Get the Children Out of the Room

Well, more specifically, Jeanne, Kathy and Antoinette, get YOUR kids out of the room. Because I'm about to talk Christmas presents.

By virtue of geography, I don't see my niece and nephews (one girl and 5 boys) very often. At best it's 3 or maybe four times a year, and for the Texas branch of the family, even less than that. Bad auntie.

That said,  I love giving them gifts, but I struggle with just what to give them.  I like to think I know a bit about their interests, but  it's really only their interests at the time we last visited that I'm familiar with. A favorite band, an upcoming trip, a new driver's license. But I don't always know what they want, or need, or already have ... or worse, hate ... and so buying something has always come hard for me.

While I really don't like giving cash as a gift, it's really the best in this situation. I mean, even if I knew Nephew Four had wanted a thusandsuch in October, if he really wanted it, he'd probably have it by Christmas. And how likely is it he'd need two?

So I hit on the idea years ago to give cash in some quirky way only Auntie Linda could come up with; hence my search every preholiday season for the newest money origami websites. Did you know you can fold a dollar bill into a flower or a bird or a shirt or a pair of boots or about ten thousand different star motifs? I even found instructions to fold a dollar bill into a dollar sign. This year most of the kids are getting money leis. Having a peripheral connection to Hawaii almost makes it logical.

What makes my little plan slightly less than logical is the simple fact that I think paper money is hands-down the most disgusting substance on the face of the earth. Researching this post (I know I'm using the word researching loosely here) I learned of (and will never be able to unlearn)  the vile things people do with paper money before dropping it on the ground for the unsuspecting person to pick up.  HuffPo has reported on a study that contends that nearly 90% of paper money is contaminated with cocaine (while snopes.com puts the number at 80%), due in large measure to the rollers in ATM machines, which serve to distribute traces of cocaine to all the other money in there. Time magazine reports that 94% of paper money is contaminated with e. coli and other pathogens.

I have been known to put paper money through the washing machine. Not because I left a few bills in a pocket by mistake. No, I have been known to do a load of bills. Okay, it was once. In my defense, it was mostly towels, but even I know the towels were only my ruse to justify washing my money.

When I was done with money folding for the day today, I resisted the urge to run down into the cellar to submerge my hands up to my elbows in bleach. But let me tell you. I scrubbed. With soap. And a brush. And that Clorox bleach pen from a week ago was still out, so some of that goop made it into my palms. I do feel much better now. Upside: I won't be biting my nails for a couple of days.

Wegman's Number 58

Tom had a long and passionate relationship with Wegmans going back long before I met him, back to his Cornell days. How many conversations did I feel excluded from, and maybe a little jealous of, when he and the Ithaca menfolk (Eric, Peter and Steve, I'm talking about you) waxed poetic (and endless) about Mistress Wegman. Cheeses not to be beat, an international section without peer; the cafe, the prepared foods, the liquor. The Chiavettas.

When Tom was offered the opportunity to recruit at Cornell for the Lab he jumped at it, and I jumped at the chance to tag along and finally meet her, face to face.  I was pregnant with 96  the first time we went.

Wegman's opened its newest store, number 58 (while the Customer Service Rep I chatted up explained that there are 70-something stores, she had no explanation for why the stores don't appear to be numbered sequentially),  in Northborough, MA a few weeks ago. I purposely stayed away that first week, recalling the chaos that was Wellington Circle when New England's first Krispy Kreme opened up there. The weeks went by and one thing or another kept getting in the way of my day trip out to Wegman's. Part of it might have been was gas prices, since the store is 50 miles from the house. Wegman's certainly won't be part of the regular Sunday morning circuit until the store planned for Burlington opens. But I had to go. I had to have a Wegman's.

Wasabi Cheddar. Tom would have
been all over that.

I finally got there this morning, and she was exactly as I remembered her. The cats will be eating Buju & Ziggie dry food for a while, and I'm guessing Pop Tarts from Wegman's taste just like Pop Tarts from Stop & Shop, but I bought some anyway. Because I heart Pop Tarts. And I heart Wegmans.

