Musings From The Back Porch or No, Really I'm Writing Today

This is my last day off of five, a mini vacation at home (I refuse to use that stupid computer generated word that begins with an “S”). I did manage to accomplish a few things and had some fun, too. Just this minute I’m on the porch enjoying our unseasonably cool day, reminiscent last year. I’m also contemplating ways to legally kill the squirrels that are knocking all the apples off my tree. This is the first year we’ve had apples and now most of them are ending up, green, hard, sour with the seeds picked out all over the ground. Have I mentioned how much I loathe squirrels? When we lived near a large city park, the squirrels almost outnumbered the people and they were bold and aggressive. I would cheer if I almost hit one and then when the boys were older and into a gross out stage I would act like I was going to hit them if they were in the road, just swerve a little and tap the accelerator. I’ve never actually hit one, though. Don’t worry, I’m not running up the street to Walmart for a small rifle so I can shoot the buggers. Having never shot a rifle I would probably kill the dog or a neighbor aiming for a squirrel. Wally’s a pretty good shot; he could do it for me. . .

Anyhow, the gardening is done; I’ve battled the dandelions and weird groundcover succulent looking things today. I contemplated taking a machete to the Bee Balm that is threatening to eat the front flower bed and our living room but TG likes it and so I’ll pull it out in October. I also harvested more carrots and two, TWO small golden beets. I’m waiting for TG to come home for lunch so we can have them with a salad of mixed greens and a vinaigrette I invented this morning. I’m very proud of this dressing: its balsamic vinegar, my herbs d’Provence infused olive oil, fresh pepper, garlic, a mixture of ground tarragon, chives, and oregano, topped off with a dollop of honey and yellow curry. This is an epic event because I really don’t like to cook and Kraft Mac-n-Cheese feels like a lot of damn work. My lunch was a roasted tomato drizzled with the dressing and topped with a sprinkling of Swiss cheese. Again, an epic event because the tomato didn’t come in a package or from a restaurant or as a result of The Girl. Not that I want a cookie for fixing lunch (although a cookie would be nice right now). I must confess I do like working with the fresh ingredients that come from our garden. It’s immensely satisfying to walk outside and pick things to eat. Which is why I am very excited our city has changed the zoning and is allowing people to keep chickens and pigmy goats in their backyards. Wow! Maybe someday we can have a Yard Cow and an elephant! I love elephants and fed one in Cambodia last month. Made my life complete! And when I stop foolin’ around and actually write the novel living in my head, there will be a yard cow based on a story I heard from an old friend of Ward’s.

I hadn’t even heard of a pigmy goat until we were in Texas last April. My stepmother’s brother (Step Uncle?) is a rancher in south Texas and told us during the drought people got rid of their cattle and started raising these goats. I asked him if he had become attached to any of them. He gave me a curious side long glance and quietly said: “Up until I take them to slaughter. “ Yeah, just as I suspected, he thinks they are adorable, too. Probably names them, worries after them like pets if it’s too hot or too cold or too rainy. They are cute little things, and always look at you like you’ve just said something wise which had never occurred to them and could you please elaborate on your philosophies and ideas. In other words, these little animals looked intrigued. My guess is they have an IQ lower than the average retarded dog but they still look intelligent. I’m not sure what we would do with this goat. Probably tie it up just on the other side of our fence in the green space and let it graze on the weeds. Little Goat would also eliminate the need to mow. Hopefully if the coyotes carried it off they would have the decency to eat it far far from the back fence so I wouldn’t have to clean up a carcass. Or listen to the crows as they fussed with one another over the carrion.

The coyotes are the most compelling reason why I haven’t found plans for a tiny chicken coop. Well there’s that and the dog. I have a hard enough time wrangling a wily old dog much less a clutch of chickens. But we could get those pretty little hens with the fancy feathers and free range them in our backyard. The poo would be great for the garden, too. Too bad I would be fighting the dog for the eggs and ultimately probably the chickens. So my adventure in urban animal husbandry is going to have to wait until the dog is dead.

