My Children (Zoo)

Everybody is writing about their families...here's mine. 

Beaker:  Age: 13  Joined the family in 1990.  Started out being my niece's cat.  Niece moved back to Illinois...cat stayed.

Bebe:  Age: 13.  Also joined family in 1990, about 3 months after Beaker.  For many years, Beak believed she was his own personal kitten.

Sprite:  Age:  12.  Abandoned the family who lived across the street to come live with us.  Try explaining THAT to your neighbors...

Bartie:  Age:  6.  Joined family when rescued as a tiny baby kitten trying to cross a five-lane highway.  Saved by a guy on a bicycle, who handed him to me. Mine now!

Choo-Choo:  Age:  4.  Acquired from my sister, who swore she was a male. Her favorite being in the whole wide world is her brother Sprite.  They are sometimes referred to as "Me" and "Mini-me." 

Maude:  Age: 3.  Also abandoned the family who lived across the street to come live with us.  New street, new neighbors...but still hard to explain.

Lucy:  Age: 3.  When I stopped working full-time, I decided I wanted a dog.  She understands that the word "dog" refers to her, but she has no idea she IS one.  Actually believes she is mostly human and partly cat...has no affinity for other canines whatsoever. 

These are the guys who own the place...my husband and I are just the hired help.

Pih-lah-teez

I'm SO disgusted with myself.  I pigged out and blobbed around over the holidays so much that I must've gained at least five pounds (I refuse to get on the scale.)  And, I've gone backward about a year in my fitness routine just by blowing it off for two weeks.  Went to the pool on Monday (when I could still leave the house), and could only manage about 80% of my usual workout.  And now I've been stuck in the house for three days, and my determination to re-start my fitness routine has pretty much been snowed out.

Cruising the after-Christmas sales with a Target gift certificate, I found a video that caught my eye:  Pilates for Dummies.  Decided I needed to have it, since my ab muscles resemble a six-pack...of pillows.  Well, I tore the thing open today out of EXTREME boredom.  Rolled around on the floor for a half an hour accompanied by the sweet, calming voice of the serene little blonde in the video...SHE can actually sit on the floor with her legs out in front of her and her back straight.  And THEN she can stretch forward and touch the floor.   Found out THAT is a skill I lost somewhere in my twenties...

Well, I completed the workout...looking, I'm sure, like a beached sea creature struggling to get back to the surf.  If "purity of form" is indeed the most important element of this fitness regimen, my form needs a ride in an autoclave.  You'd think something that is mostly about breathing and counting to ten would be more...DOable.  But, as usual, my mind is a decade or two younger than my poor 48-year-old body (I originally typed "47"...you see?  My disconnected brain has no idea how old I AM...)

I'm sure I'll get the hang of this eventually.  I'm challenged, now, by golly!  ...If I don't end up in traction.    

For the Birds

For anyone who was as worried about the robins as I was (uh...okay...):  here's one selecting a nightcrawler from the box of bait I put out for them.  They got the hang of it pretty quickly!  They've already gone through three containers of two dozen worms each.  At $2.99 a pop, these are getting to be some pretty spendy birds.  But it's worth it! 

Ice Age

I took my life in my hands--you think I'm kidding?--and slid out on the back deck to get a picture of what I've been complaining about.  This is what our whole world looks like right now.  We've been watching people along the block taking literally HOURS to chip the ice and snow off their cars.  I don't know where they could possibly need to go that badly!  Although I guess there are people out there who have important jobs.  I guess I would've been pissed off if all the folks who work at the grocery store had decided not to go to work today.

I never thought I'd be praying for RAIN in the middle of an Oregon winter!  :-]

The Weather STILL Sucks

I cannot believe this hideous weather!  We are having a midwestern winter---and a bad one, at that---right here in the Pacific Northwest.  Yesterday it snowed about five more inches, and then it went to ice pellets, then to freezing rain overnight.  Everything is piled with snow and coated with ice.  The region is at a standstill...we don't DO snow and ice here.  At least not in this quantity!  The weather people have been predicting a mid-week thaw since last week.  But of course that hasn't happened, which is why the saying is, "Only fools and foreigners believe the weatherman in Oregon."

My husband is on his second day of being forced to stay home from work because of this thing.  He's been *sort of* helpful... I have "de-decorated" two rooms, and I actually had him help me in the family room yesterday, so that was nice.  But between "What's for dinner?" and "What's for lunch?" and "Let's go outside and play with the dog!" I haven't gotten much else done around the house.  Truthfully, I haven't felt very industrious.  For some reason, this awful weather has me just wanting to curl up in a chair, stuff myself with carbs, and stare at the television or read.  I think my body is being triggered to hibernate.

