No, It's NOT Fine.

I'm in the middle of doing that thing that everyone sort of knows they may have to do someday but most of us shove to the back corners of our brain where we keep things like the day our period started at school in 8th grade, or the day our friends came over and found mother sunbathing nude in the yard.

I'm at the beginning of the process of taking away a great deal of my mother's independence. If I tell you that this experience has allowed me to get in touch with pockets of guilt and resentment I never touched before, I'm probably understating. I've come to understand the phrase "Sandwich Generation" with a new clarity. My youngest child is a high school senior. She's visiting colleges, getting her prerequisites in order, checking into scholarship programs...

And just at that moment, when I can begin to imagine a world in which sex happens without fortress-like door locks and money doesn't flow like water...in walks my mother.

My mother is 73. She's intelligent and articulate, well-read, passionate about animals and the ecology. She's always been a little out of the mainstream, but what the hell...so have I. Recently, though, her quirkiness has evolved into something a lot less cute and a lot more unsafe. As she's aged, the details of her life have become unmanageable. And the more the trappings of normalcy slip away, the more she's isolated herself, hoping that no one will notice how overwhelmed she is.

I've run through the usual litany of corrective actions: offers of help for her sake, offers of help for my sake, dire predictions about the danger of hurting herself, and my favorite of all...the Scenario of Doom. "Mom. You're going to fall and break something, and no one will know until you're dead and the dogs have eaten your face. And who's going to find that? Me. So your last official act in this world will be to ruin my life? Thanks."

My mother's response? "I'm fine. It's fine." The tree across the driveway? It's fine. It's good exercise for elderly people to crawl over or under it. It's like having a 10 ton Bowflex. The tree on the utility lines? It's fine too. It keeps the power bill down.

*sigh*

So this last week I have begun the project of hooking my mom up with a variety of Elderly Assistance organizations. I'm alternately relieved, defiant, and wracked with guilt. Who ever thought that I, a small "L" libertarian, would ever tell another sentient adult how to live? But now I have. I am. I'm on a mission to make my mother's life safe and manageable, whether she likes it or not. I plan to knock down the 4 foot high weeds in the yard, to cut up the downed trees that fell in last years storms (including the one that landed on the roof), and to do the repairs and maintenance to her house that homes need in order to make them habitable and comfortable.

She'll be mad at me for intervening. I'll be mad at me if I don't. It's funny, at 45, to realize that you still don't want to piss off your mother.

Like the lady at the Sunshine Senior Services asked, "Does your mother hold a grudge?"

I hope not.

Blowin' In The Wind

We had a little storm yesterday afternoon.

It moved in fast, whipped through the yard with 70mph winds blowing rain sideways in three directions at once and then sped on to the next town, leaving a path of demolished trees and strewn personal belongings in its wake. Our trash can lids are in the neighbor's yard across the street.

After the brief but impressive storm passed, I looked out the front door and noticed what appeared to be a large limb from the trees next to our driveway lying next to Katie's truck. "Whew!" I thought to myself, "That's a big branch! It's lucky that didn't hit her truck!"

It was even luckier than I thought.

It wasn't, in fact, a tree limb ... it was a thirty foot tree, wrapped in vines and poison ivy. It's just that all I could see of it from the house was the top of it. The rest of it was lying across our driveway. Somehow, it miraculously landed safely in the triangle formed by Katie's truck, the electric box and the Luckiest Little Sapling in Southern Illinois (which, as you can see, it missed by about two inches).

So this morning Ev and I got out the trusty chainsaw and made firewood out of it. It took us about an hour to cut it up, haul the top of it to the burn pile down the hill and the trunk parts to the wood pile for splitting. I still have a small mountain of branches and poison ivy to drag to the burn pile, but at least we can navigate the driveway again.

While we took a break to sit on stumps, wipe the sweat from our eyes, play with the hundreds of tiny katydids on the dead tree and pant in the 94% humidity, we could hear the sound of chainsaws coming from other yards all around us. Ev said, "God, I love Southern Illinois! Everywhere else people go to church on Sunday. Here it's all about cutting shit up!"

We're getting so good at this that we think there ought to be a competition for it. Maybe they should have Olympic events that are actually useful ... team stump removal, fallen tree swamping, burn pile immolation ... we could totally medal.

To my son, the scofflaw

I'm indebted to Amanda Marcotte over at Pandagon for bringing this to my attention. Let this be a warning to the Fruit of my Looms:

Do not plan a trip to Flint, Michigan unless you plan to pull up your pants.

I Protest!

I really don't have much to say, but I'm tired of seeing The Crystals. Since that video has been sitting there for a week, however, it did inspire me to research the god-awful song, and I learned some interesting things about it. It was written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, and produced by (irony warning) Phil Spector. Originally, the song was written as a protest song against the abuse of women, and was inspired by the bad love life of singer Little Eva, who said her boyfriend only beat the crap out of her because he loved her. It never got much radio play in 1962. Apparently, the irony doesn't come across very well, and it sounds more like an anthem to abuse than a protest against it.

The obscure little gem has, however, been influential in the lives of other tragic singers. Courtney Love and Hole covered it. Amy Winehouse says the song "inspired" her and shaped her life. Have you seen Amy Winehouse lately? Gerry Goffin and Carole King should pay for her next trip to the ER.

So that's all I have to say about "He Hit Me (and it felt like a kiss)".

Ev tried to post another video yesterday, but it wouldn't post. Which was sad, because it was a nifty video of one of our favorite singer-songwriters, John Prine, talking about the tragedies of war and the young lives sacrificed to it, and singing a verse of "Sam Stone" to illustrate the point.

I like a nice protest song, don't you?

I was reading yesterday about a protest movement afoot for a "general strike" on September 11, 2008. The idea is that everyone in America should do exactly nothing on that day. Don't be a consumer. Don't drive. Don't show up to work for The Man. Don't turn on your lights or watch your TV. Just disappear from the grid for a day. It sounds good, in theory, but I don't think it will work in practice. It's like threatening to punish your kids by cancelling the family vacation to the beach. They know you aren't really going to do it, because it's your vacation, too, and you aren't going to punish yourself for their bad behavior. I'm not going to just not show up for work, or call off and say, "Hey, I'm not coming in today because I'm showing solidarity and engaging in a general strike against ... everything," because I'm a wage slave and I need my job.

