That pretty much sums up my thoughts & feelings on today’s anniversary. I don’t necessarily feel safer, but I know I’m a bit sadder than I was 5 years ago. I called my dad that morning, and he didn’t have any more answers than anyone else. Now, he’s gone; we’re still fighting a war we can’t extricate ourselves from, people are coming up with crazier & crazier ways to attempt to blow up planes, and in the end, we just have to keep on living. With our memories, with our sadness, with the joy that comes from unconditional love. Love. Love trumps Crazy every time.

Today is just one snarl after the other, most of which are coming through my curled sneer of an upper lip. ROWR!

Traffic around these parts is fucked up. There is no sugar-coating it. The goddamn circus people screwed up the Plaza (and didn’t even deliver on shooting people out of cannons, according to my sources), the goddamn art fair in Westport blocked off a very busy section of town, sending cars through the parking lot of a local overpriced grocery store, and over quite possibly the largest speedbump in the Midwest. Seriously. I was going 3 mph and thought I might pull a Duke Boys on the downside of that bad mo-fo. I looked to see if a bassett hound had snuck into the front seat. Then, I heard from another scout that my commute home will be royally jacked up because President Bush is in town for some $1,000 a plate fundraiser at some swanky mansion and security will be high. High as a motherfuckin’ KITE and won’t that be fun, given that all the road through there is TORN UP for repaving. At least I got the heads-up on that one and will take a different road home.

Spending 40 minutes to get Vietnamese take-out while some ass clown from Kansas tries to talk on the phone and read all the street signs on the Plaza while traveling between 15mph and 40 mph, and erratically changing lanes in front of me might be YOUR idea of a good time? You might deduce from all the salty language I was NOT a happy camper. Add to that I’ve hit my limit with rudeness and with being patient, and I think it’s probably safe to say the whole world should be glad it’s Friday. I’ve got some fun things planned for this weekend, the skunk smell is abating, and the Chiefs play on Sunday. Stay safe, and stay away from Ward Parkway & 55th tonight!

Perhaps the idea of the helmet was not so funny to you yesterday?

It still is funny here.

Self-portrait with Ski Helmet, 2006
(Shaking from laughing, thus the extra blur)

This one I like to call, “All The Cool Kids Are Doing It.”

Work Conversation:

Me (to co-worker, J): “What would it take for you to wear that helmet all day?” (motioning to a ski helmet sitting on a desk.

J: “I’ll tell you what it’d take. Dunkin Donuts coffee.”

Me (perking up): “Really? That’s it?”

J (immediately sensing he has set the bar too low): “I mean, a fresh, hot cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee, in a Dunkin Donuts cup, and a pound of beans.”

Me: “Try it on. Let’s make sure it fits.”

After faintly protesting it will mess up his hair, J tries on helmet. Perfect fit. Looks extremely…..special.

Me (doubled over laughing): “I am SO GLAD I found your price. And that it’s so low!”

Oh yes. We’ll be driving to Lawrence, KS one morning for a cup o’ Dunkin Donuts coffee & some beans. Even I will get up early for that one. Because I’ll be bringing my CAMERA as well. Nobody can say, even in the worst of it, that we don’t have a good group of people who love to laugh……

…that prompted me to call PetSmart at the last minute before leaving the office. Lo-and-behold, they carry this:

I’d already done the math, and buying 10 packages of Massengil (or Summer’s Eve, you know, I’m not brand loyal) would have been over $40 – this stuff was $10. The part I liked was that you leave it on the dog to dry & keep odor-busting. I’m still waiting on the odor-bustin’, as she just strolled up and when I scratched her head, it still smells a bit like someone across the way hit a skunk. Eeesh.

So, sorry, no pics of the Wo and I wielding douche bottles two-handed, littering the backyard with a visual worthy of Flickr front page ……
Instead, here’s a Warhol-esque composite – feel free to make ‘er poster size.

But in all my searching, I did discover the Sound of an Angry Skunk, and we plan to play it repeatedly at high volumes while shouting “NO! BAD! NO!” over and over while shining a light in Suzy’s eyes.
From a distance.

Well, hubby came home from hunting/scouting yesterday – and they (primarily Suzy) had gotten poofed by a skunk no bigger’n a kitten. LURVELY. I found a recipe online that used hydrogen peroxide, baking soda & soap, but it hasn’t eliminated the odor.
Now, I’m left to the last resort – feminine douche. I did some more research today & this is what people are swearing by! Most sites dismissed tomato juice, interestingly enough.

So, that should be fun at Target tonight, I can just imagine the eyebrow raise of the cashier when I roll through with fifteen boxes of extra-strength whatever – and it’s not like you can quickly explain, “It’s for my dogs…” Poor Suzy. She wants lovin’ but she stinks too much – and then Polly laid on her bed, so she picked up the smell, too. Basically, it’s just good times and Douche Night at the NuWo residence….

