Lost and Found

Before I continue with this, let me just say that the Boy is Fine. I, however, will be having nightmares of What Could Have Been for a long, long time.

Yesterday was rainy, so after we went to get our kitchen island, which finally arrived at the local market, we decided to go out to a new chinese place and then to see the new Indiana Jones movie with the kids. Patrick is old enough now to see more action, and young enough that things I wish he hadn't seen pretty much go over his head. Other than having the kids hear more swears in two hours than they'd ever hear in their lives total, it was a great time and fairly kid-appropriate.

High off of the fun time, we arrived home in good spirits. Josie wanted to ride her bike around the block, so off she went. A moment later, Patrick wanted to ride his scooter with her, so out the door he went after her.

Now, in our new neighborhood, and actually in the entire town, there are alleys that go through the neighborhood that link people's garages to the regular neighborhood roads (all the homes are on the street with detached garages at the end of the back yards). They're basically driveways-come-sidewalks, and the neighborhood kids ride their bikes and play in them in almost complete safety from cars. The only time they're really traveled is around 5pm when people are coming home from work, but everyone knows that kids are usually back there, and since they're not two-way, anyway, everyone has to go at most 5mph.

So, the kids are allowed to ride their bikes back there, etc, without my worrying about them overmuch, especially when they're together, just in case someone takes a particularly bad spill or whatnot. Josie is allowed to go farther, of course, while Patrick is supposed to stay just in the area near our house and not turn any corners. (Can you see where this is going?)

While the kids were outside, DH and I took the opportunity to finish installing our new dishwasher sans interruption. About ten minutes into it, one of Patrick's neighborhood friends, Ron, came over looking to play. I told him that Patrick was out back riding bikes with Josie, so head on back around the house. He stood there looking at me and said, 'No, he's not. I saw Josie go by, but not Patrick.'

Come again?

Well, kids being what they are (ie, unable to see through air), I didn't think much of it, and figured that Patrick was probably in the garage switching scooters or something, so we headed off to have a look.

Patrick wasn't in the garage.

He wasn't on the playset.

He wasn't in the alley.

He hadn't come inside the house through the basement door.

I walked a full circle around the block, and ran into Josie. She hadn't seen him.

Gulp.

By this time, DH knew what was going on, and we were quickly going from mad to red-alert status. It was definitely one of those 'he'd better be hurt because if he's not I'm gonna hurt him myself' situations. I mean, I didn't WANT him to be hurt, but it was the only explanation I was willing to accept at this point for his obviously leaving the neighborhood on his own.

After another five minutes had passed, several other neighborhood folks had joined the search. Nothing.

Finally, Josie rode up and said that DH had found him, and was on his way back with him. In a minute, they came into view, and I could see that Patrick had been crying. Apparently, what happened was that Patrick got it into his head to try and follow Josie without telling anyone, including Josie, who had ridden on ahead. When he got to the place where he could turn right, to follow her around the block, or left, he mistakenly chose left, and left the neighborhood. He actually ended up on the sidewalk of the main road, and after a few minutes of trying to figure out where he was, sat down and started to cry. Two women saw him, a grandmotherly type and her daughter, and pulled over to see if they could help; they were walking with him back the way he had come when DH found them.

OMG. What if they hadn't been helpful people!?!?!? What if my baby had been 'found' by a Stranger?! I am so thankful to those women, who I will never know, and can't even thank, for taking my baby under their wings. It could have ended so much differently. Never in a million years would I have thought that he would end up out there; I thought that he had probably run across some boy and decided to play on his swingset or something. He has wandered off before, but not since he was a very small child (when he was a toddler we had to put a chain lock at the top of the door to keep him in the house, because he thought it was funny to run out of the house when I went to the bathroom, and could unlock all the doors). The whole episode makes me want to scrunch him up and stuff him back into my womb.

The Big Day

Last weekend was DH and my tenth anniversary, and I got a Gift!!!!

