I'm Back!

Dear Friends,

It’s been a while, I know.  A matter of months, right?  Well, I’m back.  Mostly. 

I took the time away from reportage to challenge myself to a math course at Portland State University.  I’ve learned some important things!  Like, the slope-intercept formula… good fun, that one!  I can graph a line like a mad woman now.  But, more importantly, I’ve learned this: Math makes me grouchy.

Not disgruntled, not out of sorts, not even really grouchy… I should probably say that Math Pisses Me Off.  Oh, it’s not Math’s fault; it’s not really a fault thing at all.  I should be, and am, irritated with myself for forgetting all of this hard-earned knowledge in the first place.  But, apparently I needed to subject myself to the torture of an 8am, twice a week class with loads of homework (thankfully we’re on the quarter system and not semesters) to really grasp the fact that my aspirations do not lie down the academic path I had envisioned.

All of that being said, I could not spare a single moment to keep you all updated on this hare-brained scheme.  Besides the lack of blogging, I haven’t read a book for pleasure in all this time!  I’m catching up, though.  I’ve read two since the final exam.  Enjoyed the hell out of them, too!*  But, now that I have come to my senses and put aside the notion that I was pursuing, I should be able to get back on the blogging horse and ride, baby, ride!

I would also like to say thank you to those of you who have emailed or messaged me to say, What’s up?  I appreciate that so much!  I’m still around, even though I haven’t even had the time to read your blogs much…  I have some catching up to do.

I also have to do some reevaluating of my plans.  I still want to build my lovely mechanical contraptions but I’ll just have to go about it in a different way. 

There may also be more courses at the University.  I might need to take a nice Literature class to get the bad mathematical taste out of my mouth.  I need to remind myself that I am good at something, dammit!  I was an Honor student, for crying out loud!

I’m not sure what I am doing next, but I’ll keep you posted.

Cheers!

*Monkey Mind, A memoir of anxiety. By Daniel Smith

and,

Mr Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore, by Robin Sloan

Enjoyed them both!

September?

How the hell did that happen?  September?  Already?  I have a lot of catching up to do...  Items sorted by weight for your convenience.

Large:

The teenager has decided that she would rather live with her other aunt for the second two years of high school.  I have a plethora of opinions about this ~ some positive, some negative.  Really, this one deserved it's own blog post but was shortchanged at the counter.  Suffice it to say, we are child-free again.  YAY!
There's a chance I'll write more of this drama later, just to get it out of my system.

My own kid came down to pdx for Labor Day weekend.  Yes, she brought her man, and a spare (a young friend of theirs who wanted to check out Portland), but it was still great to see her.  It's just so much better having her here on the West Coast where we can actually drive and see each other.  Or take the train.  She is coming down again soon - not this coming weekend, but the following - and we are going to a Quilt Show together!  I'm happy about that!

Medium:

We have a new boss at my work and there is a lot of uncertainty around how things will be moving forward. (As an aside, the new boss is the Chairman of the department.  In fact, he is a man but the more correct term these days is simply, Chair.  But, if I say we have a new Chair at my work it sounds like furniture.)  I so wanted to get out of here before there was any serious shuffling or rearrangement of faculty and staff.  Mostly out of laziness, and that phenomenon called "Short-timer's Syndrome."  I've only got a little over a year and a half to go before my planned departure from this place of employment.  I wanted it to be easy, dammit!  I wanted cruise control.

My daughter's father emailed me recently and asked if I still owned a property we had lived on in far north-eastern California.  Yes, I do still own it.  It's paid for and the taxes are ridiculously low so I have kept it all these years.  He asked if I would mind if he went to check it out.  No, of course not.  Then he emailed me and asked what I would want if he were to camp out there for a while.  I said he could stay as long as he wanted and if he wanted to actually live there he could just pay the property taxes.  What I didn't say, but will should the occasion arise, is that if he wants to live there he can just have the property.  I'll sign it over to him.  It's worth virtually nothing, there's virtually nothing there, it's hard to get to, there's no economy, hell, there's no electricity.  It's way off the grid.  Yes, I'll give it to him.  It feels like the right thing to do.

Small:

We took the vintage travel trailer out last weekend.  It was the Oregon Coast Pride event weekend and we decided to spend the weekend at the beach.  Had a pretty good time, too.  The weather was absolutely to be expected for the Oregon coast: cool, gray, damp.  Nice, really.  Waved at the Dykes on Bikes ~ all 20 of them (ok, it might have been just a dozen), danced at the Inferno party, spent money on good causes and supported the local economy.  And had fun!

We are planning to take the trailer out one more time before it's all rain, all the time.  We are meeting up with some other vintage trailer owners at a campground near Bend in October.  I think it will be fun to see what other people are doing with their trailers, although T wants everything to be perfect, and come on, life and vintage trailers just aren't.

Sorry I don't have pictures of the cute little box on wheels.  I'll work on that...


That's it, women.  It's been a bit of a slog lately, but I'm keeping my head above water.

Not much, you?

Because I have a few minutes, I thought I'd bore you with some of the trivial thoughts that drift through my largely vacant head.

• Weight watchers: I have lost something like 12 pounds.  It's taken over 5 months, but at least it continues to go in the right direction.  The good thing is this: I'm not hungry ALL THE TIME, as I was at first.  Plus, with their program, one can eat all the fruit one wants and hey, during summer what else does one want but fresh, local fruit.  I like that.

