Day 4 – NaBloPoMo

I have a cockatiel. Right now, her name is “goddammit bird.” She’s pretty amazing and we’ve discovered that she travels well. Ok, she travels well NOW, but our first trip together was a nightmare rolled up in neuroses, sprinkled liberally with psychoses, and tied up with hysteria. It was a very long three hours from home to the beach.

When a cockatiel is alarmed or frightened, or just wants to piss someone off, they will squawk or shriek loudly in a high-pitched manner that would make Helen Keller wince. This is un-fun in an enclosed space the size of my car. For three and a half hours. At night. In horrible weather. Weather that was stressing me out to the point my neck had all but disappeared under my shoulders. The only reason she survived is because she was in the backseat and I couldn’t risk reaching back there to choke her while I was driving.

Once we were at the cabin, she settled in nicely and while I spent most of the summer fretting and worrying about a repeat performance on the way home again, I was pleasantly surprised that she did really well. Sure, she’d get panicky at things outside the car, but hell, so do I.

Now she comes with me if I’m going to be gone for more than one night, or if the house is going to be too cold for her. I’ve shut off the furnace because the last time it came on, the accompanying BOOM rattled the windows and all my nerves. Until I can afford to repair it, we’re using the wood stove. Which, by the way is awesome and keeps the place roasty toasty because I have no idea how to keep it going over night and I hate trying to start a fire twice a day… Long story. I’ll save it for day five, ok?

Anyway, the only problem I have with the bird is one that is attached to my phone, that same phone engraved deeply into my shit list. The nice thing about the phone is that it has a great blue tooth system that allows me to speak into the air to make my calls. This is rather limiting, as I do not know the phone numbers of most of the people in my contacts, but I have forgotten how to enter them into the system so I can just press a button, say a name, and make my call. This means, I can only call people whose numbers I have memorized. They are few.

However, I do have Tam in the system, plus I know her number by heart. The problem is when I’m trying to talk to my car, there cannot be much background noise, or the car will say, “Pardon?” in her sexy lady-car voice and I’ll have to repeat myself. When I’m alone, it isn’t much of an issue, but when I have the bird? Oh, hell… it usually goes something like this:

Me (pushing talk button).

Car: Say a command.

Me: Dial by numSQUAWKber.

Car: Pardon?

Me: Shut up, bird.

Car: Pardon?

Me: Dial by numSHRIEKber.

Car: Pardon?

Me: Ok, dial by naSQUAWKme.

Car: Pardon?

Me: Goddammit bird, shut up.

Bird: SQUAWK!!

Car: Pardon?

Me: Ignore her. Dial by—

Car: Say a command.

Me: I’m trying, dammit.

Bird: SHRIEK!!!!

Car: Pardon?

Me: I’m going to kill you!

Car: ParSQUAWK SHRIEKdon…

Car: Shut up, bird.

Day 3 NaBloWriMo

My phone is an asshole. Let me clarify, my CELL phone is an asshole. I really wish I’d known that before I settled on it. Actually, it behaved itself fairly well at first, doing only a few things that caused me great embarrassment and grief.

Don’t get me started on autocorrect. Just… don’t.  

Anyway, there are settings on my phone that seem to change with the seasons, and the seasons appear to be the following: Fuck you; Screw you; Go to hell; Bite me bitch; Die! Die! Die!; What? WHAT?!? NO!!!; Abso-fucking-lutely not you insufferable cow; and my personal favorite, You must be joking.

I know that is a year with more than four seasons. My phone doesn’t give a shit about traditional seasons or continuity. It hates me and everything. Every-thing.

For instance, I made the grievous error in judgment and loaded Skype onto my phone. Now, first, I’d like to say that I do enjoy using Skype on my computer. It allows me to see my darling while we’re living three hours apart. I love it. She even shows me her… embroidery. Yeah, her embroidery. Really. She’s quite good at it. Embroidery, I mean. We have no problems with Skype on the computers, with the exception of some strange echoing feedback that drives us (and my bird) nuts.

Anyway, the problems with loading Skype onto my phone are many, the main one being my inability to log on. Tam can’t even load it onto her computer, and the damn thing insists that I choose whether I want to use Skype or just make a phone call, even when I’m just making a fucking phone call. While this isn’t much of a problem normally, when I’m using the hands-free-while-driving thingy, I must pick up my phone and make the selection, thereby rendering the hands-free thing moot. But it never came right out and said that, it just pretended to call, but didn’t put the call through, it just left me hanging.

I really wanted to shoot my phone. So, now I must try and figure out how to get Skype the hell off my phone forever, and in the process, I really hope I hurt its feelings.

