Shake it up, baby!

I bet you were all wondering what would bring me back here. So was I, frankly. It’s been a rather busy few months of kids home for summer, a dead-for-the-third-time’s-a-charm computer, school starting, and K coming home on leave, and me trying to nail down regular work. Turns out what it really takes for me to sit down and write again is an earthquake. You heard me right. Earthquake. Nothing major, mind you, and I’m sure my friends on the left coast are laughing behind their hands at the lack of magnitude it takes for my heart to pound and my mind to race, but that’s ok. I laugh at the thought of them driving around during a snow storm…or as I like to call it, a light dusting. I have only ever lived on the east coast and I’m no stranger to hurricanes, blizzards, ice storms, nor’easters, drought (and not just the writing kind), hail, and floods. Not to mention, black flies, mosquitoes, and jellyfish. Mother Nature and I come in to contact fairly often in these parts and I have a healthy respect for the power she wields. She never mentioned the possibility of earthquakes though. Mighty tricky of you, Mother Nature, mighty tricky!

Saturday night, just before 11:30pm, I was laying in bed reading and starting to doze off. All of a sudden I heard a loud boom/crash/extended thud and then the house shook for a couple of seconds. At first I thought I was more asleep than I imagined and perhaps I was about to have a blockbuster movie dream. No such luck. My next thought was that the basement blew up again (yes, I said “again.”), but quickly pushed that aside when I realized that the smoke alarms didn’t go off. Then I thought some idiot finally took the corner in front of our house too fast and hit the gigantic pine tree outside Monkey’s room and hoped that the tree wouldn’t break and crush my house (or my Monkey!) or the animal shelter across the street. There was no other sound though after that initial boom, so it couldn’t be that. Maybe something nearby had exploded in an enormous fireball…All of these thoughts were zipping around in my head at supersonic speeds while I tried to assess my next action which all centered around “Holy crap I might have to get 2 sleeping kids and 2 dogs out of here ASAP.”

Pants went on quickly, and the ridiculously calm dogs (who were my first clue that all was more well than my pounding heart and flight ready brain were able to process) looked at me askance while I shut them in my room to go investigate on my own. Nothing smelled funny, no sirens in the distance, and the kids were both still asleep. I went downstairs and made sure the basement door wasn’t hot and that the barn was still attached and the shop in the side yard was also still in its usual dilapidated state. Everything was right were it should be—unchanged. I suspect even the pantry mouse was undisturbed. Back upstairs I go, to waiting dogs who I’m pretty sure think I’m off my rocker at this point, but are nice enough to not say so out loud. I collar them up and outside we go to investigate the property and look around the neighborhood for signs of the obvious coming apocalypse. Casey and Zoe, amazed at their luck in getting to go out after 9:30pm, immediately go running off to sniff out the wild animal nightlife and I stand at the bottom of my driveway wondering what the hell was going on because nothing seemed to be going on. Surely if there was a rift in the space time continuum (which was the only other option left as far as I could tell), I would be seeing aliens or a passel of long-forgotten farmers making their way back home in a horse and buggy parade. Nope. Nothing. All was quiet on the Great White Northern Front.

I called the dogs back in and we returned to bed. I think my heart finally began to slow to it’s normal pace and the adrenalin rush unlike anything I’ve felt since riding the Mt. Everest roller-coaster at Disney (it goes backwards!) started to dissipate as well. Of course the first thing I did after settling in was get online. I saw my neighbor across the street was also online (Phew!) and she and I instant messaged briefly about the excitement of the night (let me tell you, we do not generally live in an exciting part of town at all), and thanks to Twitter (yup, Twitter) we quickly found out that we were hit with a 3.2 earthquake less than 10 miles from our neighborhood.

For as much upheaval as that tiny earthquake caused in my internal organs, I was actually glad it was that rather than all my other options (especially the Doctor Who-esque scenario). There were far more chances for death and destruction coming out of my brain than what was happening in reality and I could not have felt more relief at that realization. Aside from the novelty of having experienced something that was neither on my bucket list or any other list of mine for that matter, it made me realize that I need to remember to keep a calm head when crazy shit happens (i.e. pay attention to the dogs who were calm the whole time). I am not 100% prepared for a disaster—natural or man-made—but I could be with little effort. I know where all the things I would need are: first aid kit, water, and food (thanks Army for your oh-so-tasty MREs!). I know, though, that our generator is lacking fuel, and I don’t have any wood yet for the fireplace if it were necessary to be stuck at home without electricity or heat. I have a camping stove and fuel for that, and we have blankets and sleeping bags. I don’t have anything that’s particularly grab-n-go, and it’s probably a good idea to consolidate. Soon. You know, just in case.

