Tilting At Windmills

We had 3 more missing-glove crises here today.  These kids are trying to break me, I know they are. Despite all that trauma, we managed to go ice skating AND sledding AND Costco shopping by 2:00 this afternoon. I've gotten really good at Costco, I'll have you know. Even accompanied by 3 kids (one of whom insisted on price-scanning everything HERSELF), I managed to spend $118 in under 20 minutes.  Larry will be so proud.

Then I came home and met a friend for our weekly 3-mile walk, which might sound like sort of a stupid plan in 20-degree weather, but which was really quite smart compared to our original plan to walk at our usual time early in the morning, when it was all of zero degrees out.

ZERO DEGREES - what the heck does that mean, anyway? Does it mean there was no temperature whatsoever?  Let me tell you, no temperature is COLD.

I'm starting to confuse myself.  Anyway, today was also notable in that I pulled on my jeans first thing in the morning (and, yes, one leg at a time, just like the rest of you), unlike, say, yesterday morning when I walked around in my exercise leggings all day pretending that I was actually going to get around to exercising.  I was living a lie, people. I'm not proud of it, but there you are.

This, then, is what I learned: exercise clothes don't make you feel like exercising. They also don't make you feel like cooking. Or grocery shopping. Or anything else halfway productive.  In fact, all they make you feel like doing is lounging around on the couch and messing with your knitting projects.

Or maybe that's just me.

Well, I'm off to find a really good sale on waterproof winter gloves. I figure that, if I buy 3 identical sets for each girl, I won't have to feel bad once a glove goes missing.  Odds are, this won't work any better than the matching-stuffed-puppies plan, but at least I will know that I gave it the old college try.

Whatever THAT means...

7 Quick Takes: IPhone Envy

It's still Friday, right? Well, let's get going then....

I told Larry that we should get IPhones for ourselves. Because they are fun. And then I wouldn't lose my grocery list. Stick-in-the-mud that he is, Larry pointed out that it doesn't make economic sense for us to spend over 1500 dollars a year for cellphone service. I hate when he gets all rational like that.

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How come the IPhone plan is so much more expensive than the other phones with touch screens and other fun stuff? Anyone out there in Blogland know the answer to that?

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Not that it matters - Larry is perfectly satisfied with our current "plan" - pay-per-minute cellphones which cost us all of 100 dollars a year per phone. Frugal does not equal fun, in case you were wondering.

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My bout of stomach flu 2 weekends ago produced a 3-pound weight loss at my next WW weigh-in. That gave me enough incentive to keep on starving for another 7 days, after which I once again stepped onto the Weight Watchers scale confident in the knowledge that I was even more svelte than the week before.

Only, I wasn't. The receptionist told me that I had gained a pound and a half. At which point I informed her that there was no way I had gained weight, I felt too hungry. Apparently no novice at dealing with irrational fat people, she said, "Well, maybe it's just the humidity."

My thoughts exactly...

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Oil spill? Can we come up with a better phrase? It's not a spill so much as an explosion. An explosion that just won't quit. And for those of you wondering why the federal government hasn't managed to stop it yet, it's because they can't. No one can. We shouldn't have been drilling a mile underwater in the first place. It's hard to believe that no one foresaw this scenario.

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Oh, and Governor Jindal? If you are so convinced that building those barrier islands is the right thing to do (and, heck, that plan sounds better than doing nothing), stop arguing over who is going to pay for it and get started. Over 40 miles of the berms have been approved by the Army Corps of Engineers already. While you're building them, you can argue over the other 60 miles and who is going to foot the bill. But don't stand there and do nothing and blame the federal government. As you yourself have said, "The strength of America is not found in our government. It is found in the compassionate hearts and the enterprising spirit of our citizens."

Quibble over the bill later, my friend. This oil spill is going to cost millions one way or another.

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I know! Yet another bit of breathtakingly astute commentary by this armchair activist. What can I say? The world is lucky to have me.

G'night all, and pop on over to Conversion Diary's 7 Quick Takes - she doesn't waste your time with useless maunderings over the state of the nation the way I do.

[IPhone photo credit: phonecasestore]

[Oil rig photo credit: Daily Mail]

Let's Fast Forward Through The Last Half of 2022!

 Hi! If anyone's still here, I've just dropped in to let you know I'm alive and well.

Well, except for this, actually:

But hey, life isn't perfect. And luckily, Larry got it first, so I was able to spend a few days frantically finishing up gift buying and holiday menu planning before I, too, was felled by this rapidly mutating virus from hell.

God, I'm so sick of talking/thinking about COVID.

So there's been a lot of knitting and cough drops going on here, plus also Theo and his WIFE (OMG, he's married, more on that later) have moved in for a few days between apartments, just to keep things interesting.

It's really time I gave that girl a blog name, as she does seem to be sticking around. At least, I hope she does. 

We have a decent-looking Christmas tree, which is a huge relief, because when Susie and I went looking for one at Home Depot on Monday, it was slim pickings and we were panicking and I briefly considered spending a ridiculous amount of money on a tree at one of those expensive garden centers, and I also really regretted letting Larry decide last month to give away the FREE artificial tree from last year (look, he never really liked it and the Scentsicle trauma has barely faded). Susie and I came home treeless, clinging to the hope that the 60 trees the Home Depot guy assured us were arriving Wednesday would solve our problem.

Larry and Susie went back Wednesday (because I was sick) and returned with this:

Whew

So, yeah, it's sort of short. But it's got a whimsical little tilt to it that makes it look rather Seuss-ian, as if it were standing in the living room of a Who house, AND it only cost $30, so we are all happy.

My goodness, Christmas trees have gotten expensive.

We had a pleasant Thanksgiving, replete with the traditional stuffing preparation:

And a new tradition (oxymoron?) of decorating the turkey cookies:

Fall happened:

Which means there was the traditional making of the applesauce:

And bike riding, as Larry and I continue to try to convince ourselves that we are still fun:

Somewhere in Connecticut

We even took a bike ferry! See? FUN

And then there was the totally new experience in October of traveling to a grown child's wedding. We had to get to Florida, so I came up with the plan of taking the auto train instead of flying. For the uninitiated, the auto train travels overnight from the DC area down to near Orlando, and you can take your car on it. In my defense (for those of you who are already shaking your heads), in September the airlines were a mess and people were getting kicked off flights right and left, so it seemed like a rational decision at the time. Sort of.

And because I am efficient and cheap, I thought it would be a great idea to arrive the day of the wedding. Transportation and sleep - 2 costs rolled into one!

Okay, I can't really defend that one.