I'd like to march and protest and picket and raise hell about something, but it's really hot and muggy out there, and I have hot flashes even with the air conditioning on. That's why I love a good protest song, and why, when "Your Flag Decal Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore" comes on the CD player while I'm at a red light next to a redneck with flag stickers all over his truck, I turn it up really loud and sneer. Take that, motherfucker!!

The Crystals - He Hit Me (And It Felt Like A Kiss)

I...I...I don't know what to say. I just...I don't know...

A Forced March To Merriment

The other day we decided to clear a path to Richard's pond and then teach the ducks to use it. They're usually pretty good about stuff like that. Once one of them has figured it out she'll lead the others, and pretty soon they'll all be able to go there on their own. Not that they ever do anything on their own. Usually one of the females gets an idea in her head and quacks and honks and pesters the others until they all come out from under the porch and do what she wants. There's a metaphor in there somewhere.


So I took chainsaw in hand and cut out the scrubby little trees blocking the path to the pond. Then Lori cleaned it up with the loppers, enough so they wouldn't trip going through it. They trip over their feet a lot. One of those big old feet will get hung up on something and then Wham!...the duck will land on its chin. I assume they don't like that...I know I wouldn't...so we tried to make the path as duck-friendly as possible so they'd be more inclined to use it.

Once it was clear enough we started moving them towards it. First, with the help of Katie and Dane, we managed to get them walking in that direction. Almost always when we try to make them go in a certain direction, they act like we're herding them to a slaughterhouse. They quack furiously and run in 10 different directions looking wild-eyed and frantic. Then they regroup somewhere else in the yard and quack indignantly for a few minutes before they get back to hunting for worms and forget why they were so pissed off.



So we herded them towards the path: across the yard, around the woodpile, through the break in the trees. We were hoping that when they saw the water they'd go Yay! Water! But no. They acted like they were on the Bataan Death March. Any time one of them spotted a break in our circle around them, they'd run furiously towards it. Dane was definitely our weakest link. He must have thought that this was the kind of outing you see on National Geographic shows where the skinny boys in loin clothes casually guide a thousand ducks to the village market. No. This was full-contact duck herding.





We manged to get seven of them down to the pond and the other three followed behind, bitching furiously. We herded our seven right to the water's edge and then nudged them into the pond, where they clustered 6 inches from the shore in 2 inches of water, acting like they were standing in a vat of hydrochloric acid. Finally, after a lot of idiotic looking flapping and yelling on our part, they paddled out 2 feet and huddled together, eating weeds and eyeing us distrustfully.



Did I mention that during this process Lori and I both slipped and fell in the mud, then slid into the pond? We did.

Finally, with the ducks bobbing peacefully a foot from shore, we headed for home. They bobbed another 5 minutes or so, just to prove we ain't the boss of 'em, then followed. Since then they've wandered down the hill a couple of times, but I haven't seen them get in the water. Instead, they wander around Richard's field looking for worms, exactly the way they wander around our field, then they come home and jump into their kiddie pool in the yard.


Duckie bastards.

A Duck Tale

We're Southern Illinoisans in many ways, but we fall way outside the norm when it comes to pets. For most Southern Illinoisans, pets are those animals that show up and hang out in your yard until they run off or get killed by something. People here don't expect to have the same pets for very long, and there are always replacements.

Our cats live in the house. Our dog lives in the house. Even our ducks live in a house. Most Southern Illinoisans wouldn't build a $1000 duck dome ... or even a secure night pen with an enclosed hutch and a fenced area covered in aviary netting. We have both.

We stand out like sore thumbs in the pet department, because we have real Southern Illinoisans for neighbors. You've heard about Al. Now, meet Richard:

This morning there was a knock on our door about 7:00am. It was an older man who introduced himself as the neighbor who lives behind us, on the other side of our tree line. He has a lovely property with a big grass pasture and a pond. He came up to tell me he was missing his ducks.

When we got our ducks I worried that they'd wander off and end up in his pond, and I suspected I might have to explain them to him at some point. I didn't anticipate that we would, in fact, become unwitting ducknappers.

As it turns out, his son gave him a pair of ducks for his pond the other day and they've been wandering up here when we're not home. He comes and retrieves them, but they keep coming back. This morning they were trying desperately to get into the duck enclosure with our ducks. He scooped them up and took them home and told me that our ducks were welcome to come swim on his pond.

A play date! A pond to swim in, instead of a tiny wading pool! Yay!

So I got dressed, let our ducks out, and tried to take them over to the pond. They followed me about halfway across our property and then ran back to their pool. I got behind them and herded them. They turned the corner onto his property and then ran along the tree line and charged back through the brush into our yard again. I gave up and went to work thinking maybe I'd try again this evening.

I obsessively count the ducks to make sure there are eight, alive and well. When I got home from work tonight I counted them ... one, two, three, four ... five ... six, seven, eight ... nine, ten???? Crap. Two extra. I tried to figure out which two were Richard's, since they're also Rouens. I think his are a little darker than ours, but hell ... ducks look very much alike! His are tamer ... or they were tamer this morning when he walked over and picked them up ... but they spent all day with our yard ducks and now they're not very damn tame anymore. I tried to get them to follow me to the pond and they ran back to the wading pool. I tried to herd the whole flock to the pond and they ran in three different directions.

I gave up and went to talk to Richard. I told him his ducks were at our house and he said he knew ... he'd chased them back twice today and finally gave up. I told him I'd put them in our enclosure tonight so they don't hurt themselves trying to get in, and he offered to pay for any feed they eat.
Tomorrow, while Ev and I are both off work, we'll try and herd them to the pond again. Maybe he can at least enjoy seeing them on his pond, since I don't think he's going to get them back. The living is pretty good up here at the Duck Dome and they appear to have settled in. We were short on females anyway.

As it turns out, these are not the first pets Richard has lost to us. He is, apparently, the source of all of our strays. Last year's duck belonged to him, too. I found that out while we were chatting tonight. He said he had a pair of mallards last year but one got killed and one wandered off. Oops. I said, "Um, yeah ... she wandered off to our yard. We fed her for awhile and then she got killed in the road."

Poor Richard looked stricken. Then he said, "I wish that road wasn't so close. My dog got hit on that road last year. She was a black lab ... a really good dog." Oops. "Was Sidney your dog??" I asked him. Sidney was the black lab who adopted us last year ... the one who used to sleep in my convertible if I left the top down ... the one who would sit in the bed of Ev's truck for hours waiting to go for a ride ... the one who is buried in our yard.