Then there are the “notification” sounds I’m supposed to get when I receive texts or PM’s on farcebook. I have missed several texts because my phone has chosen that moment to stop speaking to me. However, it loves to wait until around two in the morning to tell me I have a message. That gives the old heart a start, believe me, and adrenaline is not a good sleep aid. But my biggest issue wasn’t that I got a message that late and it finally decided to speak up and let me know at 2 a.m., but THERE WERE NO MESSAGES TO TELL ME ABOUT IN THE FIRST PLACE. Seriously, nothing was there. I even looked again when I dragged my sleep deprived carcass out of bed later that morning. No one texted me or sent me a message. It was just my phone making sure that I do not get a good night’s sleep, even when I’m not jumping up every two hours to pee.

I am seriously considering going back to the old style phone that doesn’t have all those “wonderful” bells and whistles. Something that makes phone calls, takes decent pictures, and will allow me to text friends and family… No more internet, no more stupid ass noises in the middle of the night made by a lying phone with nothing better to do than fuck with my circadian rhythms.

And I’m going to get a battery operated alarm clock so I don’t have to have my phone near my bed at night, because REAL alarm clocks tend to mind their manners.

Day 2 NaBloWriMo

I made fudge the other day. I did it because I had company for dinner and my son does love sweets, just like his momma.

The amazing thing about this fudge is that I have yet to screw it up. Every time I’ve made it, it has come out delicious, smooth, creamy… um… hang on a second. I’ll be right back.

Gods, that was good…

Anyway, here is my post for the day. I call it:

1, 2, 3, FUDGE!

1 stick of butter. Use it to grease the inside of an 8x8 cake pan, then use it to grease the inside of a 3 quart sauce pan. Drop it in the sauce pan, turn on the heat to somewhere between medium and high. As soon as it is melted pour in

1 bag of mini marshmallows. When they are almost completely melted, pour in

1 bag of chocolate chips. Or butterscotch chips. Or white chocolate chips… you get the picture.

When it is melted and smooth, remove from heat and pour into the buttered cake pan. Stick it in the fridge for at least an hour.

When it is cold, it is very chewy, almost like a caramel. If you leave it out at room temperature, it is creamy and sticky.

I’m planning on playing with it a bit, you know, adding a few extra things to it on occasion: cinnamon, dried fruit, nuts… I’m even thinking of tossing in some crisp rice because, well, yum. By the way, the extra ingredients don’t add to the name, it’s still just 1, 2, 3, Fudge!

Ok, technically, it’s 1, 1, 1, fudge, but really?

REALLY?

Day 1 - NaBloWriMo

Happy October. To be honest with you, I’m not quite sure what happened to the earlier months of this year. They seem to have been swallowed up by some toothsome month-gobbling monster.

Oh, yeah… the hat shop! That’s what did in a lot of the year. I’m not complaining, I still love it, although the off-season has me more than a little leery of the coming months of little-to-no sales. Thankfully, we had a decent summer, so we should be ok (with fingers crossed each time I say this).

Tam has left her job with the district to work the shop full time. This means, she has moved to the coast (all I can say here is: Thank goodness for Skype!) because the commute from here to the shop is ridiculous. This means, that for the first time in my life, I’m living by myself. For the most part. Most Minor Minion will occasionally land in the Minion Nest for an extended stay, but I’m still pretty much on my own.

Middle Minion came over for dinner the other night and we that we discussed an amazing fact: Until this point in my life (current age: 53) that I’ve never lived alone! Never! I’ve always been someone’s daughter, roommate, girlfriend, wife, or mother. I’ve always had someone sharing my home. There might have been a short time between high school and my first marriage that I lived alone because my fiancé hated my roommates and he made them feel less than welcome IN OUR HOME, but that is in the past and I digress…

After a lot of soul searching and a huge bout of very dark depression, I have come to terms with my current situation, and I find that I rather like it. I’m living a very simple life and I can cut costs where I feel comfortable, and not worry if it bothers anyone else. There are luxuries I can live without, including a running furnace. I bought the damn fireplace insert to keep costs low I might as well use it to do that very thing even if it is a pain in the ass to light on occasion. I’m terrible at lighting fires, unlike Tam who can start a bonfire with a wet tissue and a dirty look.

I’ve changed my job so I actually have some energy, emotionally and physically, after work which means I can get this place ready for rent in the next couple years. I’m picking away at the whole thing for about an hour every day, but that’s better than what I had been able to do while working with in the Adaptive Behavior program (which, by the way, is why I was off work with an injury for a week). That job nearly killed my spirit and left me feeling hopeless and spent every day. Not conducive to…living, much less cleaning and caring for myself or the house.

I like my new position. I’m a 1:1 with a delightful autistic boy who is a loveable, silly, little dude. Life is looking much better, even if it isn’t quite as warm as it once was. I miss my family, I miss sharing my life with someone, but I kind of like discovering me and discovering that I can do this. I really can do this.

It’s Been HOW LONG???

