I haven't written for some time, as I have been quite physically miserable for the last 3 weeks or so. I am now starting to feel better. But that is another blog for another time.
It's fall. I can not deny it. Not that I want to, I love fall. I know it's a time of death and preparation for destitution, but it's so lovely. How brilliant it can look! To me it's more like a rebirth, a phoenix blazing with flames that will rise again.
I got up to walk the dog this morning and there was frost on the ground; sharp and rigid, yet soft, like manna that just appeared overnight. The sun was rising at the time, and created this fog over the frost. It was lovely. Of course the dog had no care, but to pee on it. Bygones.
The sad thing about frost is that it goes away so quickly. It creates a half hour of beauty, and then is melted away, dripping down into the roots in the grasses. If you get up too late, you will miss the sight of sun hitting frost, making fog. I don't know. It's just so magical; it makes you realize why people made up fairy stories and other magical tales.
I just had to share, because I love fall, and the first frost is kind of a big deal. I brought in a few of my plants yesterday, and have a couple more to bring in today. This brings up another item of progress; my tolerance of spiders. I hate spiders. Like many of you, they freak me out and the thought of them crawling on me is unbearable. I try not to kill them, but let them be. Last year when I brought in the plants for the winter (a sad happening; they always dwindle. It's like I'm sentencing them to prison, being inside), I got an influx of insects. They drove me absolutely batty, little gnat-type flies buzzing around my face. We started not killing the spiders, and lo and behold, our insect problem went away. I'm sure there is some genius way to bring in plants for the winter, like changing out the dirt, but you live and learn. So we have 2 spiders in the living room and one in the basement. Captain Awesome discovered the one in the basement that is a large, hairy, jumping spider. He came crawling out one day and C.Awesome pointed at him, making him curl up in that spider ball, and said, "you can stay, but you earn your keep." And I'll be darned if that spider didn't nod, and scurry back under the dryer. As an added bonus, the spiders are not eating the crickets, so we still have summer sounds in the basement. Nice.
So there you are; my randomness this morning. My stream of conciousness regarding fall, spiders, and life. And here are some photos from this morning's jaunt.
Today's song of the day is:
I just like the cadence, and it's about time for a change :) This song needs to be so much longer.
Last week was hot. I mean Minnesota summer hot. It was sticky, impossible to enjoy; the kind of day where you leave for work at 6:15am and you feel like you're breathing in water (this is the main reason I don't live in India today. I'm sure you were wondering). Of course my air conditioner in the car was on the fritz, and when I called the mechanic (the LOVELY boys at vroom), I wasn't even sure what to tell them. It went something like this, "It's working, it just doesn't seem to be at full capacity. Unless it is and it's just so hot I can't tell, like there's no winning in this situation..." for about 15 minutes, probably. Anyway, for you boys and techies, it was a pound low on free-on. Can we move on now? :P
I came home from work one day last week and could not wait to get out of my clothes; too hot to wear so many clothes plus an apron to work. I went to the kitchen sink to wash my hands (I love the way I turn clean water brown when I wash my hands after work...I really feel like an effective hand-washer), and there was a common toad in the sink.
Now, this shouldn't really surprise any of you. But what made this interesting is that I had just spoken with my dear friend, Didi. I was telling her how hard it is to go out to eat when you always go out with someone who is deathly allergic to onions. She told me about this little Indian place in Minneapolis on Central that cooks Jain food. Now of course I had to look into this, and to why it would matter to me (or C.Awesome, who secretly hates curry). Turns out, Jain is a sect of the Hindu religion that believes life in all of it's forms is valuable. They only eat sustainable food, nothing they have to kill to eat, even vegetables like onions and garlic (because the root is what you eat, and that is it's life). They live to never offend anyone and wear a lot of white. Apparently their version of Karma is a little different, but I can't remember how. So C.Awesome was intrigued by this idea, as it is basically the rules of his made up land, "Timtopia," with the exception that in Timtopia, if someone is a big jerk face, the rest of the people have the right to kill him...or something. It's self policing, I remember that much, and there is a lot of emphasis on underwater basket weaving. But I digress.
There was a note on the counter about there being a toad in the sink. Turns out, Captain Awesome had found the toad on the sidewalk, dehydrated, and unable to get out of the burning sun. He put it in the sink to cool it and rehydrate it. Cool.
