Throwing down the proverbial sword.

I realized this morning that, after the goings-on of last year or so, I am tired. Tired, not so much physically, although that may be so as well, but emotionally. Just worn out, and with no patience or enthusiasm for even the slightest verbal fencing match. I hereby throw down my sword.

I'm considering having little cards printed up, (or, given the snow-covered state of the roads this morning, perhaps breaking out the Avery packet and printing my own), that will say something like the following:

"You're right. I am (check all that apply):

• unreasonable
• overly analytical
  
• illogical
• stingy
• wasteful
  
• selfish
• stupid
• belittling
• plotting
• manipulative
• irresponsible
• delusional
• unhelpful
• self-indulgent
• thoughtless
• untruthful
• unappreciative
  
• sloppy
• disorganized
• and just generally a bitch of the first water"

I shall have a pocketful of these cards - maybe even have little pencils to go with them, like you get at mini-golf places - and whenever someone starts to pick a fight with me or object to whatever I seem to be planning, instead of rising to the occasion I will simply hand them a card, smile politely, and drift off into the crowd.

And for anyone who is wondering what they can then do with the card - and then pencil - well, do I really need to explain?

Andy Rooney, November, and other stray thoughts

In case you missed it on 60 Minutes, this is what Andy Rooney thinks about women over 40:

As I grow in age, I value women over 40 most of all. Here are just a few reasons why:

A woman over 40 will never wake you in the middle of the night and ask, 'What are you thinking?' She doesn't care what you think. If a woman over 40 doesn't want to watch the game, she doesn't sit around whining about it. She does something she wants to do, and it's usually more interesting. Women over 40 are dignified. They seldom have a screaming match with you at the opera or in the middle of an expensive restaurant. Of course, if you deserve it, they won't hesitate to shoot you if they think they can get away with it. Older women are generous with praise, often undeserved. They know what it's like to be unappreciated. Women get psychic as they age. You never have to confess your sins to a woman over 40. Once you get past a wrinkle or two, a woman over 40 is far sexier than her younger counterpart. Older women are forthright and honest. They'll tell you right off if you are a jerk or if you are acting like one. You don't ever have to wonder where you stand with her. Yes, we praise women over 40 for a multitude of reasons. Unfortunately, it's not reciprocal. For every stunning, smart, well-coiffed, hot woman over 40, there is a bald, paunchy relic in yellow pants making a fool of himself with some 22-year old waitress. Ladies, I apologize.

For all those men who say, 'Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?', here's an update for you. Nowadays 80% of women are against marriage. Why? Because women realize it's not worth buying an entire pig just to get a little sausage!

----------------------------------------

You tell 'em, Andy. Thanks, Katrina - I missed that one. I don't usually watch 60 Minutes - if I'm in front of the TV at all, it's either cartoons, food, or football.
----------------------------------------

Everything the word "November" conjures up, we had today. Except sleet - somehow that missed us. But the dreary gray (grey?) raining yucky...all that we had. In spades.

I spent the majority of the day in bed. No, not sick. But I seem to be recuperating...I'm not even sure what from (ignore that nasty sentence structure, please - bear with me, here.) This has been one heck of a year - off the charts, stress-wise - and yes, there *are* charts for that sort of thing. Here's one: http://www.macses.ucsf.edu/Research/Psychosocial/notebook/PSS10.html
here's another one:
http://www.peacefulplace.com.au/cgi-bin/stresstester/stresstest.cgi?stresstest

That one gave me a "category 5" stress measure - chance of serious illness within the next two years = 90% Category 5, like the Finger of God for tornadoes. Yeesh.

Great. Just great. *That* didn't add to the ol' stress measurement, now did it?

But reading about stress ( for everything you ever wanted to know about stress: http://www.macses.ucsf.edu/Research/Psychosocial/notebook/stress.html )
doesn't help us much. Neither does the advice to "meditate" (you have to say it with an Indian accent.)