• Related to losing weight, my workout buddy and I can't understand WHY, since we work out HARD three times a week and ride our bikes to work virtually everyday, why aren't we thin???  It's just not right.  Not fair.  It's frustrating.

• I have cut waaaay back on the alcohol intake.  (Yes, I realize that I am still on practically the same subject.)  So, a couple of weeks ago I had a super shitty day and drank more than I should have.  OK, actually it was my mom's birthday and I was really sad and really missing her and I didn't set out to drink too much, it just went that way.  And, truthfully, I wasn't plastered, I wasn't rip roaring drunk... just a little over the line.  But, the abyss opened before me at some point and I just managed to avoid plunging headlong into the void.  Since then, I just have not been interested in having a drink. Well, ok, we had a couple of beers at the softball tournament.  And, I had a pint of cider when we went out to dinner last week.  But, other than that, it's been a tall glass of ice water with a splash of tart cherry juice in the evening.  And it feels right.

• Speaking of the softball tournament, that was last weekend ~ which happened to be the hottest weekend in three years.  It was 105 degrees!  Here!  In the damp and chilly PNW.  I pitied the players.  We were only there to watch and cheer them on.  We didn't do too much cheering on; Miss ADD (yes, that would be T, my irksome partner) got bored and antsy and we left after one damned game.  Our friends were disappointed, as I was, but what can you do?

• And, last but not least, JAM!  I have been making jam like a maniac!  All of the fresh fruit that is available at the Farmer's Market, and all of the berries from our garden are being jarred up.  Last year I froze pounds and pounds of berries and made many jars of sour cherry jam.  This year I have just made jam.  Raspberry, blueberry, tayberry, strawberry, apricot, peach, and loads of sour cherry.  There might be another variety, I can't think of it right now though.  T and I have made eight jars of dill pickles and I just bought four and a half pounds more of pickling cukes for another batch.  This makes me happy.

So that's it for today, my friends.  Not much to say, but I'm sharing it anyway.  

Floral Report

We have had freezing temperatures, ice, snow, wind, and rain, rain, rain. Even though we are in an El Nino pattern, we have been getting plenty of rain. I mention it only because when you have a “water intrusion” as the building trades like to call it (aka a leak), you do notice the unremitting rain.

However, all is not dreary and gray! No indeed, with the above average temperatures that El Nino brings, we are starting to see early spring flowers popping up. I should be worried about them; they should be worried about themselves. It’s really too early to be bursting into bloom. February is known around here as the ice storm month for good reason. But, I am so happy to see them!

In my yard, the winter blooming jasmine is sporting sunny yellow flowers. OK, it’s a winter bloomer, not a sign of early spring, but I love it anyway. Cheers for the jasmine! Thanks for the joy!

My neighbor’s yard is rife with daphne, and they are just starting to send out their heady fragrance. Do you like the smell of daphne? It reminds me of Froot Loops cereal, so sweet!

There are bulb-borne flowers starting to push out of the ground, strong, sturdy, sword-like leaves are cleaving their way through the soil. Tulips, hyacinths, daffodils.

Even the hydrangea is showing new leaf buds on its winter scarred branches. I wasn’t sure we’d get any hydrangeas after that cold snap and snow storm. It is such a fibrous plant that it dies right back in the cold. Ours seems to have survived.

Some planting guides suggest that we can put peas in the ground now (snow peas, I’d guess), but I’m going to wait just a little longer for that. That would be tempting fate, tempting the weather gods just a little too much.

What are your favorite spring flowers? What’s blooming in your yard or neighborhood?

What's it Worth?

As I may have mentioned a time or twenty, my partner was laid off last year. She has had a couple of crappy jobs since then, but has not found anything good in her field. This has had a negative effect on her state of mind, of course.

But, she has been working for herself pretty steadily over the past couple of months and is now earning more like what she should be earning. What a difference in how she feels about herself! She has taken me out to dinner a couple of times recently and this weekend we are headed to the beach. Yay for the beach! She is insisting on paying for everything and I’ll let her pay for the hotel for sure, and the gas to get there and back, but I’m not letting her pay for everything.

This morning I had to drive to work instead of riding my bike and it costs $10 to park. She very happily whipped ten bucks out of her wallet as I was getting ready to leave. She had a big grin on her face and said, “Daddy’s back!” How cute is that?!

Beach. Beach. Beach. Beach. Beach. Beach. Beach.

Turning it around

Work has been super busy lately with all sorts of new requests and new requirements. We laid off a team member early this year and everyone is working harder than ever. Since I am in charge, I have the option of delegating new assignments, but I don’t feel like I can dump any more work on any of the rest of the group. I’m going to have to eventually, because I can’t keep doing all of the extra work myself.

I’ve also had too much stuff scheduled on the weekends lately and the lack of down time really drains me. Plus, I look out at the garden and know that I should be starting the fall clean up chores; I look at the building projects and know that I should be putting more time in on them; I look at the house and know that it shouldn’t be this messy… you get the picture.

Last night a self defense class that I teach to student nurses started. Actually, it started last week and one of my teammates covered for me because it was the same night as the Bonnie Raitt concert. So, last night was my first night with the class. I got home from work feeling tired, a little out of sorts, and not in any mood to put on my uniform, schlep my gear across town, turn on the energy, and teach. But of course I did. Of course I did. And I am so glad!

