Happy Black Friday!

It's still Thanksgiving here in the great northern wasteland, but for y'all it's Black Friday.

And Alaska is not a great northern wasteland. It's beautiful, but has more than it's fair share of crazies. Most of our politicians, for a start...

But this is not about that.

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving, whomever you are reading this, or maybe I am just shooting this out into space, hoping everyone had a wicked good Thursday. Some replacement karma for all those people whose driving makes me question their intelligence and brain capacities.

We had a quiet one. I got a 7.5 pound turkey breast. Mixed a couple of tablespoons of olive oil with dry mustard, fresh basil and green onion tops, salt, pepper, and THREE cloves of garlic (is clove the right word? It doesn't seem right, but it does. huh.) Added some chicken broth to the bottom of the pan. Which is an awesome rectangular roaster with a rack, nice and big, that I got for $10 at Fred Meyer's last year. Seemed like a good deal, and I really like the rack for roasting a turkey. Breast, at least. I think it would be great for a roast plus veggies too. I am going to have to remember that for when Mark gets home.

AND HE IS GOING TO BE BACK IN THE US VERY VERY SOON!!!!1!!!!!!!1!!!!

Sorry, just a tad excited about that bit.

Weird thing is, when I was carving the bird, the meat was so juicy I thought it was undercooked. No, silly. It's just when you roast the whole turkey, the breast meat gets a bit dried out.

It was garlicky and very good. We also had two kinds of stuffing -- one with herbed stuffing, sausage and corn, and one with herbed stuffing, sausage, apple, and apple cider.

The apply stuffing was a little too sweet, the ratio of cider to bread was off. But when mixed with the other stuffing, it was really good. Next time I wanna add some dried cranberry to the apple stuffing.

Cranberry Orange relish. Dump a bag of cranberries in a food processor or blender. Cut up an orange and drop that in there too, peel and all. Add 1 -2 cups of sugar to taste. Start skimpy with the sugar, it's better tart. I think I usually end up with somewhere north of a cup and a quarter, I think. Whirl it all together and that's it. It's better if it sits a while, it mellows a little. I generally don't get around to making it on Thanksgiving, in fact a few Thanksgivings ago Mark and I went to Fry's -- a fabulous grocery store in our Tucson neighborhood -- to buy a food processor, because I accidentally dumped a cup of orange juice into the guts of our blender and for some reason no one in my family was willing to plug it in and test it.

This cranberry is so much more fabulous than any cooked cranberry I have ever had. It's fresh and tart and delicious.

For dessert we had pumpkin pie. And a key lime pie from the grocer's freezer. Because I was just not in a pumpkin mood this year, and a light and fluffy pie instead of a heavy custard pie was a nice end to a big meal.

And then I talked on the phone for hours, since only a tiny fraction of my family is here.

Marilyn, my favorite sister, clued me into a really terrific Masterpiece Mysteries series. It's Sherlock Holmes, set in 21st century London. It's funny and entertaining and really terrific. Thor and Tess and I watched one of the three episodes on the internet...

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/sherlock/series1.html

They are available until Dec 7.

It's available on DVD and I do believe that it will be on our Christmas list.

Oh, yeah. It snowed all day. We went from almost no snow, but plenty of ice, to four or five inches of snow. So tomorrow I can work off that turkey and stuffing by shoveling again. Yeah. Still not excited about the idea, but eh. Gotta be done.

I would post a picture here, of how lovely the neighborhood looks with a fresh layer of snow, but both the batteries in the camera are dead. oops.

Socks.

I don't know why, but I am wanting to buy socks lately. Big thick fuzzy socks, brightly colored anklets, kneehighs with stripes and polka dots. Fortunately Costco has had boring socks as of late, because when you buy socks there, it's by the dozen. Or more.

So I got some stripy socks and argyle socks and some socks with orange toes and heels and pink dots. I resisted the thick fleecy slipper socks at Costco this afternoon, even though they were brightly colored and warm and fuzzy and cute...

I have been tossing socks as well, because really. Socks get ucky. Especially when you have dogs, because dogs are messy and track dirt and shed hair and are generally vile and filthy creatures.

Maybe I have been so into socks lately because I am FREEZING. I think I must be having the opposite of hot flashes. I get so cold. Chills. It started in Arizona, so it's not related to living in Alaska. And I have told the doctor, and had tests for thyroid and all that...The Internet says that a small percentage of women have chills instead of hot flashes, and we all know the Internets is never wrong.