Now Richard has a little black lab puppy named Boots. She tried to follow me home.

If there's a Mrs. Richard I hope he doesn't let her wander up here.

Goin' To Town

I love to drive.

When I first got this car I would put the top down, put on my cool green Kate Spade sunglasses, crank up the stereo and just dri-i-i-i-i-i-ve for the sheer pleasure of it. It was so much fun that I felt guilty, as if I must be doing something illegal and should be getting a ticket for it.

Ev and I love car trips. We love to get out on the road and just explore shit. We'll drive down roads just to see where they go, engaged in great conversations. It's our quality couple time. We once went on a little drive in Arizona, intending to tool around the desert of southeastern Arizona, and we ended up eating dinner in Puerto Penasco, Mexico and then having to drive like hell to get back to the border before they locked it down at 10:00pm so we wouldn't have to call the kids and tell them we accidentally got stuck in Mexico.

I love St. Louis

There are about a zillion things to do in St. Louis. I love to shop at the Miniature Museum. The St. Louis Zoo is free. The food at the Schafley Brew Pub is most excellent, and you can pick up a couple of cases of Schafley APA while you're there. The Mississippi River crested up to the base of the Arch last week, which is something that would be very cool to see.

I love my kid.

I haven't seen him since Christmas and I barely recognize him now that he's pretty much a grown man. He's got a new job, a new car and a new girlfriend since he was here in December, and he sounds like he's getting his act together.

I love the 4th of July.

I like fireworks, fried chicken, potato salad, long holiday weekends and sparklers. I even like some of the patriotic music (with the exception of "We'll Put a Boot Up Yer Ass, It's the American Way" and songs of that ilk). Ev and I went to Cape Girardeau the first summer we were here and watched the fireworks on the river ... it rained and it was too crowded, but it was still very pretty.

This week all of those elements will align perfectly. On Thursday I'm driving my convertible to the St. Louis airport early in the morning to drop off Katie for her summer trip to Arizona, and then I have the day to myself in St. Louis, because I'm picking up my son and his girlfriend from the airport in the evening. Then we'll all drive somewhere to watch the fireworks on the 4th. They have to go home again on Sunday, so Ev and I will drive them back to St. Louis and then we'll have the drive home to do our thang ... cruisin' ... talking ... enjoying the scenery.

You'd think the juxtaposition of all the things I love would make me ecstatically happy. And it would, if I hadn't tallied up the two round-trips to St. Louis at 26mpg, at $4.05 a gallon, which equals roughly $200, which is the price of the goddamn airline tickets each of the kids bought to fly 3000 miles round trip between Phoenix and St. Louis. We'd be better off flying to the fucking airport.

I hate George W. Bush. I'd like to see him tarred and feathered, but he is so not worth the price of tar.

Dodged Another Bullet

I'm feeling much better today. I cut and burned and cut and burned until I couldn't lift my arms anymore. Wisely, Al stayed home. I guess it's true: God DOES protect drunkards and fools. Somewhere along the line the Menstrual Gods rewarded me with another 26 days of sanity, so it's safe for Lori to come out of the storm cellar again.

And yes, Cedar. menopause is the reward for making it 30 years without killing anyone.

So I usually like to take a victory lap around the year with my coffee cup the morning after a day of good yard work, but it's been raining like crazy since the middle of the night, so the validation part of the day is on hold for a while.

I work this weekend, but I have the 4th of July holiday off with next weekend. Coupled with my hormonally-dependent peace and goodwill towards my brethren and sistren, I might spend part of it in the company of humans. Maybe.

Johnny Cash - Don't Take Your Guns To Town

Life's a Bitch and Then I'm a Bitch, Too

I've have very bad PMS for the last couple of days. Today is the apex. Therefore:

1. I'm irrationally angry.
2. I'm fighting the impulse to kill everyone stupid enough to speak to me. Luckily, that's virtually no one, since my kids are taking one look at me and slinking back to their room/home.
3. Gas is expensive, which means we have no disposable income, contributing to #1. However even if gas were cheap I'd still be angry about something. That's the good thing about PMS. It allows a person to be an equal opportunity hater.

Therefore, I'm going to finish my chicken and rice, take up my chainsaw, and finish cutting up the termite tree while fantasizing about who's face is on each limb. Then with any luck, the weather will hold and I'll throw the dismembered termite tree parts on the burn pile and burn the motherfucker to the ground while sitting in a lawn chair and drinking beer in front of it. If Al comes over I plan to shoot him.

I Probably Don't Have Long to Live

I have a confession to make: I'm dealing with the heartbreak of mono globglowlaparaproteinmia.

Well, okay...maybe I'm not. But we had a patient come in with that diagnosis last night and I decided that if I ever choose to call in fraudulently, I'm using that excuse.

Clearly someone in Admitting tried to spell something phonetically and failed. Miserably.

So add mono globglowlaparaproteinmia to to list of debilitating illnesses I have that sometimes make me unable to go to work. The feline leukemia, the erectile dysfunction (hey, they said it could happen to anyone!), the mono globglowlaparaproteinmia, and it's more severe secondary stage, poly globglowlaparaproteinmia... it's a miracle I can get out of bed each day. Sort of a testament to my bravery, eh?

And on a completely unrelated note, except that it's my blog and I can talk about anything I want...has anybody ever had a citronella plant? Lori's going to buy a couple of them from Rural King, and I was wondering if anyone had any experience with them besides that they smell nice.

When Nothing Much Is Going On...

I was up late last night finishing a book, Black and White by Lewis Shiner, that I downloaded as a PDF file. I've never done that before but it had a couple of advantages, one of which was that I could increase the text size to 212% and read easily without straining my eyes. But besides the great (big) font, it was also a great read, and I heartily recommend it.

However, the price I paid for that nocturnal indulgence is that I slept late and didn't go outside or do anything of value this morning. So a few minutes ago I poked my head out the back door to see what the weather's doing before I get dressed for work....not that I would do anything different based on that information. I wear essentially the same thing every day anyway. One of four pairs of identical pants with one of six identical (except the color) short sleeve shirts in the summer, or one of ten identical (except the color) long sleeve shirts in the winter. I think my non-existent fashion sense may drive people nuts, but my theory is that once you find something that works for you, stick with it.

But that's not the important part. The important part is that when I went out on the porch I noticed that one of the rosebushes is beautiful, so I took a picture.

Baseball and Football

George Carlin ... safe at home at 71. Seventy-one???????? How the hell old ARE we?

Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cock-suckin' motherfucker and tits.

RIP, George.

Steve Goodman: A Dying Cubs Fan's Last Request

And while we're thinking about it, here's something just for Valerie!

Beyond Thunder(duck)dome!

Ev's gone to the store for more long-ass deck screws, so I'm taking this opportunity to post the updated project photos.

And they said it couldn't be done by two middle-aged lesbians of short stature! HA!

Well, okay. It couldn't have been done entirely by two middle-aged lesbians of short stature, but it could, by-god, be done by two middle-aged lesbians of short stature and one tall, agreeable, ex-husband! So there! Looks like a Tiki Hut, huh? Everyone but Ev thinks it would looks spiffy with a thatched roof. She's still holding out for shingles. Rob thinks it needs a bar ... the kind with the grass skirt around it ... and it certainly needs tiki torches. We all agree it's pretty fancy-schmancy for ducks!

Everything cooperated today. The weather is cooler, there's more shade and more breeze, the ladder gods smiled on us and we found a spiffy two-in-one step and extension ladder for a hundred bucks at Sears, and the girls couldn't go to Magic Mountain with their dad today as planned ... so he came here instead. Yay!

It turns out that a six-foot-tall ex-husband on an extension ladder is just the right height to get to the pinnacle of an 11-and-a-half-foot-tall roof ... if you leave little triangular openings for him to squeeze through with an electric screwdriver.

If we can't get him back out, we'll have to tell the ducks he's a pinata.







Now we have to cut and put up another row of bracing cross-pieces and cut little triangles (all slightly different -- don't ask) to cover the remaining Rob openings. I suspect we'll have to ply him with beer to convince him to climb the extension ladder and lay on the roof trusses to screw them in place.

Carrie helped out by whipping up a three-way-combo birthday and Father's Day feast of bacon wrapped steak and ginger-soy drizzle. It was oh-my-god delicious!

I've thrown in a picture of the lucky recipients of all this effort. Here they are, mindlessly dunking their heads in an afternoon mud puddle and dribbling on each other. They don't look like something that needs luxury accommodations, do they?

There is really nothing anyone could aspire to that would be a better deal than being a pet in this household. You don't see us building little Tiki huts in the yard for the children, do you??

Prettiness!

On our quest for "cheap and local" we stumbled across ... pretty!

Last week I was telling my friend, Pamela, how gorgeous the wildflowers have been on my way home from work, and bemoaning the fact that all my vases are packed away somewhere in the shed. On Wednesday we were working in Benton, and we had a few minutes to kill after lunch, so we went browsing in one of the antique stores -- and she bought me this pretty combination antique pitcher and wildflower vase for my birthday! Thank you, Pamela!

Ev and I went "to town" today to buy some straw for the ducks and a taller ladder to finish the Duck Dome, and on the way home we stopped along her mom's road and picked Queen Anne's Lace, thistles, Black-Eyed-Susans, Tiger Lilies and some tiny daisy-ish flowers and purple flowering vines we didn't recognize but liked a lot. Pretty, huh!?

Even Slipper-Dipper seems to approve of them -- or he's just concerned that we've done something new to his mantle. With Slipper it's hard to tell the difference between approval and concern.

I also managed to catch the ducks in the sunlight today and get a couple of shots of their pretty iridescent feathers. As you can see, Omelette has a lot of fluffy chest feathers now, and I could finally capture an image of the blue-green feathers behind her wings. All of the Rouens have the iridescent stripe on their wings, but it's a little different on all of them. Some have broader stripes of black and one of them has an almost purple stripe.

America's Pastime

Lori and I have the weekend off and we need to get out into the world. We stay home pretty much every weekend and enjoy it a ton..it's relaxing, low stress and we get to reconnect with each other...but this weekend we're feeling the need to do something recreational. Since we almost never leave the house voluntarily, I solicited some ideas from my friends at work. They were mostly useless except as comic relief.

I was trying to come up with something cheap and local since gas is so expensive. I asked Val if she'd ever been to a Miners game (the Southern Illinois Miners is our local minor league team) and she said, "I actually thought baseball season was over. It seems like it's already been going on for a really long time, doesn't it?"

Okay...maybe we're not the only ones who need to get out of the house occasionally...hmmm?

For those of you longing for a mercifully short baseball season...baseball is a marathon, not a sprint. It's 162 games during the regular season and 20-ish more in the playoffs. The object of the game is to still have at least 9 players at the end of that time who are uninjured AND don't suck. And if you've got an extra pitcher or two who isn't just trying to make it until his post-season elbow reconstruction surgery, that's a plus.

Baseball isn't like NASCAR...it's not one brutally hellish day in the hot sun drinking crappy beer. It's 80 hellish days in the hot sun, and another 80 in the bug-infested night. It's 10 mile long lines to get into the women's bathroom, it's $9 a cup Budweiser, it's a $12 hot dog. It's tradition. People who get up in the seventh inning to "beat the crowd"? Losers. Quitters. For my $35 ticket in the nosebleed seats, I want my money's worth. Not only an I going to stay for the entire game until they shut off the stadium lights, but I may hang around the clubhouse, follow a player out to his car and steal his hubcaps. Hell, he makes more money in the 30 seconds it takes to call 911 than I will in my lifetime.

I came of age during the Ryne Sandberg/Leon Durham/Ron Cey era of the Chicago Cubs. No one understands the concept of overpaid underachievers like we veteran fans of the 80's Cubs. We listened faithfully, knowing that we'd never be able to get thse 486 wasted hours per season back again. The important things were that A) the Cubs played in the daytime, so you could listen to Harry Carey's idiotic babble at work, and B) you could enjoy the spring successes while still looking forward in anticipation of the inevitable post-All Star break crash. Will it be July? August? When will the Cubbies have that 20 game losing streak?

Because baseball is a patient person's game.

So yes, Valerie...there is a baseball season still. And it will still end in heartbreak for most of the nation's fans. Long after the $9 beer has been urinated in the parking lot, long after the stupid Mardi Gras beads, the big foam finger, the Health Care Worker Tribute Day souvenir ball cap are all thrown away...there will still be another 120 games left in the season.

Viral Video

My New Best Pal, Al

Well...my neighbor Al saw me cutting shit up with my chainsaw, and he came by to talk. With a cooler full of bad cheap beer. However, since it was bad, cheap FREE beer, I set my standards aside and spent the afternoon having a play date with Al. This is why I know I'm secretly a saint. Because my goal always is to spend my days off working in monastic silence on my never ending yard project. But Al slipped in under my "stay away from me" radar, and then he told me so many retired guy stories that I couldn't send him away.