The class was great! The women are all very enthusiastic and willing to try all sorts of stuff that is out of their comfort zone. They were excited to be hitting the pads and were hitting HARD! They were using their voice, they were using their stance and body language, they were dropping their breath. Everything I asked of them, they participated fully. What a wonderful group! I left there feeling so much better than when I arrived. It’s amazing how transformative physical activity can be. Especially when it is directed in a positive and empowering way.

The neighborhood where these women go to school is in a part of downtown Portland that has its share of trouble. It’s not a “bad” neighborhood, by any stretch. But, lately there has been a predator on the loose, and he has attacked several women late at night. We talked about that in class, of course, and all of the students are aware of it and are taking the class because of it. I’m so glad they are there! The skills that we teach are simple to learn and highly effective and go a long way in building confidence and increasing awareness. I wish we could teach the entire student body because really, everyone needs to know how to protect themselves.

I’ve got another busy weekend coming up, and the one after that as well. But, I’m doing my damnedest to keep the last week of the month free and my goal is for me and T to get to the beach that weekend. Fingers crossed!

Happy Friday!

Weekend Round-up

I took Friday off so that I had a four day weekend instead of just three. Greedy? No. Just needed a break. But it wasn’t all spent lying on the couch ignoring the world. Here’s what went down:

Friday ~ errands and a little shopping. My friend Peg came over and did some errands with me. Mostly just so that we could chat. T’s friend Chris came over and installed a printer. I went out to Lewis and Clark with Katherine, Abi and Annie. We were teaching a self defense course there on Sunday and wanted to see the room and figure stuff out ahead of time.

Saturday ~ No classes! The school was closed for the weekend. So instead I did a bunch of laundry and various household chores. Didn’t feel obligated to get anything done, which is a rarity. Watched a couple of movies. Mall Cop, which was silly and innocent and Fight Night, which was poorly written and woodenly acted. Bought a new seat for the bike and T put it on for me. Super comfy!

Sunday ~ Futzed around during the morning. Went back to Lewis and Clark to teach from 2 to 5. We were supposed to have 100 incoming freshmen women but only got 35 signed up. Of those, about half showed up for the course. Our goal is that next year it will be a requirement for all incoming fresh(wo)men.

Monday ~ went to Home Depot for supplies and then came home and insulated the floor of the sun porch – where the hot tub lives. Yeah, that’s a lot of fun, crawling around under a building with fiberglass insulation. OK, I’m not complaining because T did most of the crawling and I did most of the cutting. It felt good to get it done before the temperatures drop. We also got some Tyvek up on the outside of the porch. We hope to have the siding completed within a couple of weeks. I want it to blend into the rest of the house and not stick out like a sore thumb… as it is currently doing.

Now I’m back at work. Almost done for the day and I haven’t even caught up on my blog reading! My daughter has started a new blog about buying a house, and my good friend RR has started yet another “pop culture” blog. I’ve got to add those to my list.

Tonight I am teaching a class about Intimate Partner Violence. Also known as domestic violence, spouse abuse, etc. It’s pretty grim, but if people have information about it maybe, just maybe it will help them recognize it and strategize ways of escaping. The class I’m teaching tonight is at my martial art school so we have a captive audience there. This is part of my apprenticeship. We reach more people when we teach in the community. It’s good practice, though. I feel like I need more time to prepare, but it'll be fine.

Bike Update, etc

Ok, I rode home again yesterday. Two things:

1) My butt hurts! I need a new seat, for sure. One of those wide, padded, “lady” seats. Oh yes I do. I got off the tram yesterday, tucked my pant leg into my sock and swung my leg over the bike. OUCH! When I sat down, I stood right back up. I had to ride a couple blocks putting most of my weight on the pedals until my butt bones stopped complaining. I’m taking Friday off and I’ll be shopping for a comfy seat that day.

2) My timing is off. I said that it took me 40 minutes the first day, well, it took 50 minutes the second day and that just can’t be right. I didn’t wander around in RiverPlace, AND I rode up that short steep hill – which has to be faster than walking, right? I’m not sure how my timing got all wonky, but I’m still hoping to shave ten (or twenty) minutes off my time. I hope to get home in half an hour. I think I’ll be able to eventually.

So, part of my ride along the waterfront goes by a hangout zone for the homeless. It’s just a pleasant part of the park a little distance away from the businessy part of downtown (close to the Steel Bridge, by the cherry trees, if you know where I mean). Yesterday there were several people sprawled around in the grass and sitting on the benches. I noticed that there were also lots of pigeons taking a little rest there as well. I wondered, do the homeless ever catch and eat pigeons? They are certainly plentiful (I mean the birds), and surely, surely, they taste somewhat like chicken. But, then, I’ve wondered the same thing about squirrels. Why aren’t hungry people eating them? I’ve never had squirrel before but in my imagination it is a lean, dark meat. I asked T what she thought about that and she said, “Why go to all that trouble when you can panhandle a dollar and go to Wendy’s for a crispy chicken sandwich?” She does have a point there.

In other news, the concert tickets that we won are for tonight. Bonnie Raitt and Taj Mahal at the Edgefield! Very much looking forward to it! Gates open at 5, general admission seating on the grass, so we’ll be there on time. Really, really hoping that the rain holds off until tomorrow!

Bike Commute Challenge

Yay for me! I rode my bike home from work yesterday for the first time!

