….and what a fantastic vacation it was. More on it, of course, with pictures, but here are my bullet points from yesterday’s day o’ travel.
- Reward travel sucks, because they put you on the killer flights, as in, 7:25 a.m departure, so you are getting up at 3:45 a.m. for a shuttle.
-Cancun Airport TSA would like the world to know that KNITTING NEEDLES ARE DEADLY. The very dour Julia told me to go put them in my checked luggage as they could absolutely not go on the plane. (Addi Turbo Lace circs, #4s, about as deadly as pencils or a belt, but ok.) FYI, one’s luggage is not sitting around waiting for you to put it back in, but thanks for the hike, Julia. Also, FYI, if you try a different security line with your knitting needles, they will still take them. I thought I’d try it, since Julia was also extremely concerned about my bar of Christopher Elbow chocolate (made me open it to show it was, indeed, chocolate.) So I initially thought she was being a gigantic beyotch and thus upon seeing the second security lane open, thought, ‘What the hell’. Told JWo after the fact “I had a plan,” even though I really didn’t, I was going to feign stupidity and confusion, I think. In the back of my mind, I knew that $15 needles were not worth ending up in a Mexican prison over (nor were they worth spending $50 to check them!) Please recall the time of day. JWo felt bad and bought me a bottle of Bombay Sapphire at the duty-free shop. Along with four other bottles of booze, because criminy, duty-free airport booze is CHEAP. (Kahlua - $13!)
-Gotta love my honest husband who told the customs agent as we were funneling through after retrieving our luggage that we had 10 bottles of booze. (Five more we’d packed in our luggage, purchased prior to the airport.) Turns out we’d gotten into the Very Anal Customs Agent line, and even though we told him some of the bottles were small (they were!), he said something about seeing just how small they were and made us go into the Here We Search And Grill Ye Customs Department. There were approximately 75 people in the non-residents line, and as we entered with our carts of luggage, we were beckoned straight up to an agent, since we were, quite obviously, the only US Citizens in the HWSAGYCD.
-I will not use this agent’s name, but let me tell you, he looked like he could send us to Pound Us In The Ass US Prison without blinking. A BMF, for all you Pulp Fiction aficionados. James handed him our declaration form, that VACA had scrawled over with red ink, indicating we were here because we had ten bottles of alcohol. This very intimidating agent seemed to be struggling to contain his amusement. “Ten bottles of liquor?” We nodded. We were then informed that as Missouri residents, we were only allowed to bring in EIGHT bottles (four apiece), and as we sort of gosh-gollyed stammered our responses, he continued, informing us that Texans are only allowed one. Continuing to half-smile, but looking like he was trying not to bust out laughing, he informed us that yes, he could collect some tax from us, but really, that’s a lot of paperwork and that’s not what his purpose was, his job there today. I also got the impression that perhaps he was a bit irritated with the Very Anal Customs Agent for having even bothered him with something so trivial. He waved us towards the exit and we gushed our thanks. Oh, Julia? You could learn something from this man.
-As we exited, we found ourselves flanked by some returning military folks, and at the sight of them, two grandma-type volunteers, dressed in red, white & blue, waving patriotic pom-poms began whooping and cheering. I smiled, because I thought that was pretty cool, but then as we started to turn to the area to re-pack our luggage, I looked back and saw the grandmas were in the airport section, but beyond them was a big room, with a double door, and lined up inside were all the families waiting for their family member, pressed up as close to the door and one another as they could be, eagerly waiting for the soldier they knew was coming (thanks to the whooping grannies) to round the corner to see if he or she belonged to them. I get a lump in my throat just typing about it, because it was such raw, aching joy and love, palpable even from 20 feet away. We got an even better perspective when we arrived home in Kansas City, standing by the baggage carousel - one soldier on our flight was waiting for his bag, and he and his girlfriend were entwined, he finally just picked her up and held her piggy-back style, holding her legs, her arms around his neck. Turns out he’d been in Iraq, and they hadn’t seen each other for four years.
My brain, it whirs. It whirs and whirs and puzzles and questions and wonders. I see really crazy people and I wonder what their living rooms look like. I enjoy deciphering vanity plates, and am often amused by the assortment of bumperstickers people will affix to their car.
So when I found myself behind this truck the other evening, my brain kicked it into high gear.
Ah, lassie, thar’s a Shamrock. Hmmmm. Irish? But it’s on a black truck. Hmmm. Black Irish. In flames? That’s kinda strange, plant life on fire, but the flames are green, so maybe it’s symbolic, and back to that shamrock, hmmmmm…..
