Tired.

That's all. I am just tired. I have a stupid cold that is dragging on and on and on, which means I don't get to use my CPAP machine because I can't breathe through my nose, which means I don't get a good night's sleep, which means my immune system gets even wonkier, which means my cold drags on and on and on...wait, this is where I came in.

argh.

Zach and Thor...

This one's for you...



For those of you who have never been in our family room, Tess (and Thor) spend lots of time messing around with their avatars. Sorry, Tess.
see more Funny Graphs

Whoa!

This whole senior advisor/senior spouse thing is still sorta freaking me out. Next week we will be having the entire brigade over for burgers and brats -- fortunately the entire brigade consists of about two dozen people so far. Whew.

But now I have to call a sergeant and tell him what I need from the unit for the BBQ. Weird. Like "Sergeant, I need some tables and chairs, and the Commander (woo. That's Mark. Again, weird.) will be tasking the various sections with bringing drinks and salads and stuff." Cannot begin to explain how strange this all is.

And to see Mark as the Commander. He was talking to a young soldier, and the soldier seemed kinda nervous. Yeah, because my husband is the big cheese. Hard to wrap my head around that one.

In other news, we are approaching the big race. Miles and miles and 70-some hours of sitting in a voyager canoe (a long canoe that can seat about a dozen people). I am not racing. Mark is, with seven friends, co-workers and complete strangers. It's the Yukon River Quest, if you want to google it. I have some photos of us in the canoe, still though trapped in the camera, since my computer is down. Still. With the blue error screen of severe annoyance.

(insert random and colorful swearing here. As spicy or tame as you would like. I am not fussy.)

This weekend they are doing more canoeing practice, so I will this time get a photograph of them in the canoe, from shore rather than from a middle seat. I really love canoeing, but sitting in a canoe for hours and hours and alll day and night and day and night and day and ....not for me.

Alrighty. Cannot sit here all afternoon. I must attempt to fetch a mower from self-help -- the Army hands out mowers and shovels and rakes and hoses and grass seed and various and sundry such items to those who live in government quarters -- our grass is getting ridiculously long. Except for the backyard, which suffered greatly under our dogs less than benevolent attentions over the winter.

Then I have to continue to clean and plan and obsess over this dumb brigade BBQ (it's really hard to remember to say Brigade instead of Battalion. Flailing around as the senior spouse, that's me...).

Plus the Army Birthday Ball is tonight, so I have various primping and preening and...let's just stop right there. I am wearing a dress, so all you ladies reading this know what I will be doing for the next several hours, and you gentlemen reading don't really want to know. Right? Right.

Hey! Two posts in less than a month? I am on fire!

Right. Posting TWO DAYS IN A ROW.

Are you stunned? Me, too.

Zachary called it a drought of posting, but then he skipped calling me for days and days and days, so we are even.

(Zach it would kill you to maybe call your mother? You are too busy with the college stuff to pick up the phone?)

We rearranged the family room...I don't know if I mentioned that here...

It involved unloading three tall bookcases, each with five shelves absolutely stuffed with books (But it alphabetical order by author! You should be impressed. Mostly our books have been shelved by the "hey! I can stuff it in right here" method.) plus a short bookcase with three shelves. And the computer armoire, which is pretty but damn heavy. And the TV cabinet.

Mark and I moved the TV into position, and then I muscled two of the tall bookcases into position and one short one. And loaded books back into one short and one tall bookcase.

Then Thor and I moved the last bookcase into position, and realized the whole lineup -- which consists of two tall and two short bookcases plus the tv cabinet -- had to be shifted three inches to the left, because of the cable outlet. We could have left them in place, but then the last bookcase would either be bending and kinking the cable as it comes outta the wall, or the bookcase would have to be four inches away from the wall.

And if one is four inches away, the rest of them would have to be four inches away too, so they line up right and evenly and tidily...

But bookcases four inches away from the wall means that things would always be falling behind them, and it would look stupid besides.

So Thor and I muscled the bookcases over, unhooked the TV (because we did not want to drop the TV and wreck it, because we only have four other TVs. Yes. I think we have too many TVs. I don't know why. Perhaps the TV fairy likes us better than you.) and shifted the whole shootin' match three inches to the left.

(Unfortunately Thor just unplugged everything without you know, looking to see how it all fits together, which means that the DVD player is still not hooked back up. We have to use the XBox to watch DVDs right now, because no one is interested in wrestling with the stupid cords behind the TV...)