Looking back on all this, I'm not sure why Larry did not step in at this point and stop me. Because, really, I had it all wrong. First, I conveniently forgot that I do not sleep well on trains. Second, I read the arrival time wrong, and our "cushion" of maybe 4 hours (FOUR HOURS) between train arrival time and showing up for photos was really 3.

Did I mention the hotel and wedding were 1 hour from the train station? OMG, I am an idiot.

So we got to the train station and learned the train was running 2 hours late. So, let's see, 3 minus 2 = 1 hour to dress and get to the wedding. While I was doing this math in my head and trying to convince everyone it would work, Anna called, because apparently Susie had been texting her that I was not making rational decisions. Anna explained to me (all too gently, which made me start crying) that I was about to miss Theo's wedding if the 5 of us (me, Larry, Susie, Rachel, and - no joke - Rachel's boyfriend) did not get back in our car immediately and start driving.

"You can make it, Mom," she said encouragingly. "You just have to start driving NOW."

You know that scene near the end of Ghostbusters where Egon tells them they have to cross the streams (an hitherto unthinkable action) because that is the only chance they have to kill the monster they were facing? And the rest of the crew looks at each other doubtfully and then Bill Murray shouts, "I LOVE THIS PLAN!" ?

That's how everyone acted when I said we'd have to drive all night. They were like, "Yay, best plan ever!?!" and jumped in the car. You've got to give a lot of credit to Rachel's boyfriend, who did not bail at this moment. I mean, he could have just called an Uber and gone home. That guy really knows how to roll with it.

So then we drove. And drove. And drove. Larry and I took it in 4-hour shifts, with a brief stop to eat the fun picnic supper we had planned for the train, only we were outside a rest stop in North Carolina and it was really cold out and NOT FUN AT ALL. We got to the hotel at 5 AM and - God bless them - they let us check in early. I got 2 whole hours of sleep. Because who needs to look their best at a wedding? Not the mother of the groom, for sure.

I still haven't looked at the pictures. I'm scared to.

We were staying near Cape Canaveral, so naturally David (he and Anna had arrived by air the night before and were well rested, because apparently they know a lot more about travel and weddings than their mother does)...where was I?...Oh, yes, David wanted to go see a SpaceX rocket launch, so I jumped into his car with Susie and did that, and then we zipped back to the hotel to dress up and go to Theo's wedding, which made no sense at all, because when the heck did Theo turn into a full-fledged adult who can do full-fledged adult things like get married? I swear, they're letting kids get married these days - KIDS!

Okay, actually he's 30. But still...

I mentioned the 2 hours of sleep, right? I can barely remember anything from that wedding. I recall trying hard to make coherent conversation with the rabbi and to remember the names of all the bride's Canadian relatives who seem to have traveled just fine to Florida without any trauma involved, but really, my brain was not firing well at all. It's just a blur.

Oh, look, I managed to snap a picture of part of the dessert table, go me!

So there you have it. People keep asking me how the wedding was, and I draw a blank, because what I mostly remember is that desperate drive down an eerily empty 95, all the while wondering how a supposed adult (um, moi) could mess things up so badly. 

So that was October.

In September, we took the camper van to our favorite campground in Acadia (the one with the marvelous bathrooms and pastries in the morning), and Larry got to strap his kayak to the top of the van, which made him super happy, because why keep things uncomplicated, right?

Although, I do have to admit it looked sort of cool:

Low overpasses make me nervous now

It was the first time we'd been there without any kids, which felt sort of weird but was also really relaxing because no one was crying or threatening to run away. A nice change, is what I'm saying...

We ate all the good food:

Colonel's doughnuts and Fox Farms potato chips - the height of gustatory excellence

And we went on hikes:

Oh, just another scenic rocky shore line, ho-hum

And generally enjoyed ourselves, which - again - felt sort of weird. I guess we'll never recover from the scarring experience of taking numerous children on camping vacations.

In August we had Anna and Rachel's birthdays and I annoyed both of them by insisting they sit in the Queen of the Day chair while opening presents, because I was very proud of myself for decorating.

See? It's special

Susie and I also made our trip to Lake Placid in August, and I managed not to get sick this time, so I guess I'm allowed to go back. Another friend and her daughter were also there, and the friend and I sounded like pathetic climate refugees the entire time, saying things like, "Oh, this is great, we can sit outside without wanting to die!" and "The air! It's so refreshing!" and "What do you mean you don't need to cover yourself in bug spray every time you step out the door?"

No humidity, folks - NONE

The July weather here traumatized us, is what I'm saying. 

Oh, and judging from this photo, my lantana on the front porch did very well this year, because they are apparently not at all traumatized by hot, humid weather:

The only good part of summer around here

And a side note - THESE have been mysteriously reappearing in my miscellaneous drawer:

A sign of senescence for sure

And that's all, folks! Whew! Remind me not to let 5 months go by again, that's way too much to read about all at once, I'm thinking. But now those memories are saved for posterity, and if COVID kills me, my kids will be able to read this and remember just how bad their mother was at making travel plans. 

That comforts me somehow.

Who Knew?

My ticket to modernity

Okay, so a few months ago I got tired of mooching off everyone else's GPS and took the plunge. That's right - this tech dinosaur bought an inexpensive smartphone, hooked herself up with an inexpensive prepay plan, and thus launched herself into the 21st century. And she hasn't looked back.

Look, the flip phone was becoming embarrassing.  And, unlike Larry, I do not labor under the delusion that printing directions from MapQuest is the latest thing on the technological front. The day when some carpool plans changed abruptly and, miles from home and anything resembling a computer, I was expected to know how to drive to a city in a bordering state? That was the last straw.

So, since this watershed purchase, life has been good: the girls have been fascinated by my cheap-o LG model, I can take a picture whenever I like, and I have not once gone over the 1GB of data allotted me per month by Verizon.  And now that he is leaving for college, we offered to buy David an inexpensive smartphone, with him being responsible for the monthly expense of actually being able to use it.  So David did some research and figured out the best (read, cheapest) phone/plan and off we went to Best Buy to procure for his 18-year-old self what all the other kids in our town receive by the age of 16, at the latest.

On a related note, David just got his driver's permit the other day.  So, yeah, we're about 2 years behind on everything.

Where was I?  Oh, yes, David's new phone.  Later that day, Susie noticed him using the phone.  "Did you get a smartphone like Mommy's?" she asked, surprised.

"Yes," I told her. "He's paying for the service, though.  He needs one like that at college."

"So now he has a phone JUST LIKE yours?" she repeated.