We don't typically exchange gifts on our anniversary; in fact, if we acknowledge it at all it's to get a joint thing, like a new camera, or a hammock. Since this was kind of a big year, though, I had a feeling we were going to exchange gifts. I was hoping for a new ring, actually, because I lost my ring during our last move (not the one we just did this month, but the one a year and a half ago), I think. I had put it into my wallet's change area, which I don't use, but I remember one time Patrick playing with my wallet when we were out, and I didn't think anything of it until it was too late. To be honest, I hadn't cared for it anyway; it belonged to his maternal grandmother (whom no one really liked, so it wasn't a big deal that it was lost in that respect) and was in a style that wasn't what I would have chosen. It had little hearts on it, and a few tiny rubies near a couple of tiny diamonds. It was cute, but all the prongs kept catching on everything constantly, and the back of the wedding band had split just from wearing thin over years of wear, so it pinched me all the time. I am much more of a simple, plain person. I rarely wear makeup, don't dress up unless I have to, and am constantly dirty from either working on the house or in the garden.

This anniversary band is much, much better. The front is entirely smooth, so there are no prongs to catch on anything, and it won't trap dirt and always look bad. There are ten tiny diamonds for ten years of marriage, and I like the symbolism there. Also, it's simple and plain and will go with anything.

Even sweeter, he also bought little decorative tins to put the ring in (tin is the 10th year gift according to Hallmark - weird, huh? TIN?!)! He was really on top of things this year. :)

I got him a book on archaeology and a bag of Anniversary Roast from Seattle's Best. Not so romantic, I know, but to be fair, I didn't know he was getting me the ring. About a week before our anniversary, he told me that a box would be arriving via UPS and not to open it, and when the box came it was about a yard long - it was the tins - so I thought he'd gotten me something for the house or yard. In the past, when I've gotten him a 'better' gift than he's gotten me, he's been upset that he hasn't thought of anything more interesting or whatever, so I try to make sure our gifts match somewhat. So, this year really was a surprise!!!!

We have really had ten great years. I mean, we've had our ups and downs like any other couple, but in general things have been very easy. I knew on our first date that we were going to get married, and five months later we were engaged. We didn't have much time alone together, since I got pregnant three months after we got married (whoops!), but it's worked out great, and now we'll have all the time together on the other end. I'm one lucky girl. :)

Water and Poop

I am in love with my rain barrels! We installed the second one over the weekend, in the front yard, and one rain shower filled all 55 gallons of it last night, so now I won't have to use the town water for the plants in the front for the foreseeable future, either. Since planting the veggies in the back a few weeks ago, I have watered them several times, and have never approached the bottom of the barrel in the back yard. Yippee!!!

As I sat on the front porch last night during the shower reading and listening to the gushing of the water from the downspout into the barrel, I started to feel greedy about ALL the rain. Like, if the gutters on my house alone can fill 110gal worth of rain barrel in one steady, half-hour rain, that means that every house in my entire neighborhood had the same amount going down THEIR gutters. *eyes wildly darting from house to house* It could be Mine, I tell you, ALL MINE!!! Well, or at least theirs, I suppose. Almost everyone has some plants in their yard, if not a full-blown garden somewhere on the property. None of us would have to use a drop of city water for at least two weeks from that one shower if everyone had a barrel or two.

The one in the front yard is hidden almost completely by the honeysuckle, although you can see where I've added the flexible downspout to divert the water:



This is what they actually look like:


I could about kiss it. The lid screws off, and underneath it is a mosquito screen that covers the five large holes that allow the water to come in. The spigot at the bottom connects to my regular garden hose. The water pressure isn't great, but it comes out. I should learn to be more patient, anyway.

My next project will be a decent composting system. I'm torn between vermiculture, which is when you get a box, put a LOT of a certain kind of worm in it, and then feed them your veggie and yard waste, which they then poop out (delicately called 'compost tea', yumyum) and you add to your yard, and regular throw-your-trash-in-a-pile composting. I already use Worm Poop fertilizer on my plants, purchased from Lowes in convenient recyclable soda-bottle-type containers, and it does work well. However, all those worms, and dealing with draining their, um, TEA, makes me feel a little squeamish. I WANT to be Enviro-Girl, able to sift a ton of worm sh*t in a single swipe, but seriously, it STINKS. Plus, all that pink squirming, ugh.