I've just been sleeping - 10, 12 hours a day - soaking in the tub, taking tons of supplements, trying to lay off the sugar, wheat, alcohol and other baddies, and generally avoiding life whenever possible. I hang mostly with my dogs and cats - husband has a biological rhythm that is 180 degrees off mine - he's just getting up now, right as I'm getting ready for bed. But that's okay. I've been reading for pleasure, too; not even trying to learn anything, and usually I only read fiction during the summer.

And slowly, ever so slowly, with many "two steps forward, one step back", I seem to be recovering my balance. I do trust the process, and myself. And today is just the sort of day to lay low, stay warm, and...recover.


(and it didn't help my stress levels that I had to edit this three times - make it four times - to get those links to function!)

Winter...already.

What happened to autumn? And were it not for Katrina, who sent me Halloween-in-a-Box, Samhain would have gone by virtually unnoticed as well. But now that it's officially WInter - to me, anyway, and others who find the old calendar more sensible as well as comforting - I'm trying to institute a few gentle changes.

There's a new look over at mumsananarchist. Would have been one here as well, only there are few choices at blogspot and none that I like nearly as well as I like this one. That's my main issue with blogspot - so few choices and none like the little mood characters. Anyway, over there will be for ruminating, alarums, diversions, and endless commentary on the passing scenery. Here will be for more personal chitchat. At least until I get bored with that format too.

So without further ado, today's personal chitchat:

I was going to go to the Y this morning and swim, really I was. I got plenty of sleep and even had dreams about swimming at the Y. Problem was, I failed to factor in the apparent consumption of something toxic. Spent the day in bed (the part that wasn't spent in the bathroom.) Still not feeling too tiptop.

But I am feeling abnormally psychic, even for me. Which is making me uncomfortable, to say the least. Black dogs circling, too.

And I miss the children.

And all the various lost but not forgotten. Even if they are only Over There and not actually gone. I miss having them around the table.

John took the opportunity of no wifely supervision to mess up his knee again, so he's bedridden for the forseeable future - or until I get tired of feeding fires and dogs, watching over Clowns, running errands, and generally stepping and fetching for all I'm worth, at which point he had best be healed.

Invalid. Interesting word and concept. First definition is of one who is sick or injured, but quick on its heels is the adjectival form with the general sense of unworthiness. Not fair to pick on a person when he's down.

I guess maybe we'd all better get some rest.

I like this.

Thanks, Katrina.

Things that go bump in the night...

All right. Technically, it wasn't night yet and it didn't go bump. But still. John went in bathroom. Water in the sink turned on. He looked. Water in the sink turned off. He came out.

Umm...yeah.

Next!



ps - this had better not have anything to do with the fact that I was homesick and looking up stuff about the Jersey Devil. No, I don't mean the hockey team. Nah. Probably more to do with all the work we've been doing around the house, and the fact that the kids are gone.

Some days you get the job, and some days the job gets you.

It's not always great being a one woman show. True, I do make a lousy employee, always thinking for myself and nonsense like that. And it's God's own truth that I hate being told what to do, even if it's what I would have done anyway. I like to stand or fall on my own, you know? I make as much money as I want, for the most part, between April and November - work as much or as little as I want to, then cruise through the rest of the winter...somehow. It does get a little dicey sometimes, but there's always a way to make things work. Not always absolutely on the up and up, maybe, but I prefer to think of it as fiscal creativity.

Then there are weeks like this one, where it rains every blessed day (and I loathe working in the rain - snow I don't care about, but I hate the sloshing around and mud everywhere and water constantly dripping in my face) and everything I come in contact with has thorns. I mean, come on. There are hundreds of plants to choose from, even up here in the frosty zone 4b, so why, WHY plant something with stupid thorns?? Especially the little bitty thorns that you can't even see, so you have to wait for them to FESTER and then eject themselves from your thumb.