"Yes, he does, sweetie," I said.

"Well!" she said, "We're starting to look like a real FAMILY here!"

So there you have it, folks: forget the regular meals eaten together, or the camping vacations, or the shared holiday traditions.  If what you want is to engender a sense of family, that feeling of belonging and clan identity, all you need to do - according to my 10-year-old - is buy everyone his very own smartphone.

Who knew it could be so simple?

Lame Excuses

Why haven't I been showing up at this blog lately? Life has just been a tad overwhelming, is all. Nothing big, just assorted and sundry adding up and sucking away at my blogging time. A few examples:

Bedroom closet -  I spent what should have been my blogging time on Tuesday hacking a path through the detritus on the floor of what is (in theory only) a walk-in closet. In the process, I discovered Christmas presents I forgot to give the kids, approximately 6,000 extra hangers, our fire-escape ladder, and various other items. And that was only 2 feet in.

Children - Brian was crying this afternoon because his mittens were wet. And he didn't like his spare pair - too snug around the wrists.  I adore him - he is the sweetest, most good-natured person ever. And yet I found myself grabbing the lapels (as it were) of his winter coat and saying, "I cannot knit you a new pair right now." Loudly. Poor guy.

Refrigerator - worse than usual. I know! That's hard to imagine. There are all these small objects in it that persist in falling all over each other and tumbling out of the fridge whenever I try to remove a larger object. This happens about 543 times a day; and each time it occurs, it eats away another small part of my soul. Please tell me someone else has this problem.

Meals - Tired of removing produce formerly known as fresh from my crisper (not!) drawers, I've been exploring the brave new world (for me) of frozen vegetables. Last week I decided to treat my family by spending Larry's hard-earned money on 2 bags of frozen broccoli with a special cheese sauce. Cheese sauce! Everything tastes good with cheese sauce on it! Heck, cardboard tastes good with cheese sauce.

We all know where this is going, right? Brian spit it out on to his plate, saying "It tastes like vomit." He should know. Watching this performance, the rest of us concluded that, no matter what it tasted like, it certainly looked like vomit.  So I ended up having to wash off everyone's broccoli. Because I don't have enough to do.

Appliances - inoperable. My sinister plan to kill my stove is proceeding apace - I am down to 2 burners, and neither one works right. I call the Habitat for Humanity ReStore every day, checking to see if they have any stoves. There is no way I am paying full price for something that is just going to break a year after I bring it home.  Larry is not totally on board with this plan.  He inexplicably labors under the delusion that if we spend a lot of money on a new appliance, it will last a long time.  Speaking of which....

The dishwasher? Still broken. A friend of mine who is remodeling offered me her 6-year-old dishwasher. You know what rankles? The injustice of her having a 6-year-old model that still works while my expensive 2-year-old piece of crap languishes indolently in my kitchen, that's what...

Anyway, this generous offer has put Larry and I back onto the merry-go-round of discussing/arguing the merits of fixing our (less old) dishwasher or taking the offered one, thereby throwing out an appliance that should be perfectly good but isn't and why should we spend money fixing it but gosh it's still so new.

If you couldn't follow that, you are not married. You might want to stay that way.

Holidays? What Holidays?

Still here - Auntie Kate visit impending, so not only do I have to clean up this house so she cannot see the squalor in which we ordinarily dwell, but I also have to sort out my sewing drawer, fabric stash, yarn stash, etc., in preparation for our annual crafting binge. 

Oh, yes, and plan some sort of food - that would be helpful.

So, yeah, busy.  I just want to reassure you folks, as the holidays approach, that this should be a Christmas-prep-free zone until at least the 15th of December.  So, if you are already becoming overwhelmed by seeing blog post titles such as "Starting My Christmas Shopping!" or (worse) "Finished My Christmas Shopping!" or "Complete Menus for the 12 Days of Christmas," rest assured you can come here and not risk suffering the panic attacks that normally accompany such frighteningly festive screeds.

Crazy to leave it all until the last minute?  Stressful?  Actually, no.  I've run this experiment since 2009, and it has been a resounding success - thanks to Amazon's 2-day shipping, which saved me that year of the freak pre-Christmas blizzard.  Save Christmas for Christmas, folks - that way you aren't sick of the whole darn thing by the time the 25th rolls around.

[Oh, except those 6 sets of handwarmers I plan to use as presents.  Those have to be started earlier than 15 December.  But they don't count, because, well, KNITTING.  I'd be doing that anyway.]

Still Hunkered Down - And You?

I don't even know where to start. One day blends into another, it's utterly insane. I'm working, which makes things seem semi-normal, but there are so many people around! Susie and I figured out the other day that it feels like we're on vacation (albeit a singularly boring one), because the whole family is together ALL THE TIME, and we're subconsciously waiting for the vacation to be over and for things to get back to normal.

But they never do.

All I want is for the house to be empty so I can nap on the couch. That's it - that's what I miss most.

Easter and Passover happened...

We've discussed in this space before how appliances know when you're under stress. I know they know, because that's when mine always break. Kids got stomach flu? Time for the washer to go on the blink! Sweaty, dirty Boy Scout Mulch Delivery weekend coming up? Whaddaya know, the water heater doesn't work! Houseguests on their way? Good-bye, dishwasher!

Let's see...the only time in our lives when it's become imperative to somewhat sterilize our eating utensils? That would be, uh, right now. So it wasn't even much of a shock when we came downstairs one morning last week to find our dishwasher full of water and out of power. That's just our fate, all right?

It was a little more of a shock when I called Best Buy and discovered that they had cancelled the appliance protection plan I had wisely bought along with that dishwasher 4 1/2 years ago. Turns out, once they've repaired it a bunch of times (THREE TIMES IN THREE YEARS), they cancel the plan.

Oh.

So Larry Googled and YouTubed and lay on the kitchen floor and tinkered with that thing (which, let's be honest, is sort of sexy, right?), but it was all to no avail. And let's face it, I do know how to wash dishes by hand. We've done it before, a LOT. So I pulled my adored Michael Graves dish rack out of the laundry room (because I had known better than to get rid of it) and I switched all the silverware to plastic (because pandemic) and I hugged a half-sobbing Susie and told her we had to be brave.

Larry, however, was not going to go gentle into that dark night of listening to me nagging everyone to wash their plates and to stop using so many knives, gosh darn it, and WHO LEFT THIS POT IN THE SINK? So he ordered a dishwasher.

I told you - SEXY. Both him and the new dishwasher...