So, we’ve got this thing called the Bike Commute Challenge. Maybe it’s going on in your town? Maybe it’s just an Oregon thing… Different businesses compete to have the greatest percentage of employees riding their bikes to work during the month of September. I don’t think you win anything but bragging rights, and all of the actual benefits like better health, less pollution, etc.
For the past year and a half I have been carpooling with T. Since her last layoff, however, she has just been driving me to work and picking me up. I know, I know, how very wasteful that is! I have been talking about riding my bike to work but hadn’t gotten up the courage or motivation to do it. The bike challenge was the impetus I needed.

I had T drop me and my bike off yesterday and today. I feel ok about that. It cut the car commute in half. Next week I aim to ride both directions.

It’s only 5 miles from my house to my work, but it’s through the city, across the river and up a steep hill. Truth be told, I’m not doing the steep hill – not up or down it. Instead, I’m taking the tram up and down. It just feels safer and more doable for me. I made it home in 40 minutes yesterday, which is about 20 minutes faster than the bus. I know I’ll be able to shave a good 10 minutes off that time; I wasted a few minutes riding around one neighborhood looking for the bike path. Also, there’s one short but steep hill that my legs weren’t up to yesterday. It’s only 2 or 3 blocks long but I walked my bike up it yesterday. By next week I hope to ride the whole thing.

It really felt great to be getting home via my own power. Empowering! I’ve walked home before and that felt pretty good, too, but zipping along on my bike was great. And, the whole time I was pedaling I was thinking about how much better my pants would fit in a few weeks. I haven’t been working out for quite a while now and I have gained an unacceptable amount of weight and I just don’t feel good. This will definitely improve my physical and mental well-being.

The unknown so far is how the weather will affect my commute. Portland is known for the rainy weather, and it’s coming. I’m going to check out some rain pants and see if I can stick it out in the upcoming wet weather.

Wish me luck!

Houseguests

My brother, his wife and their 3 kids are visiting this week. Good times! Well, reasonable times, anyway. They are good houseguests, all things considered, partly because they are spending most of their time with my parents. In fact, my brother and his wife and the youngest kid, a 6 year old boy, are staying at my house and the two girls (ages 12 and 10) are staying with my parents. It’s more of an adventure for the girls that way, and one of them is allergic to cats. We’ve got three.

The days have been going something like this: I get up at 4:45 and take a shower. My brother gets up at 4:55 and goes downstairs to work remotely from his laptop. I get dressed and go downstairs to make the coffee. T gets up and takes her shower. I drink coffee and eat toast and read the parts of the paper that I like for about a half hour. Make my lunch, go upstairs to brush my teeth. T gives me a ride to work. In the afternoon, we get home, have a beer and a cigarette, pet the pets, do a little of this and that. We make and eat dinner. About 8:30 or 9:00 the family shows up, chats for a few minutes and then they go to bed. Very low impact house guests!

Still, having extra people in the house is an exercise in patience and tolerance. First thing in the morning my brother is sitting at the dining room table where I am accustomed to sitting ~ by. my. self. Thankfully, he doesn’t talk much ~ I really prefer not to carry on a conversation until I’ve had a cup or two of coffee. After that, fine. Also, he and his son leave the toilet seat up which drives T crazy. I say better up than peed on. Still, it’s bugging her.

They are also using my car for the week. That’s ok with me because we have two vehicles and I can also take public transportation to and from work. It’s just occasionally inconvenient. But not really a big deal. A funny difference between the girlfriend and me: I would never, ever, park in someone’s driveway unless specifically told that I should. She (and all of her family) would rather park in the driveway even if it blocks the car that’s already there. Even if, like my driveway, the only spot to park in was at a ridiculous slant that makes getting in and out of the car a contortionist’s trick. The first night my brother had the car there was no parking in front of the house so he parked around the corner. T actually went out and moved the car ~ parked it in the driveway. Where she thinks it belongs. We all have our little idiosyncrasies, I guess. My brother and I were raised by a parking fiend. Our dad is a nut about courteous parking. We were never allowed to park in front of someone else’s house. We had to orchestrate our comings and goings so that all of the cars were in the driveway or in front of the house. It makes me crazy when T’s brother comes over and has their mom in the car and parks on the slope of my driveway. First of all, don’t park in the damned driveway, second of all, it’s extremely difficult for your seventy-something year old mother to get in and out at that angle! Argh!

I’ve enjoyed hanging out with my sister-in-law. We spent some quality time, without the kids or my brother, going to fabric stores. Of course they have fabric stores in northern Virginia, but she wanted a variety, something a little different. Their daughters compete in gymnastics and she actually makes their leotards. She is quite a seamstress! I, well, I am a quilter and not a fancy one. But, I found lots of good stuff in the remnants section. Don’t tell T how much I spent; she would be shocked! I need to incorporate it into the fabric collection which will make it pretty much undetectable… not that I need to justify or rationalize my fabric expenditures, I’d just rather not discuss them at all!

I’ve enjoyed seeing the family ~ and yes, I’ll enjoy waving good bye. One thing that leaves me a little wistful is that my daughter wasn’t able to come out this summer. We had the Virginians last summer as well, and Zoe came out for a quick weekend visit. That was a year ago and I haven’t seen her since. Too long! I’ve already started campaigning for one of the upcoming winter holidays. I don’t care if it’s Thanksgiving or Christmas, I want her at home for one of them. Or both! Or moving back in to her old room! I may be getting a little ahead of myself there, but I really would like that :-) At least, I would like it if she moved back without the boyfriend. But, that’s another story and one I don’t want to get started on now.

