Things About Fire Camp

This is my tenth season in wildland fire. You'd think by now that I would have it figured out, surviving this mini-world with its own rules, but I am still learning. For my fire and non fire friends, I'd like to share with you some of the survival techniques I have adopted. 

Fire Camp Survival Guidelines

1. In a wildland fire setting, the more smiley and friendly you are, the farther it will get you. Being cute helps, but isn't entirely necessary. I have heard that this approach works well all hours of the day, but because of personal handicaps, I can only vouch for the hours of the day beginning at about 9 AM. 

2. Personal hygiene is a highly subjective and easily justified area of compromise in the wild land fire world. The necessity and frequency of showering, with or without shower unit availability, is hotly debated and widely considered to be of a personal nature, except when you share a crew rig with one or more other people. At this point, it must be decided as a collective whether bathing is a requirement, an option, or strictly forbidden. Thank heavens most Hotshot crews are moving away from the idea that a shower is a sign of weakness, but we still have some paradigms to overthrow. I, personally am of the every-other-day school of thought, any more would seem indulgent, any less, assuming you have showers at you disposal, would just be unnecessarily gross. In the event that showers are not available, dry shampoo does serve a purpose other than decorating the inside of Paris Hilton's overnight bag. Also hats. Hats are good.*

3. Getting dressed. This continues to be one of the Great Challenges of life in fire. For those of you who sleep in tents occasionally for "fun", it is readily apparent that standing to dress can be problematic for any adult of an ordinary size, unless your tent is the Taj Mahal of outdoor lodging, which I would frankly be too embarrassed to unfurl at a fire camp. The Taj Mahals are here, and widely mocked by hotshots who still insist that people who are not weak sleep sans-tent on any not-flame-engulfed piece of ground. But a reasonable tent of the 1-3 man variety still leaves room to be desired (literally) when one goes to get dressed in the dark, cold, early mornings. Over the years I have learned to dress myself in a laying position. This is pretty easy, except for the Bra, which as we saw in recent stories, becomes a day long issue at times. The other danger in this lying down approach to dressing, is the risk of catching something in the Velcro of your nomex pants without noticing. This could be something innocent, like a sock, or one of the many hats that are placed strategically around the tent for quick retrieval. More often than not, the thing stuck to your Velcro will be a pair of dirty underwear.  Dirty underwear on a fire are different than regular dirty underwear at home. Whether this is because of the generally understood rule of 4 (inside, outside, front and back, gets you four days of "clean" underwear out of one pair), or because squatting to pee in the ash results in a gray/black dusty effect regardless of the color they started as, dirty fire undies are just embarrassing. Especially when you wear them to the morning briefing in the Velcro of your Nomex pockets. So always check your Velcro. Also zippers. Zippers on Nomex pants are notorious for refusing to go up, stay up, or close without catching the yellow tail of your Nomex shirt. The standard fire fighter finger sweep of the zipper fly is at least an hourly occurrence, and can be pulled of deftly, as if one was just reaching casually for one's pocket -  but making sure the zipper pull is exactly where it is supposed to be for maximum modesty. Again, no one wants to see fire undies. Especially if they're on outside or backwards days. I have arrived at briefing with almost every article of clothing on inside out and/or backwards at least once, luckily never all at once. On nights when I am really tired, I usually don't bother to take anything except my pants off to sleep, knowing that an equally tired 5 AM will make dressing a disaster. Nomex clothing on a fire can be exchanged for standard issue stuff at supply, rather than washing it, but if you buy the fancy designer Nomex, it's up to you to keep it clean. My new favorite hobby is visiting supply to see if anyone accidentally turned in some name brand Nomex, and have completely overcome both my pride and my fear of poison oak in digging through the bin of turned in dirties - dumpster diving ala Wildland Fire. This tactic won me 8 old school Nomex shirts last year, the vintage, smooth ones that are WAY more comfortable. This year I stumbled across a pair of Kevlar pants in almost my exact size! $200, y'all. My partner, Lee, was both impressed and envious, so we went back the next day, just to see, and I scavenged another pair, in almost his exact size! We were a little giddy with our good luck and vowed to check supply morning and night for the duration of the assignment. 

4. Eating. Everybody knows that we eat great on fires. 4000 calories a day, all you can eat salad bar, and lots of snacks. The dark side of fire-food is the mystery meat sandwiches for lunch, pastrami that is rainbow colored, mixed veggies for dinner that are a suspiciously high concentration of watery Lima beans, and really bad coffee. I will leave coffee it's own space and address the rest. Dinner is usually great. There's almost always something edible for dinner, if nothing else, the salad bar is often a safe fallback. I usually eat the meat that is the main course and salad. I've learned to skip the bread, and often the starch sides and cooked vegetables. I've even managed to avoid most deserts. Except for the strawberry shortcake last night. And milk. I drink a lot of milk at if camp. It's just tradition. After ten years in fire, I have finally come to the realization that I don't like fire lunches. I still get them so I can take the two granola bars, dried fruit and grandma's cookies home to the kids (or Husband), and eat the fritos, but I find little that I can really digest. As I mentioned, if you can identify the stack of meat in your sandwich, it will undoubtedly be translucent, at best, and usually technicolor. Survival techniques for this fire problem vary. Usually a run to the closest store for chips and bean dip do it for me, maybe stealing yogurt and cold cereal from the breakfast bar, some people I know save part of the giant portion of meat from dinner the night before. Any fire overhead personnel worth his mettle will be packing a Jetboil. The Jetboil is the line firefighter's mealtime salvation. In addition to making your own coffee (next section), e Jetboil is amazing for soups, frying salvageable parts of fire lunches (I.e. burritos, thin sliced ham, etc), and just giving you something to do if you are sitting on the line all day waiting for someone to have an emergency. Last year when it was late season and it was cold and I had a little bit of camp crud, i got some of the Bear Creeek soup mix and some crackers. I had the best little cheddar and brocolli picknick on my tailgate. Always pack snacks. Always. Unless you are me, and forget to, and whine for days. 

5. Coffee is the single most important part of fire camp survival. Most food units make their giant vats of coffee with a coffee concentrate as opposed to grounds. It's pretty disgusting, unless you scald all of your taste buds off early into the fire because it's also much hotter that humanly reasonable. Our medical unit, and many of the other fringe overhead organizations, bring a coffee maker and "real" coffee to camp with them. Sometimes the secret leaks out and you find yourself waiting in line for the third pot because the entire overhead roster has come for a cup. My biggest issue personally is finding acceptable cream sources. I've often had to resort to powdered creamer, which I honestly prefer to the sickly-sweet, coffee mate flavored creamers which are available in great abundance and basically just a compound of poisons and sugar. This fire has almost real half and half, of the tiny cup, non-refrigerated variety, and since the coffee tastes bad, I've been adding a packet of honey. Later we will discuss honey. But it makes my coffee taste almost like a carmel latte. The ideal set up, especially for a line medic, is a Jetboil and a French press, or the available combination thereof. I'd prefer to have them separately, because ultimately, after seasons of unwashed use, the French Press is a robust and well seasoned shrine to good coffee, and I don't really want my broccoli cheese soup tasting like java. On my last assignment, I took a pint of heavy whipping cream, my coffee additive of hedonistic choice. The paper carton didn't hold up well in the cooler of ice though, so I am rethinking my approach. Probably a Rubbermaid bottle from home? A good buddy of mine packs Starbucks Via with her Jetboil, no press needed. I'm not in love with Via, or Starbucks in general, but it's better than coffee syrup coffee, by a long shot. **

6. Sleeping. One word: Benadryl. Until I get my own camper with a memory foam mattress, no configuration of stolen gray foam mats from supply, thermarests, sleeping bags and quilts from home can fend off the inevitable back spasm after several days of tossing and turning. This morning I woke up with a bruise in my left gluteal muscle, presumably from a flashlight or pair of socks or something that was easily mistaken for part of the "bed".The best approach to sleeping in fire camp involves identifying and avoiding floodlights, smoking areas, cell phone reception pockets, and poison oak, taking a Benadryl and not remembering the night at all. NyQuil is another camp favorite, but may be harder to talk the resident EMT into handing out, depending on how benevolent they're feeling. An EMT who has fixed a lot of BooBoos in a day is usually feeling pretty high on their protocol administration, and is likely more pliable than a bored camp EMT who hasn't had a chance to flex their medical knowledge for the day and is dying to tell you why they can't give you NyQuil. So always look for the dirtiest medic in the unit. Which will very likely be me. 

7. Socialization is another key factor in this microcosm. Learning where it is important to make friends will get you a long way. Some of the most important people to buddy up to included communications (you'll never have to beg for batteries), medical (dibs on the rare Green Gold Bond?), And supply (vintage Nomex and unlimited duct tape and glow sticks). Food is also a good place to have friends, you can get a preview of meals which can determine a detour through town for a quick stop. It never hurts to have the  Incident Commander and a few assorted operational bigwigs on your side, in case of unruly bosses, ordering up friends and/spouses or snagging primo spots on the line. "we need medic Weston for this float assignment on the Rogue River." "I'd like Medic Weston to fly the fire with me for some strategic medical planning." Friends in high places, y'all. See guideline 1. 

I'm always looking for new tricks and interesting fire-coping mechanisms. Feedback welcome!

*I am in search of a reasonably cool and not-itchy Denver Broncos beanie. 