THREE RACKS - it's glorious

Google Photos is doing its level best to make me feel awful about our cloistered situation by showing me pictures every morning from three years ago, when Susie and I took our epic train trip across the country. And all I can do is marvel at the fact that we rode on a train with dozens of other people and we traipsed all over San Francisco and Seattle in the middle of crowds of people and we didn't even think twice about how dangerous all that social contact could be.

Tell me, how could 4 short weeks (well, long weeks, really) have warped my brain this much?

Sea lions aren't very good at social distancing

We're still baking bread almost every day, because why not? Luckily, my recipe only requires 1/2 a teaspoon of yeast, but I was starting to run low and was thinking I'd have to grow my own soon if I couldn't find some. Which, really, I didn't want to do, because I'm too busy spraying disinfectant on everything and yelling at people to wash their hands.

But a small pretzel bakery in my town - that isn't selling a heck of a lot of pretzels right now, I guess - decided to sell its extra yeast (for a handsome profit, but oh well, I'm supporting a small business). So Larry and I walked over with our masks on and they handed us a Ziploc baggie with 3 oz of yeast that I had paid for ahead of time on Venmo, and it felt for all the world like some very illicit sort of deal.

But now I can keep making bread, which somehow makes me feel as though I am accomplishing something. And then I can keep slathering it with butter and shoving it in my mouth, which tricks me into thinking that all is right with the world.

It's a pretty cool trick, right?

Repairmen And Pinkeye And Naps, Oh My!

I'm still here! There's been a mutiny of sorts by the labor-saving appliances in this household - both the dryer and the washer joined the dishwasher on the endangered species list, so I've been too busy beating our clothes clean on a rock by the creek (and, boy, did that piss off the golf course people - who knew they considered that to be trespassing?) to find time to blather on about my woes here. Fortunately, the repairman showed up yesterday and fixed the washer for free and the dryer for almost free, plus gave me a long lecture on the maintenance requirements for both machines - requirements which render the moniker "labor-saving" just a tad inaccurate, I believe.

Anyway, he looked at the dishwasher also and extricated a 50-cent paintbrush from its innards. He took the time to point out to me what I already knew - that throwing out the dirty paintbrush and buying a brand-new one might have been more cost-effective than replacing the now jammed dishwasher motor. In other words, sometimes frugality can really bite you in the butt.

I managed to refrain from pointing out to him that stupid people like me are the ones who keep him in business. Aren't you proud of me?

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Tonight was Theo's high school graduation ceremony. The speaker, for reasons unknown, found it necessary to tell us how great homeschooling is. You know, those of us in attendance already knew that. Or we wouldn't have been there. Sheesh.

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We were supposed to go strawberry picking today. We couldn't find a place and we were getting a late start, so we decided to visit the zoo instead. We had a tradition of Larry taking the kids to the zoo whenever I was home with a new baby, a tradition that worked well for me because I hate zoos. They smell like animals and poop. But no new baby has come along in 4 years, so we thought we had better break with tradition and go anyway.But by the time we got to the zoo (which took a while), the parking lots were all full.

Okay! Plan B! Or, really, Plan C - drive across town and visit an air and space museum. Museums are better than zoos, anyway - they have air conditioning and no animal smells. But it took forever to get there. And you know what? I hate being in a museum for more than 45 minutes. I have the attention span of a gnat.

It was not a good day.

By the time we got home it was past my nap time. I don't know what's wrong with me lately; but if I don't get a nap between 4 and 5 PM, I can't even function. I LOVE MY NAP! I NEED MY NAP! I AM CRANKY AND UNBEARABLE WITHOUT MY NAP! Apparently, if you have had a napping baby/toddler for 17 years, it rubs off on you. And it sticks. No one needs a nap in this house anymore but me.

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Time for bed. I've got to be awake and alert tomorrow so that I don't mess up anyone's medications - we've got two outer ear infections and one pinkeye patient, and all those little bottles of drops look alike when I am sleep-deprived.

No vomit, though - and for that, I am grateful.

Americans to Wall Street:: "Go To Hell!"

Catchy title, no? I like it. You know, I was doing okay about these investment bankers overextending themselves and - whoops! - sort of upending our entire economy until I heard something on NPR yesterday evening. And, before you start railing about how NPR is just a bunch of liberal hotheads intent on taking down the government, let me tell you that I was listening to Newt Gingrich, who was the Republican Speaker of the House back in the halcyon days of the mid-90's. (And, boy, aren't the days of the Monica Lewinsky scandal starting to look good?)

So, that's a first - I'm agreeing with Newt. In his interview with NPR he pointed out that these captains of the free market have some sort of nerve asking for handouts, not only because a buyout plan is against all the free market principles they have trumpeted whenever someone has tried to regulate their activities; but also because some of these captains have been walking away with salaries in the millions over the past few years.

Hello? That's a nice chunk of change. And maybe they should invest some of it in their own companies, don't ya think? I mean, before asking us to chip in?

Newt also wants to know why we are planning to buy their assets (if that is indeed the proper word for investments that seem to be going belly-up) at above-market-value prices. Why, indeed? Can you say "corporate welfare"?

Newt believes that, by approving this bailout, we would be buying a short-term fix with grave long-term consequences, and that it would be better to let the chips fall where they may now rather than face bigger problems down the road. I would like to add that some of that money slated for the bailout plan could go to help the people suffering most in the short term from the consequences of this gross betrayal of civic responsibility. And those people would not be the ones working at these companies.

Although I would be willing to give them tuition money to take some basic math and economics courses. Ethics, too - that might be helpful.

You know, this post of mine from July? It was prescient. Only, it's not funny anymore.

Okay, if you have read this far, you must really care about this subject. (Or else, you just have nothing else to do.) How about taking some action? It's simple. Go to this website, type in your zip code, click on your representative's name, and send him/her an e-mail. (Oh, and send one to Nancy Pelosi, also.)

Not sure what to write? Feel free to use one of these:

1. "Make 'em pay!"
2. "No money until we see some heads roll...lotsa heads..."
3. "700 billion dollars? You're joking, right? You've got to be joking."
4. "Why are we throwing good money after bad?"
5. "Just Say No to enabling greed and mismanagement on Wall Street."
6. "No blank checks for Wall Street - these people obviously need some oversight."
   
7. "Stop stealing my money!"
   

Or, make up one of your own. Not mad enough yet to send an e-mail? Listen to Newt. (Incidentally, he points out that both the President's chief of staff and the Secretary of the Treasury are former Goldman Sachs people. Can you say "conflict of interest"? I thought you could.)

Speak up!

And spread the word...