As the day went on, we noticed that his right side had been crushed, apparently by someone stepping on him. He had a collapsed lung and his right arm didn't seem to be in socket. We are told we are hilarious when this stuff happens, because immediately we take action. C.Awesome went and found an aquarium, we put foliage in there from the turtle's terrarium, and real ferns from our plant collection. We tilted the aquarium slightly so there was water on one side and dry on the other. We researched online and found that often toads and frogs will heal if left alone, and may not eat for a few days. So we monitored him from afar and left him on the kitchen table. The next day C.Awesome went and bought crickets from the pet shop in case he got hungry.
The crickets immediately got out, except for a few larger ones. The toad didn't seem all that interested anyway, and when we began to corral the crickets back in, they crawled right over his nose and he didn't make a move. We kept him for three days, and he showed progress, but that right arm began to shrivel, and it was clear he was not going to have use of it. I did call the Wildlife Rehab Center and left a message, somehow believing that toads may be below their list of concerned animal rehabilitation options. They called me back the next day in a bored voice and left a message for me to call them back. Nah. They weren't going to do anything different than I was, and I've have interesting experiences putting Ferrel animals in cars and driving them around.
On the fourth day, we decided to put him out in the backyard and see if he was well enough to be free, or if we should bring him inside, but in any case, he needed sun and fresh air. As soon as we put him down, he began to hop around; his back right leg had completely healed and he seemed to not really need that right arm as much as one might imagine. He hunkered down in the grass and we watched him watch the world for a while. Then we put him safely in our garden where we knew there were other toads and went inside.
So now, a week later, I have two male crickets; one in the basement and one on the main floor. It's odd, having crickets in the house, but at least they aren't following me around anymore. I see no problem with it. In China they are considered good luck. I even moved my lucky bamboo to the southwest corner of my most used room. Apparently that should help me win the lottery, according to the ancient art of Feng Shui. :P
So I sit here, on a Sunday morning, with the patio door open, listening to crickets chirp in the basement, and birds chirping on the patio, and I am content. So, if your kid wants a pet, or your house is too quiet, I suggest you run out to the pet store and spend 2 bucks on a little pile of crickets. It's like camping all the time.
Today's Song of the day is
Because it's a great song, and it's by Toad the Wet Sprocket. And because I woke up with it in my head today.
And here's a Poem by Charles Dickens, though my toad fared better than his.
Can I view thee panting, lying
On thy stomach, without sighing;
Can I unmoved see they dying
On a log,
Expiring frog!
Say, have fiends in shape of boys,
With wild hallo, and brutal noise,
Hunted thee from marshy joys,
With a dog,
Expiring frog!
Did I tell you I had a tick on me last week? I had a tick on me. It was on my lower back, and I thought I was going to throw up. Ticks may be nothing to you, especially you in the South, who find enjoyment in the hunt and demise of ticks; I lived in Michigan. I heard of ticks, but never once saw one, and I was quite the Xylana. If I were to ever be on the show "Fear Factor" (uh-oh, she just dated herself), I would have to go home at the site of multiple ticks. Ticks are only good on cartoons and TV shows, and I hope you get that reference (in my mind I am hearing the distant cry of "Batmanuel!").
I don't mean to be a nature basher. I love nature. Save the whales and polar bears. Heck, I don't even scare rabbits and squirrels out of my garden, and I have a nest of yellow jackets that coexist quite peacefully with me and my brood of pets. I even stopped killing spiders. But come ON, what is the biological reason for a tick!?!?! Creationist, evolutionist, alienist, I don't care what you believe, you can't come up with a good reason for the existence of ticks. Can you imagine being the creature that is known for spreading disease? Can this creature really exist just to "thin out" populations of animals and people? I shudder. SHUDDER, I tell you.
So, here is my thought on how ticks came to be.
