Sassy Buster

Hello, little one.

2011-07-17T20:02:00.001-05:00

Well it wasn’t exactly a return with a bang, more like a soft thud and a whimper, but I am back, and with news.

The mister and I are expecting a daughter. I’m 20 weeks along and everything is looking good. The puking has stopped (FINALLY), I’m starting to feel better, and I already love the little squirmy girl more than I thought I could.

Several days ago I was sitting on the couch and a felt a burbling in my gut. Thinking it was gas (pregnancy is SO GASSY), I turned to the mister and said, “I’m sorry, but that is going to be a wicked fart when it works its way out.” A few moments later I realized that it wasn’t gas, it was the baby.

A week later we had the ultrasound and, oh, the child is definitely my husband’s as she refused to cooperate for a good portion of the ultrasound, leading the sonographer to push, poke, and jab at my belly to get the baby to just roll over already!

We’re over the moon!

Resurrection

2011-07-01T12:30:00.000-05:00

I’ve been gone. I think its time to come back. I’m starting to think in short stories again, to mentally flag things as bloggable, to have more to say than 140-character tweets and posts on Facebook. The mental block of the past year - the one that stifled my words - seems to be gone.

And so I shall return, resurrect this old space, and begin again.

The Simple Things

2010-09-08T11:15:00.000-05:00

The mister's 31st birthday was yesterday.

We had planned on going kayaking, but with wind gusts of 50 mph and intermittent rain, we decided that was a stupid idea and instead spent the day on a model-airplane-store/bike-shop crawl.

For his birthday I gave the mister a handknit sweater and P90X (his request; I am not dumb enough to get someone the devil's workout if it's not something they expressly requested).

His response to both gifts and the delicious homemade dinner and cake I made was enthusiastic.

His response, however, upon going bed and discovering clean sheets, freshly laundered duvets and comforters, and a tidied bedroom, was a bellowed, "Oh, my God, I love you very much."

It's the simple things, I guess.

A box?

2010-08-30T22:10:00.001-05:00

I am working the 3:30 to midnight shift at work. This means, among other things, that my sleeping habits are messed up, my coffee addiction is back in a wicked way, and the mister and I never see each other awake during the week, as our schedules are completely opposite.

Because we never see each other, we talk on the phone a lot.

Tonight's conversation included this gem, which I thought I'd share with you.

Both of us: blah blah blah, chat chat, nothing exciting.

Him: Wow, the kitchen garbage smells.

Me [wondering what could stink, as today was garbage day and the can was empty when I left for work]: So take it out.

Him: Nah. I stuck a box on top of it. It's good.

Me: Are you serious? A box? Take the trash out!

Him: But I don't want to.

Me: If I come home and the kitchen smells because you couldn't be bothered to deal with it and just left it for me, I'm going to be very pissed.

[for similar sentences, see nagging section 5(b): the toilet does not scrub itself, or argument 124: fairies do not chip the dried cheese off your nacho plate, my friend. *I* do.]

Him: But the box...

Me: Trash. Out.

Him: Fine. I'll tie up the bag, but I'm just going to put it on the stoop. You have to put it in the big can.

Me: Fine.

Him: Fine.

Camping

2010-08-10T10:16:00.003-05:00

It had been disgustingly hot all day and we’d been standing in line in the sun or standing on ship decks in the sun. The only shade was what was created by other people standing near us or the brief darkness as we slipped below decks on the HMS Bounty.

But very cool, all that rigging and the sails and the guy dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow.

Upon returning to our campground I bicycled up to the bathroom, eager to shower off the sweat and grime of the day. The showers require quarters. 8 of them, for three minutes of water. I soak my washcloth in the sink and scrub the important parts. Then I stick my head under the faucet and shampoo my hair in the sink. Take that, stupid campground.

***

We head north to Gooseberry, set up our tent, crack a couple of beers, and char some hamburgers over the fire. Ahhh, perfect.

Thunderbolt and lightning, very very frightening!

We sprint with our deck of cards and our annual camping Rummy 500 Tournament to the campground shelter where I proceed to beat the mister rather soundly. This never happens.

We later discover that our tent is waterproof to a point. That point is 3 hours in to an all-night thunderstorm. The tent springs a leak right over the mister’s head. I find this hilarious. The mister does not.

***

We’ve spent a day hiking and walking and dipping our toes in the Gooseberry River. We’ve had our beers and our charred hot dogs and played our nightly game of rummy, where I lost. I knit on the sweater I brought, the only knitting I packed to make sure I would FINISH IT, as it was supposed to be a 30th birthday gift for the mister. His 31st birthday is in a month.

We’re in bed in our tent and the mister is sound asleep. So soundly that he doesn’t hear the clankity-bang of critters getting into our trash because we forgot to tie it up and put it in the pick-up. I get up and scare away a pack of raccoons.

He sleeps with noise canceling ear plugs when we camp. I’m not that brave. I’m afraid that I won’t hear the creepy serial killer sneaking up on us. Because serial killers totally hang out in state parks on the North Shore.

***

It’s a foggy morning and we’re strolling along the shore, watching the fog eddy and flow over the rocky outcroppings. The mister spots something in the distance. One of the tall ships we’d toured earlier in the week, sliding out of the fog on the lake. Eerie and awesome. We sit for the better part of an hour, watching the ship.

***

We’re touring Split Rock Lighthouse and suddenly I look at the mister.
“Hey,” I say. “It’s our anniversary.”
“Happy anniversary,” he replies.
We forget again ten minutes later.

***

He goes mountain biking. I do not. I hate mountain biking and, frankly, am eager for a little respite from the run-go-do-see-hike-busy-busy-busy approach the mister has to vacations. He’s not much for relaxing, that one, and I am. So I stick my knitting and a granola bar in my pack and hike up the river for a mile or two until I find the perfect ledge over-looking the river, with a flat spot for sitting and a rock perfect for resting my back. I settle in, pull my knitting out of the bag, and have a glorious hour of peace and calm.

***

We sit in traffic on 35 southbound, sunburned and tired, our gear packed and stuffed in the bed of the pickup.

He rolls his head towards me, “Good vacation?”
I grin and slip my fingers into his. “Great vacation.”

Babies in the Woods

2010-06-23T08:20:00.000-05:00

This is the mister. Yes, he's a redneck.

He and his friends went four-wheeling on Sunday afternoon.

Look carefully at the above photo. There's the Jeep (Shitbox V, for those of you keeping track). There's a mudhole. There's the mister, trucker cap and all. And in the back seat of the Jeep...those pink things...good God, are those CAR SEATS? Did you bring CHILDREN mudding with you?

They did.

The mister and I are never having children. I'd spend every moment they were out of my sight wondering what dangerous bad ideas he was coming up with and subjecting them to. The stress would kill me.

Photos

2010-06-22T09:15:00.000-05:00

I am still rocking the writer's block and nursing a deep-seated hatred of any time spent in front of a computer screen after the 40 hours I spend in front of one at work. But I've been out and about and remembered my camera, so here are some recent pictures.

Feeding the new lambs on the in-laws' farm. Ignore my double chin.

The mister competed in a mountain bike race and did fabulously right up until the bike broke.

You can't see where it broke because it was COVERED in mud.

My younger brother taking the mister's 30 year old moped for a spin. He's single, ladies, and does his own laundry!

Artemesia in my garden.

The mister and I took a stroll at Minnehaha Creek.

We brought the dog.

We also brought him on a bike ride.

I learned to spin yarn on my new spinning wheel. (I'm still learning. I suck.)

And I knit.

Recipe: Blackberry White Chocolate Scones

2010-06-05T19:30:00.000-05:00

Blackberry White Chocolate Scones

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 sticks cold, unsalted butter, cut into chunks

2 large eggs, beaten
1/2 cup heavy cream

3/4 cup white chocolate chips
3/4 cup blackberries, frozen

Combine dry ingredients in food processor. Add butter and mix until consistency of graham cracker crumbs.

Add in eggs and cream and combine until just blended.

Mix in berries and white chocolate chips.

Turn out onto a well floured surface (dough is SUPER sticky), form into a circle approximately 8" in diameter. Cut into 8 pieces, like slicing a pie.

Place a well-greased cookie sheet and bake in a 400 degree oven for approximately 20 minutes.

___
I use the basic scone recipe above and mix in other ingredients depending on what I have around: the mister likes blueberries and I think cinnamon chips make for good scones. A little lemon juice and some lemon zest is pretty tasty. It's good if you leave them plain and spread a little jelly or jam on them too.

I might need help burying the body

2010-05-26T20:01:00.000-05:00

Yesterday the mister took his moped to work. The moped is 30 years old and doesn't have a key, so he forgot to bring his keys to work.

I didn't know this and just a few weeks ago he read me the riot act for failing to lock up the house when I left, so when I left for work I very conscientiously locked each and every door.

Several hours later, Captain Fantastic gets home from work, realizes he's locked out, and comes down to my office (luckily he'd left the key in the motorcycle ignition, because taking a moped that only goes 25 miles per hour on the freeway would have been bad news) and took MY house key. (We used to have spare keys stashed in the garage but SOMEONE used them and never put them back.)

Knowing he had plans and would be gone for much of the evening, I admonished him to leave the back door unlocked as I would be extremely upset to find myself locked out when I returned home.

Guess who was locked out. It was pouring rain and I had to pee so badly I ended up driving to the local GAS STATION to use their bathroom.

Content

2010-05-22T11:17:00.000-05:00

I haven’t been writing much.

Some of it is work related. I sort of accidentally informed my work about this blog and while there’s nothing on here that I’m ashamed of or worried about them finding, knowing your boss might read something you write is a little bit stifling.

Some of it is just that I’m feeling a bit blocked myself. The words that comes so easily sometimes, the funny little stories about normal things, they’re just not coming right now.

Some of it is that I’m really quite content. I find myself writing when I’m worried or stressed. For example, see my last 6 months at my old job and my 6 months of unemployment. I have never been a more prolific writer or needed the catharsis of getting it out in words more. But now, I’m just content. Busy with work and feeling like I don’t see enough of people, but happy. I have my dog and my husband and my friends and my little house and garden and work and I’m content. I don’t feel the pressing need to write to relieve pressure. (I also don’t break down and weep uncontrollably at random moments – bonus!)

Some of it is that I’m working on a secret writing project (unrelated to my work writing project, which is the one where I accidentally spilled the beans about this personal blog) that occupies the writing portion of my brain. Someday, if I manage to follow through and finish it and it ever amounts to anything, I’ll tell you about it.

For now, I’m camped out in my house, watching it pour outside, sipping hot tea while Bach pours through my stereo, working on my secret writing project and sneaking in a few rows of knitting here and there.

I hope you are just as content with yourself.

Door-Knocking in Numbers

2010-04-20T21:10:00.000-05:00

Times in the past two weeks I have been trapped in my kitchen because I wasn’t wearing pants and there were missionaries or political campaigners at the door: 3

(NB: the two escape routes from my kitchen involve going through the living room or the dining room, both of which are visible from the front door, thus requiring me to advertise that (1) I am home and avoiding the knock, and (2) I am pantsless.)

Number of pudding cups consumed while hiding in the kitchen in my underwear: 2

Times the door-knocker was so persistent I ended up yanking on a pair of the mister’s garage pants (thoughtfully left on the kitchen floor for me to deal with) to answer the door: 1

Times the door-knocker turned out to be a conservative Republican: 1

Times I told the door-knocker, snorting with laughter, “boy, did you pick the wrong house:” 1

Done like dinner.

2010-04-18T17:39:00.001-05:00

My darling friend K got married. I cried, but only a little bit. It was beautiful and perfect and I'm so delighted with the whole affair that despite my aching feet, I'm still grinning.

She is one of a couple of my friends that acts like my knitting is AWESOME and totally not a strange thing for a twenty-something woman to occupy herself with. (MJ is also on this list.)

It’s incredibly gratifying to knit gifts for people like this. First of all, they understand that I’m not just giving a pair of socks, I’m giving hours of time and skill. Second, they tell me about how my handknits are doing. K, for example, wears the hot-pink socks I made her when she does yoga and emails me once in a while just to let me know she’s wearing them.

That, folks, makes my little knitter's heart light up with glee.

So when her wedding date approached, I took on three projects.

First, something for her to toss over her shoulders, something soft and delicate and cozy.

Project: Lady’s Circular Cape from Victorian Lace Today.

This project is by far the most beautiful thing I have ever made. It had its challenges, including techniques I hadn’t tried before, patience-testing yarn prone to knots and tangling and felting in my hands, and a husband hell-bent on getting in my way. There was an incident involving a jar of salsa. There was another incident involving a sharpie. One came out okay. The other resulted in tears.

But the yarn is velvety soft and shows the lace pattern so well and the end result was totally worth the work.

I figure if this shawl can withstand my marital disputes and still be that pretty, it’s got “good luck” written all over it.

Second, something for the new couple to snuggle under.

Project: Girasole by Jared Flood.

Great fun to knit and a very satisfying end result. Originally a much darker green, almost a gray with a hint of green, this puppy took nearly a dozen wash-and-rinses to stop turning the water a muddy shade. It lightened several shades after its baths. Whoops.

Third, and least important, something to toss over my matron-of-honor dress. The day ended up being so warm (and PERFECT) that I didn't need it. In any event, K gifted her bridesmaids with buttery soft pashmina stoles in a lovely parakeet blue that totally trumped my little shawl.

Project: Citron by Hilary Smith Callis.

I added an extra repeat of the pattern just because I am so very long and tall and I didn’t want a bib, I wanted something I could actually wrap up in.

I learned a new technique on this one, too, which was AWESOME. I normally purl slowly. It’s not hideously slow, but on rows of 500+ stitches (see: the last 1/3 of that wedding shawl, above), my pokey method really sucks. One of the women I knit with during Sunday Knitting at my favorite shop taught me the Portuguese method of purling, though, and it is so much faster. Plus, the distraction of learning and practicing a new technique was diverting enough to make those last few soul-sucking rows of the ruffle less daunting.

Also, the yarn for this was simply delicious. Alpaca and silk, buttery soft with a little bit of sheen to it, it was wonderful to knit with. And, bonus, it was $20 for nearly 900 yards. I still have somewhere between one-third to one-half of the ball left.

After these projects, I am a little burned out on lace patterns and skinny yarn on tiny needles. I think I’m going to knit something small on big needles, like baby sweaters. A couple of instant gratification projects are definitely in order!

Conversation

2010-04-15T12:36:00.000-05:00

Me: I'm going to press our clothes for K's wedding, Which suit do you want to wear?
Him: My suits are too small.
Me: You're just going to have to suck it up. You should have gotten them altered 6 weeks ago, now it's too late, so you're going to have to deal.
Him: But I just want to wear comfortable clothes!
Me: This is a very nice wedding at a very nice church. No flip-flops allowed.
Him: God doesn't care what I wear!
Me: But your wife does.
Him: You're not God.
Me: silence
Him: I'll wear the brown suit, please.