[Added note: I fixed the link to the website that allows you to contact your congressperson. Go! Do it! Now!]

Problem Solved

Larry attempted to construct a wearable tornado for Brian yesterday. Not wanting to get in the way, I took Theo out in the car with his brand-new driver's permit (that's another post - I haven't gotten to the point where I can talk about it yet.) Anyway, we came home, 2 hours and one undented car later (whew!), to find Larry and Brian gone, and a heap of tangled plastic fencing lying on the living room floor. I correctly deduced that Plan A had failed and that they had gone off to Home Depot to purchase materials for Plan B (have I mentioned that we spend more on Halloween than we do on Christmas around here?). Anyway, they returned bearing....weed barrier. Yup. I must have looked a little concerned, because Larry said, "See? No problem - we'll just wrap this stuff around him and we'll have a tornado!" Okay.

10 minutes later, poor little Brian (peering uncertainly out of the small space left for his face) looked as though he was wearing a burka. Or maybe he was trying to dress like a mummy wearing a burka. "Don't worry," Larry reassured me. "Once we tape a few plastic animals and some toy cars to it, it will look like a tornado." At this point I had to say, "Um, no, it will look like someone wearing a burka with toy animals and cars taped to it. And someone will think we are making some weird political statement about American involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq. So, I don't think so..."

Apparently, this was just the out Larry was looking for, because he sort of threw his hands up in the air and exclaimed, "Fine! You figure something out then!" May I just point out here that Larry was the one who encouraged Brian in his tornado imaginings? I wanted the kid to be a bat, a costume we already have.

Are irreconcilable costume differences ever stated as grounds for a marital breakup? I wouldn't be surprised.

Anyway, I dashed out to Michael's for a dollar's worth of posterboard and we cut out sort of a tornado shape to hang around Brian's neck and explained to him that we would glue the toy animals and cars onto that, and that's when he started to cry. And he asked why we couldn't make the costume the way he wanted to do it. Which was, it turns out, devastatingly simple. And, no, I don't know why neither of us asked him in the first place.

So on Wednesday night, Brian will go out happily attired in the aforementioned bat costume, with cotton balls taped all over the hood (it's a cloud, see?) and animals and cars and such taped all over the cape/wings and he'll be able to twirl around and pretend he is a tornado, and that is all he ever wanted to do in the first place. And, boy, do we feel stupid.

Maybe I can e-bay the plastic fencing and the weed barrier, and buy Larry some beer with the money. Then maybe he'll start talking to me again.

Pinterest For The Rest Of Us

Rachel and Susie and I had quite the girly-girl day today, shoe-shopping (Payless BOGO half-off!) and going out to lunch and browsing at Michaels.  I came home after a few hours of this immersion in all things feminine and begged Larry to take Susie to the pool, because, really, there is only so much enthusiasm and chatter one person can take in a single day.  I am done.

To recover, I vegged out on the Internets and discovered this Pinterest board that was apparently created by someone who is most emphatically NOT Martha Stewart.  [Warning: if you don't like the f-word, don't click.]  I particularly liked her messy message board how-to. Then I bestirred myself to prep a pan of boppies early, as I will be taking Rachel to her tennis team try-outs right before dinner.  By the way, it still makes my non-athletic self giggle to think that I'm taking a child of mine to try out for anything.  Rachel's wearing her new Payless sneakers and her Target tennis skort, so essentially she feels as though she is going to kick some a**.  Only not in so many words...

Larry and the boys arose at 4:30 this morning to help their Boy Scout troop set out orange cones for a local triathlon.  I signed them up for that, because it gives me a happy feeling inside to watch the teen boys drag themselves out of bed at o'dark thirty.  I felt a little bad about Larry, as he became a sort of collateral damage in this nefarious plan of mine.  I don't feel too bad, though, because he woke me before he left by flicking the light on REPEATEDLY to "look for stuff."  That's one passive-aggressive spouse, I tell you; I may decide to go back to my plan of decorating our bedroom with posters of world-class tennis hunks, just to bother him.  What can I say?  Maturity is not my strong suit.


[Message board image: Pinterest]

This Deserves A Great Title, But I Can't Think Of One

Today, we have a new entry in our series (well, maybe the first entry, actually) called, "How Superficial Can People Get?" Just check out this article in the NY Times from Thursday. It details the lengths brides-to-be will go to in order to ensure their weddings are picture-perfect. Gone is the tradition of making sure that all the bridesmaids are ugly so that they don't outshine the bride. Today's bride requires a set of bridesmaids that, if not exactly matching, at least looks uniformly young and fetching. To be a member of the wedding party these days, one may be required to undergo all sorts of expensive cosmetic treatments including, in some cases, plastic surgery. The blushing bride may even, in the interest of sowing permanent family disharmony, suggest to her mother-in-law that Botox might be a good idea before the big day. (Hey, Jenn, that makes you look pretty good as a daughter-in-law, now doesn't it?)

And in case you are thinking that this is merely a Manhattan sort of thing, think again. Dental enhancers, cosmetic surgeons, and their ilk participate in bridal expos all over the country, urging wedding shoppers to plan well ahead in order to schedule multiple Botox treatments or (get this) breast enhancements for their wedding party (hey! 4 for the price of 2 - group rate!)

You know, you just can't make this stuff up.

So, let's see, who is more superficial? Would it be the woman narcissistic enough to demand that people undergo these procedures for the privilege of being in her wedding? Or might it be the friends who allow themselves to be talked into it (and, sometimes, into paying for it)? I mean, only a person with some pretty serious self-esteem issues would tolerate hearing, "I want you to be in my wedding, but you don't look good enough yet. Here's some things we need to fix." Hoo, boy, with friends like that...

All of which further convinces me that my plan to encourage my children to elope is a wise one.

***************************

We bought half a bushel of peaches, half a bushel of nectarines and half a bushel of tomatoes today because I have big plans, folks, big plans. Even as I type, there is a peach cobbler in the oven. Tomorrow, peach preserves! Also, homemade tomato sauce and homemade salsa (I don't want to hear it) - I love summer produce!

Oh, and hey - any of you food-preserving mavens out there know how to keep all the pieces of fruit from floating to the top of a jar of preserves? I know there must be some sort of trick to achieving even fruit distribution while canning. I would Google it, but then I land on all sorts of sites warning me about the horrible things that will happen to my loved ones if they eat improperly preserved produce. I don't want to go there.