**Dutch Bros should come out with an instant coffee, y'all.

Things About Near Death Experiences

Ok. The cool thing about near death experiences is that you don't actually die. No matter how close you come, you can't die. Because then it wouldn't be a near death experience. You never know how you'll respond to imminent death, all up in your grill. My first thoughts were A) how ticked my kids would be to miss the Avett Brothers show in October, and B) whether I was wearing my super grodiest undies for when the medics (who would inevitably be friends of mine) cut the clothes off of my body. The final decision to NOT die was based entirely on the memory that the side of my bra was twisted and I hadn't bothered to fix it so I would look like a blind three year old had put my under garments on. Clearly this would be an unacceptable condition for body discovery. 

My near death experience started when one of the other medics brought this huge native kid into the med unit from the line with some sort of a "sting". He was pretty sure it was a scorpion, since his face and arms were "tingling". This is type 2 firefighter speak for "I got a pine needle in my shirt and I am tired of working." We gave him some Benadryl and made him sit in the sick bay for awhile, but pretty soon he realized the medical unit was even more boring than the murky pond next to an old mine where his crew was hanging out, so he asked for a ride back. 

Being in my fragile condition, my team has graciously made it possible for me to do work around camp instead of hiking into poison oak laden gorges of sharp rock. As we've already established, the medical unit can get pretty boring, so I volunteered to drive him up to his crew. Most of the drive was spectacular, up the Rogue River, twisting and tumbling into yellow green hills that stood like gnarled rock sentinels guarding the path to the ocean. We turned off on a narrow gravel road with a sign that said "Last Chance Mine", and weaved our way up the deep ravine. The road was one car wide. Only one. Not one and a half. Not two. I was rambling on about how two way traffic on this road would be a nightmare, blah blah blah. We got to the top, or at least the end of the good road, where some crazy person lives. Tingly-Arms said his crew was up a road that only barely qualified as one, and that the other medic had driven it, so it would probably be ok. 

A couple things to know about the other medic, Gary, is that he is in his mid sixties, has worked for Fish & Wildlife for 1000 years as well as raising cattle and several kids. He can't hear a thing, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't feel much either - I have worked with Gary a lot and I really truly like him. But Gary has absolutely no fear of death. He is an animal. Of course he drove this hill. In his F&W truck. Casually, I'm sure,  not even noticing the insane slope or the deep water-worn trenches and frost heaves around mastiff sized boulders. So here I go, up the hill. I did have the foresight to put my rental Jeep Pioneer in 4WD, which may or may not have saved my life. Tingly-Arms didn't seem at all nervous about the hill. The thing about boys is they're really good about doing things without thinking about them. The thing about girls is that they change their minds way too often. Which is exactly what I did, halfway into the 50 degree slope on the first turn. As I tried to dig a hole in the floorboard with the brake peddle, and engaged the emergency brake, I could almost see Tingly Arms giggling out of the corner of my terror filled eye. The jeep was sliding backwards, diagonally, between two not-friendly looking edges of the road, which were even steeper. I had the underwear and bra conversation with myself as I hung suspended, looking out my driver's side window, towards Certain Death. I was completely convinced that we were hanging sideways with one axle hooked on a big rock, and there was no way down but rolling. Which, based on the accident last week on these roads where a water tender rolled and killed the 19 year old driver, seemed like a terrible idea. Tingly Arms had a mischievous grin, and told me I should "just gun it" which I snapped back would be really easy to do if I could stop sliding. His smug 18-year-oldness, combined with my underwear epiphany, and the fact that I had basically NO other choice, compelled me to follow his instructions. I'm fairly certain that I closed my eyes, and somehow made it up on the second attempt at "gunning it". The next corner wasn't much better, but at that point I had decided if I was going to die, my body should be lost in an unrecoverable ravine. I ALMOST changed my mind again halfway through, but the beautiful thing about being a girl is that I can change my mind about changing my mind, and after a glimpse of a waver on the gas pedal, I held my breath and chewed up the corner. Tingly Arms giggled and made some comment about how fun that was, and I tried not to paralyze him with my eyes. 

By the time I got to the murky pond and the animal Gary, I couldn't stand. Turns out that a pucker of that magnitude engages and tortions core muscles that I would rather not even acknowledge were there, let alone use at that intensity. I skidded back down the mountain without dying, miraculously, and managed to put off throwing up my Olive Garden leftover lunch until I was out of sight of all of the firefighters, who didn't seem the least bit impressed that I had just accomplished a Feat of Unnatural Courage. By the time I got back to camp, I was only mildly nauseous, my full on shakes were reduced to a slight buzz and the adrenaline overload was demanding a nap. And a pain killer. I said a few choice curse words instead of having a little cry, and made a beeline for my tent, where I immediately straightened my bra out. 

Things About Old Men

I love old men. I just do. And old ladies too. But old men can tell stories like no other. For clarification, by old I mean over 70. They've lived life. No more games, fear of consequences. Just say it like it is, old men. If I could encapsulate every old man I have ever met in a colorful story book, I think that I would be pretty happy with myself.  Theirs are stories worth telling, and worth hearing.

This week I worked with a man named Jim. He's 74, and he's out here, running a skidgeon. Or a squidgeon, if you're Josh, and easily confused by words. For anyone who doesnt know, a skidgeon it a cross between a log skidder and an engine. It can dig and cut and drag and squirt and drench.  It's pretty cool. And when you run it, you get tossed about the cab like a bobble head, breathing dust and smoke like crazy, especially when you have a home-made number like Jim's skidgeon, with an open screen, welded cab. Most skidgeon operators are of a certain age, and deaf. It's that disregard for consequence I think. The nothing-left-to-lose and what's-a-few-bumps-and-aches-and-pains. I think it makes them feel young and useful and alive.

Jim told me a story about his family. He's been married to Betty for 54 years. They had two daughters. One is a roller operator for a road constructions crew and the other he said, got into "drugs and bullshit", and well, it finally killed her. The heavy equipment operator daughter lost all of her fingers and a good chunk of her left hand working at the mill, but she still has her thumb so she manages just fine driving.  The other daughter, Bobbi, got married to a local boy named Blue, who turned out to be no good. 

About 27 or so years ago, Blue took his refer truck out to Kansas, with Bobbi in tow, leaving their two week old baby back in Oregon with family.  They set out to make some money, but after bouncing from state to state fruitlessly, Blue finally saw what he wanted  somewhere in central Kansas. He set Bobbi up driving the refer truck and he hid in the sleeping compartment. He told her to hail another trucker pulling a load of cattle. She talked the other driver into pulling over for a joint, and when he the sucker climbed into the cab of the refer, Blue shot him twice and killed him dead. He bundled up the body in the back of the refer trailer, which he left on the side of e desolate road, then he hooked his cab up to that beef and hauled it back to Oregon and sold it. Bobbi watched in horror  as he cleaned up the blood that streamed down the side of the truck, and as he got a neighbor to dig a put to bury some of the steers that had died in their overlong and miserable transport. Blue told the neighbor to leave the pit for some other trash, and went back to Kansas to get his refer, complete with dead body. He wrapped that body up and threw it in the mass cattle grave and dumped it in, covering it before he had the neighbor come and bury the whole damn pile.

It took two years for Bobbi to tell Jim and Betty what her husband had done, after Blue had run off with a dingbat hairdresser. Jim went straight to a lawyer friend and they got Bobbi's statement all done up. Sure enough, the guy that Blue had killed had a warrant out for HIS arrest for stealing the cattle in the first place, so the only people looking for him were the Kansas police. Bobbie took them out to the property where the body was, where the sheriffs, looking for all of the world like neighborhood rednecks in their cowboy hats (cause that's how they do it out there in Mitchell, Oregon), lured Blue out of that trailer and arrested him right there in front of that dingy hairdresser.  They found the body, sure enough, and when they got Blue down to the police station and upstairs towards the interrogation room, the guy wrestled away from the cops in his handcuffs and jumped out of a second story window. As you can imagine, he didn't get very far, and after a week long trial in Topeka, he was sentenced to 25 years. After that, he sent love letters to his dingbat hairdresser girlfriend who had just inherited a good bunch of money and had moved to Kansas to be close to her jailbird boyfriend. After buttering her up with lots of mushy stuff, he told her to hire somebody to go out to Oregon, get Bobbi hooked on drugs, get her to recant her statement, and then overdose her. Blue told the dingbat to destroy the letters, which had all of these instructions in detail, but she kept them, because they were sweet. The hairdresser paid $3000 to one druggie to go out and take care of business, but, surprisingly, he disappeared with the cash.  Then she gave a convicted felon $1200 to carry out the deed, who took the money and copies of the letters to the police. Something about those letters made it so that Blue managed to stay in prison past his 25 year sentence, but Bobbi didn't make it that long. Her own bad habits got the better of her. Her daughter, Heather, stayed with Jim and Betty until her delinquent father tried to weasel his way into her good graces for help with a parole hearing. Lucky she was smart enough to know better, and she'd read the death sentence letters about her mother. Heather is an ultrasound tech now, with three kids, and another one on the way.

Jim has more stories to tell, about how Betty is as smart and talented as they come, but prefers to sit around on the computer. She had a run in with "female cancer" last year and she's doing ok now, but she'd gotten pretty heavy and one day, Jim took her by the shoulders, looked her in the eye, and said "you know that I love you dearly, but if you don't lose some weight, you'll be in a wheel chair inside of two years." Betty started walking, taking some pills, and lost 120 pounds. He says she could do petty much anything she wants, but she kind of likes to do nothing. After 54 years, if Josh can criticize me with that much affection in his eyes, I'd be ok with it.

