Theme Music for My Life

It’s been a couple of weeks since I posted anything, hasn’t it? Trust me – you would have been bored spitless with the details of my last fortnight. (Don’t you love it when you can squeeze the word ‘fortnight’ into a sentence?) It’s been work, gardening, cleaning, work, more gardening, and more work. The upside? I still have two jobs, with two more potential jobs on the horizon. Our garden looks the best it has in about ten years. Our house is not a mucky pit of despair, more like a mud-puddle of mild depression. So… yay for all that.

Here is the Kevin-cat approved backyard Riviera. See how big my toe-maters are? (Random aside – we had a windstorm blow through a couple of days ago, which snapped my patio umbrella post. Totes my fault, because I forgot to take it down after Mother’s Day. Duhhhh.)

Okay, one more picture. These are my lettuce starts that I grew from seeds. And about halfway up the planter box… a random pumpkin has sprouted. I love volunteers, but I’m not sure where to move this little guy. Maybe I’ll just keep him there and let him flop over the edge. (I’m fighting the urge to type ‘that’s what SHE said’, but I know my sprogs would roll their eyes and groan. So I didn’t. Even though I totally did.)

I lied. One more picture. This is the Mother’s Day card I got from the oldest sprog. It plays ‘Kung Fu Fighting’ when you open it. Ninja kittens…*sniff*. I’m so proud. What mother wouldn’t swoon into a puddle?

Uhhh… what was I talking about again? Oh, music. Right. I listen to the radio on my six mile commute, which means I get to hear approximately three or four songs. I have a tendency to listen to the lyrics and decide what movie it should have been paired with. (It’s okay to end a sentence with a preposition now. My mom said so.) And, in a not-so-bizarre-if-you-know-me move, I’ve even started writing movies to go with the songs – in my head, of course. You should try it… go on. Give it a go. I’ll start.

“Yummy, Yummy, Yummy, I’ve got love in my tummy”  -should definitely be the theme song for a grisly and bloody zombie movie.

“Harden My Heart” – has to be the story of a sad and love-lorn cardiologist left at the altar, who then has to save the life of his former fiancee.

“C’mon” by Ke$ha – this is every teenage movie about losing your virginity and making iffy choices based on raging hormones. Every. Damn. One.

P.S. Sorry for the rambling. See? There’s a reason I don’t post if I don’t have anything to say.

What A Difference

One year ago today I was lying on our couch, trying to remember how to stand up without passing out. I was two days out of my second surgery – the one that removed a bunch of things I’d previously thought were pretty important. I was a very, very sick llama. And unlike my first surgical recovery of 2012, after this surgery I stayed a very sick llama for what felt like ages. It was mid-June before I started to feel marginally normal, and September before I felt healed.

Fast forward to today. Here’s what I did in the last week:

Planted some containers for the front porch and the Riviera.

Planted a few more things for the front porch.

Planted my toe-maters. Aren’t they cute?

I planted my hanging baskets last week. LAST WEEK, people. It was still APRIL, for goodness sakes. Somebody call the media.

I planted lettuce seeds last week, too. Look at the ickle lettuce plants… aren’t they cute? Don’t tell the local slugs. I think they like lettuce, too. And if they eat all my lettuce starts I will have to resort to better living with chemicals, something I do NOT want to do unless forced. (Oh, and notice the pumpkin seeds in the compost. Bets on whether or not they sprout, too? I’m guessing the damn pumpkins will be more hardy than the lettuce.)

Darling husband Jim’s done a lot of weeding this spring. Oh, look. There he is now, trying to coax the &%$# grass out of the crocosmia plants. Hi, sweetie. Smile. (Yes, I love that man of mine.)

And see the blue skies? It’s over 80 degrees today. Yes, I said eighty. Tomorrow is supposed to be even warmer. I know one member of the household not so enthusiastic about warmer weather.

Poor melted kitty.

Things I Saw In Texas

I know. I’ve been back for almost two weeks, so this isn’t the most timely post. Sorry. It was the mutant cold I caught somewhere. Excuses aside, here are a few things I saw in Texas that are out-of-the-ordinary, at least for me.

See the little green lizard? Isn’t he cute? (It might be a ‘she’, but I’m arbitrarily calling it a ‘he’ because I can, and because I named him Fred.) I don’t have little green lizards where I live. I don’t have little brown lizards, either. The most lizard-y thing we have are salamanders, and even those are hard to find unless you have a creek in your backyard.

There were so many varieties of habanero hot sauce, it boggled the mind. And since I had to bring back a few bottles for the youngest sprog, I took a few pictures so he could approve before I purchased. Thank Bob for modern texting, or I would have wasted $1.99 buying *gasp* the WRONG hot sauce! (Do you like my upside-down legs?)