Men and Women: Different

2010-04-12T09:35:00.003-05:00

For my friend K's bachelorette party, we did pretty things. We got dressed up, styled, and made-up, and posed for pinup pictures.

Photo by Sugar Bomb Studios. Highly recommended. HIGHLY.

The mister went to a bachelor party this past weekend for a different wedding. Here's what they did (make sure you have your sound on):

Changing your own oil

2010-03-27T14:51:00.003-05:00

I change my own oil. It’s not significantly cheaper to do it myself, but I know that it gets done right. No one is going to forget to put the oil plug back in or accidentally drain the transmission fluid, or strip the drain-pan plug, or pull all the wires out of my car’s computer. Every single one of these things has happened to family or friends and has resulted in broken cars, expensive repairs, and, in one instance, a trip to small claims court to get the shop to cough up the $3,000 necessary to repair the transmission.

Changing oil is not hard. Really. 3 basic steps: (1) old oil out; (2) change oil filter; (3) new oil in.

To start, you will need to pull out your instruction manual and figure out what weight of oil and how much of it you need. Oil weight is usually 5W-30 for colder months, 10W-30 for warmer. Four cylinder cars usually need 4 to 5 quarts, six cylinders use about 5, 8 cylinders between 6 and 7, and the mister’s big diesel takes 8 quarts. Look up “engine oil” in the index of your owner’s manual and you’ll be able to find the information.

Next up, head to the auto parts store. Pick up the oil you need and a new filter. There are books or computers where you can look up the make/model/year of your car and get the filter number, or you can ask the guy behind the counter.

(Tip about being a woman in an auto parts store: you will always, always get service. The men that work there will jump over themselves to help you. Ask all the stupid questions you want; I’ve never met an asshole at an auto parts store. If you do meet an asshole, leave. There’s another store a block up, I bet, and the guy there will be nice.)

Other items necessary: a wrench that fits the drain plug, a place to drain the oil, and potentially ramps if your car sits lower than my Jeep. You will also want paper towels. Lots of them, if you’re me and kind of messy or squeamish about goop on your hands. Also, do not wear clothing you like for this. You will be laying on the ground and getting dirty. Your old jeans and a shirt stolen out of your husband’s closet will do just fine.

N
Note the shirt. The mister wore it a hundred years ago. I stole it about 5 years ago. Mine now.
There might be some trial and error to find a wrench that fits. My jeep uses a 5/8” but my last car used a 10mm. If you don’t know, either get an adjustable wrench or bring the whole damned set with you to the car.

Part one: warm up your car. Start the engine and let it run for a couple of minutes. If you need to put it up on ramps, do it now. Turn it off.

Next, get under the car with your wrench and your drain bucket. Being under a car can be a tiny bit claustrophobic. I was surprised at how uncomfortable I was. Take a minute if you have to and get used to it. Then, find the drain plug. It will be at the end of a square, flat pan (your oil pan) towards the front and center of your car.

See if your wrench fits. If you’re me, it won’t. Get out from under the car, smack head on the bumper, get other wrench, try again. When you’ve got one that fits, you’re good. I’ve heard tell of adjustable wrenches for this, but, frankly, I prefer a closed-end wrench, so I dick around with finding one that fits. Position the drain bucket under the drain plug, loosen the drain plug slowly at first to make sure the oil will drain where you want it to, then take the plug all the way out.

You might need to use a lot of power to get that plug loose at first; oil change places use pneumatic tools to tighten the plug and it might be really stuck on there. Elbow grease and, occasionally, finding someone a tiny bit stronger than you to give it a good whack can help. Be cautious because if your hand slips off that wrench and you whack your knuckles, it hurts and you will bleed. I do it every time, though.

Sometimes the car gods demand a little blood sacrifice.

Let the used oil drain.

Do something else for a few minutes, like top off your windshield washer fluid, check your tire pressure, or dig all the trash out from under your seats. The mister just waits under the car for the oil to drain but I don’t have that kind of patience.

Once the oil has drained, replace the plug. Do it. Do it now. Do not forget. It does not need to be super tight; you do not need to super-man it into place. Jiffy-lube type places always crank these things in super hard; this is completely unnecessary. Just twist until it’s tight, then give it one good oomph with the wrench. We’re going to check for leaks later, so don’t get too worried.

Then, you want to replace the filter. Take your new one out of the box. Get a good look at it.

Now look around your engine for something that looks similar. Usually one of the few pieces of bright color inside an otherwise gray and black engine, it shouldn’t be too tricky to find.

Assess. Is it easier to reach from up top or under the car? In my old Monte Carlo, the oil filter was stupidly positioned and involved acrobatics and contortionist-style movements to remove. The Jeep is significantly more user friendly and I can reach straight down from the top and pull it right out.

Position the drain bucket under the oil filter.

Note: If you are removing the oil filter from under the car, do not lay right under it. The oil filter is full of oil and the second the seal loosens, oil comes gushing out. You do not want that shit in your hair.

Remove the oil filter by unscrewing it. This can be challenging, since sometimes it’s on kind of tight and, in the case of my Monte Carlo, it can be difficult to squeeze your hand up there, but you can do it. I know you can. One of those rubber grippy things you use to get the top off of pickle jars can come in handy right here.

Be prepared for oil to come out of filter. This is why we put the drain bucket under there. Unscrew it as quickly as possible and tip it upright to prevent any more oil from leaking out. Check the top of the old filter for a rubber gasket – it’s the only piece of nonmetal on there. If it’s not there, check around where you just took the filter off; you want to make sure that piece of rubber is gone. If it gets left behind it will cause problems.

Set the old filter aside to drain on your drain pan.

Note that in this photo the gasket (round circle) is sitting near the draining filter. That's because it fell off when I was removing the old filter and I had to fish around to find it. I stuck it on the pan so I didn't lose track of it again.

Pick up your new filter and dip your finger into your old oil (I know – yuck). Rub the old oil around the gasket at the top of your new filter. This does two things: (1) gets you a good seal, preventing possible oil leaks, and; (2) keeps the gasket from drying out. Extreme heat or cold (see also: Minnesota in August or January), driving on gravel roads, and basic daily driving can dry out this little gasket and cause leaks.

Slip the new oil filter into place and screw in. It does not to be super tight, just snug.

Next, look down at the engine and locate the screw cap marked “engine oil.”

Unscrew it and, hey, look, a hole into which you will pour those quarts of oil you bought before.

Pour in your new oil. I’ve heard of people using funnels for this, but I’ve never purchased one. I just half-ass a funnel using the first quart of oil and a knife. Works for me!

Put the screw cap back on and start her up. Let your car run for a few minutes. We do this to cycle the oil through the engine, getting rid of any air pockets and filling up the oil filter. While the car is running check underneath for any leaks or drips. If you dripped any oil while you were pouring the new oil in, you might smell a bit of burning oil. Do not panic. If the smell doesn’t dissipate in a few moments or you smell it again the next time you start up your car, then worry, but for now, let it go. If you’re dripping from the oil plug, get under there and tighten it up a little bit more. If you’re dripping from the filter, snug it up too.

After a few minutes of running, if there are no leaks, turn the car off and use the dipstick to check the oil level.

Pull the dipstick out, wipe it off with a paper towel, put it back in ALL THE WAY, and pull it out. Check the bottom to see if you need to add oil.

New oil will not be very dark, so you might need to stand in the sunlight and turn it a bit to see the oil on the stick. Your dipstick might have hash marks instead of a safe/add line like mine. If it says you need to add oil, add a little, run the car, and check again.

Gather up your tools, giving them a good wipe before putting them away. A good mechanic keeps clean tools and keeps them in a place where she can find them.

To deal with your used oil, recycle it. Do NOT just pour your oil onto the ground or toss it into the trash. Nearly any auto parts store will recycle oil. Ask when you buy your new oil at the store; if they don’t recycle it, they’ll know who does.

I have this particular drain pan because it is has a spout, making it easy to pour out of it and into a gallon jug with a lid, making hauling it up to the store a much less messy proposition.

Congratulations, kid, you did it.

Neglect

2010-03-12T10:11:00.000-06:00

I have been neglecting this space over here.

I have knitting projects I am DYING to talk about, but they are gifts for friends and I don’t want to ruin the surprise by talking about them here. These are the only projects I have been working on, since they have looming deadlines and are all big, labor-intensive projects. The only other project I work on is my simple sock, and that gets knit on between calls and on slow Sunday evenings at work.

I have some truly awesome work stories, but I cannot share them. I’ve decided I can blog about work in the general sense but not specifics. So I can tell you how the late hours are exhausting me, but not specific stories about callers or coworkers because I would like to be this job for a while. And when one works for a large, very technologically savvy corporation, one cannot blithely post all sorts of stories on the internet and expect the company not to find out.

So, no knitting and no work discussions.

The mister is neck deep in a calculus class and hasn’t been up to any really bloggable shenanigans lately; he’s been to busy studying

My brother is still living in my basement, but other than occasionally catching him coming home in the morning after a night out carousing, nothing really interesting happens with that either.

My Jeep is running great, so no stories about running out of gas on a freeway overpass (like that one time my Monte Carlo’s gas gauge malfunctioned) or having to drive over a curb because the car’s transmission refused to go into reverse (see the entire time I owned the Neon).

It’s too cold for my motorcycle still.

We’re on Day 6 of gray, rainy and foggy, so photography opportunities are slim.

Hell, even my dog isn’t up too much. Walks, chasing the laser point, licking the couch. Normal stuff.

So, things are either boring or secret, and the near silence will continue, just for a little while longer.

Sorry.

Do you know what time of year it is?

2010-03-09T20:05:00.000-06:00

It's not quite spring. There is still snow on the ground. I refuse to call it spring until the snow on the ground and the threat of additional accumulation are gone for good.

But it is the end of pantyhose and tights season.

Once I can go outside without an estimate of how long I can be out there before it kills me, I stop wearing hose.

No more rolling waistbands.

No more runs.

No more having them bunch up right at the crease where crotch-meets-thigh, pressing so hard against the nerves there that my entire leg goes numb.

No more having to hike them up all day due to saggy crotch syndrome.

From here until real spring, it's knee high socks and boots. Once it gets truly warm, it's bare legs and open toed shoes until October.

I can hardly wait.

A Excellent Start to the Day

2010-02-26T11:29:00.001-06:00

The perk of my current work schedule is that I get to start every morning in an unhurried manner, with a leisurely pot of tea and my knitting.

(And yes, my coffee table has paint on it. I blame the mister.)

A small rant on women’s clothing

2010-02-21T16:21:00.000-06:00

My favorite sweatshirt does not belong to me, it belongs to the mister. It is not my favorite because it smells like his cologne or because I have some strange attachment to things that belong to him.

(The opposite is more often true; I occasionally have dreams about setting fire to his belongings, particularly the pile of shit by the front door, because I think he sets up in such a way that when I come home at midnight and all the lights are off [because why would he leave a light on for me?], I am guaranteed to trip over something that belongs to him and take a facer.) (There’s apparently some bitterness there. Who knew?)

Anyway, my favorite sweatshirt is a men’s large sweatshirt. It’s cozy. The sleeves are long enough, the shirt itself is long enough, and it’s loose enough to be comfortable.

Why can’t I find this in women’s clothing? Everything is fitted and designed to be tight. There’s no baggy, loose, comfortable style. Everything, from hoodies to sweat-pants is designed to follow curves. This wouldn’t bother me if it weren’t for the fact that I’m wearing these clothes to be comfortable – I don’t want to spend the day yanking down the hem of my sweatshirt because it’s designed to show that inch of my belly above the top of my pants, or trying to pull my pants up to avoid that awful butt-crack exposure.

I think there’s something wrong with demanding women be sexy and alluring when they’re wearing the sweatpants. Can’t we just wear sloppy clothes and be comfortable?

Is that too much to ask?

First lambs of the season

2010-02-12T09:47:00.001-06:00

It didn't come out.

2010-02-10T17:46:00.000-06:00

Kate, your shower gift might be a little late depending on my ability to reknit your wedding shawl in the next couple of days.

I was going to post photographic evidence of the ink stain, but my heart just can't take it. I couldn't even bear to focus the camera on the large blob of black floating in the middle of that lacy blue sea.

My Greatest Skill is Denial

2010-02-09T23:25:00.000-06:00

I go to the doctor. Every winter I get horribly dry skin on my hands. This year, it’s even worse and I look like I have the stigmata. I don’t, FYI.

The doctor thinks it’s eczema.

“It’s probably made worse by wool sensitivity. Do you wear wool mittens?”

I pause, thinking of how much wool I come into contact with on a daily basis.

“Um, I knit. Kind of a lot.”

“With wool?”

“Yes.”

“That might be your problem.”

“I don’t have a wool allergy. “

“What you really mean is: I don’t care if I have a wool allergy, I’m going to knit anyway, right?”

“Pretty much.”

(Turns out it’s probably not my knitting – she watched me knit and noted where the wool runs over my skin. The worst areas on my hand don’t actually come into contact with my knitting, so in this case, my denial was well placed.)

---

I’m knitting a wedding shawl for my friend Kate. It is, if I say so myself, beautiful. Buttery soft luscious Malabrigo lace-weight yarn, a floaty, delicate pattern that she chose out of an incredible book of designs, hours (upon hours) of work. It’s well on its way to stunning.

It also has an ink stain on it.

An uncapped pen came into contact with it and bled like a son-of-a-bitch. This happened about 2 hours ago. The shawl is 90% finished. If the ink doesn’t wash out, I will need to rip back about 45 rows (of 600+ stitches each) slice off the offending ink stained yarn, and start afresh. With 10 days left before her shower.
I’m going with it will wash out rather than the screaming, panicking and tearing around with tears in my eyes that I want to do.

---

I seem to be deluded about my ability to handle sleep deprivation as well. My new hours at work involve staying until 11:30 or midnight.

I get home by 12:30-ish, read for a little while to wind down, and get to sleep by 1:30. The mister’s alarm goes off at 6:30.

I’m an 8-9 hours of sleep a night kind of girl, but I keep thinking I can operate just fine of 5 hours of sleep.

WRONG.

I could carry groceries in the bags under my eyes. I’m bitchy, snappy, and irritable. After 6 months of greatly reducing my caffeine intake, I’m back up to 6 or 8 cups of coffee a day, most of them well after noon.
I keep thinking I’ll get so much done if I get up when the mister does. What really happens is that I get up, slouch my way to the couch and sit there, vegetable-like for several hours, maybe getting up to walk the dog or toss in a load of laundry, but mostly, sitting. Then the mister comes home for lunch, we eat, I slouch my way to the gym where I half-ass a workout. Then I slouch my way home, shower, and sit my ass on the couch for another hour before heading to work.

I’m trying a new thing this week. It’s called ignoring the mister’s alarm clock and sleeping for another couple of hours after he leaves. I’m going to follow this with getting up and actually moving around instead of laying on the couch reading trashy books and eating cereal straight out of the box.