So, I think we’ll all have dinner together tonight and they are leaving on Saturday and then we will have our house back. Back to naked hot tubbing! Back to showering together! Back to the toilet seat being down all the time! Ah, family ~ gotta love ‘em!

This is why I like my job

Sometimes, I see the better side of people instead of the worse. Today, I was walking down a corridor and passed a mom, grandma and young toddler. The toddler was fussy and wanted to be carried. The mom reached down and picked her up. Then the youngster wanted down. Up, down, up, down. Finally, to distract the kiddo, the mom and the grandma started singing “She’ll be coming round the mountain” at full volume with the little girl chiming in. Mind you, we’re in a public hallway connecting a couple of big hospital wards. Most people walking by just ignored them and carried on with their business.

It made me smile. And sing.

Tub Time

The hot tub works! T finished the last of the cross-bracing and we filled it when we got home last night. Turned it on around 6:30pm. Had just a few moments of not-quite-panic when the jets wouldn’t kick in. We called the spa guy and asked what to do. First he said to turn the jets to high then low a few times and see if that fixed it. Nope. Called him back and he explained to T how to let the air out of the lines at the pump. Did that. Turned it back on and Hallelujah! Frothy water!

It took several hours to get warm. We kept going outside to check it and saying, “another hour.” Finally got in around 10pm, when we should have been getting ready for bed. But, how could we not get in the damned thing?! It was grand! T wanted to just sit and be pummeled by the jets but I couldn’t sit still. I tried floating, sat on the shallower seat (it’s a 3-person, triangular tub), turned all the knobs, turned the light on and off, played footsie with her, ran my hand up her leg, you know ~ immature new toy behavior. What can I say? It was exciting! I’ve never had a hot tub before. We kept looking at each other and grinning and chuckling.

Really, one of the best things about it won’t last long, and that is the fact that it is outside. The wind in the cherry tree was beautiful both visually and aurally. A cool breeze while soaking in hot water is a delicious contrast. But, while being outside has wonderful qualities, it is also too exposed. Not too exposed to the elements, although come fall and winter it would be, but too exposed to the neighbors. Two sets of neighbors can look right into our hot tub. No naked tubbing for us, at least not until we build the sunroom around it.

Note to the Crow: I will not be drowning the brother-in-law in the hot tub ~ no boys allowed!

Good Things

Good thing number one: the dishwasher is in and working! Yay, Yay, Yay!!! My quality time with the dishes will shrink back down to a reasonable level.

I spent the extra money for a dishwasher that can take stemware in the upper or lower racks. Very much worth the price, in my view. We drink a lot of mimosas ~ or, in my case, just plain champagne. Well, right now it’s champagne with either raspberries, blackberries, or strawberries since they are all in season. We don’t generally drink out of flutes unless we have company. We have some glasses that are more like pilsner glasses than flutes ~ very tall and thin. They don’t hold much more than say, a short tumbler, but they are just the right shape for mimosas. But, they didn’t fit well in the old dishwasher so I am pretty happy about that upgrade.

Good thing number two: the hot tub is in! Ok, it’s in place and wired. T’s uncle is an electrician and came over yesterday to put in a new circuit, new GFI box, and wire it up. T finished the deck that it sits on and only has a little bit of cross-bracing to do before we fill it up and turn it on. We’re doing that after work today! I don’t know how long it will take to heat up; I’m guessing several hours. So, we may or may not be able to sit in it tonight. I sure hope so!!! The weather has been cool and either cloudy or rainy for the last few days. So, if the tub doesn’t warm up enough before bedtime it’ll have to be tomorrow.

The sunroom isn’t built yet, so it looks like a deck with a hot tub sitting right outside our living room. It does actually look a little odd. And, I suppose it will look odd to our neighbors for awhile. We live in one of those close in neighborhoods where we can generally see into each other’s yards but are mostly too polite to do so. We will, however, have to wear bathing suits until the room is built and there are blinds on the windows. But, one thing at a time, and right now it’s the tub being hooked up. Yay!

Think of me~ mimosa in hand, warm bubbly water, playing footsie with my girl… oh, yeah!

Families, sheesh!

So, I survived the baby shower/family reunion. It went pretty smoothly, in fact. There was enough food to feed the county and everybody who arrived brought another 12 pack. I kept myself busy cutting strawberries for the mimosas that T and I drank… I think one other person asked for a mimosa and we were happy to share. Somehow the three of us got through 4 bottles of champagne. I’m hoping that someone else was having mimosas!

I met the eldest member of the family and she and I got along great. Great Aunt Yvonne is the last member of her generation ~ T’s grandparents are all gone. The fact that she and her husband flew out from Houston was pretty astounding. There’s a bunch of history between her and the rest of the family but it was too ancient and complicated for me to get worked up over.

The only real awkwardness for me came when T’s brother-in-law, who is a jerk, grabbed her by the neck while she was barbecuing. He was trying to put her in a choke hold for some reason. She yelled for me to come out and pull him off. Well, shoot. That puts me in a fairly awkward position. I will not let anyone rough up my girlfriend, of course. And even though I am smaller than him, I am a black belt martial artist. So, restraint was called for but no tolerance of unwanted physical contact. I pulled him off her and walked him a few feet away before letting him go. Told him, “No means no. Hands off the girl.” Boy, was he mad! I knew he would be. I knew perfectly well that being shown up by a small, middle-aged woman does not sit well with most men. Tess should have just stabbed him in the leg with the barbeque fork and left me out of it. Oh well, I’m not too worried about his opinion of me. My opinion of him is pretty darned low.

