The Nest: Revisited

For anyone who only reads the blog and doesn't actually talk to or with me (or have Facebook, which is practically the same thing)--the air conditioner was leaking because a lead line was busted, they fixed it, it still doesn't cool the house, but I had two window air conditioner units installed and life is much more livable. So there it is.

Also in nest news, though, are some good things. With the motivation of someone special coming home, as well as the helpful presence of my mother, I've been finishing all the other little projects around the house that have been wanting done since we moved in six [freaking] months ago. There are now curtains in the bedrooms, for example. I am not using my night stand to hold the silverware. Little things like that, you know. The place looks like real people might live here now, and I'm so happy. Only a week and a couple days left...

Spent yesterday morning washing all kinds of teeny tiny little clothes. Can you just imagine the convenience of being able to wash every item of clothing you owned in a single load through the washing machine?? It was amazing. His whole wardrobe cleaned in an hour and ten minutes. Unfortunately, I'm told that he'll go through the whole wardrobe at least once a week, so maybe there's not so much to be thrilled about there. Still, imagine putting everything Joseph owns into the machine at once. Ha. The dryer would have a hernia.

p.s. Posting once a week? Every two weeks? Is this is future of my literary career? I dunno...I've had company or help in the house every day for three weeks, so not a lot of time is spent communing with the virtual world. Then again, who cares? :) September is coming. I'm so happy.

"Edema"

It's a fancy name for retaining water, and not really in the sense of "oh, wow, I feel fat today" but in the sense of "the climate is confusing my body so bad that my fingers and knees don't bend properly because of how edemic I am." The more you drink, of course, the less trouble you have with this problem. The human body is a funny thing. Somebody's RN mother explained to Joseph that my getting dehydrated could cause premature labor, and he asked me if that was why I drank so much water. I said yes, but if I got so bad that that was an issue, there was a serious problem. I'm still stuck, I told him, at the stage where I drink lots of water so that my fingers stay skinnier than my ankles.

Also swelling, by the way, is the number of people my very own age (or younger!!) who are having babies, going to have babies very soon, or have had a baby within the last six months. Among those I know in the college classes immediately above and below my own, I can name over a dozen mommies without even thinking--and a bunch more if I dig deep. This is cool, and wierd, and wonderful, and wierd. Joe said that he realizes a lot more just how un-normal it all is, though, from being around the other Marines. One of them told him the other day that we "were the first people he really knew personally, his own age, who were having a kid." Wow. And for us and our school perspective, we're actually "behind" the curve by about four months. How funny.

Smellin' Coffee

Always a bad thing--I'm trying to make coffee this morning, but (a) I have no chart for measuring the stuff and (b) I don't drink it so I wouldn't know nasty from nice. My company usually makes their own, for safety's sake, but I'm trying to be brave this morning.

So, this pregnant memory loss thing is really funky. I am unable, even whilst swearing upon the phone book, to remember anything about conversations I've had in the last month. I forget whether I locked the door. Two seconds ago. Spelling and typing are olympic events. However, all these great memories from the first two years of college are positively flooding my mind! It's wonderful! I mean, I remember down to colors and smells these snapshots of life when I had first met all my friends. I remember really early conversations with Joseph, I remember "first seeing him again" after those long, long, long mid-term breaks. I remember choir things, I remember the presidential election and staying up all night in the chapel to pray about it. I remember walking out toward Guardian Angel and back between Sunday choir and Mass, saying morning prayer with Joseph. I remember my first van run to town. I remember my first trip to Shoe Show with Cass and Laura, and my first trip to Winchester with them (on which we also bought shoes). All that stuff is coming back to me, at the expense of dinner, which I forgot was in the oven.

I'll take the memories. Such sweet things.

"Hey, great reception in here! Like, four bars!"

So, I vicariously lived the life of a woman's handbag last night, thanks to a special friend (you know who you are) who toted me through the length and breadth of O'Hare last night on her way to a flight. It was delayed, else we would never have made it in time. I went through the x-ray machine, I went to the restroom, I sat on the floor while she checked in, I stood in line while cappucino and danish were ordered, I waited on the seat while carry-on items were safely stowed in the overhead bin. It was great--and at the end, I knew exactly how one's purse feels. There to hear every conversation, there to endure every long wait and line full of cranky people. I enjoyed even (and especially) the conversations that the human has with herself as she tries to find the correct gate after an airline switch.