I now know: He's retired from the state hospital for the last 6 years; he's a Viet Nam vet who didn't make good use for the G.I. Bill; he has a daughter with two kids from two ex-husbands and he worries about whether she'll ever make something of herself; his wife would like to meet me (I'm pretty sure that's not true, but I didn't openly scoff); he got a new bass boat, and would love it if I'd go fishing with him; he admires my ability to work outside for 12 hours a day, but he worries about my safety; he thinks I'm plucky (although he didn't actually say plucky, he told me over and over again how amazing I was).

In return, I told him: I'm gay; I dropped out of high school, but I went back and got a college education, and his daughter might too if she's inclined; I thought I could drink beer, but he wins hands down...I know when I'm beat.

He choked a little on the gay part, but bucked right up after he drank a little more. He invited me, and later Lori, to stay for barbecue...his wife's a real fine cook. By the time I managed to back away, mouthing lie after lie (I'd love to stay for another case of Miller Lite and a burger Al, but I think my girlfriend's calling me for supper. Maybe another time, okay?)

Now that me and Al are best buds, I'll have to slink around under the cover of darkness if I want to spend time alone in the yard.

I Like Bunnies Better.

I posted about Bruno the Pit Bull Bunny last night, and got this comment from EmilyS:

Bruno is quiet and well-mannered. He likes cilantro, dried papaya, banana slices, and hay. He has excellent litterbox habits. And he has yet to attack anyone"

actually that sounds a lot like my pit bull. Except for the cilantro-eating part...

And that reminded me that a few weeks ago I got bit by my mom's pit bull...twice. I walked up her driveway unannounced ("Mom? Do you have a phone?" says I. "Of course", says Mom. "It's not hooked up to anything, though." Sigh.) and did the rural driveway holler. "Hellloooo! Are you home?"

She certainly was home, and my first inkling of that was when her door shot open and a snarling pit bull ran down the driveway and clamped onto my calf, followed more slowly by my mother, saying "Down! Down! Don't worry, he won't hurt you."

Too late. He already did.

While she's explaining to me how nice the dog is and how his friendliness is often misunderstood, he broke from her grasp and ran back and bit my thigh. That was enough for me. "Mom, if you don't get ahold of him, I'm going to kick the shit out of him. And if I'm still mad, you're next."

She did, in fact, throw a chain around his neck that looked like it's previous duty was docking the QE2. Luckily the weight of that chain kept him from standing up tall enough to bite anything but my toes and I was fairly certain that I wasn't going to be caught unaware a third time. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...well, okay. My bad. Fool me a third time...OKAY, OKAY! I GET IT!

How Can You Tell a Pit Bull From a Bunny?

While searching for a good birthday picture for Lori, I ran across this post from a rabbit rescue organization called the Rabbit House Society Rabbit Center. Let's give it up for Bruno, shall we?

Happy Birthday, Bruno!

Friday 17 August 2007 at 11:14 am

He looks surprised, doesn’t he? It isn’t often we know the exact birthday of a bunny, but we do happen to know that Bruno was born August 17, 2006. That’s when he and his six siblings were found in the back of a pickup truck. The owner of the truck thought they were newborn pit bulls (!) and took them to the local shelter, where Marisa recognized them as bunnies and rescued them. Maya, a nursing mother rabbit from San Jose Shelter, generously agreed to raise the orphans as her own.
Despite his early resemblance to a pit bull, Bruno is quiet and well-mannered. He likes cilantro, dried papaya, banana slices, and hay. He has excellent litterbox habits. And he has yet to attack anyone. He is hoping his stay at the Rabbit Center will help him find the perfect home, where he hopes to be spoiled and fussed over.
For his birthday, Bruno has asked for a Michael Vick chew toy.

Of Birthdays and Pig Milk

It's Lori's birthday and we'll be working opposite shifts so, romantic fool that I am, I'll probably send her a festive birthday e-mail filled with protestations of my undying love, and maybe a shopping list for Wal-Mart for on her way home. Hey, romantic fools need rice and kitty litter too, you know!

But really, just because I fall a little short on the holiday celebrations (okay, a LOT short) I still take these holidays to reflect on how lucky I am to have lured her into my life with the promise of rural splendor on par with Green Acres. But not, unfortunately, as lascivious as Petticoat Junction And by the way, who thinks it's a little bit gross to have those girls swimming nude in the town's drinking water?

"Honest, Ma...I caught the syphilis from those Bradley girls swimming nekkid in the water tank!"

Why wasn't Hooterville scandalized over that?

Anyway...about Lori's birthday...I love you, Sweetie. Congratulations on surviving another year in Hooterville. Next year, after we start the pig dairy, we'll be having ice-cold glasses of pig milk with our birthday cake!

Mmmmm...Pig milk! The other white milk!

A Haircut...Plus.

I just got to perform an intervention. I was getting a loooong overdue haircut today, having that sort of stream of consciousness conversation you have with the person who cuts your hair...you know that one?

Me: I had to run to Wal-Mart this morning and I thought I'd stop for a haircut. My run to Wal-Mart is now over an hour long.

Her: I hate Wal-Mart in the daytime. It takes 5 minutes to shop and an hour to visit with everyone you see that you know.

Me: The worst is when you see your mom. You can't just blow by her and pretend you didn't recognize her.

Her: My mom can't go to Wal-Mart by herself anymore, She's recently become blind.

Me: Ack! How awful! What happened?

Her: Uncontrolled diabetes. She won't take care of it. We have a problem with that in our family. He (pointing at teenage boy) won't take his medicine for his seizures.

Me: Why not?

Her: He says it makes him sleepy.

Him: It does!

Me: I have seizures. I got hit in the head with a softball 10 years ago. I take the meds at noon and midnight when it's not so important that I be alert.

Her: He's had them for a few years...since he had a car accident. He doesn't go unconscious, he just blanks out. Stares into space.

Me: Absence seizures.

Him: yeah.

Me: They'll take away your license if you have a wreck and the cops find out you have uncontrolled seizures.

Her: That's what I told him.

Him: I know.

Me: Try noon and midnight. Set a timer on your watch or on your phone. promise yourself you'll be really responsible about it for a month...then see if you feel better. Just try, okay?

Him: Okay. I'll try.