Our traditional first-night-together sushi Feastival (no, I didn’t misspell it). I admit to the occasional sushi dinner or lunch while at home, but I never buy this much at one time. Delicious and relatively low-cost, especially for the middle of freaking Texas. Who knew?

It’s a little dark, but this is another tradition. We use Post-It notes to identify holes in plots or scenes, usually using a ‘Hero’s Journey’ or ‘Save The Cat’ plot structure. Of course, you have to have an entire story plotted out to be able to do this. Since I got ‘Mused’, as my lovely crit partner Jen put it, I didn’t use The Wall but focused instead on getting the persistent image I kept seeing in my head into some kind of writable form/story. This one might take a while.

And these lovely women who mean the world to me. I can’t tell you how much we all accomplished in four days together – but it was absolutely mind boggling. There were all sorts of ‘AH-HA’ moments, plot breakthroughs, and character realizations. It will probably be the last time I see Linda in-person for quite a while, since she’s moving overseas soon (which, while we are thrilled for her, has us weeping a bit on the inside). I’m sure I’ll impose on Jen and Ginger in the near future, since I can’t seem to last more than six months without a crit partner fix. (Jen, can you work on ‘Kinky Boots‘ tickets?)

We talked, we laughed, we cried, we ate, we drank, we wrote, we plotted, and we talked some more.  It was PERFECT.

A Ledder to Southwest Airlides

(Yes, I have a cold. Also known as a ‘code in by node’. New germs, you know, possibly imported from New York. And you know how I love me some New York, so it’s probably appropriate and fitting that I’ve been boarded by an East Coast snot-train. Overshare? What, are you new here?)

Dear Southwest Airlines:

It’s been a while since I’ve used your services, probably because you don’t fly to any of my usual destinations. My experience last Monday will go down as one of the longest and most frustrating in quite a long time, and that would include being stuck on the tarmac at Heathrow for three hours and having a drunk woman upend her meal tray on me.

It started with me checking my bag because I’d purchased an array of habanero hot sauces for my youngest sprog. (Don’t judge – he likes the heat.) At the terminal, the boy behind the counter said, “Uhh, lady, your flight’s been delayed, okay?”

No, not okay. Why has it been delayed, and how long is the delay?

“Uhh, it looks like an hour.”

But my layover was only an hour. Will I miss my connection?

“Uhh, lemme check with a supervisor.” *Cue Jeopardy music here* “Uhh, my supervisor says you should have a ten minute window, so that’s enough time. Should I check your bag through to Portland?”

Ten minutes? Will they hold the plane for me?

“Uhh, my supervisor doesn’t know. We can’t make any promises.”

But I paid you because you promised to get me home tonight.

“Uhh, lemme go check with someone.” *Cue Jeopardy music again* *I age approximately seventeen years* “Uhh, you need to go to gate seven and talk to them.”

What about my bag? I can’t take it through security because of the dangerous habanero hot sauces of doom.

“Uhh, I’ll check it through and you can pick it up sometime.”

Check it through to where, and pick it up sometime? Really?

“Thanks for flying Southwest Airlines.” Yelled over his shoulder, “Should I take my break now?”

Now I travel through security, remove my shoes, remove my laptop, shut off my phone, and do the happy stance inside the big glass scanner-thingie. (It’s almost like a dance move in a Pat Benetar video, so the child of the 80′s inside me is strangely smiling every time I assume the position, which makes the security people a little nervous.) After I reassemble on the other side, I travel to gate seven, where I get someone who actually knows what he’s doing, even if he doesn’t know why he’s doing it. I’m re-routed, and instead of arriving at 10:30 pm, I’m now arriving at midnight. But being re-routed means I have to get new boarding passes, and have to surrender my original ones.

Here’s where I have a problem, Southwest. Let me give you some history: I set a timer on my phone to remind me to get my boarding passes. I clicked the ‘check in’ button approximately 0.0004 seconds after the clock ticked over to exactly 24 hours before my flight time. I received A groups for both flights. Boarding in the A group means I will most likely get a window seat, which means I won’t have to impose my very large aft section on anyone else’s space. It’s important to me. I hate imposing on others. Hate it.

My new boarding pass was B43. I was to be approximately the 100th person on the plane. Imagine my joy. After waiting three hours in the Austin airport, I finally board the plane. And the guy in front of me gets the VERY LAST aisle or window seat. Now, only middle seats are available.

Seriously? Am I being pranked? Is there a video camera somewhere? Because no one is willing to make eye contact with the large woman with the ass the size of Nebraska who will now have to wedge herself into the middle seat. For three hours. After much apologizing, I sit between a guy who looks like he’s working on a five day hangover, and a young woman. Once I sit, I try to make myself as narrow as possible, which means I’m in for three hours of clenched muscles. Awesome.