About half of the cheese department

And the cheeses! I've solved one Thanksgiving question: We'll be serving cheese and crackers for an appetizer. Including a 5-year-aged smoked gouda, which has a consistency more like aged parm than the brown-wrapped "gouda processed cheese product" I usually pick up for mac & cheese, along with a soft sottocenere cheese which I first thought was coated with some kind of grey moldy layer from the aging, but no, it's actually ash. The cheese is matured in "a spicy ash". I'll let you know ...

It was bittersweet, being in that Wegman's without Tom. He would have loved it, and we likely would have left the store with a far greater credit card charge than I did, but I put in a good effort. I resisted the urge to drop $180 for the Wegman's Lionel train set.

The Indian section in International Foods

Tom probably would have liked the international foods section the best.  Inside one of the shelving units in the international foods sections, underneath the Indian foods, I tucked one of his laminated memorial cards. Tom loved food, of course. All food. Any food. Especially Indian food. It's not my favorite cuisine, but I can't smell Indian spicing without thinking of Tom. So until it gets discovered during the next remodel of this brand new store he'll be among his favorite Pataks, and curries, and naan. I added a little note to the back of the card so that if someone does find it I hope they put it back where it belongs. Because for Tom, I think heaven might be a giant Wegmans.

_____

Where'd They Go?

Where'd they go? You know, those cute little ghosties and goblins, scarfers of candy, trick-or-treaters who would gladly let me have the Reese's while they take the Sour Patch Kids.


And who left behind those smelly, smarmy Bigfoots?

1996: 96's first Halloween. 10 days old.

1997: 96 at one year (and ten days). He's a black cat, in case it isn't obvious (don't worry, it's not).

1998: Firefighter and his trusty sidekick, Dalmation.

1999: Ah, the Thomas days.  96 totally wore that Thomas the Tank Engine costume around the house for a week before Halloween, practicing for the big costume contest. On the day of the contest, he refused to parade before the judges. We woulda won, I'm certain!  98, still under 2, wasn't talking yet, but the passengers on his Bertie the Bus were all the animals whose sounds he liked to make.

Every parent's nightmare:
"Mom, I want to be a front end loader for Halloween."

2000: Buzz Lightyear. That's a pretzel bin
from BJ's I made the helmet out of. On Kwaj,
desperate times call for desperate measures.

2001: 98 wanted to be a skinny spider in 2001. And that's Rolie Polie Olie on the right.
(...he's small and smart and round, and in the land of curves and curls he's the swellest kid around ...)

2003: 96 won first prize at school's second grade Crazy Hat Day contest.
At $4 a pack for those Yugio cards, this hat probably cost $75.

2007:  96 was Link from Nintendo (not to worry, I didn't know wth that was, either)
and 98 was a Minuteman.

A Massacre in Medford

This past Saturday morning I opened the back door to bring 96 to his guitar lesson, but instead screamed and slammed the door shut before any of the ten thousand flies which had alit on poor Papa Chipmunk's corpse could make it through the kitchen door. I called for 96 (98 conveniently at bowling for the morning) to take care of The Situation. I hadn't questioned why 96 had only minutes earlier gone out the back door with a bag of trash, only to return to the house through the front door.

He had of course seen the poor thing, stepped over it, and left it for me.  What a charmer, eh?

So I holler and 96 comes running (more accurately described as: he yells down from upstairs, "Wotsa-maddama?" then comes sauntering) and cleans up the corpse. While he's disposing of the body in our usual manner (hint: it involves our shovel and our creek), I'm still grossed out and leave by way of the front door, and come around to the car in the back. 96 was still by the back door, replacing the shovel we leave there in the winter to shovel snow, and apparently the rest of the year for mortuary purposes.  I see the thing is still there, and gesture towards it, about to accuse 96 of simply moving the it so I couldn't see it from the back door.  (In my defense, that could totally have happened.) Literally, it was three feet away, but just out of the line of sight from the back door. He looked down at the same time, and performed a Dick-Van-Dyke-worthy pirouette, artfully proclaiming his surprise. So he takes the shovel again and again tosses one into the creek. And we're off to guitar lessons, free of any and all things morbid and bloody in, near, or around my abode.