Silent Poetry Reading

2010-02-02T06:33:00.001-06:00

Birches
Robert Frost

When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust--
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
(Now am I free to be poetical?)
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows--
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.

So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

Today's Personal Failures

2010-01-27T17:54:00.005-06:00

I have a sneaking suspicion that I might have forgotten to put on deodorant after my shower at the gym this morning. This would not normally be a problem because my office is usually cold enough to hang meat, but today, of course, the heat is actually on and it is warm.

I have systematically rubbed every bit of make-up off my eyes and have relocated it to underneath them, making the tired, puffy bags even more pronounced. All efforts to remove said eye-makeup with tepid water and scratchy paper towels from office bathroom facilities have failed.

I just got a look at my hair in the bathroom mirror and it is huge. And wild. And sort of straight in spots and wavy in spots. This is probably because I was too lazy to blow-dry it after the aforementioned gym shower and I went with cramming a hat on it and going about my business until I got to work this afternoon, where I removed the hat, put on a headset and didn’t look at things until 5 minutes ago.

My right shoe has completely blown apart. The sole is flapping around instead of being attached to the bottom of the shoe.

Rather than neatly trim and file a hangnail, I gnawed at it until it was ragged.

I just ate my dinner and dripped ketchup on my pants. I cannot seem to work up the energy to care.

The Return of Music

2010-01-22T18:18:00.001-06:00

I don’t like quiet. Silence gives me the willies.

I always had my headphones on, or the stereo blasting, or I’d sing (admittedly this was more to annoy the mister than anything else). I played the guitar and oboe for years, though that has faded and now I mostly play the stereo.

I would dance in the kitchen while cooking, my hips keeping rhythm with Sergio Mendez. I would jog with Spiderbait and Rammstein and A Perfect Circle pounding in my ears. I'd lounge in the bathtub with Nina Simone in the background or I’d sucker the mister into slow-dancing in the living room to Harlem Nocturne.

The mister would often come in from the garage and remind me to turn down the stereo, as he could hear it over his power tools, and it was probably driving the neighbors crazy. He’d chuckle when we were neck deep in a home-improvement nightmare and he’d turn off his sander only to hear me screeching along, off key, to whatever was playing on my ipod at the moment.

My life was accompanied by music.

But for a while there, right before being laid-off, when I spent more time weeping than working, and during unemployment, it was quiet. I didn’t feel like dancing. I didn’t want to sing. I didn’t want music to keep me company.

I wallowed in silence.

A few weeks ago I was expecting a couple of darling friends to come over for dinner and I was in the kitchen getting the meatloaf in the oven and making garlic potatoes au gratin. Something’s strange, I thought to myself. It’s so quiet.

I plugged my ipod into the stereo and Ain’t Nothing Wrong With That sounded through the speakers. I twirled my way back into the kitchen accompanied by the pounding beats and set back to work.

Startled by the noise, the mister came in from taking out the trash and just stood there, grinning at me.

I guess he missed the music too.

Why I Love the Mister (Part 1)

2010-01-13T20:16:00.001-06:00

5:45 I'm at work and get a text message from him. I don't notice.

7:25 I read text message. It says, Our furnace is broken. Blowing black smoke all over the basement. Not good.

7:26 Panic attack, thinking of my two maxed out credit cards, my miniscule bank account balance, and the huge amount of money we’re going to owe the IRS, wondering how to add a new furnace into that mix.

7:28 I call him and ask how bad it is. He replies, "I spent two hours fixing it and machining new parts at work. It’s blowing hot air again and the smoke has cleared."

7:32 I call him my hero, profess my undying love, and promise any number of favors of ANY variety. He fixed the furnace!

On Knitting

2010-01-11T10:57:00.004-06:00

My mother knit and crocheted. I have two brothers and a father and we were a busy household, so my mother was a busy woman and rarely had time to just sit. Even when she could, though, she wasn’t still. Her hands were always in motion, needles flashing, while blankets and sweaters appeared out of thin air.

She would tell me stories of sitting on the porch with my father’s mother, my grandmother, and knitting while they talked. My mother is one of those rare women who found a mother in law she loved, perhaps more than her own mother. My grandmother passed away when I was only a few days old. I never knew her. But my mom spoke of her warmly as she knit sweaters.

Mom taught me to knit when I was very young. I completed about 2 feet of a very ugly yellow scarf and didn’t pick up the needles again until I was 19.

Sophomore year of college knitting was suddenly a fad. Everywhere on campus, girls (and the occasional dude) churned out scarves and hats and mittens. I remembered how to actually knit, but I couldn’t remember how to get the stitches on the needle (casting on). So I cornered one of the girls from my Spanish classes and had her teach me how to cast on. I filched some yarn from my mom when I was home one weekend, and made a scarf. I finished it and cornered someone else in the dorm to help me get the stitches back off the needles (casting off).

I mailed it off to my then boyfriend, only to have my heart broken a few weeks later. I still wish he’d give me back that scarf.

I was briefly put off from my knitting, nursing my broken heart with copious amounts of alcohol, bad music, and friends.

A year later, though, I went to Mexico for a semester. I had a wonderful time, five months full of sunshine, laughter, food, dancing, staying out too late, going to the beach, siestas, and the occasional class.

I was homesick, though. I emailed people frequently, called home on Sundays, talked to the mister (who was then just “the boy”) when I could, but I was homesick. Somehow, I found myself at a Wal-mart one afternoon (yes, they have them in Guadalajara) with a friend and I wandered into their craft section. Yarn. Knitting needles. They came home with me.

I knit the world’s ugliest scarf out of the world’s ugliest acrylic yarn and I left it in Mexico when I came home. But the flash of the needles, the gentle clicking sound as I turned out row after row, the familiar-yet-foreign movements of pulling yarn from the skein…home.

When I returned to college my senior year, a new yarn store had popped up in my college town. Row upon row of beautiful colors, soft textures, fun patterns. I was hooked. I made scarves and hats for friends, who were very kind to indulge me and pretend that those things were nice when in fact they were crap.

The mister and I spent a lot of time together in his workshop, me sitting on a ratty garage chair, my feet propped on the warm edge of the woodstove while he tinkered on work equipment or car parts, talking the whole while.

I went to law school and the knitting kept me sane. I would reward myself with a few rows in garter stitch after briefing a case. I started mittens to soothe my mind into sleep during midterms my first year. Socks appeared shortly thereafter, during finals. Learning to turn a heel was a welcome distraction from fee simple determinables.

The mister and I bought our house and I settled my meager yarn stash onto the lowest shelves of our linen closet with excitement. We’d spend our evenings in domestic bliss, my feet in his lap on the couch while he read and I knit.

And slowly, the knitting improved. There were fewer dropped stitches, more intricate patterns, finished products that were actually wearable. I made shawls and scarves and hats and gave them to people who actually wore them in public.

I had knitting in my purse the day I got married.

I graduated and began working full time and the knitting came with me on public transit. I knit socks and hats as the light rail whizzed down Hiawatha, taking me to and from a job I loved at first but grew to detest. I would knit on the train, sick to my stomach with worry and stress over that job.

The knitting sometimes distracted me from my misery and stopped me from breaking into sobs on the train when I couldn’t time my commutes to coincide with my friend B, who also kept me from crying. At least something good came of those commutes.

Knitting kept me company through the months of unemployment, when I spent my days alone. You can only send out so many resumes and receive so many rejection letters before you start to take it personally, to sink into depression and wonder what it is that makes you so worthless. Knitting helped counteract that. At least I had something to show for my time. Hats, scarves, and shawls for friends, socks for the mister, sweaters for my mom, mittens for the homeless shelter. I knit.

I sent my darling friend MJ to International Falls with a huge, warm shawl I knit for her to wrap up in. I began stitching a wedding wrap for my friend Kate, thousands of tiny stitches on tiny needles (a task I’m still working on now) and I cannot wait to give it to her. Even if it’s not warm enough for her to wear it on her wedding day (she might have to resort to a coat), I know she’ll treasure it. The mister got several pairs of new socks, my mom got a sweater, and I spent my meager disposable income on yarn.

Sometimes seeing my yarn shop owner was the only human contact I’d have before the mister came home from work. I wonder if she knows how much her welcoming smile and genuine kindness helped me.

And now I’m working again. Sure, it’s not my ideal job, but I am so stupidly happy to go there every day, so delighted in the 8 hours of honest-to-God work, even as I curse the really awful hours and the occasional moron caller, that it’s nauseating. And I’m good at this job, really good at it, and that makes me feel better. I am not worthless or awful or incompetent, as I thought I was after my last job and the seemingly unending months of unemployment.

And, bonus, during downtime at this job, I can sit with my knitting and crank out a couple of stitches, maybe even a whole row, as I wait for another call. No complex lace or difficult patterns, but a simple sock, around and around on double-pointed needles, occupies my slow moments, just as it has occupied my hands through so many other moments.

Millhouse

2010-01-06T10:18:00.002-06:00

Orchid

2010-01-05T07:49:00.000-06:00

Begonias

2010-01-04T07:01:00.000-06:00

Letter to my 18 Year Old Self

2010-01-03T17:05:00.000-06:00

It’s been nearly a decade and wow, is your life different from what you’re picturing. You’re married now, but not to the boy you swore you’d be married to. You’re a little pudgier than you were planning on, all that school you’re thinking about hasn’t secured your future the way you thought it would, and you’re not driving that sports car yet.

I’ve got some tips for you, some things I want you to think about.

Don’t pin all your hopes and dreams on that boy. He’s not what you think he is and it won’t be long until you’re heartbroken. Get rid of him when you first think of it instead of holding on too hard for too long.

For God’s sake, stand up straight.

You are beautiful. Gorgeous. Stop thinking otherwise. Enjoy those long legs, that skinny waist, and that size four, sweetie, because it’s not going to be there much longer.

Also, stop eating crap. You know better. Doritios, Pop Tarts, and beer are not good for you.

Think twice about law school. I know it seems like a good idea, but it might be one of your biggest mistakes and you will at least partially regret it.

Enjoy your brothers. They’re going to be good men.

Wear sunblock and sunglasses. When you start closing in on your 30s you won’t enjoy having skin cancer scares and crow’s feet nearly as much as you liked that tan.

You were right not to sleep with him. He was cheating on you and probably would have given you something.

Do not open that credit card. DO NOT. Because its turns out to be the first in a string of bad financial decisions and it’s ten years later and you’re trying to crawl out from under a pile of debt. That was a bad idea.

Yes, he’s gay. He doesn’t know it yet, but he is. Stop chasing him.

Stop swearing. This is an ugly habit.

Perfect those napping skills – they’ll see you well through college and grad school.

Travel more. See the world. Learn at least one more language.

Be kinder.

Listen to your mother. She’s much smarter than you give her credit for and she knows what she’s talking about.

Appreciate your father. He loves you more than you know and he will be your biggest champion.

You turn out okay. You don't make any truly bad decisions and you're happy with your life. Just try to enjoy it more instead of worrying so much, okay?

Treat

2010-01-03T15:01:00.002-06:00

Annoyed

2010-01-02T09:12:00.002-06:00

He gets really irritated when I take his picture more than once.

Ornament

2010-01-01T09:10:00.000-06:00

Giving the new lens the mister gave me for Christmas a workout.

Open Letter

2009-12-28T15:23:00.002-06:00

Dear 2009:

Don’t take this the wrong way, but I am eager to see the last of you.

You’ve been a rough year, full of unpleasant surprises, bad moments, poor timing, hopelessness, sadness, defeat, and worry.

Fights. Car accidents. Break-ups. Deaths. Disappointed hopes. Lost jobs. It’s been rough on a lot of people this year.

I mean, you provided some joy. There’s been new love and wedding planning for K, a new job and the hope of custody of her niece for my friend MJ, the end of a life-sucking relationship for my brother, and there have been other moments of hope.

But overall, you haven’t been the best year and I’m ready for you to be gone.

Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

Short Conversations

2009-12-17T18:22:00.001-06:00

I go to a strength training class once a week at my gym. Because it begins at 9:30 in the morning, it is populated primarily by stay at home mothers and retired women - people with whom I have very little in common. But there’s another woman about my age who has a job outside the home and she and I bond. Today she and I were stretched out on our backs, doing leg lifts. We had been discussing how hard it is to keep up with laundry.

I raise both my feet up over my head.

“Hey,” I say. “My socks don’t match.”

My friend collapses into giggles.

I don't see what's so funny.

--

The mister owns a book on weight-lifting written by Arnold Schwarzenegger. It is huge and has pictures. The pictures scare me, but this is not the point. My brother was perusing the book and looked up suddenly.

“I find that this book is more interesting if I narrate it to myself using an Ah-nold accent.”

I reply, “I find that my entire life is more interesting if I narrate it using an Ah-nold accent.”

Him, considering: I’m going to try that.

--

I am walking my dog along the river. It is 5 below and I am wearing enough clothing for a family of 5. My dog is doing that annoying thing where he sniffs, sniffs, sniffs, looking for the perfect spot to poop. Drives me nuts, because, hello! Here am I with this little bag, I’m going to pick that up as soon as you’re done anyway, so stop being so picky and just go!

Anyway, I’m standing there, freezing, while Charlie thinks about pooping and another lady comes up with her dog. Both dogs drop a deuce at the same time and we both sigh and bend over to scoop.

“The only good thing about this horrible weather is that I don’t have to walk around with a bag of steaming dog poop. It freezes so quickly,” she says.

I never thought of that.

Art

2009-12-16T08:06:00.000-06:00

Shitters

2009-12-04T07:57:00.001-06:00

Shitters
Originally uploaded by SassyBuster

Sometimes they get full.

Happy Thanksgiving

2009-11-26T10:48:00.000-06:00

Charlie the pilgrim says, "Happy Thanksgiving!"

Charlie the pilgrim also says, "Please, please take this stupid hat off."

Charlie the pilgrims says, "Fine, if you won't take it off, I'm not speaking to you."

Things I'm thankful for: torturing my dog with tiny felt hats, two full Thanksgiving dinners in one day, wonderful family, fantastic friends, and the fact that while I have to work tomorrow, I don't have to work RETAIL. It's the simple things, people.

Dear Husband:

2009-11-24T21:52:00.001-06:00

I just got home from work.

Hi.

I know you’ve been storing up questions and discussion topics and bits of information to give me ALL DAY LONG and you just need to get them out NOW NOW NOW and you’re talking and chattering and asking questions and expecting me to respond and make decisions and, seriously, I can’t do this.

I don’t know what we should do about our health benefit re-enrollment, I don’t want to discuss selling one of the motorcycles, I don’t care what we eat for dinner tomorrow, I know the dog needs his nails cut, and no, buy your own damned deodorant.

I am tired. All day long there are people talking at me, demanding my time, my attention, my ability to be a walking thesaurus and there’s noise and words and ringing phones and emails and conversations and this constant bombardment from which there’s no escape, not even in the bathroom and I just want five minutes where no one wants anything from me.

No questions. No mail to read. No discussions. No demands. No talking. No shopping lists to write. No noise. No paperwork to review, no messages to listen to, no phone calls to make.