And then the truck pulled into my lane, and as the light shifted, I realized there were SKULLS ON EITHER SIDE OF THE SHAMROCK and that’s when I had to put my phone on camera mode, because boy, howdy, you might see a shamrock, and you might see green flames, and you might even see a shamrock with green flames, but skulls haunting out of the flames on top of it all? Dude, that is what makes the difference between bloggability and the brain just whirring.
The first time we saw it, we both sort of looked at each other in an amused, panicked sort of way, as we misplace objects in unusual places all the freakin’ time. NOW. Before I continue, let it be known I am not making light of Alzheimer’s at all. I know several friends who have and continue to cope with their parent(s) going through it. And I realize there’s a difference between me losing a piece of paper vs. someone with the actual disease. What started to really bug me about this commercial was this:
Wife is obviously searching for her keys. Husband is reading the paper on the couch. What does he say? “I’ll help you look.” AND GOES AND POURS HIMSELF A CUP OF COFFEE. Yes, I realize it’s a plot device. But I noticed it after a couple more times I saw the spot, and I went, “You fucker, you’re not helping her at all! You’re getting some coffee! This is all designed to get you into the fridge so you can see the keys behind the creamer!”
Now, the look on his face when he sees the keys is a heartbreaking mix of emotions and the casting was fantastic, they both seem quite sweet, as if they spend every winter doing dinner theater as Mr. and Mrs. Claus. But I still find myself snarking a little bit when I see it.
…and I am very grateful to the person who invented air conditioning! Gah! We’re under an extreme heat warning now through Wednesday, as our mid-to-upper 90’s are combining with our excessive humidity and making it feel like, I don’t know, EXPLOSIVE, in both Celsius and Farenheit.
The heat also makes tempers a little shorter, I think. I just fired off an email to some feller over in Roeland Park KS who has used some service that keeps autodialing me with a recorded message pushing his city council campaign. First of all? I am at work and it’s not legal to telemarket or call people at their place of business. Two? I’m in freakin’ MISSOURI, so I can’t even vote for you. STOP IT.
Got through Father’s Day… we watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button on Saturday night, and that made me teary, as did numerous other things all weekend long. Heightened sensitivities, to be expected, I guess. I’m irritated with social media turning into one giant playground, with people friending and unfriending and blocking and behaving like it’s high school. Oddly enough, they end up being the ones looking foolish, so there’s hope the universe isn’t devolving as quickly as it feels, sometimes. I’m irritated that my insurance company kicked back a bill for a mammogram because it had the layer of diagnostics attached to it. I see. Yes, Yes, I should have to pay out-of-pocket for more expensive x-rays and a sonogram, since we were checking a lump - if everything’s a-ok, then it’s covered. If you THINK you might have cancer, we don’t want to cover that, we’ll just pay for tests when you’re healthy. Logic. The insurance industry Does Not Have It. Actually, after a call to them this morning, and being put on hold a few times, resulted in a ‘re-evaluation’ and the conclusion that it was processed incorrectly. Ya think?
What’s to be cheerful about? Well, vacation is approaching, and the new pool is up, full, and not leaking. Thank heavens. And I’ll be turning the page on the ol’ Calendar of Life in a couple weeks - I do still enjoy the b’day celebrations. All the plants are bursting along in the garden - hubs started a gardening blog, you’ll have to check it out: http://kctomatotimes.wordpress.com/ The man knows a lot about gardening, that’s for sure!
We have an abundance of basil, so I made pesto yesterday, and then contemplated the abundance of Thai basil that we have. It all got whacked, so it will continue to thrive and grow and not put effort into creating seed, so everything got a healthy trim. There is one basil variety that has a strong licorice taste to it, so I got creative and boiled the leaves and stems with about three cups of sugar and three cups of water. Let it cool, strained it into a mason jar, and popped it in the fridge. Made a cocktail combining about 3 parts Basil Syrup to 2 parts Gin, and a squeeze of lime. Shake on ice, strain into a martini glass. It was sweet, but with enough tang and flavor to not be syrupy. I’m thinking about trying it in some pineapple juice next!
I need to decide what knitting project is going along to Mexico with me, and what the pattern should be. I want to do something lacey, maybe with some of the Handmaiden Sea Silk I have in my stash, and I want a pattern that’s visually entertaining but not mentally taxing, but not feather-and-fan, either. Hrmph. Suggestions?
Alrighty, that’s the report for today. Hope you’re staying cool, wherever you are, and your positives are greater than your irks!
Hubs ran into Wal-Mart last night for bait (yes, that would be one of the distinctions between WM and Target - ) and I waited in the car. I did a giant loop-de-loop around the lot and then parked near the door, ready to move should it become an active Fire Lane.
While waiting, a guy ran up (not sure from which direction), plugs in some tool, and starts working on this other unidentifiable object he was carrying. Dude spends a few minutes doing this, and then unplugs his whatchamajig, picks up the flat thingy and saunters off.
