Happy New Year

I started out in Texas yesterday, waking up after way too little sleep, and ended up the day in Tallahassee, Florida. Thank you Best Western for your decent hotel accommodations as I sorely needed some sleep before driving down to Orlando.

I’m on vacation and don’t expect to write much this week, so I wanted to wish you all the best of New Years. I hope you make a wish, and that it comes true.

Merry Christmas everyone

A year ago I was in Iraq, resetting the rec center after midnight mass on Christmas Eve so that the troops could play texas hold’em. I slept during the day and came back to work that night, playing a giant game of twister, making reindeer antlers out of balloons and pantyhose, running combat musical chairs, and distracting the troops in any way possible. It’s amazing how much difference a year makes.

Merry Christmas to everyone, and Godspeed to all my troops.

Up on the roof top drip drip drip

There is just something about this family, major holidays and broken appliances. One year it’s the microwave. Another year it’s the entire kitchen. And this year… it’s the freaking hot water heater. We have such good luck in other ways, but I’d really prefer this appliance/holiday chaos went away also.

This morning when I finally went downstairs, long after the heathens I live with had completed their start of the day routines, I stepped outside to get a soda out of the beer fridge. You know, that’s the refrigerator where you put all the beer and other stuff, so you’re never without a cold drink. No food, just drinks. Okay, maybe some condiments, but that’s it.

So when I was coming back in, I noticed water dripping from this little pvc pipe that was sticking out of the wall about four inches above the ground. Now I’ve spent a lot of time in this house, both when I was a kid and recently, and I’ve never seen water, or anything else for that matter, come out of that pipe. Color me confused.

I put my head inside and hollered for my dad, because well, I haven’t been here forever, so I don’t know everything. The conversation went something like this:

“What’s that pipe for?”

“Dunno. It’s leaking though.”

“Yep. That’s why I called you out here. Got any ideas on what it could be?”

“Not really, Keir.”

And that’s when the last of the information was used up, because apparently he hasn’t seen anything other than a bumble bee checking out some real estate come out of that pipe, either.

Turns out that pipe is the hot water heater drain pan overflow. The stupid hot water heater drain valve has decided that today is a good day to die. I disagree, but apparently my vote is unimportant. So I spent some time in the attic, on the phone, in the attic, on the phone, in the attic, on the internet, and on the phone trying to get a consensus on what we should do. My Dad, whom I love, is not the most mechanically inclined. Neither am I. The one who IS mechanically inclined, by comparison, resides in Pittsburgh. Way to help out the family by moving, Bro.

Anyway, a little brass cap with a Teflon washer was put (oh no you don’t Mr. Spellcheck, I’ll use a lowercase “t” in teflon all I want, thankyouverymuch) on the valve stem and the driiiiiiiiiiiiiiip driiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip driiiiiiiiiiiiiips were thought to be coming to an end. But in reality they became driiiiip driiiip driiiip, which became drip drip drip drip drip drip drip drip drip shortly thereafter. And naturally, five minutes before Home Depot and Lowes closed for the night, it became dripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdrip dripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdrip. Greeeaaaaaaat.

Frankly, I think appliances around here don’t like the holidays because we make them do extra work. I can’t blame them, but seriously, get with the program. Give me a warning BEFORE the parts stores close, so I can give you the love you need.

So Christmas Eve will find my Dad cruising to the hardware store and me in ratty old clothes as we drain the tank and swap out the valves. Because this adventure has to happen early in the morning, just in case something else is wrong, and we can still get parts. On the plus side, though, I did fix the furnace while I was up there, so that’s one appliance which isn’t going to give out on us tomorrow.

More inflatables

Freaking things are everywhere, I tell you...

The awesome picture was found on Flickr, and kudos to the photographer, Michael Sharps, who graciously shares his photos over on the Flickr stream.

Mmmm, coffee!

I smell like vinegar and espresso. It’s an interesting combination, and one I wouldn’t recommend, unless you’re really craving coffee from a coffee pot that has a serious case of scale build up.

I was craving just such a thing, which explains why I smell the way I do. It’s better than that time I smelled like spearmint gum though, from an overly scented body scrub, and a little kid tried to lick me. I don’t think I’ll be licked any time soon from this one.

And I’m enjoying a lovely latte, crafted by my own hands. And a huge amount of assistance from my friend Deb, who not only gave me my very first cup of coffee about a million years ago, but gave me the coffee pot/espresso machine today. She decided she had to complete the circle, since she started it all off on one cold art retreat weekend.