Nothing.

Five minutes of peace.

Please.

Then I’ll do whatever it is you need.

Mama Buster's 10 Pound Mostaccioli

2009-11-19T11:26:00.001-06:00

When my brothers and I were in high school we were that house, the one that had a revolving door. Neighbors, friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, our house was constantly full of people that didn’t live there.

Looking back, I realize how huge a pain in the ass this was for my parents. My mother worked nights and my dad’s work schedule was non-standard and they must have just wanted their evenings to themselves, to be quiet and relax. After a few years of working, a couple of rounds of houseguests, and a more grown up life, I understand how incredibly precious quiet time can be. My poor parents never got any.

Instead, the driveway was full of other people’s cars, the house was full of teenagers, and there was no quiet to be found ANYWHERE. There was never any Coke in the fridge, the toilet paper was always gone, and somebody was always squabbling with someone else. Our six-person dinner table nearly always had a couple of folding chairs or barstools snuggled between the normal chairs to make room for visitors.

I am grateful that we were that house, that my parents were so welcoming when they didn’t need to be, that my mom treated all my friends like her own children, nagging and laughing, and my dad cracked jokes and talked cars and told boys to get their damned hair cut already.

Dinner time must have been an adventure for my mom. She never knew how many people would be showing up at the table. It could be 3 out of our family of 5, it could be 12. Who knew? I did a lot of quick-fast running to the grocery store to get a salad or some more vegetables so she could extend whatever dinner offering she had, but she got really good at cooking meals that made for great leftovers if we had fewer than 12 people eating.

One of them was mostaccioli. I’ve taken the recipe and adapted it a bit, making the red sauce from scratch rather than use Ragu, but it’s still pretty much hers.

Mama Buster’s 10 Pound Mostaccioli

1 lb. ground beef
1 lb. hot Italian sausage
2 lbs. mostaccioli noodles (2 boxes)
1 lb. shredded mozzarella
2 28 oz. cans crushed tomatoes
1 can diced tomatoes
3-5 cloves garlic, crushed
1 medium onion, diced
5-10 leaves basil, chopped
1 tsp. sugar
salt and pepper
olive oil

Brown Italian sausage and ground beef, drain and set aside.

While meats are browning, pour 2 tbsp. olive oil into a large pan (HUGE pan). Sauté garlic and onion until onions are clear. Pour in crushed and diced tomatoes. Salt and pepper to taste, adding sugar to cut acid in sauce.

Allow sauce to simmer while you heat up pasta water and cook pasta according to package directions.

When noodles are nearly done, add meat and basil to sauce and heat through.

Drain and rinse noodles.

Toss noodles, meaty-sauce, and cheese together until it’s a gooey mess.

Serve with garlic bread and salad. And extra vegetables if more people show up than you were planning on.

Confessions of an Elevator Wedgie Picker

2009-11-17T22:17:00.002-06:00

Regardless of potential video surveillance in elevators, I unabashedly adjust my clothing in there. Slippy bra straps, tights with those annoying rolling waistbands, or wedgies, I’m fixing it in the elevator.

I grocery shop in my parents’ kitchen. It’s a habit that developed during the Ramen years of college, when I’d come home for breaks and systematically steal everything that wasn’t nailed down in my parents’ kitchen. Now, I am more selective, but the habit still persists. A box of brownie mix here, a handful of cookies there. More often than not, I leave my parents’ house with a bag of goodies culled from their cupboards.

If I work out at the gym and shower there, it’s a safe bet that I’m going commando when I leave. I am incapable of remembering to bring a clean pair of skivvies and the very thought of putting on a pair of sweaty worked-out-in undies grosses me out.

I talk to myself. Like, I will hold an entire conversation with myself in the car.

I have several highly annoying verbal tics, one of which is the overuse of the word “so.” I know it. I cannot stop it. Another is the use of what my friend B refers to as “Buster-isms.” Quirky little sayings that my family and I use but normal people apparently do not. Referring to Bemidji as “the armpit of the state” for example, or saying someone is “busier than a cat on a hot tin roof.” I don’t really want to stop this tic because the looks on friends’ faces when I say something ridiculous always makes me smile.

Until a few months ago, the mister and I did not have nightstands. We had two mismatched barstools that we balanced our clocks and water glasses on.

I don’t clean so much as I quick-fast race around for half an hour, seeing how much I can get done. I have a short attention span and a hatred for household chores, so this blitzkrieg approach to cleaning is the best method I’ve found.

I once used my Swingline to repair a torn hem on a pair of pants. I then continued to wash and wear the pair of pants for 6 months with the staples in the hem, rather than actually fixing it.

I never finish a bottle of wine. I’ll pop the cork and have a glass, then put the remainder in the fridge where it will sit for 3 weeks until I just pour it down the drain.

I wait for the mister to go out of town so I can do projects he would otherwise disapprove of. For example, the purging of video cassettes happened while he was gone. (We don’t even own a VCR, but he would not let me toss the tapes. Has he missed them since they’ve been gone? Nope.) This year, the crab apple tree in the front yards is getting chopped down as soon as he and his friends take off for a weekend trip.

I start knitting projects and never finish them.

I drop farts in store aisles and then hurriedly bolt for some other part of the store.

I am terrible at staying in touch with people.

I listen to embarrassing music – it’s a bizarre mix of classical, oldies, soundtracks, and really irritating pop music. Britney followed by Bach followed by Damien Rice.

I have read literature. Hemingway, Faulkner, Conrad, Shakespeare. I have read philosophy – Rousseau, Locke, Machiavelli, Nietszche. My preferred reading? Trashy romance novels, usually those featuring feisty heroines.

I own lots of t-shirts, but I don’t wear them to workout in. Instead I steal the mister’s. My favorite one is his D.A.R.E. shirt from the fifth grade. (Yes, he still owns it, and yes, I steal it on a regular basis.)

I don’t like any meat on my pizza but will not say this when a group of people is having the what-kind-of-pizza-should-we-get debate, so I always end up picking pepperoni and sausage off of mine.

I drink orange juice straight out of the carton.

Veteran's Day

2009-11-11T09:54:00.002-06:00

A year ago I wrote this post.

Today I revisit it to tell you that the boy, the one I mention in there, is back in Iraq on his second tour.

And, again, I thank him, his comrades, and their families for their sacrifices.

Like I grabbed my clothes out of the dryer

2009-11-09T22:02:00.001-06:00

I have come to the conclusion that no matter how hard I try, no matter how much care I put into selecting my wardrobe with an eye towards looking chic, put-together, and fashionable, I will ways look like I pulled my clothes out of the dryer and got dressed in the dark of my basement.

My Handwriting

2009-11-06T16:24:00.002-06:00

Thanks Trueish Story and Pickles and Dimes for the idea!

Petty, Thy Name is Me.

2009-11-04T07:26:00.001-06:00

I have unfriended people on Facebook and unfollowed people on Twitter for the following reasons:

She posted daily updates on her hampsters. Wrong on every level.
She was a Tupperware lady and every post dealt with Tupperware parties.
He wrote in all caps all the time.
She posted updates on her child’s bowel movements.
He repeatedly referred to his car as a sports car. It’s a Ford Probe. He wasn’t being ironic or sarcarstic.

Stupid Question

2009-10-31T15:56:00.002-05:00

Me: What should I be for Halloween? A cowgirl or a sexy school-teacher?

The Mister: Uh, is this a trick question?

Unfortunately, I seem to have caught the plague and it appears that my Halloween plans will be scrapped in favor of pajamas, hot tea, and Pride & Prejudice.

Random Observations

2009-10-29T14:53:00.004-05:00

My parents bought a Smart Car. It is essentially a rollerskate with an engine. It is tiny. And it shifts oddly. It has a manual transmission but you don’t have to manually change gears. I don’t understand. Anyway, it’s tiny and sort of go-cart-like, but it’s great for them, since my dad has a nearly 40 mile commute into work and this car gets about 45 miles to a gallon. Still, rollerskate.
Today, faced with yet another gray, rainy day (seriously, there has been one sunny day in the entire month of October), I couldn’t stomach the idea of having cold, wet feet again. So I put on my Wellies. There are black with pink trim and multicolor polka-dots. MJ got them for me. I love them. But apparently other people have a hard time reconciling my late-20s lawyer persona with my goofy polka-dot rain boots. I got a lot of strange looks.
My job entails working in a call center helping other lawyers with their research questions. It’s not difficult work and the days actually fly by since I’m so constantly busy. The call center takes calls from across the country (the world, actually, but I really only get calls from the U.S.). In my short time here I have learned that people from New York are really kind of rude. Well, they come off as rude to my Midwestern sensibilities, but, I guess they are really just more abrupt and less patient. And a couple of them have taken a little too much pleasure in rubbing in the Yankees win over the Twins. I told them all I was looking forward to watching the Yanks lose the Series.
I also learned that I have the cutest little accent ever. I guess I sound like an extra from Fargo. And here I thought I was pretty accent neutral, other than my pronunciation of the word “bagel” which doesn’t come up all that often during research calls.
I have to wear an ID badge at work, but today I’m wearing a sweater dress and I have nowhere to clip the thing unless I hang it from the hem of my dress, which would force my ID badge to dangle rather unbecomingly below my knees.
I have what I call a zombie zit. It won’t die. It disappears for a little while, but it always comes back, bigger and badder. I was complaining about it to my mom, who goes, “Oh, well, not to worry you, but that’s how your dad’s skin cancer started.”
Not to worry me?! My dad had basal cell carcinoma, which, if you have to have skin cancer, is the way to go, but they took a CHUNK out of his NOSE and it was CANCER. I’ve already had pieces of “questionable” skin dug out of my shoulders, some of which exhibited some pre-cancerous growth. I am not messing around.
So I tried to get a dermatology appointment, but, haha, they’re booked through May. I got in to see a regular doctor, who looked at the zombie zit and wrote me two prescriptions to try to make it go away. When she found out about my dad’s skin cancer and my own issues, she gave me strict instructions to come back in 6 weeks if the zombie zit hasn’t gone away. So far, with just one day of the prescriptions, the zombie zit is looking a bit better.
I got new glasses from zennioptical.com. They were $25, including shipping, anti-reflective coating, a case and a microfiber cleaning cloth. And I LOVE them. They are cute, nice and lightweight, and they fit well. I was worried that because I was buying glasses at 1/10 the price I’d pay for them in a store they would suck, but they are just as nice as the ones I’ve purchased at the optometrist’s office or glasses stores. The shipping was superfast, the customer service rep I talked to when I thought my order hadn’t gone through was very helpful, and the whole experience was awesome. Highly recommend it.
I got an iphone. Or, more accurately, the mister bought one for me as a belated birthday gift. It is awesome.

Anatomy of a Fight

2009-10-19T17:21:00.004-05:00

Note:

I become unreasonable when I am hungry. Low blood sugar turns me into a raving lunatic with anger management issues and tendencies towards violence. I know this. I try to regulate the anger. It doesn’t work. I need to eat regularly. You’d think after 7 years, the mister would pick up on this, but he can be a tiny bit dense.

Me: Wow, I’m hungry. Can we stop and pick something up to eat?

The mister: Sure. I just need to stop by Home Depot, the auto-parts store, the grocery store, Target, the post office, the mall, Walgreens, and my parents’ house.

Me: Um, okay. Can we maybe stop before we get started on that?

Him: Nah, it won’t take long.

Me: concerned silence.

45 minutes pass. My stomach is gnawing on my spine and my mood has dropped a bit. We are only on stop 3.

Me: Listen, I’m really hungry, can we please stop?

Him: I’m almost done.

It’s been another half hour since our last conversation. My stomach is audibly growling and I’m beginning to get the low-blood-sugar-shakes. My mood could now best be classified as irate with a side of irrational.

Me: I am HUNGRY. Stop now and find me a snack.

Him: One more stop.

Twenty minutes pass. We are still dicking around in the aisles of Fleet Farm. I am furious and barely coherent.

Me: FOOD. NOW. Or I will gnaw off your fucking arm.

Him: Um, okay. What do you want? Burger? Pizza? Pasta?

I do not want choices at this point. Choices will only fuel the rage. I can’t think clearly enough to pick a restaurant. The best I can be counted on to do is restrain myself from physically attacking a waitress when she brings the bread basket.

Me: I don’t care.

Him: But you’re so hungry, what do you want?

Me: I. Do. Not. Care. I just want food.

Him: But…

Me: snarl

Him: Jeez, there’s no reason to be so angry.

The moment I knew he had truly figured it out was this weekend, when my mood plummeted and I began commenting on how hungry I was. The mister got it and after just a few moments of my bad attitude, pulled into a parking lot, scored us a table for two, and asked for some chips and salsa to be brought out right away.

It's the Little Things

2009-10-14T19:27:00.003-05:00

It’s been awhile. I’d apologize, but I’ve been busy!

First, foremost, and most exciting, I got a job! It’s a 4-month temp job that should get me through the end of the year, with the potential to be extended or maybe (hopefully) go full time. It’s not precisely the kind of job I was hoping to get, more along the lines of pitching in the minor leagues than starting in the majors, but it is a JOB, with a paycheck and self-worth. I’ll take it and be glad for it!

Second, my little Neon, faithful as it was for the last six months, is going bye-bye. It needs some work, none of it cheap, and I don’t feel like dealing with it. So, I’m going to sell it. I picked up a used Jeep Cherokee that’s a vast improvement over the neon – it shifts into reverse and third without me muttering prayers from the driver’s seat.

Third, I got my hair done. I keep thinking my hair is either wet or greasy because it’s usually only this dark when it’s one of those two things, but I do like the darker color. More natural, less brassy.

Fourth, the mister has been wearing the socks I made for him. As the temperature dropped he dug them out of his dresser and started wearing them. He refers to them as his “real socks.” Darling man.

Couscous Stuffed Squash

2009-10-04T19:09:00.001-05:00

Taken shamelessly from a meal my friend Kate made for me. It was so good I copied it a couple of days later.

Ingredients:

1 Buttercup squash, washed and seeded, halved or quartered depending on size

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, diced into bite sized pieces

½ small onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, crushed

Olive oil

1 box Near East Couscous (I used garlic and olive oil flavor)

Parmesan cheese, shredded

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place halves or quarters of squash onto sheet cake pan, put sheet into oven, pour approximately one cup of water into baking sheet. Bake for 45 minutes or until fork tender.

(Note: I cook squash this way. I think the water keeps the squash from getting dried out. I put the water in after the baking sheet is in the oven because otherwise I spill water all over myself trying to maneuver. If you’ve got a favorite way to bake squash, by all means, do it your way and pretend like I never mentioned the above. Cooking squash is a very personal thing.)

When squash is roughly 10 minutes from being done, sauté onion and garlic in olive oil for a couple of minutes, throw in chicken and cook through.

While chicken is cooking, prepare couscous according to package directions. When both chicken and couscous are done, mix together, spoon into hollows of squash, top with shredded Parmesan and toss back into the oven until cheese is melted.

