has to introduce someone named Mike Hunt at an event next week. And yes, we have been giggling about it all day.
All right, Old Man Winter. This has gone on long enough. Wait! Now hear me out! I am not going to complain about how cold it is like all of those other wimps. No. I have the tights, the socks, the shirt, the sweater, the shawl, the coat, the scarf, the hat, the gloves, the insulated boots. The cold is not the problem. No. The problem is the lack of snow. I mean, you started out so, so, so well. You gave us a White Christmas, a storm around Thanksgiving, a few inches after New Year's. But now, now you are getting lazy. I am sick to death of these baby Albert Clippers that bring a dusting. I want a BLIZZARD! I want whiteouts, and several FEET of snow. I want snow days. Hear me? DAYS! not just one, either. I want TWO everything shut down, nowhere to go, nothing to do snow days. You are taking the easy way out, Mr. Man. You can not appease me with wind-chill advisories. People don't listen to them anyway. I just saw someone walk by without a hat. All you have done for two weeks is encourage whining, and make people beg for that sissy pants Spring. You want people to respect you? To REALLY curse your name? I've told you how to do it! Now bring it on.
I am not as easily offended as I once was, but this idea,
designer kidnappings, really got my back up. If you need that much adventure go hang out in Mexico City taxi cabs, or walk around Bogota with a fancy watch on. Better yet, take a business trip to Moscow. This kind of ridiculousness was supposed to end with the downturn in the economy.
Bill left for Florida this morning. He'll be gone until the beginning of March. We had a great weekend together. Yesterday, we took a walk at the Reid Sanctuary, where over 5000 migratory sea ducks hang out come winter. Bill can identify any duck, no matter how far away. It can be just a speck on the water and he'll say, "Oh, that's a blackie," or "There's a bufflehead!" It's amazing to me. We saw hundreds of birds. They were all in the Sound, because the lake they normally hang out in was completely frozen. We walked around every point on the beach and saw a new, and bigger, flock at each turn.
After we had our walk we drove over to Tower to buy him some cds for his trip. On the way there, someone beeped at me when I did not make my left hand turn fast enough for them. I burst into tears, I did. Bill is definitely coming to understand me because he just patted my arm and said, "Pull into Burger King." MMMMMM.....shakes save the day.
I have never been a yeller. I know some people think my loud talk IS yelling, but it's not. It's just loud talk. When you yell, there has to be definitive raising of the voice and a tone change. I am just loud all the time.
The only time I ever yell is my dreams. When I get really frustrated, I end up with heaving chest and clenched fistss, trying to explain my point of view to the my deamed companions. This never happens in real life. I think once I got into a yelling fight with my step-sister (but we were 13 and 15, so who can blame us...) and once I yelled at my college boyfriend. Other than that, I really can't think of a time I yelled AT someone.
Today, I had lunch with a yeller. She's an older woman and I think she is very angry. She also gets angrier after a glass of wine or two. And she yells. She yells so loud that people's heads turn...
"and There ARE NOOOOOO GOOD LEADERS IN THE WOOOOOORLD!!!!!!!!!!!"
"I'd like to give that god damn SOCIAL WORKER A SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANKING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
"Michael Bloomberg needs to Learn that you DON"T. RUN. A. CITY. LIKE. A. BUSINESSSSSSS!"
God bless her, she yells about everything.
"OH DARN! I burned my TONGUE! AGAIN!"
Even when she's yelling good things she seems angry.
"This Risotto IS FABULOUSSSSSSSSSS!"
She also gets indignant, which I won't even get INTO now! This yeller makes me feel really uncomfortable because a.) it's embarrassing, and b.) I am SURE she's going to yell at me next. But mostly, it's jealousy. I bet she never has dreams where she's choked with anger and can't breathe. I think she lets it all out.
Visiting Stew Leonard's is like going to a grocery store in a dream, everything is slightly off. If you were telling someone about it you would say..."So, I am going to the grocery store, and it was like a grocery store, but it was also like a giant barn with a silo and everyhing. The parking lot was soooooo long and it was so windy, like it was on top of a mountain. So I keep walking toward the barn that is the grocery store, and I go in where the front door should be, but it's not really inside, it just this huge roofed space, with open sides. And there are are snow shovels, and things like that, and there is a liquor store attached. So I FINALLY get inside, and it feels like I have been walking for hours, and there aren't normal aisles, but it's more like I HAVE to walk through the whole store to get anything. And I keep walking and walking and there are these brick floors, and wood beams, like I am really in a barn. And there are singing pigs and cows around, like above the shelves and in the dairy department." And the person you were talking to would get confused, like maybe you were telling them a dream about a grocery store, but no! It's Stew Leonard's. And I went there today.
Never again will I mention dating Corey Feldman. Last night I dreamed I WAS Corey Feldman's girlfriend. We met at Tesoro's in Austin, where he apparently works when not hanging out with Michael Jackson. Corey and I are now engaged. we are saving ourselves for marriage, although we did have a GREAT make-out section in the clothing room.