I remember making paper at a house she used to live in, wrapped up in sweatshirts, pajama pants and laughs. If you’ve never made homemade paper, it’s a mess, but you sure can turn out some great stuff if you’re in the right frame of mind. As I dragged myself out of bed the next morning I so wasn’t in the right frame of mind. So my friend fixed me a little cup of coffee, since I don’t do coffee, and that little shot of black gold put me right back where I needed to be. She doctored it up though, with some syrup and steamed milk, and a very intermittent love affair with the latte was born, one cold Texas morning.

Deb was at my house last night, to borrow a bed in town and to bring the coffee machine. This afternoon before she left town, we had coffee lessons. Lessons that met with little success. But ingenuity, some really hot water, and a ton of vinegar cleared things up to a great extent. Trust me though, when the directions say to use purified water, they mean it. Deb left, after gifting me with coffee beans – BOLD like me, a grinder, and her old machine. She left a lot of laughs behind, too, which is something she always does.

And I spent a few hours soaking and steaming away the scale, before making my first latte tonight. I’ll probably become obsessive with the damned thing. Especially the milk steaming. I can see where that will get totally out of hand for me. But meanwhile, I’m going to kick back, sip this cup of nectar and enjoy the holidays.

Merry Christmas everyone!

How come I never showed up in the magic mirror?

Romper, bomper, stomper, boo.
Tell me, tell me, tell me do.
Magic mirror, tell me today.
Did all my friends have fun at play?

There’s some deep, gravelly voiced monster in my head repeating that rhyme over and over today. I think he’s just really fond of the lyrical romper bomper part, actually, but he won’t shut up. And as I come across new things to do or complete, he kicks into gear again, growling out another verse.

Because today was a day. I haven’t been feeling incredibly hot lately, thanks to an ovarian cyst, but it hasn’t really slowed me down much. It just left me feeling like I’d been kicked in the right half of my gut about a million times, and that kept me from wanting to do any packing. Lots of folding and bending in packing. So I avoided it.

There was the trip to the tire store, and the car inspection, which both needed done. There were several Christmas presents which needed wrapped, and thankfully I could sit and stay fairly still as I did that. I ran out of those types of chores rapidly though, and it’s down to packing or swapping out tops on the jeep.

Yeah, I’m an idiot, because I went with the top on the jeep thing. My friend Baseball, and his cousin, the Norwegian, came over to help me out. They totally rocked the place too, and made my life a whole lot easier by getting the soft top off the jeep and the hard top on.

If it had just been swapping out tops, that wouldn’t have been so bad. First we had to get it out of the garage though, which required moving large, bulky, heavy items. And about nine different sized coolers. I think my family has an unhealthy obsession with coolers, based on the sheer volume of them found in the garage. After everything was moved, then we had to get the top down from the hooks and pulleys used to hang it from the garage roof. And let me tell you, the jeep manual, which says that two adults can manage the top of the jeep? They lie. There were three of us working on this one and it’s all kinds of heavy.

The top came out of the garage, the squirrel droppings were brushed off of it, and it sat on the driveway while we figured out just how much of the soft top had to be disassembled for safety’s sake. As it turns out, all of it, though I know my big brother will call me and tell me otherwise. But I read the manual. Twice. And so did the Norwegian. We followed directions, for probably the first time ever in my life, and took the soft top off completely. Then it was time to pick the hard top up again, and get it up onto the jeep.

I must say that I looked rather stupid standing underneath the top while the guys were on the sides, but I really was lifting it, despite appearances to the contrary. And that’s about when the Romper Bomper Monster showed up in my head, as I was heave-hoeing everything around.

The Michelin Man

I’m getting ready for a road trip at the same time as a move across country. Yes, I know they’re pretty much the same thing, but at the same time, they aren’t. See, the first part of the trip is the long-planned, finally happening trip to Walt Disney World down in Florida. When I knew I was going to Iraq, I promised myself I’d go see the giant mouse when I got back, as my own personal reward for a job well done. I doubt Mickey is going to recognize me, though, as I haven’t seen him in over fifteen years.

So there’s packing for a family vacation, which is awesome, and at the same time, complicated all to hell. Because I couldn’t leave well enough alone and separate the drive to Victory Junction from the drive to Florida – No, no, I had to be a dumb ass and combine the two. In my defense though, it seemed like a good idea at the time to eliminate a few thousand miles from the driving I’d be doing. And really, I love my family, but sharing a house with them all for a week is more than enough that I don’t feel guilty at all about avoiding the road trip.