Why we have weekends apart sometimes.

2009-09-28T16:06:00.003-05:00

The mister went out of town for another four-wheeling weekend with his buddies. He has a different Jeep (the man changes Jeeps like I change my socks), but still had a glorious time. They went off-roading, mudding, and rock-crawling.

I did not go. I was invited and I declined with snorting laughter. No, no thank you.

I’m not a girlie girl. I don’t mind getting dirty. (I mind BEING dirty for extended periods of time, but I don’t mind GETTING dirty.) I change my own oil and I know how my engine works. I will dig and garden and shovel shit out of the horse pasture if I have to (see Thanksgiving with the in-laws). I can run a chainsaw, I don’t faint at the sight of blood, and I have a total potty mouth. Sure, I like nice clothes and perfumes that smell good, and I have screamed at the sight of a rodent, but I like to think of myself as well-rounded, easy-going, and up for adventure.

That said, I hate four-wheeling.

Vehicles are for roads. I understand driving off road if it’s necessary for some sort of work thing or hunting, but taking a perfectly good Jeep off of a perfectly good road just for the fun of zipping around the woods and through mudholes makes NO SENSE to me at all.

I don’t like smacking my head against the door, the window, the dashboard, and the frame because we’re ricocheting over a rock field. I don’t like smelling like gasoline and exhaust (though the mister seems to find nothing sexier). I don’t like winching or pushing vehicles when they’re stuck. I don’t like riding in the passenger seat but being unable to knit or read.

Actually, I don’t like being in the car. As long as we’re going somewhere, I can handle it, but I get bored and fidgety easily, so the whole “drive around for the fun of it” thing is lost on me, even more so when I cannot occupy myself with something else because the driving around is accompanied by big hills, loud noises, and unceasing, unpredictable movement.

I don’t like the way welding smells, I hate having to pee while being bounced around, and I have no interest in conquering Horsepower Hill.

I would have been miserable all weekend, and misery for me most often lead to bitchiness, which leads to misery for the mister.

So, while the mister invited me along on his little red-necked adventure, I happily gave up my seat to my younger brother and had myself a little hen weekend, full of pizza and beer with friends, enjoying the last warm weekend of the year, cruising top-down in my dad’s convertible with my friend to our old college stomping grounds, watching whatever I wanted on TV without having to wrestle someone else to the ground for the remote, trying on various first day at the new job outfits, knitting without being mocked, and not having random men appear in the house while I am pants-less.

And on Sunday, when he came back from his weekend, we were both happy, content with how we'd spent our time, and not angry at each other.

Yuck

2009-09-18T16:45:00.001-05:00

In addition to my husband and brother, my house has seen a revolving population of men lately, with lots of friends stopping by to visit, help work on the mister’s Jeep or my brother’s car or hang out for movies and beer.

I have to keep stocking up on peanuts and beer, but it's fine.

But I’ve learned a lesson. Apparently peeing while standing up is a very arduous task, requiring more support than a man’s own two legs can provide.

I have made this deduction based on the proliferation of dirty, greasy handprints on the bathroom wall above the toilet.

Someone (obviously a man) is coming in from the garage, taking a leak, and leaning his dirty, grimy, garage-goo-coated hand against the wall while he does it, leaving smears and grease behind.

I have hung a note above the toilet. Do not lean a hand on this wall while you pee. If I have to scrub one more greasy handprint off this wall, I will kill you while you sleep. Also, please pee in the toilet, not on, around, or near. IN.

Men are gross. Or at least the ones that frequent my home.

Moog?

2009-09-10T16:24:00.002-05:00

My younger brother moved into my basement. The mister and I pretty much run a bed and breakfast for various family members and friends out of that spare room and that’s fine. We’re glad the space is being used and happy to help out when we can. I mean, the next houseguest that plugs up our plumbing by flushing things that should not be flushed and costs us close to $700 in plumbing repairs is dead meat, but otherwise it’s fine.

Before my brother moved in, I was holding my own in the household battle of clutter. The mister and I are not tidy people by nature, preferring to put things down rather than put them away, but the house never got too terrible. (My friend Kate is all, “It did too get terrible, you pig, I had to sit on my hands every time I came over to keep from tidying up” and she’d be right, but she has a much lower tolerance for grossness than I do. It comes from having brothers.) I developed a system. When the house got to be too pig-sty like, I’d pick up and put away all my crap and I’d stuff all the mister’s crap into one of those Volkswagen sized Rubbermaid totes, set the tote by his side of the bed, and leave it for him to deal with. I’m pretty sure the he just rummaged through the tote until he found what he was looking for, used that item, and then set it back on the coffee table for me to scoop up again a couple of days later, but the system worked. Then I’d scrub, mop, wipe, and dust until the place at least smelled clean and the worst of the dust bunnies were vanquished.

Now, there’s another man in the house.

And you guys, I am losing the battle. My own tendencies towards untidiness, combined with the mister’s absent-mindedness and messy propensities were bad enough, but throw in my brother, and the house is a shithole. There are dirty socks piled by the door because all three of us like to take our socks off as soon as we come home. The mountain of shoes grows every day. The dishes are out of control. There are ALWAYS whiskers in the sink. I found a half-drunk beer next to the couch this morning (fallen soldier!), leftover from chili and the Twins game last night. My basement smells like boy. The dog is now dragging everyone’s underwear out of their laundry baskets and into the living room. Someone’s half-folded laundry (not mine) is on the coffee table, along with a toothbrush (also not mine). The TV remote is gone forever. There are magazines and books on every flat surface. There are now two Shop Vacs in the house.

And this is on my dining room table, on my pretty white lace tablecloth.

What the fuck is Moog, and why is there a greasy box of it in the house?

Projects

2009-09-09T14:15:00.005-05:00

Hat for the Mister's Birthday

I ended up ripping out the socks I was planning on making for him. I decided to tinker with the pattern and ended up rendering it impossible to deal with, so I quick-fast knit him a hat instead. I bought this wool on our camping trip to Mille Lacs in the spring and it was fun to work with. The color are natural and the yarn was sort of roughly spun, with little ares of unspun or overspun yarn, which would annoy the crap out of me in a bigger garment, but I found really charming in this little hat.

Pattern: Tychus
Yarn: heavy worsted weight from The Tinshack Co.
Needles: US size 8, bamboo straights

Shawl for MJ

(Charlie included for scale, and because he wouldn't got off the couch) (Edited to add: blogger crops pictures strangely, so it turns out that a couple of Charlie's feet are included in this shot and his whole body is included on the full size version)

My darling friend MJ moved to International Falls for a job. While I am delighted she got this great job, where they're already using her brilliance, close to her family and in a part of the state she loves, I am very sad that she won't be close by any more. Our pad thai lunches will be so much harder to schedule now that there's a several hour commute separating us.

I had been wracking my brain for something to give her as a going-away present. And I landed on this. There are patterns in knitting for prayer shawls. While I didn't pray as I knit this shawl (other than Please, God, let me find that dropped stitch) I did think about our friendship and all the things we've done together and been through together and of all my good wishes and happy thoughts for her future. I hope she can cuddle up in it, way up there in the hinterlands, and remember that I love her.

Pattern: Icarus from the Best of Interweave Knits
Yarn: Rowan Felted Tweed, 4 skeins and a little bit of the 5th
Needles: Addi Lace US size 8

Patio!

It's not all the way done, since we ran out of bricks and still need to do the edging and put new grass seed around it, but most of the work is done and I love it!

All of these men and I'm not wearing pants

2009-09-08T22:15:00.003-05:00

I got home from a good, sweaty, mind-emptying workout at the gym, ate dinner with my brother while the mister was at class, and hit the shower. Since then, I’ve been walking around the house in a tank top, undies, and my ugly blue shortie terry-cloth robe. I roughly towel-dried my hair, but it’s all wild and sticking up, and this robe is really really short and there's an awful lot of leg sticking out the bottom.

My brother was out in the garage, doing something loud and annoying to his car while he watched the Twins game, and the mister joined him right after getting home from school, so what do I care?

But just now, when the door opened, I looked up from folding my laundry, prepared to berate the mister if he walked on my freshly washed floor with his dirty garage shoes, and in came the mister. And my brother. And the mister’s friend Hans. And Hans’ friend. And Hans’ other friend. And my brother’s friend. All of these men, where the hell did they come from? And why are they in my house when I’m not wearing any pants?

Phenomenon

2009-09-04T21:12:00.003-05:00

I am unemployed (still), money is tight, stress is running high, and sometimes I feel like I'm holding shit together by static cling. But I can get through my day. I can shove it down, swallow the feelings of anxiety, worry, and outright panic and I can make it.

But the minute I see or talk to my mom, I lose it. Tears, sobs, that annoying inability to articulate what my problem is. It's like the minute I see her, I revert to a four-year-old with a skinned knee, where I can hold back the tears until my mom is there to make it better, and then that's it, I let go.

But she can't make it better. This isn't a bloody elbow that she can cover with a bandaid and fix with a hug.

And yet, sobs.

Recipe - Chocolate Frosting

2009-08-25T18:57:00.001-05:00

I baked a cake and went to frost it when I realized my collection of tubs of frosting (all bought at the 10 for $10 sale) was gone.

Faced with a fully baked, yet naked cake, I did some googling and some improvising (we were out of milk) and came up with my own recipe for frosting. It’s very, very tasty.

Ingredients:
1/2 c. butter (1 stick)
2/3 c. cocoa powder
3 c. powdered sugar
1/3 to 1/2 c. cream liqueur (I used Cruzan Rum Cream, but Bailey’s or any other cream liqueur will work. Hell, even spiced rum or amaretto, if your kitchen and liquor cabinet are as sad as mine) – start with 1/3 cup and add more at the end if you need it.
1 tsp. vanilla

Instructions:
Melt butter. Add cocoa powder and mix. Add 1 c. powdered sugar and 1/3 of the cream liqueur. Mix. Add second cup of powdered sugar and another third of the cream liqueur. Mix. Add final cup of powdered sugar, vanilla, and last third of liqueur. Mix. Add more liqueur if necessary to get frosting to spreadable consistency.

Spread on top of chocolate cake or eat straight out of the bowl with a spoon. There’s no judgment here.

Boob Sweat

2009-08-24T15:05:00.002-05:00

I spent much of the weekend digging in the patio from HELL in my backyard. Seriously, we haven't even gotten to the part where we put the pavers in the ground; we're still at the dig-up-sod-until-you-want-to-die part.

See, there used to be a giant maple at the end of our postage-stamp sized deck. When we bought the house there was only a stump left of the maple and the mister and I took care of that in our patented lazy-ass-homeowner way. We built a fire pit around the stump and burnt that sucker down over the course of a summer. Then, we tossed a layer of dirt over it, threw down some grass seed and called it done.

Now, years later, we cut up the mini-deck and are digging up sod for a patio. And all the roots from that maple? Well, they're messing me up. I'm doing most of the digging, but I REFUSE to use an ax to chop the roots (I'm accident prone), so I dig-dig-dig until the roots really get in the way, then I wait for the mister to chop the roots out so I can continue.

Anyway, I've been outside in the heat, the pouring rain, and the sun, digging in the yard and I am officially declaring boob sweat to be the most annoying of all feminine problems.

I'm mean, PMS sucks, and the way raging hormones can mess up my digestive tract is also no picnic, nor are high heels, pantyhose, underwires, bad hair, eyelash curlers, childbirth or the glass ceiling, but boob sweat? Yuck. The way the bottom of your sports bra gets all damp and then soaks your t-shirt so that it gets that weird line just under the bust, but no where else, the way you can actually feel the sweat pooling in your cleavage, and the way that if you shovel indiscriminately, a little bit of dirt can get in there, mix with the sweat, and create a mud puddle right there between the ladies? ANNOYING.

Please won't you be my neighbor?

2009-08-20T11:13:00.004-05:00

Scene: my backyard. The mister and I are digging in a patio. And by “the mister and I” I mean “I” as he is mostly just standing there critiquing my shoveling technique, which makes me want to dig a big hole, shove him into it, and bury him, but that’s neither here nor there.

The mister takes a wheelbarrow of dirt and sod to the driveway and shoves it up the ramp into the back of his pickup. (This might be why I don’t bury him under the patio; every time I try the wheelbarrow/ramp/pickup thing, even after years of working on a landscaping crew, I either spill the wheelbarrow or fall of the ramp and hurt myself.) I have to stand on the bottom of the ramp to keep it from moving. The mister comes back down with the empty wheelbarrow and we stroll back into the back yard.

And there he is, Hans, our elderly German neighbor. He is recovering from having surgery two weeks ago, unblocking the blood vessels in his neck. He is wearing a bandana around his head. He is crouched behind one of his bushes and he is cradling a BB gun in his arms, commando style.

The mister and I pause. Is he going to shoot at us? Did he finally tire of hearing our squabbling as we (I) dug in the backyard? And then our other neighbor, the one who lives east of us, well, his small, yappy dog rushes the fence and starts doing its yappy, barky thing.

And we hear it. Pop. Hans fires off a round. The yappy dog, unhurt, but definitely surprised, turns tail and runs back to her house.

Hans cackles and grins at us, the scar from his surgery standing out against his pale neck.

The mister and I load up another wheelbarrow and take it into the driveway. When we return, the dog rushes the fence and barks again, and Hans cracks off another shot. Yipe! The yappy dog retreats again.

This continues for another two loads of the wheelbarrow until Hans’ wife calls him for dinner.

And, with his thick German accent, he looks at the dog, which is standing silent and bewildered at the fence and says, “I’ll be back.”

The Weekend

2009-08-11T16:45:00.003-05:00

Thursday. I babysat five children. By myself. And I made the mistake of taking them to large, crowded public places, like, say, the Mall of America. At one point in time I threatened to tie all the children together and then tie them to my belt, because I got tired of them all wandering off where I couldn’t see them.

I also bellowed, “You are all going to get chicken tacos and you’re all going to LIKE IT!” when I got tired of the mall food court debate.

The mister found me, about an hour after I’d returned the children to their parents, passed out on our couch.

Friday. Attended the Irish Fair on Harriet Island, ate a shameful amount of food, including something called a baby’s head. Turns out it’s a pasty. Drank some beer, watched the Dropkick Murphys concert. Had a glorious time. Avoided the pit with everything in me. Mostly successful, although I did throw a few elbows when people started getting a little too pushy-shovey with me.

Saturday. More hang out time with the cousins from out of town. This time their parents didn’t leave me with alone with them, so I was not reduced to a blubbering moron. Then, the cousins left for home and I got to hang with my family in an early birthday/late anniversary celebration. The mister and I scored a Keurig coffee-maker from my parents, which won’t replace the one my friends gave us for our wedding for big pots of coffee, but for single cups, it’s AWESOME. In other news, I’ve had so much caffeine that I can't seem to stop my right leg from bouncing.

