A is for Artery - It's Good Enough for Me

I feel like the low battery light has been flashing in my brain lately.  I don’t know what is going on, though I have searched the internet several times for some frightening possibilities.  It certainly couldn’t be that though my body doesn’t require more than six hours of sleep, my mind might be requesting a little more.  It seems more like a specific medical problem, like scurvy.

Would you like an example of this?  (Sorry, I’m not currently accepting negative answers, you have to listen – or read)  Yesterday, I was on the phone with someone who was requesting a code.  I read it off to her.  It started with AH and I felt the need to specify that A was the letter and not the number 8.  So I said, “That’s A as in…” then I froze because for a moment I couldn’t think of any words that start with A.  After a momentary pause, my mouth took over without the feeble help of my mind.  “That’s A as in… ummm...Artery.”  That caused her a moment of pause, then she said, “A like Apple?”  I told her yeah, she was right, her word was better and please excuse me, I’ve just been reading WebMD all day.  She did not laugh or smile (at least I couldn’t hear her lips pulling away from her dry teeth). 

Although, maybe this next one isn’t all that recent a problem, it still wreaks of nonsense… we have a famous story in our house that Mark loves to tell.  Shortly before we got married, we were at a baseball game in Detroit.  We were sitting next to the bullpen (I just had to look this up to make sure I was using the right word here – we are a soccer specific family) watching the pitchers warm up.  I suddenly got to thinking deeply.  I turned and asked Mark where the baseball players go for halftime.  He started laughing at me and immediately shared the comment with our friends and everyone we have ever met since then.  [In Mark’s defense, I am aware of the stupidity of this blunder and enjoy a laugh over it.  I just like to play up the injured party role for everyone to read.]

I thought the word was “Wheel barrel” until I read the word “Wheelbarrow” in one of Eli’s learn-to-identify-words-with-pictures books.  

I also thought “pedestal” was “pedestool” until a time I am not going to identify here (I actually think pedestool makes greater sense, by the way).

I wonder if I’m going to just have to accept being dumb.  I’ve been feeling superior for being able to correctly identify all the locations of states and their capitals but it turns out that is not such a great feat, many 5^th graders know this.  And 4-year-olds know words that start with A.  Woe is me. 

This is why I can’t home-school my kids – there would be a pack of second generation fools living in my house.  

I’m going back to WebMD to start memorizing symptoms of diseases now.  If I can succeed in just one thing, I can succeed in all things (I just made this up – it’s an absolutely untrue statement). 

P.S.  I was an English major, all these word hiccups should embarrass me.

P.P.S.S.  I’m sorry to my Alma mater if these revelations drastically decrease your future English department enrollments .

Tooth Flairy

Yesterday marked a momentous occasion in our house.  Eli lost his first tooth (you probably thought I was going to say I cooked an edible meal, didn’t you?  No such luck).  After weeks and weeks of fiddling with it, if finally dangled loosely while he alternately jiggled and whined.  I told him I would be pulling it sometime during the day and he should be getting himself mentally prepared.  While he fake cried about this promise, I advised him that my mom used to sit on us and yank our teeth out when they were loose.  I would be happy to call in Grandma for back-up if he would prefer.  That quieted him.  He finally decided after dinner that he would allow me to pull his tooth since it was interfering with his ability to enjoy a good chicken nugget.  That baby just fell right out when I touched it.  I put it in a Ziploc bag and hoped the cats wouldn’t try to eat it. 

Recently more than one person has asked us about our stance on the Tooth Fairy, since it is well known that we poo-poo Santa and all his jolly ways.  To be honest, I don’t really even understand the myth behind the Tooth Fairy.  People just believe that a strange lady appears in your room, takes your tooth and leaves you with money?  Why would she want your old teeth?  What does she do with them?   Make a necklace out of them like Crocodile Dundee?  Since I would prefer that some crazy lady doesn't fly around with my children’s teeth strung about her neck, we decided to tell Eli that we would be taking his teeth and leaving him a fortune under his pillow (it was either that or tell him Fat Linda would carry it off in the night though her gifts would hardly be what you want to find anywhere around your bed).  As with Santa, we’ve advised him not to make the Tooth Fairy truth known to his friends; we’ll see if this one is as successful as the Santa debacle has been. 