Compost heaps, however, have to be shaken and stirred and practically made out with, from what I understand, and have to have the proper ingredients added at the proper times to make it work well. I do have one good friend, B, who throws all her stuff on there and it does just great, but that's HER. She works at a recycling company. Everything the girl TOUCHES probably turns to compost (except her cooking, which is excellent, yum). If I tried that approach, I know I would make Slime Pie. I need a Bin, to contain The Stuff, keep out pests, and preferably to have a handle that I can crank at will to turn the stuff. I'm especially concerned about pests, because when I was in college, our dorm tried collecting food refuse to compost, and the entire dorm became INFESTED with cockroaches (I am, in fact, barfing a little in my own throat just THINKING about it).

What do you all think? Have you composted? Are you crunchy little people out there happily concocting Wormy Poop Soup? Are you collecting your water? Or are you out there making giant piles of oozy goo and draining your local lakes dry to water your own personal rice paddies? Do tell!

The Two Me's

I had a great day today!

First, we went to church (more on that later), and since this was the last Sunday of the month, the choir, which I am in, performed at both services. Since it's Memorial Day, the band, which DH is in, also played with us. We did a beautiful arrangement of Battle Hymn of the Republic, with an a capella verse by the men in four-part harmony, that was just breathtaking. We actually got a standing ovation when we finished, at both services. We go to a fairly large church, with about 350 people combined at the services, so it was really exciting to get an ovation!!! That's never happened before, not even at Christmas, so it was totally cool.

Then we went out to lunch at Longhorn, and I had an amazingly good Seven Pepper Steak salad, with blue cheese, my favorite. After that, since it's at the outlet mall, we stopped into the Plow and Hearth outlet and I got a present for my mother for Mother's Day, which I told her I already had but couldn't find in the boxes, oops. Hey, at least I'm sending her something, right?

Then, best of all, I spent the rest of the afternoon gardening. Yesterday, I was at Lowes, and made the most amazing score at their Dead and Dying clearance area! They had about eight portable racks, each about six feet high, completely stocked with plants marked $.50 apiece! After a little pawing through things, I got eighteen large geraniums, twelve six-packs of impatiens seedlings, a Gerbra daisy plant, three large hanging baskets of snapdragons, and eight quart-sized draping something-or-others-that-look-like-petunias-but-aren't, for $25!!! There is NOTHING wrong with almost all of these plants, except that they weren't being watered properly and/or they weren't blooming at the moment! The geraniums all have clusters of buds on them, and frankly, it takes a lot to kill a geranium. I mean, you have to TRY. I'm pretty sure nearly every single thing I bought is going to come back just fine, and I am going to have a kick-butt garden for under $30!!!! So, I planted all of that into the existing garden (which had already gone by, since it's mostly bulbs) and made a new garden strip along both sides of the walkway, mulched it all with everlasting-color mulch, weeded the garden that goes along the side of the house, mossed and mulched the vegetable garden, and cleaned up all the odds and ends that have been laying around, like shovels, toys, etc. Woohoo!!! Oh, it was truly my favorite kind of day.

To finish it up, we had pancakes, bacon and cherries for dinner (hey, it's protein, carbs, and fruit, right?), went to the park to release the koi that were living in the little water feature that used to be in the backyard when we bought the place (which had to go because of a) dogs and b)mosquitoes) into the pond there (it was that or certain death, so we opted for the wildlife replacement program), and then went to a local creamery for dessert. No one argued, no one whined, no one dropped their ice cream. It was a fabulous, rare treat of a day.

Now, about church.