This could be sooner rather than later because I’m going to leave him out for the aforementioned hungry coyotes if he doesn’t leave the damn trash can alone. I would like to blame his naughty behavior on the fireworks this past weekend but the fireworks are over and the behavior continues. Because I would actually miss the old goofball dog, the only other solution we came up with is just strewing the trash on the kitchen floor because that’s where it ends up anyhow. So last night before we went out for an hour or so, I put the trashcan on the back porch. TG thought she was pretty freakin’ funny when she calls downstairs to me: “Well the dog didn’t get into the trash but the squirrels did…Not really!” If I printed what I said before she alerted me to her joke, everyone’s net nanny’s would go “ping”.

But the idea of chickens has enormous appeal to me. When we heard this fortuitous news the other night, TG just looked at me and mouthed the word: “NO”. Butbutbut she is the one who in a moment of tropical fever or tequila induced insanity told me she would like to move to Mexico and raise chickens in the jungle a few miles from the coast. And then this spring we discussed the goats in everyone’s yard along I-10 in south Texas and again the idea of chickens was raised. I suppose wintering the chickens here would be an issue. I’m not too keen on the idea of leaving one of the cars outside so they can stay in the garage. The health department would look askance at us keeping them in the basement. Another dream dashed against the rocks of reality.

I suppose I’ll just buy my eggs at the store like most people. And mow the lawn. And dream of an elephant of my own.

image found here

Big Flakes

Last week, we had our biggest snow of the year. And because I suck at paying attention to many adult responsibilities I didn’t realize just how bad my tires were until I drove Beav to school. My SUV became a lethal weapon on those streets yesterday morning and I found myself driving much like I once skied: almost at the brink of complete loss of control, any misjudgement would result in a specatacular yard sale and a flalling tumble leaving gloves and hats behind me on the hill. So my first stop after dropping Beav off was not my crack dealer or a coffee shop but the tire store. Luckily, despite my procrastinating style, the people at the tire store didn’t see me swirve into the parking lot and skid to a stop because if they had, they could have charged me oh maybe a thousand bucks for tires and I would have said, “Ok, I‘ll take them.“ Because spending a grand on tires was better than driving anywhere ever again on the tires I had. And I must be living right because the price was actually under what I had saved for this shopping trip. It wasn't like I was completely clueless to the state of my tires, I had actually saved money for them and I put it off because I like seeing the over inflated balance in my account. That extra cash made me feel as if I really could walk into Sundance and buy the cute $200 blouse without a second thought of: “Dude, what about tires?.“ So I waited until the situation was critical--three inches of snow on the ground with maybe eighteen more coming--and bought tires. I have a tendancy to forget things like buying school supplies and school clothes. I am alwaysalways, ALWAYS stunned it’s the end of August and everyone needs new shoes and backpacks and pencils and crap. I blame absolute denial on not having winter clothing unpacked in October because I hate winter that much. Or when the kids were little, summer would roll around and I would be STUNNED I hadn’t signed them up for swimming or replaced their summer clothing or laid up pool food and extra beer for me (the afternoons, they were long with a three year old and a seven year old, just sayin’) And how dare that cute little oil can light be on, I just put oil in the truck, what, six months ago? But yesterday morning, I knew the Universe wasn’t going to send me out the door and onto the street with protection and blessings so I wouldn't kill, maim, hurt or distroy anyone or anything in the SUV Of The Bald Tires. Once I crawled to the tire store, I was truly surprised to see I wasn’t the only person who had waited until the first big snow was actually hitting the ground to do something about the safety of their vehicles and I felt lucky the store had the tires I needed and came in under budget. I was so pleased about these things I didn’t mind the--I kid you not--four hour wait.

Worth every second of waiting because I love my new tires and they have the most remarkable feature called "tread". The grooves are deep and symmetrical with small grooves interlaced around and next to the crevices. I was offered spikes for the little holes but that was pushing this whole driving in deep snow thing so I opted out on the spikes. Which, in hindsight would have been a nice butch BDSM touch to my Big Ass Tires. Now snow is my special Bitch. Driving home yesterday afternoon I was enraptured with my new toys tires. Even Beav noticed. I had to stop on a dime behind someone and his comment was: “Oh yeah, this morning, we would have hit that guy.” And then he looked up from his endless text messaging to tell me: “Mom, you didn’t skid to the right that time.”

