Yummy

Today:

This morning i found an unexpected $45 in the pocket of my shorts. SCORE! Funny how such a little thing can give me such a lift. It's my money in the first place, i just forgot i had it when it disappeared last fall. That makes it a bonus.

I was eating a sandwich when someone came up to me and asked me what kind it was. I told them, and the response was "Ewwwww." What the hell is it with people saying "Ewwww" over my food? I mean, what's wrong with cat food and peanut butter anyway? (Kidding. It was hummus and pastrami.)

I am always amused when people feel compelled to voice an opinion over something that has nothing to do with them. Next time i will say "It's cat food and Velveeta! Want a bite?"

A BEAUTIFUL ESSAY ON GREATNESS

Two cool cats.

Sometimes when Em and i are chatting, i will idly ask her what i should post about. She always answers, "You should do a post about how awesome i am." I tell her that i do that all the time.

Yesterday i was hanging with Em, and i told her that today was the three year anniversary of my blog. She immediately piped up with "You should let me do a post about how awesome you are."

So i did. Behold;

WHY MY MOM IS GREAT
by Em McMenodaughter, age 18

So on this illustrious day I thought that, to make up for all her posts about how spectacularly great I am (all 100% true), I'd make a post about how spectacularly great my mom is for you all.

I think it was during the summer when I did almost nothing but surf channels looking for Roseanne reruns that I heard that the basic mission of a parent is to, if nothing else, make their kids' lives better than their own. If you do that, you succeed, because in theory it means continued progress. If we're using this as a measurement for whether or not a parent is successful, my mom is a rock star. She is the Michael Jordan of moms. Because I can honestly say that my life is great and that, the majority of the time, I'm a pretty happy person.

My mom is basically my best friend. As she can attest, she's the first person I text, call, or instant-message to tell if anything exciting or even remotely interesting happens to me. Even while I was in Ohio most of the time over the last eight months or so, I contacted her probably at least once a day. If I have a problem, I'll go to her, and even if she can't come up with a solution-- which she usually can-- she can make me feel better about it. Hell, she's been willing to mother me over instant message while I've been sick and at school and she's been back in Washington. I know I can talk to her about basically anything and she'll tell me if I'm being an idiot or if I'm totally justified in plotting to kill whoever has most dreadfully wronged me recently. She is also a very talented giver of hugs-- perhaps a function of being tall-- and excellent at back and foot massages.

A lot of women, or so I hear, dread accidentally turning into their mothers when they grow old, but I'd be happy to have someone tell me that I was turning into my mom. What's so bad about being funny and smart and slightly insane (and it'd be nice to be tall like her, too, but I'm guessing that's not gonna happen)? I don't know if we look all that alike, but some people seem to think we do, and I think that's awesome. I can't imagine how I would have turned out without her and I don't want to, but I'm pretty sure I'm a better person than I might have been with a lot of other possible moms.

I feel like I don't tell her how lucky I am to have her enough, especially given how good she is at reminding me how loved I am, so hopefully this post will suffice for a while. Dear Mommy: You are great and I love you. Thanks for not leaving me to freeze to death on a hillside after I was born, even though I was an ugly baby with blue limbs and no hair.

Love, Em.

P.S. (She told me not to make this too embarrassing, so as a less flattering postscript: her taste buds are broken. For years I thought salad was disgusting because of the way she made it, but no! Salad is perfectly acceptable! My mom just doesn't taste things properly or wanted to sabotage my health or something.)

Birdies

At my mother's 80th birthday shindig last month, one of my brothers gave her a gift certificate to use to create a video montage of her life. We were told that we would all be interviewed for the video, and that we could tell our beautiful memories involving mom.

"Oh shit!" i thought. "I'm fucked. How on earth will i be able to pony up beautiful memories?"

In my usual fashion, i put it out of my mind, as denial is my favorite state.

But last week, as i was cleaning my hairbrush, it came to me. Some happy memories involving mom. Oddly enough, they both involve birds too.

As a girl, i mostly maintained long hair, so my hairbrush needed to be depilated frequently. I always made a point to take the wad of hair outside to fly away in the breeze because Mom had told me the birds would use it to make their nests. The thought of baby birds peeping in a cozy nest insulated by my hair charmed me. I always pictured those baby birds as my hair was drifting away.

I had a bad accident as a child, and had to spend two weeks in a hospital. When i returned home, i spent quite a while recuperating in my bed. At the urging of my mother, my father installed a flat platform outside my second story bedroom window, where it could be seen from my bed. He nailed a shallow aluminum tray to the platform and filled it with bird seed. I spent many hours watching and being amused by the antics of the local bird population.

I'm ready when the video people come!

Observations

You know what i hate? I hate it when someone sets his alarm for....say....7 am, and then doesn't get out of bed until 8:30 am almost EVERY MORNING.

Why do i hate this? Because it so happens that i am sleeping at 7 am, and the alarm wakes me up.

I wouldn't mind if that person actually GOT UP at 7 am, but when he doesn't, it makes me feel like i was awakened for no reason.

And that makes me crabby.

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I got a free book on my electronic reading device. It was a soft porn romance novel, but hey, free books are free.