I’m going with yet another differentiator from Target?
Well, that was a doozy of a week. As each day passed, it got more and more brutal, it seemed! We’re doing a software conversion, and there are elements within the software that defy logic. So as I was connecting said software to my department’s software, there were bumps. And granted, I expected a learning curve, and some frustrations - nothing like this is ever smooth - but one particular piece of it just blew my mind, it defied logic so badly. Actually, I finally had to call the help line, because I was tired of creating work-arounds to make up for the elements not matching (I realize this makes little sense unless you use both of these pieces of software) and the help lady, who is somewhere in the South, drawled, “Oh yes, we tell folks NEVER to delete lines in that before sending it over.” Huh? That’s the whole point of being able to revise things and preserve the data integrity between systems? Classic. Anyway, I had some long days and maddening moments, but the bulk of it’s done, and now the cleanup part will begin next week.
We did get a fun night in Thursday, tailgating and watching the company kickball team win their game - followed by the final Love Tusk show at the Riot Room. I felt old, though - when their set ended, there was no way we could stay out for any of the other bands. (yawn!) And now it’s Saturday night, I’ve done pretty much nothing with my day, and oh yes, the cops have been by for their regular pilgrimage to Crazy Cat Lady’s home. Who knows what drama is goin’ on over there. Tomorrow, brace thyselves - it’s Mt. Laundry time. Livin’ the Vida Loca here, as we move past another anniversary, clamber over the army training wall (I mean, software conversion) and when it gets really bad, I just look at the calendar and tell myself….”Cancun. Cancun…..”
…and in others, it’s a bit like Prometheus, chained to a rock and waiting every day for the birds to rip his liver from his chest. Only these birds are ripping out my heart.
Tomorrow will be three years since my dad died. Six weeks ago, I started feeling this huge amount of dread. Three weeks ago, it went away. I basked in the departure of those emotions. Wahoo! Pesky grief. Even upon hearing about my good friend’s dad dying, a co-worker buddy of mine who has had his share of woes thrown upon him this year. Even today, talking to him, hearing about the funeral, hearing about his father’s last moments, I felt distance. Three years of distance.
Then, five minutes ago, I realized it was three years ago, exactly, almost to the hour, that I got the call to come home. He was dying. The unavoidable loomed large and dark and high and impassible. Those moments and hours that allowed the tiniest light of hope to flicker, still, no matter how daunting it seemed. To no avail.
Like a thunderclap, a summer microburst, fucking grief. It will pass as quickly, but the drenching is thorough.
When we moved into this house nearly 7 years ago, I chirped constantly about how our neighborhood is ’such a mix!’ because, well, it was. And still is. There are people who’ve lived their entire lives in the same house, back before there was a shopping center at 99th & Holmes, there are people who’ve just moved in, renting a house, there’s a gorgeous mansion-like home sitting on four acres of land, and then? Then there’s the batshit-crazy cat lady across the street, and now - with glitter! - another relative of some sort living next door, in the house on the corner that used to be owned by the bank and now enjoys a driveway full of cars, parts, crap and then some more crap. This would be the same family who hung outdoor Christmas light netting haphazardly around the top of their living room ceiling. And the same family that post-Thanksgiving, had about 6 bottles of Seven whiskey in the recycling. And the same spot where I happened upon the Crazy Drunk Guy (who is the primary resident, I believe) in handcuffs on the side of the road when I came home one night. (with two cop cars and plenty o’ po-lice.) There is a third character in this motley crew, and he has been on crutches for about two years. Damn leg must keep breaking? I dunno. I may also have already mentioned the main form of entertainment for these fantastic contributing members of society is to sit in a lawn chair in their driveway & drink beer, while listening to classic rock coming out of the speaker in the trunk of a car.
The good news - besides our home value declining while city property taxes went up - is that these folks mostly swirl in their own toilet bowl, and keep their festivities contained to the two residences. Until last week.
Last Friday night, I was getting dinner ready & the doorbell rang. James had just come in the back door from the garden, and I asked him if he’d go take care of it, as the doorbell rang again. The half of the conversation I could hear was…. odd and interesting at best, and then I could tell it was ratcheting up a notch. The fact it ended with “If you don’t get off my property, I’m calling the police,” wraps it all up.
So, Crazy Drunk Guy (from the corner house, handcuffs, shit everywhere) comes to the door with a kitten on his shoulder. Like some sort of wackadoodle white trash pirate, I guess. And a broken broom handle stick that’s been out by the street by the road where the garbage is picked up, like, forever. (that’d be our contribution to the neighborhood trash. a broken stick.) And this motherfucker, in his drunken slurred state, accuses my husband of beating a kitten to death in the street. (I’m sorry. I have to stop and laugh. Again. Preposterous and crazy all at once.) With what, you ask? An 18″ stick. How do we know this was the weapon? Because CDG asserts that it had blood and fur ALL over it. James asks him if that’s the case, where is all this blood and fur now (as the stick has nothing on it.) “It fell off,” CDG replies.