Also. And this may be related to Mark being gone again for so long, but I have been wearing socks that are the same, but not the same color. I have like 40 pair of socks, little footie socks, from Costco. Some are solid, some are striped, a few have polka dots, some have a contrasting band around the ankle. I figure if I have a lime green solid sock on the left foot and a lime green and pink striped sock on the right foot that is close enough. Or a pink sock and an orange sock.

The reason this has to do with Mark being gone is that we are complimentary. Which does not mean you will find us in hotel showers (get it? Like the little bottles of shampoo in hotels...) That's not the right spelling anyway, but it is the right spelling of the wrong word, so spellcheck is not helping.

(And why the hell does my spellcheck not recognize the word spellcheck? I guess they spell it with a dash, but still. If I were selling a product, I would want the product to recognize the name of the product...But I digress. Really, "But I Digress" should be the name of my blog.)

Back to complimentary. Mark is organized and logistical and all planny. I am chaos and disorganizational and fly-by-the-seat-of-one's-pantsy. The longer he is gone, the more chaotic and unplanned our lives become. Which leads to me losing socks all over the place -- they are those no-show anklets, so they are tiny and easy to overlook -- and managing to only wash one of each pair. Lucky, really, that I can still find socks that sorta coordinate.

So Mark brings order and plan and sense to our lives, and I bring spontaneity and really good cooking and a wicked sense of humor and the occasional bouts of chaos. It works for us. Really well.

Thing is...I was at a field trip thingy for Tess's class, and noticed that wearing different socks is a thing amongst some eighth grade girls. So I am either tragically hip, or pathetic and old and looking like I am dressing way way way too young.

I prefer the Tragically Hip, meself.

Woo to the ooot.

Life was complicated for the last eight months or however long it's been since I posted here. So stupid and annoying and complicated and scary and pissed-off-making that I really don't want to be able to go back and read how awful it was, because. Damn. I lived it once.

It's like high school. I would so not go back to high school, because high school was sucky.

It was also like high school because I was like "dude. Are you 13?" --

but only in my head, because to point out to people that they are acting like junior high is only to add to the drama --

to several people who love the drama. Who eat that shit up. (That is a disgusting metaphor and I am sorry I used it, but I am only backspacing to fix spelling and grammar and punct.u.a.tion. Other wise I won't manage to post anything. Plus this way you get the full on crazy that is me.)

So. Yeah. Every direction I turned. Drama. Draaaaammmmma. I hate other people's drama. I mean, my friends, my real friends, if they are having Things Happen. I am all about helping, listening, going to bad restaurants and eating food adults shouldn't eat with them, whatever they need.

But drama? Like she said this and I said that and she told this other person and oh my god shut the hell up. I don't care. You are supposed to be an adult, so f***ing act like an adult.

Oh yeah. I swear. More lately, because life is sucky. And more, apparently, when there are small children around me. Thor and Tess think so any way. One day I was shopping at the commissary. I wondered if we needed milk or eggs or iced tea or something, so I called Tess at home. Between the time I dialed the phone and Tess answered, I completely forgot what I was calling her about, so she says "hi, Majide*, 'sup?" (Go with me here. I will explain the Majide in a minute.)

I answered her, "shit. What was I calling you about?"

Tess: "Is there a small child around, Majide?"

Me: (defensively) "she's a newborn. She didn't understand what I said and she is probably too far away to hear me."

The baby was like three feet behind me. I had not said a word, swear or not, the entire time I was in the commissary. I think it is a plot to make me crazy. People with small children tag team following me. Why they would possibly want to do that is not important. Also, my family would all point out "short trip." (Driving me crazy. Short trip. I am most of the way there.)

*Majide. Remember there was a reality show about being on a Japanese game show? The name of the game show was Majide, which is Japanese slang for "Seriously?!". Somehow Tess decided that was a good name for me, so that is what she calls me. And, well, yeah. It totally fits.

So all the crap and trouble and angst and stuff and problems = gut problems for me. Stress + Crohn's = sucky.

So I backed off of stuff. I dropped a couple of volunteer things, because I don't want to end up in the hospital again. I am more careful about myself. I nap if I feel sleepy, because pushing and pushing and pushing just does not work for me. I am not that fond of hospitals that I want to push myself into one again.