Who knew that you could run a phone through the x-ray machine and not drop the call, anyway? That was the coolest part. I could hear the machine running, then all the voices and people and bumpings of baggage as I came out the other end. Now we know.

Also, found out that "vicariously" has the same root as "vicar." A substitute or representative.

Treble Without a Clause

Feeling a bit schizophrenic today...Joseph has gotten me started on all these little projects that involve networking, getting in touch with people in one's field, etc. The obvious rock in my path is that I don't have a field right now. However, the networking website forced me to invent something, so I examined my life and decided, fairly enough, that I'm currently a self-employed researcher. I'm not paying myself anything at the moment, but I'm certainly undergoing a very eclectic, fairly rigorous set of tasks that involve researching things.

All kinds of things, of course, and that's what renders this exercise a little silly-feeling. After all, I have a grand plan in mind, but it's hard to explain what a Montessori handbook, neuroscience study, leadership manual, and Blink have in common. The only clue to my strategy, which is now sitting in the "to read" pile in my office [the dryer] is Classical Education at Home: Strategies and Systems for Teachers Learners to Learn. Taken broadly, I'm learning how to educate, all on my own. So, that's what I'm up to these days. I had no idea.

The Great Pumpkin

So, another interesting divergence of viewpoints on holidays. This time, though, it's more a funny story about my next door neighbor (whom I know does not read the blog--she has dialup) than a diatribe about the raising of children.

Due to an ongoing renovation project, a continual shifting of families from their [old] house to a [still old but nicely resurfaced] new house is taking place within my immediate neighborhood of about 60 homes. My neighbor and I are in Phase Eight homes, which means we'll be moved into resurfaced homes in October. (Phase One households were supposed to get their resurfaced homes by July 31st, though, and it didn't happen. I'm personally not holding my breath for October.)

Anyhow. For reasons which continue to cramp my drinking style (this is funny if you know me) and my fashion options (this is funnier if you've seen me in the last month), I am not excessively thrilled by the prospect of moving "sometime in October." Especially since I'll have a spouse in the field during most of the month. Moves, even moves financed, boxed, carried, and unboxed by the government, are things which one hesitates to do while nine months pregnant. I am not happy about moving in October, and I religiously waddle down to the housing office once a month to (a) let them see me waddle and, (b) find out if "sometime" has been narrowed down a bit. It never has, but I usually walk away thinking that it could be worse. I could be having twins. My housing lady is apologetic, but more or less useless. Things will not change, they will only continue to change on a weekly basis (this is funny if you know anything about the military).

My neighbor, on the other hand, is no tame woman. She's a steely-eyed sailor-swearing she-man. (Whom I like, kinda, in a keep-your-distance kind of way.) As I relayed the scuttlebut from most recent waddle, she became steelier eyed. She glinted. She tossed her mane and dragged a hoof across the linoleum menacingly.

"You know," she said, "I'm going to have to get myself down there and talk to those people. I mean, if I have to get in her boss's face and get serious with him, well then I'll do that, too, but she has got to understand. Being told we're moving 'sometime' in October just does not work! I mean, I have a child! I am NOT about to ask him to be moving the week of Halloween! No, I am not. No, there are things that have to be done that week, things that I re-fuse to have screwed up by their stupid moving schedule!"

Location, location, location.

A Mystical Body Part

New blog in the sidebar: an admirable friend's journey toward convent life. "Engaged to Christ," and what a beautiful way to put it, too. I told Joseph once, a long time ago at school, that it must be simultaneously humbling and motivating for young men to know that Christ, too, is a Lover who is after the hearts of young women of faith (well, all young women, but the context of the conversation really only included us more or less religion-minded dames). After all, being Perfection, you just know he'd be the best boyfriend ever. ;) Talk about competition.

The Best Nest

"'I love my house, I love my nest! Of all the rest, my nest is best!' sang Mr. Bird.