Then there was Steve. Another heavy equipment operator of the appropriate age, who had suffered a Aaortic Anuerysm two years before I met him on the Cub Complex in northern California. He had missed the last fire season, he said, because he had been in a coma for about 6 months due to the massive loss of blood and shock to his system. He said it wouldn't have been so bad except the doctors didn't take him seriously on his first two ER visits. They gave him heartburn pills and sent him home. The third time, he said, he had to lapse into a coma right in front of them to get dome attention. Anyone who works in the medical field, and many other people, understand that an unattended, undiagnosed Aaortic aneurysm is ALWAYS fatal. The chance of surviving one that is caught right away is slim. Steve is nothing more than a CAT driving miracle.

One of my favorite old men of all time is Larry. I worked with Larry for the better part of two summers. He taught me how to ride ATVs, mostly by letting me crash, and groom trails, and dig holes, build signs and drive really fast on washboard roads. Larry was adamant about the legality of the "rule of ...", which was some addendum to state speeding laws that said if it was safer to go faster than the speed limit, it was ok. I looked it up, and sure enough, there was some little loophole that could be stretched just far enough to prevent Larry from ever getting a speeding ticket. I could never get over watching Larry run a Stihl 66 for 8 hours a day, with gnarled arthritic Hands and a habitual hunch in his back, which I can imagine once was broad and strong, back when he was a city firefighter for Bend, and the big brick fire station with the brass poles was't a series of hipster bars that couldn't stay in business. I can see him picking up cleverly on the pretty receptionist that passed the station, and marrying her up right quick with her two kids and all, because Joanne was all that and a bag of chips. I hear that Joanne had a bout with cancer last year, and it wasn't looking good. I need to call Larry.

Then there was the old navy vet with MRSA in his lungs that I rode with in the back of the ambulance to Spokane. He taught me how to say "lint of the belly button" in Italian, which had been his mother's favorite obscenity. I wish I could remember that silly phrase. I swore I'd never forget it. 

I honestly look forward to being married to an old man version of Josh someday - a Josh with absolutely nothing to prove to anyone and lots of nose and ear hairs. I look forward to rolling my eyes at his stories and backing him up when our great grandkids respond in disbelief.  I think Josh will be an old man of the best variety. One with all of the best and most amazing stories. Stories that we're living right now. 

 

Thing That I Read II

Ok y'all. It's reading season, which happens to coincide with fire season, and days on end of sitting on my aching rear end with no cell service, no one to talk to, and thankfully, few medical crises. So I read. Here's the first set of the summer, and my illustrious sounding opinions of them, rated, as most aspects of my life, in relation to my favorite snack food. Or not so favorite...

World War Z

Max Woods  

Awesome book. So much better than the movie, and I really liked the movie. Mostly because I'm a cheap date/easy to entertain... I am a sucker for pop culture. But this book is extremely well written, a compiled documentary style collection of anecdotes about the war of humanity against human rabies. Fascinating, involving, even as it jumps around from place to place and character to character, it pulls you in. Enough science to explain without losing the layman, enough drama to keep even me entertained, and piquing serious ethical/philosophical questions about dealing death to once-human beings. Reminiscent of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein in it's man-as god-role and the moral dilemmas thereof, it left me thoroughly prepared for the zombie apocalypse. Anybody  know where I can acquire a lobotomizer?  This one is buttery, delicious popcorn. With brewers yeast. 

The Woods

Harlen Coben 

Um, scary? This is the stuff teenage nightmares are made of. The book itself wasn't horrific and terrifying, but Harlen Coben, who is new to me, develops thoroughly believable, like able, relateable characters and a gripping plot. Junk food reading I guess, but more cheezits than sour patch kids. You just can't stop. And your mouth doesn't get raw. 

Playing For Pizza

John Grisham 

Meh. Kind of sappy story about a sucky football player. What more is there? I mean J.G. Can write good, but I ended the book thinking... Why?

Salted peanuts. Ok. If you're starving to death. 

The Street Lawyer

John Grisham 

Good book. Thought provoking. Ethics challenging. Couldn't really decide if I totally agreed or totally didn't. It's like Atlas Shrugged - where its hard to identify the good guys because the good guys are really the bad guys and vise-verse. It raises some good things to think about, and it was interesting. Maybe not GRIPPING, but good. Raisins, or maybe dried cranberries. Good for you, tasty but they get old fast. 

Ricochet River

Robin Cody 

This one surprised me. It's a local Portland Author published by a local Oregon College writing about a local Oregon Boy and his coming-of-age about the time that the ecology of the northwest rivers went all to hell. I really got into this story and was really impressed by Cody's version of the ecologist - a steward, not a protector. Great characters, great storytelling. If you like those local-outdoorsy semi-greeny type books. 

Cheese. Like sharp cheddar. With green apples. 

The Walk in 

This MAY be my second favorite of the summer so far, WWZ being first. I think I liked it because it is co written by a novelist and a for realz CIA operative, retired of course. In my mind that meant that it had to be at least mostly accurate, and probably drawn somewhat from real experiences. That's how I read it anyway. And it was fun. A classic spy novel with just enough twists to elude discovery until the last couple chapters, but still a teeny but predictable. I liked the main character A LOT, which is a little weird. If you read it, you'll know what I mean. Um... Swedish Fish, all the way. Delicious, and possibly healthy, in that they make me happy. FYI this book was a freebie at the humane society thrift store. ;)

Private: #1 Suspect

James Patterson

This one was a bubblegum read. It was fun, but I got almost bored with the same 'ol mystery plot line. Plus everybody was super rich. It's like bubblegum. Pretty good but gets annoying and flavorless after a while. Like rice cakes with not enough peanut butter.  I like some of Patterson's other stuff WAY better. Especially when they star Morgan Freeman. 

Bloodlines

Jan Burke

This one was a gripper. So much so that I actually stewed over the unresolved plot throughout my 1.5 hr drive back to camp and for several minutes that I should have been sleeping. It jumps through 20 year increments from 1936-1958-1977-2000, unraveling a complex tale of intrigue, murder, mayhem and revenge. I liked it a lot. But I was always sad to leave an Era and revisit the characters 20 years later when they're old. And then 20 years after than when they're really old, or maybe dead. I think I like my fictional heroes young and strapping and alive when I leave them in a book. The characters were very well developed though, except for the main one. Irene Kelly was a study in mediocrity to me. In fact, I couldn't even tell you what she was supposed to look like. I guess that makes sense, since she tells the story in first person. I mean, most of us don't go around describing ourselves in dramatic detail... But the plot was great. Recommend. Trail mix - complex, yummy, healthy, satisfying. But it definitely needed more M&M's. 

Things About Fire

I was driving off of the line last night, right through a big burn that some hot shots had just fired off. It was beautiful. More beautiful than Christmas Lights on Snob Hill. More beautiful than Pirates of the Caribbean. More captivating and powerful and terrifying and beautiful than almost anything. All at once. As I drove, I thought to myself, you're the luckiest girl alive. Here you are, broken, weak, quite nearly useless, and you get to see this. To be here. Not only that, you're getting paid. Fire is awesome. You know you're doing the right thing when you can't get over how frakking much you love it.

This is fire. There is no camera or artist that will ever be able to capture the heat that radiates over the road, through the windows of the car, warming the side of your face to remind you, ever-so-gently, that it could melt you into a puddle of nothing. If it decided to. If it ganged up with the wind and felt like it. 

Fire is a destructive force. As with almost all naturally occurring elements, given free reign. It is one of the most amazing and valuable chemical reactions. It has the power to heal as much as destroy. But such power. Two days ago, the only road to where we were working looked like this: 

Today, after a few over zealous hotshots had their way, and we nearly lost hundreds of thousands of dollars of heavy equipment, it looks like this:

The fire blew so forcefully and quickly through that the needles on the trees on the east side of the road didn't even have time to burn off. Just blow sideways and fry to a crisp fall orange. Unnatural for an evergreen. This part of the forest isn't healed. If any of the trees survived, they will struggle through decades of fighting with a new ecosystem to continue their growth. In some places, the burn is gentle and friendly, like a mother changing her baby's diaper. Just cleaning things up. It's not pleasant, unless you happen to be a fire junkie (most of us out here are), but it's necessary and good. Kind of like killing all of the spiders in the world.  

I can never get enough. The smell, even when my eyes and throat and lungs are burning - The smell makes me want to strap on a shelter and a hard hat and tromp into the woods just to see it move through the trees. Something so powerful and mysterious and uncontrollable. Watch the silly little people in their yellow and green chase it furiously with their ineffective tools until the fire grows weary of the game and chases them back to the relative safety of their precious lines. Lines that often don't hold, in spite of the countless hours and dollars pumped into them. Whether the lines hold is really more up to the wind, and the sun, and every entity in the woods that isn't wearing green and yellow. All it takes is a singed bunny with a smoking hieny to cross the lines and drag his glowing, emberous cottontail through the crispy green brush. It's happened. But we're here, we draw our lines and chase our smoke and sometimes we get lucky and have the wind and the sun and the rain on our side, when they get tired of the arrogant flame front and his bossiness. And then we win. It's a melancholy win through, killing the passionate beast and trudging through gray sludge as we cool down the messy remains. Every job has its downside. For this one, putting a fire out isn't nearly as fun as outwitting the prolonged chase of it, directing it to where you want it to go in a fashion that will serve the purposes of the forest. Putting the fire out just means moving to the next game of tag, and starting all over. From April Showers til well past the first snowfall of winter, we chase it. Like a virulent  strain of a deadly contagion, we must catch up with it and squelch it. Not much rest. Losing sight of everything else that is important in our lives. Knowing that we can put things off until later. That it's FIRE SEASON and we must go. 

