Free Association and More Random Access Memories

Geez, my brain is firing all over the map last night and today. Since I can't possibly write about everything I am thinking, I am going to make a list of reminders to come back to:

• My cousins, but especially Rod and his family for some reason
• Han and David, only the best drinking buddies EVER
• creek fishing
• comparison of last Memorial Day weekend to this one
• L chasing the duck and crying because she just wanted to pet it and be its friend, which was hilarious on its own, and reminded me of the time my brother got attacked by a goose

OK, time to check in with my alter ego, and then get to work.

Home Remedies

Whew - I think my fear about being on the manic upswing was for nothing. Maybe it's the wacky weather or the busy week, but I have not only been sleeping very well, I have had a hard time waking up in the mornings. (A bit of liquid self-medication probably doesn't hurt/help.)

Sleeping late has been nice. I think it goes along with the rainy weather and the fact that school is almost out. B still has one more week, although he is making his case for skipping it. For me, it means mornings will be a bit less hectic, even though I was "blessed" with children who do not sleep in (even when they have stayed up way too late the night before).

Since the end of school doesn't make much difference to me, I will have to make the most of my holiday weekend instead. As of right now, we have no plans. That is actually really awesome.

And on a different note, the dog's permanent boner seems to have disappeared. The vet said we should bring him in, but the problem appears to have been taken care of. How, I don't know, so don't ask. Contrary to popular belief, I do not have a home remedy for everything :)

All Clear

Yesterday I got a call from the school that said "Buses will be delayed due to severe weather. Students may be picked up at the storm shelter on the main campus". Kind of scary to be on the way home, listening to the weather but not knowing what I will find when I get there. Luckily no damage in our area this time. I am still trying to decide which is more distressing-sitting through tornado weather when kids who should be asleep are wide awake and asking a million questions, or not being all together when the sirens go off.

I also don't know which is more sad - the reason my kids' school has a storm shelter at all, that daycare just piles them all in the hallway, or that I just got off the phone from giving away (yes, giving away) this:

Hmmm Day

We usually hold out until Memorial Day to turn on the AC, but the weather has been so crazy this year that here it's almost time and I haven't even noticed. It only feels hot when I do stuff. I wonder if I can extend the start of the AC season by just refusing to clean my house?

WTH did I buy scented deodorant? I can't smell it, and even if I could, why would I want my armpits to smell like raspberries?

Space Camp was a hit. B also received two academic awards this week. I told him I was proud of him. As he left the room I heard, very quietly, "I'm proud of me too". He is such a geek! So glad he seems to be more OK with it than I ever was.

Shop Safety 101

I heard a segment on the radio about some new technology to make table saws safer. Seems some scary number of people, even professionals, are injured by table saws every year.

It reminded me of when Tabby and I took shop in 8th grade. Safety was a big deal, and we took it pretty seriously, but we were responsible for two mishaps that I can remember. 

We had been taught to use the table saw in pairs, with one person pushing the lumber through and the other pushing down and pulling it towards them from the other side. So Tabby had her back to the TA, who was sitting in a chair trying to flirt with her. We had reached the point where she was controlling the board and I was about to let go when she got distracted. She also let go of the board, which was about a two-foot square of cabinet plywood. It flipped off the blade and hit Ty right in the chest. At the same time, he reflexively pushed the chair back, causing it to tip over. The board didn't hurt him, but the backwards landing on a concrete floor shook him up a little :)

In the other instance, Tabby was flirting with Brian C and caused him to skin his knuckles pretty good on the wooden block he was turning on the lathe when he got flustered.

It took me all quarter to build a basic bookshelf and a crooked picture frame. Tabby never did finish the bread box.

Act One

Not sure what made me think of him, but I something reminded me of a guy I used to fool around with in high school. One time our art teacher sent us to work on the set for a play during class time. We were goofing around, definitely not working, when Mick sent some more people to work on the set. They thought the light would be better if they opened the curtains. This was a good idea for someone who needed to paint a backdrop. It was a very bad idea for Bear and I, who were making out on the couch in the middle of the stage.