(Incidentally, a synonym for fester is suppurate - to fill with pus. Kind of makes you wonder what on earth the motel folks were thinking when they named their chain.)

Roses are okay, despite the thorns. I guess. I'm not a rose person. People are, for the most part, either rabid rosarians or they just Aren't Rose People. No one really has a rose or two in with everything else. (Okay, I do - but they were there when I bought the house, and I just haven't gotten around to either selling or killing them yet.) But barberries! And flowering quinces! And giant "ornamental" thistles! Gah!

And customers who hire you for a full day to overhaul their garden, then come out at 10:00 and tell you that since "you charge *how* much?" you and your helper should really be going in about an hour. Yeah.

Or the one that asks you to draw up a plan for a new garden, and you spend all weekend doing just that, and calling around to check prices and availability and generally being a good little design person. And the client studies your design, then says no, that isn't really what they had in mind but thanks anyway. And three years later you just happen to drive past and see that they installed your design, tree for tree, themselves. We live and learn, I guess.

But on the good days, you spend all day doing gentle gardening (as opposed to eight hours with a pickax or a chainsaw, which also happens - on not-so-good days) as soft breezes blow and you get a nice tan and get to be the only 53 year old woman you know with visible triceps. Glug down some water, smile at the world and think "I actually get paid to do this."

This week, too, I saw both the smallest and I think the largest toads I've ever seen. The small one was maybe 3/8 of an inch long, the other day, in a garden. Quick li'l bugger. The large one was almost as big as my hand. He was sitting on the side of the road, and I never would have seen him if I hadn't scared him with the sound of the "big money Dodge" and seen him do that hunker down thing that frogs and toads do. I got out and helped him to the other side, to a safe place. That was today, and despite the wretched clay and rock "soil" we were working in, despite the rain, despite the crazy leave-early woman, that big toad alone was worth the price of admission.

So, yeah. Owl Hill and Owl Hill Organics. An independent contractor, up on the Hill.

What the @#$% is wrong with these people??

"These people", of course, being the ones who keep taking some of our favorite songs from the 1960's and 1970's and using them to sell products. I'm not saying that there is anything terribly sacrosanct about these songs, as some might believe; I just think that someone who knows all the words should be called in to consult now and again.

It's always a little off-putting, I think, to use music that we thought of as sort of defining of our generation and our times to sell a product, but I'm generally put off by advertising anyway. This is much more interesting. Don't these people even listen to the lyrics? Or do they just remember the titles or the hook lines? Consider Fly Like an Eagle (Steve Miller) being used to hype the US postal service. Superficially it sounds like a good enough idea - hey, eagle = US bird, fly + fast service! But do you remember the actual lyrics?

Feed the babies who don't have enough to eat
Shoe the children with no shoes on their feet
House the people living in the street....

Is this really what any US Government office wants us to think about?

How about using the Violent Femmes "Blister in ther Sun" to sell Wendy's hamburgers? I like Wendy's, personally, but is:

When I'm out walking I strut my stuff, yeah
I'm so strung out, I'm high as a kite...
.....staining my sheets....etc

really the sort of thing they want people associating with their food? And speaking of fast food hamburgers, just because cheese melts doesn't make Modern English's classic "I Melt with You" an appropriate ad choice. Cheese melts, yeah, but...what in the hell does this have to do with cheese:

Moving forward using all my breath, making love to you was never second best
I saw the world thrashing all around your face, never really knowing it was always
mesh and lace

So many examples...Circuit City, praising the glories of casual sex (The Cars, "Just What I Needed"); Chevrolet, apparently deciding that the days of strong and well built trucks are a thing of the past and pointing this up using Bob Seger's "Like a Rock"; what an interesting choice for Fidelity Mutual! (Bowie, ..."well, well, well, would you carry a razor in case, just in case of depression..." - Young American); does Hewlett Packard really want "Teenage Wastelnd" as their theme?; does anybody really want to be associated with "Horse With No Name" or the dreadful "Baby I'm -a Want You"?