So when it was time for bed, Eli dutifully placed his Ziploc bagged tooth under his pillow and sweetly dreamed of gum disease.  Meanwhile, I was downstairs rummaging through my wallet.  It turns out I had no single dollar bills.  I wasn’t about to put a $20 under that pillow (I’m rich, b!) and set a precedence I couldn’t maintain.  Since Mark had no dollars either, I had to do something despicable.  I grabbed a dollar that already belonged to Eli (he earned it by changing the oil in my car and unclogging the gutters) and stuffed it in another Ziploc bag.  Since I felt I should contribute some of our own money as well, I grabbed a handful of change from my own wallet.  I counted it up and saw I had $0.66, which I felt was a bad number, so I added another $0.11 for a grand total of $1.77 under Eli’s pillow (Grandma thought this was a bit much for a first tooth but I told her we like to flaunt our money).

I took his bag-o-money and tip-toed into his bedroom.  He was moving around in his sleep and rolled right toward me while I tried to extract the tooth bag.  I thought I was busted so I hit the deck.  In the process, I knocked a bunch of stuff off of his night stand and nearly dislocated three limbs.  Finally, I was able to agilely slip the moneybag under the pillow without jangling the change too much.  Take that, Tooth Fairy! 

This morning, Eli was so excited to find his treasure.  He wanted me to get his other dollar to add this new one to it.  Mark and I shared a guilty expression and told him we didn’t have time for such foolishness but would be happy to help after school.  Meanwhile, I’m about to go buy a Twinkie in order to break my big bill (oh the sacrifices we make for our loved ones).  I wonder if the Tooth Fairy will visit me when all my teeth fall out.  I could use some extra cash – some that I haven’t stolen from my children.  

Here's a picture of ole Gap Tooth.

Landscape Scrape

One of the worst kept secrets in town is that the Clintons are pathetic homeowners.  It’s not like we are negligent; we are not the neighbor with a couch and old mattresses in the front yard.  Rather, we just don’t come equipped with the standard home and garden skills that most people do.

Who is to blame for such a deficit?  Well, I’d have to say our parents.  Because who else do you blame when you don’t have life skills?  We are but poor victims.  We were raised in the school of “When something breaks, either call someone to fix it, or buy a new one”.  So far this works well for us, because of our “Money Bags” situation in life. 

Recently we have hit a snag in our “Call Someone” plan.  Yard maintenance.  You don’t call someone to landscape for you when you are poor people.  You get off your dusty butts and go outside and mow the lawn.  Surprisingly enough, this is not our first home; we have actually owned two other houses prior to this one, though they were both townhouses.  With HOA fees.  With landscapers. [Actually in our first house, we had a tiny enclosed yard.  The previous owners left us their lawnmower but the only way to get it to the backyard was to wheel it through the house, across our stained white carpets.  In the end, we decided it was better just to go out there and cut the grass with kitchen scissors.]

Mark is surprisingly very enthusiastic about growing things and cultivating an attractive exterior plant presentation.  The problem is we just don’t have any botanical knowledge.  Where do you gain such knowledge?  Should we buy a book on how to identify plants and how to prune your wild shrubs?  So far we are just forging ahead, learning as we go.  We are plant pioneers! 

Some examples of the learn-as-you-go process:  in March, all of our plants/weeds/trees began to sprout.  Every day, we would come home and say, “What the heck is growing over there?”  Around our trees some green shoots began to come up.  Mark and I studied them for a while, trying to decide what they were.  We wondered if they were weeds.  Should we pull them?  I reasoned that if they were weeds, they were sure coming up at very regular intervals.  We left them and watched.  They kept growing.  I figured they were some kind of hosta (I learned this word from my mom’s landscaping and call every big leaf plant by this name).  Then one day, a flower showed up.  Turns out they were tulips.  Who would have thought?  They bloomed beautifully for about two weeks, but then the flowers fell off.  I’ve asked several people about what happens now.  Turns out they bloom just once at the beginning of spring and are done.  What a disappointment tulips are. 

Last weekend, we decided it was time for some major yard work.  We had several plants and trees that were knocking into our house (which I recently learned is very bad for the siding).  I was motivated for once to get outside and help Mark.  My job was to take the giant clipping tool and somehow shape a bush into something that looks less like a rainforest plant and more like a civilized plant.  I had to ask Mark if he thought the leaves were supposed to grow at the bottom too.  Nope.  While I was hacking at the bush, Mark was planting an azalea bush we had just purchased.  Since we forgot to borrow a shovel, he was digging a two-foot hole with one of those little garden hand trowels.    He was ultimately successful (Nice Job, Mark).  I, on the other hand, cut half the bush down.  It attacked my hair, scratched my arms and made me paranoid about getting ticks in my hair.  I think it looks better than it did before since none of the bottom used to be visible.