Things That I Love

Dear Amazon Prime: 

I love you so much. I hope you don't hate me when I tell you that I need to spend some time apart from you. It's Josh, you see. He's becoming suspicious that he is being replaced. And if you and I have any hope of a relationship in the future, I must keep my marriage alive. Don't think I won't miss you. Or that I'm not thinking about you every minute. And everything you have to offer. You complete me. You fill every need that I can think of. Without fees or hassle, one click and you're there. I will always love you for that. Just because I neglect you for a little while, don't think I've given up on us. I will come back to you. I will lavish you with all of the attention and affection you deserve. In the meantime we must bear our pain in silence. The deprivation of mutual happiness. We must be strong and have hope for better days to come. Rich and plentiful days. When we will never have to part again. Don't forget about me. I will miss you.

Always,

Liv

PS - Don't forget to send the vitamins I ordered today! 

Things About Living In Northport

• We have neighbors named Bev and Kay. I can never remember which is which. And the fact that he lives in a purple velour track suit and she has the voice of a kidnappers ransom phone message doesn't help. Apparently he was the school superintendent AND a border patrol agent for like 100 years. They seem to be super nice, and if a raspberry crop says anything, they might be my favorite people. 
• The local gas station is also a liquor store and has all of your grocery necessities. At twice the price of the local grocery store which is twice the price of the stores in town. And the local grocery store closes at 6 on Sundays. Not 7. #lessonslearned
• Beach cruiser bikes are a novelty. Other than Jael Regis' rickety wicked witch bike, there isn't one like my beautiful mint green Schwinn until you get into Canada. I know this because somebody here offered me $10 for it. Josh's $3000 race bike doesn't even need a lock because people think he's riding that tiny piece of junk because he spent all of his money on my bike. 
• Riding bikes in a small town is WAY less scary than a big town. 
• Mini Coopers hold up like champs against large deer.

• Not too many people in rural areas know how to fix Mini Coopers. 
• When the power company decides to work on a sub station 100 miles away, the whole town loses power. For several hours. On a Saturday morning. When my parents are visiting. 
• Hair dryers, coffee makers, coffee grinders and local breakfast joints are all out of commission when there is no power. 
• Everything takes longer to get here in the mail. Like parts to fix Mini Coopers. And paychecks. And everything.
• There are a lot of creative substitutes for pretty much everything when you live 45 minutes from a store with reasonable prices. 
• Pinterest has suddenly become a whole lot more useful. 
• In lieu of a pedicure that I can neither afford nor get to, I tried a foot soak in Listerine and Vinegar. It was AWESOME!

• Human relationships don't take any less work when you live in the boondocks.
• I get crabby when I am bored. Being bored is easier in the boondocks. With no car. And no money. 
• I need a hobby. 
• Or three. 
• Eventually, Netflix will run out of TV series. They've already run out of TV series worth watching. 
• Fire Season makes it all ok. 
• I really like to go huckleberry picking. It's like a semi-productive excuse to go sit in the shade in the forest and imagine you hear bears. It's also a great opportunity to vent life's frustrations on the stick that trips you and makes you dump the 1.72 cups of Huckleberries that took you 2 hours to pick. The dilemma of time loss verses berry recovery in these situations is one that may never be solved. I definitely prefer huckleberry picking when I am on the clock at a fire. Then it's more than semi-productive. 

• The thunderstorms are AMAZING
• For all of it's quirks and potential disadvantages, I love it here. I am happy to be back. I am content (in spite of my snarky complaints). 
• The best thing about living in Northport is being known. After all, isn't that what we all really want? To be known, apart from the masses of other people, for our own unique traits and characteristics. To be the girl with the bike. The EMT. The paramedic. The guy that served the pancakes and wiped the tables at the Firehouse breakfast. The couple who shows up for everything. Or nothing. Or a little of both. To just be SOMEBODY. That's the special thing about a small town. Everybody is SOMEBODY. Everybody has a place, a spot, a niche. I am working to find mine. We are working to find ours. The ours is harder than the mine. It's like being newlyweds two years after we are married. Maybe because everybody here knew ME. And now I am US. I have faith that in time our niche will be carved out and we will be the family who... I look forward to that. 

Things That I Plan

ohmygosh.

Everything is so hard today. It's probably not a good day to try to do anything. But I did have all of these plans.

Like for example, I was supposed to get up at 5:50 so I could leave at 6:00 to go pick huckleberries with very industrious friends of mine. Lucky for me, my back, and front, and all sides of me, hurt so badly by 4:30 AM that I was able to get out of it. So I finally crawled painfully out of bed around 9:00 and noticed all of the Other Things that I needed to do. Like folding laundry. And vacuuming. And Eating Breakfast. It's all so hard. I don't even want to put a bra on. It's just too much work.

So then I think that maybe I can be productive by working on a new website for myself, where I will post new and wonderful things that everyone and their dog wants to read. I will become an instant online celebrity and can traipse through life just making people giggle in 20 minutes a day or less. But the new website thing is so hard. And confusing. And requires creativity. And I seem to have just run out of that. The cool thing about the website plan, unlike vacuuming, is that I could do it from one spot on the couch and not move. But when I realized that I would have to engage my brain and develop something that anyone besides my mother would ever care to look at, I felt like crying and going back to bed. Why is everything So Hard?

I keep thinking that I will hop on my Cute and Cheery bicycle and peddle over to the post office, where I can pick up several bills and a rejection letter from the medical insurance people. Then I could peddle over to the store and get myself an enema and some beer. Then I could go visit one of my friends and I would suddenly remember that I didn't have a bra on and peddle home shamefacedly with my enema and my rejection letter. Oh, it's so hard.

I did manage to get coffee mustered up. It wasn't so much of a plan as an Absolute Requirement For Living. Kind of like the enema. And the beer.

I have to admit that having my car in the shop for a few days is nice because I can use it as an excuse to not go anywhere. I tried to use it when Josh asked if I wanted to go to work with him today but it didn't fly, since I could ride with him. Luckily I was writhing in pain, so he quickly came to his own conclusion that maybe I should stay home and vacuum. At this point, my plan is to quit planning and just unfurl myself from the couch and start taking staggering, baby-zombie steps towards the bra that lies where I left it on the floor last night and just do this day. But it's so hard.

Things That Argghhhhhhh...

It's just one of those days. When nothing is wrong but everything is. When you are totally fine, but you're really not. When every time the Man of Your Dreams opens his mouth, all you can visualize is sewing it shut with Very Permanent Stitches. I am SUCH a monster today. No really. I am. You know it's bad when the resident Superhero mixes you a drink to help calm your nerves and you actually complain about it being too strong. Seriously? What kind of hormonal nightmare does that? As if scolding him for putting barbeque sauce on his cube steak sandwich wasn't enough. You know, I don't think it really matters if you got the recipe off of Pioneer Woman and wanted him to try it unadulterated and sing your culinary praises. I don't think a man who Loves Barbecue Sauce in every possible application would even notice a new recipe unless it was adorning his favorite condiment. But go ahead, girl. You chew him out for not tasting that bland, boring old steak sandwich without his One Joy in Life since all the slacker did all day was work. But for reals - that drink was STRONG. I wonder why? I really should be nice to him, since for the first time since I have known the man, he saw the opportunity to pay me a compliment and actually capitalized on it. I am fairly certain it was purely accidental, which leads me to believe that his resistance to verbal niceties is solid, stubborn obtuseness. But the shock on his face, and mine, when I mentioned I wouldn't want to be underfoot at his job site, and he shot back "when would you ever be underfoot, baby?" was absolutely unsurpassed. Baby steps, y'all. I'll take it. I immediately congratulated him and started making him a cube steak sandwich for dinner as a reward. Of course then, the monster of hormone in my head which lies dormant for about two thirds of the month, if Josh is lucky, began to raise her ugly head. "Why I should congratulate a man for a semi-passable comment when he should be lavishing praise upon my head daily?", became the all consuming thought. And then that darn cube steak with the barbecue sauce thing happened. Dammit all. (appropriate use of curse words here.)

With the glint of fear in his eyes, Josh scraped some barbecue sauce off on one end of his now ruined, but previously masterfully concocted sandwich, took a bite, and pronounced it "really good. and I don't like cube steak." Luckily cube steak sandwiches do not call for steak knives. Or that glint might have been replaced with a serrated blade.

Ever so tentatively, he's been asking what I would like to do for the evening. And as I gag theatrically on my overstrong tequila drink, I imagine all kinds of medieval torture devices I would like to experiment with. Josh quickly returns to his work, and lucky for him, the smart sucker - the tequila starts to kick in.

It doesn't help that I woke up in pain this morning and have been chasing it in waves throughout the day until finally I took a LARGE dose of painkillers and slept for four hours. The pain killers took the edge off of the pain but provided a nice dose of nausea and the four hour nap just made me feel like I had been marinading in dirty laundry for several days. How naps can be so good and so destructive all at once, I will never understand.

I feel bad for being so completely ridiculous. But it's really hard when things This Serious crop up. And then he starts picking the peely skin on the back of his heels and HE KNOWS I hate that. It's like he's just trying to make me despise him. It's an intense test of my self control. Which probably means I will go to bed in about 10 minutes.

The poor boy doesn't get that now is NOT the appropriate time to look up the Washington State EMT Basic Protocols and tell me that I was actually wrong about Nitro administration. Nor does he understand that wanting to go over remodel plans for our house and choose countertop colors is a really bad idea in This Exact Moment. Of course you're surprised that I don't like mocha brown paperstone counters honey, it's because you have no taste. Or style. And also, you're just showing me ugly colors to test me and pick a fight. Yeah, it went something like that. And probably the roofline for the new addition will never be settled upon.