So why am I here again, this fine autumn Monday morning, this time alone in the house, being held hostage by the one dead thing outside the front door and another dead thing outside the back door? I thought the whole point of having teenagers was to not have to deal with dead things anymore.

Note to self: cats stay inside for a while, so that Mr. and Mrs. Chipmunks have a flipping chance to gather their winter stores in peace. They have little baby chipmunk mouths to feed!

I Have To Be The Lamest Red Sox Fan On The Planet

Tony C -- oooh, that jawline!

I have to be the lamest Red Sox fan on the planet. (Disclaimer:  Although I am not a baseball fan, my first celebrity crush was Tony Conigliaro.  Thank goodness I didn't meet Tom until after Tony died.  AWK-ward!)

I was the grateful recipient the other day of three tickets to tonight's game against the Texas Rangers at Fenway Park.  I was pleasantly surprised at how light the traffic was around Fenway driving in.  I got there plenty early, though, to park and walk and settle into our seats.  There were more happy surprises when the Park, while hopping busy, had no lines at the gate.   Once inside I'm a wee bit surprised at how full the Park is at 6:15 before a 7:10 game, but I figure the crowd is there to watch the warmup which, again surprisingly, seems to be happening on the field already. And while I always thought the teams warmed up separately, there they were, both teams on the field, warming up together. Taking turns, you could even call it.  And the crowd was freakishly enthusiastic watching the warmup. But with Red Sox Nation, you just never know.

So I settle the boys into our seats, which are actually our neighbors' seats, because our seats are filled by a group of already quite drunk guys. My first thought (well, third thought, after "Dammitall, why do you have to be drunk already?" and "And why do I have to sit next to you, Drunk Guy?") was to have 96 sit next to him, but he's already started in with the drunken blather. "Yeah, just sit there instead. I hope you don't mind if I hit on you, okay?" "Yeah, I kind of do mind," is what I was screaming in my head, but I knew I couldn't let 96 sit next to him. I made eye contact with Nice Lady In Back Of Me, and left the boys to get our beverages. When I got back with  our soda and peanuts and popcorn for 98, there was now a drunk girlfriend in my seat, next to 96, and it appeared to be actual play taking place on the field.

Hmmmm. Could I have missed the National Anthem while I was getting food? I felt badly about that. Not being a sports fan, the National Anthem is usually the highlight of  my stadium experience. I look at the scoreboard. It says we're in the bottom of the 6th.  I check and recheck our tickets and it begins to dawn on me that something is amiss. I wonder to myself if it's a double header today.   Could the security guard at the gate possibly have let me in at the end of Game 1? That would explain the DGs in our seats. It's beginning to make sense.

But that seems about as likely as the gate attendant at the airport letting me get on the wrong plane.  They're paid not to let that happen.  So I turn to NLIBOM and ask.  Shaking her head no (and do I almost see a laugh?) she went on to explain that when the game was scheduled for national broadcast, they pushed the start time back. Three hours. I guess the network forgot to call me.  Apparently, it's common knowledge that there will be a time change if a game is nationally broadcast.  This was my critical mistake.  So yeah, we got to the game in the bottom of the sixth, well after the grand slam in the fourth, part of an eight-run-inning. And it took me three outs, minimum, to figure this out.

The perp walk

On the upside, we got to see what you tv viewers missed:  the streak across the grass from left field to right and the tackle in front of our seats. The runner was fully clothed, though, so what was the point?

On the downside, that $7.25 refillable drink I got so 96 and I could split it and get free refills? Not looking like such a bargain anymore.

And in case you're wondering about that Jordan's Furniture special: If a member of the Red Sox hits this baseball on their sign (not the sign -- just the baseball) between July 22 and the end of the regular play, my new sofa will be free.

Oh. My. Stars.

So here's something not many people know about me. I'm not proud of this. I love poptarts. Love them. I'd eat them for breakfast, lunch (well, maybe dessert) and bedtime snack seven days a week if I could.  I admit, they're kind of gross for dinner though. And they have to be the frosted kind. The unfrosted ones just strike me as too ... healthy.

Sometimes I'll buy the brown sugar ones because I know the boys don't like those, and then I'll get the whole package to myself.