Reminder: leave a comment on Monday's post by this evening to be included in this week's Bloggy Book Club Giveaway. The winner will be announced on Sunday. The winner may even receive his/her prize if they get me their mailing address before 6PM Sunday (that's when my mail courier leaves the state to mail the package from an undisclosed location). Staying incognito is not simple, I tell you. There should be some sort of Blogger Protection Program.

Train Trip, Part The First

Whew! It took me 10 minutes just to figure out how to use this keyboard and sign into my blog on this IPad. Maybe not quite as hard as attempting to record the entire trip on pieces of birch bark, but still...and forget about pictures - I can't figure out how to get them from my camera to my IPad.

Hey, Lewis and Clark didn't know how to do that, either.

So, we made it to Salt Lake City. You know, a few months ago, when I read that 20-something's blog post about how easy it was to cross the USA by rail, I never once stopped to consider the fact that I myself am not 20-something. Or that, unlike this devil-may-care traveler with his RailPass, I would have an 11-year-old daughter in tow.

I mean, I'm betting that blogger didn't spend half an hour at one of his stops attempting to contact Amtrak about a lost stuffed elephant, you know?

That guy managed to travel light. My toiletry bag alone weighs 5 pounds, what with the shampoo and conditioner and the moisturizer and make-up - in short, all the accoutrements required to keep my appearance from frightening perfect strangers on the train. So, when we stopped for our layover in Chicago, it was sort of a big deal when we learned that the lockers at the station had been torn out the week before. You see, the original plan had been to leave our 4 bags at the station and meander through downtown Chicago, checking out the Lake Shore, a yarn shop, and of course a Chicago pizza place.

With 2 rolling suitcases and 2 backpacks in tow, this meander turned into something closer to the Bataan Death March. We made it down to the lakefront (I sensibly jettisoned the yarn shop plans), but it wasn't a stellar experience. The way back was, of course, even worse. By the time we reached the station, my legs were shaking.

I believe it was at this point that the refrain "I am no longer 20-something" began running through my head.

It became my constant companion. Turns out, in your 50's? It's no longer so easy to sleep sitting up in a train, even with a reclining seat back and a nifty leg rest. Also, those fluorescent lights in the teeny-tiny bathrooms are not kind to a middle-aged person's face. I'm telling you, there is not enough make-up IN THE WORLD to fix what I saw there. And not sleeping for two nights didn't really help matters. Haggard would be the kindest way to describe it.

Also, applying mascara on a moving train requires a special kind of skill set, I'll tell you that right now.

Still, there were fun parts. There was the lounge car on each train, with the huge windows and swivel seats, where you could sit and watch the scenery. We saw the Midwest, and let me just say right here that Iowa wins the prize for rocking that Americana vibe. I mean, we rode past the farmer on his tractor and the children playing ball and the miles of rolling fields and all the cute little houses and wondered if this were an Amtrak version of The Truman Show, all set up near the tracks for our viewing pleasure.

We drove through miles and miles of flat Nebraska fields in the dark, with the full moon shining down on them the whole time. The sun rose and gave us light just in time to see the Rockies looming in the distance, snow-capped and magnificent. We jumped out of the train in Denver at 8 AM and ran into the (perfectly gorgeous) station, looking for some fresh food to buy for the rest of the day (we were going to be riding until 11 PM). Quite honestly, it turned out that our plan to subsist on granola bars and dried fruit while on the train itself was a VERY BAD IDEA.

I swear, I can't even look at a granola bar without gagging right now.

So there you have it - the first part of our trip, the good and the bad. There's more, but this post is too long as it is.

I Heart VBS

Roman Catholic Church

This week, for 3 glorious hours every single morning, I will be able to clean the house, plan dinner, blog, and otherwise GET MY WORK DONE without someone saying, "Mommy?" every 3.5 seconds.  And no - I haven't duct-taped anyone's mouth shut (well, I tried, but it didn't work).  The girls are happily ensconced at our local parish's vacation bible school, where they are being playfully indoctrinated with the tenets of the Catholic faith.   These tenets, I believe, include love for thy neighbor (Catholic or not) and an acknowledgment that we are all God's children, no matter our religious tradition.

The Great Synagogue - Sydney

I'm just kicking myself that I didn't think of this sooner.  I mean, we have at least 10 churches within a 5-mile radius of our house.  (There's a synagogue, too - but we Jews aren't down with the VBS scene, for some reason...)  If I had just thought to plan it out, I could have probably had the girls in someone else's care every morning all summer.

Islamic Center in Washington, DC

We've got an Islamic center nearby, too.  Do you think Muslims have vacation Koran school? Oh, look!  Here's a picture of a mosque in Washington, DC!

Hmmm...that's odd...this mosque doesn't seem to have precipitated terrorist attacks or a Muslim takeover of America, which some fearmongers would like us to believe is the inevitable result of allowing Muslims to practice freedom of religion in this country.  What's up with that, anyway?

Thank goodness there are those among us who have kept their heads in these confusing times and refuse to traffic in fear.

"Whenever there has been bloodshed allegedly in the name of one tradition or another, it's necessary to say, 'That's not what that tradition is about,'" Rabbi Arthur Waskow, of the Philadelphia-based Shalom Center, said.


Thank you, Rabbi.  Indeed, the bloodshed represents not Islam but a tradition of hate, a tradition which the protesters down in Tennessee seem to be intent on perpetuating.


That goes for you, too,  Anti-Defamation League...




[Church photo: TurboPhoto]
[Synagogue photo: Sydney-city blog]
[Islamic Center photo: worldpress]

Not Dead Yet

Well! Looks as though I took a vacation there, doesn't it? I didn't really, I just didn't feel like writing anything down. Which is scary, because once you take away this blog, I have nothing to do but look at the Facebook and wonder why my kids don't listen to me anymore.

I think I'll write a book: How NOT To Live a Fulfilling Life.

So, yeah, I found out over the past week that the company I had a contingent job offer from was not awarded the contract. So, no job for me. I'm still trying to figure out if another contractor that I applied to got it, but I am not too hopeful.

Another book: Life Decisions That Guarantee You Will Never Be Employed Again.

We did take a mini-vacation last week, to the beach. Or, more precisely, we got it into our heads that it would be FUN to hitch up the camper and take the youngest two to the seashore, staying at a local campground for 3 nights.

I don't even know where to begin detailing all the things wrong with this plan.

Last year we tried something similar, staying at the state park near the beach. That would have gone well, aside from camping next to a major highway and aside from Larry's having to pack up the entire camper in the dark the second night because I thought I was dying and preferred to experience my demise closer to home.