To purge the sense of awfulness and pity for my Darling Husband that I am sure this has left you with, I shall bequeath upon you some poignant words of brilliant characters that totally back me up:

"I have seen too much not to know that the impression of a woman may be more valuable than the conclusion of an analytical reasoner."

SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

"There is in every true woman's heart, a spark of heavenly fire, which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity, but which kindles up and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity."

WASHINGTON IRVING, The Sketch Book

"Let men tremble to win the hand of woman, unless they win along with it the utmost passion of her heart."

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, The Scarlet Letter

"Woman's mind
Oft' shifts her passions, like th'inconstant wind;
Sudden she rages, like the troubled main,
Now sinks the storm, and all is calm again."

JOHN GAY, Dione

"If a woman shows too often the Medusa's head, she must not be astonished if her lover is turned into stone."

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, Table-Talk

"I expect that Woman will be the last thing civilized by Man."

GEORGE MEREDITH, The Ordeal of Richard Feverel

Things About Road Trips

I wrote like six thousand words yesterday when we were driving. And then I lost it. It's kind of like burning a batch of cookies that you were Really Excited about eating.

 Anyway, what I wrote yesterday went something like this:

Long Road trips are not the best time to have deep and controversial relationship conversations with your spouse. It seems counterintuitive, I know, because with 9 hours of uninterrupted "alone" time, what could be more productive? But the reality is, three hours into the middle of nowhere in a vehicle going over 60 miles an hour is something  like being trapped in a coffin underground. The only difference is that you know at some point you have to stop for gas. There are not rooms to stomp out of on a road trip, no doors to slam. No escape. I try to avoid initiating any conversations of a Potentially Delicate Nature unless I can see that we are under a half of a tank of gas. Then I can run away at the gas station if I need to. Or at least hope for the distraction of Hot Tamales and a long line for the bathroom. 

It seems like sometimes, when you're trapped in a fast-moving vehicle with someone that you Love Deeply, any conversation holds the potential for disaster. 

"Why did you do that?" 

"Do what?"

"Turn on the air conditioner. I was waiting until the top of the hill"

"Because I couldn't breathe"

"Drama much?"

"You're a jerk"

"I'm conserving gas. Last time I checked we were trying to get ahead of our bills. And SOMEBODY needed a latte today." 

"Jerk"

This conversation is a mostly fabricated compilation of several different talks we had. But they all ended similarly. Unless we talked about truly volatile things like fiscal responsibility, sex, disciplining children or whether Bon Jovi is the greatest musician that ever lived. Then things would get nasty. 

Sometimes I think it's a small miracle that we stay married with the number of conversation riddled road trips we have taken. I've tried to introduce books on tape, but we both get bored listening to someone else's voice talking about topics totally unrelated to our lives. 

We've talked about seizing the opportunity and viewing it as a productive and positive relationship building time, but Josh says it's really stressfull and un-fun, and I have to agree with him. Although I have yet to go on a road trip of any nature with my Precious Boy that isn't hatefully stressful and a regrettable mistake for him. This is unfortunate, because I've always liked traveling, and can't understand why he gets worked up every time we run out of gas or get a flat tire or our average fuel economy is under 13 mpg. I've always considered those little road blocks part of the unfolding adventure.  It's only money, right? And time. Both things that represent hard labor (in the most punitive sense) to a man who desperately wants to be able to quit his dirty and pain-filled profession. 

I try to understand. And then I start to think I'm one of those terrible entitled people because my belief that things will always work out is totally reliant upon his back breaking diligence, and I have not earned the right to not be stressed. The poor boy carries the weight of the world on his shoulders, and all I seem capable of doing is picking fights with him. Accidentally. Because contrary to popular opinion, I DO NOT LIKE FIGHTING. Especially with Josh. He's intimidating. But I really truly believe that there is something better on the other side of not settling, however frustrating and uncomfortable it gets from time to time. I mean if it was always comfortable, it would be settling, right? Or maybe we would have arrived... Or maybe Bon Jovi really is the greatest artist that ever lived. And who really needs air conditioning? 

Things About Equality

I am a feminist by no means. I am 100% in support of the idea that women can't do exactly everything men can do, and certainly not as well. The reverse is also true. I won't deny that I feel like we got the short end of the stick in some ways when nearly every function of the quintessential housewife is a thankless task that is usually undone before it is finished being done. For anyone that has changed a diaper, washed a dish or a window, picked up legos or vacuumed a floor, or made a batch of jam that was so good everyone ate it out of the jar in spoonfuls, you know what I mean. Guys, in a completely broad sense and definitely generalizing way too much, get to do things that stay done. Like build houses. And fix cars. And stuff like that. It's a completely irrational envy I have since I could have decided 20 years ago that I wanted to go to college and become something cool. Say an astrophysicist, like my cousin or something. Or an airplane pilot for missionaries in the jungle. Oh wait. I did decide that. But at the time, in a world where "college is no place for young ladies" I settled for my next best fate with an exotic-ish man who had seen an Entire Semester of college. That didn't work out so well, so I went to college anyway, when it was apparently a little safer for young ladies, and got a degree in something that is mostly useless. I have done many crazy and cool things. I have skydived over Hawaii. I have hiked on the Great Wall Of China. I have helped a Ugandan Doctor in surgery. I have touched the Berlin Wall, I have been inside of several burning houses, and upside down cars. I have done CPR for 50 minutes straight. I have flown in helicopters and walked through burning forests and been stalked by a mountain lion. And I have done many "boy" jobs. I have been a firefighter (enter discussion with husband of the appropriate use of "fireman" terminology in our household - I maintain he calls himself a "fireman" just so he can say he is something different than me and I can't compete with him. I am insecure.), an EMT, and Archaeologist just like Indiana Jones but without the hat. I have been a ATV trail builder, and ATV trail monitor, a forest firefighter, a painter (if you don't believe me check out the Sauvola building in downtown Northport), a purveyor of hardware and building supply, farming supply, a bookkeeper, and many more things. A lot of which are "traditionally male" roles. And those are the ones I like the best.

Not because I hate being a girl. I like being a girl. I would feel really weird if I was a guy and had armpit hair and stuff like that. But I am not the kind of girl who has ever really experienced the elation of childbirth or childrearing or anything involving the word "child",  like I have heard many women proclaim. I have never had my soul refreshed with the proud fulfillment of a child's accomplishment. I am proud, yes. And I adore my kids. As the individual human beings they are, not as an appendage of myself. Anything awesome they do is almost entirely their own gifting and the sheer grace of God. Lord knows mothering, housekeeping, "traditionally female" roles, are mentally and psychologically much harder work for me than actual hard work. I don't like being unthanked, unnoticed, undone and presumed upon. In any area. I am sure in the same way, that my husband doesn't like being relied upon and expected to pay the bills somehow, by the sweat of his brow and the strain of his back. Bills that are always waiting to be paid the very next month. Bills that only seem to increase no matter how your lifestyle decreases. I am sure he feels, like me, that every hard thing he does goes unnoticed and unappreciated and simply has to be redone. But we get to look at pictures of beautiful tile jobs he does. And buildings that spring up from the ground in two days and stay there for a hundred years. Probably it would be kind of boring to look at pictures of the laundry I folded and the floor that I swept. And every batch of jam I have made has disappointed on some level: too runny, not enough fruit, too many seeds... And there hasn't been a single dish that I washed that has paid a cent of the bills. That just makes me mad. I know it all has to be done, but the things I do, in my mind, are worthless since they don't pay, and they don't please. And they don't fulfill. And they don't entertain.

I have actually come to a point in my life where I like to take care of my house. I like to do laundry and clean things up so that I can sit down and enjoy it for 4 seconds until Dagny dumps out her toy basket and the dryer buzzes. It is a good feeling. But it's nothing to write home about. Or text my husband pictures of, unlike the colossal landscaping project he was working on. It's sad really. I know there is value in my time and the things that I do, but it certainly doesn't seem tangible most of the time. I would much rather be making money or entertaining someone. Josh was a little puzzled today when I didn't want to go with him to do some of his work stuff. None of it was anything I could have helped with, but I could stand there with the pink flamingos like a lawn ornament and listen to him talk, or think of something interesting to tell him, and since I don't do anything else with my day that really matters, why wouldn't I go? I knew that I had three loads of laundry to fold, a sink full of dishes, and of course I could foresee that Dagny was planning on doing this:

Which really meant that I could have a productive day at home. Even if nobody noticed. In fact, I could probably EASILY convince Josh that I sat on the couch and did absolutely nothing today, since I have no doubt that Dagny will make that exact same mess right after I vacuum for the second time today.

Sometimes, being a girl stinks. Or maybe just being me stinks. When I am better, I will do "boy" things all the time and will be noticed. Or maybe I won't. I guess over the years I have proven to myself that I CAN, and now that I have my Wonderful Man, I don't HAVE TO anymore. But I am so worried that people will forget that I CAN. And think that I am useless and sit on the couch all day long. I know what I am capable of, what I have accomplished, what I have in my rucksack of experience. Why am I so worried that everyone else, especially Josh, will forget? That I will just be swept over in the vast history of American housewifery as one of the masses that raised the next wave of housewives and breadwinners? I don't mind being one. But I want to be more. It is selfish and ego based and wrong, I suppose, but after 30 some odd years of fighting it, I give up. I give in. I will keep carving my rebellious niche in this little world of mine so that at least my kids can say that I never quite fit, and maybe they will be glad. But I can still make good jam.