More? Sure, we can go on and on: X Box using a song about the glories of LSD (Jefferson Airplane, White Rabbit); Saab deciding that their perfect corporate image is a "deaf, dumb and blind kid" who plays pinball...huh? (The Who, Pinball Wizard.) Yeah, we can go on and on.

So is there some reason why no one writes their own jingles any more? Are we supposed to be so captivated by simply recognizing the song that we, the buyer, instantly identify with the product? Sorry, but just knowing that Robert Plant and Jimmy Page and raking in the ol' royalties doesn't make me turn to my husband and say, "gee, honey, let's buy a Cadillac! Those are our people!"

I propose we compromise and hire Barry Manilow. His music may bore me to tears and his hair annoy me, but at least he can write a nice jingle - State Farm, Stridex and Band-Aids all use Manilow jingles, and if I had any more laptop battery left, I'm sure there are many more - he spent a long time in the "jingle jungle."

If the ad folks can't do that, though, maybe they could just hire someone to Google the lyrics before committing to using a particular song. Please. We're tearing our hair out up here on the Hill.

hugs!

(Wow, Katrina, I didn't even know you were back from your business meeting! How was it?)

Anyway, we've got to talk about this hugging thing.
"When I was growing up in Kentucky (and I have yet to hear this phrase anywhere else), we'd talk about "hugging someone's neck" or "giving someone a big hug around the neck." Out My Back Door

I remember my grandmother singing "I love you, a bushel and a peck. A bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck" and that is everything that I know about neck hugging. I barely know about the other kind, it seems.

See, I was raised on the outskirts of Philadelphia and spent more than half my life (which is a long story for another time) at my grandparents' house deep in the heart of the old money Main Line. People over the age of three or four did not hug; it simply Was Not Done. Men shook hands - if it were a particularly emotional moment, one might grasp the other's elbow with his free hand - and women briefly touched cheeks whilst making little "mmmwa" sounds. Older female adults were permitted to kiss children, an operation universally loathed by the kissee, but unless so accosted children shook hands with adults of either gender, and did so quite solemnly. Female children might be permitted a shy smile, but that was all, regardless of the degree of gushing on the part of the adult.

But the world is bigger than it used to be, and we now routinely marry outside of our accustomed ...what shall we call it?....genre, maybe. I married into a family of Huggers, a large family of Huggers. People I barely knew would greet me and then clutch me as though I'd been lost at sea for weeks, completely oblivious to my awkward embraces and uncertain pat-pat-pats. Even children - big boys, my size but barely teenagers - would scoop me into mammoth hugs, and the women would not only hug but often actually kiss, leaving lipstick marks. By the end of the evening, I would feel as though I'd survived a peculiarly affectionate mosh pit.

I grew to accept this overdose of physicality as a family trait, and braced myself for it at every meeting. And I do mean every meeting - even if you'd had lunch together the day before, hugs were still in order, both at the greeting and at the parting.

After we'd moved north and I was reconnecting with some friends here, I discovered that these previously orderly people had metamorphosed into Huggers and favored long, close clasps with much patting. I also realized that the family hugs I'd learned about had been mercifully short, while these folks hugged for a long damn time, whole paragraphs being exchanged while still in the embrace.

And how do you signal that you wish to be released from a hug? I tried stopping the pat-patting, hoping that would signal the end of the hug, but no dice. I tried sort of pulling my head back, and had that signal misinterpreted into a kiss-me signal and got kissed as well as hugged. I finally just learned to stand still and eventually the hug would be over. Don't misunderstand, these are all people whom I love dearly; I just wasn't brought up to expect all this hugging business.

I'm trying to get over my anti-hugging training, because I realize that hugging should be a lovely happy thing. I just can't get out of my mind, though, the image of my hugging-raised husband embracing my Aunt Mimi, a big man with his long arms wrapped completely around a slight elderly woman who was standing straight as a stick, arms at her side, looking completely bewildered.