Sunday. 60th birthday party for the mister’s uncle held in aunt’s back yard. Great day. Highlights include traditions such as pass the baby, dodging questions about when the mister and I will begin procreating, eating more food than reasonable, and playing distract the little kids while the men remove a partially decapitated bunny from the croquet course. Whee!

All in all, not a bad couple of days.

On Yelling

2009-08-04T21:18:00.001-05:00

I come from a loud family. We’re always cranking the stereo, playing musical instruments, singing, calling across the house to someone else, and talking over each other. We make fun of each other, debate, shriek with laughter, shake Yahtzee dice in the little red cup, bang dishes, and generally create a cacophony. But we’re not yellers. We might be strident or firm, but we don’t shout at one another. Angry, provoked or irritated, we don’t yell.

The mister and I are no different. Even in our most heated discussions, we don’t yell at each other. I fight like a lawyer, with reasoned thoughts and measured words, and I stay firmly on topic. When seriously angry, I lean towards silence and perhaps a little bit of sulking. The mister fights like a girl, bringing up past grievances and changing the topic willy-nilly in the middle of an argument, which I find intensely irritating, but it’s a habit that will unfailingly reduce me to laughter after a few minutes because it’s just so damned girly of him. And no matter how angry he is, he has never once raised his voice to me.

My neighbors are different. They’re yellers. Angry, shouted words whip out of their mouths, particularly the father’s, and fly through our open windows. The father and the pre-teen daughter shout at each other, husband and wife screech, and the five year old is often chastised at the top of someone else’s lungs. I’ve never heard the crack of flesh against flesh, I’ve never seen suspicious bruises, but I’ve heard ugly, mean words.

I’ve gone over and knocked on the door. “Can you keep it down, please?” They comply.

I have thought about calling the police when the yelling seemed particularly vicious, but never have.

Someone did. Two weekends ago, someone heard the yelling and called the authorities and the neighbors received a visit from the cops and social services.

And now they’re looking askance at everyone. The father confronted me today while I was walking my dog. “Was it you, did you call the cops?”

It wasn’t me. The mister and I were on a lake up north when the police visited and, indeed, this confrontation was the first I heard of the incident. I assured him that no, it was not me, nor was it the mister. “But, frankly,” I told him, “I’ve been tempted to call before.”

Tonight was National Night Out, a night when neighbors gather to recognize each other’s faces and learn each other’s names, and try to cram a year’s worth of community building into two hours. The neighbors were noticeably absent. But I chatted with some other people from the street, catching up on their children’s achievements, updating people on our kitchen remodel, dodging questions about when the mister and I plan on procreating, and hearing from nearly everyone about the police incident.

We’re a quiet, safe street, a mix of elderly retirees and very young families, and nothing exciting ever happens. The presence of a couple of squad cars and another government vehicle is unheard of, so everyone was buzzing with the information. I know who called the police. And I can’t blame them. Apparently the yellers had been yelling for several hours, sometimes at each other, sometimes at a video game, and everyone basically ignored it, but when the wailing of their 5-year old son echoed through the open windows and into the street for nearly half an hour, the caller began to worry and picked up the phone.

And I wonder, the next time they yell, will I walk over and knock on their door again, assuming it’s just a different way of communicating, distinct from my lawyerly approach, but not necessarily bad, or will I call the cops? What should I do? Which is right?

Two Years

2009-08-03T06:12:00.000-05:00

I'd do it all over again. It's been wonderful.

Camping

2009-07-27T12:43:00.003-05:00

The mister and I spent the weekend camping on the shores of Lake Belle Taine in northern Minnesota.

It rained.

I mean, it was sunny for enough of the weekend that we didn't pack up the tent and head for home, but it rained. We're talking deluges of biblical proportions. It rained so hard that you couldn't hear the individual drops tap-tappitying on the tent. It sounded instead like someone was flinging five-gallon buckets of water at us.

The mister and I can end droughts when we camp. Desert hasn't seen precipitation in 6 months? Oh, well, we'll plan a trip and pitch a tent and fix that drought for you. Northern Minnesota facing drought? We'll roll out our sleeping bags and produce 3 inches of rain in an hour. No worries.

Despite the dampness of the weekend, we had a good time, getting in some fishing (the mister), some book reading (me) and a shameful amount of bacon consumption (both of us).

"Papa, I'll help roll up the tent!"

Surprise!

2009-07-22T13:27:00.002-05:00

Surprise!
Originally uploaded by SassyBuster

My friend K sent me this necklace as an early b-day gift.

I LOVE it. I actually spied it on an actor in a TV show and poked around the internet until I found the jeweler that designed it. Then I would hop back to the website and eyeball it once in a while.

I mentioned it briefly to K months ago and, somehow, she filed the information away and remembered and sent it to me for my birthday.

I tried to get a picture of it while I was wearing it, but taking a photo of your own neck without creating a double-chin is tough, so it's posing artfully on my to-be-folded laundry instead.

I love it! Thank you, K! You shouldn't have, but I'm delighted that you did.

Necklace Information.

More than meets the eye

2009-07-22T08:22:00.003-05:00

The mister's mom found a box of old toys in her basement.

In the box were the mister's old Transformers.

He was DELIGHTED when she gave them to him and I came upstairs with a basket of laundry to find him stretched out on the couch playing with them.

After spending several evenings with friends that have young children, the mister commented on the almost magnetic attraction he holds for small children. They swarm around him, hang off of him, sit on his lap and chatter at him, and generally adore him. "Why?" he asked. "Sweetheart," I replied, laughing a little, "you're a six foot tall four year old. Of course they love you."

Another sweater

2009-07-14T15:05:00.004-05:00

I knit this sweater for my mom's birthday (in September - I am SO ahead of schedule. Unemployment has its perks.).

Ravelry Link

I’m very proud of it. Almost as proud as I was when I knit a pink sweater for myself.

I don’t know why I’ve avoided knitting sweaters for so long – there’s something very satisfying about them that I just don’t get from socks, hats, shawls, and scarves. I mean, those things are lovely and wonderful and I will always enjoy knitting them, but sweaters are kind of exciting, with their little pieces that have to fit together and that moment when you slide your arms into the sleeves for the first time and the thing actually fits.

Anyway, this is the February Lady by Pamela Wynne, knit out of Cascade 220 Heathers in Caribbean Heather. I knit it on 5 mm needles, a 32 inch circular for the body and a 12-inch circular for the sleeves. I knit 23 repeats of the lace pattern for the body and 15 on each sleeve. I found the buttons in my button box in the basement.

(What, you don’t have a shoebox full of random buttons in your basement? You should. It’s great. When my husband or I lose a button off a shirt, odds are I’ve got a close match downstairs. When I babysit, the big ones, the 3 inch in diameter ugly plastic ones, those make GREAT toys to entertain a baby. And when I knit a sweater that only needs three buttons, it’s pretty easy to find some nice ones down there. I inherited the box from my mom, who picked it up at a garage sale for a quarter, and I’ve added to it over the years.)

The only annoying part of this pattern was the instruction to “work 38 yarnovers evenly among the center stitches.” My number of center stitches did not divide nicely by 38 and I had a terrible time working that one stupid row. Eventually I cornered the mister and made him do the math and then sit next to me while I knit that row, counting stitches as I knit them and making sure I didn’t mess up.

Other than that, it was a great knit, nice and fast and with just enough style that I think my mom will like it.

Confession

2009-07-13T15:16:00.002-05:00

The mister and I recently switched garbage companies. My professed reason for the switch was cost savings. Really, though, I am lazy and was annoyed with how the other company used to just leave the cans in the middle of my driveway after they'd emptied them, forcing me to park my car along the curb, get out, walk the cans up to the house, walk back down to my car, get in, whip a U-ey, and pull into my driveway.

The new company is great about placing the cans neatly to one side of the driveway so I can still get my car up it. And, bonus! This week, I happened to forget it was garbage day until I heard the crash-bang of the truck coming down the street, and I ran outside with wet hair and my bathrobe, fresh from the shower, to drag my cans out. The garbage man met me and we joked about my forgetting the cans half the time. He smiled and said, "well, if I have time and notice you don't have them out, I can just run up there and get them for you."

Recent Photos

2009-07-11T13:17:00.004-05:00

The Bridesmaid Outfit I Did Not Enjoy
Could I have looked ANY worse? Between the hair, the wrinkly dress, and those stockings and boots, I was a disaster.

Birdsitting

Fireworks

Lambs

Mowercycle
On Lyndale and Lake, the first Thursday of the month.

Around Lake Harriet

Summer Memories

2009-07-07T21:35:00.003-05:00

Sticky-sweet Kool-Aid as my brothers and I sat at our little orange and yellow plastic picnic table and had our afternoon snacks.

Getting grass stains, not just on my clothes, but on my skin.

Riding my bicycle on our newly paved road, so recently upgraded from dirt.

Riding around in the MG with my mom, top down and radio blasting Ain’t Going Down ‘til the Sun Comes Up.

The way our beagle would run along side our Big Wheels, holding onto a sock with her teeth, her head bobbing as we pedaled our way up and down the driveway.

Bike riding with Chris (who later became my sister in law) all the way to Ben Franklin for Airheads, then to Lake Marion for swimming.

Riding around with Chris’ brother (who later became my husband) on his moped, perched on his knees and squealing with laughter.

Eating home grown tomatoes like apples, just picking them, giving ‘em a rinse with the hose, and chowing down.

My neighbor’s mom banging a triangle on her porch when it was time for her kids to come home for dinner, the sound of it echoing up and down the valley.

Driving around with my brothers on the riding lawn mower and thinking we were so cool.

Going to work with my dad and riding his wheeled desk chair up and down the long aisles of the newsroom until I’d get tired pass out on the floor behind his desk until his shift was over.

Learning to drive a stick shift in the pink Geo Tracker, with the top down, on dusty country roads, grinding gears and whooping with joy when I managed to start in first without killing it.

Three-week-long road trips in the van, towing the pop-up camper, seeing corners of the country that linger in my memories.

Sprawling in the hammock with a book.

Chasing lightning bugs.

Stemming beans with my mom on the deck.

The scent of fresh cut alfalfa, sweet and strong.

Working at the country club, drinking as much free lemonade I could hold, dodging golf balls and dirty old men.

Twins games, with contraband Twizzlers and peanuts smuggled in Mom’s purse.

Rushing home in my boyfriend’s car, scrambling to make my 11:00 curfew, the heat of the day still coming off the pavement in waves .

Picking raspberries and eating two for every one that made it into my basket.

Random

2009-07-06T10:25:00.002-05:00

I went shopping with a good friend on Friday. She’s one of those women whose style I have always admired; classic, elegant, put-together. Her clothes are always pretty, chic, and well made, and suit both her personality and her profession perfectly. What they don’t do is showcase her INCREDIBLE figure. I sort of forced her into trying on some clothes and putting on a fashion show for me, and she is rocking Jayne Mansfield-esque curves, with an impressive rack, teeny-tiny waist, and perfect hips. I have no reason for sharing this other than my awe at her hourglass shape.

My gym is trying to turn their information website into a social networking site and as a result, I cannot find the class schedule for my local gym anywhere on their messed-up website. I can find the LINK to the classes, but click on it all I want, no schedule appears. Newsflash, Lifetime Fitness, I don’t want to network socially with other gym members. In fact, I avoid doing it even when I am at the gym, thus the headphones, magazine and “fuck off” expression. I just want to find out what time Strictly Strength is.

The mister and I scored a bunch of free patio pavers. Bonus: my sister in law and her husband helped us load them in the truck. Bad news: I have to unload the truck by myself so the mister and I can go back up tonight and get some more. 200 square feet of patio pavers. Also known as an entire 7-foot pickup bed crammed full. Not fun for me.

I also need to cut the grass and work out (hello, weekend of potato salad, pies, and barbecued food, get off my ass), but I can’t seem to work up the energy to move.

After the success of my pink sweater, I’m working on another one using the same basic construction (top-down raglan) but this time it’s a green cardigan out of a heavier weight wool yarn. It’s going really quickly and so far I’m loving it. To think, I spent all the years avoiding knitting sweaters, thinking I hated it, when all I really had to do was use a different technique.

Disappointment

2009-06-30T14:55:00.001-05:00

I’ve been unemployed for 4 months now.

At first, it was fun. I was happy to be out of my former place of employment, with its dysfunction and stress. I was happy to sleep at night for the first time in several months. I was happy to start my new adventure, to find a job I would love, to have a little bit of down time while I looked for employment.

Now, though, it’s just sad. I’m trying to be accepting of my position, but really, it fucking sucks.

I’m not cut out to stay at home all day. I hate housework and dishes and mowing the lawn twice a week. I miss feeling useful, putting my mind to work every day, doing SOMETHING with my time.

I miss earning a paycheck.

I’ve papered the upper Midwest in resumes. I’ve sent resumes for jobs in Brussels and Colorado (the mister is fine with relocating if I can find a decent job). I’ve emailed and called and sent letters to complete strangers with whom I have even the most tenuous of connections (we went to the same undergrad, 3 decades apart, hire me!).

Nothing.

The occasional lunch, offers to meet and discuss the market, some volunteer work that I’ve enjoyed, but nothing on the job front.

I want a job.

Today I set a new record for rejections letters/emails received in one day: 5.

Despite dealing with the disappointment of rejection rather frequently over the last few months, this stung. Not even an interview. Seriously, what is wrong with me that I can’t find a job?

Local woman asaults people at grocery store, forcing them to admire her handknit sweater

2009-06-29T16:50:00.003-05:00

I made it! And it fits!

Other recent knitting projects:

I'm knitting a wedding shawl for a friend, but I wanted to get some lace-knitting practice in before starting, so I cranked this out. Only the two ends were complicated; the long middle section was a very simple drop stitch pattern.

This is my favorite sock knitting pattern and I love the rich pink color, even though the slight color variations in it pooled into different colored patches instead of disappearing in the pattern.

I actually knit these about 8 months ago, but either the mister was wearing them or they were in the wash until it got too hot for wool socks. Then I could get a picture of them.

I finished these about two months ago. I added length to the leg portions so they'd be tall enough for the mister to wear with boots.

Knit out of leftover sock yarn and posed on a baby quilt.

Upset

2009-06-26T11:14:00.000-05:00

I keep all my knitting stuff downstairs on a wire bookshelf - all my stash yarn and books.

I mowed the lawn a few days ago and forgot to put the gutter back on the downspout. Then it rained, heavily, all the water gushed down the downspout, and without the gutter to guide it away from my house, it poured along my foundation, soaked through the walls and puddled on my basement floor.

All my yarn is soaked, but it's wool and I laid it over my clothesline in the sun, so it will all dry just fine. But the books! They're all soaked, ruined. Ones with my favorite patterns, dog-eared and post-it-noted. Ones I used for reference, with instructions and photographs of techniques. Ones from my grandmother, with her handwritten notes in the margin. Ruined.

I'm very sad and pissed at myself for being so stupid.

Marital Dynamics

2009-06-22T09:31:00.003-05:00

A couple of weeks ago I posted this on Twitter: Married Ladies: do you ever wonder if your husband is being deliberately annoying or if he's just that inconsiderate naturally?