I don’t plan on this little shake up making me paranoid about the possibility of future disasters since they are not the norm (and I really prefer the whole “level head” thing to “crazed loony” thing), nor do I plan on making next summer a family Outward Bound extravaganza, but it sure has made me think twice about what I would do if something truly serious happened. As long as K is attached to the Army, and given that the National Guard is called out for any type of local (and some not-so-local as it turns out) disasters, the kids and dogs and I are pretty much on our own during tough times. It does not hurt to believe that all those years I spent hanging out with Boy Scouts (my dad was a Troop Leader and my brother a Scout) showed me preparedness. Even more important, just being a single-parent forces you to manage a degree of planning and logistics I don’t believe can be taught in college. But here I was left at loose ends even for such a short time over something that in reality was small but could have been bad, bad, bad. Thankfully this is not a cautionary tale that will wind up being checked on Snopes because of its unbelievable circumstances, nor will I end up a recipient of the Darwin Award (at least not this week!). However it is a good reminder to tend to basic needs and always have a plan…which I am working on before Winter comes with all its frozen goodness.

In other news, as I mentioned K was home on leave for a couple of weeks earlier this month and a grand time was had by all. He’s back in Afghanistan counting the days until the deployment is over. The kids did really well with the transition (ah, my little adaptable beings!) and they, too, are looking forward to Daddy being home for hours of hikes, faux camping, sparring practice, and Lego building.

I won’t make promises that I’ll be writing regularly again. Those seem to bite me in the ass. So you’ll see me when you see me and thanks for sticking around and caring what I have to say.

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How I spent my summer vacation

“But Summer vacation just started!” you say. Pish posh! Not for me! Mine’s done. I had a total of 4 glorious days this month without my kids around (with copious amounts of thanks to my parents for taking them) and that was my summer vacation because now they are home. Did I go somewhere fun? Did I lay around sleeping and reading and watching tv while eating bon-bons? Nope. I did enjoy the quiet (that I promptly filled with my music and singing), though.

What I did was tackle my home office project (among some other smaller projects). I converted the under-the-stairs closet into my own little cubby of vocational joy. I patched, painted, built, drilled, hung, and decorated until I made a space that Harry Potter would be happy to live in (if, in fact, he could fit under my workspace)! Come Fall, both kids will be at school full time and it’s time for me to get back to work. Or to work, I guess, since I haven’t been able to accomplish too much business of late with K gone. But I’m ready now, and by the time he gets home for good, I’m hoping to be well-acquainted with my office and what I can do in it.

If you’d like to see the progress of the job, you can see it all here start to finish (with more detailed description), but here’s the finished product:

When the last picture was hung and everything was in its place and I could sit down in a space that was all mine, I felt like a new person with a purpose and direction and less like a gypsy roaming around the house looking for the perfect place to work for the day. Working in the kitchen made me hungry, my bedroom made me sleepy, and in the living room, I could go either way…or both. But here in the closet, I can concentrate. Even with the door open and the view of my lovely back yard plainly in view, I can focus and not want to eat or sleep. It’s refreshing, and if I had known that going into the closet and staying there were the answer, I would have done it from the get-go. I am fortunate that I don’t really have a problem with small spaces, because even though I did my best to minimize the square footage I used for work top area, it’s still on the tight side. But like I said, it’s not a problem for me…or the dogs:

The kids, of course, find my tiny office fascinating (much in the same way they find their little food-shaped Japanese erasers fascinating), but I’m pretty adamant about not all of us fitting, so their trips in for visits are very short-lived. I put the heavy wooden coat hanger rod back up and added a sheer curtain that divides the closet in half should I need a second line of defense. R likes to call the space on the doorway side of the curtain my “waiting area.” I have a hanging magazine rack in that part along with some artwork hanging on the wall, so it is a bit waiting room-esque. The dogs pay no attention to the curtain divider and manage to sometimes lay down in the slim space behind my chair and the wall, or one of them spills out of the doorway a little into the dining room. It is a testament to their unswerving loyalty that they would hang with me in this space when they have the whole rest of the house to lounge about in. I like my dogs…now if only they would fix the rug they bunched up on the way out…

When I was thinking about the decor for my office, it was a no-brainer that the walls and whatever other color I used would have to be light, so I went with two colors I will no doubt cringe over when I think of their names come Winter: “snowbound” and “Icelandic blue.” I’ve been snowbound a time or two and I can’t say it was pleasant after the first 24 hours. As for Iceland, I don’t remember seeing a blue this light or pretty while sitting in Keflavik Airport when I was there eons ago. It looked more like the surface of the moon with a slight coating of dead grass. Not a color I’d want on my walls, that’s for sure. Anyway, the closet is as bright as I could make it within the context of my own taste limits. I added Christmas lights around the office at mid-wall for some light. The usual fluorescent light is actually too bright for me (I have always preferred low-light to work in), so I took it out and just use the natural light from the large glass doors at the back of the house along with the twinkly little Christmas lights and that’s fine for day-to-day stuff. I have a clip-on reading light that I use when doing art projects that require more attention to detail. I kept all the fixtures (rugs, shelves, bulletin board, magazine rack, baskets) on the cream-colored side just to maintain that open feeling. I think it works. I don’t feel like it’s too close in here. One of the unexpected upsides of the shape and size of this office is that the room makes a great speaker. When I play music on my laptop, I can actually hear it clearly and the volume amplifies so nicely. Normally, the rooms in our house are too big for my little crappy laptop speakers, so even at full volume, it just seems to fade away. But playing at full volume from my office allows me to hear it perfectly in the kitchen and living room. Take that Bose!