It's telling that on my friend's page, the little people hug, but when I tried to copy it over to here, well:

they just stand there awkwardly.

*sigh*

Today's lesson, children...

Nah, it's nothing deep and meaningful. Too hot for that.

Today's lesson concerns the phrase "hair of the dog", as when one has a hangover and a well-meaning friend suggests that one take another drink (usually a Bloody Mary, a beverage, in my opinion, much better with the vodka served frozen and separately) in order to cure the condition. At the time, one generally doesn't question the usage, but later one may think, "What dog?"

The answer is the Aesclepian dog. You know, the dog that is often shown lying at the feet of Aesclepius. He (the dog...well, Aesclepius too, but that's another story) was supposedly magickal, and if one took a hair from his coat and brewed it into a potion, it would cure illnesses. After a while (by this point, about 300 B.C.E.), there were often dogs kept in aesclepieions - think clinics or hospitals - and rumor had it that if the dogs would lick a person's wound, the wound would heal.

OK, so Wikipedia doesn't agree with me, citing something about rabies and Shakespeare, but I'm sticking by my original answer.

The other lesson for our interested student has to do with shared cultural heritage, or why we should spend time with people of our own age- and other generalized brackets. The other day it was remarked that roses that looked very sick, one even thought dead, had healed right up when watered. I jokingly remarked "just call me The Seventh Son."

*cricket cricket*

"You know, 'Heal the sick! Raise the dead! Make the little women go out of...." a heh..ehe.

*blink*

Never mind.

That's all for today, kids.

Be well.

Well, the weather's still nice...

Woke up at 6:30 - realized we were planning to get up and go to the Y to swim, but apparently overslept - and saw the sun streaming in through the windows, felt noticeably good physically and mentally, sat up and stretched, humming a few bars of "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning."

Then I interacted with my loving family.

And now I'm back in bed and I don't care if it is still beautiful outside.

Lord, what fools these mortals be!


(And make no mistake, I include myself in that, perhaps most of all.)

Herb and Flower Festival ... check.

The twelfth (?) annual Herb and Flower Festival was a smashing success. The bad weather we were told to expect held off until 2:00 (festival ended at 3:00 anyway) and even then was just a quick shower.

Anne and I had our free times at the beginning this year, instead of at the end, so we had a greater selection (flip side: no one was frantic to sell off plants rather than pack them back up, so we had to pay full price.) We bought three trees and about a dozen various perennials, including a couple new lilies, some extremely cool wrought metal stuff including a planter shaped like a turkey, and miscellaneous herbal creams and the like.

Our centerpiece was a hit, our cookies declared some of the best. All in all, it was a wonderful day, as always.

Now, too tired to do any actual work, we can start figuring out where to plant our new stuff, shift some of the other stuff around...gardening dreams. *happy sigh*

check list

-mow dahlia-woman's lawn ... check
-fill prescriptions ... check
- pick up dogs ... check
- do drugstore deliveries ... check
- touch up roots ... check
- attend graduation w/ no tears .... check (well, one minor puddle, but no actual tears)
-make lavender shortbread cookies ... check and...
- create centerpiece ... check (wooden shoes filled w/ sedums, twisted grass, furry thyme and portulaca)


Done! On to the Herb and Flower Fest!

The votes are tallied...

and the party was, in fact, a success. The guests did have a good time (including the four who were still here this morning), the food was good and plentiful, the fire was fun to sit around and nothing else (barn, house, etc.) was inadvertently ignited, no one was seriously or permanently injured in the moon bounce thingee. One kid stepped on a "rusty nail" - which may or may not have been a nail, could have been any sharp thing, including hay - and had to be reassured at 3:00 a.m. that she, noticing some swelling around her mouth, did not have tetanus/lockjaw and was probably simply allergic to the strawberries in the fruit salad.