Now we have a bookcase in the living room, which is nice, except that it's got a bunch of books by Jimmy Carter and Al Franken and books about liberal values and stuff. Since most of the people we know are far more likely to have a McCain sticker on their bumper than an Obama one, it could get a little interesting.

But then, I have not really tried to hide the whole idea that I am a liberal progressive kinda gal. There are more of us than you might think in the military family.

If you go up the stairs, on the landing is a big old institutional green/grey metal barrister cabinet. It is awesome, and will be even more awesome when someday I have it painted bright red and fill it with dishes in my kitchen.

When I have a kitchen that has enough room for a bright red metal barrister cabinet...

I know. I am a terrible person.

Ignoring all of you for weeks.

No reason, really, other than just so not having the energy to go online and read and comment and write.

And I have had things to write about...

Lets see...Finally the snow is MELTING!!! The last snowfall was Easter Sunday night, and it vanished within two days! YAY!

Although at the time, it was disheartening to walk out Monday morning to this:

Did you notice that my Suburban is standing in the driveway? I used to have a warm heated garage stall for it, but that was before this...

That's Mark's old Jeep in the top photo and his our new Honda Civic behind it, and Mark driving the new Civic home for the first time, and a shot of our car (and some snow mixed with ash. Because we did get that one time of ash falling on us, our teeny brush with Mount Redoubt.).

Completely juvenile moment...the newsreader on BBCAmerica news just called Captain Phillips (the guy who was held by the Somali pirates) the world's most famous seaman.

Say it out loud to yourself. See? Juvenile. I told you.

Also...We went to Spamalot last night. It was awesome. It was full of Monty Python humor (I fart in your general direction.) and John O'Hurley played King Arthur. Great sets, great songs, great actors, the whole thing was fun from beginning to end. I have a couple photos of Thor and Tess waiting for it to begin in my phone, now I just have to figure out how to get them into the computer. I may never manage that feat, as it would most likely involve me actually reading the damn book that came with my new phone...

Oh, yeah, more awesomeness...


This is the new Civic's radio. See what it says? That's right, it says IPOD! One of the awesomest things about having a vehicle built this century is that it comes with a built in IPod connection. A BUILT IN IPOD CONNECTION. My Suburban is so old even the cassette thingies -- the ones you plug into your IPod and then you can play it through your car stereo -- those thingies don't work in it.

But now, I plug my IPod directly into the USB hub in the armrest. So very cool.

Unfortunately for me, I drag the dogs with me a lot, because they LOVE going for a ride. They are psychodogs if you say go or ride or put on socks. (I must put on socks alot before I go places, because they get crazed when I do. Of course I put on socks alot just before I go somewhere, because I don't much wear socks or shoes at home. Hereditary hot feet.)

I gotta go get Tess. So there you go. I posted something!

I hate long hair...

I live with a guy who has almost no hair. I mean, there are plenty of hair follicles on his head, he just chooses (okay, he's in the army, so his choices are limited) not to take much advantage of them.

But Thor and Tess both have long hair. (And I can't find a photo of either of them at the mo showing their long hair. You will just have to take my word for it.) Tess's hair is pretty much to her waist, and Thor's is halfway down his back.

Aside from having to help them brush it out occasionally, because not only is it long, but it is a mixture of coarse and fine hair, so it tangles easily...

I also hate long hair because it is EVERYWHERE. Doing laundry I pick long hairs off the clothes as I dump them in the laundry and more long hairs off the clothes as I fold them.

Then there is the vacuum cleaner. I love my vacuum cleaner except for one thing...the carpet brush is hard to get off and back on again. But every couple of weeks, the brush gets so full of long hair it no longer works properly.

So I must disassemble and cut the hair off (hair is tough. I use a steak knife to saw through it -- and yes, it is dedicated to stuff like that. I don't toss it back into the scary drawer. [The scary drawer is the one full of sharp and pointy knives. We didn't use to have a knife block in it, but now it's not quite as scary. ]).

On their heads, it's gorgeous. Thor's is a coppery red and really really thick. Tess's is brown under and has a deep hint of red on the top layers. She used to be a blond blondie, but it is gradually getting darker. I think eventually she will have brown hair with some seriously nice coppery highlights. Like mine, only better. Mine is mostly just brown.

favorite photos that I did not take

Me. In St Peter's Cathedral, Vatican City. I am wearing red shoes, jeans, and a sweatshirt with white letters. It's like Where's Waldo, but way easier...

