Adoption notice

In response to...

Those poor animals, sounds as though you can't handle them. Why not put them up for adoption?They shouldn't be left outside while you take a nice vacation.

Two geriatric flea-infested black cats:

Nearly 14 year old male cat who will urinate and defecate on everything except the litter box. Particularly likes to poo on the seat of the dining room chairs. Lately, he makes a hornking noise when you look at him, as though he might cough up a hairball at any moment.

Twelve year old female cat has an anxiety disorder, or maybe an esophageal defect, or a combination of these two that results in random vomiting around the house. This usually occurs about 3 times per day, but up to 8. She prefers to vomit behind radiators and under furniture so that you find it months later, hardened like cement.

Weirdness

Tuesdays I help sort at our church's thrift shop. I'm usually there 2 hours at the most, the kids look forward to it, and there's something in it that satisfies my need for completion unlike most of my PTO duties, when I leave the thrift shop I can see things are better than when I arrived.

It's mostly the older ladies in my church who volunteer there. Usually there is only one woman about my age there, and I find her tedious. There's something meditative about folding clothes, and she interrupts my thoughts about every five minutes to ask a question or to try to get her kids to help me - they never want to help. I was looking forward to going today since she is on vacation.

A few weeks back, a woman named Emily was there. She is older, slight with dark skin and hair. She has a thick accent. The only other day I've seen here there, she tried to get me to take home a pair of linen capris pants about 4 sizes too small, and then got visibly offended when I said they wouldn't fit.

I tend to the children's clothes. There are about 5 racks, and a table with the stackable plastic bins that milk cartons come in. The table looks as though someone emptied 4 garbage bags full of clothes on top of the already full bins. The most time consuming task is re-sorting each bin into boy/girl sizes. When she arrived, I was on the last bin.

She sidled up next to me and said quietly, "Your shorts are nice."

"Thanks." I replied. I smiled at her, but kept folding.

"It must be nice," she said, her voice waived a bit with nearly palpable disapproval, "to be able to afford such expensive things."

I was wearing denim shorts, a 3/4 sleeved top that was bought on sale at Nordstrom but shows wear from many washes and the seams are fraying, and my dusty Converse All Stars, a Christmas present from Dad. The only jewelry I wear these days is my wedding band - purchased for $40.

I decided not to acknowledge the snark, and just respond to the complement at face value. "Thanks," I said again. "I bought them at Target."

"No..." She started saying something about how I must really know materials because they look expensive or something, but I was not listening. I nodded and smiled, but I just looked at my pile of folding.

Overwhelmed

I wanted to share with you the very relaxing and wonderful vacation we had last week, but the past 40 hours or so since my return have been tremendously stressful. Despite the money we've spent having the house fumigated and bombed, the flea infestation was at a fever pitch when we returned on Saturday. Although we'd left Seamus outside, he snuck back in to soil several pieces of furniture. Alec had tried to shut Shannon out of our bedroom to keep her off of our mattresses, but it resulted in her getting locked in Lindsay's room. I can't blame her for using Lindsay's changing pad as her litter box. If you've watched nature shows featuring piranha, the fleas were similar when we returned. I immediately took the girls outside and sprayed them head-to-toe in bug spray.

We had had the foresight to schedule another bug treatment on Saturday afternoon, so Alec waited with Lindsay for the Orkin man, while Lauren and I went out to take care of some critical errands - buying presents for her friends' birthday party, replacing the pair of glasses Lin broke while we were on vacation. We finished in time to pick up Lindsay and Alec as the Orkin man told us that if we were to let the cats back in the house, Frontline or not, we'd be doing this until December or January.

We'd made the decision given Seamus' new no-litter policy, that he would be living in the yard from now on. We debated what to do with Shannon while we were out. I can give you a hundred rationalizations about why it's best for us to do that, but ultimately, Shannon herself made the decision. While we were out, she somehow escaped her pet carrier.

We spent yesterday throwing stuff away and vacuuming. I had saved quite a lot of Lindsay's smaller clothes in the drawers under her bed, where Shannon slept while trapped in her room. We bought a new vacuum, an upright canister vac with a HEPA filter and Alec vacuumed nearly every surface of the house. I've done approximately 8 loads of laundry, despite having returned from vacation with 3 suitcases of clean clothes. Today, there are still 3 loads in progress, and despite seemingly constant cleaning, our kitchen is too filthy to cook in, but the laundry and kitchen have to wait for other commitments today.

I'll tell you about vacation when I'm feeling a little less overwhelmed. Given school starts in 10 days and Lauren's birthday party is Saturday, that might not be soon...

The Saturday 9

We leave for the shore today, so I leave you with the Saturday 9 meme. You can feel free to snag it, just go give Crazy Sam a holler...

1. Do you worry about your next birthday?

I'm going to be 34 this year. Maybe I will worry when I turn 35? Or 40?

2. Have you ever lied about your age in the recent past? If yes why?

I told someone I was 35 recently. It was a mistake but I didn't correct it.

3. Have you ever lied about your age when you were young? If yes why?

I'm sure I did, even if just by omission. I drank alcohol while I was in college.

4. How much older have you been a person that you were romantically involved?

I am wracking my brain to think of a time I dated someone younger. I can't think of a single time. I've always been attracted to older men.

5. How much younger have you been a person that you were romantically involved?

I was involved with someone 29 years older.

6. Have you ever been consider a sibling, rather than parent of your child?

No.

7. If you have had children, did you factor in age when deciding to have a sibling?

Yes. I felt that <2 years was too close together. We "aimed" for a 3 year age difference, and hit 3 1/2.

8. If you have not had children, are you happy with your choice and/or fate?

I can't answer this question.