I’m still having a Near Dyke* Moment about these tires. I think I’m in love with them, too. Which is completely unlike me. I fall in love with lipstick, blouses and chairs. Cars aren’t that important to me, I see cars that catch my eye and I have a secret crush on these guys and their cars, so I’m not a complete idiot but I’m not terribly keen on driving . My parents had to force me to learn when I was seventeen and I still don’t have a lot of confidence in my abilities. But these new tires. Wow. I’m almost cocky behind the wheel of my truck. Uh oh you are thinking, watch out for the old green Mitz, June is one of those SUV drivers. You know the type, owning the road, following too close, going too fast on snow and through water? Fortunately, Mitzy still reins it in and moves like a little old lady in the snow but she moves like a little old lady wearing killer snow boots.

It's a good thing they cancelled school last Thursday because Beav was up banging around until about midnight or so and 0600 wouldn’t have been pretty if there had been school. Wally’s Honda was almost buried and too bad it melted before I could dig it out because I love snow so much. (/sarcasm) Nothing I hate more than being wet and cold. And please don’t tell me “you just need the appropriate clothing and then you would enjoy it.“ I have such clothing and nope, don’t enjoy it. If today is any indication it's going to be a long winter. Usually, this sort of storm saves up it’s wrath for March, and this storm is making a March dump look like a dusting which is why I'll be in my room weeping if anyone needs me.

We leave for Mexico in ninety two days. Not that I’m counting.




*being a Dyke is not a bad thing, I mean this in the political sense of the word.

The Big Plan

When I was a little girl, I made elaborate schedules for myself and at eight, had I known what a algorithm was, I would have taken the self scheduling thing one hundred steps further and substituted this:

Get up
Brush Hair
Brush Teeth
Feed Cat
Feed Self

With some sort of schematic for what I was supposed to accomplish every morning before school.
(Seriously, this is what I posted--caps and all--on the back of my bedroom door when I was eight because I needed a reminder to feed the cat) I was very diligent with this schedule, too. I wish I still had that first list because it was the beginning of a compulsion: making schedules for myself in the form of to-do lists. Unfortunately, with age my lists have become more elaborate and if I were completely insane I’m sure I would have algorithms in place with arrows and lines as back up plans. Today has proven to be one of those “best laid plans. . .” days, where the to-do list looks like an algorithm what “oh God, what now! “ My day was supposed to look like this:

Get up (I find it necessary to include this forty years later in case I try to work out or take a shower while still in bed)
Gym
The Beav to school
Work in the yard
Write
Beav from school
Read (I’m such a freak I schedule my ‘recreation’) [this is also code for lay in the sun]
Dinner prep

This is what happened:
Don’t sleep
Get up in time to make sure The Beav is up for school
Decide he needs one more sick day (just a cold no H1N1) but should go to the doctor
Go back to bed for an hour
Make doctor’s appointment for the boy
Go back to bed for another hour
Shower
Run errands on the way to the doctor because the dry cleaner and the vet are on the way
Go to the Doctor
Finally do something on your to do list (this is where the arrow goes around to “write” on my dream list)

Lessee, I’m accomplishing one thing on my list so far.

I came up with my dream schedule while I was cleaning yesterday. This was going to be my day. No more cleaning, no more digging in the dirt or moving things around. My only real responsibilities were The Beav and dinner. In my defense, this slothful day was brought about after nearly a week of planting two large flower beds and a vegetable garden. Most people wouldn’t balk at being this busy. But I refuse to be overscheduled. And I loath people who are always: “Ohmygawd! I am so crazy busy! ” The evil people in my head want to say something like: for the love of God just stop doing whatever bullshit it is you do because it really doesn’t make you or your life more important if you are “too busy”. I strive at under scheduling my life and my housewife pals always admired my boundary setting skills. “You want me to bake something for the preschool that day? Nope, can’t do it. I already have something planned for that day and I don’t plan more than one activity a day! “ I must confess this penchant for avoiding over scheduling too much is not from mad boundary setting skills but sheer laziness.