I was up at the crack of dawn, or nearly so, to take down the strings of lights (which never did stay lit properly) and scrape the wax off the rental tables (from the candles used for illumination after the failure of the lights.) Gathered up all the napkins that had blown around, dealt with trash and recyclables, folded the chairs and in general picked up and put away. The mess was minor, considering.

Tomorrow evening is the graduation proper - thank gods all I have to do is show up. Tomorrow afternoon I have to deliver tables for Saturday's Herb and Flower Festival, as I seem to have the only pick-up in Cornell Cooperative Extension existence with an eight foot bed, perfect to carry eight foot tables. At some point I should generate a plate of herbal (probably lavender) shortbread and ...some sort of centerpiece.

But first I'm going to try to take a nap, assuming the carpet guys/rental guys/dumpster guys (our world is totally crammed with guys these days) don't make that impossible. But I'm going to try. This celebration stuff is murder.

Okay, so maybe I was right the first time....

According to Alex, the party is a complete bust - it looked to me like it was going well, and everyone was having fun. Besides, the thing I remember about being a teenager at outside-at-night parties was just the wandering around outside in the dark with other people, the feeling of wild/free. But maybe it's not like that anymore. Or maybe Alex is over-wrought. Or something.

And my husband is totally anti-me now. Not sure what sins or series of sins I've committed this time, but apparently I don't babysit actively enough (I thought kids who were leaving for the armed forces next week, old enough to get married, etc., were old enough to have a small bonfire without a watchman) and poor John once again does all the work. ALL the work. While evil and lax me sits upstairs in my bedroom writing this. Yeah well. Must be difficult to be married to someone who just isn't up to one's standards and is such a constant disappointment.

And like not being 100% ready for this party, I find I just don't care about that either. I've done the whole mea culpa deal, done it to death, and I'm just not that into beating up on myself anymore. I'm learning, finally, to let go, to take what I need when I need it - food, rest, time, whatever - and be a little easier on myself. And if it doesn't suit, tough. We'll get by, or we won't, but either way it'll all sort itself out. All these people - guests and family members - know where the door is. Hope they don't let it hit them on their way out.

I was wrong - I LOVE parties!!

It's the people I can't stand. I love the prep, the cooking of fun stuff, the decorating, and all the fuss. I'm right there, right up until the people arrive.

Okay, I was good for a while even after that. I was up on the deck turning out hamburgers and hot dogs, and the salads and condiments were all in place. I was good. Then the people decided it would be nice to interact with me, for cryin' out loud.

I tented my remaining food, turned off my burners and declared my work finished. John can take over with overseeing the bonfire and the fireworks (!) while I retreat to the safety of the house.

After a while, I may put in a brief appearance to bring out the Congratulations Alex! cake. Then I'm slinking off inside and staying there. My kids are 20 almost and 18 - surely they can police their own buddies, fold up the leftover food, etc. And I can get at least a partial night's sleep, since coming up very soon is the Herb and Flower Festival, for which I must cook (herb shortbread - yay!) and make a centerpiece and tote the tables around in the pick-up.

That's to look forward to, along with all the party leftovers. It's all good, yes it is. Summer. Yes indeed.

OK, this is pretty silly even for my family.

So Alex's graduation party, to which she has invited something like 90 people, is tomorrow. And she's painting the dining room today. We have only vague plans concerning food (after I got over cackling wildly at my to-do list, which appeared to contain the item "talk to Alex about men" - actually "talk to Alex about menu" - and then promptly lost) and I think I'm supposed to make a cake of some sort. We do appear to have a moon bounce arriving sometime tomorrow morning, however, which is a good thing...assuming the guys get the lawn/field sufficiently mown.