Daily Alaska...Dang it's cold edition

The Daily Alaska:

Okay, compared to a couple weeks ago, it's not that cold:

(Tangent alert...This thing is great. There's a unit outside so I can see how cold it is without having to step outside or near a window or open a door or anything. But it connects to some satellite and that's how it tells what time it is. Except that apparently they didn't think the Alaska Time Zone warranted inclusion. So mine is an hour fast, set to Pacific Time. Jerks.)


But the dogs were making me crazy. See, if it's way below cold, in the negative digits, they run out, poo and come right back in. When it's bright sunny and 19 degrees, they don't want to go outside and sit down, but it's warm enough that they want to go out and hang a little while, see if there are any neighbor dogs to bark at, watch for cars and trucks coming down the street, sniff the wind for moose. But they don't want to go out and sit down. They want to go out, do their stuff, smell and bark and make sure the world knows this is their territory, and then come back in to warm up for ten minutes.

Which means every few minutes I was letting them in or out. Or one in and one out.

And the house feels overheated today. It's hard to get the temperature right sometimes, especially with forced air heat. It feels way too hot in a lot of buildings, unpleasant. And I love fresh air, as opposed to air that has been conditioned or heated and funneled through dusty ducts and is full of indoor pollutants.

So I opened the back door.



Which is right next to my computer. Five feet behind me. (I almost wrote one less foot, but then I remembered Momisodes post about the Chinese New Year, and how you are not supposed to say that word...and BTW, happy New Year!)

The dogs loved it. They went out and barked at the cars and trucks driving down our street, then ran in to the front window to bark some more as they drive past the front of our house. Then they would get bored with that one and go back outside to wait for more trespassers.

Lucky for me, Target had these on clearance this past weekend:

Unfortunately these arm warmers didn't come with a matching pair of toe and ankle warmers.

I have closed the door again. Too cold. There is a window open in the living room, but just a crack because it's on the ground floor, and there is a window seat right in front of it. So I can easily imagine the dogs getting all worked up about some car driving past and going right out the window to confront it.

Other random stuff:

Went to Costco. Means king-size quantities of stuff we (maybe) can't live without:
dish soap, cookies, food my husband can make (the Thai Kitchen stuff), instant (and surprisingly good) mashed potatoes (I know. Instant mashed potatoes, yuck. But these taste buttery, they have a decent texture, and when I am pressed for time, they are a decent side dish or a good shortcut for making shepherd's pie), apples, grilled chicken strips, frozen egg rolls, mini sweet peppers, broccoli, spinach, cans of diced tomatoes, potatoes. I love Costco.

(The instant potatoes are in that gray carton behind the really good cookies. A whole big carton of goofy little mashed potatoes pellets.)
And these:

Stroop waffels. Caramel wafers. Completely delicious cookies from the Netherlands. The caramel gets all warm and gooey when you balance it on top of a hot cup of coffee. Just don't forget it or it falls in and you end up with a ucky sludge in the bottom of your cup. Very hard to find in the US. Actually, this photo sums up my Dutch experience pretty well -- Dutch, German, Belgian food plus Polish pottery. (The Belgians make the best frites in the world -- they should be called Belgian fries, not french. Ask Jientje, she will tell you. )

And finally, one of my favorite and most treasured things.



This is a little box my grandfather carved. Just a little box, with a little cat on top. I don't know how old it is, except way old. No real value, except to me and my family. It's one of the things that movers never ever get to touch -- along with useful stuff like dishes and bedding and clothes and books and computers and TV and video games -- you know, the stuff that makes living in a hotel or an empty house easier, there is a box of stuff like this that we drag along with us when we move. The important stuff.

I should have a t shirt made....

History because I have a rather gruesome (really, the sanitary habits of the people of the Middle Ages leaves so very very much to be desired! And I would suggest you avoid reading about it if you have a weak stomach...) fondness for books about plagues of the Middle Ages.

Lit because I read. Incessantly. Too much. All the time. Ask my family.

From this time forward, you'll hold the title:
Uber Cool History / Lit Geek

Carry it proudly!

---

Quick Fun Facts:

375218 unique people have taken this test.

Based on these unique user's answers...

29.8% of test takers are gals,
68.4% are guys,
...the rest (1.8%) are confused.

(I am not confused. I checked girl.)

15.5% of test takers get aroused by "iPhone," while
36.9% get utterly ill.