Her: If he actually does it, I'll cut your hair for free next time.

Me: Woohoo! The future of my hair is on your shoulders, Kid. Don't fail me.

You have to feel good about that.

Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird, it's a plane!

Well...it's official. I've got too many "arns in the far." Tomorrow's my day off, let's see if I can put paid to some projects. Today, however, is a bust. I slept in, then sat on the couch and drank coffee and read the Internets.

Today SuperEvie is wearing her undies on the inside like a mere mortal. But like the slightly neurotic mortal you all know me to be, I worry about the undone things. Tomorrow, I promise myself. It's only a day away.

P.T. Barnum was a Big Fat Liar

There is not a sucker born every minute. There were, apparently, not that many suckers born between 1960 and the mid 1980's. Our friends and family are not suckers.

They discussed the geometry involved in the roof project, then watched us cut one roof panel, then indicated they were getting hungry. Wimps. It was only, like 2:30 in the afternoon.

We fired up the grill, ate the brats and German potato salad, drank the beer, had some chocolate cake for dessert ... and then discovered that we were all too full to go out in that ungodly heat and no longer committed to building projects. Even the ducks were too hot today. They hung out under the deck staying out of the sun.

It's becoming clear that this Ev and Kwach project is going to remain an Ev and Kwach project. We'll revisit the duck dome project on our next day off together. Hey, more glory for us!

We did have a rolicking good time, though. Many stories were told, much belly-laughter was had and the food was damned good. Sundays are best enjoyed as days of rest and relaxation.

: )

Of Bratwursts and Ducks

So, it's Sunday. A day reserved for church worship, dress clothes, potlucks, and CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS! And in order to save time, we've decided to forego both the church part and the dressing up part.

We're going to spending the day putting a roof on the duck dome. We pretty much finished everything that can be finished without a roof yesterday, then we hit the lumber store one last time before they close for the weekend and now we're ready to roll. This is where we're at:

As you cab maybe see, the structure is a bunch of equilateral triangles. The walls and floor are 8 ft. triangles and the roof is 10 ft. triangles. The peak of the dome is 11.5 ft., which made for a good geometry question in the truck on the way to the hardware store. "If the vertical drop from the peak to the top of the wall is 3.5 feet, and the roof strut from the peak to the edge of the wall is 8 feet, what is the radius of the dome?

We decided that that equation would require both a calculator and beer, so we waited to get home to figure it out.

The triangle frame is achieved by connecting the wall struts of a bunch of 5 sided metal plates, which can be used either for building purposes or as s handy outline for all your Satan worshiping pentagonal needs:

We've managed to lure our friends and families into this project with a promise of bratwursts and beer. They don't yet know what lies ahead. Heh. Suckers.

More Blogging From Nowhere

My daughter Carrie has given up on the food blog. She's tired of food after 60 hours a week of it. Her new blog is here. Check her out, she's a nice girl.

Cake-N-Cookies

Duck Dome: The Musical

The duck dome is coming along,...pardon the pun...swimmingly. Lori and I both had the day off yesterday and we got the unwieldy parts put together. That is, after we spent a few hours scratching our heads at the engineering puzzle du jour. This weekend we have friends and family coming over to help with the roof, but here's where we're at currently:

What the World Needs Now ...

Is ducks.

That's what I've decided. Everyone should have a couple of ducks. Forget a chicken in every pot ... there should be a pair of ducks in every yard. Ducks don't require that much care and they don't make that much mess and they're entertaining as hell. Ducks make you laugh out loud. Ducks give you a reason to get up and go outside early in the morning when all the really cool stuff is happening.

This morning, for instance, it's gorgeous outside. It's supposed to rain later, but right now it's breezy and cool-ish, and the trees are full of birds of all kinds, swooping around snatching up bugs out of the freshly mown lawn and singing their little bird lungs out. The ducks are especially fun to watch in the morning. If I didn't have ducks I'd be looking out the window thinking, "It looks windy and overcast ... yuck." But, because I have ducks, I drank my coffee and had my morning cigarette on the deck thinking, "It's so nice out here! The yard looks so good! Ev's 'take back the yard' project has really paid off!"

The ducks have been playing worm tag again today -- a game that always makes us laugh. One of them will come up out of a mud puddle with a huge, juicy earthworm dangling from its bill. The others will see the worm. The one with the worm will notice the others looking at it and take off running ... and swallowing as fast as it can. The others will quack and chase it as fast as they can, trying to snag the worm. This morning, the poor guy with the worm got running so fast it tripped over its own feet, but it still managed to keep the worm all for itself.

They're very close to learning to fly, too. For the past two mornings, as soon as they get out into the yard, they r-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-n to where our hill takes a steep slope downward, flapping like crazy, and they almost achieve lift-off. They try it a few times early in the day, and I'm hoping I'll be there when they first feel their feet leave the ground. I want to see their reaction.

Today they got curious about the back deck. There are about six or seven steps from the deck to the grass and Hillary decided to see what's up there, so she started climbing them. Three more of them followed her and she got almost to the top step, where she could get a good look. The rest of them stayed behind her quacking, "What's up there? Can we eat it? Are there worms???"

What's up there are Ev's pretty flowers. They love flowers. I guess we should discourage them from coming the rest of the way up, but I hate to discourage them from doing anything ...

Yes, I'm a permissive duck parent.

But the moral of the story is that everyone should have ducks.

Pictures, Pictures, Pictures

Ev can't view e-mail attachments at work, so she asked me to post pictures of a little problem I was trying to describe by e-mail. So, this is how Kwachie spent her Saturday. We finished framing up the Duck Dome this morning (no, it's not a big wooden tipi) and then went and bought the plywood sheathing for the panels. My job was to stain and seal them before it starts raining again tomorrow. (I should mention that I've never used stain before in my life ... I'll explain the importance of that confession momentarily.)

The first problem I encountered was that we had the nice lumberyard man cut the 4x8' sheets diagonally for us, and it didn't occur to any of us that we should have had him cut five of the sheets in one direction and five in the other. Since every other panel has to be turned backward, and since they were all cut the same, there are 10 panels with the "good" sanded side facing out and 10 panels with the "bad" knotty, rough side facing out.

This isn't a huge deal, except that a) stain doesn't cover the lovely "Weyerhouser" stamp on the "wrong" side of every other panel, and b) the rough side soaks up stain like crazy and looks blotchy.