Things About Not Working

It's a romantic ideal I have that Josh and I would spend a day at home, not working and just basking in the deep well of love that we share. Instead, a work-free day goes more like this:

8:16 AM: Josh wakes up, pretending to be mildly perturbed that he slept "too late" and telling me he was actually lying awake in bed from 5:30 AM on, a fact I know to be untrue since I woke up at 7:37 and saw him snoring and realized I could keep sleeping some more, guilt-free.

8:37 AM: Liv struggles out of bed and is on her way to start the coffee, gets sidetracked by re-instructing Dagny that morning potty goes outside and chasing Emmy and Penny out of the bathroom three times while she tries to remember why she's in there. Oh yeah, thyroid medicine.

8:44 AM: while still unsuccessfully making her way to the coffee pot, Liv gets distracted yet again by several Immediately Pressing Messes. Like a paper towel with toast crumbs and several dried-green paint brushes in the sink. Josh hops up from his first 28 minutes on his computer and demands to know why Liv is so business oriented and is cleaning things up this early. Liv explains that she is trying to make coffee but keeps getting disoriented, and why didn't he facilitate the coffee consumption sooner. Josh protests that coffee making is not his job, Liv makes offhanded snarky comment about doing many "jobs" that she doesn't like, Josh takes offense and starts rattling off the hardships of his life. Liv finally makes coffee while pretending to listen.

9:11 AM: Josh is mercifully back on his computer and Liv is sulking on the couch with coffee and two dogs that she would rather were not sitting on her keyboard. Liv makes offhanded snarky comment about Josh's priorities being askew, which instantly engages a Battle Of The Ages that successfully removes both dogs from her keyboard and Josh from his laptop. Liv wins Battle Of The Ages by being correct 100% of the time and Josh is ashamed and says they should go out to lunch. Liv points out that lunch isn't served at 10:23 AM (time lapse allowed for Battle Of The Ages) and Josh gets pouty.

10:29 AM: Liv tells Josh to get guns and we will go shooting. Josh instantly perks up.

10:47 AM: Josh finally has all 6 guns, two ammo bags, zombie targets, ear protection, safety glasses and high protein energy snacks packed in the car. We are ready. We go drop an ink cartridge at Middlesworth's and some groceries at the Whitebird and discover that the reverse gear on the Mini Cooper has abdicated it's post and the car will only go forward. At all. Forever. Josh sees this as a karmic punishment from God for losing The Battle Of The Ages and blames Liv. Now in addition to a deer dent, two sets of bad brakes and a blown compressor on the Denali, we have no reverse. God is good. We were just saying how much we'd like to stay home more. All of the time. Forever.

10:56.0005 AM: The Mustang Grill understandingly serves Josh lunch.

11:32 AM: A fruitless search for a "shooting range" results in Josh pushing the Mini Cooper backwards in lieu of reverse no less than 6 times, while Liv reminds him that this displaces his guilt for not having a weight lifting routine, and they give up and go home, parking carefully pointed outward.

11: 49 AM: Josh is back on his laptop, Liv is sulking on Facebook, Emmy has experienced some gastrointestinal trauma that results in toxic gaseous emissions, aaaaaand it's nap time.

Things About Humor

I don't feel funny today. Not even a little bit. Maybe it's because I have a teeny headache right in the space between my eyes and my ears. Maybe it's because I don't have any cream in my coffee (which is ALWAYS a bad idea). My buddy was talking about how cream in her coffee makes her a nicer person, one that her family likes better, and I have to agree (I mean for myself, not you, girl - you're ALWAYS nice). Either way, I don't feel funny. I had a funny weekend. Really a hilarious weekend. One that started on Thursday morning in a cataclysmic fight with my Adorable Husband and careened wantonly into Monday with two sets of destroyed break pads on the road weary, kid weary, dog weary, work weary Denali. Poor old beast. Reminds me of me.

Sandwiched between these two life-and-budget altering events, we also tested the durability of the Mini Cooper against an oversized whitetail doe, with surprising, however expensive, results. We took 3 kids and 4 dogs camping across the state, the long way, because Google Maps prides itself on creative plotting and wanted us to take a tour of Diablo Dam and the phenomenal Washington Pass, which happens to be the northernmost paved pass in Washington state and also almost two hours out of our way. During this camping trip Truck didn't bite anybody, nephew Judah adopted himself into at least three extended family groups for family photos at the family reunion (that's a lot of family) and Aspen didn't change her clothes or brush her teeth once. I returned her to her dad's house in much the same manner I usually receive her.

The "Camping Trip" was actually a family reunion. The every-other-year opportunity to hang out in the dirt with my dad's brothers and wives, their kids, and their kids's kids. The adults were severely outnumbered by Children Nine and Under, which made the whole event that much dirtier. To be honest, there is something almost magical, in a grubby kind of way, of realizing that I am sharing the same blood and heritage with 50+ people in the campground, and to see flashes of my Grandma Audrey's face in my cousins, and reflections of my dad's awesome sense of humor in dozens of other people. These are my people. And with all of our very extreme differences, we are the same. It's an awesome thing, to know where you come from, and to bask in it, ever so briefly. I really, truly feel a sense of sadness for the ones who do not have what I have in my extended family, on both sides. I feel blessed and privileged to be a part of so many good, crazy, different people, and share the solidarity of common blood and history. I am proud to call them all my family. Except maybe Aspen, by Sunday morning, when her hair was matted and her face matched the path to the campfire.

We decided to go the "right way" home, which worked out great. We started up Steven's Pass and shortly after we stopped at Mt. Index Coffee to take pictures with Bigfoot, Penny pooped in the back of the car. Then we came up on a wreck that had Just Happened. A jeep sat on it's roof at the base of a rock wall. Several people were standing around, none of them with any kind of useful looking skills, so we jumped out, and discerned that there was one occupant trapped in the car. Before the information was fully digested, my Superhero Husband was in the upside down Jeep with the elderly gentleman, while I was trying to put the pieces together from the three grandsons that had been in the vehicle with him when it rolled. Apparently he passed out at the wheel, possible due to some medical issue. The boys were all ok, as was one of the dogs (a dachshund, incidentally), but one of the dogs had bolted as soon as they got out of the wreck and was nowhere to be found. The man inside the Jeep was in and out of consciousness (either from the blood rush to the head or a pre-existing medical condition), and hanging by his seatbelt, but otherwise seemed to be unharmed. To the Jeep's credit, for a pretty rough wreck, there was almost no intrusion into the driver's compartment and the roll cage undoubtedly saved all four lives that day. As well as seat belts. Always. Wear. Your. Seatbelt. It took more than 30 minutes for aid to arrive, and by that time, Josh, me and some other random EMTs that had showed up, including one from Wyoming with real EMS gear, had mostly extricated the man from his trap in the upside down Jeep. This involved Josh squishing himself into the upside down passenger seat and leveraging the man under the headrests to us to slide up a backboard and out the back door. It was tricky. It was successful, and Josh was awesome. After we saved the world, we continued home, and took another questionable turn which may or may not have added a few extra miles to the trek. Stupid Google Maps.

The wreck on Steven's pass was definitely more rewarding that our wreck on Thursday morning, which involved a Large Female Deer T-Boning the side of our Mini. I am not sure who was going faster, the deer or us, but we won, and in spite of an ugly looking fender and smashed headlight (which STILL WORKS!) the mini was still in full operating condition. I was surprised how well the little thing held up. Josh was still recovering from our Epic Battle Of Wills that morning and I think he viewed the deer as karmic justice for my misbehavior, since I was driving (too fast as always), even though the burden of the insurance deductible rested squarely on his Broad, Handsome and Totally Capable Shoulders. As if that wasn't enough of an unexpected expense, by Monday morning, after grinding our way down Sherman pass for the fourth time that week, both front and rear brakes went out on the Denali. By out I mean metal on metal, nothin' to grab on to, out. Hello $600 repair! But the little change of events in the day gave us a chance to go see World War Z at the illustrious Alpine Theater. It was good to get my zombie fix, since Walking Dead Season 3 STILL isn't on Netflix.

Anyway, here we are, it's Tuesday morning, and in spite of all of the comedic drama this weekend, I still don't feel funny. I guess I should go get some cream for my coffee, take a nap, and try again.

So I will leave you with a picture of a banana slug....

Things That I Don't Get

Life isn't fair.

Of all of the lessons that my parents taught me, including The Best Places to Hide Spanking Spoons, Guaranteed Ways to Get to Watch a Movie, and How To Thoroughly Clean A Bedroom, this is the one that stands out as the most useful and definitely, most often applied: Life Is Not Fair.

You do not get what you deserve in life. You get what you need to become the person you are supposed to be. You get what you want sometimes, if you work hard AND you are lucky. You get things that you definitely DON'T deserve and didn't even know you want sometimes just because Life Isn't Fair. This principle applies both ways, which is something I am thankful for every single day. If life was fair, my life would probably look much different. There's a strong possibility that I wouldn't even exist at all since I am not sure what my parents did so badly in their lives to deserve me. I wouldn't have four gorgeous, healthy, mostly sane children. I wouldn't have a million family members and friends who still speak to me and love me for totally unmerited reasons. I wouldn't have a Man at my beck and call that I drive crazy but is hell bent on taking care of me and my crazy babies.

Bad People have good luck. Good People get the most horrible hands imaginable dealt to them. Innocents suffer and evil people thrive. There is no sense to how and why things happen, but as I watch with frustration the world is upended one town at a time by tragedy and mayhem and sickness of every kind. And all I can do is be thankful that Life Is Not Fair. That I am here, safe, with my family. Happy. In need of nothing. With the liberty to do things that some people can only imagine, whether they are constrained by physical limitations, social, political, philosophical or even mental, I have the capacity to do almost anything I can dream up. I am lucky.