Yeah, yeah, I know… My blogs have been sorely neglected ever since we bought the baby. Ok, it’s not really a baby, but the hat shop has taken up every spare moment of time and ounce of energy Tam and I can muster, much like a real baby would do to brand new parents, so…

Here’s a summation of what’s been happening:

We bought the shop. We’ve been working like dogs with only one day off every seven or eight weeks. Still, it beats the hell out of my regular job, believe me. So far none of the hats nor customers have threatened me, sworn at me, or thrown furniture at me in an attempt to cause harm. While I’m aware that could change at any time, I don’t see it happening in the near future. Of course, there are some customers who have driven me to the point of wanting to throw things, swear, or shove their sorry asses out the door, but I have managed to restrain myself from doing such things.

It isn’t always easy. Especially when I’m chewed out for “being rude” when I tell a person we have no public restrooms. I wasn’t rude, we were busy and I didn’t have the opportunity to draw the person a map to the public facilities just three doors away, and saying "No, sorry," isn’t rude. Or when someone is complaining when I don’t have any plain beanies, yet I have hooks of them all over the place, yet they aren’t plain beanies like the one he’s holding in his hand, yet… it IS like that one…

One of the lovely parts about becoming part of a community is meeting the other area merchants and getting to know them from a whole different perspective. Talking to a shopkeeper when you’re a customer is much different than when you’re chatting merchant to merchant. Plus, there are perks… Perks like fresh crawdads…

Ok, to be totally honest with you, it’s been so long since I’ve had crawdads, I'm pretty sure I was still in the single-digit stage of life. I barely remember my mother fishing a few of them out of a stream and I got squeamish. I’m pretty sure she gave me a bit (after she cooked them), but I can’t remember. Now, I could be thinking of a totally different crustacean, one my mother and father referred to as a crayfish. Looked like a miniature lobster, about three inches long and very dark brown. The ones Tam and I were given to sample were considerably larger.

The fish market owner told us how to eat them and we took home our sample of four and went at them.

Much messiness ensued.

“Just snap off the tail,” he said. “Snap off the tail and pull it apart here,” he said, “then eat the meat. There isn’t anything worth eating in the claws, they’re too small.”

Just. Snap… Yeah, that was the easy part. Getting the rest of the shell apart was a trial and a half. Those buggers are tough (no duh!) and I nearly lost a few fingers attempting to gain a morsel of meat.

I won’t even mention the vein, because that was so disgusting.

Anyway, somewhere I read, or heard, or overheard someone talking about how they eat crawdads in the South. Something about ripping off their heads and just pulling out the goodie from there. I don’t buy that for one minute, but I would love to hear someone with first-hand knowledge share their crawdad moment with me.

Because I think I missed something, and damn it, I aim to get ALL the pieces. 

7 Weeks

When you think about it, seven weeks can either be a very long time or a very short one. It all depends on perspective.

For me… it’s been forever. It is the number of weeks that I’ve NOT had a day off. I’m either at my regular job or going to the shop. It isn’t all bad, but the three and a half hour drive each way makes it doubly exhausting. I haven’t had any time to myself for writing, reading, scratching my ass, or picking my nose. Every weekend has been taken up by the shop and while I am certainly not surprised at the amount of work and driving, I am tired.

I do love working there. I enjoy the customers (most of them) and helping them choose hats. I really love taking pictures of them wearing the goofy hats we have, and I love it even more when they buy them. J

One of the most frequent comments I get is if I’ve ever been to the hat shop in Leavenworth. Apparently it has been made famous by a visit from Oprah. Now, you can’t get into the shop because the line is so long. I guess the prices are extremely high, so people are a little annoyed to come to my humble shop and realize they could have purchased the same hat for about a quarter the price.

Not my fault. Oprah’s never been to my store, so there’s plenty of room for customers.

Work has kept me busy, but I’m giving serious thought to looking for a different position. After last Friday when a student (one not even in my classroom) decided to gnaw on my elbow, I started thinking that I may be too old to want to deal with these kids anymore. I carried around a perfect dental impression in my flesh for quite a while, and while the bruise isn’t quite visible, the pain is quite apparent and I’m not happy about it. So, I’ll put in my application for office assistant and hope for the best.

Mother’s Day was wonderful. Most Minor Minion called from the shop to wish me a happy day and to chat. It was very nice. I called my mom and we talked for an hour and a half. Almost a record for us! And there was no fighting!

Spawn and Middle Minion came over for dinner. I promised them pizza and they were happy to visit. J I had such a great time it was worth any gluten problems I may encounter as a result.

I did get a little bit of editing done this weekend and now things are a huge jumbled mess. I really need to sit down and figure out where I want this story to go. Things keep changing and it is making me crazy! Then I read all the criticisms of Dan Brown’s books and I have to wonder if my writing is as bad as his (although you have to wonder if so may people are buying his stuff, is it really that bad?) No, don’t answer… please.

Good night, and have a great week.

For Boston