The target of most of my work and worry the last week or so has been the poor birds.  They're getting screwed bigtime.  These are Oregon birds...they don't understand this weather.  The robins don't go south for the winter here...why should they?  It rains so much, there's always a plentiful supply of worms.  Well, the ground has been frozen for over a week, they've stripped every berry off every bush I can see, and they're sitting on my fence, all puffed up, going "Cheep!  Cheep!"  I'm sure they're not smart enough to be begging, but that's what it LOOKS like.  I went down to the corner store and bought 4 dozen worms yesterday (bait) and tried to entice them.  They took a few, but the endeavor wasn't a great success.  I hope I won't be outside digging little robin graves at the end of this crappy cold spell!   

Venting on Journals

Last night was bad. Slept for a total of about three hours. Endless hot flashes and hormone-induced insomnia raised me out of bed in the middle of the night. I curled up in my leather chair and picked up my laptop to pass the sleepless hours. Visited many new journals. Wish I could say I enjoyed the experience.

I keep running into references to the Outstanding Journal Awards. I believe I expressed my distaste for this whole concept once before :-P. But I thought maybe I should give it another shot. Decided to go visit some of the perennial favorites.

One guy had a total overload of graphics, stuff, and do-dads on his page. Aside from this being completely distracting, I tried to leave a comment about five minutes after the beginning of my visit, and I couldn't because the page hadn't finished loading yet. The piece wasn't interesting enough for me to waste fifteen minutes waiting, so I left. Two or three others were so bent on being fast-paced and off-the-wall-funny that they were an exercise in literary hyperventilation. Probably I was crabby due to the circumstances surrounding my being on the internet in the middle of the night...but I just thought, "Bleah!"

In the past couple of weeks, I have found myself getting increasingly wrapped up in the idea of other people reading my journal. I was unduly bummed that I had apparently lost a few readers who had once been regulars. (I HAD a regular readership of about three people...guess that spectacular success made me hungry for more.) But after cruising some of the sites with the big "this journal has been visited xxxxx times" numbers, I understand that's NOT what I want my journal to become. As usual, I'm slightly out sync with the rest of the children. But that is, and always has been...me.

I do, however, come in contact with a really gut-grabbing journal once in a while. A couple of days ago, I stumbled on to "Watching My Sister...Disappear"---a log of a woman's daily phone calls to her younger sister, whose mind is being speedily devoured by Alzheimer's. A lovely tribute, displaying the kind of human connection that I can only aspire to. I'll use her as the target of my journal-envy, for now.

 

Unusual Weather We're Having...

It is 25 degrees outside.  There is an inch-deep layer of crunchy snice (snow-ice combination) on my front doorstep.  We didn't shovel it...because we don't OWN a snow-shovel.  This is, in fact, the first time in seven years that we've had snow on the ground that lasted more than a day.  AND it's supposed to snow again later this week.  What gives? 

This strange weather did produce a most unusual phenomenon in downtown Portland today.  Driving through town on our way to our concert, we observed Oregonians indulging in terribly uncharacteristic behavior.  They were actually wearing coats.  Even more shocking, there was  not a pair of shorts or sandals to be seen.  Normally, the inhabitants of this great state, at least west of the Cascades, have the idea that we live in perpetual summer.   What a sane person would consider "summer attire"--shorts, Birkenstocks, tank tops--can as likely be found on the people of Portland in the dead of winter as the middle of July.  You can always tell a non-native Oregonian by the fact that she owns a winter coat, and will actually be seen wearing it once or twice a season, when the weather demands.

The funny thing about this is, we don't really HAVE a summer here.  We have about eight weeks, from Mid-July to mid-September, when it doesn't rain. It gets warm during the day, yes, but it always goes back down into the fifties or sixties at night. Summer nights in Illinois had always been about wearing as little as possible, weather you were in bed or outside carousing.  After moving here, I had to get used to the idea of bundling up to go watch the fireworks on the Fourth of July.  The concept of needing blankets on the bed in August was new and strange.

So I don't actually know what makes Oregonians eschew winter attire.  Maybe it has something to do with consumption of mind-altering agents...another thing for which Oregon is famous. 

Up and at 'em...Later

I spent an hour last night prying off my acrylic nails.  They were nice to have for the holidays, but the holidays are over..*alas*.  I'm taking today as my transition day.  The last day of the last weekend of the holiday 2003-2004 season.   We're going to a concert this afternoon, and then I'm going to come home and sit and stare at my lovely decorations until they're imprinted in my mind (LOL).  And tomorrow morning, I'm going to get up bright and early (maybe) and start "de-decorating." 