But I digress. I’m packing for vacay. And I’m packing to move. All at the same time. Confusing, eh? A week in balmy Orlando requires completely different clothing than a winter in hopping Randleman. I’ll figure it out sooner or later, I’m sure but the key word is “layering.” I’m going to layer so much I’ll look like the Michelin man, I’m sure.

Which brings me back to what I started to write about tonight. The jeep and I went out to get inspected today. Well, really, the jeep needed inspected, not me, but it’s underaged and not allowed to drive alone, so I went with it. We were at the first Mr. Sticker, but they had some sort of computer malfunction, so we regrouped and went to Discount Tire to get the tires rotated and balanced. It seems no one thought about that while I was in Iraq. I’m not complaining, just pointing out that it’s not high on anyone’s to do list when they are out of the country.

So I cruise on into the store and a really nice clerk takes my paperwork and keys after I tell him what service I need. He smiles, says it will be about 30 minutes and walks outside to get the jeep. Then he walks back into the store and says, “there’s nothing to balance.”

Say what?

Several hundred dollars later, I had four new tires on the jeep. And let me tell you, if that little jeep says I never buy her anything, she’s a liar. She got new antifreeze last week, along with windshield wipers. Brakes, oil, a belt and a thorough lube job, too. (Why does that always sound dirty?) Next year she’ll probably get a new top, and there’s a paint job in her future, too, unfortunately. That’s a spoiled rotten little jeep, I tell you.

But on the plus side, she’s pretty good to me. Even when she didn’t feel good, she still cranked up and carried me around without too much fussing. She did tell me in no uncertain terms though, that I am never allowed to buy her BF Goodrich tires again as they just ride like crap, don’t feel good on her rims, and in general, wear out about 10,000 miles before they are supposed to. She’s rather picky, my jeep.

Attack of the Inflatables

It’s starting to be a whole lot more festive around here these days. I’m not just talking about the house, either. I admit we did bare bones decorations, because there’s a mighty big trip coming up for us all right after Christmas, but the rest of the neighborhood has kicked into gear, too.

I think it’s that the weather finally cooled off from the mid-80’s back to where it’s supposed to be. I’m not sure I can handle the consistency of five times in a row where I don’t have to stick my hand on the window to see if it’s hot enough outside to wear shorts when I get dressed each day. But still, the cool slash cold slash freezing my butt off temperatures do add a nice feel to the holidays.

As I’m tooling around in the jeep after sunset, I see all these fun, cheerful decorations. There are lights twinkling in trees, hanging from roofs in that ooooh-so-realistic icicle stream, and pandering shamelessly to the little kid in all of us with huge ropes across the roof. Some go the extra mile and beg Santa to stop at their house, with candy-cane swags lining the sidewalks, mirrored in street after street over in Stepfordville. Of course that’s the same place where block captains have strategic meetings about decorations in January, gearing up for the next year, and the welcome wagon greets new residents with a lighting diagram and neighborhood bylaws which say they must comply, so I’m not sure that’s so cool after all.

But still, decorations are cool at night.

…During the day though, I see all these sad blobs lying on the ground, like melted Frosty Snowmen all over the place. They ooze across the winter grass in shades of white and red and green, with touches of blacks and blues for good measure. Cords snake from them leading to the driveways and front stoops like evil, alien tentacles. Somehow, Christmas has become corrupted by inflatable yard “art.”

I don’t get it, either. I really wish all the inflatable stuff like that had stayed in the price range where only party rental companies and used car dealerships could afford it. Then I wouldn’t be treated to the horrible spectacle of rip-stop nylon gone bad. And it is bad, too, what with the tiny little blower motors spinning Santa, Rudolph, Frosty and some unnamed Elf around on a carousel nightly, while they are lit up from inside. No one needs to see Santa’s guts, people.

Now I love me some tiny white lights. I love the colored ones, too, don’t get me wrong. But it’s the overdone accompaniment that has me a bit “what the hell?” about some of the decorations. The concept of some fresh pine boughs and candles has been bastardized to the Nth degree with the addition of inflatables. I’m almost afraid of what they’ll come up with next year.

I really think that the inflata-manger really says it all, though. Don’t you?

They're all gonna laugh at me

So apparently I’m pretty effing funny when I get mad. And there is nothing worse than being pissed off and having people laugh at you, or with you, or both, because it really kills a good rant. That’s when I go slam a door or something, because people aren’t taking me and my anger seriously.