How High?

And so it begins. Surprised I didn't see it coming when I asked the question.

I laid awake until after 2:00 a.m., which I haven't done in a while. Then I woke up before the alarm and proceeded to clean my house. Also rearranged some furniture (in my head) and made a plan for finishing the drapes for the addition.

Must try to take advantage of this unreasonable sense of optimism, that I might somehow turn nothing into something, while the feeling lasts.

Riddled

I was going to post my list of things I wish I had done before tomorrow's apocalypse, but it made my head hurt. So I toyed with the idea of a F*** It list instead of a bucket list, but I just didn't have it in me. I had a weird dream I can't quite recall, except that it involved me working really hard, which usually indicates stress or distraction of some kind. And for some reason I am overly obsessed with the following riddle:

I drive through three counties on my commute - one "wet" and two "dry". On the way home, at the county line from wet to dry, a new building went up seemingly overnight. Then it sat there for a couple of weeks. When they began working on it again, I could see that it is going to be a liquor store. The location is good in that it's at the county line, but weird in that it sits right between two other liquor stores.

So going the other way, from dry to wet, there's another new building. It's in a row between an auto salvage, the adult entertainment store, and a motorcycle shop. What kind of business fits here?

Truthfully, since it can't be a day care and it's too big to be a Starbucks, I don't really care. It's just that that's how coherent my thoughts have been this week. Not sure why I am so tired and cranky.

Dixie Chick

Heard this today and remembered how much I used to like them. Before the idiot local radio stations scrubbed them from the playlists in favor of Toby Keith. And before I discovered YouTube :)

Full Moons and Bats

Driving home last night, D says "It's like God is messing with us." He said it because the moon was a big, fat, playful one that seemed to change locations as we made the twists and turns required to get home from the ball park. Even so, I had to agree with him in general principal.

This morning as I left, the dog seemed to be attacking a bicycle. I assumed he had found a frog, but was surprised to see that he was trying to get a bat to come out and play. It was hanging upside down in the space between the fender and the chain. I tried to put the dog inside, but he managed to extract the bat. Then he seemed very disappointed when the bat just laid there, not interested at all in playing.

B left for Space Camp today. The twins are terribly concerned about him going into space and not coming back :) I am most concerned he will lose his retainer!

Ah, Monday

My knees are killing me, but that's OK. It's because I took my new bike for a spin yesterday and they are complaining about it. It's a nice bike - a 15-speed trail bike that gave me a good workout for an hour ride. Hope to be able to ride again soon and often.

Busy week again this week. The twins spent the night at grandma's with cousin, will see them tonight in time for baseball. B has a game tomorrow night, but will miss Thursday because he will be at Space Camp. I am so excited for him. I hope he enjoys it as much as I think he will.

Today is also band open house. He thinks he want to play the flute. I am torn on this. I played the flute and hated, hated, hated it. But, it was not my instrument of choice. Maybe getting to play the instrument you want is more important, even if it makes your grandpa cringe :) Anyways, I like the idea of him learning to read music and try out different things, so we'll go with it if it's what he wants.

We are also checking out his options for summer. He is probably not doing sailing this year. He likes it and is good at it, but he has reached the point where he needs to be able to go out and sail more than one week a year, and that is not something we can do right now. He is interested in going to film school for kids though. It's a week-long camp where he will learn about scripting, casting and shooting a short film, which will be shown at an independent film festival later in the summer. It's not terribly expensive, and I think he will do really well at it. He is probably also doing advanced swimming lessons until he is old enough to take junior life guard class. He would honestly stay in the water all summer if we would let him.

And on a final note before I get busy with actual work, I saw the most amazing thing in the parking lot on the way in -  A truck with a flat bed trailer containing what appears to be a homemade catapult, complete with a medieval-looking coat-of-arms on either side. It looks like it was probably built by kids, maybe Boy Scouts or something, for a project. Pretty cool, especially if it actually works.

Interesting start to the week following a good weekend. Can this please be a return to "normal"?