No biggie. What did strike me as a biggie was that I picked out a stain that was, quite specifically, brown. As I was applying the stain (and yes, I stirred the crap out of it) it looked sort of light to me. When I went in the house and looked out the kitchen window at it, it looked really orange. Specifically, it put me in mind of a gigantic version of one of those chocolate oranges that break into slices ... the kind we always put in the kids' Christmas stockings. I asked Katie if she thought it looked like that and she said, "No, I don't think so. It looks more like cheese."

After I got below the halfway point in the can, and I was able to stir it with the brush instead of the stupid pain stick, I realized there was a lot of brown pigment still in the bottom of the can. So I put a second coat on one of the panels (the darker one in the photo) and I was much happier with that answer. Ev, in an effort to make me feel better about the oranginess, said, "Don't worry about it. Next year, when we have to re-do it, we'll get a darker stain."

Next year ... when we have to WHAT !?

And here is an updated picture of the ducks, especially for Pat. : )

This is actually a picture from last week, so it doesn't show the bright blue wing stripe the rouens have all developed this week.

I wish I could get a really good picture of the color on the cayugas. They look jet-black in photos, but their faces and wings are actually bright iridescent green in the sunlight.

They're free-range ducks now, and they only have to go into their pen at night. They've got a very specific routine every day. First thing in the morning they charge out of the pen and take off at a run for the back yard. While I'm filling their waterer they pick bugs and worms out of the resulting mud around the water faucet. During the day they alternately roam around the yard (always together, of course) eating weeds and bugs or following us around at a safe distance while we do stuff. They've become completely oblivious to the mower ... except to chase it. They take a little swim, they take a little nap under a tree, they hang out under the back deck for awhile and then they start the whole process again. At 8:30 sharp they let me know it's time for bed. While I refill the waterer and get their evening duck chow and cracked corn they head for their pen and wait for me to bring them their dinner. They eat like they haven't been eating constantly all day and then fall into a deep sleep until morning, when they wake up and stand by the gate waiting to be let out again. It's a tough life.

From Macro to Micro

While Ev has been building large-scale structures and garden accessories, I've been working away on my miniature house and garden. I realized, after the fact, that I should have taken pictures of the step-by-step process, but I didn't, so I took a few the other night of the progress so far on the dollhouse I started in January.

The staircase was a bitch. It was a special ordered fancier one than the one that came in the kit, and it arrived after I'd already glued up the house. That's when I realized it was too big to fit. So I chopped off some of the lower steps and part of the banister, reattached the bottom baluster and had to cut a big hole in the second story floor in situ, which was very tricky,since my fancy Dremel Stylus didn't fit in there very well.

I covered the gaping hole in the floor with homemade flooring (which has since been varnished and looks better than this. I'll be kit-bashing a second-floor railing to cover the ends of the floor boards.

Here's another view of the staircase and the downstairs. The wall is covered in fabric I had lying around that looked like wallpaper to me. The living room floor is covered in paper flooring we got at the Miniature Museum in St. Louis.

But here's the part I'm really proud of. I had Ev cut me a piece of plywood to mount the whole house on so I could create a yard, and I've had a ton of fun with the landscaping.

The pond came out of our burn pile. It looks like it was probably mud that's been burned at such a high temperature it turned into rock. The stepping stones came out of our driveway gravel and the trees were dead twigs out of a bush at the office. I used florist's moss and a landscaping kit for a train set to create the lawn, the walkways and the shrubs, and a product called "Realistic Water" with landscaping crap floated in it to create the duck pond (complete with duckweed).

Now all I need to do is figure out what to do with the rest of the interior ...

Ev asked me to post the pictures of the project in progress, so here ya go!

First order of business, stocking the beer fridge. Here you can see that Ev has chosen Sierra Nevada IPA as the beverage of choice for building a Duck Dome. Now, it's off to power up the miter saw and cut some wood!



When I got home, Ev had built two sawhorses, assembled the base of the dome and cut most of the remaining 8 foot 2X4's. They still needed to be measured and drilled for the carriage bolts, and then we started to assemble the walls.

Hm.

What odd angles. What counter-intuitive configurations. What peculiar contortions we had to get into to attach things. After getting the first two "walls" attached, we stood back to take a look. Okay, we can totally see where it's going ...

The additional of three more 2x4's made it substantially sturdier, and added to it's whimsical appearance.

With the sun sinking quickly in the west, we got a couple more walls and top rails attached before it got too dark to work, then stood back and said, "It's good! It's big!" We aren't at all sure how we're going to put the roof struts on, since we're very short, but now we know how to build the next structure ... the screened gazebo!

The ducks will have room to put in a second floor entertainment loft, and that'll be nice for them, don't you think?

More Project Fun

To those of you, friends and family, who have requested that I make a planter for you: No! I've moved on. We've got now projects in the works. Today is my day off, and we all know what that means...Yard Projects!

We ordered something called the Starplate Building System to make a more secure four season duck enclosure than the pen we're using now. The Starplate people send you a box of metal plates with predrilled holes that you bolt 2x4s to to frame out a five sided building. Depending on how you cover the walls, it can be a greenhouse, a storage shed, a duck enclosure or a cabin. Below is the cabin:

Obviously, we're not going to make it this fancy for the ducks, but we are going to make that basic size and shape. I will, of course, post pictures when it's done. In fact, if I can remember, I'll post pictures as I go.

In other news, Katie won a regional poetry writing contest at school, best out of all the high schools in Southern Illinois, for a poem she wrote about an egg salad sandwich. I'd like to say she gets her literary talents from me, but I suspect she gets them from her father's side of the family. I'm afraid she just gets her weirdness from me.

Anyway...we're proud of her!

I'm headed to town to buy all the necessary materials...lumber, bolts and beer. Wish me luck!

There!

And with flowers:

Planters

This is what I did with my day off yesterday. The planters are the legs of the bench I was planning to make, but along the way I decided I like them better as free-standing planters. That way we can scatter them around. What do you think?

Oh...and if I didn't want to put plants in them, they'd also make handy yard toilets. :-)

Me too! Me too!

It's hot and muggy, and I can't sleep for the night sweats, so I guess I'll check in briefly, too.

I've taken some pictures and videos of the ducks in the past few days, but I can't seem to find the misplaced cable to upload them off my camera, so just have to believe me when I tell you the ducks are funny, charming, entertaining and HUGE. We bought them a bigger pool yesterday, the 8-foot wader that holds about 400 gallons of water, so they're only getting it dumped and refilled once a week, no matter HOW disgusting it gets! (Do you hear me, ducks? I mean it. Crap on the grass ... and shower before you get in!)