Ticks were actually formed as spiders, but they lacked the desire to create webs up high where insects would be prone to become ensnared (evil is often lazy in this regard). They also felt the fine web material they released to be beneath them and thought other insects and arachnids would see them as feminine. They formed a posse and decided, for the good of the group, which of COURSE was inherently evil, they would breed with insects and take off the extra two legs of their offspring, as in a ceremonial mass bris type situation (this in NO way implies that Jewish people are evil. We are talking ticks, the bane of existence. I am not speaking in metaphor). After 3 generations of breeding with insects (poor insects...didn't see the ticks coming like Vikings across the sea), they lost their silk, and, having really no place to live, settled in low lying, wet and cool areas (this is the reason I am so happy to have a dryer today). They then bit each other in territorial wars, and realized they had a penchant for blood, but ticks really didn't supply enough (ohhh, they're vampires!), and they realized cannibalizing their own tribe was detrimental to the population (oh my gosh, a tick realized something! The horn of destiny honks!). They began their experiments of terror, biting and latching on to ducks and birds (can you imagine living off someone else's blood? Ewwwww). They would not be stopped (evil is often ambitious in this regard), and continued to campaign across creation for thousands of years, swelling to the size of golf balls (gluttony) and eventually dying of obesity (ha ha ha ha ha).
I have no end to the story, as there are still ticks, but my hope is that one day every tick in the world is attracted to a trojan horse of some kind, and they all latch on to eat, and none of them survive the engorging. I mean, seriously, with all these vampire books and movies, we actually have a creature that only dies when set on fire to implode. Wow, this post got kind of gross.
Anyway, I hate ticks. Could you tell?
Today's song of the day is Based on quotes from the Tick (the live action show from 2001), in an attempt to assuage my passion against ticks.
"You're on a first name basis with lucidity, little friend. I have to call it "mister" lucidity... and that's no good in a pinch."
"Gravity is a harsh mistress"
"Death. The eternal blink. The capricious dance of Now Ya Stop Movin' Forever. Well contrary to popular belief, death isn't just for dead people. It can happen to anyone. I know, it's news to me too. And it's not just people either, it's all kinds of stuff. Horses, fiddler crabs. Did you know that even a potato... can die?"
"When society says jump, we say pass the salt"
So, a snippit of a song. It's "Hey, Mr. Caution" by Eddie Constantine.
Hmmmmm. I can't seem to post the file. LAME. Like ticks. I will figure out something else.
well, here is another song. Today's song of the day is NOW:
You may or may not know that I have recently gotten back in the pool, the last time I swam was likely the last post you read about swimming. I enjoy swimming immensely. This past weekend I took my very first class ever: a water dynamics class. Yes, I was the youngest one there, good guess! The people were lovely, and the teacher reminded me of someone...in a movie...it will come to me. She was middle aged, brown mousy hair, black shirt and shorts, and a black excersise headband reminiscent of Flashdance. In the movie, I can see her, and she's really trashy with a cigarette in her mouth. Oh man, it's on the tip of my tongue!
The people were very nice, but there was some concern lurking in my mind about the fact that I was the only one who showered prior to entering the pool. One woman came in, and the familiar smell of ammonia wafted in my direction. This was worrysome. At least the other women smelled like Aveda products! :) No one else had wet their hair, they all wore makeup, glasses and earrings. I was severely out of place.
The class started and I kept up just fine. I never felt like I got my heart rate up, and I think the teacher was surprised she spent more than a half hour on warm-up. Her CD playing boombox kept skipping, then dying, then repeating...it was a long hour music wise.
Everytime someone new came into the pool, I would move so as to include them in the circle. The circle kept growing until we were 2 rows, one on each side of the pool. I was by the pool wall until the noodles on the ledge plugged up my sinuses. See, I have an allergy to mold and mildew. I was not excited about the noodles. I plugged away, and was fine once I got my noodle underwater, but the woman would forget to tell us when we were using the noodles and when we weren't, so I found myself doing all the exercises with the noodle, and she would giggle, "aaaaahh ha ha ha ha" in her high pitched voice, "we're not using the noodle now." Thanks a wahoo :)
Speaking of wahoo, there was an older gentleman in the pool who was a "wooter." This is a general term for someone who screams, "woooooooot!" Every time the words, "Double Time" are spoken. It was like a hootenanny, and he liked the music. I laughed a lot.
Anyway, I survived, spent 90 minutes in the pool moving the whole time, and never took any breaks. I love the pool, but it really dries out my skin and my hair. I bought a swim cap today.