I Have People

I have people who have no interest in my life. That's OK.
I have people who seem to be listening, because they say things like "I know what you mean", then proceed with "I..." and their own story.
I have people who ask questions that leave me more annoyed than before.
I have people who spout platitudes. This is not the same as advice, but I wasn't asking for that either.
I have people who want to help me fix things. This is also not what I am asking for. I don't need anything "fixed".

What I need, but don't have, is someone who will say "I am sorry you have had such a crap time of it the last year. Let's meet somewhere and get plastered".

Observed

Headstones - The cemetary is still partially under water. The tops of the headstones are now visible where yesterday I could only see neat rows of clumps of artificial flowers. The house that should not have been built is still mostly under water.

Graham Gordy - It should definitely be against the law for someone that attractive to also be smart and funny.

Sunbather - On the back side of our parking deck, where the alley dips down toward the mall, there is a small ledge. On this ledge is a guy wearing nothing but some cut-off shorts and enough oil to blind an unsuspecting driver.

Irony - It hasn't rained for a couple of days, and much of the standing water has dissipated, but tonight's ball game is still canceled. Apparently they truck they were using to repair the lights got stuck and ruined the field.

Today's fortune cookie wisdom - Flying is easy. Trying not to hit the ground is hard.

Flooding

When I was a kid, my dad sheared sheep for a living. Beginning in March, he would travel around to different places to shear sheep in advance of the lambing season. He usually started out with local jobs and those where he could be home every night. Gradually, he would travel farther away, until he took the camper trailer and was officially on the road. Around the beginning of May, my mom would make preparations for us to join him. She would call the utility companies to have our service status changed to "vacation", make arrangements to have our mail forwarded to my aunt, and talk to the school about the fact that my brother and I would be finishing the year early. By the middle of May, we would join the crew, usually somewhere in northern Utah. We would spend the next six weeks in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.

And so it was that we came to be just outside of St. Anthony, Idaho at the beginning of June, 1976. The adults had heard that the nearby Teton Dam, an earthen dam, was failing. St. Anthony was not in danger, but they thought it wise to go into town and stock up on supplies. In addition to provisions, they returned with all sorts of things that stores had been selling at disaster prices rather than have their inventory washed away. Then, they climbed up on the roof of the shearing rig, about the height of a semi, and watched through binoculars as the dam was breached, spilling the contents of the lake into the river valley below.

For the next few days, the families of the crew members back home would not know if we were OK. They knew we were in the approximate area, but we were unable to get to anywhere with a phone to let them know we were OK. My cousin Clint and two other crew members were stranded in Rexburg, a town downstream from the dam that was pretty much destroyed, for more than a week before they were able to return.

Most of the land that was flooded was farmland, not range land, and I don't remember if anyone we knew in the area was directly affected by the flood as far as property damage. I do remember the strange sights the next time we drove into town to run errands. What used to be hay fields were now filled with water. I remember seeing a bloated cow, feet in the air amid the other floating debris. I remember that the crew finished the job and that as soon as we were able we moved on to the next location.

I sometimes wish I could remember the details of that extraordinary event, but it's probably good that a seven year-old didn't really witness such destruction. It's probably good that I have a healthy respect for the power of nature. It might explain why, when it comes to nature, I believe mankind is better off learning to exist within it rather than trying to change it to meet our needs. Alas, there will always be people who think it is easier to control the external environment than it is to change their own habits or expectations.

I should quit while I am ahead, since I often fit into that latter category. I will end by saying I really do wish I could learn to use binoculars.

Long Week of Long Days and Nights

Possible reasons I didn't sleep too well last night:

• Thunderstorms don't really keep me awake. Sleeping in a room that is directly under a really big tree, after a week that included tornadoes, keeps me awake.
• Too much coffee too late in the day.
• "Who is Chad?"

Indicators it might be another long week:

• Took an alternate route to work, but if it keeps raining like it is now, that route will also be under water by tonight.
• Computer is acting stupid again.
• Looking more and more like we are going to have to cut L's hair to get rid of head lice :-(

Remember when Monday mornings used to be my favorite times?