And For Their Final Act

I'm sure you're tired of the exclamations that I start these posts with, but... I'm not.

Holy Toledo.

Last Thursday, C and I (with some very valuable help) loaded our every belonging into a 26-foot U-Haul truck, went out for sushi with the best mopper/sister, and returned home to fall asleep on an air mattress in our house.

For the very     last     time.

And what's remarkable is that it felt ok.  It wasn't like I was leaping for joy or popping some bubbly or having any kind of warm, fuzzy feelings, but all the same, I wasn't weeping and clawing at my hair, which really must be some kind of small victory, don't you think?  Maybe more than small...

What's also remarkable is that the very mattress that we slept on has been continuously inflated for... wait for it... FOUR YEARS.  And it hasn't leaked, period.  If that doesn't totally shock you, I don't know what to say, other than to say  lay off the meds, for both our sakes.  This is my shameless and enthusiastic plug for the Simmons Beautyrest air mattress.  Go.  Buy one.  Mine's flawless, but if yours pops, don't come crying to me.  I'm sure it will be your fault.

So Friday morning, we deflated the mattress (for the first time), threw it in it's bag and closed the garage door behind us on our way out.  C hopped into our pickup truck and I clamored into the U-Haul.  There must be a height requirement for truckers, because I had a seriously hard time getting into and out of the cab of this thing.  It was a strange turn of fate when we first laid eyes on our 26-footer.  You know how U-Haul's have those fairly tacky cartoonish pictures of random world destinations?  Like a sumo wrestler and a giant Macy's float in the shape of a Spicy Tuna Roll painted on the side of a trailer with the words, "Visit Japan!" written above the picture in Indiana Jones font?  Well, I'm pretty sure that this particular U-Haul was manufactured especially for us.

Along with a picture of our favorite neighborly woodland creature, our U-Haul was showcasing the up and coming Canadian hotspot - Saskatchewan!  It was like someone just knew where we were headed. I cackled up a storm driving that thing north toward the border - driving increasingly slow, mind you, because if a moose ran in from of that gas hog, there was going to be a very small chance that I'd manage to avoid it.

We arrived at camp around 11:00 PM and unloaded one important passenger - a gigantic jade plant that has been in my family since I was a little girl.  A certain jade plant that was now (sorry mom) frozen solid.  The leaves snapped like sheets of ice, and were scattered on the floor of the truck.  Jades are members of the succulent family, intended to inhabit an arid climate, which is distressingly far from the  -10 degree temperature that night.  I still haven't given up on her, though.  We brought her drooping body in from the chill and I gave her some water and whispered some nice, I'msosorry kind of words.  The next day I pruned off the limbs that felt like water balloons, because there is just no way that a texture like that could be healthy.  So now she's a little ragged, and probably still dying, but we're not letting her go without a fight.

On a related note, this summer I kept a Bonsai on my desk at the rafting office.  This plant, too, got sick and dried up, but I had recently read about the ever-important "cut off the gangrenous limbs or you'll lose the patient" policy and quickly got to work.  A month later, the plant was sailing into the woods where it became part of the earth again, and not simply a prickly naked single stalk of what used to be a thriving maze of branches.  I have a tendency to get carried away with scissors.

So Mama Jade, Kiwi the cat, our air mattress and cookware I haven't seen in a year are finally in one place.  And even though the process was tedious, maddening and sometimes ugly, it's made for a good life story.  And as one of my dear friends, Amy, put it:


Soon it will be all over (for now, for a while) and you'll be settled in to a cozy log-ish home with far fewer moose than you're accustomed to, that is not a small kitchen-less apartment above a restaurant, and that does not come with its own wheels. 


Thanks, Amy.  You always know how to make a girl feel good.

7 Billion Strong

I've been thinking lately about the world.

Really, the whole world.  Seriously.

source

Do you know that earth's population has (or will imminently) hit the 7 billion mark?  Can you even imagine it?  Seven billion people sharing this one spinning ball.

I also recently saw on some checkout magazine headline that the Duggar family is expecting their 20th child (don't worry, I checked their website - it's true).  In a matter of months, as long as Jim Bob and Michelle tend opposing goals, the family could start playing a weekly Saturday afternoon regulation-sized soccer match.  Or they could run a 3 team round-robin volleyball tournament with Mom as head referee and Dad calling the net, plus they'd have a couple of pint-sized players on the bench.  In this case, distributing the under-12 crowd amongst the other kids would be crucial, since no one wants to be the only team player that can see above the base of the net.  Underhand serves for all!

Now before you arm yourselves with pitchforks and fiery blog comments about me bad-mouthing the Duggars, hear me out.  Both of the above statements are what we as humans call fact, and are also known in some circles as "truth" or "reality" (the sports-related points are a stretch only because it's tough to call it "dribbling" when an infant is crawling around a soccer field on all fours).  We all have opinions on the overpopulation issue, and so far I've only hit the bullet points, but maybe even that doesn't set well with you.  I can understand your frustration - perhaps you're from a large family, or you don't believe in birth control or dangit, you just like the Duggars - and this upsets you.  So to make you feel better about your plan to draw and quarter me, here are a few of my own thoughts with which to feed that fire you're building around my feet.

And why am I tied to this pole?