Plus Mark will be home soon!!!! I don't know exactly when, because OPSEC requires that we not speak of anything important, like when he is flying out of a war or former war zone. So he will be home next month. Should be before Christmas Eve, fingers crossed.

I had nothing in mind when I started typing, obviously, and whatever was there is gone or vomited out onto this blog now, so I am outta here!

I am editing this to add that if you are reading this, you are probably NOT one of the drama queens I was referring to. Really.

Cmon, people.

Or person, rather. There is someone who apparently thinks she is me, at least as far as my bank is concerned. I once again got an email from my bank saying that I had entered the wrong password three times and so my online account has been shut down until I jump through the hoops to change my password.

Which means I have to find my wallet and then dig out my ATM card and enter that info and give them a bunch of other information --

Don't worry, I do not follow the link from the email, in case it's not legit, but take the long way around of actually typing in the bank's web address --

and then once again set my password and hope I remember it.

I assume it's just some random person who thinks my username is hers, because my user name is not imaginative, and not someone trying to break into my bank account. Which would be a huge effort for little payoff, because this is my secondary account, they could maybe get 700 or 800 bucks at the very most, and we don't have a credit card with this bank.

The part that always makes me go, "umm, sure, but..." is the part where they tell me this message is also in my messages box on the website, which I cannot log into until I read the email and jump through the change the passwords hoops. And then I can access the message that tells me to go do all this shit before I can access that message. Is it me, or does this make no sense at all?

Because really, I have enough emails and messages and things to deal with to not really want to have a message confirming that I had to change my password to access that message.

Right. I know why they send it, I just don't think that they should send the exact same message -- the message on the web site should let you know what happened with the account without telling you how to get back on line. Know what I mean?

I suddenly think that I have accidentally veered back into territory where only people who know me really well will even have a clue as to what the hell I am talking about...

And my family members understood and were amused by my last post. Nice to know that I am still comprehensible to those who HAVE to love me.

Random photo of the day/week/month/millenium/eon...



There are benefits to snow in April. The mountains look all snow-cappy and majestic again.

Still really really tired.

I know this because I was reading a blog of a friend of my son's cousin (my niece, but that is not as convoluted, and because I am reading this blog through this convolution, I convoluted it. Is that convoluted enough for you?)

Any hoo...I was reading this blog written by this kid who is doing a semester abroad in Berlin, and there were photos of these amazing fountains and stuff, that reminded me totally of being in Florence and Rome, man I love Italy, and I thought, "thank God I am not there." Because being in Europe means you have to think and everything is hard. Seriously. That is what I thought about, not all the cool art and how it's so easy to find amazing photographs and how you get really good Italian food, unlike say here, where they don't even have an Olive Garden (not that that is good Italian food, but hey. We don't even have mediocre Italian food. Sorry those of you who love Olive Garden, or Garden Botanika, which is what my family calls it sometimes, because we do wacky things like mix up our names. Seriously. The world would stop dead, start rotating the other direction and centaur ponies would bring each and every one of us a Ben and Jerry's if no one in my family screwed up a name every couple a hours...

Centaur Pony is a Thor thing. Ask him about it. It is way beyond my ability to explain.

What the hell was I talking about? Because I don't think I started out meaning to write about how I am incapable of telling y'all about Thor's centaur ponies...

Right. Olive Garden = Garden Botanika. Which is a lotions and potions* store that doesn't even exist any more. But which we still call Olive Garden sometimes. But not me. Because I don't have a Garden Botanika or an Olive Garden, because I live so far north Santa goes "WT*? Seriously? I have to live way the hell up here because the damn elves are allergic to deciduous trees, but what's your story?"

Further proof I am just tired. This post. Has more tangents than an algebra book. Although I don't know if tangent is even an algebraic thing, but it sounds right.

*"lotions and potions"...shower gel and lotion and stuff. By the time I am eighty, no one outside of my immediate family will understand a thing I say. Guess I better be nice to them, or I will be like that girl that got left behind on the island and by the time anyone found her, everyone else who spoke her language was gone. So it'll be me and some random sad foreign girl in the assisted living center, just jabbering away...

I really feel I should delete all of this and start over, perhaps try to veer into occasional coherence....