I'm not entirely comfortable, still, going to church. As a thinking, well-educated person, I have serious questions and concerns about the Christian faith. However, I want to believe. I think it's important to have something to believe in. We had a guest speaker at our church awhile ago that summed up our choice to attend church very neatly; he said that as a learned man, after much consideration when he was younger, he simply chose to believe, and that faith means exactly that, choosing to believe what you cannot prove to be true. I say that to myself often when that voice comes up in my head that says 'what on EARTH are you doing here?! You were a Women's Studies minor, for crying out loud!' I know that several of my childhood friends, none of whom attend a church, are shocked and weirded out that we go, and I don't usually feel like it's anything I can discuss with my pre-small town life friends because of that. When I do, I feel like there are probably a lot of thoughts they're having that are similar to the ones in my own head that I'm trying to ignore in favor of something different.

There are other things that draw us to church, too, of course. It's a great way to meet people, and everything's free, basically. Being large as it is, our church has a LOT of social opportunities that we'd never get elsewhere, like music programs for adults and kids (both kids are in the choir and Josie is in the kids' bell choir), vacation camps, and basic camaraderie via adult classes and discussions. Most of our best friends in town have come from our Child Parent Relationships class that we take there, and they are honestly some of the best people I have ever met. There are picnics, trips, everything. Not to mention, in everyday literature and life, there are so many biblical references that it's helpful to have a background in Christianity in order to get the hidden meanings of things (as in, almost all the names of places and things in The Matrix are biblically based, for example, plus the obvious near-constant references by all the Big Literature books) Plus, the denomination we attend, First Christian Disciples of Christ, only has one requirement for membership - that you believe in Christ's teachings. That's pretty basic, and I can manage that, at least, easily. I'm working on the rest of it. Allowing myself to believe something, even something I want to believe in, that I have resisted all my life, isn't as easy as one would think, but I am choosing to do it.

As a result of this struggle, I feel like a fraud a lot of the time. My church friends don't know anything of my internal struggle, since it's not something I want to admit to people who seem to find belief so easy. I'm not pretending to them, but I'm not entirely honest, I suppose, either. With non-church friends, I feel like a sell-out. It's strange, and it makes me wish I thought about things less. Life would be a lot easier if I could just once simply go along with things and not try to reason them out!

Maybe Kmart DOESN'T Suck!!

This is the funniest email forward I've ever gotten!!! It was in Adobe, so I had to save it in rich text format in order to be able to paste it here, which messed up some of the formatting from the letterhead, but you'll get the idea. Enjoy!

Kmart store 4855 Store Phone: (775) 746-4700

SUMMIT RIDGE, RENO, NV, 89503 Pharmacy Phone: (775) 746-3030

12 March 2005

Jon Walker

Store Manager

Kmart store 4855

Summit Ridge, Reno, NV, 89503

Mrs. Fenton

35 Rasmussen Street

Moores Park, Reno, NV, 89503

Dear Mrs. Fenton,

During the preceding 6 months our security staff has been monitoring your husbands activities while in our store. The

list below details his offences, all of which have been verified by our surveillance cameras and we have retained copies

on tape.

We have repeatedly given your husband verbal warnings while he is in this store and he has subsequently ignored

them. He replied to these warning with rudeness and the response “while the wife shops here I will come here too”. We

are therefore forced to ban you, your husband and your family from this store.

The following list details your husbands activates in this store over the past six months.

June 15: Took 24 boxes of condoms and randomly put them in people's carts when they weren't looking.

July 2: Set all the alarm clocks in House wares to go off at 5-minute intervals.

July 7: Made a trail of tomato juice on the floor leading to the rest rooms.

July 19: Walked up to an employee and told her in an official tone, 'Code 3' in house wares and watched what

happened.

August 4: Went to the Service Desk and asked to put a bag of M&M's on lay-buy.

September 14: Moved a 'Caution - WET FLOOR' sign to a carpeted area.

September 15: Set up a tent in the camping department and told other shoppers he'd invite the in if they'll bring pillows.

September 23: If any staff offers him assistance he begins to cry and asks, “Why can't you people just leave me alone?”