'It is not the best nest,' said Mrs. Bird from inside the house."

Alas, my precious castle of a house is, likewise, not the best nest. However, quoting one of my favorite books should not mislead you into thinking that Joseph and I disagree about our nest. It's just that he's outside it and I'm inside it, so my view is just a tad darker about just how bad the nest now appears to be.

The a/c is off again. After a long day of the temperature slowly climbing inside, with the unit going at a steady pace, there were already a number of reasons to feel less that genteel about our environmental control systems. However, a concurrent problem pushed me over the edge--so far over the edge that I broke my cardinal rule and called the 24-hour maintenance number. In my downstairs hallway, the little tiny puddle of unexplained water on the carpet was slowly growing. Not only that, but he was reproducing.

With a saucer-sized wet spot at the kitchen doorway and about $2.50 worth of silver-dollar-sized wet spots in attendance, I called The Man. The Man was concerned, and asked me a list of "is ..... leaking?" All my answers were nos, so he said, "Well, if you've got it coming up through the carpet, whatever damage that'll be done is done. We'll be there first thing in the morning." Wonderful. Not my house, I only rent, so it doesn't hurt me at all.

Still, with my totally awesome family in residence, the mystery was just too good to pass up. What on God's green earth could possibly be producing water from beneath my house? Brother suggests we look at the outside closet/utility space that houses the downstairs water heater and all the ductwork for the a/c (the physical unit is upstairs). Voila. Merrily trickling down the ductwork is a steady stream of supposed condensation, which has pooled about an inch deep upon the concrete foundation of my house.

This is now a bigger problem than we thought--the electric boxes for the house are in that closet, the grounding wires run amok within as well, and the framing of the house is steel. They're going to have to shut the power off at the road to clean all that up. ("Well, cow poopy," I say to my father, oh the phone, as I survey the closet.) To confirm my opinion, we notice that water is actually seeping to the outside of the house along the edge of the foundation, as well. How nice.

Now we're really intrigued, so I send my brother upstairs with the phone in hand. He inspects the unit's actual location (along with, vicariously, my father) and calls down: "Yeah, there's water here in the floor, too." Wonderful. So dad sends us looking all over for the drain line, hither and thither, because we want to find out if it is clogged. We look, and nothing is to be found. However, in the meantime, I had the good sense to really think about the layout of my house, and did determine that the water we were seeing come through the carpet had made at least the 3-foot journey from that closet floor, underneath the corner of the kitchen linoleum, to the visible location under the carpet.

How far has it gone along the other three compass points, I wonder? That's what got me up at 0430 this morning. The refrigerator, downstairs bathroom, pantry, and washing machine are all within reach. I feel like a geologist. Whence cometh the magma? When will the volcano explode?

But back to the drain line. We couldn't find anything that looked point-blank like a drain line. I reminded dad that this was not a traditional a/c unit, and he said, "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhmmmmmm...........ugh. Yeah. It's that energy efficient thing, isn't it?"

Yes, it is.

My a/c unit is 10-15 years old, and was one of the original "green" large appliances. Rather than using a fan unit and a big compressor outside the home, my unit pumps ground-cooled water from below the house, runs air across the ground-cooled water (supplemented by a little compressor supplying freon-cooled air), and feeds it into the house. It uses less energy, less fuel, less freon, and works like an absolute dream in temperate climates. Unfortunately, this is not a temperate climate. The best the unit can do with the ground-cooled water is 10-15 degrees cooler than the outside temperature. Not only that, but it tends to break down fairly often because of its highly organic nature--fewer moving parts, but more parts that can get dirty, clogged, or otherwise become nonfunctional. Not only that, but the entire unit is twined up inside the house, instead of having an outside unit that can easily be accessed and serviced (oh, yeah, and when it leaks it does so outside).

Not only that, but when you have water leaking, it doesn't have to be a drain line. There are two major supply lines of plain old honest groundwater that run up through the center of my house--my father has realized that we might be dealing with a bigger demon than we thought.