(Me and the IPhone -- meh. I have my IPod Touch. I do not want it to be my cell phone or my camera. I like having three separate items to do those functions for me. I don't want my camera to play music or make calls, I don't want my phone to take photos. I want my IPod to play music and videos and store my favorite photos. If one thing did all those things, it wouldn't do as good a job as my three separate things do.)

32.2% of all test takers would choose the Internet over sex, and
26.6% of married test takers prefer the Internet over sex.

(Choose the internet over sex? I like you guys, but not that much.)

Only 4.5% of test takers own a Jar Jar Binks t-shirt, though
49.7% of them don't own a lightsaber (priorities == messed up).

(While there are half a dozen light sabers in this house, none of them are mine. I own no Star Wars action figures, toys, guns, clothing,books, nada. I just play with my kidsSW stuff.)

Weird Dreams. Daily Alaska.

A couple nights ago, I woke up around 3 am-ish. And didn't go back to sleep for a long time. I coughed, I flipped over, I poked Mark (gently) because he was snoring, I thought about the questions I was going to ask for the interview with Patsy and Kim. I thought about whatever it was that I should have done the day before, or what I should do the next day. Wished the stupid dog would stop stretching and scratching the wall -- Mojo starts out curls in a ball, then as he gets warm, he stretches out, then he rolls over onto his back, then flips over onto the other side. Unfortunately sometimes this means his legs get sorta crunched up against the wall or the side of the bed or me, if he's sleeping on the bed when Mark is out of town. Then he starts dreaming and kicking his legs, scratching whatever they happen to be pushed up against...

But. Eventually I fell asleep, only to have a freaky dream.

I was in a house, at night, my house, I guess, but not exactly the one I am living in now. It was dark. I went out the front door and looked around the neighborhood. All the houses in the neighborhood were either under construction or boarded up.

So I was watching some construction or something at one of the houses down the street when I heard a gentle moo. And then another one.

I went inside and closed the storm door, just as a heifer came around the corner of the house and looked in at me. I slammed the door, had a lot of trouble trying to get it to latch.

There was more mooing from the heifer, except it was louder and much much meaner sounding.

I finally got the doors latched, but the cow started kicking at the door. I backed away from the door, listening to this ferocious mooing and kicking.

Then I woke up.

Eventually I gave up, got up, and went downstairs. I turned on the tv and read until probably around 7 am, when I finally fell asleep.

I slept until about 7:20, when my family started getting up.

What a really great start to the day.

the daily alaska...


Thor doesn't seem to realize he's not in Arizona any more. And yes, it is snowing.

The Interview...

I guess it started with Maria at Immoral Matriach, who asked Maggie some questions, who then asked Lou some questions, and now it's my turn.

So here are Lou's questions and my answers. I didn't go for short answers.

1-What is your favorite childhood memory?

My family went to Washington, DC, when I was four. I remember bits of it -- there was a cop directing traffic who was dancing while he was doing it. At Mount Vernon there were silos or pits or something where they stored food on ice, I think. When I lived in Virginia, we went to Mount Vernon. They were just like I remembered. I got giggly every day around four, because I got really sleepy (yes, I am that awesome that when I get really really tired I get giggly instead of cranky. Mostly.) Lots of monuments, Vietnam War protesters, because it was 1968.

Also, I peed on the carpet because I was so excited about a Christmas present when I was really little. In my own defense, it was a set of toy dishes. Women in my family are insane about dishes. Really. I have dozens of dishes. Little sauce dishes -- an especial favorite of ours. Why? Who knows? -- dinner plates, platters, serving bowls, bowls up the wazoo, coffee cups, teacups and saucers. Not much china. I like pottery and earthenware. Our dinner plates are various colors of FiestaWare, because who could choose only one? And I have dozens of pieces of Polish pottery, because I went to Poland many many times, to buy more. Seven, I think. I don't actually remember this Christmas, but I remember being teased (nicely) about this, and my parents of course took a photo of me and the dishes and the wet spot.

2-Who is the person you most admire - that is alive today?

Woo. You ask tough questions, Lou! I don't have heroes, I am not a big fan of people, I just cannot care about celebrities and politicians and public figures private lives. I just don't care. I mostly care about my family and friends and want to know what is going on with them. Britney Spears? Brangelina? Anyone who has ever been on the cover of People Magazine? I just don't care.

Public figures, I would say Jimmy Carter. I like what he has done since being President. I like that he has been involved with Habitat for Humanity. His work on peace in the Mid East, his efforts towards helping eradicate diseases in the third world, his love of the outdoors. I find him very impressive. I know he sucked as President, but since then he has done amazing things. Plus he seems like a very stand up guy. People walking their talk is very important to me. The fastest way for me to lose respect for someone is for that person to be hypocritical.