I would almost rather walk across burning coals than take down Christmas decorations.  My Christmas stuff fills about a dozen huge boxes...no closet in the house is big enough to hold it.  Luckily, we have built-in storage under the stairs that holds about half of it.  The rest of it resides on my husband's giant storage racks (you'd have to see our garage...between the display racks Matt scored from a home center that was going out of business, and the stacks of restaurant equipment, it looks like a warehouse.  And, by golly, we can still fit two vehicles in there.  Husband is a stuff-stacking genius.)

Here's the list: I have plans to paint my bedroom (we bought the paint two years ago...), finish the remodel of our family room, join Weight Watchers, alternate workouts at the pool and the gym, continue volunteering at the fairgrounds, continue working at the old people's home,  and do some major landscaping changes come Spring.  All this has to be done by April, as that is when my season starts with the concession trailer.  After that, just about every weekend until October is shot with some event or another.  Maybe we'll even make some money this year!

Yes, tomorrow is the first day of the rest of the year.  Today, however, is the last day of the holidays...and I'm just going to soak in it.

 

Rescue!

It's snowing in Oregon today, Not just snowing...S-N-O-W-I-N-G! Paralyzes the hell out of native Oregonians.

And birds! I indulge in what I am told is one of the most popular hobbies in America. I have at least six different fancy bird feeders outside my patio door...and their favorite dining spot is currently the old Marie Callender pie tin I put under the picnic table on the deck.

Today's snow brought the little guys out in droves. Unfortunately, it has also made the windows and doors look too much like somewhere to go when they're spooked...I had them bouncing off the patio door all morning. We had just come in from slogging to the grocery store and *wham*...looked outside and there's a little guy spread-eagled in the snow on one of the deck chairs. We rushed out to see if he was still alive. Breathing, yes, but he was NOT okay...he looked like Wylie Coyote after he gets hit in the head with an anvil.

What to do with him? Finally decided to bring him in the house so he wouldn't freeze. Put him in a plastic bucket with a wire rack over the top, stuck him in the guest bathroom (seemed somehow apropos) and went about the business of making breakfast. I was not optimistic about his chances for recovery... he just kept closing his eyes and going into the twilight zone.

After about an hour I went in to check on him. He was looking around a little, but still not moving much. Decided to put some food in there for him, so I lifted his lid...and suddenly had a little bird flying all over my bathroom and cheeping curses at me. A little bird who wanted nothing to do with my catching him and trying to put him back in his bucket. He bounced off the mirror three or four times, and I'm thinking..."Jeesh, I brought this poor little thing in out of the snow to kill himself on my bathroom mirror...!'" They're SO hard to catch...so tiny, I was afraid my big stupid human hands would crush him, and when I finally got hold of him, he weighed nothing. It was like holding air with feathers.

Back in his bucket he went, wire rack firmly replaced. And then we marched out to the back deck and ceremoniously removed the rack. With a little prodding, he abandoned his bucket and flew up into the neighbor's tree to rejoin the cheeping hordes of his buddies. BIG smile on my face. Feeling large, like Mother Nature. Great way to start the new year!

Rate-a-year

Okay, it's time to rate 2003.  On a scale of 100...I'd have to give it an 85.  (It had a good beat, and you could dance to it...)  It was generally a good year, with some minor mishaps along the way.  Like when the tranny went out on the van on the way to the coast...pulling the brand-new trailer up a hill...in a "no cel service" zone.  That turned out to be $2500 worth of not-so-fun.  But if that's the worst thing that happened all year, I guess I'd have to rate 2003 right up there with the top ten good years of my life. Life actually seems to be going in a direction now.  There were a few years there that I was just treading water...and feeling pretty good about even being able to do THAT, rather than drowning. 

Resolutions?  I make resolutions all the time.  Daily, in fact.  Every morning, I fall out of bed with a list of at least a dozen things I want to get accomplished that day...everything from hauling my ass to the pool, to finding a solution to the nation's health care crisis (might as well aim high!)  As the day wears on and I'm distracted by the "stuff" of life---like an irresistable urge to sit and watch two episodes of "ER" on TNT---my list becomes more "streamlined..."  I start to blow stuff off.  Normally, I complete one or two of the dozen or so things I'd started out wanting to do.  If I get to three or four, I feel particularly proud of myself. 

I don't think I'm inclined to write a list of what I'd like to do this year.  I think I just want to keep on keeping on,  Last year, I made some positive moves toward healing some relationships in my life, and toward rejoining the human race.  I'd definitely like to stay on that track.  Other than that, I'd just like for myself and the people close to me to stay healthy, active, and out of trouble.Given that, and a few less hot-flashes and night sweats,  and 2004 could take its place among the top ten years of my life.

Oh.   And I want to win Powerball...