October 4: Looked right into the security camera; used it a mirror, and picked his nose.

November 10: While in the gun department, asked the clerk if he knows where the antidepressants are.

December 3: Darted around the store suspiciously loudly humming the "Mission Impossible" theme.

December 6: In the auto department, practiced his "Madonna Look" using different size funnels.

December 18: Hide in a clothing rack and when people browse through, yelled "PICK ME!" "PICK ME!"

December 21: When an announcement came over the loud speaker, he assumes the fetal position and screams "NO!

NO! It's those voices again!"

December 23: Went in the fitting room, shut the door and waited a while; then yelled, very loudly, "There is no toilet

paper in here!

John F. Walker

Store Manager

No Touchie Ma Stuffie

I am beginning to believe that inanimate object have thoughts and feelings.

Every time my husband touches something of mine, it breaks. My laptop HATES him. Every time he installs anything on my machine, adjusts settings, adds hardware, you name it, inevitably the laptop will refuse to function reliably for at least a week. He can do things to his own computers, including his Mac, and everything's fine.

Today, he went to take Josie to a birthday party while I was out, and my car wouldn't start. The battery is completely dead, and the car is doing the seizure thing (locks locking and unlocking, and making a ticking noise) that it did the last time the battery died years ago. There was no warning this time, and I myself drove the thing earlier all around just fine. No, it wasn't until he got behind the wheel without me around that the thing froze up and starting kibbitzing all over the place.

Maybe my Estro-power is at such a high level that all my things have changed polarity, and testosterone messes with their balance. I do have my period this week - maybe my car is on the rag, too! Maybe man-smell makes my computer pass out. Maybe my car doesn't like Boy Butt. I don't know, but it's getting a little ridiculous. Does anyone else have this problem?! (Or the opposite?)

Don't Try This At Home

The other day, I decided that I couldn't wait even one more minute to set up my new rain barrel. Spring rains are here in force, and I'd already missed too much precious rain collection from my gutters to waste another minute. So, off I trotted to Lowes to get a new hacksaw and a flexible downspout segment, so I could saw off the current downspout and attach one that would reach over to my rain collector.

Feeling brilliant and very environmentally self-satisfied, I trotted off home, Patrick in tow, to make the installation. Sawing through the aluminum was a little tough, but nothing my trusty new toothed friend couldn't handle. Within about fifteen minutes, the small portion I needed to remove was ready to snap off. It was then that I noticed that the previous homeowner hadn't attached all the segments of the downspout to the side of the house. No, no - they were stacked, one inside the other, like nesting dolls, up to the top of the house, where they fit around the gutter offset, but were not screwed to it. I noticed this because as I went to remove the portion I was getting ready to replace, the whole thing moved somewhat, and I saw that the hooklike piece of metal holding the portion just above me was loose. Then I looked up.

I looked up, in fact, just in time to see the segment that was merely resting inside the gutter attachment (rather than being screwed to it, as it should have been) falling to the ground. It landed, sharp edge down, on my big toe.

Of course, as usual, I was only wearing sandals. Thankfully, the ground was damp, which is the only reason I was even wearing sandals, since I'm a barefoot girl. The cushioning of the sandals was probably what saved me from a trip to the ER, since otherwise my foot would have been on the concrete walkway stone, and my toe would have been even more crushed than it already was.

As it is, I'm probably going to lose my toenail. My poor toe is so swollen that it's making the nail bulge somewhat, and the entire top half of my toe is still bright red, three days later. Fully half of the nail is dark purple, as is the nail bed. I can actually almost walk normally today, which is a big improvement.



However, since I REFUSE to be defeated by a downspout, yesterday I got up there and reattached the freakin' thing to the house, and added on the new spout so that the rain actually goes into the collection barrel. Ha HA! I WEEN! At this very moment, it is raining outside, and my newly planted garden is getting a drink while the huge repurposed olive barrel collects all the rainwater from our gutters for the dry future ahead.

My toe is vindicated. Squashed, but vindicated.