So. I was reading this blog, and looking at all these great photos of various awesome and amazing and cool fountains and stuff, and all I could think was that it is really hard to live or travel in Europe, because people insist on speaking their own languages and not becoming EXACTLY like the United States. Although if I were in Berlin, I would totally be going to McDonald's for an eiskaffe, where they brew a cup of really black coffee (because Germans like their coffee like they like their motor oil, strong and black. Right. I DO know that makes no sense, because motor oil is only black at the end, when it needs to be changed.) and put some of that soft serve ice cream in it, so that it sorta melts and it's really good.

I think y'all should feel sorry for the other people at the meeting I have to go to tonight, because I seem to be incapable of staying on track for more than a few words.

Because the universe hates me...

My new adventure begins Tuesday. Tuesday at 1015. That's when Abe gets to see the vet specialists because his right kneecap is now doing the same luxiating thing that his left kneecap did, which required surgery to fix. A luxiating patella. Or at the very least, a something starting with the letter L patella. At least this time I didn't have to feel his kneecap sliding around. Although I am certain I will hear more about bones and shaving and cracking and slicing and gross and stop talking to me about bones and surgery, because that just grosses the hell right outta me.

Because of course I just got our taxes done, and we are getting a really decent refund. Which should nicely cover Abe's next vet bills. I shouldn't complain, I am very happy we have the money to waste on our dog instead of vacation or a new car (the Suburban is 14. And I still haven't fixed the emergency brake release, so that if I accidentally set the parking brake I will have to have the truck towed. Plus I have to get the snow tires removed and the passenger door inside handle replaced, because pretty soon you will have to roll the window down and open the door from the outside. And the leather seats -- which I am certain were a lovely grey leather at some point, are now stained and ripped and slashed in a couple of places. Dogs and old leather seats not an ideal combination.)

Plus I have been driving the Honda whilst Mark is gone, and my IPod connects to it. I have 484 songs at my fingertips. In the Suburban, I am limited to CDs and NPR.

On the other hand, I don't care if the dogs are in the 'Burb, I can throw a dead sawed-up Christmas tree in the back, haul icky recycling or seven kids.

Right I was discussing the dog. He has been limping for a couple of weeks. I was trying to decide if it was just stiffness from his other surgery -- cold mornings in Anchorage are tough on him sometimes -- or if there was something more going on. But he has been tripod dog in the last few days, not putting weight on his right hind leg. So poor Abie is going to go through all that again -- surgery and recovery and limping and being confined and ugh.

There is the great potential for fun drugs for him, though...morphine makes him the calmest and limpest dog I have ever seen. He just lays there, eyes glazed.

So at least I don't have to make a decision about poor Abie based on what we can afford. And I can be very hopeful that surgery will correct things, and he will go back to being cheerful and goofy, although with what seems to me a death wish, considering that he willingly engages in combat with Mojo...

Bye bye snow...

No, not this snow...



This snow:



The snow drift that has been hanging off the roof for a couple weeks finally collapsed under the weight of the icicles forming on the bottom edge.

So does this mean we only have six more weeks of winter? Maybe!!!

More Photos...

Sorry I haven't been around. My volunteer life has been extraordinarily stressful as of late -- there is a person making life hellish for many people, and I am trying to help get it resolved. Which involves talking to lots of people, lots of phone calls, lots of trying to figure out just what the hell is going on. On another hand, I have spent a ton of time trying to figure out how to make data look pretty on the computer, which is very much beyond my skills. Unless the data is a photograph, of course! But making info look good in a directory -- I have zero skills in that arena, even after hours of working on it.

But we have had a streak of warm sunny weather (warm being relative, of course. It only has to get a few degrees above freezing to be considered warm around here, although we have had temps as high as 50!!! Just once or twice, but it is working on those gigantic piles of snow! So we should be snow-free by the end of May! Still better than having temps of 107 by the end of May (sorry all my pals in Tucson, but dang. I am not a lizard.)

To the photos!



I know. I have a thing for snow removal equipment. I don't know why.


Zachary (my kid) is standing, my nephew Este is in the chair, and my Dad is in the mirror.


This is the drift hanging from the front of the house since the last big snow.


This is that same drift today. It's melting, but since it's on the north side of the house, it hasn't completely melted away yet.


See? We have our bits of grass showing too...


But it's the exception. This photo was also taken today. We have snow.


Mojo today. He is digging the whole laying out on the deck in the sun thing.

New Photos!!!

Just one for tonight...

Thor was waaaaaay more nervous about driving than I was about riding with him.

He did great, by the way.

I am not always a huge fan of machines...

When the problem is caused by a machine, here are my steps:
Turn it off. Unplug it. Turn it back on.