So I got all excited when I was browsing the Williams Sonoma clearance table ($14 for a jar of hot pepper jam? No, thank you. I'll stick with your clearance items), where a pop tart maker toaster pastry press was marked down from $10 to $5. So of course I bought it.  It came with a recipe on the package.


And this morning I made the oh-my-stars-best-freaking-poptarts I've ever eaten.  The recipe called for two sticks of butter, and I ended up with 5 pop tarts toaster pastries. Subtracting the one tablespoon of butter that I dropped on the floor and left for Zoet, that's 3 tablespoons of butter per tart pastry.  I used the food processor, and they could not have been easier to make.  And of course, a single serving of these is two, right?  I mean, they're poptarts.  I filled them with Nutella and jam I made with those raspberries I picked a while back.

I think we'll have poptarts for supper tonight.

A Day In Western Massachusetts

96 at Glendale Falls, Middlefield, MA

I spend so much time on here bellyaching about my kids. Stupid teenagers. How they have to complain about everything. Thank goodness they're there to correct me all the time because, well, I'm stupid.


Not all the time, I guess.

98 and Zoet at the Falls

I gotta tell you, my kids were great today. Today we did a little day trip to the western part of the state, to see some waterfalls and hike a bit. Did you know there are fossilized dinosaur footprints in Massachusetts? Neither did I!

Don't get me wrong -- they didn't want to go, and made sure I knew it. The lure of an early allowance (even with the caveat that early allowance meant no complaining today) bought me a day of peace and quiet (Unlike their mother, I guess these kids can be bought. For cheap.) So we drive the two-plus hours to the first stop, to the utterly foreign sound of ...

What is that sound, anyway? No. It can't be. But it is. Is it? I think it's siblings. Siblings getting along.  With each other. Dare I detect even some enthusiasm?

We had a lovely picnic lunch at Glendale Falls, and took a bit longer rock climbing than I expected, so we decided to forgo Chesterfield Gorge so that we wouldn't miss the footprints.  But there it was, right off the road we were on, so we stopped at the gorge, which might actually be the prettiest spot in Massachusetts, and then headed to our final destination: the footprints in Holyoke.

Chesterfield Gorge, Chesterfield, MA
And to think we almost skipped this place! This was my favorite stop of the day.

The Falls

Dinosaur footrprints. You can see the three toes in the upper left.

A closer look

All those fossil footprints are provided courtesy of all these layers

Did I mention the best part? All of these sites are maintained by The Trustees of Reservations, and all were free. Free to park, free to enter; donations appreciated.

18 Months ...

Today is 18 months. Tom died at precisely 6am on Sunday, February 7, 2010. It's been a long haul, but I think the boys and I are adjusting okay, and we're getting on with business. The boys have done well in school, we're getting ready for our new school year in a couple of weeks. But I just miss Tom. So. Damned. Much.

A brief list of things I miss would include kissing his bald spot, scratching his back and cuddling on the couch watching the Sunday morning talking heads shows (I think he'd really like Christiane Amanpour on This Week. We patiently held on during the "Sam and Cokie" debacle and the George Stephanopoulos shoutfests, longing for the civilized Brinkley days of yore). I miss hearing him talk to himself in the shower, and the smell of coffee brewing in the morning (and the mug of tea that would have magically appeared in the bathroom before I stepped out of the shower). I miss the sound of his car pulling into the driveway at the end of the work day. And this week in particular I miss C and Ada, who thought Tom walked on water.  And grocery stores will never feel the same to me.

I miss Tom's spectacular garden.   Oh, I've put one in this year, of course, but this garden sucks and it's my fault because I didn't till, because that was Tom's job. He loved to fill the minivan with manure and bags of peat moss and fertilizer and spread it all out and then till it all in. And then he'd till again, deaf to (or more likely ignoring) my protestations that he was just making things harder for himself. I didn't till this year, and I didn't till last year, and so the garden sucks and it's all my fault.