We were there for what felt like forever! Got there about 11:30 in the morning and didn’t get home until nearly 9pm. Way too long for me. And, we had been home about 20 minutes when T’s cousin and her daughter stopped by on their way wherever. Holy crapola, people! They stayed for about two hours. I was falling asleep on my feet by that time. And, irritatingly, her cousin kept calling me by the short form of my name ~ which only my own family calls me and only occasionally. That bugged me.

Now, last week I was thinking, ok, we’ve had our obligatory family get-together and it’s out of the way. We’re good until the holidays roll around. Ha!

So here’s the thing: we are building a sun room and have bought a small hot tub for it (yay!). The hot tub was supposed to be delivered on Saturday afternoon. Really? Saturday, July 4th? Yep, says the guy, it’s just another work day. OK, fine. So, we get T’s brother lined up to be here to help us lift it off the trailer and onto the deck. The delivery was supposed to be at around 4pm. Unbeknownst to us, T’s mom decides that since Mark is going to come over at 4, the whole family will come with him and we’ll have a barbeque. She lets us know of this plan on Thursday. There is no way that T can tell her mom no. She just can’t. So, ok, I’ll suck it up and be the nice girlfriend even though we just saw all these people one week ago.

Well, the hot tub guy calls and says he can be there around noon instead. Quick call to Mark, can you come over at noon? Sure, should I bring Mom and the kids? NO! We are not eating until 6pm. Do NOT bring your mom over until 4 or 4:30! Got the tub delivered, all looks good, sent Mark home, thinking a little nosh and a little rest before the family arrives, a quick shower, we’ll feel fine.

Then her Mom calls again. Oh, your cousin Roberta, her husband and their teenage daughter are on their way over. They want to see you before they go back to Arizona. So, yeah, the cousin, the husband, the daughter are there for an hour before T’s mom, brother, niece and nephew arrive. Sigh.

We’re all sitting at the table on the deck. Drinking a beer, chatting. The rest of the family arrives. I go inside to get something and when I come back, T’s mom has taken my chair and is holding forth to the table. There was nowhere left to sit on the deck so I went down into the yard and sat in the shade. If these had been my relatives, I would have made one of the teenagers get up and give an adult a chair. But apparently that doesn’t happen in this family. It actually worked out better for me because it was much cooler in the shade and I could get a few yards distance from all of them. I put the sprinkler on and the smart ones and the kids walked through it occasionally to cool off.

It was another exhausting, loud, trying day. And, since it was the 4th it wasn’t over by a long shot. Shot… ha! Get it? Doh. But, that’s enough for now. Don’t get me wrong, I really like T’s mom and most of her family. They are just fatiguing. And two weekends in a row is too much. Suffice it to say, I was glad to get back to work this week.

Money vs House vs Happiness

The love of money may be a root of evil, but lack of money causes problems too.

T lost her construction job last summer ~ along with hundreds of thousands of other people in the building trades. She has had a couple of crappy maintenance jobs since then that pay, on average, a bit less than half of what she used to make. She has been picking up side work when she can to keep some money coming in but it isn’t steady enough to count on.

This has two primary effects and many secondary effects. First, of course, is paying the bills. I can carry all the bills for the household and make my house payment. She has rented her house but the rent is not equal to the mortgage and she needs about $500 a month to make up the difference. This means that neither of us is saving any money which, at our age, is problematical.

The second primary effect is on T’s state of mind. Not contributing to the household, not having money in her wallet, not “taking care” of me; these things weigh heavy on her. In all of her previous relationships, she was the primary earner, the one with the house, the one who paid for things, the daddy. She was also, maybe not coincidentally, always older than her partners – at least by a few years.

Now, everything is upside down. We are the same age – in fact, I am a few months older. We made roughly the same amount of money before she lost her job and split the bills equally. We used to trade off paying when we went out to eat. The first time I paid the bill she was a little shocked – she’d never been with someone who simply assumed that it was fair to share in the cost. But, that was before she was laid off. Now I pay almost all of the time. And, it kills her. I can see a little part of her self-image erode every time. I feel bad about that, but not bad enough to give up eating out occasionally.

And the household expenses – she can’t pay every other month like she used to. So, instead, she has embarked on some fabulous home repair projects. My house is old and has suffered through some decades of neglect. The house and the yard, for that matter. When she moved in the yard looked more like a jungle than a small city lot. She has completely transformed the yard and together we built a wonderful deck. She has replaced light fixtures, patched drywall, tiled a vanity, painted, powerwashed, installed a gas fireplace, replaced faucets, rehung doors, and on and on… All of which is wonderful, and believe me I am grateful, there’s just one catch. A lot of those things take money. Which puts us right back to square one.

I generally keep a household maintenance and improvement fund. I put my tax return money in there and contribute a little extra to it when I can. It had grown to a couple thousand when T moved in (since I hadn’t done anything to maintain the house). We have used it up on worthwhile projects like the deck. And all those other things. I don’t regret that one bit because the house is in better shape and we are reaping the benefit by living there. And, T feels good about contributing, which makes her a little bit happier.