Turn it off, unplug it, kick it, turn it back on.

Turn it off,unplug it, hurl it across the yard/room/street, look
around to see if anyone noticed, go pick it up, plug it back in, turn
it on, whack it really hard with my hand, get really pissed cause
that's stupid and painful, call it foul and vile names, type in
insults if it has a keyboard.

Dig through my toolbox -- which is inevitably filled with loose
screws, handleless screwdrivers, screwdriverless handles, those stupid
pads that are supposed to stick to the bottom of chair legs but in
reality somehow end up stuck to the dog, nails that are too bent and
dull to pound into anything harder than styrofoam, the hammer with the
mysteriously sticky handle, the random screws and bits of wood left
over from Ikea flat packs, and all the other tool detritus that my
husband cannot throw away but doesn't want to put in his own tidy tool
tower -- give up, go raid my husband's tool cathedral, and take the
stupid machine apart.

Buy new machine because I am much better at disassembly than putting
stuff back together.

Get husband to do whatever it was I was originally trying to do, since
by this point I have thought of 47 other things to do. Or suggest to
my kids that using this tool is really fun, and they should try it
(Thank you Tom Sawyer).

Cerberus and Lincoln.

I did not name them. But I do let them live in my house. Because I am teh awesome Mom.


(Cerberus)


(The Linc)

self portrait in a Honda.

The photo of the lily I promised you.

Also...

Whoa. The earthquake in Chile moved the earth off its axis by 3 inches.

And yet my children cannot manage to flip off a light switch.

Tonight, driving through the Fort Rich gate, the guard dropped his CLIP. His clip full of bullets. I feel very safe and secure now, knowing that the gate guards have real guns with real ammo, BECAUSE I SAW THEM.

Even the studliest of guys looks ridiculous in a Snuggie...

So, really, what chance did Zach have of not looking like a complete dork?

Publish Post

edited to add...This. This right here, posting an enormously embarrassing photo of my child on the intertooobages, this is why I had children. This is a good day.

Earthquakes suck.

And tsunamis that refuse to be great breaking news suck too. Woo. The water in Hawaii is dirty from their teeny little tsunami. The people on MSNBC are beating this boring horse, but it ain't running. Wait! Wait! There are rocks showing in the surf offshore on the Big Island in Hawaii! So pretty much the tsunami in Hawaii is like a speeded up tide. That is big news. Never mind that there was an 8.8 magnitude earthquake in Chile -- they don't have any awesome shots o' destruction to share with us? Instead the Powers That Be are hoping for some big exciting tsunami action in Hawaii.

I still haven't downloaded and uploaded those photos. Maybe I will do it today...Although I have lots of stuff to do today, including dragging Tess to her school twice so she can play the drum for three minutes at the start of their play. She is really good at drumming -- even playing on her own, she keeps the beat, no speeding up or slowing down.

Don't get it...

I don't understand those who say that they don't want health care reform because they don't want the government telling them which doctors they can see and stuff like that -- right now, you are limited in the US by the insurance companies telling you which doctors are in your network, which hospital you can go to, which tests you can have, which procedures they will pay for, and on and on and on.

Argh.

It's still snowing, we must have over six inches of new snow so far. I have to take some photos...

Mark sent me some flowers for Valentine's day, which I completely forgot to photograph, but there is a lily that just opened up and is gorgeous. I did remember to grab my camera this time --

But I am too lazy to download and upload the photos tonight. So you will have to wait until tomorrow. Sorry!

Ha! It's still Thursday in Alaska.

So I haven't missed a day after all.

Today was ugh. I was having a thing done in the doctor's office, and she dropped something on the floor. Something that needs to be sterile. So I got to lay there in a very uncomfortable position -- it's way tmi,but if you really want to know, give me your email address and I will fill you in -- while the nurse ran around looking for another one. Lucky for me, somebody had one. But geez. Really? You had to drop the one not easily replaceable thing on the floor? It couldn't be a swab or a tongue depressor, something easily and QUICKLY replaceable? Oh well. Good story, in the right company...

Oh, yeah, then I get home and it has been snowing, so the wonderful little Civic -- which is an awesome car, I love love love it -- can't quite make it up the VERY slight incline in our driveway, because there were three or four inches of snow. So I had to hop out and shovel a couple feet of driveway between the car and the garage, then back up and take a running start at it. I love the Honda, but it is not really the best car for Alaska winters. It's really not an issue, especially since I have the Suburban too, which does really well on snowy and icy roads, but even with the Honda, I mostly am driving in Anchorage and Eagle River so it's only days like today when we get 6 inches of snow where I might have a problem. Eh. It's completely worth it because it plays my IPods.