I had to leave off the slothful life because the flower beds were prepared and the calendar says it’s May. I was daunted by this task because I’ve never taken on such a huge gardening project. I had helped with a vegetable garden when Wally was a baby. Ward did the heavy lifting, I weeded a bit and harvested. The Fabulous House in the Suburbs had established landscaping and I did attempt one flower bed but it was an abysmal failure and led me to believe I had a black thumb. The “do you garden” question was always met with an apologetic shake of the head. However, the success of my seedlings (now out in the big world) and the many thriving plants in the beds for nearly a week, all surviving my hand are leading me to believe I might be a gardener after all. More telling, than week old plants, is the joy I felt working in the dirt. The only way I can describe the joy I feel when I look out on my flower beds is like the small child who has successfully built a miniture building from random blocks. Remember how they look when the complex and architecturally impossible structure was complete? My boys would sit back on their haunches, arms outstretched, eyes never leaving the towers and shout out a gleeful: “Ta-Da!!!” I want to stand in the front yard and shout: “Ta-Da!” Maybe I will in August when my lovely garden is blooming.

I loved working in the beds and it felt good to be dirty and sore. Part of me wishes I had more to plant; but until the fall, I must be content with watering, deadheading and weeding. I had always thought the whole: “just go outside and you will feel better” advice aimed at the depressed was some kind of pseudo hippy back-to-nature bladdy-blah. I found the dirt theory has merit; I felt rejuvenated by it and the fresh air. It even felt good to work in the damp drizzle for a couple of days. And had I known how meditative gardening is, I would have started years ago. At last an excuse to live in my head! I found myself composing letters to the long lost in my life. The letters were stories rather than self flagellating apologies which is the tone my spinning usually takes (link). At times I did have to pay close attention to what I was doing. The work was niggling and fussy when the roots of a few of my new plants (I’m looking at you Shasta Daisies) were matted and tangled in big clumps. The exercise of untangling the mass without breaking them, to separate the plants safely, reminded me of untangling and unwinding the small IV lines and life support tubes connected to my wee patients years ago in the NICU. Fussy work is not my favorite sort of work.

Transplanting the seedlings was fussy, too. As I transplanted the tendrils, I recalled a dream or a memory of helping my father when I was five or so. We had a big garden and my job was to stick my finger in the dirt making a small round hole where he would place the seed. My finger placing round holes with such diligence, I can still see my dirty and bitten nail as I pulled it from the loamy soil. I remember watching him coax the seedlings into the ground with the aid of an iced tea spoon’s long handle; the handle a sort of guide or crutch against the tender new born stalk. The mind works in such magnificent ways and I found myself doing just this with my own wee cucumbers; only then remembering the close heat and sun on my neck, the smell of the pine trees and how, when I looked up from my task, they made a gigantic fence around our yard. I know remembering the cloying heat helped me tolerate the damp chill the other day.

When I had decided to attack the new flower beds this week, I was going to catch up on Podcasts while I worked. But I forgot my Ipod and discovered the sounds of the crows, dogs and breeze, even the distant traffic, was friendly company. I can’t remember if it was quiet in the garden when I was a little girl. Chances are the silence was punctuated by birdsong which was then interrupted by construction noise. My favorite silence is the silence of the mesa in a snow storm. I have never heard such quiet as the sound of snow covering that vast emptiness.

So today, The Big Plan was flummoxed and thrown out the window and we went, instead to the dry cleaners, doctor and vet. The Big Plan hit the first wall last night at midnight when I still wasn’t asleep for worrying over the dog’s panting and labored breathing. I lay awake for hours listening to him; composing how I would prepare myself to find him miserable and exhausted this morning. It would be time for his last car trip. I rehearsed what it will be like to make the phone calls when it is time for him to leave us. Fortunately, the only one worse for the night’s troubled breathing was me. Kip awakened his merry self, wanting to go outside to have a big sniff and make sure all was right with his world. He was fine and would be with us yet another day. He felt well enough to woo-wooo-wooof at us for food and grrr-grrr-grrr when we wouldn’t let him outside to play in the sprinkler.

My perfect day stalled by life. Yet again, life having a more perfect day in mind for me. I was lucky enough to have an interesting conversation with The Beav that ranged from his persnickety math teacher who doesn’t believe in time to make up homework if you are sick (my question was: what if you are in a coma or your hands are burned?) to the labor reforms which came about after The Jungle was published. I still had plenty of time to fuss over this writing exercise; I’ll have time to hang in the sun for an allotted hour, water my plants; maybe even have a beer. But we won’t harsh my mellow with the gritty reminder I must cook dinner tonight.