I was pretty irritated with the mister, who had done several of my least favorite things all in one day, pretty much all of which include him doing something without even thinking, for one second, how that might inconvenience me, annoy me, create more work for me, or be downright rude.

The responses I got to my irritated post were pretty funny. “I wonder the same thing every day.” “All the time.” “YYYEEEEEESSSSS.”

These responses started me thinking.

The mister never accuses me of being inconsiderate. Annoying, sure. Bitchy? Sometimes, and he’d be right. Inconsiderate? Never. He, on the other hand, is forgiving, laid back, and really, really inconsiderate. And thinking of my friends in steady relationships, I don’t think those women could be called inconsiderate either, while their mates very well might be.

Are women more aware of how our actions and inactions impact others? Are women more aware of their significant other’s comfort and solicitous of that comfort? Is it because we think about others more while men are more inwardly focused? Is it some innate, estrogen enhanced characteristic?

Or is it societal? Are we trained to focus more on others, to take care of others, to do the dirty work and the heavy lifting for someone else?

Looking back, I can count on one hand how many loads of laundry my father has done and how many times he’s done a load of dishes. I can remember my mother picking up after him and rolling her eyes as she shoveled his magazines and books back into the basket by the couch, an action I often mirror as I scoop up dirty socks and put them in the hamper. I wonder how much of my actions are learned from this behavior.

The mister, too, actually. His own mother picked up after him, did his laundry, washed his dishes and took care of him, took care of his father. Even when she worked in the evenings, she’d cook dinner and leave for work, never getting the chance to eat herself. When the mister lived on his own, she’d still come by and “help” him clean. How much of his leave-it-and-the-wife’ll-get-it-for-me behavior is learned?

And how stupid am I for perpetuating that? He leaves it and I get it. Sure, I get annoyed and I rail at him, and we have our little standoffs where I refuse to replace the toilet paper and will in fact carry my own roll in and out of the bathroom and just leave him to fend for himself, but when push comes to shove, I always give in. Someone has to clean up, put away, make the calls, think about something other than themselves. So far, it's been me. I wonder if it always will be.

Storm

2009-06-18T08:58:00.001-05:00

Storm
Originally uploaded by SassyBuster

It stormed last night. It was pretty severe in some areas, but the mister and I escaped with little more than a couple of downed branches. We had about half an hour between when the lightning started and the rain blew in, so he and I sat out in the yard and watched the show.

Pictures

2009-06-14T19:48:00.003-05:00

He looks so disgruntled, doesn't he?

This used to belong to the mister's grandfather. I nearly killed myself tripping over it after the mister put it in the flower bed out front.

I'll stop drinking bottled water so long as I can do so with style.

The Difference Giving a Shit Makes

2009-06-11T20:37:00.007-05:00

See Edit Below

This year marks the fifth year in a row that I’m a member in the bridal party of a wedding (I’ve been to far more weddings than that – I’m at that age where everyone I know is getting married). And my darling friend K just got engaged and asked me to be her maid of honor, so next year will be number 6.

Here’s the deal with being in a wedding as something other than the bride: when it’s someone you love and give a shit about, it’s wonderful, a huge honor, fun, exciting, and awesome, and you're delighted to be part of such an important day. When you aren't particularly close to the person or don’t really give a shit, though, well, it sucks, and you’d much rather be a normal guest who just gets to show up with a gift and enjoy the party.

I was the maid of honor in my friend MJ’s wedding and it was AWESOME. Other than the fact I totally blanked on the fact I was supposed to give a speech until about 3 days before the wedding, when I just panicked and slapped something together, it was a blast. MJ was a very self-sufficient bride. She needed very little help and other than the occasional “this or that” consult, I pretty much just threw her a shower and showed up on the day of the wedding wearing the adorable dress she picked out.

Next weekend, though, I’m a bridesmaid in a wedding I don’t want to be in. See, the mister is friends with M, M is getting married to J. J and I know each other in the way of women whose men are friends; we can chit chat for half an hour and be comfortable, but we don’t know any personal information about each other, we don't tell each other secrets or rely on each other for support, and we don't hang out or spend time together unless our boys are present. To illustrate how little I know her, when I went to get measured for the bridesmaid dress, the poor girl working the counter asked for the bride’s last name so she could pull up the information AND I DREW A BLANK. I had to call the mister, who called the groom, got the name, and called me back.

But she needed a third bridesmaid and, well, I’m it, despite the fact the mister is not in the wedding at all. I tried everything I could think of to avoid participation – lack of time, lack of money, all the excuses. They were all overridden and now I have to suit up in a strapless red satin number and uncomfortable shoes.

But all the things that annoy me about this wedding were things I loved about MJ’s and will likely love at K’s. Looking for dresses was a blast with MJ, but looking for them for this wedding made me itch. Debating invitation styles or bouquet arrangements was tons of fun with MJ, but annoyed the shit out of me for this wedding.

I mean, I’m glad M and J are getting married and I wish them well and hope their wedding day is glorious, but I don’t particularly want to be part of the wedding, you know?

And it’s all about love. I adore MJ and I pretty much think the sun shines out of K’s ass, so participation in their nuptials was/will be a blast. But next weekend’s bride? Well, I like her husband, but I don’t know her and I’m not invested in her life the way I am in MJ’s or K’s (or the other friends on my “loved and adored” list, you know who you are). And giving a shit makes all the difference.

Edited to Add: Upon rereading, I realize this makes me sound like I don't like J, the bride, which is the wrong impression. I do like her, and the small amount of time I've spent with her has been enjoyable, but we don't share that I'd-help-her-bury-bodies-and-I-know-she'd-do-the-same-for-me connection. Without that sort of friendship behind us, I know I'm just the filler bridesmaid, chosen for my ability to wear strapless red satin and smile for pictures, rather than any real relationship, and the duties that go along with being a bridesmaid feel more like a burden than they really should.

Iris

2009-06-09T14:13:00.001-05:00

Iris
Originally uploaded by SassyBuster

For some reason, my purple irises burst into bloom before the yellow ones even budded out. I'm enjoying the color, though, especially on such a gray day.

Universal Truth

2009-06-03T13:45:00.001-05:00

If Beyonce's Single Ladies comes on at a store, nearly every woman will start singing along under her breath and maybe even dancing a little bit.

Stupidity

2009-06-02T16:17:00.002-05:00

I had two small projects I want to get done today. Number One was to hang a shelf/pot rack thing over our stove. Number Two was to find a piece of wood to top my sewing table with. The table originally had a machine that folded down into a hole in the top when you weren’t using it, but I couldn’t work the machine (very old, very broken) so I gave it away and bought a dirt cheap one from someone who was cleaning out their aunt-in-law’s attic. Problem: new machine is smaller than old, so it falls through the hole in the table instead of sitting tidily on top of it. Rather than figure out a way to cut a piece of wood to plug the hole, I just wanted to buy a piece of plywood, cut it to fit the top of the entire table and screw it down.

I went to home depot and bought a shelf and screw hooks to make the pot rack thing, and a half sheet of plywood for the table project.

At the counter, I dropped the screw hooks into the bottom of the cart and somehow, stupidly, reached my hand through a hole in the cart to retrieve them and got my hand stuck. It took the cashier holding the card steady while I yanked backwards on the trapped hand to get myself free.

Then, at home, I was all I-am-woman-hear-me-roar and I unloaded the plywood by myself.

Did you know it’s been an unusually windy spring?

The wind caught the plywood and before I knew what was happening, I was three houses down the block and barefoot, having lost my flip flops somewhere along the way.

I wrestled the plywood back to my house and through the door, then unloaded the shelf I bought.

Turns out it’s about 2 inches too long for the space.

I need to return it, but after the whole got-my-hand-stuck-in-the-cart thing, I can’t bear to go back to the store today. It’ll have to wait until tomorrow.

Confession

2009-05-28T07:47:00.000-05:00

I have used Aveda Shampure shampoo and conditioner for the last couple of years. Once I started buying the giant liter sized bottles, the mister started using it too, since there wasn't room in our tiny shower for my jumbo bottles of Aveda and his small bottle of head and shoulders.

It smelled nice, and I believed it was good for my hair.

A few weeks ago I ran out of conditioner and I just never got around to getting a new bottle of it. Unless we're in the middle of winter, with the super-dry air sapping moisture out of my hair, I only condition once or twice a week anyway because it weighs down my super-straight, very fine hair.

Last week we ran out of shampoo and I just couldn't bring myself to brave the holiday weekend crowds at the Mall of America (the mall closest to my home) to buy more, so I just went to Walgreens and bought a bottle on Pantene.

And my hair has never looked better! I'm using cheap shampoo and no conditioner, and my hair is full of volume and silky smooth. I think I might give up my Aveda habit. At least for shampoo.

SassyBuster, Vice President

2009-05-27T10:25:00.005-05:00

The Conversation

The mister: You know what I think is really sexy?
Me: eye roll. What?
The mister: When you run a pneumatic orbital sander.
Me: The hell?
The mister: Really, it’s hot.
Me: No. I’m not sanding any parts for you.
The mister: Please? I just need these parts sanded so I can paint them tonight.

And that is how I ended up spending five hours sanding last night and will spend another couple doing the same today.

The Business

In addition to having an actual normal job, the mister runs a small business where he does car restoration, including body repair and high-end paint.

This is the car he did over the winter.

I do a lot of the grunt work for the little business – I draft the contracts, file with the Secretary of State, run the numbers, make the trips to the parts store, and, on occasion, sand parts in the garage for five hours. He normally hires contractors if there's work he can't get done (the contractors are usually my little brother or one of the mister's buddies - might as well spread the wealth). The contractors get paid. I do not.

So I’m thinking of naming myself the Vice-President of the little business and having some business cards printed up.

What the mister does when he goes out of town

2009-05-27T07:27:00.000-05:00

**Note: there is a second video, but for some reason it's loading oddly. If you push the play button in the middle of the little box, it'll play. I promise.**

My husband is the one in the brown Jeep (wearing a black t-shirt).

While he was off on this redneck weekend, I planted a garden, did my nails, read a book, lunched with friends, and did other chick things.

A list of things that are annoying me today

2009-05-26T14:59:00.002-05:00

Mouth noises. Chewing, slurping, gum-snapping, they all irritate the shit out of me. The dog licks things and sound of it makes me crazy. The mister will get something stuck in his teeth and rather than flossing it out, he sucks at his teeth and the noise makes me want to staple his tongue to his forehead.

The mess in my house. The mister has the entire garage, yet his crap has slowly migrated inside and is taking over the house. My office (MINE) is currently housing car parts, a shop vac, and an entire giant box full of junk. The basement has been overtaken by cabinets and shelves all housing his stuff. I have no space of my own, no place that isn’t being invaded by his belongings.

Hemp yarn. I’m knitting a little summer sweater out of a hemp/linen blend and I’m having a terrible time. The yarn is gorgeous, but weaving in ends is impossible and the yarn itself has no stretchiness, so it’s making my hands ache. If I didn’t want this sweater so badly, I’d give up.

My neighbor and his leaf-blower. At 6:30 in the morning. Blowing leaves and yard detritus into my garden.

Watering the garden and grass. Just rain already!

The fact that my mail doesn’t come until 6:00 at night, because I ordered some prints from our Utah trip and I want to hang them up.

Bathrooms that don’t have tampon dispensers.

The small yappy dog that lives behind us. He just sits at the fence and yaps and barks all day long until I think I might throw a piece of salami with a Tylenol PM rolled up inside of it over the fence.

Not being able to find a job. I got four rejection letters in one day last week. That’s depressing.

The fact that Principal Financial is holding my cash hostage and will not release it (that's a long, ugly story but the short of it is that I will NEVER voluntarily invest with them again).

Old Friends

2009-05-22T19:37:00.001-05:00

Several weeks ago I met up with some college friends at another friend’s house. We gathered in her new kitchen, with its gorgeous stretches of granite, and caught up over margaritas.

Several hours passed in a blink as we chatted and basked in each other’s company.

It’s a small group of friends, one that doesn’t get together as often as we might wish, but every time we gather, it’s like being back in college, full of enjoyment, laughter, and the easy comfort of old friends.

At the end of the night, we piled into our cars and headed back to our respective homes. At the intersection a few blocks from my friend’s house, our group of cars split off, me to the right, a couple going straight, and another to the left.

I was struck by the moment. As we’ve grown up, changed from those giggly college freshmen, we’ve headed off in different directions. But every once in a while, for a few moments, our different directions bring us all to the same place at the same time. And as brief as those moments are, I cherish them.

Mille Lacs

2009-05-20T07:44:00.002-05:00

The mister and I spent last weekend camping on the shores of Mille Lacs Lake with his sister and her husband.

And our three dogs.

It was bitterly cold and the wind howled pretty much the entire weekend. It was too windy to take a boat out onto the lake, go bike riding, or do anything more exciting than take a walk and huddle near the campfire. But we still had a good time. I found a yarn store in Isle and scored two balls of wool sheared off the yarn store owner's own sheep. I then wondered how quickly I could knit it up into something warm; could I make a hat before bedtime?

It was Charlie's first ever camping trip (we've dropped him off at someone else's house every time we've gone out of town), and he did really well. The only bad part came when he got cold and wanted in my sleeping bag. With me. That got crowded and I ended up booting him out and using my jacket to cover him up instead.

He begged shamelessly for food all weekend long.

My sister in law and her husband with their two dogs. You can see that my sister in law is wearing a lot of clothing. In fact, in this photo, I think she's rocking long johns, wool socks, jeans, 4 shirts, a jacket, a wool hat, and mittens. In May. Welcome to Minnesota.

The Driving Fight

2009-05-19T07:33:00.004-05:00

The mister and I have this spat every time I drive. I'm not kidding; the one mile drive to the grocery store is long enough for us to have this fight. The 19 hours home from Moab? We had this fight about 19 times.

Me: driving.

Him: [nitpicky comment about something small and completely legal I did while driving, like easing off the gas for a second, accelerating, then braking when I come to a red light a minute later]

Me: [either shoots him a dirty look or responds to comment with a reason for said driving maneuver, like “I noticed I was speeding” or “there was a massive pothole” or “I was thinking about David Boreanaz and just wasn’t paying attention”]

Him: [nitpicky comment, nag nag, nitpicky comment]

Me: If you don’t like how I drive, you drive. Otherwise, sit there and shut up.

Now, at this point, he should just shut up or offer to drive, right? No, what he does is launch an attack on my driving skills, which, let’s face it, are not great, but they're not that bad. I use my blinkers, I turn into the appropriate and legally correct lanes, I don’t unnecessarily run yellow lights, I don’t ride in the left lane going ten under the speed limit, I don’t drive in the right lane going ten over the speed limit, I don’t tailgate (often) and I try not to ride in blind spots. He, on the other hand, ignores niceties like blinkers, thinks nothing of whizzing around someone on the right, and often pulls jackass maneuvers behind the wheel just because he can. Furthermore, my driving record isn’t spotted with reckless driving citations and speeding tickets, is it? No! But someone else’s record is. Guess whose!