So, I've been staring at the screen, and I cannot remember who this lady reminds me of, but it's uncanny. I can't place the movie. I hope you can. She sits with her hands on her knees, smoking, and sounds drunk when she speaks. I'm thinking late 80s, early 90s. When I think of it (and I WILL :P), I will let you know.
Today's song of the day, in light of my newfound pool hobby and the way I don't yet feel slim is from Veggie Tales. If you don't know it already, I'm surprised. Just push play.
Last night was one of those nights where it stormed a lot, you could tell, but pretty far away. Constant bright lightning and latent thunder with just a slow tapping of rain, as if the storm was actually being polite. I for one was thrilled, as it was a full moon, and the activity seemed to keep the bored, destructive teenagers at bay, like pacing wolves. The courtyard was pretty quiet and I had the window open. Somewhere in the night, a small dog called me out of my dreaming with a little “Yip.” Subconsciously I knew the sound belonged to a trendy dog name, some sort of “oodle.” I ran through the possibilities in my mind as he continued yipping in the courtyard. Labradoodle? No (yip!). Chihuahuadoodle? Is that a word (yip yip yip!)? What was that one I read in a magazine, the new one? It was like a dachshund and poodle, right (yip yip yip yip yip yip yip)? Oh, Dachsuhuahua, no poodle there. Boy that dog (yip yip) is annoying. Someone should tell that dog to shut up! Yip yip…yip yip…yip! Then suddenly, mid-yip, BAM! Lightning hit the park with an instantaneous thunderclap shaking the whole house. There was silence. No owner, no yip, no sound whatsoever. It was the only close lightning strike the entire storm. Against our nature as nature lovers, in our stupor we started laughing. Half conscious and imagining a smoke ball with a fluff spot in the yard, our cartoon side won out. We laughed hysterically and uncontrollably, describing the scene we thought may be left in the yard, and God laughing at this joke, this rogue lightning strike.
I don't even know if I should tell you this. Yesterday was ridiculous. Where do I begin?
It was my day off, but I went in anyway to make sure things went well for the evening-girl-who-is-me. There was quite a bit of stuff to put away, so I borrowed 2 morning stockers and had them help me (there was complaining, yes! How did you know?) Anyway, I got it all finished with a certain amount of satisfaction that she would come in and not have to worry about too much. I came home and decided to pick up some items for Thursday night dinner, which we are hosting this week. Captain Awesome gave me his prepaid card, and away I went.
I went to the grocery store that was farther away, to see my cashier buddy, Mary. Mary cracks me up. She has a crackle laugh, crazy barrettes tied into her short hair, and a height of about 4' 10". And I forgot she doesn't work Mondays. I was having a ball, though they didn't have my greek yogurt with Honey, I had to get regular. I got stopped by old ladies asking where the gravy was, and gave them a tour of the boxed dinner aisle (it's aisle 7, you know). Anyway, checkout didn't go so well.
I rang through all my items, and swiped the prepaid card. The lady asked to see my ID. I gave it to her, not knowing that the prepaid card with Captain Awesome's name on it had arrived. She immediately slipped into fraud mode and said she could not take the card. I said, "should we call him?" "Wouldn't matter, you could be calling anyone." So I said I had another card. Here's where it got ridiculous. She had already accepted it. So she called the manager over, who was also unable to void the transaction. They had to push it through, then take the card to customer service to refund the card, then charge my card the exact same amount. If I did not go to customer service and switch it all, they would have to assume the card was stolen and report it as such. Are you hearing me? The cops, on a prepaid card, on which I am an authorized user. People in line behind me were giving me "the look" and I was starting to feel pretty criminalistic. Since it had to be pushed through, she turned away from me, jerked her shoulder back and said, "I am going to need to you scribble on that again, to make it go through." Like I couldn't even sign a name. UGH! Humiliation! I didn't even do anything wrong!
I could have done this (does anyone else do this? Revisit the situation and say, "I SHOULD have..."
- I could have left all that meat and frozen food and just walked away. Have fun putting that away!
- I could have gone to the ATM and forced her to ring it all back up again.
- I could have said witty comments, pointing out the ridiculousness of a prepaid card being treated like a credit card and the way they pushed it through anyway.