Ahhhh. All that time spent in the driveway drinking beer does NOT sharpen one’s CSI skills. James tries to jog the alcohol-deadened logic button, that a dead animal found in the street was probably hit by a car. To no avail. CDG is lookin’ for a fight. James tells him he doesn’t appreciate all these cats running around OUR yard, when we’ve put in the time and money to build a fence to keep our dogs IN and even more money to vaccinate and keep our dogs healthy, which is something they obviously do not do, as they don’t even put a collar on ‘their’ cats.
Now Crazy Cat Lady decides she needs to get on the action. She’s halfway across the street and yelling about how she only has ONE cat. James points out that it’s bullshit, because she has a swarm of them around her house at all times and she feeds all of them. (Hearing CCL start to scream, Crazy Drunk Gimp (CDG 2.0) grabs his crutches and starts making his way from the corner house - oh yes, he’s a regular white knight. Of course it’ll take him half an hour to roll up on our asses, and the fact we can see him coming does nothing to create more intimidation, just comedy.)
“Do you want them to starve?” she brays, an unhinged skeleton trapped by demons, and he, of course, says, “YES.” Because at this point, there is no logic, there is no even playing field here, it’s like trying to play tennis when half the court is a swimming pool. At this point, they are ordered off our lawn under threat of police intervention, back to their never-ending life cycle of bottled beer, flea-laden feral cats, and classic rock enjoyed in a lawn chair.
I’ve got some blog posts written in my head - one will make you laugh - and yet I just have to wait and focus on what’s lived inside my head since Sunday.
I’m absolutely heart-wrenched by the murder of Dr. Tiller. I was sitting at my computer upstairs, waiting for the a/c to cool things down, and up popped a news alert. What hit me in the next moment was shock, anger, tears, grief - all of it. Anyone who’s been around this blog for a while knows my beliefs and my politics. Everywhere I’ve turned this week has reiterated the same things over and over, and I’m tired of reading the bombastic hate speech of those who can barely denounce Tiller’s murder. What Tiller did was - IS - legal. Wrap yourself up in your religion all you like; keep your morality, judgment and legal efforts off of my body. Oh, and isn’t it criminal that I have to even say it? Your bullets.
If you want to make a difference, here are two organizations I actively support:
If you are a recent reader and want to understand more about where I’m coming from, read this blog post.
Want some perspective on how vital these services are? Go to Here and Now, and scroll down to listen to ‘Late Term Abortions’. A woman who was a patient of Dr. Tiller’s has broken her silence; her story is heart-wrenching.
If you want to think about the context and label I have for what happened? I leave you with this :
‘In November 2004, a United Nations Security Council report described terrorism as any act “intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants with the purpose of intimidating a population or compelling a government or an international organization to do or abstain from doing any act”.’
I met a sales rep last week who was, without a doubt, one of the funniest people I’ve met in a really long time. She not only got me with a good zinger, she caught my nan0-second intake of breath and eyes widening as I thought I’d skated too close to offending her. I have a lot of admiration for a quick wit. We’re now friends on Facebook, which with my security settings is saying something.
And I appreciate a good prank. I found out yesterday that one of my co-workers played quite the joke on the account team a few weeks ago, in the rental car. Apparently they got some ginormous Lincoln Town Car, and discovered, much to his delight, that the controls for the FRONT SEATS were in the middle armrest of the BACK SEAT. (This makes no sense. Whatsoever.)
So for two days, he would randomly adjust their seats while they were driving. (not the safest, no, but I don’t think he put anyone into a full-on recline, either.) I think the account people were ready to demand a refund by the time they had to turn the car back in, but that’s when he finally told them what he’d been doing. Now, I have to admire letting it go that long. At some point, I would have been laughing so hard it would have been readily apparent something was up. Whenever I think about this (and imagine the exasperation with the perceived situation), I get the high-pitched giggles. Reminds me of when I was walking out towards the garden & realized my mother hadn’t noticed me, so I ducked behind a large bush & started kinking and un-kinking the hose she was using to water with. Random timing, full-on kink with no water, semi-kink with a trickle, then feel the frustrated tug as I heard her bitching as she yanked on the hose (like it had suddenly gotten bent around something), then the happy sigh of relief as she muttered ‘Oh, good,” or something similar as I let it run full blast again…. only to have it shut off completely once more.
It’s a good thing we didn’t have that Lincoln Town Car when I was a kid.
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