That story was a very long way of asking for this: when you have to re-route someone because of a problem on your end, or unforeseeable issues somewhere down the line, can you please issue them one of the A group passes you reserve to sell as an upgrade? I don’t want to poke anyone else out of line, nor do I want to deprive you of income, but this small gesture would go a LONG way toward assuaging bad feelings on the part of your clients. It was a very long and uncomfortable day for me, one I won’t duplicate because I’ll not be using Southwest unless I absolutely have no other choice.

Yours uncomfortably,

Julie

P.S. I have to mention that I was impressed you let the girl sitting next to me carry on the homeless and very tiny kitten she found inside her rental car in Dallas. While the kitten was loud and hungry, he was a nice distraction, and the flight attendants didn’t hassle the girl at all. So you do have that going for you.

Howdy From Texas

I’m just outside Austin, Texas at a writing retreat with three of my wonderful, fabulous, amazing critique partners (I’d use more adjectives, but I haven’t had a lot of coffee yet). We have laughed, cried, eaten delicious food, had a small smackerel of wine, written new words, edited old words, brainstormed, and plotted. And talked. And talked and talked and talked.

Here’s a picture of the last time we were together, since I haven’t gotten one of all four of us yet:

 

That was taken in Seattle in October of 2011.

We are always very happy to see each other, as you can tell from the expressions on our faces a year and a half ago. Trust me, we’re all beaming like that now, you just can’t see it. Okay, in the interest of full disclosure, at this exact moment we’re all sitting around a table huddled around our computers, but we’re smiling on the INSIDE, and that’s what counts.

Love and smooches from all of us to all of you!

Burning Questions du Jour

I know. You’re saying, “Again with the questions?” And “Don’t you ever find the answers?” And most importantly, “Why did I click on this link again?”

But deep in your heart, you know you’ve asked the very same questions, just way back in the back of your brain. Wayyy wayyy back.

1) What the hell is up with the Costco milk jugs? And is it possible to EVER pour the milk without dribbling on the counter? Argh. Double-argh. This is exactly why I usually buy milk at Safeway. Do you hear that Costco? You’re not getting my $5.59 ever again. You better alert Wall Street.

2) I know all the news people say the North Korean missiles won’t be able to reach the West Coast, but here’s an important thing: ALL THE NEWS PEOPLE ARE IN NEW YORK. I live in Oregon, less than 100 miles from the Pacific coast. For the love of Rocky Road, can someone make DAMN SURE I’m not getting bombed anytime soon?

3) AT&T says they care about you as a customer, but do they? DO THEY REALLY? No, no they don’t. And when you call them to ask them to waive yet another ‘upgrade fee’ because someone else’s phone has gone tits-up? Gosh, they’re so sorry, but MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA… The Evil Empire is alive and well.

4) Why exactly did they remake ‘Total Recall’? Don’t get me wrong, I love Colin Bloody Farrell as much as the next person woman, but I don’t get it. Do you think someone wanted to show how far we’ve come in the ability to make a realistic three-boobed hooker? That’s all well and good, but there was no Kuato, a definite highlight of the original movie.

Yep. Totally worth a remake costing millions of dollars.

Any questions you need answered? I’ll give it a shot.

 

**On a completely different subject totally not related to boobs, my wonderful eldest sprog reconfigured and re-routered our magic Interwebs. We added another router to help boost the signal and it is TOTALLY AMAZING. Zoom-go-fast! I can explode things so much faster now. Thanks, computer genius son o’mine!

Good Morning, April Fish!

Today is the first day of April, traditionally ‘April Fools Day’, or ‘Poisson d’Avril’, if you’re French or a mite pretentious. (Are you looking at moi? Oui, je thinks vous are looking at moi. Arretez-vous that right now and get back to work.)

In honor of April Fools Day, I’m going to list a few things. You tell me which one did NOT happen over the weekend. Easy-peasy, right?

* There’s a reason your toilet has a lid, and why make-up drawers should not be in the etagere over said toilet. Addendum: can you over-bleach the lid to your moisturizer?

* Someone in my household shaved their legs for the first time this year, possibly for the first time in six months.

* We went to Costco for strawberries and peanut butter, and spent $140 on stuff we didn’t really need. (This is kind of a gimme.)

* Kevin the Junior Cat finally figured out the pet screen door without bashing his head too much.

* My lovely motherp baked a 400 pound ham for us for a delightful Easter luncheon.

* I swore off Rocky Road, toast, and all other deliciousness for at least a month, if not forever.

 

Okay – which one didn’t actually happen?

Tag, you’re it!