We had planned magnificently to impress everyone (yeah) with our new living room sofa...which won't arrive for another four weeks...and our new living room carpet...which was supposed to be here today, but in fact is still in Jersey and won't make an appearance until Thursday (when, I hope to God but am not counting on, all the guests will be gone.) The TV man is the only person I'm actually expecting to be here tomorrow morning, to fix/replace the satellite receiver that got clobbered by lightning the other week. (And if I have to listen to DirectTV's tech support "I'm sure this is very frustrating for you" speech just one more time....)

I never did get all the gardens fixed up, but the ones closest to the party (and not under threat of the ever-present bees) look good. Maybe I'll run out tomorrow morning and buy some fluffy annuals to sprucew the place up. Since the hippo pond (alas) is in the path of the proposed sunroom, it isn't even dredged for the year yet; we just hope no one notices its little algae-fied self there in the corner in the tall weeds.

Alex wants traditional American cookout fare - hotdogs, hamburgers, etc., but this is made difficult by the fact that we have no idea how many people will show up - all the invitees have massive (Catholic) families and may/may not bring them. So, dinner for 10 or 100? Who knows? I've also been informed that Central New Yorkers do not eat potato salad (wha? no potato salad at the traditional American etc.?) They apparently prefer pasta salad, which I cannot abide and certainly do not want lingering in my fridge for days because we figured on dinner for fifty and got fifteen. And there's still the cake...I guess it should say "Congratulations Alex!!", although the temptation to put something really ...fun...on it instead is quite strong.

My response to all this is to buy books on Amazon - Brian, our UPS guy, is making almost daily trips out here, between my books and Alex buying grad gifts for all her various pals. Elizabeth Goudge's three volume saga of the Eliot family, four books on pre-Raphaelite art, a book on repairing stairways, one by my friend Jack Elinsky (not from Amazon, but from Rampart Press), a missing Cannell paperback - too many, and it isn't as though we had room for more books, or even for what we already have here.

Ooh, Brian just left - wonder what that's about??

I'm hiding out upstairs, wondering if there's any possibility whatsoever that I'd be allowed to sleep for an hour, or, ideally, until the thing is over. I don't like parties in general (although I usually think the prep and cooking is fun) and I don't like parents much in any circumstance. But I suppose I ought to go clean up the living room or generate a list or bake the accursed cake or...something useful. *sigh*

Then Friday is the actual graduation ceremony (at a church - thank you SO much for that *grumble*) and yet another ending. I know, I know - endings are just inverted beginnings, or some such nonsense. It's like telling someone who's going through some form of hell that it's a learning experience they will some day appreciate. I'm sure it is, but at the moment, well, it sucks with a pretty stiff vacuum. I need time, maybe, to assimilate some of these changes before moving on to the next one (booting Joe Gunn out of the house in Media, selling the house, disposing of the goods, all that still awaits) but that just never seems to be an option. I feel like I'm going over the falls without my barrel.

*knock knock* "Who's there?" "It's not the cake."

Whew!

Just a breaker, not fried electrical wiring.

Still...I kind of liked that tree, and I don't have a lot of hope for its survival.

And I feel sorry for Anne - she's such a weather fanatic, and when lightning strikes a few feet from her head, she's not here to see it.

Excitement on the Hill!

Okay, kids, let this be a lesson to you: it CAN happen to you!

Getting struck by lightning, that is.

After the heat (up to 94 degrees, which is unheard of in Central New York) of the last few days, we're supposed to be getting a cooler spell, ushered in by strong storms. Okay, a little thunder, some far away lightning, maybe a stiff breeze or two.

Not.

Winds up to 80 mph (didn't see them, but I'd estimate 60 mph here, briefly), 2 1/2 inch hail (didn't see that either, for which I and all the little flowers I've been slaving over are grateful), and dangerous lightning. Guess I got that. Sitting in the bedroom, watching the storm come over the hill, got all pringly on the backs of my hands and WHAM! BIG CRACKING SOUND!