Let’s roll back, back to the days of Widow Creek, when the Wo & I lived in a lovely two-bedroom apartment in a complex that doubled as God’s Waiting Room for many of Kansas City’s aged, one of whom was our neighbor and we were never lucky enough for HER to die, Good O’l Harriet. That Christmas, my dad asked me what James would like for his present, and I told him: A Bunn Coffeemaker. James has a great love of the Bunn, its speed for brewing, how it always has a reserve of hot water at the ready, it’s truly the perfect coffeemaker for the Duck Hunting Home (where coffee is made at 2:30 a.m.). So, not surprisingly, we were gifted with a very nice Bunn coffeemaker, and it served us well after we moved into our home, just fitting under the kitchen cabinet. Then, I decided to subscribe to the magazine versio of Consumer Reports, in addition to the online subscription I had. (Seriously, I support Ralph Nader in so many ways, except for that whole “Let’s Only Own One Pair Of Boots” thing. I have four pairs of Crocs, for chrissake.)
DUM dum DUUUUM! In either the first or second issue, I see “RECALL! BUNN COFFEE!” and shortly thereafter, ascertain that we own one of the models prone to bursting into flames. (A small percentage, of course, but all the same. FLAMES.) We were given the option to either send it in for repair, or we could purchase a brand-new coffeemaker for half-price. After looking at the options, we decided to upgrade, and buy the coffe brewer that came with a thermal carafe, and that would eliminate the nearly-daily question of “Did you turn the coffeepot off?” Bueno. Great. New coffee maker, no die in a fire.

So when I came home from work on Thursday, weary from the repetitive motion of putting my angry eyes off and on all day, I espy with my angry eyes? A letter from our friends at Bunn. Oh yes. Apparently 16 of the half-million coffee makers they produced during such-and-such time for such-and-such models have melted and caught on fire. Please to be checking under your pot to see if yes indeed, you too could DIE IN A FIRE. Well of COURSE our model is under the recall. We have options, once more. We can send it in for repair? Or we can have a whole new one sent, free of charge.

Of course we chose the brand-new one, free of charge. We selected the “Open Flame Brewing Method With Extra Oxygen Tanks And Meltaway Plastic” model. It’ll be great. I hope we get at least one pot of coffee out of it before it self-combusts.

I almost want to start a different blog, that’s just for grieving. But it would mean dividing myself up more, trying to shield you from “the bad stuff”.

It’s just such a roller coaster, and I expect it won’t always feel this lurchy, but then hell, I don’t really know what to expect. I just know that millions of people before me have gone on after losing someone they love, gone on with their lives, have made the best life they can, have continued to feel all the emotions they are open to in their life, but it’s all done with this extra “layer”. I was so surprised last night, my inability to stop crying, how these tears slid out of my eyes, not hot, burning tears, I kept hearing the words “silky tears” as they smoothly welled up and over and down my cheeks, large full tears sliding and gliding and dropping off my face. They’ve reappeared multiple times today and I’ve done my best to just contain them. I had the afternoon off – last of the summer hours – and I picked some late summer tomatoes while the dogs rolled in the grass and lived in the moment. That’s really what it all comes back to – and I won’t deny or ignore or stuff my sadness and tears, or throw them into a vacuum-sealed separate blog. I love nothing more than entertaining people, making them laugh, being clever, pairing the right words together so they literally crunch in your mouth like a tart granny apple. I’ve never been this wounded before. I search for metaphors, that’s how I live my life in my head, describing sensations and feelings through parallel pictures, and the first image I always get is that grief is like a deep, jagged wound – yet wounds heal. You see the scar for some time, and then ten years later you don’t even notice it. This isn’t like that. The best I can come up with is that it’s like some cartoon auger bored a hole straight through me, smack in my chest, just a cross-section plug of Jennifer, through & through that can never be gotten back, it will never fill in. I have clothing over it, I have learned to train my eyes not to scrutinize the hole, to push or pull at it or hate it or deny it’s there. Even though it’s covered, and most of the time, you don’t see it, sometimes the north wind screams out of the sky and rushes through that hole, freezing you to the core with its cold, cold pain and it feels like you’re losing that piece of you all over again fresh, the phantom pain and the memory of what was, all blended with sadness.

I am going to enjoy my weekend. Even if big tears still slide out of my eyes once in a while. Shopping & sewing, cleaning & movie-watching, knitting & hanging out with friends, my life is as full and complete as it can be – even with my hole.

I shut my eyes last night and you were there.
Smiling at me, across the grass at the wedding party.
Sleeping in your big leather chair.
Face turned up to the cold January sky in our backyard.
And as if the earth opened up beneath my feet, the great yawn of sadness engulfed me.
It won’t let go.
Did you know? Did you see me, looking at you?
I always looked to you for guidance, for wisdom.
Did you always know, even in our times of silence, distance, time that slipped by, did you know how boundless my love was for you?
Did your heart always feel me there?
Sometimes the time and silence and space now feels like one of those times gone by, until the start and realization hits that you aren’t here anymore.
And knowing you won’t be on the phone, or in my backyard, or will ever give me a crinkly-eyed smile again breaks my heart anew.
How can an experience feel two hundred years old and in reality be less than three months?

Like yesterday, where you expect to hear a chorus singing “Everything’s goin’ my waaaaaay” and then there are days like today, which, according to Amazon, is the day my books are going to arrive, look at them stepping up and gettin’ ON IT, so thanks for that guys, because the rest of the day makes me want to run around with my hands over my head like I’m a monster in a bad Michael Jackson video, and I want to grimace and shriek and yell at anyone in my path, and some of those in my path will also be bitch-slapped. Which means I’ll have to bring my hands down from up over my head, BUT, I’m just going to have to bust up the choreography & do it.

I’m seriously considering getting a punching bag for my office. And my books just arrived, right this minute. I yelled, “Praise Jesus” at our office manager. Maybe this means we’re working towards an upward swing again. I’m ready to put my hands over my head at any minute, however. BUST A MOVE or BUST SOME HEADS.