You may not want to know

So THIS year, we nixed the highway camping spot and decided to try a KOA. We've never done that before. But they always look like fun, and hey, for camping they are price-y, so the amenities must be pretty great there, right?

For starters, the mineral-rich water tasted terrible. Seriously. The girls tried it first and complained, so of course I told them to stop being fussy. Then I tried it and spit it back out. I couldn't even rinse my mouth with it when brushing my teeth. The smell was so strong that showers were a nauseating experience.

Larry pretended it was fine.

The extended family camping next to us were right out of a bad sitcom. The grandmother was a dead ringer for Carol Burnett, when she plays a family matriarch type hailing from rural America. Within 5 minutes of meeting me and the girls and introducing 2 of her granddaughters, she asked if my daughters had started their periods yet. I don't think Rachel and Susie will ever forgive me.

The weather couldn't make up its mind, but it did seem to have it in for us (and, yes, I do know that is not the KOA's fault).  It kept alternating between devastatingly humid and rainy. It got so humid, in fact, that we did something we've never done while camping before - we zipped up all the windows and turned on the air conditioner.  Seriously, it was either that or drive back home. Let ye who don't vacation in air-conditioned hotels and bungalows throw the first stone.

Our second day there, we left the beach just as thunder started. By the time we got back to the campsite, it was raining torrentially. Picture it - we're sitting in the van, water streaming down the windows, the camper 20 feet away a mere blur. And Larry says, "Okay, I think we can have the girls start loading the suitcases into the van." And I said, "No, we can't. Why don't we stay until tomorrow morning, as we planned?"

International symbol for ping pong, apparently

Have I mentioned that deep-woods-camping Larry really hated the campground? His way prevailed, so Susie and I splashed over to the activity room to play ping pong, leaving poor Rachel to help Larry pack up the van and camper in the torrential rain. After a mishap where Larry managed to drive the van over the large metal fire ring (helpful hint: DO NOT try this at home) and a tense interval when Larry discovered a problem with the trailer hitch and swore not-so-softly under his breath, we finally departed.

The rain stopped as we drove off.



[KOA sign image: KOA]
[Ping Pong symbol: Free vectors]

Beware The Madness

Well, the madness has struck again. Every few years I get this inane idea that I can manage a small garden - you know, in my spare time. After all, with only 6 children, I'm sitting around twiddling my thumbs a lot. I've read my square-foot gardening book (new and improved), I'm next in line (finally) for one of those organic gardening plots down the road from my house, I've got 6 hungry children to feed. I can do it! Think Victory gardens, think Little House on the Prairie, think about anything but the fact that every other time we've tried this, we've suffered abysmal failures (not to mention that I seem to wind up pregnant each summer we're responsible for one of those plots). This will be the year that we troop down the road, a merry little band of fresh-faced children with their indefatigable(?) matriarch, to pick green beans and lettuce and tomatoes and bring it all home for our supper. Never mind that year that the vine-borers destroyed our promising pumpkin crop and made the children cry. Forget about the watermelon patch that yielded one precious melon which rotted because I didn't have the sense to pick it in time. Totally disregard the fact that by August the mosquitoes get so bad no one dares go near the garden for fear of being eaten alive.

Larry is being amazingly tactful about this plan, considering my record of gardening failures. He seems to accept that this bout of mania needs to run its course before we can get back to living our lives sans horticulture. I don't think he really wanted to spend his day off spreading a weed barrier over our newly acquired garden plot and sawing and hammering wood in the 95-degree heat to construct the garden boxes for me. He probably didn't enjoy hauling the bales of peat moss and bags of planting mix out there either. But he did it. That man has what it takes to stay married, I'll tell you.

And did I mention our compost pile? Recycling at its best. Just throw in all those carrot peels and celery leaves and whatever else; and, with any luck at all, it won't all just sit there and rot the way it has all the other times I've tried this. Anyway, the children are very enthusiastic about the entire enterprise; well, except Anna, who is only too happy to stay home and watch the baby rather than help weed. Works for me, works for her.

Results? Well, so far we have 4 basil plants, 1 parsley plant, and 1 cilantro (all purchased elsewhere) growing happily. It's been a whole 2 days and they're not even dead yet. Pretty good, huh? Maybe if I succeed, we'll all be eating more healthily and we can avoid being sick all the time. Although we haven't been doing too badly lately. I mean, aside from that unfortunate vomiting incident of Rachel's on our not-so-glorious 4th, I think it has been almost 2 weeks since one of us was laid low with any mysterious ailments. And Rachel didn't really need to go see those fireworks anyway.

Well, I've got to go mulch (whatever that is).

Regards,

the Hapless Gardener

When East Meets West

My finger still hurts. It's not broken if I can bend it normally, right? Because, really, why go to the doctor when I can just ask a bunch of perfect strangers for medical advice?

I hate going to the doctor. I am convinced I'll pick up some deadly disease (or at least a highly inconvenient one) while I am there.

Also, that picture in the previous post was of an ice pack covering my afflicted appendage. I only mention this because a friend messaged me and asked what it was. She said, and I quote, that it looked like it "...was encased in some sort of metal bullet-type case and you were ready to stab people with it."

This sort of comment makes me wonder what my friends really think of me.

Rarely seen snowman skeleton

In other news, our two days of winter are over. The snow is melting, which is a good thing, because then I can't foolishly injure myself by reliving my youth. So now I have to start thinking about that train trip and planning exact dates and all. There will be a couple of AirBnB stays involved, because Amtrak is not obliging me by having the trains arrive in major cities early in the morning and then leaving again at night. That was the original plan, see - arrive in a city, look around, hop back onto the train and ride overnight, thus saving money on lodgings.

That's not going to happen. East Coaster that I am, I had no idea that there could be major cities where the train stops only once or twice a day. This blows my mind. I mean, have you seen the Amtrak schedule for trains running between DC and New York? There are at least a dozen each day.

I don't understand how the West Coast works, actually. Do you all drive everywhere? Fly? Or maybe you're all so healthy, you just bike? I feel as though I am an anthropologist, heading off to do field work. How do the natives live?

The H Doesn't Stand For Healthy

In keeping with their plan to make my life go by at an ever increasing pace, my children are already talking about Halloween. Discussions about who is going to wear what costume, and what candy we should hand out, and how much candy they can keep have been rampant; and they take great pains to remind me of candy's importance to the holiday, probably because of the trauma I inflicted upon them about 10 Halloweens ago.

You see, that was the year I decided that home-baked whole-grain carrot muffins (in attractive Halloween-themed muffin papers) would be an excellent, homey addition to our nocturnal visitors' treat bags. So I baked ninety of them. Yup - ninety - I had the zeal of a crusader back then, bringing healthy holiday treats to the masses.