Unfortunately, it's still four and a half hours until The Man comes to look at everything, so you'll have to stay tuned for what happens next. We turned the unit off at 2030 last night, both to stop further water accumulation (we hope--do the supply lines run all the time?) and because it had ceased cooling sometime late the night before. It's now pretty miserable in here, and I feel so bad for my family having to deal with all this. Thankfully, they can use the fans I have. I can't run a fan in my bedroom, unless I want to have my pregnancy equivalent of an athsma attack. So, it's hot, nasty, mytersious, and five o'clock in the morning.

Sigh. I love my nest.

Land of the Free, Home of the Brainwashed

So, after my lovely week with family on the Jersey Shore, I've returned to "my" America. The one where people wave on the highway using all their fingers at the same time (except in Atlanta) and when you buy a Sweet Potato it will be both sweet and a potato.

Not that I haven't been to or spent time in "The North" before, but a solid week's time to live among "Them" was a little different than my previous forays into the region. For one thing, I was the only person in the house who was born south of the Mason-Dixon line. Well, except for Uncle Luis who was born in Cuba, and my littlest brother-in-law who was born in Japan. Close enough, though. Jerseyans in large groups of fellow Jerseyans are not the same as those encountered singly while in the company of fellow Southerners. No, they are a breed unto themselves. For one thing, some of them really do believe that little baby chickens stay cute and yellow. How funny.

[Oh, minor digression: I'm talking about the Jersey within sight of New York City and the vicinity. Like, industrial and urban Jersey. The part of the state where they only say "Jersey." In the rest of the state, especially away from the coast, there are normal people who farm real farms and use all of the hard consonants provided by the English tongue for our enjoyment. It's a pretty state, and don't think I'm lumping it all into one giant borough of the Big Apple.]

Also, no matter what you're told by the media, "They" do not drive small cars, eat organic foods, and wear hemp in order to help the environment. We in the South, my fellow Americans, are not the only ones driving trucks and killing trees en masse. On the direct and opposite contrary. The only small cars I saw on the Shore were the ones that locals drive there year-round, meaning the ones that they don't mind ruining with sea salt corrosion. Everything new and shiny weighed at least 3800lbs and got less than 30 miles to the gallon. Escalades and Pacificae were especially prevalent. Every 6th car was a sedan or compact, and that's being generous (every 4th and 5th car was from New York and was also an SUV, and every 7th car was a police cruiser running a red light).

It was fun. The guy in the Italian bakery really did talk like the guys in Italian bakeries in movies. It was awesome!!! I loved it! I giggled myself unconscious, in fact, and we left the place with more really good food than you can shake a stick at. They really do have four-lane roads from which one may not legally turn left (one must go to the right and complete what's known as a "jug handle"). They really do never use their turn signals. They really do shop at Lacoste, Crocs, Fossil, Pottery Barn, Saks, and Bloomingdale's.

I can't wait for next summer. :D

Santa Claus is Comin' to Town

Someone I admire has written an interesting piece about, in a nutshell anyway, how telling the truth to children is better than "protecting" them with a lie. I agree with everything she said pretty much wholesale. (I'd caveat my agreement on a couple small points, but the principle of the thing is solid. No lying to kiddies, or else the boogie man will come out and eat me.)

However, she's got me thinking on this fine muggy morning about this whole "truth to children" thing, in the wide context of all the peeps I know and their varying opinions on the subject. The ready example is Santa Claus--ought we or ought not we lead children to "believe" in Santa? A very old friend staunchly insists that to do so is tantamount to mortal sin, is a grave lie, will damage forever the little child's ability to trust adults, and those who do so ought only suffer by riding the buffer of Parliamentary trains. His children have never even heard the name--Santa has about the same household standing as Eminem: should he come up in conversation via something the children hear outside the home, he is dismissed as "Oh, he is a bad person that we do not talk about." And this, I sincerely hope, is the outer limit of anti-Santa in the world. Personally, I think it's a bit much. After all, one could always thoughtfully reintroduce the history of where "Saint 'Claus" came from in the first place.