Maybe this talk is all to remind myself that a little bit of pain, or not getting my way every once in awhile, is a ridiculously small amount of trouble in a ridiculously great life. Mostly I think I say these things because I get ticked off when bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people and the world gets all turned upside down and backwards. But I have to remember that if life was fair, I would be in a world of hurt. All I can do is try to share my good luck with as many people as I can.

If you would like more information about Where To Hide Spanking Spoons, How To Thoroughly Clean A Bedroom or Guaranteed Ways to Get To Watch a Movie, please contact me.

Things To Come To Terms With

I'll admit I have been a little bit melancholy lately. I put on a brave face and say really ridiculous things out loud to cover the shades of sadness that threaten my sunshiny days. Because really, nothing is that bad. And we have so much to be thankful for, to be weighed down by the silly, unimportant things is a waste of a very short life. But maybe sometimes getting all of the gloomy things out of your head and into the heads of other people helps to disperse the burden. "I'd give all my pain to you..." Something like that. Yes, this morning I began listening to TAB. Real TAB. Old school, not on the radio, heavy on the banjo TAB. And I think about things that I can't change. Things like:

My dog eats flip flops. Even my favorite flip flops. And judging by the taste of the kisses she just gave me, she eats poop as well. Now I probably have worms.

Seth Avett is no longer married to his January Wedding bride. Somehow if an Avett brother gets divorced it's way sadder than your average Joe divorce. Maybe he should've worked that 9-5 for her. I feel like this makes Scott sad, because at least for the moment, my illusion has shifted it's entire weight to Scott's somewhat slight shoulders, and he needs to be dedicated enough for all of us. I just want his life to be true. It gives me hope.

The cream in my refrigerator is curdled.

I gained 5 pounds last week.

I can't be with my Favorite Boy Every Minute of the Day, Every Day of the Month, Every Month of the Year. We're apart about 95% more than I would like to be.

My pain is getting worse.

I still can't speak Russian.

I need to apply myself to something.

It's all so overwhelming that just getting it out there makes me want to take a nap. But napping is not going to solve all the world's problems, unlike sitting here and hashing through them on my keyboard as though I was typing out a prescription for world peace and happiness.

Really, all of the things wrong in the world are so subjective. It's sad to me that I have curdled cream in my refrigerator, more so than the disappointment of the Disney enthusiast that missed a fast pass window for Indiana Jones. But how does a two hour wait for a ride, or chunky coffee, equate to a child in another world who goes without water today, or is sold for sexual uses to the highest bidder, or burdened with feeding 5 younger siblings and sick parents. What's profoundly amazing to me is that the people suffering in these worlds have known little else, and the relative scale of their suffering is based only on their own experience. That's what struck me so profoundly in Uganda - the unmarred happiness of children who had no idea that they were suffering. We know they are suffering. For heaven's sake, most of them have been deprived of any knowledge of Disneyland, much less visited it. We know that they should have 3.2 liters of clean spring water to drink a day. That they should have a warm shower and shoes on their feet. We know that they shouldn't deal with hearing loss from chronic and easily treated ear infections, or daily pain from easily remedied illnesses. But they have never known anything else. There is no way to equate our worlds. None. But I am not entirely convinced that we are the ones that are better off. Healthier, yes. Fatter, yes. More comfortable, I suppose, but we are so Keenly Aware of our own comfort that it is never enough. So intent on our own gratification that we never taste gratification. There is always more that we can have, do, feel. That is why we are driven. And why they are content with so little. They have nothing to be sad about because they don't know what they are missing. They don't have addictive un-necessities rubbed in their faces on TV 24/7, and even at school, on their phones, their computers - because they don't have them. They don't send a text to tell someone they care. They walk 17 miles barefoot to communicate the message.

Why I am rambling incoherently today is beyond me. I think after a few days in California, my resolve to have less, do less and to be more is steeled. I never want commercial television in my home. I don't want my kids on the internet if they aren't gaining purposeful knowledge and expanding themselves positively as humans, which doesn't involve gaming skills or adding Facebook Friends. I am the guiltiest of all sinners in this spoiled culture. I have eaten greedily from the fat hand. I like to be comfortable, to have pretty things around me that I like. To be noticed and admired...  Humans are complex animals. We have so much to learn, and unlearn, to make the most of this brief space in time we occupy. I think that the realization that I have everything that I could want, everything imaginable to make me comfortable and happy, but I am still in A LOT of pain every day it makes me rethink the "value" of things that we have pursued. I can't escape the physical hurt any more than one of those kids in Uganda that can't get an antibiotic. At least I have hope that I will someday...  And them? I think I need a nap from all of this.

I went on a search for something real...

Things About Traveling

1. Nine Year Olds and Continental Breakfasts

When putting carefully selected bagels, toast or other bread-type items on a rotating toaster, don't plan on getting the same items back on the other side when a 9 year old is present. All toasted items dropping into the bottom pan are fair game, as well as the cream cheese and plate you had waiting for your carefully selected bread-type items.

Sneeze guards on piles of already peeled hard boiled eggs work well except for when the nine year old sneezed directly into the opening on the sneeze guard over the pile of eggs. Just refrain from eating already peeled hardboiled eggs at a continental breakfast anyway.

Chances are good that every muffin, cheese cube and danish has been touch-tested for appropriate firmness, moisture content and density by nine year old, recently sneezed on, fingers.

If you can't figure out how to work the milk machine, just drink half and half out of the tiny baby cups by the coffee. Sometimes they are warm, but it's not too terrible.

2. Traveling With a Nine Year Old Physical Agility Requirements

Plan on carrying at least an extra thirty pounds of carry on luggage, not including the iPad packed solely for entertainment purposes, the 23 bags of various and assorted snacks, two large water bottles (one was originally in her bag, but made it too heavy) and a good supply of Benadryl and dramamine for sedation purposes. In addition to your own necessary items, including some herbal version of a poor substitute for Valium, several small flasks of whiskey and for last resort, sleeping pills, you will be asked to carry her Sudoku Jr book, her My little Pony word find notebook, and both the pencil with the lead and the one with the eraser (since pencils apparently don't come with both any more), three contraband calico critters that were NOT supposed to be on the trip at all, and of course, the sweatshirt that is TOO HEAVY to carry but will be desperately needed later when temperatures in Southern California drop to below freezing and she shivers better than an insecure baby wiener dog. Don't forget to allow space for the accumulation of souvenirs as the journey progresses - giant leaves collected off of the ground, stuffed Donald Ducks of every imaginable size, and about 40 packages of honey roasted airplane peanuts. 

I recommend the same training for this type of travel as I do for the wildland pack test - a 30-40 lb pack of evenly distributed dead weight over semi rough terrain for at least 3 miles a day, or in inclement weather, a good 45 minutes on an elliptical. Not that I did this training, but I feel like I must have, otherwise how did I survive 4 days of California with a nine year old. 

3. Sharing a Hotel Bed With a Nine Year Old

First of all I would just like to say: Don't.

If you must, spend the first night watching which side the nine year old spends the majority of the night facing, and orient yourself on the opposite side for all following nights. 

I recommend acquiring a pair of padded hip and thigh hockey or football pants for sleeping in, unless you are good at sleeping on your side with your knees pointed protectively toward offensively thrashing nine year old, sleeping feet. 

Cut off all food sources to the nine year old at least 24 hours before sharing a bed with them. This makes projectile vomiting onto your pillow less likely to occur. 

Do not fall comfortably asleep at any point of the night when sharing a bed with a 9 year old, as this seems to be the impetus for projectile vomiting onto your pillow. 

If the nine year old starts talking in her sleep, get out. Now. 

Regardless of how many times the restless nine year old trades you pillows in her sleep, YOUR pillow will still be the preferable target for all projectile vomiting. 

Feeding nine year olds at Disneyland, or anywhere within a hundred mile radius, is a bad idea. So is pepperoni, black olive and pineapple pizza. Especially when it is running in fluid form off of your pillow. Papa John's may be ruined forever for me, which is saying a lot. 

Lastly: 

4. Coming Home

The worst thing I can imagine coming home to would be something like my house being burned down, and all of my dogs dead, or the coffee cream completely curdled. 

Coming home to a house that smells like a petting zoo, three pairs of chewed flip flops, and sheets that have clearly been the rolling spot of choice for muddy Cocker Spaniels for a week, really isn't that bad. My Wonderful Boy was even smart enough to leave the filled-but-dirty dishwasher and clothes washer open so they didn't encapsulate wonderful smells for me to enjoy when I opened them upon my return. The sheer volume of destroyed property from a 10 month old dachshund and her cohorts who were left alone during the 4th of July holiday and all of it's anxiety causing noise was impressive. Even for Dagny. To cap off her welcome home celebration she got up sometime during the night while I was finally enjoying the unparanoid sleep that didn't involve a nine year old and ate one of my new Sanuk Flip Flops. How can she be so cute and so bad all at once? Kind of like the nine year old. 

PS - A few traveling tips for Disneyland victims : there is NO good coffee in Disneyland. There is also no alcohol. California Adventure has both, but it's a long walk. The Disneyland train will kick you off after a full circle. But you can ride the monorail forever. It also has tinted windows and makes you harder to spot for searching family members. Elbows, Stroller Wheels and Wheel Chairs are all permissible weapons in Disneyland. I recommend the acquisition and use of any or all. And corndogs. The corndogs make it all worthwhile.