Then we moved on to the back of the house.  What to do with a tree that was slapping at the house?  We studied it and strategized.  I used my giant clipping tool to ineffectually cut a few bottom branches off.  Then it occurred to me that if we took down the whole giant side of the tree, nothing would touch the house.  Mark agreed that this was a good idea and immediately got after it with a hand saw (while standing on a step-stool balanced on sinking rocks).  When he was about halfway through it, we both paused to think clearly.  Wait a minute.  If we cut down this part, about 25 feet of tree will come falling down and crush a.) our house, b.) our fence, or c.) the neighbor’s house.   The tree was conveniently located very close to all three of these choices.  Since there were 45 mph wind gusts that day, we couldn’t just leave the tree halfway cut.  We decided we could cut chunks of the tree from higher up so it wasn’t so big when it came down.  Mark used the giant clipping tool to get some branches (all of which we had to guide to the ground for fear of being brained).  Then he climbed up the tree, balanced precariously and started to saw off higher parts at a very awkward angle.  [At this time, I was envisioning Mark sawing off a human limb and then falling bloodily out of the tree.  I was ready to catch him or throw the step stool under him to break the fall.]  Eli stood back and shouted words of encouragement the whole time.  He’s a good one to have in a pinch.  

Finally, there was no more tree-climbing and sawing could do.  We had to take that tree down and pray for non-disastrous results.  We balanced the already felled parts of the tree on the fence, (impressive idea, Mark!) to possibly distribute the weight of the falling tree (or just to scratch our arms while we reached through it).  Mark made the final saw cuts and we tried to guide/catch the tree as it started to fall.  Luckily we both have super-human strength so disaster was averted.  The fence didn’t collapse.  No damage was done to any house.  We carried twenty-five feet of tree through our yard (what do you do with a tree?) and put it at the back of our property.  We’ve told ourselves we’ll go back there and saw it into pieces someday soon. 

Here are some After pictures of the tree.  Notice the total lack of symmetry.

I chopped up one more giant bush, but unfortunately this one had poor results.  I only was able to do half the job but when I eventually finish, there will only be a bunch of sticks and no leaves at all.  Here is a picture of it.  I haven't actually touched the top yet (obviously).

What can I say?  I can prune a mean shrub.

In the end, our adventures were mostly successful.  No more trees or bushes smack our house.  Our siding is saved.  We are sore and scratched up and probably have ticks in our hair, but we do it all for the love of our house.  We both have an amazing feeling of accomplishment.  I think we definitely have a shot at the “Most Beautiful Yard” award this year (if only our tulips would stay in bloom!   Lazy flowers.)  

Randomized Results

Every now and then I have a day where the number of random events climbs into the hundreds.  I just had one of these.  I found myself alternating between saying, "What!?" and giggling all day.

I don't even know if I can capture all the moments in words and the ones I can attempt have to be vague so I don't offend anyone.  Also, I can't remember most of them anymore, probably because I drank Diet Coke yesterday (everyone knows aspartame increases memory loss).  So already I know this is going to be an amazing blog entry.

Let me just give you a quick list of the highlights.

In the morning, before work, when I was rushing around (a touch more crazy than usual since Mark was out of town), Marina decided she would answer every inquiry with "in my BUTT".  Eli asked her where Mr. Foofy was (I have no idea what this means) and Marina shouted back, "in my BUTT".  While this was funny, I honestly have no idea where it came from.  For fun, I asked Marina where her socks were and where I should put her glass of milk...  Looks like she is going to be a worthy member of our family, after all.  Phew!

Later in the day, I was minding my own business when someone came up to me to have what seemed to be a regular conversation exchange.  About a line into it though, this someone exclaimed, "I'm so nervous, I can't stop pooping!  I've been in the bathroom all day!"  I was so flabbergasted, I didn't know how to react.  I barely was able to mutter an "Oh really?" This wasn't someone who I regularly trade bathroom stories with (there is an exclusive club with these rights).  She "dropped" this bomb out of no where.  As the talker changed over to a more conservative topic, I kept hearing the line repeated in my head and could not contain myself.  I was giggling at inappropriate times and my face was hurting from trying to from smiling.  I have very little self control when it comes to toilet stories.

In the evening, my sister and I went to an event that my dad invited us to.  It was amazingly random, put on by the Spanish Club at the local college.  There was food and a Latin Cumbia band.

*Side note:  I'm totally shocked by what the "kids these days" are wearing.  When did people stop wearing pants in public?

As we sat at the tables, the lights went down and the band started blaring.  Out of no where, people ran from their seats and started dancing.  And we aren't talking the normal feet-shuffling wedding reception dancing, these people were all out professional-style Latin dancing.  I could only sit and stare.  Here is a very dark and noisy video that does no justice to the kind of impressive moves we saw.  Apparently cell phone cameras don't work well in the dark.