9. Do your siblings have kids? Are you close to them? Their ages?

My siblings don't have kids yet. I think it will be tremendously cool to be an auntie.

Reminders that life isn't a beach

1. Fleas. I cannot even begin to describe the annoyance these little buggers have become. They are everywhere and on everything. I noticed today poor nearly anemic Lindsay is covered in bites. I've been spraying poison everywhere today and yet they are only marginally better.
2. Seamus' behavior has taken a serious decline. Today, I discovered he relieved himself on the seat of Lauren's chair (thank God Lauren didn't sit in it!). I have no idea why he is pooping in random places, but I am really beginning to hate him and I feel terrible.
3. I walked face first into a spider web in my yard this morning that covered me from head to fingertips. As I tried to get the sticky web off of me, I realized I had a quarter-sized garden spider wearing her egg sac on my chest.
4. I can't seem to keep Lauren in a hat, and so her scalp burned yesterday. It was her first sunburn and it hurt.
   

My mind is still at the beach

Karen captured this moment. Bethi and I are walking out to look at the rocks. The storms from the night before hung over the eastern sky, strong enough to upset the canoe and lodge it underneath the neighbor's stairs to the beach.

What

I want to write about the weekend, leaving it in the warm, diffuse light of the Canadian sun shining through the windows of a cabin on the shore of Lake Erie. The warmth of wood walls painted in cheerful apples with Christian names of family who sleep in these bunks and tent in the yard. Who comb the beach looking for smooth stones with a hole that goes the way through.

I came without expectations...without anticipations.

The Steven King novella titled with a Ben E. King song came out the summer I turned 13. There's a line at the end about how you never have friends like you do when you're 12, and I remember the group I was in with and how we laughed easily and often. Your words spilled freely, some nice and some not, but they were accepted as they were and not subject to the later angsty teenage paranoia and interpretation.

To be in a group of women, a group of friends some of whom friends longer than half their lives, longer than they can remember a time before they were friends is like being able to step back into that moment of time when you were too self-conscious to let a friend see you exactly as you are and not as you'd like to be or as you like for people to see you.

And maybe it is this group of friends that the love is just so big and so deep that you're instantly enveloped in it.

And maybe it is being in a cottage so full of five generations of family.

Maybe it is the easy laughter, the in-jokes, the release of being undefined by husbands and children. Maybe it was the August snow and full arched rainbow in the middle of the drive home and yesterdays storms.

I feel renewed. And yet, already counting down the days until WTHS 2009...

Calling it like it is

Lauren: "You can't ride two riding toys at once, Lindsay. You only have one butt."

***

Lindsay: "No pizza bagel. No wan that! Ew. Bagel has cream cheese. No pizza."

***

Epiphany: "How about I put on your new sneakers?"
Lindsay: "How about not?"

***

Swear word goes here

My cats have fleas.

My toddler has borderline iron.

Today wasn't fun.

I just spent a small fortune in flea repellent, shampoo, spray, combs, and extermination.

Dr Google says iron deficiency is bad.

Craptastic.

Among life's great mysteries

Lindsay had a doctor's appointment about a week and a half ago. I don't know if it's a Jersey thing or a living in a very old house thing, but we were given a script to go to the lab and repeat her blood work from last year - CBC and lead.

When we sat down to do paperwork, the technician looked in horror at Lindsay's skinny arms. "It's for the baby? Oh no."

"She'll be fine." I replied brightly. "She didn't even notice last year."

She looked doubtful, but didn't reply.

As we sat in the scary looking blood drawing chair, Lindsay held her arm out and let the tech tie on the tourniquet. The tech's hands were shaking.

"They are just going to take a little blood out of your arm, Linds." I said calmly, as I held across her chest, pinning her right arm beside her. "And Mommy's giving you a special hug to help you keep still."

A second tech was there with the butterfly, sliding around the first who held Lin's arm taut. Lindsay watched, completely fascinated, as the needle pierced her skin. The second tech spoke quietly about the three tubes to the first, dropping each in her pocket as they filled. The first tech's hand was still now, looking at Lindsay's interested expression.

"I've never seen anything like that," she exclaimed.

"She doesn't mind needles." I replied.

The second tech stuck a purple sticker on Lindsay's shirt that read "I did very whale" with a cartoon whale on it.

"Tanks." Lindsay said.

Epiphany needs to post more often

Alright. I am not on an official hiatus. My life just gets in the way a lot these days.

Highlights:

Lauren passed "eels"!
Mudda bought us a new refrigerator. It is a HONKIN' BIG fridge. Holla!
Lauren and I went to see Dr Karen, our new dentist. I spent 3 hours in the chair, but now my gums are feeling so much better.

As for the pesky meme from Mimi, here goes:

1. Heather needs men...NOW!
2. Heather needs to start wearing a brassiere. (Every day since I was 12...)
3. Heather needs two therapists. (Presumably to do with Heather Has Two Mommys.)
4. Heather needs to grow up. (Oh, bite me.)
5. Heather needs some body guards. (This had to do with Heather Mills)
6. Heather needs Gatorade. (I HATE Gatorade.)
7. Heather needs an eccentric beauty parlor owner. (Does that mean you don't like my 'do?)
8. Heather needs her bucket. (Um, ew. I am afraid to ask...)
9. Heather needs a childhood. (Uh...I thought you said I should grow up?)
10. Heather needs new boobs. (Gotta put something in that brassiere, I guess.)
11. Heather needs a fan club. (Who doesn't?)
12. Heather needs a tan. (Hmm...been hanging out at the pool, have you?)
13. Heather needs Rambo's knife. (Oooh, this sounds racy...)
14. Heather needs to go. (This one had to do with Heather Tom.)
15. Heather needs to start looking into the camera. (Also Heather Tom? Too many Heathers.)