Personally, my parents impress the hell outta me. They have hit their 80's, and yet they are still busy and active and volunteer at church and a local nursing home, with the local Sons of Norway. They taught us that it is our responsibility to step up where we see a need. Somebody needs help, you don't look away, you don't judge, you don't pass the buck, you help them anyway you can. They also taught us to take responsibility for ourselves, to be independent. They are truly awesome parents.

3-If you could live anywhere - where would that be?

Aaarrgggghhh. Life would be much easier if I knew the answer to that question...Minnesota, close to or in the Twin Cities. Or Olympia, Washington. Or London, but just for a while. The only place I have lived I didn't particularly like was Oklahoma (sorry Maggie!). It was very hot, it was my first move out of Minnesota, I think I eventually would have liked it better, but we only lived there six months.

This is the big question of our lives these days, since Mark has aborted retiring from the Army twice, but eventually he will retire. And then where do we go? We still own a house in Tucson, I love the people in Tucson, but it is so hot. But I love the dry. But the medical coverage for us in Tucson was not great, and that has to figure largely for me.

But if this is not real life, just talking on a blog...London. I love London. London was the place I went for a long weekend away from the stresses of living in Europe, because London is more like the US than the Netherlands, and they speak English there. And they have fabulous museums and the Underground.

4-What do you like to eat when you're feeling 'down'?

Chocolate, I guess. Carbs, like pretzels, or multigrain chips from the company Food Should Taste Good, with Artichoke and Parmesan dip from Costco.

When I feel lousy, when I feel like anything I eat will make me feel worse -- I think I am allergic to alot of the food chemicals, the preservatives and artificial flavors and coloring -- I can eat a McDonald's cheeseburger and feel better. This is so weird, because it's white bread and American cheese, and they really don't taste that great, but they don't make me feel ucky. Total comfort food, I guess.

And because I liked this question best when Maggie asked me -
5-What do you like most about being a woman?

I loved being pregnant. I love the whole Mom thing.

I am not a big fan of dressing up and high heels and all that, not a girly girl at all, but I love what I call "pink" stuff. Female literature, otherwise known as chick lit, and romantic comedies.

I also love that I can wear girl clothes and guy's clothes. That I can and do raid Mark's half of the closet for big comfy sweatshirts and baggy sweaters.

And I love that I can plead ignorance and Mark takes care of all the car stuff. I don't have to know about changing the oil and why it's making that weird noise and what to do about it, unless of course Mark is out of town...I mean, I can and do deal with car problems and maintainance, but mostly I don't have to because I am the girl.

*****

And because this is the internet, and the blog world, there are rules I must follow. Or really, that I choose to follow because Lou already typed them all out and all I had to do was cut and paste 'em...

Want to be part of it? Follow these instructions:
1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone
else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them
five questions.

*My kids have pretty much given up on asking me to help with their math homework, so you are probably safe from Algebra questions.

My auto's warranty has expired!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Did I mean to let my auto's warranty expire? I can speak to one of their representatives and get it re-instated...

Yeah. I am always tempted to push one to speak to one of their representatives and ask about a warranty for my vehicle. I don't think it would do me much good though, since I have a almost 13 year old Suburban with 150,000+ miles on it.

Or maybe they would like to warranty Mark's Jeep, because it's only ten years old, or Zach's car, which is eleven years old...

That's right, we have no vehicle made in this century. Maybe next year we will replace the Jeep, or not, because Mark still likes it, and we are thinking of getting a sedan so that Thor doesn't have to learn to drive in the Suburban.

Why does my spellcheck think doesn't isn't a word? Or isn't? Is spellcheck an elitist snob what thinks people shouldn't use contractions? Plus it doesn't recognize spellcheck as a word, either. What a snobby elitist program. That I can no longer live without, and I find myself ocassionally writing a word WITH A PEN AND PAPER and then watching to see if the little red line appears because I am not sure if I spelled it correctly.

I also want to TIVO my world -- I find myself wanting to rewind radio programs and conversations, the way I can rewind TV shows on my DVR.

There are portions of life and conversations I would be thrilled to fast forward through, the way we rush through commercials to get back to the show...dentist's appointments would take place at 4X speed and last about a minute. Washing dishes would be over in seconds. A visit from awkward friends and relatives would be hours long, rather than days and weeks and months and eons (come on, everyone has had a house guest that made every minute feel like hours.)