I feel a need to digress at this point, though. First of all, are there those of you in the world who really and truly believed with all their hearts, after reaching the age of reason, that Santa Claus did in fact exist and came down every chimney on Earth every Christmas Eve? Perhaps my whole take on this subject is skewed, because I was never one of those children. We had Santa, we knew he was "coming," there is amusing video evidence of my disappointment that he "had to use the front door" for a particularly large doll house one Christmas. (I was skeptical, too, because I knew how careful we were to never let any strangers have our keys.) But I was four.

I have a convenient break in my childhood memory between "before the age of reason" and "after the age of reason," as my family moved when I was six years old. Post-Move Jen did not have any idea that Santa was really really real. She never felt that all adult humanity had led her gravely astray by telling her that he existed in the first place. He has been a character of fiction for as long as I can honestly remember. We watched the old claymation movies, we sang Santa songs, when my sister was a very wee thing we did the milk and cookies thing one year--but I drank the milk and my brother ate a cookie, to help preserve the illusion. By the time she was five for six, my sister certainly knew that there was no Santa of the flesh-and-bones variety. For once thing, with a birthday falling less than 30 days from December 25th, she learned the hard way about "this is your birthday and your Christmas present." Perhaps my whole stance is based on the fact that my parents were so seamlessly able to give us both the fun of the popular icon along with the reality that he isn't real, that I'm just a little dismissive of those who have such a stinkin' hard time reconciling the two. And I'm done digressing.

The larger question of telling chilren the truth is not confined to Santa Claus, though, and I know this. Similar fictional characters, likewise, are not really the limit of the issue. The tooth fairy, Easter bunny, cupid, Father Time, and all the rest are just imagery. But do we "believe" in imagery (of the secular sort!!!)? Does Uncle Sam have to appear in the parade for July 4th to be complete? If I find out he isn't real, will all my future celebrations of our country's birthday be void and empty? This goes back to the Santa-after-sixth-birthday thing--I never really did believe he existed, at least not past the time when I also believe that the tub drain would suck me underground and Big Bird was actually a bird and not a person in a suit. If I had, my parents would have done me a disservice, and I suppose that's what is at stake. To put one's children in a position where will have such a strong belief in something that they are truly shaken to find it is not so, well, that is a crime indeed.

And I'm out of brain cells for the morning. More on this later, if I remember I was thinking about it.

p.s. For the record, there are Santa books on my shelf and they shall be read aloud with gusto every Christmas.

Happy Birthday!

It's my darling-baby-buggy-bumper-boo's birthday!!

Since I'm pretty sure he doesn't read the blog, I feel fairly safe about putting up a photo and some goopy tributary nonsense. He's done things to me on my birthday (or whatever other day he feels like it), so this is my shot. After all, revenge is a dish best served online.

The Pot Hath Been Stirred

I love how my wonderful husband has gone and put up something on Facebook meant for me--meant to sooth the savage incubator in her hour of teary need--and has stood by it tooth and nail, philosophically and theologically, historically and categorically, instead of going, "Oh, for pete's sake, people, get a life. I was just trying to make my wife feel better. Get off my back!"

:D

This makes my heart smile. Love is beautiful!

Incidentally, the comment has elicited the typical broad-ranging response to be expected from our nimbus of friends. However, rather a Franciscan mentality prevails, which is what brought me to my afore-mentioned state to begin with. [The previous sentence ends with a preposition.] Am I a bad person, I asked him last night, to not buy cribs and car seats at yard sales? Am I a materialistic and snobby human being to feel that certain things are best paid for at market value? That something new for your most precious possession is something worth buying? I cry, I fret, I sniffle.

He assures me, he pats my had (via phone), and says that I am not a bad person. First of all, he made the excellent observation that very little of this "new" stuff is stuff I'm actually shelling out the dough for. [The previous sentence also ends with a preposition.] On the contrary, my more or less affluent extended family is shelling out their democratic cash to pay for it. Lord and Master has a point ("Let them loose, I say! Onward!"). Second of all, he made the also excellent observation that paying little for something does not mean getting a good deal. We have furniture in this house, at this very moment, that breathes a fiery example of this truism every time I walk into the living room. What we paid little for is headed out the door, in fact, as soon as I can find a way to cheaply get it movng in that direction. In might even cost us more to dispose of our "great deal" than it cost us in the first place. Alas, what looks good on first sight may hide terrible faults!