I wanted to put some inspirational pieces of art on my walls, and I have a rather informal guideline I use in my house regarding what gets shown off on the walls. I try to only put up pieces of art done by people I know. I am fortunate enough to have many talented artists on both sides of my family as well as K’s, so it’s not as hard a guideline to stick to as you might imagine. I decided to dedicate my office to my Aunt Mary who was quite an accomplished artist and one of the more jovial people I’ve ever known. She loved to give big hugs and had a generous laugh and I do miss her. When I was a little girl, she would babysit me sometimes and I have very fond memories of playing in her attic as well as loving the fact that I knew the people in her paintings. I even made the cut into one of them and I have it hanging on the door into my new office. A couple of years ago, Mary’s daughter—my cousin, C—let us all come over and pick out some of her pieces of art. Talk about feeling like a kid in a candy store! I already have some of her still life paintings on various walls around the house, but for my office I picked and framed some of the unfinished sketches to remind myself that practice is key to anything. I’ve got four figure studies, a matador done in pencil and ink, and the sketch for an icon of St. George killing the dragon. Having all those drawings in here gives a bit more meaning to my own efforts and makes it feel like home. Even if it is a closet.

So now I have my own office and it’s time to put it to good use. In fact, I just did. I could get used to this closet dwelling.

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Little things in February

Time for a “Little Things” post because my brain is at half speed this week. I’ve picked up some weird sleep cycle that has me up at really odd and early hours for no apparent good reason. Last night was better and I’m hoping it makes for a clear-headed and not so sleep deprived day of productivity. I could use one of those. So here are some little things from the last week that took the edge off of all the other little things that put me on edge in the first place.

• Monkey sleeps in a tent in his room and I let him because it works. He’s happy to get in his sleeping bag and zip up and he stays there all night. It’s been the best sleep aid we’ve ever used for a kid who traditionally does not sleep well at all. Truth be told, Monkey loves to make “tents” wherever he can. For a kid who spent his first few weeks in an incubator, I should not be surprised that he loves little confined spaces to sleep in. Last week, he made a tent out of couch cushions, the ottoman, and a couple of poncho-liners in the living room and slept in it all night. In fact, it was the best night’s sleep he has had in months. It was tough not to laugh and smile when he woke up the next morning rumpled and content as could be. We all should find something so simple to be happy about when we open our eyes each day.

• I regained my appreciation for the architecture in my home town Saturday morning as I walked along the oceanside cliffs near my parent’s house. Not having taken that walk in ages, I had forgotten my love for all the amazing Victorian cottages that line the path to the water. The more ostentatious summer dwellings I have never been that impressed with, but the simple, silvery wooden-shingled, cozy homes with their widow’s walks and wrap-around porches have always been high on my list of architectural beauty. My hometown is littered with examples of classic house design. When I was thinking about college and what I wanted to be, I considered going into architecture so that I could restore old homes to their original beauty, but at the time, cookie-cutter boxy developments were in vogue and I just couldn’t stomach putting in time working on anything like that, so I took a different path. But now, every time I walk by an old house with unique features and character you just don’t see any more, I get a pang in my chest for not going in that direction. Some day, when I build my alternate universe machine, I’m going to see where that path would have taken me. In the meantime, I’m bringing my camera with me next time I go for a walk around town.

• One of the reasons we went visiting last weekend was so that R could participate in a Greek dance event at the church I grew up going to. She just started learning and for only having tried it once or twice before, did not do badly at all. I learned to dance by going to weddings and larger church functions (back in the days when I wasn’t allowed to be the heathen I am today), but R isn’t growing up like I did. I think it’s wonderful that the opportunity for her to learn these traditions I took for granted while growing up is there even if I find the timing and location of the events somewhat inconvenient. But I try to accommodate because they are part of who we are. Being Greek and all that goes with it is a significant part of who I am, and I’d like to think that the more R learns about it, the more she might understand me, too, as she gets older and wiser, and maybe forgive some of the baggage that goes along with large Mediterranean families.

Getting back to the dance… The “big kids” in the group were technically very good and certainly earnest in their performance, but I was amused at how serious one of the boys was each time he was out on the dance floor. He obviously has talent, but was missing some of the looseness that comes from the feeling that makes you want to dance in the first place. For all of R’s missed cues and bad timing, she had that look of joy on her face that comes from letting go and enjoying the moment. If it weren’t for a very tired and cranky Monkey on my lap (it was his bedtime after all), I might have joined her.