This week I was in the kitchen and my Dad, who goes by the assumed name “Dad” here in Story Hour, asked me something stupid. I’m sure it was a valid question to him, and he expected a rational answer. But to me, it was the dumbest thing ever, and it set me off in a major way. He didn’t know what hit him, at first, and he just stood there, pinned to the floor, debating between standing there and trying to talk me down off the ledge or fleeing out the back door in terror. He did neither of those, as it turns out.

In my defense, I’d given everyone fair warning that it was going to be a horrendously horrible, no good, very bad day as I was experiencing wicked bad tummy pains. They didn’t believe me, apparently. Stupid them.

And now I’m standing in the kitchen slamming dishes around and just going off on Dad. I don’t shout, though I do get a wee bit more vocal. I also tighten up the vocabulary and pull out the five dollar words as they convey my sentiments much more precisely than the fifty-cent words do. I imagine it’s pretty disconcerting to be raged at by a walking dictionary. You probably don’t know whether to fight back or stop and look the word up to figure out what I said.

Everyone in my family possesses an oversized vocabulary, though, so Dad knew what I was saying. And there, in mid-rant, I’d say about ten minutes in, I look at him and he’s laughing so hard tears are escaping him. He’s stopped clutching the door knob in terror and is now holding onto it for support to keep from keeling over from the belly laughs that have gripped him mercilessly while I continue spewing words at a thousand miles an hour.

I just shook my head and gave up.

Tonight though, I’m in one of the most exclusive of retailers – Tarjay (Target, you moron) – shopping with my Mom and I decide to relate the frustration I was feeling about not being able to go on a proper rant. Only I had to stop telling her because she’s leaning over the cart, clutching it for support and gasping for breath between the belly laughs that are now holding her hostage. I thought I was going to have to leave her there, sitting on an industrial sized bag of doggy kibble, or slumped over the cart, but she eventually pulled it together.

That “leave no man behind” crap is fine in Iraq, but in my family, you’re on your own if you’re just gonna laugh at me.

I was out and about yesterday running errands. I do that a lot. It seems that even when I’m supposed to be doing a whole bunch of nothing, bored off my butt, that I’m always going at least fifty miles an hour. Meanwhile some people I know are all “I only had time to watch one movie and take a two hour nap today.” Bite me. Because seriously, that isn’t right unless you’re in college.

Anyway, as I was out running errands, I realized we have now passed into the holiday danger zone. It’s close to Christmas. People are getting spastic. Kids are about to go on vacation, some of ‘em starting this afternoon, so they’re rushing to get the Santa shopping done without the little monsters in tow. And they are completely not focused on driving. At all. Add a construction zone into the mix and I’m lucky the jeep and I came away unscathed.

There is just something about this time of year though, that gives people license to be complete idiots on the road. The same thing happens around the time changes each year, too. But you don’t see much of this problem near Independence Day or Halloween. Even with the fireworks and candy, those aren’t such chaotic events, I guess.

So having several errands to run, combined with some wicked bad tummy pains, I was in the jeep braving the elements. See, down here in Texas, we don’t really get snow or ice, so our elements are “traffic” and water. It’s the wrong time of year for a flood – not saying it couldn’t happen, just that it’s the wrong time of year. So all I’ve got left to bear is the possibility of vehicular drama.

When I was turning left into the bank, just this side of a traffic light working in my favor, some idiot comes around the corner and absolutely floors it. He could see me midway across the three lanes and I guess he decided I looked like a nice shiny target because I could hear the rev of his engine. Maybe he was hopped up on candy cane lattes from Starbucks. Or he’d overdosed on rolled and iced sugar cookies. But for some reason, he punched it, so I had to hit it faster than I wanted, and entered the bank parking lot with a bit of an airborne screech when the tires finally came back to the ground.

I don’t even want to go into the fa-la-la-la-lahhhhooooohhhh-sh*ts of getting home from the hardware store with an overly large plank of wood hogging the back seat of the jeep. Needless to say, I wasn’t singing any carols, and people were giving me the hairy eyeball even as I stayed in my lane. It seems they wanted to be where I was, no matter where I was. It was like that in the store, too, which is insane, because hellooooooooo? Home Depot doesn’t exactly have small aisles, so you really don’t have to be in the exact spot where I am standing this instant. It’s not like I’m looting the store. I promise that I won’t clean the place out of finishing nails before you can get what you need. I won’t take the last thirty dozen eggs at the grocery store, either.

People, relax. It’s Christmas. Be merry and bright.