In this particular novel i made it about 75 pages in before i read this line;

"She inhaled his manly aroma and her stomach began to quiver."

That's when my stomach began to quiver too. After i stopped laughing, i deleted the book.

How could anyone read a line like that without laughing? I think we should start collecting the worst lines ever written. Got any more entries?

Promoted

I got a promotion!

Yeah, it's true that i don't have a job, but i do volunteer at a non-profit agency. I've been asked to step up and take over the Volunteer Coordinator position. So i will be the Volunteer Volunteer Coordinator. It will involve learning a few new things, and will take up about 6 to 8 hours a week.

That's what they told me. I know better because i know how any job will expand to fill the time available (just like the crap in my house expands to fill the space available,) but i said yes anyway. I think i was flattered that i am viewed as one of the more competent volunteers.

We'll call most of the other volunteers..... pre-computer age women. I think that's a nice way to put it, don't you? Anyway, something as simple as filling in hours in an Excel spreadsheet is beyond them. I know this because i tried mightily to train a few of them. It was scary. They would write down every step, say they got it, and next week i'd have to show them again.

This opportunity appeared just when i was looking for something to take up some of my time. Funny how that happens.

I'm going to get paid TWICE what i make now. You do the math.

Hot News Item

Home from Chicago. A great city. But the highlight of the visit was the morning walks along the lake with my friend. I miss having a walking buddy who lives in town. I miss my friend.


In other news, EM GOT A JOB!

When the plane touched down last night, i turned on my phone to let Em know we had landed. She texted back with "Yippee, and btw, i got a job."

I gasped "Oh my god!" as the plane was still taxiing and then had to explain myself to fellow passengers, who were looking at me in some consternation.

It's at a national toy store with a backwards letter in its name. She filled out an online job application, from which i expected exactly nothing to occur.

But i was wrong. She got called back for a second interview and then heard back that night that it was a go. She starts on Monday.

The reasons i am so happy she got a job:

• Earning your own money is a fine, empowering thing. ( I know because i used to do it and i remember.)
• This gets her butt out of the house where she has been mostly languishing for the past month.
• She will become part of a team. I have had some really fun times at crap jobs (not saying this job is crap mind you) with the other employees. Remember your first job? Yeah.
  
• Plus she will be all set with a job at Christmas and for next summer. Bonus!

Now i am the only member of this family who is a useless parasite feeding upon the blood of society.

VACATION!

Tomorrow morning at o'fuck thirty The Mister and i are leaving for Chicago.

(Dammit, there's a bug in my wine! Oh well, no better way to die than in a glass of wine.)

Anyway, i love Chicago. I have only fond memories of the last time i was in Chicago, where i sort of attended Blogher and roomed with two of my favorite bloggers. (No linking as one of them has gone underground. You know who you are.)

We will be meeting up with two of my favorite people (not bloggers) and spending 5 days roaming around and avoiding the police. YES!

We are leaving our child at home alone, so if any of you attend a kegger that she holds, please try not to spill wine on the carpet or break anything.

Thanks.

A shocking revelation

The Mister and i recently made a decision that could have a huge impact on our marriage. Something with implications that have left me uneasy and unable to sleep well for the past two nights.

It was initiated by The Mister saying he was unhappy and in pain given our current situation.

So i said okay, i'd give it a try if that's what will make him happy.
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We traded sides of the bed.

Sounds silly right? It is silly, but we have been sleeping on the same side of the bed for nigh on to 15 years and it feels so weird to be on the "wrong" side.

We both had trouble sleeping the first night. I am so used to reaching out and flipping on my little bedside radio to my right, that to find it on my left is disorienting.

The Mister has a rotator cuff injury on his right shoulder, and he wanted this change so that he could be facing me in bed without pain. Seemed like a reasonable request, so....on Monday, along with changing the sheets, i switched the drawers of our nightstands. My trashy novels, his porn mags, my radio, his kleenex, my crossword puzzle books, his history novels, my various charging devices, his various charging devices. Man, we have a lot of crap.

This feels like a big change. I find myself amused by my rigidity.

My Nipples are Wort?

On Saturday, a day that dawned glorious and sunny, i took a class with a friend wherein we learned to identify edible wild plants.

Evidence of glorious day.


The class was taught by a very earnest and knowledgeable couple.

Evidence of earnest couple. This is how we dress for everything in the Northwest, from foraging to the opera.


We started on the lawn. To my surprise, much of the local flora is not only edible but tasty. One of the most common plants in this area is called Nipplewort. Upon learning this, i took a personal vow to find a way to work the word 'Nipplewort' into my conversation as often as possible.


This is the salad the instructors provided for our lunch. It contains Mallow, Sheeps Quarters, Chive blossoms, Black Lotus flowers and of course, Nipplewort.



Veins on the back of a Cottonwood Tree leaf, also known as Balsam Poplar. These are the trees that make it look like it is snowing around here right now. No reason to ahow you this picture, i just thought it was pretty.


This plant is not edible, as implied by the name. Picture is out of focus because my arms, for once, were not long enough.


We had a wonderful time, and the class was greatly enhanced by the food that was passed out along the way, the most surprising of which was nettle dip. Doesn't that sound appetizing?


Nipplewort out.