• One of the things I miss the most when K is not around is the regular adult conversation. I don’t mean to imply that he and I talked to each other constantly without one small child or another interrupting, but the option to talk without having to explain a joke or big word was always there if we wanted or could take it. I don’t live close to most of my best friends, and sometimes online chat is the only way I get to be an equal and not just the hermit care-taker of ankle-biters. It’s not ideal, but I take what I can get. I don’t work in an office anymore and the majority of my time is spent with a kid who is a few years behind in speech. I am fluent in 3-year-old (and dog). But I miss witty banter and inside jokes and shared life experiences and especially commiseration conversations that you just can’t get from your kids no matter how smart and clever they are. These days, my good friend and former deployment buddy, H, comes over one night a week to be the co-adult in the house which gives my brain a break and is going to earn her a spot in heaven to be sure. Especially since she agrees to get make-overs from the 9-year-old fashion consultant living in my house… H knows the pitfalls of a deployment and to ask what it is I need before she offers something. I get to cook for another adult, too, which is probably toward the top of my list of favorite things to do. I am lucky to have her around. Taking my good fortune on the road this past Saturday, a goofy chat with D had me giggling and feeling like a kid and about 10 mental pounds lighter, and then I capped the night off with an evening out sans kids with my best friend, L, and our other good friend from high school, J. We talked about serious stuff, not so serious stuff, and enjoyed a plate of nachos and a beer (in my case) until the restaurant closed. The antisocial misanthrope in me always thinks I can get by on my own just fine, thank you very much, but then I am reminded that I really am a social animal and that my pack (or herd, or flock, or gaggle) is important to my mental well-being. I am privileged enough to have fantastic friends both on- and off-line to talk to and I really appreciate them all and don’t tell them often enough. They probably think I’m a bit strange and clingy these days, but that’s because they are my sanity in a world of cartoons, pretend play and preteen drama.

• It’s no secret I love the hell out of my dogs. I’m not shy about showing it, but I have good reason. While CaseyJones is my puppy soul-mate, Zoe has certainly earned a good sized chunk of my heart this week and earned her second mention in a “Little Things” post. Apart from her usual night time snuggle-fest where I take full advantage of her thick Winter coat to mimic an electric blanket, she has taken to watching out for the kids too. She always walks the kids as close to the bus as the electric fence will allow (even if she’s in the middle of eating her breakfast, which says quite a bit—she is a Lab after all), and she greets them with a lot of waggles and kisses when they get home. But the other day, she sat watching Monkey as he went “skating” on the ice patches just beyond the boundaries of our yard. She didn’t take her eyes off him until he headed back to the house with her trotting along side him. She always looks after the kids when they are out (I watch through the windows if I’m not out there with them) and I always know when they are up to something because she barks at them. Her help is unexpected but very much appreciated. I might just have to change her name to “Nana” like the dog in Peter Pan…

• While I’m very sorry my friends and family in the DC area are getting pummeled with snow storm upon snow storm, but I am grateful it’s not me this Winter. The last two winters have been long and we’ve tallied anywhere from 6-8+ feet of snow each season. The first week we lived here, we accumulated 3 feet of snow before I could unpack our boxes. So I thank you for suffering through the snow so I don’t have to. Maybe I’ll send you all some extra baklava this spring to make it up to you.

Finally, just to keep everyone up-to-date on K’s whereabouts, he’s still here in the US training. He and his unit have been out in the field for over a week now and I haven’t heard from him since they left their former training area for this new one. In all honesty, I’m not sure I’ll hear from him until he gets to his final destination. So, for now, no news is good news. (That’s an important rule, so keep it handy the next several months.) I will let you all know when I hear from him though.

I have been busy doing some freelance design work when not falling on my face exhausted this week, and as I finish up the jobs, I’ll be around more. My time is, as you might guess, limited, but like the Terminator, I’ll be back.

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Winter Wonderland

For the record, I’m not an outside Winter person. Can’t say that I ever was either. I remember the blizzard of ’76 because it was the most snow I’d ever seen and we had several days off from school which was probably a first for me given my age at the time. The novelty of large amounts of snow wore off for me somewhere around 1977. And if not then, certainly the year I walked to school in a snowstorm and managed to hit a tree because I had my head down most of the time would have sealed the deal. I am a hibernator and will squirrel myself away and never be heard from until the apple blossoms bloom on our trees in early May if I’m not careful.

As I’ve mentioned, we now live in the North Pole (well, almost) and I was not interested in moving this far north knowing it would be colder, more inclined to snow, and less populated. Move we did though, and the day after we unloaded the trucks, we got the first of eight feet of snow that season on top of the six or so inches already there. The next winter was no better. When your 8 year-old-whines when she has another snow day, you have too much snow. After a while, I made a point to not acknowledge the white fluffy stuff falling from the sky because I didn’t want to give Mother Nature the satisfaction of knowing she’d finally gotten the better of me. Needless to say, knowing K would be gone for a whole year where about half that time is meant for hibernation, I was concerned for my mental well-being. I think in the right circumstances, I could give Jack Nicholson’s character in The Shining a run for his money.

Obviously I needed to do something(s) to turn my attitude at least 45 degrees from where it was when we got here and about 90 degrees from where it was at the end of that first winter. Appreciating the aesthetics of winters here is the most obvious step when breaking coping with winter into inside and outside components. I have to say that we live in a beautiful area and I would have been far more stubborn about moving if it weren’t for the sweet piece of property and awesome house we found. I love my back yard all year long. The first snow of the season is really stunning as are all the subsequent snow storms. It is the only saving grace to the sheer volume and inconvenience of the stuff. Let me show you how pretty it can be. Here’s the first snow from last week. It’s only a couple of inches of sticky snow, but at sunrise, it’s quite lovely.