Things That I Know

Because everything can't be PERFECT. There has to be just one little something all the time that is not ok. But it's so ridiculously silly to focus on the one little thing when everything else is Just Right. I have my boy home. He got in around one AM and that means he has now been in Northport for the longest consecutive timelapse since his introduction to the place. And Penny, who must have been sick, since she threw up on the porch yesterday and wouldn't eat her dinner, was doing the caddillac dance this morning and seems to be ok. And we had a fight about money that wasn't Very Big, with voices only slightly elevated and no severe name calling. I am not sure who won, but maybe we decided since this was our first day off in pretty much forever, it really wasn't worth it. Although I have the sneaking suspicion that he might be making spreadsheets on his lap top at this very moment that he plans to present to me as proof of his correctness. Which is ludicrous since everyone knows that I do not speak spreadsheet. I supposed one would assume this slight disagreement is the little something that is wrong with today, but in my mind, a Healthy Discussion with a loved one is never a bad thing. It means that you are dedicated to working on your relationship. Forcefully if necessary.

It is getting hot outside, and if I weren't on the couch in sweatpants, writhing in pain (the one small thing that IS wrong with today), I would probably be laying on a blanket out in the sun, baking myself. It would be much more pleasant if I had a cranberry-lemonade-vodka, which I am not sure anyone has ever invented but I just thought of, so must be brilliant, and big slices of watermelon to look at, since I don't really like the way it tastes. I need to make jam with some strawberries I procured, but standing upright just isn't in the picture today. But tomorrow. Maybe.

Things That I Can Justify

When I said I didn't believe in eating dessert alone, I never considered the option of eating dessert for breakfast, therefore eliminating the danger of secret and self indulgent hedonism in the darkness of a quiet house. In the light of day, it seems quite alright.

I made this picture extra big so you could KNOW.

You know that moment RIGHT before you start your period when anything within line of sight that you can't eat, you would just as soon kill, even coffee is not doing it's job, the wiener dog baby isn't cute anymore and everything is just UGLY and  STUPID, especially male things? Yes. It's amazing how many things become ok during that moment. Like changing outfits 8 times, leaving all of the clothes on the floor and putting sweatpants back on. This moment of time isn't one for making major life decisions, answering the phone call of an unsuspecting but somehow evil husband, or inviting Nice People over to your house. People in sweatpants who like to drink coffee and complain about evil husbands are fine. Or kids, so you have someone to yell at that you won't get a restraining order for.

Another thing I have been meaning to tell you, is why I have decided not to reinvent myself. Actually my Really Smart and Funny and Pretty Cousin decided for me, because she thought I was saying Northportician instead of North Porto Rican, just like my morbid sister, and also because she said this, which made me feel awesome: (quoted without her permission, but if somebody is talking about you, can't you use it anyway?)

"I don't think you have to reinvent yourself at all. I think of Bendablility like flexibility, which is exactly what you seem to exhibit on a daily basis. You are flexible, bendable to whatever life throws at you. Your blog (to me anyways) is about all the ways you bend and shape your life and yourself in order to keep moving, one foot in front of the other." -MSM

Then she proceeded to quote me, from an older blog, when I said this: (quoted WITH permission from myself)

"Once again I find myself bending the core of who I have become to embrace the new wave of change, perhaps the beginning of a new and different lifestyle, but then the bending starts to hurt, and I wonder if I have the flexibility to change or if the change will break me. Maybe I have become set in my ways and I can't be reformed to fit into someone else's mold. I am unsure."

I will say I am reticent to relinquish the double meaning of Bendability for a unilateral translation, but it means not having to remember how to get a domain name and do a bunch of relatively easy things that annoy me. Especially today. 

Today is probably not the best day to paint. There are children coming over for me to yell at, and wiener dogs with ears anxious for dipping. But I think I will, just so I have something to complain about later, along with the 5 pounds I gained from breakfast. 

ThingsThat I Have Decided

1) Never eat dessert alone. All of the deliciousness in the world is wasted calories if you can't share the bliss with someone. Which is why I have ice cream freezerburning, shortcake molding and raspberries rotting in my refrigerator. It's like drinking alone. It's just a bad idea. And pointless. Unless you are a really unhealthy person.

2) Sitting at home alone and losing myself in Pinterest is a good idea as long as it doesn't lead to eBay searches for "smokey bear vintage" or "toilet contour rug" because one ends in financial ruin, the other in ultimate disappointment in the human race. Or perhaps just in myself for not finding this before:

3) As much as I complain, I really like life better with my family around. Hands down.

4) Sometimes, Too Much of Nothing Can Make a Man Feel Ill At Ease

5) Mopping floors and then inviting seven thousand kids over to help you do stuff is really pointless.

7) Especially if that stuff involves any type of painting or paint - related materials. 

8) Paint-related materials are most easily removed from wiener dog ears by rubbing them on furniture. I am working on a Pinterest tutorial for this. 

9) Haviana's taste best when mom leaves you home alone with only three other dogs for the day and you are a 7 month old piranha/dachshund/pterodactyl cross. 

10) Having husbands that are not at home with you is really silly. 

11) I would trade life in a cardboard box WITH my people for all the mansions in heaven. 

12) The awesome relief of good friends and good people and being LIKED (mostly) can't be overstated. It's good to have people. Really good. Here, there and everywhere. 

13) Dog doors are VERY SCARY when they are new. It's safest to poop in the house. 

14) Make sure, if the washing machine is running late at night, that you bark at it. Incessantly and Loudly. For All of The World To Hear. 

15) Sometimes having no major obligations is terribly overwhelming. (see also: Idle hands are the devils playground)

16) Having a cop for a close friend is almost as scary as having a convicted felon for a neighbor. (no sir, I did not bring an open container in my car, to your house.)

17. Being a military wife is BA. Almost as BA as being military myself. But not really. 

Josh says I look stoic. I think I look HOT. Or maybe cold. I got drenched in a torrential downpour shortly before and was shivering.

18.  Sometimes, you can't fight who you are. And you have to buy a vintage Smokey Bear sleeping bag for $50. Or paint cabinets badly, or give your big hound kisses even when he's misbehaving and smells terribly. Sometimes, you just shouldn't mop the floors at all. 

19. Clothing on hangers is extremely hard to visualize and access for daily wardrobing. The floor is much more convenient for these operations. 

20. Without the one who loves me here, I am uncriticized, uncorrected, undirected, but miserable. My vices are only fun when they're irking him. My quirks are only silly when he's here to notice. Without him, I am boring and flat, and no matter how many things I do, they seem meaningless. Hurry Home Josh Weston. I am not me without you. 

Things That Come to An End

It occurred to me a few days ago, while I was unpacking hydroflasks and silipints and Bend Elks hats and all of the other remnants of my former citizenship, that I am no longer Bendability. Like most things, including my birthday week, Emmy pooping in the exact same spot of carpet 80 times because she doesn't believe in the new dog door, and my precious baby puppy's new obsession with humping every stuffed animal she can get her mutant paws on, my time in Bend has come to an end, and I must reinvent myself. Like Madonna, or The Artist Formerly Known as Prince, Or like Dagny will in a new home if she doesn't stop. Seriously. Right now. So the question at hand is "who am I now?" I have started to ask some of the ones closest to me. My Darling Husband poo-pooed my idea of calling myself "the Northportorican" as sounding racist. He suggested that I was "like a phoenix, rising from the ashes of Bend's Volcanoes." Yes that is a direct quote. Much too self aggrandizing for me, I am thinking, plus I like the rag-tag refugee sound of the Northportorican. Is that racist? Oh dear.

While I am ecstatic about this new life we are beginning, and the odd rambling house that is screaming for a little bit of help in the fashion arena (something I luckily know a little about these days, thank you, Buckle), I am simultaneously frustrated. Mostly I think its the constant downpour of rain that greeted us when we got to Northport, and the fact that my Boy left exactly 24 hours after he arrived, and won't be back for a whole week more. And then he has fire season, which has already started to rear it's ugly but profitable head. And then Boot Camp. And then it will be Christmas, and I will still be sitting here on this couch trying to decide if Northportability is just too long. Dagny, stop. Seriously. Sometimes we just have to go without, dog. Don't act like I can't sympathize!! That being said, I have already enjoyed a little run of social exposure, including two girls nights and a couple of loungy, chatty visits from some of those closest to me. I have made good friends with the hardware lady and scored some of the best salsa ever from a local cook, which I have been living on since. Jaunitas and salsa cover all of the major food groups, in case you were wondering. And they're gluten free!

Since I am not working, and feeling a bit financially restrained without the promise of a paycheck, ever, I have stepped up my creative fundraising efforts with a barrage of items on the local Facebook classifieds page, which is also acting as an additional stimulus to my social life. I have already met three new people through little transactions. But I don't really remember their names. Does it still count? I'm counting it. I even listed some of my precious Frye boots and other Items of Great Importance on eBay, hoping to supplement my potentially negative bank account. I say potentially because the checks haven't come through yet. Sorry Honey.

Speaking of which, the most convenient way to deal with the frustration I am facing, I have found, is to take it out in really bad ways on Josh. For example, when he calls, I have used words like "greedy" and "uncaring" when the man is working 400 miles away from home to be able to pay rent and afford the remodeling we need to do. I have explained to him that him being with me here is more important to me than additions and bathroom remodels, so could he please just come back, and stop making me feel rejected. And by the way, the bathroom really needs help. This is the beauty of a rational woman. Wait.

To my own credit, I did clean out the bathtub drain myself, and am currently trying to switch the light socket on an antique lamp. Working on electric things always brings me back to the time I almost met Josh for the first time, when I nearly electrocuted myself and burned down a house trying to change my own dryer cord. Maybe I will save that one for him this time and go sell more stuff, while I am trying to think of the new me. Please submit all suggestions to me via this blog, Facebook, or a messenger pigeon.