I'm 28, in the prime of my baby-booming years, but somehow I can't make up my mind on the "kid" thing.  I'm lucky to have a husband who is sweet and patient and hilarious, and seems able to handle a wife who can't find a maternal bone in her body [or that second pair of glasses I lost somewhere in the five moves since getting them].  I have an increasing number of friends with little cherubs at home, others with cheerio-wielding monsters, and still other friends that are either single or are couples who live alone with an actual animal in the house.  It seems like that last category, the one that C and I belong to, is fading away within my circle, and soon I fear we'll be the only pair left, spending our Sunday afternoons watching football, featuring an overweight black cat sprawled across our laps with her face in the nachos.  Add to all of this the fact that our human population that is growing like a water balloon under pressure and you start to feel my frustration.  So, what's a girl to think?

Some of you have kids.  Some of you can't have kids. Some of you want more kids.  Some of you might not want the kids you already have.  If you are a mom or dad that has pint-sized bodies flailing about your house at the moment, I have to tell you that at times, I'm a little envious of you.  On the other hand, if you want kids and aren't able to conceive or carry them safely, my heart breaks for you. I've often wished to myself that you and I could somehow switch wombs in the universe.  If you are still desperately waiting for that guy or girl to come along with which to build a family, I wish you all the best in your journey (but please take advantage of having the bathroom all to yourself, and practice putting the toilet seat down at 3am so that you won't one day have that inevitable "he left the seat up and I fell in" experience, courtesy of Mr. Right).  And for those of you, like myself, who can't seem to figure out where the good Lord hid your mom genes (c'mon, get the pun... get it), lift your chin off the floor and enjoy where you are, right at this moment.  Because for as many of us as there are, there are Duggars.  But there better not be too many Duggars, or I'm afraid that we're going to have a water balloon situation on our hands.

I'd like to know what you think about all of this.  Today's post isn't as cohesive as I'd like it to be, or as fact-filled or compelling, but try and understand.  If you could dip your toe into my mind, you'd find yourself getting pulled under by a current of half-construed thoughts like these - thoughts that were also run through a blender.  It's not pretty, but the fact that stuff like this keeps me up at night is totally real.

So what do you think?  Are we too many, or are there never too many?  Should we even bother thinking about it?  Comments, please...

Sweet Dreams

This past weekend we drove south in order to do a couple of things.  First, C and I both had appointments with the optometrist.  Second, we needed to pick up any remaining items for our new place of residence, namely the cat.  Added benefits to this trip were the opportunity to go to a fantastic barn party for a friend’s birthday, and a chance to hang out with my sister and her husband.  It was a weekend of hilarity and success.

Now, I haven’t been to the optometrist since I was a very young child.  I told Dr. Fong that I was five at the time of my last visit, which may or may not have been a total lie, but since I can’t remember, I can propagate whatever truth I want, right? She didn't seem to mind.  Anyway, I’ve been living with perfect vision for all of these years, seeing street signs from a half mile away and spying on strangers at night with no problem, whatsoever.  Until just recently. 

It could be the driving up here that’s affecting my ability.  See, when you drive to and from and around our small town, one must keep extreme vigil.  Moose outnumber humans in our region of the country, and unless you’re a logging truck or invincible, you can’t afford to hit one.  So I spend many days and nights squinting through my windshield in order to spot these dull brown bodies lumbering across the road.  In the midst of what is certainly an adventure, I’ve realized that, well… I don’t see so good.  Every shadow becomes a twelve-foot bull moose and every rock seems to move, which makes my herky-jerky, stop-and-go driving style pretty miserable for my unlucky copilot.  And it turns out in the end that Dr. Fong and local law enforcement agree.  I need glasses.

After C’s appointment and my sentencing, we met up with my sister and her husband.  Not only did we eat some exceptional Mexican food (the only ethnic offering in our neck of the woods is French Canadian), but we also enjoyed some great laughs.  A majority of our discussion centered on self-protection.  See, my brother-in-law is a police officer, who by his very nature as such, is quite comfortable around firearms and other agents of self-defense.  In our house however, it is not so.  Actually, it’s the opposite.  Years ago, C established a rule of no guns, whatsoever.  Part of his reasoning is ethical, but really it comes down to one thing: he doesn’t trust me.  Heck, I wouldn’t trust me.   I’m allowed to keep a wooden baseball bat under the bed, but even that’s borderline lethal to my husband.  Combine my intense fear of strangers creeping around our house with a creaky ceiling, an aptitude for very light slumber, and my previously stated vision problem and you get a level of danger that would terrify any reasonable person, let alone the guy who could be staring down a barrel in his boxer shorts at 2am.  

Initially, when we moved into our first house, we had a discussion about home security, and the idea of owning a firearm surfaced.  But, soon after that (and after the previous realization), C brought home a lead rifle barrel for me to keep under the bed, rather than risk a spouse-inflicted gun wound.   Before too long, the barrel was replaced with the slugger.  You can see the trend.  Soon I’ll be armed with water balloons, which really, now that I think of it, isn’t a bad idea.  If I were about to spring on someone, nothing would set me back like a good, refreshing slap in the face. 

From now on, I will be goggled.  And probably because of this, I will also lose the bat.  So if you’re in moose country and need some stuff to pawn, come rob our house.  I’ll see you a mile away, but will be busy filling balloons in the bathroom sink when you storm the place.  And C will be be fast asleep, so he won't hear me scream.