See? Beautiful. I could look out there all day (and sometimes do thanks to my bedroom being at the back of the house!) Wish it were frostily beautiful a little less often, but I feel lucky to have that view. My old apartment in grad school overlooked a concrete shaft which was no doubt listed as a courtyard. The cockroaches and I felt that was a misnomer. I’m definitely partial to this view no matter how much snow—as long as I can see out the window, that is.

Next, to get a hold on joining winter so I wouldn’t be beaten by it again, I needed to find something to get me out of the house so I didn’t die of cabin fever. I’m not afraid of too many things, but I am terrified of blowing my knees out skiing, so I won’t consider downhill skiing, but have given some thought to cross-country, only not enough to take the plunge. What I found I really enjoyed doing is snowshoeing. I got a pair for Christmas before we moved up here and I love trucking out my back door and into those woods behind us. Beyond that clearing is a tree farm and some conservation property with a very small set of trails that I like to follow. Here are a couple of pictures from last winter’s snowshoeing escapades out back after a good size storm…

Here’s the tree farm…

Here’s one of the trails…

…and my favorite stand of pines when it snows.

Since K won’t be around for me to head out alone, we also have snowshoes for the kids so we can all go for a walk even if the snow is past Monkey’s knees. I just fitted them yesterday so they could give them a test run before the rest of the snow comes in. We got over six inches the other day, and it was nice and fluffy until the freezing rain came later that day and the temperature dropped, so now it’s just kind of treacherous even for snow shoes. I’m sure it will be covered over soon enough and then we’ll be able to play. Luckily, the kids love snowshoeing too, so I’m hoping this will help all of us be more active and take our minds off missing K some.

Winter will also be more amusing for sure thanks to my dogs, Casey (aka Jones or Jonesy) & Zoe (aka Bean). My dogs love the snow. Bean especially (I’m pretty sure it’s because she’s got 2 extra layers of fur thanks to whatever crazy Lab mix she is). As soon as the snow starts falling, she’s whining at the back door to go out in it. Much like this only with noise.

I love to watch her and Jones bound through the snow or spend a long time sniffing out the whereabouts of neighborhood creatures. Nothing escapes their attention and they chase each other all over the yard like a couple of gazelles. These days they’ve taken to bobbing for fallen apples under the powder for snack time. If you click on the picture below to look at the larger size, you can make out a red thing in Zoe’s mouth. That would be her apple. That’s Casey in front waiting to steal it from her. That is a typical snowy day for them.

While I have not warmed up completely to winters around here (and honestly, I doubt I ever will), I have latched onto parts of the season with some affection if not outright enthusiasm and I figure that’s a good place to start. I predict that looking on the bright side of winter (and I don’t mean the sun glaring off more snow) will wear out again sometime around February, but by then I’ll start thinking about spring, planning my garden and around the house projects, and hiking in the woods with the dogs and kids. In the meantime, I’ll keep learning to love the bomb, so to speak.

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Treasures and Time off

I hope everyone had a pleasant Thanksgiving. We enjoyed both a nice overnight stay with our families and some time away from the kids who stayed with my parents an extra couple of nights after we left. As much as we love the kiddos, it is always nice to have a break. We are lucky to get that opportunity with some regularity. I head down to pick them up this afternoon and on the way home we are going to listen to more of Madeleine L’Engle read her novel, A Wrinkle in Time. It is my all-time favorite book and R’s first time hearing it. I’m tickled she wants to hear more (we only listened to part of it on the way down) and I really love to hear the late, great Ms. L’Engle read her own words. I enjoy hearing the author’s interpretation of what they wrote—I like to know how they heard what they wrote as they wrote it. Plus, for me, I just feel such a connection to her, that it’s a treat to her her voice.

I digress. We had a lovely time at Auntie L and Uncle D’s for Thanksgiving dinner. We hung out with Grammie and Auntie S & Uncle Fungus and got to see how much little E has grown since he stayed with us this summer. The four bigger cousins: R, C, A, and Monkey all ran around together like good cousins do, with very little tattling, fighting, or arguing which is always a bonus. Earlier in the day I had brought over the furry kids, CaseyJones and Zoe, to play with their cousin Ayla. We wanted to wear them out so they would sleep while we ate copious amounts of meat. It worked like a charm. They ran around playing fetch and they wrestled and Zoe and Ayla cut each other off from water and people, trying to prove who had the better position in their temporary pack. I was amused to watch Zoe cutting off Ayla from Casey who apparently is only allowed to be tormented by Zoe. Ayla, a beautiful German Shepherd, is the youngest, but as big as Casey who is an adult male Lab, with Zoe, coming in a close third size-wise. But my girl is tough and liked to remind Ayla that she was the elder of the two. There wasn’t any real fighting, but a fair amount of teeth showing and warning growls. Luckily, all of them are smart and good listeners so nothing ever went too far. All in all they were great dogs and they were definitely tuckered out.