Right. Thor and the Suburban. I had to scroll back up to see what the hell I was talking about in the first place...

I think it will be good for Thor to learn big vehicles. I learned to drive in a 70's station wagon, probably with those fake wood panels on the side. I remember driving it once with the back seat down, and when I twisted around to look behind as I reversed, thinking that it felt like I was driving a lumber wagon, it was so far from me to the back door.

Now my parents drive a sporty little Lincoln, a great car, fun to drive, and isn't a geezermobile like the series of Grand Marquis that they used to drive, and before that those big station wagons.

Any way, I learned to drive in a big car, and I have no problem with driving big things. I love driving my Suburban, and I loved our F150 pickup. In Europe we rented big vans, nine passenger vans, sometimes, and even in the insanely narrow streets and crazy drivers of the Netherlands, I liked driving those big vans. Parking them, no. European parking lots are designed for teeny little fuel efficient cars.

But the Suburban is kinda big for Thor to start in...so we are thinking that we should get some older sedan for him. There's no hurry though, Thor isn't really thrilled with the idea of learning to drive in the middle of winter when there is snowpack and ice on every road...

I was happy about changing phone numbers, because we got so many telemarketer calls on our Tucson phone. Unfortunately somebody named Barbara had our number before us, and apparently not only was she a bad driver -- we kept getting phone calls telling us "someone at this number may have a pending court date", and when I pressed one to talk to a court representative, she didn't believe I wasn't Barbara, and we kept getting those phone calls for a long time -- but she was a deadbeat as well, apparently, because we kept getting cranky collection calls.

I realize it's the oldest trick in the book to claim you are not the person they are looking for, but damn it, I am not Barbara. My name is Julie. I didn't get a traffic ticket and then ignore it. I didn't run up a big credit card bill and then not make the payments. I am not a scofflaw and a bad credit risk. The calls seem to have stopped, but since I don't answer the phone if I don't recognize the number, maybe there are still people on the other end of the line hoping Barbara will answer...

And finally, because I can, another random photo of snow. This one was taken by Thor, while I was shoveling the deck in our back yard...

Hey! I got more smarter!

Last year when I checked, this blog had an elementary school reading level.

It's embarrassing, really, to think that I am not writing convoluted sentences of great import, but instead writing Dick and Jane.

Except what is high school reading? Which high school? Thor's English class read the abridged version of Huck Finn, the censored and cleaned up version for those who might be offended by being reminded that slavery and racism were once accepted in this country. (I think it had something to do with needing to finish the book quickly, but it's really pathetic that a sophomore English class can't handle the full text of Huck Finn. ) Thor had to write about it, and he said it was really hard because all the controversial and interesting bits were gone.

Now they are reading Anthem by Ayn Rand, so it seems the abridged Huck Finn may have been a fluke.

And because I have to add a photo to every post, here's a photo of the rose bush in my front yard.

Things that are very very wrong.

Burger King's Loaded Steakhouse Burger. It has what they call baked potato topping, but it's really a layer of mashed potatoes on a BBQ bacon cheeseburger.

What happens when you put mashed potatoes on a burger? It ends up with a texture like a soggy white bread bun. You know that really cheap white bread that if you squish it, it balls up into a pasty gooey mess? Like that on a burger.

It's very wrong. I didn't realize when I ordered it that's what I was getting. Thor and I were at the drive-thru, and Thor was telling me all about something. Thor can talk sometimes. Really really talk endlessly and off on tangents and once in a while horrible things happen to me because I am trying to be a good mom and actually listen to what the boy is saying. (Other times I use the old trick of throwing in enough "uh huh"s and "whoa"s to make him think I am listening, although when I have to go "wait, what?", because I suddenly realize I may have just agreed to something that will come back to haunt me, he figures it out...)

So he was telling me something and I was too lazy to really read the menu, and the radio was on, and I wanted to hurry up and order so I could roll the window back up because while I don't mind it being ten degrees out, I don't want it to be ten degrees in the Suburban, and I ordered quickly and fairly blindly, and thus ended up with the mashed potato (or mashed potatoe, if you are Dan Quayle, and how happy must he be to no longer be the most incomprehensible choice for Vice Presidential candidate in the last fifty years...) burger. ugh.

Burger King has done some good things. Onion rings that are actually lower in fat than their french fries, for one, although one container of that "Zesty Onion Ring Dipping Sauce" has FIFTEEN grams of fat, which totally negates the two grams of fat you saved by ordering the rings in the first place.