This afternoon I took a long nap on the couch. I guess going to bed at midnight and getting the kids up at 5:30 is taking a toll on me.

It's been a long day...

And I should be going to bed. I have a doctor's appointment in the morning, and I never get enough sleep so it's very hard to get up before 10 am. Tomorrow I have to be out the door by 8:15.

But I am very happy that I get to go to the doctor tomorrow, that that visit and the lab work and prescription that accompany it are free. I don't pay a dime. I get thousands of dollars worth of drugs every year, drugs that do an amazing job at keeping Crohn's at bay. I get allergy medicines and the drugs for my ridiculously-slightly too high blood pressure (thank you endless crushing stress), and any and all the tests my doctors order for me -- the random ones everybody should get and the ones that come from having the digestive tract from hell. Two sleep studies and the machine that keeps me breathing all night. Hospital stays, ER visits, radioactive egg sandwiches. All free.

I don't pay a dime.

God damned socialized medicine at work. I don't have some cadillac health care plan, I am married to an Army guy. So all my medical care is provided by and paid for by the US government.

I know it's not always perfect. I had symptoms from Crohn's disease for 18 years before it was diagnosed, but in those 18 years, there have been great strides forward in military family health care. The US government can get it right.

My Mom almost died this Christmas. Thanks to the valiant efforts of the nurses in the Cardiac ICU, she survived. Some death panel there -- an 80-something year old woman, and they are spending lots of resources to keep her around. We are all very grateful for that. And again, it's government provided, since my Mom is on Medicare. The doctors talked about choices and issues and complications and heroic measures, but never once did they suggest that we should let her die, to preserve resources for the next person. The younger, healthier next person. So much for your death panels, Governor Palin.

But then wander over to Lou's, and he will guide you to another blog. One with a person who isn't so lucky. Start asking around, and I bet you can find lots of people who are either without insurance themselves or know somebody who is.

Health care is not a luxury. Having access to drugs that save your life, your sight, your kidneys or heart, that should not be a privilege. Dying too soon, too young, because some worthless person at an insurance company gets a bonus for denying as many claims as possible, because some heartless and thoughtless and subhuman exec thinks that making money for the shareholders is far more important than some average person's life, that should not be happening in this country.

Dear Republican Politicians. I am an American Citizen. I am married to guy who has spent the last 20-whatever years serving our country. I have spent countless hours volunteering for military families and civilian families and the communities where we have lived. I am a real American. I want health care for every single person in this country. I want health care reform. I want my friends and family to have the same "privilege" that I have -- to be able to go to the doctor when they are sick. To go to the doctor when they feel great, so that they don't die early from undiagnosed and untreated diseases. To be able to buy food and heat their homes and get their prescriptions filled.

I know I haven't been political on my blog much, because I don't want to offend. But this is who I am. I am very liberal, very progressive, very non-Republican, and I am pissed. And tired. And worried about my kids and your kids and everybody's kids.

I am a real American, and whenever somebody says that Americans don't want health care reform, well, they sure as hell are not speaking for me.

Worm holes and black dogs...

Secret Mom and Lou think they have worm holes, too, and Lou wonders where his socks end up. I am suddenly relieved that I only have a small kitchen-to-Suburban wormhole. I would hate to endlessly find someone else's socks on my kitchen counter...

Mojo dented the wall today. With his head. Not to worry, though, Moj has a head of steel and thus bounced off it without noticing. Very unfortunately the wall doesn't bounce back so well...

Today was a class -- FRG Fundraising and Finances -- then off to the hospital for lab work, then a quick lunch, to another meeting, then home --but wait! A phone call (curses. Finding my cell phone bites me in the keister.) before I even get home summons me to another meeting...When I finally actually do get home, the dogs have once again ripped into the kitchen trash.

And I have no tequila.

Oh, yeah...

Did I mention this here? I found my cell phone. In the Suburban.

From now on when something is missing, I am checking the Suburban first. The dogs were missing -- turns out they were in the Suburban. (We had taken them with us somewhere, and nobody remembered to let them out...an hour later we couldn't find them until I opened the door to the 'burb to go drive around to find them. I had even been on the elliptical trainer a couple feet from the 'burb and didn't realize they were there. They are very patient dogs.)