Thus assured by Joseph, I slept well last night, and was greeted today by his little Facebook gift, along with the Franciscan onslaught that ensued. Not sure about how sleeping is going to go tonight, but I'll endeavor to put them from my head all the same. After all, I have my own ways of being thrifty, of being careful, of being thoughtful with what kind of material environment my child will enjoy. For someone who has spent 4 of her last 12 months of married life alone, I'd say knowing what things are really important in life is a fairly easy knowledge base to acquire.

And I'll tell you, money is not one of those things. Neither, to be quite frank, is penny-pinching. There is nothing I have willingly parted with in this world that God has not returned to me tenfold. An investment can be made in people, whatever the "cost."

Time Travel

Too bad it doesn't work...I'd fast forward to August.

Anyway, back in NC at long last, after enjoying a fun week with family. Unfortunately, being "home & relaxed" means I have all kinds of duties and projects staring me in the face--duties and projects that ought to have been done months ago. Spent yesterday fixing all the books upstairs, at least as far as categorization goes. The literature is easy to alphabetize and deserves more attention. The political-historical-tactical-reference books, on the other hand, are a little tougher to cubbyhole.

Sigh. And I really should unpack these last three boxes. And finish the books I'm reading. And finish all 8 sewing projects.

Trippin'

Posting this afternoon from the USO lounge at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. Nice place! I feel a little out of place without my ACUs and attention-grabbing tactical American Flag Patch, but what the heck. I got Reeses to drink a little water, which was such a big accomplishment that I don't mind being the only pregnant woman with teal shoes in the USO.

So, yesterday's flight plans didn't work out too well. Arrived at the airport at 0945, 1.5 hours before my scheduled departure. Checked in, paid my pet fees, all is good. Our airplane has not arrived. Joseph observes at about 1010 "Your plane should be getting here by now." His combat hunter is finely tuned and (surprise, surprise) correct. The plane should have arrived about 1015, but failed to do so. Not only that, but the plane failed to even depart Dallas by 1010. Instead, it chose to undergo a series of heat-related maintenance delays before finally taking off from Dallas at 1120.

The security checkpoint was opened to passengers at 1200. A very tearful me and a very frightened Reeses made it through security without trouble, me ending with considerably more fur than when I started, and she with considerably less. All is well. The flight crew of our plane had totally deplaned to use the "real" bathroom--they'd been sitting on the tarmac in Dallas for quite a time--and we waited until they returned before we boarded. We boarded. I sat in the second-to-last row, aisle seat, next to a niceish gentleman who was flying to Anchorage.

It is 93 degrees and rising outside. The temperature inside the cabin remains currently classified. We wait and wait, until finally we've been given our safety features brief and all is set to go. Then, suddenly, like in a movie, the phone bell rings for the flight attendant to pick up, about the same time a person (no kidding) starts knocking on the cabin door from the outside.

[Now, I can't tell you exactly what sort of aircraft I was flying it. It's a twin engine turboprop commuter, and the cabin door is at the rear of the plane. Therefore, me in the back rows sitting on the aisle can enjoy the fulll range of emotion going on at the door.]

The door opens. The guy from the desk (he's also the guy with the chocks and the baggage train) explains the trouble to the flight attendant. He was a nice young man with a well modulated voice. She was also nice, but neither young, nor male, nor in possession of a well-modulated voice. So I hear:

"pssspspspsps"
"You've got to be kidding me!!"
"haaamsmsmsspssppsppssssspssssss"
"Seriously?"
"spspsspsps"
"Well, you go tell her, I'm not gonna tell her, it wasn't my fault!"
"I can'tspspsppppspspcauseospsppss. Okay?"
"[deleted]"

Then Modulated Voice moves away from the door, back down the steps, and Flight Attendant comes over the speaker. "Miss [Passenger]?? Please raise your hand." Now, here's where we knew something was fishy--the hand goes up immediately and the chick goes ahead to start gathering her stuff before Flight Attendant gets to her. Conversation ensues, Passenger disbarks. Passenger is heard telling Flight Attendant that she had bags checked (planeside) aboard the flight. This is bad news, because it means the engines have to be compeltely throttled back so that the ground crew can open the baggage compartment, which sits just forward of the left engine.