And that Burger King. Creepy yet strangely likeable...

Also, it is getting dark, and it's only 4:21 pm. (I know it's not 4:21 pm according to the time stamp on this posting, but I am writing this Tuesday to post Wednesday. Because that way, I am one more day into my goal of posting something pretty much every day so my sister doesn't hassle me about how I am not writing anything on my blog.) Tess goes to school at 9 am, and it is just getting light, and when she gets home at 3:30, it is getting dark. We have somewhere around six hours of daylight these days, and since we are just a couple weeks from the winter solstice, that's pretty close to as short as the days will get.

I have a Happy Light now, to combat those SAD tendencies. I just turn it on for a while in the morning, and it's like the sun is shining. If the sun was made of fluorescent tubes and in a box on my kitchen counter.

There are lots more things that are wrong, like global warming and leg warmers making a comeback and High School Musical Three and german chocolate cake and Mounds bars (destroying chocolate by mixing it with coconut is just wrong. Don't deny it. You may claim it tastes good, but you know it really is an abomination against nature.) but I have a washer full of wet t shirts and undies that are not going to fling themselves into the dryer, so you will have to wait for the next installment of things that are very very wrong to find out more about them.

I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you. I really really really am not known for my organizational skills or my memory. In fact this could be the only posting ever about things that are very very wrong. And that would be a shame, I know.

Thor read this, and I was trying to explain Dan Quayle to Thor and Tess...the best I could come up with is that he was such a political lightweight that if you handed him a helium balloon he would drift off, but compared to Sarah Palin he is Ghandhi, MLK, jr, and Moses all rolled into one. Yeah. I am not a fan of our dear governor...

Warning: May Be Addictive...

Puppycam!

Overload of cuteness right here.

Even just watching them twitch in their sleep is very cute.

And a gratuitous photo of Alaska...

Snow on my neighbor's fence. And sunshine! See the pretty pretty sunshine?

That pretty pretty sunshine is what is stopping me from taking an axe to something or someone. Today the sky is a uniform gray and I have lights on all over the house, because OUTSIDE IS GLOOM AND AWFUL. It's snowing, but teeny little tiny flakes that I can only see if I lean way over and look at the nearest telephone pole. Looking out the other windows, looking other places, no snow. Against the pole I can see the teeny little tiny stupid flakes -- they are not even worthy of the name flakes, they are fla. They are starting to accumulate, though. I guess if it snows for hours and hours and hours and hours we might get an inch of new powder. Wee.

This morning when I went out to get the paper I noticed that someone had pulled into my driveway to turn around...which is normally no deal big or otherwise, but.

I had shoveled only my side of the driveway. We park both the Suburban and the Jeep in the garage, and since Mark has been gone I didn't shovel behind his Jeep. I meant to have the kids do it, and I figured there was not much point to doing a lot of shoveling, it was likely to snow again before he gets home, I was feeling lazy, my ears were getting cold...

And now the snow is packed down where that idiot pulled into my driveway, and I will have to do some scraping to get rid of it so we don't have icy patches. That idiot could have been considerate and pulled into the other, shoveled half of the driveway, but apparently consideration is not part of their functioning brain.

Now I have to go shovel the other half of the driveway, because Mark is coming home this afternoon! Woot!

Jientje -- surprisingly so far this winter we have had more sunshine than we did when we lived in Geleen, NL (which is near Maastricht). I think it's a lot like the weather there, lots of cloudy days with a little sunshine now and then, enough to keep one sane. Except that it's lots colder, so we get lots of snow instead of rain. At the moment, I prefer the snow...sooner or later, though, I will be be so very very ready for the damn stuff to melt already.

I hate breakfast.

I am trying -- not really succeeding but trying hard! -- to eat fruits and veggies for breakfast and brunch and lunch and midafternoon coffee.

Oh, yeah, and seeds and nuts -- specifically walnuts and pistachios -- in small quantities.

Because eating small meals spread out and avoiding carbs and meat helps prevent the midafternoon nausea thing that was the trigger for the radioactive egg sandwich and the head CT and the abdominal ultrasound.

So this morning breakfast is apple slices with strawberry jam and a small handful of sunflower seeds and pistachios and walnuts.

Not the good strawberry/blackberry jam I made last summer. Thor ate all that, the little rat. I am gonna have to make some more -- luckily I froze some strawberries and blackberries mixed together, which is the basis of the jam. I think I will use some sort of opaque container for the jam and label it broccoli or something to protect it from Thor.