Thor's wallet? In the Suburban.

And now my phone. Perhaps we have some sort of tiny wormhole...stuff gets sucked from the kitchen counter to the Suburban. It would be great for bringing in the groceries if it were the other way around, although I would really hate for the carburetor to show up on the counter.

It's Tuesday.

I have nothing.

Except my basil plant -- if it is basil, why would I buy a basil plant when I don't particularly like basil...is not dead. It's a dead looking stick with three sorta green, slightly crunchy leaves.

(I may be back later...but I didn't want to miss a day of PoEvWeeDy!)

The Further Adventures of What the Hell Was I Thinking...

I think I should rename my blog...because I am the anti-organizer, and wonder what the hell I was thinking when I realize what I just did or did three days ago or two weeks ago.

Really, if you are one of those super-organized people, I hate you (just a little and only the anal parts...shit. That came out wrong. Whoops. We are on an accidentally bottom themed moment here, all completely inadvertent. Let's try that again -- just a little and only the super organized bits. Doesn't have the same ring to it, but less open to misinterpretation. I was not in fact insulting your behind.)

But that's beside the point -- what I meant to say is that if you are one of those super-organized people, I am your kryptonite. Spend enough time around me, work with me on a project, and I guarantee you will start losing papers and slacking off by playing Farmville on Facebook. You will find yourself ignoring your internet calendar to browse the intertoooobs for shoes and fabric. You will purchase items for a really fun new hobby and spend exactly 37.2 seconds on that hobby for each dollar you have spent.

That is how completely unorganized I am at the moment. I am so unorganized I am contagious.

Also, my basil plant died.

(And I know I skipped the weekend, but hey. If I post every weekday, that's like my own version of NaBloMoGo or whatever that acronym is... It's PoEvWeedy. Post Every WeekDaY. Works for me! Avatar coming soon!)

From the Glad It's Not Me file...

Thor is camping this weekend. In a snow cave. Well, tonight he is "camping" in a cabin, but tomorrow morning he will be building a snow cave to sleep in. He was looking forward to it, especially since a couple of his good friends are in the same troop and camping too.

Me, no. I am not thrilled with the idea of snow caves. Not thrilled with the idea of shoveling up a huge pile of snow and then tunneling into it. Especially not thrilled with peeing in the woods at night in Alaska in February. It's been in the high 30's this week, so I have been scraping the snow and ice off the driveway. That is enough of the great outdoors for me at the mo, although I think Tess and I might go to Potter Marsh tomorrow just to check it out.

The car is again filthy. Can't tell what color it is filthy. Headlights barely seen filthy. Because the entire world (or at least the roads) are all slush and muck and gravel and dirt and bleh.

Tomorrow if it is still heatwaving, I will be opening windows in every room in the house to get some fresh air, especially after the Mojo fart incident the other day. Nobody is evil enough to deserve to live in Mojo funk.

Mostly I spent today driving to Eagle River and back home...I had a meeting at my friend's house this morning, then dropped Thor at the Lion's Club for his Boy Scout trip, then finally to Eagle River one last time because Tess was playing the drum for her middle school's opening song in their play. We only stuck around for about 20 minutes to watch the play (Something about Juliet -- it's a Romeo and Juliet parody, I think), but it was a long week and we just wanted to get home. There was one last piece of pizza sitting on the counter waiting for me (yeah, I totally love courting food poisoning by leaving food laying around for an hour on the counters...), I thought there was one last piece of pizza waiting. Nope. What was waiting for us was the pizza cutting board and the pizza cutter on the kitchen floor. Apparently one of the dogs decided it was his slice o' pizza. Probably Moj. He has been kinda pushing the counter surfing idea lately. I am chasing him out of the kitchen ALOT lately...

Oh, well. I really didn't need that last slice of pizza...I just hope this doesn't trigger a repeat of the tasty Mojo farts...

My cell phone is missing...

And has been missing for over a week. This is pathetic. Where the hell did I put the stupid thing? Of course it was almost out o' battery, so calling it was useless. I am sure I will eventually find it somewhere stupid. Until then, I swipe the kids' phones or just go crazy, and step out of the giant communication bubble.

Actually I don't really care if people can call me or not -- and we still have the landline, so it's not a big cone of silence around me or anything -- but I don't like that the kids' schools can't get in touch with me instantly, since Mark is oh, yeah. In another country.