I have had his ashes in one of his favorite pieces of pottery for a year and a half now, sitting on his dresser in my room. Unfortunately, the dresser is becoming increasingly cluttered with a year-and-a-half's worth of accumulated stuff that doesn't have a home.  But Tom hated clutter and I can't imagine he'd approve of his current arrangement. Someone gave me the idea to put his ashes on his workbench until I'm ready to spread them in the Fells (which I'm not), and I think he'd like that.  He'd be glad that I'm taking care of the workbench, using it, even. And with the help of about half a can of WD-40, I recently got the table saw up and running for the first time since the flood. All his tools are neatly sorted and hanging on his pegboard (no, I haven't gone so Martha-Stewarty as to draw outlines on the pegboard to indicate the exact location of every tool, but I'm tempted). There's his hammer and his Wonder Bar (probably his favorite hand tool. No household problem was so big it couldn't be resolved with the booming command, "Get me my Wonder Bar"), and his row of about 23 screwdrivers, sorted by size. I think he'd like to know his tools are okay.

I know he'd be glad to know we're getting there.

Ada - She Was A Great Cat

I'm not going to lie to you. This photo makes me sad. Tom with Ada, Gibbs and C
This photo sat in a frame on my desk at work  for the longest time:
Who's that? What's his name? What does he do? When are we gonna meet him? Who is he?

There's that honey paw.

Tom adopted Ada and C shortly before we met, so Ada's been a fixture in this home as long as this home has been in my life. I will miss her sorely. She was definitely Tom's cat, though; Tom was definitely her favorite, but she tolerated me in a pinch.  These last few months, it must have started with the cold weather last fall, Ada slept with me, under the covers nestled next to me, every night.  I have a very heavy quilt that I use year-round (yes, even during these recent hot nights) and it got to the point where, when she walked across me at night, I couldn't feel her footsteps because she had lost so much weight. She was a bare little slip of a thing.

Adopted from the Northeast Animal Shelter, she came with the name "Honey" after a single, tan front paw. Not nerdy enough for a household containing a Gibbs, a Maxwell, and a C (who, tipping the scales at 24 pounds plus had a few nicknames, C Monster and C++ jumping immediately to mind). She was renamed after Ada Lovelace, whom some consider the actual inventor of the first mechanical computer, an invention more often credited to her gentleman friend, Charles Babbage.

Okay, history lesson over. Back to our sweet little Ada.

Don't get me wrong: Ada was not the friendliest cat. I'd call her tolerant, at best. On a bad day, you knew to steer clear (if you were another cat, I mean, or a dog).  98 nicknamed her Missy Hissy.  I shudder to think of the nickname he'd have devised if he meant to comment on how she'd swat at you if you got too close to her food.

C and Ada, not littermates but adopted at the same time from the Northeast Animal Shelter, were a finely tuned pair, indeed. I do not believe I ever witnessed Ada eat a bite of human food. No cheese, no table scraps, no bones pulled from the garbage. Strictly cat food and kibbles. I worked my way into Tom's heart by way of C's stomach, never arriving at the house without an edible treat for him. I learned to fake cough whenever I unwrapped American cheese slices, lest C come bombing into the kitchen for his due.  Ada took care of invading birds and insects while C was responsible for land crawlers and slitherers. I believe the forces of gravity worked against C when it came to leaping for a bird, so it seemed a natural division of labor.
 

Until yesterday, Ada partook of her meals with gusto. Even if her weight loss was interminable, it was not for lack of effort. Her mealtime pleasure was audible.

After breakfast yesterday I let her out, and like every other day, I expected her to walk out the back door, do whatever things cats do out there in the morning shade behind the garage, and come back in five minutes later, just as she has done every day for the last six months.  None of us saw her again all day; I went out a few times checking for her, the last time with the flashlight at bedtime, to no avail. I sadly sort of assumed that we simply wouldn't see her again, but I was lifted when there she was at the door this morning.

Something was definitely different, though, and she was unable to nag at my feet to hustle me along with the breakfast preparation.  She wouldn't be able to make it down the cellar stairs (where I feed the cats behind a dogproof cellar door) and fed her at the top of the stairs. She ate a bit, but I could tell it was a struggle.

She sleeps all day most days, but today's was a different kind of sleep, and it became clear when she couldn't walk across this kitchen floor to reach the water dish, that the end was near. I did not want her to suffer, and I do not believe she did. I think she was very tired, and I believe she was ready to cross the Rainbow Bridge.

She liked to sit in stuff.