Perhaps if I hacked up a lung, I could get out of dinner. Unfortunately, I can’t let that happen because it’s not on The List.

*the photo is from flikr Creative Commons by "A River Runs Through It" thanks to the generosity of such creative folks.

The last day

I’m waiting but I don’t mind waiting in the microcosmic sense of the word. Those short stints of waiting: in front of the school a few afternoons a week; in check out lines at the grocery store. I have a file of articles pulled from magazines to read in the car for the after school wait and I amuse myself reading tabloid covers at the store. If I’m waiting at home there is always some sort of ’net entertainment. I don’t like waiting in the macrocosmic sense. You know, waiting for the big stuff: like the end of the Bush era, or for vacations to start.

Why am I content to wait? I think it’s twofold: My job is terribly time dependent. Medicines must be given at scheduled times. Tasks and duties must be preformed within a prescribed time. They simply must.. Rather than being a clock controlled freak at home, I work at not over scheduling my life and if I have more than three things I MUST DO OR THE WORLD WILL STOP SPINNING on my days off, I‘m pissy and angry about it. Today for instance, is the last day of the year and the boys are with me. Wally stayed out until about God only knows when last night and is still asleep; Beav gorged himself on The Sims until about that time so they have both just now rousted themselves to a waking state at the bright and early hour of 1pm (hey, it‘s 0600 in New Zealand!). I was waiting on them to get up so we could do something together. Maybe see this movie . Maybe go to the mall so they could spend some of their Christmas cash

What did I do while I was waiting? I read a few blogs, chatted with friends; goofed off at facebook. I could have been in the chilly basement making scrap pages or revamping some frames I’m using in a home dec project. I could have even gone to my second favorite crack dealer--the fabric store--but I didn’t. The only thing on my To-Do list for today I’ve come close to tackling is writing a blog entry. The two more important things on the list involve thinking about nursing stuff and aren’t terribly interesting. They’ll get done. Eventually.

So am I procrastinator? I don’t think of myself as one because I have places in my life where things must be done. The boys must be places, I have to show up at work on time and preform my duties on time. When I was in school, I didn’t wait until the last minute to study for tests or write papers. If that had been my approach, I would be flippin’ burgers and living in a trailer park. I’m not smart enough to fake my way through school. My Quaker ancestors would think of me as a lazy but then that was the 17th century and I’m not growing my own food or clearing land or fending off Indians. So I have time on my hands to see what my invisible friends are thinking about today; bantering and/or arguing with them. What a lush life.

This being said, last week I made up my mind to be more productive in the new year because I’m about to morph into one of the a Wall-e character. I’m promising myself every day off I will do something physical. Physical beyond pushing the vacuum cleaner or opening the ‘frig door. This will require getting up earlier than 9ish. Working out, walking and going to yoga has been spotty for me but once I do them, I feel much better; my body and soul feel lighter. After the physical is accomplished, I will tackle the creative. The joy I felt those few days before Christmas when I made my sister’s gifts did more for my soul and my state of mind than hundreds of hours in therapy. She loved them by the way. Loved them! I have plenty of projects to occupy me without spending loads of money. Which circles my third goal to eliminate debt and save enough money to go here next year. My fourth goal, to develop a much needed habit of daily meditation and gratitude journaling will--from a metaphysical standpoint--bring me closer to the end of the debt and closer to Spain.

I know I can reach all of these goals. I’m mapping them out day by day. Besides, if I can quit smoking and wean off the nicotine patch the first six months of 2008 and I can do anything. It will take some adjustment to the daily
to-do list extending beyond two items. Fortunately, they aren't chores so it isn't like I'm resolving to poop scoop everyday!

But in the meantime, it’s still 2008 and I have time to check my email and poke around Craigslist before I get busy, right? The last day of my procrastinating life feels much like the last day I was a smoker who smoked cigarettes. Good. I am reveling in my hanging out. It feels good to wait. But unlike smoking I will be able to endulge myself now and again with hanging out and doing nothing. Unless I'm truly addicted to hanging out and doing the bare minimium and that would be bad.

Today’s passage from Manifest Your Desires starts with these words: “Be easy about all of this. Life is supposed to be fun, you know.”

It is supposed to be fun!