We went out a few times to attempt to copy some moves.  A very tall girl asked me to dance with her.  I mumbled some kind of awkward refusal.  My non-confrontational sister had to dance two very uncomfortable sets with different people, while I giggled nearby.

All the time I sat in my chair, all I could think is, "Man, this has been the weirdest day."  We wanted to stay there watching the amazing dancing people longer but after my dad left at 9:30 pm, we felt that we were sitting ducks for the crazies.  I didn't want anymore ladies asking me to dance.

Speaking of random, I can't stop watching this little gem in the shaky pants...

I actually wish every day could be like this.  Laughter does wonders for a high-strung freak-show like me. 

A Walk to Forget

Last week the Clintons went on an adults-only vacation.  By that, I don't mean a Vegas trip where we only remember arriving and departing from the airport; but rather, we went to Florida and hung out on the beach without our kids (they were supervised at home, not locked in our hotel room).

As usual, we ran toward the adventurous side so we let down our hair (sorry about the size of my wind-blown hair, Florida) and did crazy things like purchase sunblock and White Rain brand hair mousse from the dollar store.

Even though those purchases turned out to be a bust (major sunburn after some unwise prolonged sun exposure on Day 1 and five full days of ugly hair in public), we had an excellent time.  Here is a view from our chairs, taken while we baked our skin.

Risky dollar store investments weren't the only daring activities we took part in... One of the days, Mark was doing some internet research, scoping out some local food establishments.  We chose an obscure Mediterranean restaurant located just under three miles away.  Mark suggested we walk there on the beach.  Since I was committed to being Vacation Lily (a much better form of me, the non-wet blanket type), I eagerly agreed that this would be spectacular (although privately I had my doubts, but hey, it was vacation!  That and I had eaten over 6,000 calories already that day.)

Around 5:00 pm, we started out at a leisurely pace on the beach, stopping to search all the seashells for the elusive, twisty mini-conch shell (image shown below).

I was freshly showered; my wet, White Rain moussed hair alarming the general public.  We soon realized that our ambling cost us large amounts of time and we were not making any progress at all.  We knew that when we passed the Double Tree Hotel, we would have made it just over half way.  When the Double Tree finally came into view, we concluded that we may have made a tactical error, but being the high achievers we are, we pressed on.  Miles and hours later, we walked into the restaurant - where it turned out we didn't even understand what we were ordering.

As we finished our meal, there was yet another problem.  We also hadn't counted on the sun setting.  Oh well, we were on vacation!  Throwing caution to the wind and the darkness, we decided to stop for some after-dinner treats before starting our journey back home.  Lily went for a Starbucks coffee.  Mark waited patiently for 40 minutes in a line of indulgent parents buying their kids blue cotton candy ice cream topped with nasty gummy bears at Coldstone.  By the time we stepped back outside, complete darkness had fallen.

It was then that our non-Vacation brains kicked in.  Walking three miles on the beach at night seems like a good way to get murdered or robbed.  What was the other option?  How about walking along the side of A1A (Beachfront Avenue!  Thank you, Vanilla Ice).  Want to make that even better?  How about two people walking down a major highway at night (unlit because lights attract sea turtles) in flip flops (sorry, Dr. Scholl).

Half a mile into our night walk, with cars zooming by, our sidewalk ended.  We trudged (almost barefoot) through the thick-blade, spongy grass, feet sinking all the way.  All I could think about was crawly insects and snakes slithering across my feet, but Vacation Lily couldn't stop giggling at our adventure.  Even though there was a sidewalk on the other side of the highway, we stubbornly refused to cross for a mile because we were sure our sidewalk would come back.  It never did.

Luckily we didn't die.  We did get spooked plenty and watched a drunk man with a pizza box cross the street and walk into a forest of Florida foliage (I hope he didn't die either).  Mile after mile we trudged on until we saw the beacon of light calling us to our hotel.  Feet aching, we approached our last hurdle: an overpass with three flights of stairs on each side.  I started playing the Rocky theme in my head and up we went.

Here's a picture of Mark joyfully climbing:

At 11:00 pm, we walked back into our hotel room, all sweaty, our feet burning, my hair amazing.  The odometer on my flip flops read six miles.

Here is a visual image of our walk.  Those tiny little white lines are all the streets we walked past.  Feel free to be impressed.

When Mark and I retire, we are definitely considering contracting ourselves out as vacation planners for the masses.  I'm fairly sure we have hidden talent.    

Overall, this was an excellent adults-only vacation, even with the adventures, maybe especially because of the adventures.