Sooo, 20 minutes into our stay on the tarmac (temperature still rising), Passenger and bags begin their exit. Turns out, she was flying standby and shouldn't have been approved but was anyway and no one wanted to flame their own butt for the mistake so they were flaming everyone elses'. End of story: passenger and bags exit.

Now its, what, 1240 and the temperature has to be close to 100. The cabin door is shut, and the phone bell rings a couple more times. Flight Attendant explains to Silent Flight Attendant that there's a problem with the weight/cargo ratio calculations, and the Captain didn't like the numbers and was redoing the whole equation before Captain was willing to take off. This takes another 20 minutes. 1300, and Captain says in a very professionally exhausted tone, "Sorry for the delay. We have had to make adjustments for the heat. Performance on this aircraft is no longer capable of supporting the original weight we took on board. We've elected to keep all our passengers [!] and offload a portion of the cargo. It will follow us to Dallas on the next flight."

Another 20 minutes of bumping whilst cargo is offloaded. Reeses has started to show strong signs of distress. She's panting, listless, etc. I start waving the safety briefing card at her (useless) and hoping they'll come by with some water. They, do, eventually, and I get it in and get some of the water on to her face (mostly useless). I'm now bothered by the idea of arriving in Dallas with a dead cat. What a buzz kill, right? Thankfully, about the time I'm really starting to worry, they finish their calculating and get us to the end of the runway. Huzzah! So, at 1320 (one hour in the non-ventilated plane at this point) we've progessed 500 yards.

A pause. Hearts sink. After about 2 minutes of sitting, Captain says in her tired professional tone, "We're still taking off heavy, need to lose about 150 gallons of fuel. That takes 8.2 minutes and then we're outta here." She is right-- 8.2 minutes later we head down the runway. Unfortunately, 8.9 minutes from the original announcement, we stop heading anywhere in particular and instead get to feel what an aborted takeoff feels like.

Engine #2 overheated on throttle up, it appeared, and so Captain took us all back to the terminal and told us to get off. "This is just silly," she was thinking. She'd already done this once today. So, we all get off and relive multiple times the feeling of suddenly getting to the point where, normally, the plane would have lifted from the ground, but instead the counter-forward-motion measures had been quickly applied and we did a number of things other than lift. The first, of course, was a slowing down. The second was a rapid series of side-to-side motions which gave fright to myself, Critter, and Reeses a lot more than the unbelieveable noise that the brakes on a twin-engine turboprop commuter makes.

End of story? Joseph came back to get us, we went home, enjoyed a bonus 18 hours together, and woke up this morning to light rain and a blissful 79 degrees. Life is good.

World's Most Expensive Stroller

"The most expensive baby stroller in the world is the Dreamer Design Axiom. Available in blue or red, this is a sturdy (200 lbs.) and versatile stroller. Sporting the usual options – washable fabric, reclining seat, and storage basket, it also comes with a 20-year-warranty. It has an on-board hand and foot brake, adjustable handle, various lanyards and harnesses, and even a water bottle holder. The most expensive single baby stroller in the world for just $1,219."

-from www.newluxuryitems.com

The article is slightly off base, in that strollers for triplets (and higher multiples) can run into the three and four thousands pretty quick, but for a "put your One Kid in it" stroller, this was the winner. Sick, eh? Also, who on earth would want a 200lb. stroller?

Monday things

Well, been married a year come yesterday. That's a pretty interesting achievement, in today's world anyhow. It seems like a very long time. Like Joe said today at lunch, we've moved three times since that wedding, with a fourth time coming before Christmas. We've traveled from Philadelphia to Florida on I-95 (not missing any pieces in between!), and from the Atlantic Ocean to Oklahoma City on I-40. It's been a busy, ground-covering year. Wow.

To celebrate the day, we decided to do as little as possible. This consisted of an extreme "relaxation" afternoon at a friend's house, enjoying french toast for lunch and watching half of the first season of "Arrested Development." (Will blog about the show some other time.) Perhaps not the most edifying way to spend an anniversatry, but it did the trick as far as chilling out went. Besides, we've been celebrating the big event for a least a month, off and on, especially a couple weeks ago when we thought that we wouldn't be together for "thuh day" itself. I think it'll do.