I thought maybe lightning had struck the big barn, which - in theory - shoiuld be okay since there are these really cool lightning rods all down the roof of it. Still, when the rain let up a bit I thought I'd look outside. I opened the back door and the tree that sticks up through the deck is split down one side - the side nearest the house. *cough*

John just came in holding big pieces of wood that were blown out of the tree - the bark is totally off, totally smooth.

The lightning that struck the tree also fused - FUSED - the wiring on that side of the house at the outside outlet (forget that electric fence)- there's no electricity from the dining room on. I'm hoping it just tripped a breaker rather than frying all my wiring.

The interesting thing to consider is that my daughter's bedroom is on that side of the house, and if she'd been sitting in her bed doing computer stuff, as usual, the lightning would have been five or six feet from her head.

Gratitude - and possibly homeowners' insurance - may be in order.

Pictures as soon as possible - have to wait for the rain to stop.

In Memorium

My mother, Shirley MacNeal Kerbaugh Bach Wilson Gunn, died in her sleep yesterday morning. It's a sad day up on the Hill.

How long?

("That's a rather personal question, isn't it?")

I've determined that, while I haven't yet actually taken the break from myself and my problems and all those other tedious things, I haven't been able to post either. I haven't been home to Jackass Hill for more than a couple days in the last two months, so ruminations about life on the hill have had to take a necessary hiatus.

if anyone is interested, I've taken up whining, observing, and endlessly commenting on the scenery over here: http://mumsananarchist.livejournal.com/

I have no idea how long I'll be gone, but believe me, I'll be back as soon as possible. I miss my life Up On the Hill.

my birthday

although it doesn't feel like it. I didn't have that little "specialness" tingle when I woke up - not even a twinge of a tingle. So I'm thinking maybe I'll skip this year and have two next year.

I'm not even home. I'm still in Media, where it's spring and everyone is miserable. There's a lot to do, so I guess I'll get on with it.

I wish I were home, up on the hill.

minor announcement

Winter, they tell me, is the time to reflect, plan, and generally stay out of trouble. So that's what I'm going to do. I'm generally overloaded, overwhelmed, over-just-about-everythinged and nothing is going particularly well, so I think I'm just going to shut the hell up and take a break from me.

unseasonal

So, yeah, it's 68 degrees here today and I feel totally and completely confused, stupid, nostalgic, lost and in general a complete mess. I think it's because when you more or less grow up and stay in one place, combinations of temperature and light and wind and color all signal a particular season, and, just like smells, these seasonal associations are directly bound into one's limbic system, complete with emotional rather than rational responses. Then when we get an unseasonably nice day (or, at the opposite end of the wheel, an unseasonably cool and breezy day) I start coming off the spool. Like my thinking brain hasn't had time to process clues about changes and so was caught completely off guard.

My family, god bless 'em, is used to this behavior. They don't understand why I walk outside, burst into tears and run back in, and when pressed for reasons, sob something about it being "so ni..ni..nice out!" but they are patient with the poor crazy old cat lady.

John's outside screaming curses to the heavens again. Must have blown a fuse (literally - the air compressor, I'd guess.)

Still haven't taken down the Christmas decorations. First I was still enjoying them, now I'm just too lazy. Spring fever in January? Sure feels like it. Stupid January thaw.

Maybe I'll make some Garlic Soup for dinner - see if I can shake both the sore throat and the doldrums. So many interesting things I want to do this year.

But maybe I'll start tomorrow. Tomorrow's another day...up here on the Hill.

This has got to be some kind of record

Syracuse Hancock International Airport Lat: 43.12 Lon: -76.12 Elev: 404 Last Update on Jan 8, 1:54 pm EST

Mostly Cloudy and Breezy 68°F (20°C) Humidity: 45 % Wind Speed: SW 22 G 30 MPH Barometer: 29.90" (1012.1 mb) Dewpoint: 46°F (8°C) Visibility: 10.00 mi. More Local Wx: 3 Day History: I spent the afternoon planting bulbs. I haven't planted bulbs in January siince we moved up here.