Seems like I have the February blahs early. Damn January. Damn darkness and damn lack of holidays and damn two months before an actual relaxing break. The only way to combat the dismal despair is eating. That and watching
The Surreal Life, after all it could be worse, I could be Corey Feldman's girl friend in January.
There is a sign on the door of the bookstore that says the following:
"Visit is on-line!"
It's not even a sign, so much as it is a printed piece of paper with a border and a Follett logo. Which lead me to believe it was printed in the bookstore itself, or at least by Someone at Follett. The sign looks like it has been there a while too. Why has no one pointed it out? Probably for the same reason I didn't. It is funnier to do the mocking.
I finally sent my resume to UVM. Last month, Bill's friend Jim called to tell me they are looking for development people. (Jim works in the Annual Fund there.) It's taken me forever to get around to sending my resume, but last night I had a completely irrational panic attack about my future. I started by thinking about how I want to move closer to Bill, turned to how I need a job up there, then to how we will need insurance, and then to how our kids will need insurance, and then to how we'll need to figure out what to do for child care, and then to how I probably won't be able to stay at home everyday until our kids are completely grown up and moved out, and then to how we would have to baby proof the camp if we have children prior to building a new house. Baby proofing, for God's sake. I never should have had coffee ice cream at 9:30pm.
Anyway, I sent my resume, and have plans to send it to a bunch of arts organization in Lake Placid and also to the Adirondack Natural History Museum that's opening up. Hopefully this actioin will stave off any more baby proofing panic.
I've done my yoga tape two days in a row now, and this has led me to ask the question...will I ever be able to bend over and touch my toes? (With straight legs, mind you.) I have a vague memory of being able to do it, back when I spent Wednesday afternoons at the Girl's Club, taking gymnastic classes. I was eight. We would warm up by stretching over our legs, hands grasping one ankle, or bother. Most of the girls could press their noses into the cool mat between their outstretched legs, and would rest their cheeks on their legs. When doing standing bends, they could press their foreheads to their knees. The most I could hope for was to smell the foam rubber of the mat from five inches away, and feel the radiating heat from my tights covered legs. But at least I could touch my toes. Now my flexibilty is just dismal. When I do standing forward bends, my outstretched fingertips hover inches above the carpet. When I sit on the floor and bend over my leg, I can grab the top of my shin, not even the ankle, nevermind the toes. I feel ridiculous, and to make matters worse, I apparently look ridiculous too. For most of the workout Mo just sits there watching me, but when I stretch my legs, he runs over and licks my face and tries to nudge me back upright.
On New Year's Eve, Bill and I ran some errands (picking up black eyed peas, and dropping his nephew off at a friend's...) in town (that town being Greenport, where Emily lives.) While I was in the IGA grabbing the peas and jalapenos, Bill say his cousin Marty drive by. We followed Marty back to his house, where he made us tea, and showed us the rocks and pieces of woods he'd found on the beach. He has a collection of hammerstones and sinker stones and arrowheads and knife blades that's he's picked up at an old Indian campground at the end of the point in Hallocks Bay. That afternoon, we walked with him out to the point. I had momo with me and he kept trying to jump into the water. Just as we got to the parking lot the fog had come in, and by the time we were at the edge of the water it was so thick we couldn't see even twenty feet ahead. Marty walked in front of us, flipping over shells and pieces of beach glass and rocks. Mom ran through the water next to me. Bill found a piece of an old chowder bowl and an old jar with a glass top. He cleaned off the jar lid for me and slid it into my pocket. The point was about three quarters of a mile down the beach and by the time we got there the fog began to clear. Momo was shivering, so I tied him up to some old pilings, where he could lie in the weak sun. It was so warm that I pulled of my jacket and pushed up my sleeves. We looked through the mud for points and blades. I didn't find any, but I filled my pockets with shells.
I didn't realize how excited I would be about me new crock pot until I saw it in action. Last Friday, I threw a roast in with some garlic and a jar of pepperoncini. Ten hours later...The. Best. Roast. Ever. And right now, pork loin and sweet potatoes are working their magic on the kitchen counter. I feel like women must have felt when the first Crock Pot was introduced..."This is revolutionary! Now, dinner cooks itself! Now more slaving over a hot stove, or meating up the place with the oven all day! And what's more, I can just LEAVE it...run errands, go to work, play tennis...and when I get home, Dinner is ready! Thank you, Crock Pot." I swear, the only small appliance that could give me more pleasure is the kitchenaide stand mixer, and you have to get married to have one of those.
Did I just post about an appliance? I did, didn't I?
The current weather report calls for freezing fog. What the hell is that? I'll tell you...It's the kind of thing that makes me wish I was at home curled up in bed in my (new) pj's. Freezing fog? They made that up.
Apparently, freezing fog is the kind of thing that makes the College close at 10:30am. Woohoo!