Especially stuff that belonged to the boys.

I guess I should be flattered that she didn't like how much
attention the boys paid to the bookshelf. If there
was a little space on the bookshelf, she sat there.

She brought softness and warm cuddles and purrs and occasionally laughter to this home, for which I am grateful. She was, well, Ada.

Not a Drop To Drink

My water bills since the beginning of the year:

			2/2/2011	$104.18
			4/2/2011	$91.92
			6/9/2011	$87.28

Then this came today:

click to enlarge

I  was expecting an increase.  What hurts is that when I first looked at the bill without my glasses I read it as $45.22.  See how there's no dollar sign next to the amount due?

But what really hurts is that I've started on the paperwork to put in a second meter for the irrigation system, which the City says should save about half (the sewer amount). They've informed me that the line into the house is lead, which means I'm going to have to dig up the lawn to replace the line. Yes, the line that goes under my brand new lawn, the lawn which is probably steadfastly rooted because I've dumped about the equivalent of the Atlanta Aquarium on it in the last two months.  Estimate for the project, including associated plumbing and yard work and the meter and its $300 application fee, is up to about $4500.  Oh, and everything from the house to the street is my responsibility.

Now, think of the worst swear word you've ever heard me say.

Multiply that by eight hundred and forty-five point twenty-two.

Thank God for Small Favors

So summer vacation came and went and now it's gone for good. Thank God for small favors.

Back in February my friend Lynn and I went to the travel expo at Boston's Seaport World Trade Center looking for vacation ideas.  I brought home brochures, two grocery bags full, from every travel company and every possible travel destination, dumped my booty on the dining room table, and gave 96 and 98 carte blanche:  "Pick a place, boys," I said, "And we'll go there for vacation.   Pick a destination, pick a mode of travel, pick a meal plan. Pick anything at all, and we'll work it out somehow."  Camping in Maine? We can do that (fingers crossed they didn't pick that). Drive to Nova Scotia?   We have passports at the ready. They speak English in England, so that could work out; they drive on the right in Italy, so I'd be willing. Cruise the Galapagos? I'm in. RVing in New Zealand? (This was probably my first choice.)   I even brought home a brochure about the Orient Express. "We don't want to go on vacation," came the response.  "Why do we always have to do stuff?"   I calmly explained to them that if they didn't pick a vacation spot, I would pick it on my own, and encouraged them again to think about where they'd like to go for vacation.   "How can we pick a place if we don't want to go in the first place?" came the unified, lawyerly response.    So I decided to spend our money domestically, and  issued the edict:   The boys and I would be headed to the Grand Canyon by way of my sister's house in San Antonio so she could join us for the fun.

I have her reassurances that it won't hurt her feelings when I tell you that this was the worst family vacation ever.    She's the divorced mother of former teenage boys, so I'm sure she's seen her share of worst family vacations ever, and even she thinks this one was a doozy.

No, you can't have the $400 (each) Continental gave us for taking a bump just because your name was on the ticket.   My name was on the receipt, so it's all mine.

Hoover Dam?   I know it's hot.  Thermally freaking hot. I'm sorry it's so hot.  And boring, too. And no, we didn't have to come here, but I wanted to, and I'm driving.

Grand Canyon? Yeah, it's just a big pile of rocks. Sue me.

Cirque du Soleil? I was already aware, thank you, that it would be just  (okay, no more saying "just" in front of any noun for the rest of the trip) acrobats in and above the water. Really, anyone can do it.  I don't know why they even bother paying those people.

The best thing about Oklahoma City was that I didn't make the boys do anything. Any. Thing. In fact, OKC totally rocked because I left them behind at the house when my friend Jack gave my sister and me the grand tour and treated us to a wicked good cheeseburger at Earl's in Bricktown.

Did you wake up in a bad mood? Yeah, I know I deserve all the blame. And how is it a vacation if your mom makes you brush your teeth and hair every day, just like every other day?  Clean underwear needs a day off, too, I suppose.

Still, I took pictures to, what? Preserve the memories? Yeah, not so much.

Hoover Dam

Grand Canyon National Park, South Rim

Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument

 

Oklahoma City National Memorial
Beautiful. Beyond breathtaking.