The issue at hand, though, is the latest project. A sunroom. With a hot tub. Oh, yes, that will be wonderful, and we will get lots of use out of it, and it will increase the value of the house and, and, and… But, it’s not free to build a sunroom. I had some of the windows from a different project, and we bought the doors at the local low cost, recycled building materials place so we didn’t pay tons of money for them. But there is lumber, tile, electrical, roofing, plumbing, etc, to pay for and we have gone through all of the building fund. She is waiting for some money back from her federal taxes, but mine is spent. I paid for half of the hot tub out of my checking account and I am looking towards Friday anxiously.

I don’t like worrying about money. And, I don’t like my partner to feel unhappy over money. But, she is happiest when she is building or repairing something and feeling like she is contributing. I’m not sure how we’ll continue paying for everything we need to complete this project, probably end up putting some of it on credit cards. Sigh.

I know the economy will turn around one of these days. I know that T will get a good, well-paid job again. I’m holding the good thought about all of that. It’s just getting through this rough patch that is so difficult right now. Difficult and expensive. I may end up broke, but the house will be in great shape!

Not this tree

Perhaps I’m overreacting, but I am incensed at my neighbors for the murder of a beautiful cottonwood tree. Incensed and devastated.

This tree provided shade to several of our yards – mine will now resemble the burning Sahara on summer afternoons – and homes to birds and squirrels. Its long, graceful limbs swayed with the breezes blowing out of the Gorge; its leaves fluttering at the slightest stir.

I’ve spent many hours watching the play of light and wind on this tree. I arranged my bedroom furniture solely to view this particular tree. I’ve written poems about and to this tree. It has given me peace of mind when I was overwhelmed by life. Sitting quietly and watching it move in the wind has been a way for me to quiet my overactive mind and regain my center.

I lost a friend yesterday.

Cottonwoods across the canyon
Beckon with graceful arms
A current of air stirs
Fluttering, their leaves twist and turn
Green and white
Green and white
Silvery and green and white
Like a reflection of a tree
Within a swift moving stream

Big sigh...

What a week!

My big-ass birthday party was great fun. Had just over 50 friends there. I would have enjoyed twice that many but it was sufficient. I got to chat with most and (I think) greeted everyone. T survived. She doesn’t like big parties but she rose to the occasion. Several of her friends came, which was nice. A friend of mine from New Mexico came up on the Friday and went home on the Monday ~ honestly, house guests are harder on my girlfriend than big parties. She has to do a lot of accommodating to be with me.

I had arranged ahead of time to take the following week off work. I have a big project to take care of and this was my chance to get a solid chunk of it done. It’s an odious task, really. I’ve been putting it off because I felt overwhelmed by it. Cleaning The Basement.

I bought the house in 1994. My daughter and I have a moderate pack rat tendency ~ we are not hoarders, and are in fact capable of throwing out old and broken stuff. Our problem is that we are very sentimental. I probably had every piece of art she ever created. And all of the cutest kid clothes that she wore. She wanted to keep every stuffed animal she ever received. And the toys and games, and, and, and…

Add to this the coincidence that when we moved into our house, my parents were moving out of theirs and one of my brothers had been storing stuff at their house. So, we had boxes of stuff from the parents, the brother, AND the roommate who was moving in with us. Some of the stuff from my parents house had actually belonged to my paternal grandmother and had been schlepped around for a decade or so. What a mess!

The biggest obstacle for me was an old couch that the roommate had left behind. When she moved in it went directly to the basement and there it stayed. It is incredibly heavy! And ugly! And long, and curved, and just plain difficult. Besides the couch, there were two large area rugs and their pads that didn’t survive house training the dog. Yes, they had been sitting down there for years! It’s shameful and embarrassing but what can I say? I’ve been busy! So, getting the couch, the rugs and pads, an old foam camping mattress, the world’s largest stuffed dinosaur (I kid you not, this thing was about 8 ft long), and various odds and ends out of the basement, into the truck, and off to the dump was my goal for Monday. I had two people to help and it nearly wasn’t enough muscle power to get it done. But, we did. I felt so relieved ~ that couch had been a plug and once it was pulled, things started flowing.

Now, when I say ‘flowing’, I mean it literally. On Tuesday, day 2 of Operation Purge, I discovered that we had a little water problem. For an old house, the basement has been remarkably dry in this wet climate. I’ve only had a leak one time (in a different part of the basement) and that was because my neighbor’s downspout was pouring into my side yard. Once he fixed it, we dried out and it’s been dry since. This time however, it was entirely different and so much worse.

We had used one half of the basement for a tv area years ago. TV and storage, of course, for all that crap we couldn’t part with. So, that part of the basement had carpet on the concrete floor. Wow! Carpet holds a lot of water! And supports the growth of fungi! The things one learns in the basement… Everything sitting on the carpet was wet. Boxes of toys, baby clothes, out of date encyclopedias, childhood art projects, stuffed animals, assorted crap, you name it ~ all wet. All going in the truck and to the dump.

Over the course of the week, I took two loads of junk and one load of recycling (free!) to the dump. I have one more load ready to go and still lots of stuff to sort through. It made me a little sad and a lot nostalgic to see all the phases of my daughter’s life in those boxes. I was really fine with throwing out stuff that should have been chucked out years ago, but some of it caught at my heartstrings. I saved photos even if they were wet, and some of her art. Plenty of stuff was not salvageable, though. I tried to be strong and very firm with myself. I had asked Zoe for a list of things she really couldn’t part with and amazingly, about 80% of what she wanted to save was in a box together and dry. That made me happy.