We think we've got their genders figured out, but we're using the "best guess" method at this point. By our best guess, there seem to be an even number of boys and girls, and the girls seem to be bigger and louder than the boys. The loudest and bossiest of them all seems to be a female. She bosses all the others around; always has to be in charge of whether they should all eat or run or swim or sleep; and she's the one who quacks and squawks like she's being killed, so I'll run outside in a panic ... and find her standing under the water spigot demanding that someone turn on the sprinkler so they can shower and then play in the resulting mud puddle. She is one loudmouthed, demanding, controlling bitch! I named her Hillary. : )

The Oduckas (Michelle and Barack ... the black ducks, you know) are getting very pretty since their iridescent feathers are coming in. I haven't named the rest, but I'm considering calling one of the boys Gregory Peck. (And yes, Cedar, I remember that one of them is supposed to be named after you ... I'm waiting to see which one seems the most like a Joisey duck.)

While Ev was out in the shed working on her project today I finally went out and got myself the hobby table I've been needing and spent most of the day working on my dollhouse. One of these days I'll take it's picture. I'll even upload it, if I ever find that damn USB cable.

Other than that, I've been pretty much hyper-focused on the presidential campaign. This is my first experience with being a news and politics junkie and I'm finding that it's like any other addiction ... the highs are euphoric, the lows are crushing, it takes up too much of my time and energy, it forces me to get on other people's nerves and it returns my devotion with stress and anxiety. At least it's not an expensive habit. Honest, I've only sent Obama small donations!

Kwach

Where I've Been

I woke up this morning to this comment:

Hey - are you guys still alive? I miss your crazy real-life stories. What's happening with the ducks? What's happening with you all? Hello? Hello?

I had actually told Lori yesterday that I'd been away from the blog for the last six weeks or so - since Cory's death - because I couldn't think of anything to say except, "I'm still sad." I checked in to see if I'd be ready to go bad to the blog, and it was pretty much the same.

"Sad."

"Still sad."

"Yup. Still sad."

So I did what I do when I feel emotionally unbalanced: I took some time to get back into balance. I spent more time alone...working in the yard, watching the ducks...and listened to my head. I gave myself time to feel sad and bitch about the unfairness of it all and consider how it would be if it were me or Lori that dropped over dead with no warning. I gave myself time to wallow privately, and then I returned to my life. I'm still sad for Cory and I find myself absurdly concerned for how he's faring in the ground (he liked the sunshine), but I'm back to thinking about other things now.

So here's what we've got going on:

We had a bunch of family over yesterday for food and beer and conversation. When the crowd got a little overwhelming I slipped away for an hour's worth of yard work. If you're ever at a family shindig here and you see me trimming trees and pulling weeds, don't be alarmed. I'm just full up on people for a while.

I bought the wood for a new project. I was planning on working on it today, but it's been pouring rain since last night. Even the ducks are a little overwhelmed by it. Here's a picture of the project, though.

I'll post a picture of it when it's done. See you all soon!

Willie Nelson's Gay Cowboy Song

How could we have missed this??

Duck Blogging

I've been trying to get a good picture of the duckling's new plumage, but it's harder than you think to get ducks to pose for pictures!

The kids have grown by leaps and bounds over the past week. They're very feather-y in the tail area and the tops of their wings, most of them have their breast and belly plumage, and a couple of them have major flight feathers coming in. It's harder to see the cayuga's feathers, since they're replacing black down with black feathers, but the rouens are getting more pretty brown and black feathers every day.

They're also much friendlier and some are downright playful. They'll eat anything out of my hands, and then peck and play with my fingers and my jewelry. They other day they were taking turns getting me to gently hold their bills and pull them around the pool.

This week they figured out how to hop down out of the shed in the morning and let us herd them into the daytime pen instead of having to be ferried there by hand, one at a time. They have no idea about hopping back up into the shed, so going to bed at night was still a matter of carrying them --quacking and peeping and bitching all the way -- until last night. Last night they realized they could hop over the low block walls we put up in the shed to keep them contained, and as fast as I could carry one to the shed another one would hop back out and run out into the yard. I finally chased them all down and pitched them over the fence into the pool again so I could consider my options. I made the executive decision to herd them into their fully-enclosed hutch, which we weren't planning to do yet, and even though it was a little crowded they seemed to fare just fine overnight. Ev did have to get up earlier than she wanted this morning, because they started quacking as soon as they could see the pool in the dawn's early light instead of sleeping in like they were doing in the shed.

Now that they're staying outside all the time I'm a lot more worried about predators. We have just about everything here that likes a nice duck meal, and I'm not going to be any good at all at dealing with what predators leave behind, so I'm trying to figure out how to more fully enclose their pen with some type of screen over the top ( against hawks and owls) and make sure there are no small openings (weasels), latches that can be pried open (raccoons) or screen that can be torn open (foxes and coyotes).

Motherhood is hard and worrisome!

Kwach

There Are No Coincidences

At 11 o'clock this morning a nice young man stood in my front yard with me. He gave me $500 and I gave him the title to the Jeep, a set of keys, and the repair manual. May the Lord be with you, my son.

At 3 o'clock this afternoon, I stepped out the back door of the lab and turned left, headed for the bathroom. I passed a young man in the hallway, and it took me a moment to realize that he was the same young man I'd seen in my front yard 3 hours earlier.

"I know you!" I said. "You were in my front yard a few hours ago!"

He blushed cutely, looked at the floor, and said, "Yeah. My sister's having a baby."

I'll admit, I briefly considered that this may be a brush with Fate, and this poor flustered boy could possibly be my son-in-law one day. In some countries, driving a girl's Jeep is considered a marriage proposal, you know. And then I remembered that if he had to drive that crap-ass Jeep, he was clearly too impoverished to marry my daughter, the National Merit Scholar.

Oh! Did I forget to mention that Katie is a National Merit Scholar? Not only is she poised to become the first member of our family to graduate high school (But not, oddly, the first to get a college degree. We all do that, eventually.), but she's actually going to do it with her head held high. Huh. The ability to see a task through to the end? She must get that from her father's side of the family. Dogged bullheaded stubbornness? That comes from my side.

Do you know why I'm a Biologist? Because it was the only class I ever got a C in in high school. Imagine, if I'd sucked at English I might be a famous writer today.

We have a funny relationship with education here in Nowhere.