Whatever. So I got home, put the groceries away with ire, and went with Captain Awesome to my workplace to pick up a few things. I saw the girl-who-is-me-in-the-evening, and walked over to say, "Isn't this nice? You didn't have to do all the lugging!" But before I could say anything, she was asking me who did this, because it was all done wrong and she had to redo it. So I really didn't help at all. Glad I came in on my day off to help. Sometimes it feels like it doesn't matter what I do, there is just no pleasing people. Why am I working so hard? Why should I care? Whatever! :P
What did I do after this wasted day? What any self respecting girl would do. I watched the new Chuck and ate sushi at home. And that was the best part of my day. Sad! :) I am done with THAT Cub Foods. I will stick to the closer one from now on. You should have seen the way she looked at me, like everything I said was a planned lie.
So. Anyway. The song of the day for yesterday is
The Steve Miller Band - Take the Money and Run, as I am clearly a criminal with intent to steal and commit fraud. Yes. That sounds like me.
One day, not too long ago, I was sailing the sea of status updates on that ever-ridiculous, but seemingly necessary Facebook. After 3 pages of farmville updates from friends that I no longer talk to because of Farmville, I saw this random post, almost shoved in the middle of a barn raising and a lost manta ray in Seaville (the villes are getting out of control, people). It was from my friend in Georgia, and it said simply,
"Anger always comes from frustrated expectations. -Elliot Larson."
Since that day, that phrase has subtly stalked me, popping up and teasing me, like a snack I know I don't need, and I'm not particularly hungry, but is something I can chew. I pull up in my mind a time when I was angry, justified or not, and I find this to be true. Whenever I am angry, I am angry because of my frustration that reality doesn't look like the picture in my head. To be fair, I think the picture in my head is always the ideal; such as last week when I came home from work and Captain Awesome had planted the garden, not everything was in the pot I wanted, blooming. How silly; they are seeds, I can move them when they bloom, which some are already doing! But I digress.
Even when anger is justified, I think it comes from the same place. When someone turns their back on you, humiliates you, disappoints you, it's because of this picture in your head that you expected. You expected them to be a better person, you thought they really loved you for yourself, you expected them not to be so selfish or untrue. All of these things lead to anger (they also lead to sloth, depression, overeating, and lots of other things that will keep you on your couch for days...not that I know, or anything!). When Christ lost his temper in the temple, He expected the religious leaders to be generous and to follow the spirit of the law, not use it as a power tool over others, and He was angry. Why wouldn't He be? He expected better. Just like (on a MUCH smaller scale, not even comparable), I expected better yesterday when I walked in to a massive mess in my storage area that took me a while to clean up. I was angry, and I was right to be angry, but all that could really be done about it was to clean it up. My expectation was frustrated. I did clean it up and received commendation from my boss. Woot. :)
I started this blog out of my frustrated expectations; I expected I could walk into a job last year, and put it off. Then I needed a job, expected to get one easily, couldn't, and continually freaked out. I expected that my experience, perception and people skills would help me. They might have, if I could have even gotten interviews. I expected that I was more than a resume. I wasn't. Oh well, ce'st la vie. Incidentally, my pastor is looking for these stupid types of coping/anti-stress phrases...there's one (also acceptable: It is what it is, it's all good...).
I don't know the answer to this. Logic would say, "don't expect anything." How do I not expect things? I'm a planner. I can't even half-expect, because you do or you don't, it's like if you like curry or not. There's no middle ground there. Imagination, the unreasonable force behind everything good, also leads you believe that your life is going to be everything you wanted when you were 10. It leads you to believe when you're happy it will stay that way, when you're sad, it will pass. That is why there are mid-life crises, identity losses, and people who run away from their families and responsibilities; in their anger over their frustrated expectations, they leave for something better; no doubt something they have in their mind, an expectation. How's that work for y'all? I mean, no wonder people say things like, "he's a sensitive artist-type." Likely they can't make the picture on the easel look like the one in their head.
I don't know how I got on this, but there it is. I think that statement is a true one, and I have been trying to keep it in my head so as to not overreact or to keep a little logic. I'd love to know what you think.
Today's song of the day is a repeat from November. Sorry, I will think of another, but for now,