I have been watching the Olympics -- I love men's short track speed skating. That is my favorite this year. My least favorite? NBC's coverage. Dudes. I really don't need all the freaking "ooh, look how cute or terrible or tough or determined" various athletes have been. I really just want to see a bunch of athletes doing their thing.

I wonder if they have any speed skating around here...probably not. This is a big hockey town, and I am not big on hockey. I used to love it, but I get really bored with the need for violence on the ice.

Plus yesterday there were six crashes on women's downhill yesterday, and you only showed three of them. It's like NASCAR. We watch for the crashes and spills. Don't want anyone hurt, but seriously. Skiers bounce. No serious injuries yesterday, so c'mon. Show us the "agony of defeat" moments.

I got nothing else at the mo. I haven't had coffee yet today. I got up so late I didn't even have the four minutes it takes to use my Keurig coffee maker. By the way, if you lick the top of a used KCup, you get grounds in your mouth. I don't know, I was trying to figure out if I had used the cup that was in the coffeemaker. yeah yeah yeah. Everything you are thinking at the moment, I was thinking to myself in the immediate aftermath of the licking. Bad idea. Kinda dumb. What was I thinking. However, this gives you an out for the rest of the day. No matter what you do, you can think, at least I don't have a tongue full of coffee grounds through my own utter stupidity. Although toungueful is pushing it, bud. It was more like a teeny little bit, right in the middle.

I should stop typing now.

Yeah.

I am back. Stop giggling and mocking. Yes, there is a very good chance I will be back again in another two months, but maybe maybe maybe I will stick around a little this time...

But. I am tired of thinking of others and pulling punches and making sure I am not offensive, so at least for today I am going to be blunt and me. Liberal liberal liberal me. Cranky me, sometimes swearing, occasionally a tiny bit well, obscene? profane? dirty? whatever you want to call it...

Like this is me. I burst into Thor's room -- his door was closed -- but I burst in and as I am, I think I should knock, he is a teenage boy after all, what the hell am I thinking? And of course, because I am me and not able to stop myself around my kids, I say something along the lines of, but slightly, a teeny bit, just a little less direct than this: "I should knock and wait, you could be, um, enjoying yourself in here..." (C'mon. He's 17. I have to bug him about sex and stuff.) I did not actually say the m word, but I was about to, when I realized he was on Skype with four friends. His mike was open and right there. I whipped around and closed the door, not waiting to find out if his friends heard that or not...

Zach's friends would totally not be shocked by this, because this kind of thing is what I do sometimes.

In other news, I found on Huffingtonpost.com, a perfect description of Sarah Palin.

I will miss you when you're gone. Your entertainment-value quotient is off the charts, especially for "over educated", cultural-elitist snobs like me. There's the maddening little sing-song delivery of your speeches, with those weird, unmotivated upticks and misplaced emphases that suggest you are literally reading "your own words" for the very first time. For anyone who appreciates real oratorical skills, like those of Churchill, MLK or Pliny the Elder (you can google all these names, sweetie), it's like having knitting-needles kicked into one's ears over and over again. There's your matchless ability to grind grammar and syntax into a non-intelligible word-pulp containing the odd sharp, indigestible fragment of John Birch ("Bomb Iran!") or Jesus-Freak ("More Divine Intervention!") insanity, the frequent cheap slurs against your political enemies -- who, I can't help noticing, are sprouting up even in the madder precincts at your own end of the political spectrum -- and the usual genuflections towards Boy Jesus and Saint Ronnie (who I bet wouldn't touch your ass with a forty-foot pole).

Thank you to Kara Vallow, who has written exactly what I feel when I hear Gov. Palin speak. I didn't like her as governor before she was chosen by McCain, I didn't like her when she was running for VP, and nothing I have seen of her since then has changed my mind. I am putting this here because I love the wording..."the odd sharp, indigestible fragment of John Birch ("Bomb Iran")..." It captures what I have struggled to explain.

Changing the subject again...dang. Mojo is farting up a storm, like I said on FB, it's like bad lasagna and I can taste it. I can't get away from it, because I can't put him outside -- too cold for my short-haired, thin-coated baby to stay outside long -- and because no matter where I go in the house, Moj follows. I am sitting here with a vanilla scented candle almost singe-ing (how do you "ing" singe without making it sing?) my nose hairs...