After dinner, R and I went over to visit with my side of the family for dessert (not that I could eat anything, I was so full). We got to visit with some of my cousins who live even farther away than I do, which was fantastic. I’m pretty close to my cousins and always miss them even if I’m lousy at letting them know. The next generation of cousins all ran around screeching and giggling and singing like a band of pixies on crack…or frosted cupcakes as the case may be. In any event, it was good to see my family even if it was for a short time. We’ll see them again around Christmas when we head down one more time before K leaves the country.

Before we came home to enjoy the quiet, we stopped over at my grandfather’s house so K could visit with him too since he didn’t get to the night before (not that we could have heard a conversation over the screaming mimi’s). I loved to hear his stories especially the one when he was a young boy hitching a ride on the bread guy’s horse-drawn cart. Stories he told of my great-grandmother’s brushes with death always amaze me : on her way over from Greece on a freighter carrying marble, the cargo broke loose during a storm and ripped a hole in the ship, forcing the passengers into lifeboats for 2 days; and a few years later, when my grandfather was very small, their landlord set the house on fire for the insurance money but blocked the main way out causing my great-grandparents to make a jump from their house to the house next door. It always makes me pause to consider how many different times our family could have ceased to exist. I’m glad all my grandparents were so tough.

Those great stories weren’t the only treasures we got to leave with. Oh, no! My grandfather’s tenant recently passed away and apparently he was a hoarder. While his family did take care of most of what he left behind, my grandfather held on to a good chunk of the guy’s cigar box collection. The boxes are not really worth much, but for some of us, it was like Christmas come early to get to poke around and find the most unusual or useful of the many varieties. I, personally (and R, too) love wooden boxes and I if I hadn’t shown some restraint would have come home with several more than I did. Here are the ones K and I chose to bring home and eventually put to use:

I loved the shape of the inside of the box in the upper left of the picture:

It is rounded on the outside to accommodate rounder, more natural cigars.

This next one I was so excited to find among the boxes my mom had. It’s going to be my new art supply box for when I start my drawing class next week.

I love that it has all the different compartments. I don’t particularly care that the box isn’t in mint condition because it will be so useful to me. All my different pencils and erasers and sharpeners will fit beautifully in here.

I suspect I’ll be using at least one box to hold letters from K should he decide to send any while he’s away. And I might keep one for the various little things the kids make for me. I love to put things away to find later and reminisce over and these cigar boxes are perfect.

K and I have had a very mellow weekend without the kids. We slept in, started (and almost finished) watching Generation Kill, food shopped, sat in front of the fire, I went for tea with B again, K and I went to dinner, and we just generally took advantage of the quiet. I should have enough peace stored up to last me at least the drive back after picking up the kids. I’m glad one holiday is down and just one more to go. I’ve got lots of organizing to do for Christmas and even more freelance work to do before the end of the year. Fitting it all in should be quite the juggling act. We’ve got one more short time with K being gone, and then we all need to get into longer-term mind-sets of separate lives after the new year. It’s a lot to contemplate, so I’m thankful we’ve had this little quiet before the storm.

 

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Plague, Possums, and Birthdays all around

Looks like the plague disrupted my writing plans again. I had a symptom a day ranging from chills to ear ache to headache. I can’t decide if having everything at once would have been preferable. I suppose it would have been more efficient. I will say that taking Lysine seems to have tipped the scale so that no one symptom lasted long. Either way, happy to not be feeling icky today. Of course being sick put me behind in just about everything, so this weekend is all about catching up and moving ahead.

In the on-going gang war between my dogs and a local opossum, you can finally score 1 for Casey and Zoe. We’ve had a run-in with said possum before, and the last couple of times the possum (with a little help from me) bested my pups. The first occasion ended with the possum playing—you guessed it—possum and faking all of us out. When K. went out to dispose of “the body” it was high-tailing it across the street. The other night I went to bring the dogs in for the night and there was a whole lot of barking going on at the side of the yard and sure enough, there was a (or the) possum just outside the electric fence range mocking Zoe. She was not pleased. Casey was at least interested but was perfectly happy coming back to me for some plain old treats. That is only because the possum was not a quilled, slow-moving, animal whose capture would result in a $250 vet visit and a week of antibiotics. The other morning, I was pulling into the driveway and to the left of our barn I thought I saw something that could have been a piece of a broken birch limb that the dogs liked to run around with. I figured I’d go put it back on the wood pile. Instead, I found (finally) dead possum. I have no idea of the possum corpse was the result of a revenge killing, or a gift from an admirer. Either way, I left it there for an overnight just to make sure it was really dead. It is. The dogs have ignored it but I no longer can. Tomorrow morning, if it’s not raining, I’ll head out and be a big girl and dispose of the body. It’ll be my first cover-up! I can’t wait.

Of course, I could learn to strip the carcass and make some possum fur birthday slippers for one of the many men in my life who shared a birthday yesterday. I’m not entirely sure who would appreciate them more: my grandfather, who at 93 would be dazzled at my skinning and sewing skills (especially since I was the kid who could never cut the live crab in half to use as bait when we went fishing); my oldest cousin who would appreciate the originality of the gift and at least model them for me before hiding them in his closet for eternity; or DG who would gladly take them and re-gift them to DS later as a joke, which is exactly what I would do.