I think next time I'll just pull over, saunter over to the passenger's side, yank his butt out of the seat, plop myself down, and never again drive with him in the car.

Vacation

2009-05-18T15:23:00.004-05:00

The mister and I took a trip to Moab, Utah.

Our first night led us to a cheap hotel in Omaha, Nebraska. It was pouring rain and about 9:00 at night, so we decided against camping and instead stayed someplace warm and dry.

The next day, after getting through Denver, we pitched our tent in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, which is about the cutest town ever. It was beautiful. It snowed.

From Glenwood Springs we made the short drive to Fruita, Colorado, a little place in the middle of nowhere with great mountain biking. The mister mountain biked. I tooled around the campground and found nice spots to read a book. I went on a three-mile “beginner” mountain bike with the mister and nearly died. Their definition of “beginner” is not the same as mine, because the beginner trail had obstacles even the mister was a little scared of. I walked for about 2 miles of the 3 mile trail.

The state park we stayed in charged for showers. As in, if you want to be clean and smell nice, you must drop quarters into the shower like you would a vending machine. The sign on the wall stated that this was to encourage water conservation. I have two issues with this. (1) I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a campground shower, but they are not places one is inclined to linger. Much like the showers in a freshman dorm, campground showers are the kinds of places you wear flip flops and are very careful to keep any of your naked bits from coming in to contact with any surface other than your own towel. (2) This place ran the sprinklers for over an hour at night; how serious about water conservation can they be?

After Fruita we headed into Moab. I love Moab. Arches National Park is just outside the town and Canyonlands isn’t very far (though we never did make it there). It’s all red rock and sage bushes and spectacular scenery. It’s dusty, and very hot and dry there, but so beautiful.

We ended up camping up on BLM land because the state park campgrounds in the area were full. The campground was significantly more primitive, mostly just a 4-wheel drive trail hacked into the side of a plateau with a couple of clearings where you could pitch tents and the occassional picnic table. And the most disgusting pit toilet I’ve ever encountered. Seriously foul. Of course, when your campsite looks like this, the icky pit toilet gets balanced out.

It also lacked showers, something I came to want desperately on our second day there, when the blowing sand had worked its way inside all of my clothing, and I was sweaty and dirty from hiking around in 90 degree heat. Luckily, we packed a portable camp shower. While not as good as the real deal, it works in a pinch. Unluckily, there was no tree high enough to hang it from, which meant I had the option of resting it on top of the truck and showering in my swimsuit in plain view of everyone else in the campground (oh, hell no) or taking it behind a bush and sort-of half-assing a shower using a Dixie cup.

We spent three nights in Moab, with the mister mountain biking in the mornings while I hiked and shot pictures, and then we’d spend the afternoons walking around Arches National Park.

We chowed at the Moab Brewery, which I strongly recommend, and I spent a couple hours on our last day poking around the little shops in town while the mister did some really serious riding, which resulted in a sprained ankle. The good thing is that this happened on our last day and he was able to rest while I drove the very long 19 hours home.

More pics here.

Mother's Day Reflection

2009-05-10T10:24:00.002-05:00

Every once in a while - it used to be rare, but it's becoming more common - I look in the mirror and see my mother's face. Sometimes, when I speak, it's her voice that comes out of my mouth, her words I that say. As I grow older, I turn into her.

And I am proud.

Question

2009-05-05T14:23:00.003-05:00

Is there any woman that can watch the scene in the 2005 version of Pride & Prejudice where Mr. Darcy comes striding across a field at dawn to declare his love without sighing and wishing, however briefly, that that was her life?

Pride and Prejudice - Last Scene

The Incident in the Bike Store Bathroom

2009-05-01T12:47:00.002-05:00

***I'm waiting for the mister to finish up at a bike store in Moab, Utah, and I found a free wireless connection, so I'm posting this. Pictures and other tales from our vacation will be posted upon our return to the great white north.***

I have issues with my digestive tract. I used to be able to eat anything, anywhere, and be just fine. See Semester in Guadalajara, Mexico, eating strange things from street vendors with only minor consequences. But in more recent years, my stomach and intestines have asserted that they will no longer be cooperative. Despite increased water and fiber intakes, I waffle between crippling constipation, nausea, and a sudden, urgent need to poop. The kind of sudden, urgent need that results in a clenched-cheek speed-walk to the nearest facility, accompanied by ominous rumblings and gurglings and muttered prayers that I not embarrass myself in public.

The mister and I were in a bicycle shop in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, a couple of hours west of Denver. He was chatting with the store employee, looking at a topographical map of the area and discussing the best places to go for a mountain bike ride. I was perusing the sale racks, contemplating whether or not I needed a $15 fleece zip-up jacket when suddenly, the NEED struck.

Oh, God, I thought, looking around for a bathroom. Oh, God. I hurried up to the desk and jumped right into the middle of the conversation. “Excuse me,” I said, doing my best to look calm and appear like I wasn’t about to crap in my pants, “do you have a ladies room?”

The clerk nodded and sent me towards a door covered in mountain biking posters. I did my business and zipped and buttoned up. Then I hit the handle to flush.

Jiggle clank. No flushing. I hit the handle harder. Jiggle clank. No flushing. I panicked and shook the handle up and down like a mad woman. Jiggle clank jiggle jiggle clank. NO FLUSHING.

Panic.

Since, courtesy of owning a home, I know a little bit about toilets and their inner workings, I slipped the top off the toilet tank, hoping the problem would make itself clear.

It did.

There was no water in the tank. No water in the tank equals a failure to flush.

Of course, knowing a problem and being able to remedy a problem are two very different things.

Okay, I thought to myself. If there’s no water in the tank, the toilet can’t flush. So, in order to flush, which I desperately need to do because yuck, I need to get water in the tank. The sink’s on the other side of the room, so I need a bucket to carry water in to fill the tank.

I looked around the room, wild-eyed in panic. No buckets. But there was a tiny blue plastic garbage can!

I pulled the bag out of the can and filled the can with water. I poured the water into the tank and was crestfallen when it only amounted to an inch in the bottom of the tank. Not enough to flush. I hurriedly filled and emptied my little makeshift bucket a couple of more times, getting a grand total of six inches of water in the tank, not even half full.

It’ll have to do, I thought, and I pressed the handle again. The toilet only sort of flushed. It made the right kind of noises, but didn’t really do much of the whole down the drain part.

I debated going through the whole rigmarole again, filling the tank with the little garbage can, but by this point in time I’d been the bathroom for an unreasonable length of time, even by my standards, and I had to get out of there.

I hurriedly reassembled the tank, tucked the garbage bag back into the can, and bolted out of there.

I snagged the black fleece jacket off the sale rack and tossed it on the counter, figuring the poor employee was going to find what I left in that bathroom and the least I could do was bump up his commission a little bit. While paying, I gave the mister the look that says wrap it up now, buddy, or I’ll make you very sorry. He obeys this look, as I have perfected it and the consequences for ignoring it over the course of our seven year relationship and he knows I only bust it out when I mean it.

He quickly thanked the clerk, purchased the topographical map, and we were out of there.

“What the hell were you doing in the bathroom for so long?” he asked.

Gone Fishin'

2009-04-25T08:07:00.000-05:00

The mister and I are headed out of town.

See you in a week!

Paying it Forward

2009-04-23T16:40:00.003-05:00

Today, after I dropped my dog off at the groomer, I was headed up to Minneapolis to pick up a check for car repairs when I passed a car on the shoulder.

(About my car getting hit - I was parked at a curb while MJ came down from her office to go to lunch and this guy parallel parked himself right into my driver's side door. Now, I'm a bad parallel parker but even I have never been 5 feet off my mark. Rather than go through the rigmarole of filing an insurance claim, the guy offered to just cut me a check for the repairs.)

The flashers were on and the back tire was totally flat. I pulled over to help. Lord knows that could have been me, stranded and needing help, and she was standing there on her cellphone, distress signals coming off her in waves. I couldn’t drive past her. It takes me about 10 minutes to change a tire, having done it MANY TIMES on many different cars, including twice in one week on the same car. I figured I could have her back on the road in no time.

After we shoveled aside the HUGE pile of crap in her trunk (note to self, clean out your trunk in the event some stranger might have to go through it), I discovered that her spare was flat.

Shit. My good deed for the day just got a lot more complicated. I jacked up her car, pulled off the original flat, loaded it into the trunk of my little car and drove it and her to a tire place to have a new tire put on.

Half an hour later, I drove her back to her car, helped her put the new tire back on, and sent her on her way.

Get this – she was a stripper on her way to her afternoon shift. She was incredibly sweet, very grateful for my help, and eager to buy me lunch or pay me for my time.

I waved her off. I need an infusion of good karma and I couldn’t stomach the idea of taking money from a young woman that had just spent the last half hour gushing about how adorable her nine month old baby is.

But this means there will be a lesson posted very soon about how to change a tire.

For now, I want you to go out to your car and check your spare. Make sure it has air in it! If not, go straight to a gas station and fill it up, please. The Good Samaritan who stops to help you change a flat will be grateful.

Before and After

2009-04-23T14:12:00.002-05:00

Before:

After:

I know it's mean, but I can't stop laughing at him. He looks so funny without all that hair; like he's not even the same dog. And he's so disgruntled, he's just cracking me up.

Charlie, Come!

2009-04-18T18:24:00.002-05:00

It started out innocently enough. He was just hanging out in the backyard, kind of dirty, looking around.

Then, I called him. "Charlie, come!"

He started out slowly, but built up some speed. He ran so fast his floppy little ears caught the wind. "C'mon, buddy!"

"Who's my good dog? Who is?"

Recipe: Marinated Flank Steak

2009-04-18T09:45:00.005-05:00

I saw a recipe recently for marinated flank steak that sounded interesting. The marinade, though, was not to my taste, using a lot of soy sauce and sesame oil, so I made up my own recipe. Really tasty!

Flank steak is actually a very tough cut of beef, so there are two tricks to making it tender. One is to marinate it in an acidic marinade for at least 6 hours. The other is to slice the flank steak very thinly against the grain.

Marinated Flank Steak

One flank steak
A bottle of decent red wine (I used Black Opal Cabernet Sauvignon; it has a screw cap. Don't judge me.)
1 medium to large onion, chopped
Half a dozen baby carrots, grated
4 gloves of garlic, minced
1 bay leaf
¼ to ½ teaspoon thyme

I discovered it is impossible to find an unfrozen flank steak. I found a frozen one at Von Hanson’s, a local butcher shop. Allow 24 hours for the steak to defrost in your fridge. Remove steak from packaging, rinse, and pat dry. I don’t know if this is actually necessary, but I’m kind of grossed out by the juices in the shrink wrapped package, so I rinse.

In a baking dish or bowl large enough to hold your steak (a 9x13 cake pan almost always works), throw in the onion, carrots, garlic, bay leaf, and thyme, and enough wine to cover your steak (most of a bottle in my case). Give it all a stir, being careful not to break the bay leaf. Put the steak in and roll it over a couple of times. Cover and let sit in your fridge for at least 6 hours. Flank steak is really tough, so you need to let the acid in the wine tenderize the meat for a while.

Get your grill SMOKING hot. Hot hot hot. Remove steak from marinade and toss on the grill. Cook for about five minutes on each side. The goal is to cook it really quickly over really high heat.

Remove meat from grill and let it rest for at least five minutes before slicing.

This part is key: slice the steak very thinly across the grain.

A couple of slices of the steak, served with some steamed asparagus and some fresh bread is a very nice light dinner.

The leftovers, though, are what make this wonderful. Don't slice the entire steak right off the grill - just slice off what you can eat and wrap the rest up for leftovers. Then slice off a little bit at a time and try steak and cheese quesadillas or steak sandwiches. Or steak and eggs on Sunday morning.

Hey, at least I used my blinker

2009-04-15T15:46:00.002-05:00

So, today I was out and about, hitting the grocery store and the bookstore to pick up the new Wendy Johnson book, and running a bunch of other errands. I was coming home (headed north on 35W, a couple of miles south of the river, for those of you MN people that care), singing along with Rihanna (please don’t stop the music, DJ, let it play). I was in the right lane following one of those massive SUVs that you can’t see over, under or around, but I left plenty of following room and was just enjoying the breeze through my window.

Suddenly the massive SUV nailed its brakes (we’re talking squealing tires and fishtailing) and skidded into the middle lane. And the moment that thing was out of my line of sight, I understood why. Some jackass had gotten on the interstate going the WRONG DIRECTION. I was just a few feet from the exit ramp, which the moron had just finished accelerating up, apparently thinking it was the entrance ramp. It was a massive Ford pickup (much like the one the mister drives) towing a Bobcat on a trailer. And he was coming at me.

I stomped on my brake pedal and yanked my car hard to the left, pulling into the next lane. I would like to point out that I used my blinker, though I might have hit it when I was already most of the way into the middle lane. I didn’t hear any horn honking or squealing tires (other than my own and, perhaps, some from the jackass in the truck), so I’m assuming I didn’t cut anyone off or cause any sort of accident.

I called 911 and the rest of my ride home passed without further incident, except for my shaking hands and the nausea roiling in my gut.

I'm looking at this as maybe the end of my string of bad luck. Sure, it was almost a horrific accident, but only almost. And if I had been driving that big Monte Carlo, I would have had a much harder time hitting the brakes and maneuvering it as well as I did the little purple car and it might not have ended as well as it did.

The Unbearable Cuteness

2009-04-15T08:24:00.005-05:00

I love to knit socks. They're portable, there's an infinite variety of patterns and styles to make, and a ball of sock yarn is much more affordable than buying enough yarn to make a sweater.

The problem is that when I finish a pair of socks, I always have yarn leftover. Not enough yarn for another pair of socks, but too much for me to just chuck it. I asked one of my knitting pals what I should do with the leftover yarn and she suggested knitting a bunch of squares out of it, and then, when I had enough squares, sewing them up into a blanket. Meh, no.

Then she suggested baby booties. And a few days later, I spied on Janet's blog two pairs of the most adorable baby booties ever. I found the pattern and whipped out a pair. Now I just need to find someone that's having a girl.

Sitting in the Sunshine

2009-04-14T11:00:00.003-05:00

Sitting in the Sunshine
Originally uploaded by SassyBuster

I spent a lot of Easter weekend with my in-laws. The noise was incredible. The chatter of people talking over one another, my mother-in-law's shouted orders from the kitchen, the howling of at least 6 different dogs, men shooting skeet...it was intense.

At one point on Saturday afternoon, though, the men were out in a far-off field having some target practice, the crack of their shots muffled by distance, and my mother-in-law and sister-in-law decided to go for a bike ride from which I politely declined to accompany them, so I got to sit on the porch in the sunshine and absorb the quiet.

Of course, the smell of sheep manure wafted up from my boots when the breeze blew in the right direction and I was accosted by a muddy dog a couple of times, but the blessed silence was worth it.