So, I got rid of a bunch and sorted a bunch and still have lots of work to do, but it is a much more manageable task now. The real drag of the whole project was that two days after I got the wet carpeting out and everything spread out to dry, we had some torrential rain and sure enough, the basement still leaks. But now, I didn’t have the carpet to hold the water in place so it spread out further than it ever had! Criminetly! Stuff that I had saved was now wetter than ever! Argh! I made a dam out of an old blanket which had not yet made it to the dump, and held back most of the water. Of course, we are having the wettest spring on record and I’m going down to the basement after work every night and soaking up stinky water with old towels and wringing it into a bucket.

I told a coworker about my leaking basement and he said, “Oh yeah, we call it the indoor pool!” I guess it’s a Pacific Northwest thing… ya gotta laugh ~ there’s already too much water to cry.

20 Question meme

GrumpyGranny http://grumpygranny.wordpress.com/ posted this meme and yeah, I'll play along!

1. My ex… is long gone.

2. Maybe I should… quit my job and do what I really want.

3. I love… the people in my life (the important ones!)

4. People would say that I’m… calm.

5. I don’t understand why… we can’t all have equal civil rights.

6. When I wake up in the morning… I make the coffee.

7. I lost my… way for awhile, but I found it again.

8. Life is full of… wonder, delight, gratitude.

9. My past… was worth it.

10. I get annoyed by… people who take up more than one seat on the bus.

11. Parties are… fun, depending on who attends.

12. I wish life was not… so short.

13. Dogs are… poop machines.

14. Cats are… shedding.

15. Tomorrow is… on its way.

16. I have a low tolerance for… arrogance.

17. If I had a million dollars… I’d get it all sorted out.

18. I’m totally terrified… when my parents go on long car trips.

19. My partner… loves me.

20. My life is… grand!

Anonymous and Invisible

Hair color and pattern are genetic traits so I have always known how my hair will look when I get old. My mother started going gray when she was in her early twenties. She now has a beautiful head of white hair ~ as did her mother. I definitely had strands of gray in my early twenties, increasing from the front to the back as every decade passed.

I started coloring my hair in my mid-thirties. It was easy ~ a $5 box of Clairol and I was good to go. It changed my outward appearance just a little. Made me look my age, rather than a few years older. After a couple of years I threw caution to the wind and dyed my hair bright pink. That was fun but it wore thin pretty quickly. After that I went back to auburn brown but kept a pink streak in the front. Eventually I got tired of the two color dye job, gave up the pink streak and was content to be an anonymous brunette.

The great thing about hair is that it grows out. That is also the drag of it, when you color your hair; always dealing with the racing stripe. For blondes, it’s the dark roots. For older gals like me, it’s the silver shining through.

Several years ago I stopped coloring my hair. I wanted to see how much gray there was and I just wasn’t bothered enough about it to put forth the effort of maintaining the color. I let it get a pretty good grow-out and then cut it short. I really liked it! I liked it short and I liked it gray.

That was when I truly became aware of the invisibility factor.

Old people, especially women, are invisible in our society. We are not valued in our youth-obsessed culture. I was surprised at how people’s eyes just slid over me as if I wasn’t there. I have always enjoyed/suffered attention from oglers – not that I am fabulously beautiful, just pretty and friendly. Oh, and I have big tits. I was surprised when that stopped happening; and surprised at how immediately it stopped. (As an aside, I was talking with two of my best friends about this and they said it is the same for large women. They feel completely invisible unless they are an object of scorn.)

So, I was mulling this over yesterday. It was a beautiful sunny day and I left work a little early to walk home. I walked through the Portland State University neighborhood, and past St Mary’s Academy (a catholic high school for girls). I was part of the stream of pedestrians going about their business but at the same time, not part of it. When surrounded by college or high school age students, it is obvious that I am much older. I am already fading into the background.

I was thinking about it especially because my 50th birthday is coming up and it’s a good time to assess one’s life. I have decided to cut my hair again and let it grow out to its natural color. I’m not going to cut it quite as short as the last time – I’m thinking chin length – but definitely going back to gray/white/silver. I’ve been coloring it of late so that I don’t look so much older than my girlfriend. But, I’m getting over that. I know we’re the same age; I don’t care all that much what other people think.

I’m prepared to become invisible again. One can get away with a lot when nobody pays attention to you. I may take up a life of crime! More likely, I will continue my self-appointed task of observing and reporting on life. It’s easier to do so from the periphery. And more comfortable knowing that no one is looking back at you.

Vanity and Age

When T and I first hooked up I wasn’t coloring my hair. I got tired of the grow-out phases, and mostly, I just didn’t care. Plus, I thought my hair looked good white/gray/brown. But, shortly after we started dating I went back to coloring my hair. And here’s why: I didn’t want to look that much older than she. We are the same age – although I was born in the spring and she was born in the fall, but in the same year. And, we both look pretty damn good for 49, I think. But, I didn’t want to look like some old gal going with a youngster. A cougar. A sugar mama. So, I started coloring my hair.

Now, however, my birthday is coming up. It’s a milepost year; a threshold. And I don’t feel like coloring my hair anymore. It’s very pretty. It’s longish, shoulder length, a warm caramel brown. It’s a pleasure to brush it. It’s long enough to pull back into a ponytail when I work out. But, I’m tired of it. I’m planning on cutting it fairly short and letting it grow out to its natural color. Ok, so people may look at us and think, “Wow, what’s that hottie doing with the old bag?” But, I don’t care. We’ll see how long that lasts. Because, after all, it’s just hair and mine grows out so fast that it can be completely different in six months.