As I said, my grandfather turned 93 yesterday. I love my Papou. He’s still spry and sharp and all-around awesome. He knows something about everything but he’s not a know-it-all. He is always curious and we know this because he likes to tap on walls to see what’s hiding behind them. As kids we were not allowed to wake Papou up from a nap because it was suicide. My cousin, S., thought that memo was crap, apparently. He only ever ignored it once though.When Star Wars originally came out in the theaters we told Papou he should go see it and he told us he’d wait until it came on TV… we told him that was never going to happen. Papou has always been all-knowing as you can see. Back when he had the restaurant (we’re Greek, we always have a restaurant somewhere in our past), I would go have a grilled cheese with tomato whenever possible. It’s still my favorite sandwich and favorite comfort food. I especially liked to walk over after school (my middle school was a block away) and visit him on my own because he always made time for me. And Mondays, which was his day off, he and my grandmother would come visit and I always looked forward to it. Papou outside of the restaurant was pretty novel when I was little. During my marriage, my grandfather has provided my husband with a range of weaponry that sadly, I have not let through the front door of my house. Papou likes K. apparently, otherwise, no doubt the various knives and such would remain in the treasure trove that is his basement. I love that basement and it’s clutter. If you can’t find what you need in there, you really just don’t need it. You know you love someone when even their crazy basement is a source of enjoyment. And that’s my Papou: a crazy assortment of amazing stuff.

Today was a pretty good day for me and the kiddos as we wait for K. to get home at the end of this coming week to wrap up part 1b of this deployment. We made a library run, a shopping trip to Target for various and sundries, and then tonight R. went to a “Girl’s Night” at her dojo, and I took Monkey on a date to see Astroboy. I love that he can finally sit through a movie without being a complete looney. And now, to finish this satisfying day, I’m going to hang out and watch episodes 4-6 of Generation Kill and snuggle with my slightly damp puppies.

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Early Dark

I can’t say I’m remotely fond of the early darkness that comes with Daylight Savings. However, we had a beautiful moonrise last night. Would you like to see it?

I wish I were just a bit better with my camera (or felt like tinkering in Photoshop) because the color was really beautiful. Maybe I’ll put photography lessons on my master list.

And here’s Luna (or Moona as Monkey likes to call her) a little closer up:

He asked if he could catch her and I think someday he just might.

Today I kept both kids home from school. Monkey is definitely not himself and R. is just shaking off the last of her cold. Fevers are gone, coughs are intermittent. I suspect I’ll be keeping Monkey home again tomorrow to rest. He just looked exhausted even though he insisted I chase him at one point today. I know he’s not public ready yet because he curled up on my lap a half hour before bedtime and didn’t really move, although he did complain I was kissing his noggin too much. Hopefully one more day of rest will get him back on track. He was back to eating today which was good and I think between a couple of meals and a bath, he felt better. I am glad he’s on the mend because I didn’t want to take either of us to a doctor’s office so we can leave with more than we walked in with.

Needless to say, today was relatively quiet. K. did call to check in finally and let me know that there is pretty much no cell coverage and even less internet at the base where he is for training. He happened to be “in civilization” this morning and called because he could. He talked to the kids and we caught up on the germs and visits and how everyone is getting along on his end. It was good to talk to him even for a little while. After Yaya and Papa left for home, the kids and I did the lunch thing and then we all went to our rooms to rest for a little while. R. listened to the CD version of Magyk by Angie Sage and Monkey played some games on nickjr.com while I reclaimed my room and moved the dogs beds back in with me. After dinner I sent R. in for her shower and she made my night by also doing a load of laundry. This deployment is definitely better than last time. She’s a good girl, that one. I might just post-pone her indentured servitude to the local gypsy tribe after all. We settled in for some anime and snuggling and all was right with the world. Well, mostly right. Right enough for us, anyway.

Got a call this afternoon from a good friend of mine from my dog daycare days while I was puttering around. She had to put one of her dogs, Deva, down this weekend. She is the second of my good friends to have to do that in the last 2 days. My heart broke for each of them. I can’t think of many things more devastating than making the decision (no matter how right it is) to end the life of a loved one. Auntie K’s Deva was one of the dogs we had Zoe meet when we first got her so she could socialize with stable dogs. Deva was the most solid and well-mannered Rottie I’d ever known and I will miss her and her very no-nonsense attitude. She and CaseyJones were good buddies too and she was just a great dog. So was my friend D’s dog, Quinn—another handsome black furry boy like my own. Every time I visited them, Quinn and Peanut, their other dog, were not shy about soliciting scratches and pets from me and I loved it, of course. I’m glad I got to see him this past Spring. He’s in good company now which makes me feel better about the whole thing.