I get to fly back East with a cat on Saturday. The drama is worth sparing, but Reese and I will travel with many prayers and milagros about our persons, in hopes that no snitty passengers notice my dander-bearing companion and raise a stink. The Airline is on my side, but that isn't saying a whole heap of a lot. We arrive in EDT land at 9pm on Saturday, and have to hop in the car Sunday morning to return home. In the meantime, my Mr. Kitty will have been retrieved. If they don't each know what the other smells like by the beginning of the trip, they will by the end. Thank goodness poor Elizabeth will be along for the ride, for referee purposes if nothing else.

Speaking of minor land wars, another member of the Class of '08 has fallen into the military pit. Dave heads out to Navy something (OCS? Boot?) on Sunday, oily oily in the morning. This makes 5 grads out of 97, so just over 5% so far...we're also working on a couple more prospects who don't [yet] want to give up a steady diet and air conditioning in order to serve their country. Disappointingly, two non-cool (just kidding) classmates were unable to muster what it took to survive the Corps' OCS last summer/fall, or we would have been well on our way to 10% by now. Still, we're pretty sure that 5% is a fairly high number, judging from school history. Even more impressive is the whopping 2% of the class that has committed itself just to foreign languague studies with the US Navy. Now, if we can just get some more of those bums working in bars around DC to pack up their butts and get a real life...

Too funny

In light of my last post, I suppose, all the google ads on my publish page were for ethernet cable, patch cords, and flea medicine.

Chicken Fried Cat

So, Reeses the cat (that's her, lounging upon my increasingly cushy stomach) is reaching new heights in her quest to die young. Power cables are now the foe--chewing through them is her game.

Fortunately, the only ones she's had a go at have either been (a) unplugged or (b) ethernet cables and therefore not carrying any voltage. She severed her second ethernet cord in a week this morning. Of course, you know, this means war.

Unlike the "real" power cords, which are in plain sight (and now unplugged for cat's safety), the internet port is way up underneath the bed, so the edible ends are out of my usual reach. This means that little Reeses can dedicate the necessary hours to chewing her way through the cable before I catch her. That is, before the internet goes off for no apparent reason. Thus I shopped today for the hottest pepper I could find. Thanks be to diversity, the Commissary was carrying habenero peppers today (at a whopping $10.00 a pound!!!). I got two of the little suckers, anda hazmat suit for Joe. He gets to cut one up and rub it on the ethernet cable when he gets home. I shall spend no more moneys on cat snacks in the form of computer cables.

Next step is to do all the regular power cords, too, but for now they just get put away whenever I'm not watching over them. Stupid cat.

I, Pharisee

There really ought to be a way to proofread one's posts. On paper, or something...I never see the boo-boos until they've been published a week or longer. At that point, I feel like anyone who's got good sense has already seen the boo-boos and written me off for the write-off that I am. Part of my problem, though, is a simple physical inability to press the proper key. My IQ (as mentioned before?) has been hijacked by some small being inside me. I'm getting dumber by the week.

Terminator: Slavation

I spelled it that way on purpose. Since the first time I saw a commercial or walked by a poster, I've only been able to read the word that way. Sorry.

Still, there's a vague kind of irony in calling it "Slavation" if you spend time around people who are, indeed, slaves to the culture of going to see movies. Good movies, bad movies, fair-to-middlin' movies all get their share of eyeball time from a certain group of people, simply because they want to see it. Maybe because they've "always" gone to see movies on opening night, and they feel honor bound to continue the tradition. Maybe because "everyone else" is going. Maybe not.

How come this thing happen? How come? Why don't they only go to see movies that are good, that they've checked into beforehand, that they really feel will add something to life? I mean, I've seen my share of lemons in the last 20 years, but they've been rented or borrowed or otherwise cheaply obtained--I don't pay $20 to take myself on a date ($40 if we eat something) in order to walk out two hours later and so, "Well, that was a waste of time."

How come this happen?