Lunch lately has been spinach with the nuts and seeds, carrots, maybe some grapes, grape tomatoes, more apple. Not a great variety...

Which is why I don't know how long I can continue this. Buying produce in Alaska in the winter is very problematic. Everything has to be shipped in, and the quality is often not so great. I am going to have to branch out into cooked veggies I guess, because how many damn apples can a person eat?

Thank God for Costco -- Costco has great apples from Washington. Really good apples, individually packed in those weird little clear plastic suitcases (which sucks, because they are not recyclable. I am thinking I am gonna have to figure out some crafty thing to do with them, because I hate throwing plastic away. Got any ideas?)

The dogs like my lunches, because I always toss them a couple baby carrots. Abe has always eaten carrots, he loves them. Moj used to mouth them and then leave them laying around for Abe to eat. Back when we had guinea pigs, Abe and Weego and Roy (poor dead coyote chow Roy. No, not like that. He died and we buried him in the desert. I am sure some coyote smelled him -- he was really freaking ripe -- and dug him up.)...

Abe and Weego and Roy used to all get carrots for treats and Mojo was left out. I don't know why he wouldn't eat the carrots. He eats cardboard and bits of vinyl toy and chunks of plastic water bottle, so why would carrots ergh him out? Freaky dog.

And I don't know what tripped in his little brain that he likes them now. Moj is a mystery for sure.

The apple/strawberry/nut thing is good, but we have Parmesan bagels from Costco in the drawer. Costco has awesome bagels. Awesome. Delicious. Fabulous yummy bagels, with crusty Parmasan cheese on them. One of my favorite breakfasts, but no. I am reduced to my daily apple. Woo.

Stump.

I got nothing. Thor and Tess and I went to Penney's to pick up Mark's new suit, lusted after various video games at Game Stop, went to Costco -- the children were much distressed to have to go to Costco, although they enjoyed all the samples available today, and Thor scored a variety pack of muffins with SIX poppy seed muffins instead of the standard four poppy seed muffins -- Thor loves poppy seed muffins -- and they HAD EGG NOG. Thor loves egg nog. He is very sad every January when he drinks the last of the egg nog he makes me stockpile (egg nog does have a shelf life, unfortunately, or I would have to buy a refrigerator just for Thor to have a year's supply.)

Then we went to the PROMISED LAND -- (insert trumpets blowing and angels appearing here) Target. We love Target. Not only is there now a Target in Anchorage, it's just minutes from our house. We got wrapping paper and penguin salt and pepper shakers, Christmas presents, Thor got a new pair of Converse One Star chocolate suede tennies, and a new fingernail clipper because even though we have at least six sets of clippers somewhere in this house, my nails currently look like hell, raggedy and pathetic and sad and awful because all the clippers are vanished. Always.

Oh, yeah. The stump. It's just a stump, but I thought it turned out to be a pretty good photo. There was a out-of-focus branch with a couple dead leaves in the foreground, but Photoshop Elements 6 and the bandaid shaped tool icon helped me vanish them.

Saw the doc today

The one who ordered the CT scan of my head, the ultrasound of my gut and the radioactive egg sandwich adventure.

All were normal. Excellent news. Even better, I don't have another appointment with the doc. I just get to go get my Remicade infusion every other month (which is doing a great job of controlling my Crohn's disease. I love modern medicine.). The doc stops by to say hi when I am getting the infusion, and that's all I need for now. Well, that plus blood tests three or four times a year (my old gastroenterologist had me getting those blood tests every other month, so this is better too.).

I may actually go back to going to the hospital/clinic only for Remicade, instead of going every week or two. It will be strange to not be having various tests and appointments and stuff.

I think I will get used to it though...

Just waiting

for the first results of the election. My kids will be home from school soon, both wanted to stay home and watch the news because they are really excited about Obama.

However, I know they would have watched it for a while and then wanted to play Fallout 3, the video game they got yesterday...

Zach and his roommates had a Halloween party this weekend. They told everybody no alcohol (they are 18 and 19 year olds), but they assumed that somebody would bring some any way.

But nobody did. The party was inadvertently dry, because everybody thought somebody else was going to bring the beer. One guy left, but everybody else stayed, played video games and Twister, and had a great time.

Just goes to show that not all college students are preoccupied with drinking.

Oh, yeah, Go OBAMA!!!