This all really hit home for me today because at the beginning of the last deployment I had to put down our dog, Ike. I wish I could say he was fondly remembered by anyone other than myself, but he had issues and was not the perfect dog by any stretch of the imagination and I know that. I loved him though and he was there for me during some really tough times and I can’t forget that. Putting him down was harder than saying good-bye to K. when he left for Iraq. Ike was not coming back, but there was a pretty good chance K. was. While not having a crazy dog during that deployment really was a good thing, I am so grateful to have my two furry hooligans this time around. I feel totally naked without Casey and Zoe nearby on a normal day, and I would truly feel much more alone with K. being gone if I didn’t have them. One more check mark in the “win” column for this deployment.

And now? Just me, a stack of books, some music, Zoe at my feet, and clean sheets. Things could be worse.

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Doggone it

I always forget how much the weather affects me and my mood. Yesterday was chilly and rainy and I just did not want to move from the couch or my nice warm blanket. The fire and snuggly dogs didn’t help (or hurt) in keeping me right where I was either. I berated myself all day for not doing more–I picked at some chores around the house, did some cooking, and worked on a job for a little while, but my heart was definitely not in it. I should have just been happy for my warm dry house and some quiet time while I could get it and I need to remember that. Sadly the weather was just part of my general malaise. I am sure some of it had to do with K. leaving soon. No matter how prepared I am, or think I am, the idea of single parenting just makes me tired. It’s just that simple.

Luckily, I have the dogs to thank for rousing me from my doldrums… at 5:30am. Zoe’s Spidey senses alerted her to something and I was under the mistaken impression that perhaps she had eaten one too many apples and was now about to have some intestinal distress that I was not interested in cleaning up after. So, I let her out with CaseyJones in tow. As it turns out, there was a bedraggled orange tabby cat taking shelter under our back deck. And much to Zoe’s chagrin, it bested her in the race to get out from under the deck. We have many stray cats in our neighborhood due to living close to the local animal shelter where they are habitually dumped and then get free only to have no place to go. I realized what had happened and ran out to get my two hooligans back in the house and after sliding through some mud, managed to find the cat and my dogs in a Mexican stand off right near the garden. Somehow Zoe had popped off her electric fence collar which I found not too far away, and I had just enough time to clip it back on her as she let Casey take the lead while she took a quick potty break. I dragged her as far as the porch steps to get her back in the house at that point, but then she managed to sneak out of my grip and high tail it back to the party.

Needless to say, having the dogs barking at this stupid cat who had plenty of room to escape but chose to torment me and the dogs was unacceptable that early on a Sunday morning. However, I was not going to be doing any cajoling and distracting of animals barefoot in my jammies. I was infinitely grateful it wasn’t raining at least. So, I went inside, trying not to wake anyone and probably doing a piss-poor job of it and cleaned off my feet, put on a sweatshirt and my shoes, grabbed some ground beef from the fridge and headed back out. Casey, who likes to slowly assess a situation to find out whether or not the other animal will want to play fetch with him, was the easiest of the two to wrangle back into the house, so I did just that. He has experience with cats, and apart from trying to get them to play–which never works out well–he was not so involved that he couldn’t be drawn away with some meat. One down. Zoe, on the other paw, has absolutely no experience with cats and just wants to chase and wrestle them. That plan never works out well either. What was unfortunate for me, was that she refused to stop barking at the damn cat, and wouldn’t stand still and could not be bothered with burger when there was Something New and Exciting nearby. *sigh*

I tried not to get mad at her because after a couple of years doing dog training, I know this never works. Ever. And I knew that she was not going to let me get close enough again to grab her collar. I tried doing a trail of meat toward the house, but it was of no use. The cat had ensconced itself under Uncle Fungus’ (K’s brother, P., who is also deploying with K.) truck and was not leaving the safety of it. Zoe tried every angle to bark it out. I wished that P. drove something a touch smaller…like Prius that I could hop over and catch my dog. Finally K. took pity on me and came out to help. I was pretty pissed off at the dogs and myself at that point, so while his help was more than welcome, you couldn’t have told by my attitude. Between the two of us, we were able to cut off her paths to the cat and she pretty quickly ran up to the front door to be let in. Oh, she was a smiley puppy when she got in the house. Very proud of herself for shooing that cat from under the deck. Wish I was as proud of myself for my handling of the situation.

What made me most irritated was that I didn’t manage this on my own. I could have left her out there to bark at the damn cat all morning, but I really don’t want to piss off my neighbors. I wondered what I was going to do next time she did something silly and I couldn’t disengage her by myself. It was one of those irritating situations that happens before K. leaves to remind me that he’s leaving. The result is that I’ll be spending some quality time working with the dogs so that they will be a help and not a pain in my butt at 5:30 am on a Sunday. There are worse projects. I do love dog training.

After those shenanigans, I was able to pull myself together for the day and get several things done including matting the finished watercolor I had painted, assessing my financial picture for the next year, tidying the house and cleaning up the screen room, starting some organization of our barn storage, and making my plans for the upcoming week. K. packed up the rest of his things, leaving little gaps where I could usually find him throughout the house. The weather was beautiful and we opened some windows to change the air. By the end of the day I felt much better and far more in control than I had before the sun came up. Plus, I have learned that I will not be trained by the dogs. Again. It’s a good thing they are cute.

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