Now Larry, as you all probably know by now, is a wise man who knows better than to argue with his wife when she is on a mission. So when he spotted the bowl of attractively displayed muffins by the front door, he didn't say anything; but he headed out to the neighborhood grocery store. Returning with several bags of candy which he placed next to our healthy Halloween treats, he assured me, "These are just in case you, um, run out of muffins."

He had a good time that night, I remember. Every time kids came to our door and plunged their greedy little hands into those candy bags, he'd ask, "But don't you want a muffin?" They'd pause, startled, glance at the muffins, and decline. Many of them rolled their eyes. A few laughed derisively.

So, I get it now, all right? Nothing healthy. Heck, Halloween night, I don't even bother making dinner. Who would I be kidding? We eat candy all day, actually; like good athletes, we train for the big event.

Oh, and speaking of Halloween trauma - whoever at Michael's decided it was a great idea to put talking statues of a headless bride (what's up with that, anyway?) and a vampire near the front entrance to scare the bejebus out of my Susie? Thanks a whole lot! I don't know who you think your customer base is; but common sense might tell you that the people buying all those Foamies and sidewalk chalk and craft sticks just might be moms with young children - you know, young, as in unable to tell whether that scary thing at the entrance is real or not. Young, as in capable of screaming in terror the entire time their mother keeps them in the store. Young, as in innocent enough to be scarred for life by your stupid Halloween display that you think is a laugh riot.

Just needed to get that off my chest...

The Resumé Of Eternal Youth

 Oh, look, it's spring! Sort of...

Poor things will have snow on them by Saturday

The weather can't make up its mind, which is standard for March around here. I do not want to leave February behind without giving credit where credit is due: Larry (unlike last year) absolutely won Valentine's Day 2022. I don't have photos, so you'll have to just believe me when I say that he planned ahead, going to a specific deli in town to pick up authentic New York Italian bakery cookies, a box of fancy wrapped chocolates, AND (believe it or not) a Valentine's Day card with a camping theme, into which he glued a picture of our camper he had printed.

I KNOW, right? This all made me look particularly bad, since - even though I had picked up some sweets for him way ahead of time - I was reduced to rummaging through the junk in my desk the night before to find (amazingly enough) a Valentine's Day card (unused) from ALDI last year. Oh, he was smug! And I don't blame him.

Unfortunately, we've still got this going on, SINCE JANUARY:

Dishwasher remains broken

Home Depot has offered to buy me out (i.e., give me the original purchase price plus tax of my dishwasher), since one of the parts they ordered isn't expected until April and who knows if that will ever really show up, global affairs being what they are, and hey, I am NOT going through WWIII without a dishwasher, dammit. 

...to buy a dishwasher

So I looked up what dishwashers cost now, and - even if I buy the cheap Best Buy house brand - I'll still be out about $200 anyway, once installation and haul away and a new protection plan are purchased. This is, to be honest, discouraging, but I guess I'll end up paying it. SOMEONE's got to keep this economy going, and it looks as though that someone? Is me.

After a month of handwashing dishes and trying to convince my kids that one of them should accompany me in the camper van to visit Uncle Matt in Florida, I set off on my own (with a promise from Anna that she'd stay at our house a few days to make sure Larry ate something other than roasted peanuts for dinner), and you know what? It was really fun! The camper is cozy to sleep in, and - since I can just lock myself in for the night - feels super safe, even when I am alone.

Woke up to a marvelous South Carolina sunrise

I haven't gone away in February since, oh, 1988, when I went to Florida for Navy basic training. So I knew intellectually that things are warmer down south this time of year, but somehow I was still pleasantly surprised to arrive in Georgia and see people wandering around in shorts and eating ice cream outdoors and generally enjoying life. IN FEBRUARY.

It's enough to make me a southerner, I'll tell ya.

I visited my brother's new house and marveled at the palm trees and exotic wildlife and went biking with him on the shore road that he swore had no traffic (but it did, PLENTY) to the park that he said was only 6 miles away (more like 10, I quit at 8.5 - I just wasn't used to the heat). I used the (blessedly car-free) sidewalk to bike back to our parking spot, a sidewalk populated by many geriatric pedestrians you couldn't just yell "PASSING LEFT" at without giving them a heart attack, so it was slow going, but I made it. Barely.

Susie calls these "Dr. Seuss trees," and she's right

And then I drove even farther south to visit some friends/neighbors who had moved to the Miami area a few years ago. The husband showed off his nifty solar system he'd had installed on the house, and I showed off my nifty camper van, and we were both suitably impressed by each other's new toy. They drove me to Key Biscayne, which was beautiful (do I have any good pictures? NO) and only reinforced my newfound notion that people down south really know how to live (at least, in February).

Also, their house was adorable and surrounded by the local wildlife:

Peacocks, loose, in the street - it's insane

All of this visiting and seeing new places was fun. The trip home? SO MUCH DRIVING. True, it wasn't any more driving than I had done on the way down, but somehow it seemed longer heading back. Maybe because I had no time left to stop somewhere else warm and fun. Instead, it was just a slow (and expensive - those gas prices!) slog back to the wintry north.

The most notable occurrence during the return trip was that I ended up in an RV park the first night, parked next to a miniature horse named Flash. I don't quite understand it. Georgia, I guess.

Luckily, you don't smell manure when you're inside a camper van

The second night I picked a nice quiet campground in North Carolina (with heated bathrooms, thanks be to God, because temps were dropping, and no livestock), and everything was perfect until the Boy Scout troop showed up. Still, I can't complain, as it was another comfy night in my camper van (have I mentioned my camper van?), with me all snuggled in with my heated mattress pad and my cozy blanket. Especially since there were those heated bathrooms...

My cozy nest (forgot my pillow, though)

I came home the next day to find the house still standing and Larry well fed, with leftovers in the fridge, so apparently I can get away with leaving home again. Which I might, since the dishwasher is still broken and prospective employers continue to not hire me (or even respond to my applications).  

In an attempt to remedy the unemployment situation, I spent this past Sunday revamping my resume to remove any hint of my age, so now anyone reading it would guess I'm maybe 35. What's silly is that I FEEL younger whenever I look at it. I'm an honest-to-God millennial, now, albeit without the typical millennial problems, I guess.

Larry and I aren't far from looking like this, actually

So now I am busy reapplying to a bunch of jobs and planning my next getaway should I (and my millennial resume) remain unwanted. Not sure how I'll pay for that gas, though...