I'm not sure if this story qualifies as comedy or tragedy, but here goes: I love my new apartment. It is, on the inside, a delightful sanctuary! Everything is new and lovely... the floors, carpet, paint, appliances, etc. The morning sun shines through my bedroom window, and the afternoon/evening sun washes through the living and dining room, warms my patio, and even reaches into the kitchen.
In my last 2 nights at my boyfriend's house before moving, I went through a terrible experience that you may be familiar with (many people are). Somewhere in the house, somewhere in that 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom house with garage, a smoke detector was chirping. You know, when the battery is slowly dying, and you get a high-pitched jolt of brain-lightning at unpredictably random intervals? Yeah, that. At night, it really fucks with you. It blasts you annoyingly from your sleep, and you think "that was unfortunate," as you rest your head back onto the pillow and drift back to sleep. No sooner do you slip back out of consciousness than it signals another screech of doom. You quickly realize that this is not something you can ignore (or sleep through), and the battle is on.
On the first night, I simply laid awake in bed from 4:00 am on, thinking about something I needed to do for work the next day. On the second night, I knew my sanity was fully at stake. So I start working my way through the house (again around 4:00 am), trying to identify the location source of the enemy sound, and lobotomizing about 85% of the smoke detectors in the house, feeling pretty confident about my victory before returning to bed. 5:17 am: BEEP!!!!!!! Fuck. Finally, it occurred to me which one I had missed, and that the location almost certainly aligned with the source of noise-dread. Armed with a plastic chair and nimble fingers, I yanked the suffering 9 volt from it's vocal plastic sheath, and smiled.
The next day, I moved into the new apartment with more than just a general sense of relief; I was thoroughly delighted at the idea of living alone again, reigning supreme in my own space. As I was hauling my belongings up to my 3rd floor penthouse suite, I kept hearing a repeating noise from the apartment on the 2nd floor, just below mine: the "chirp" of a dying smoke detector battery. Seriously. I'm not clever enough to make this shit up. It's not quite enough to rouse me from my sleep, but that sound is my Great Dane's only true nemesis. 3 days later, the sound is increasing in frequency and volume, as the battery tries harder to make it's impending doom known to the residents (who must be deaf or already insane?) of that apartment. "Your safety is in danger!" yells the smoke detector. "A few more days, and your children could burn at night, and I ain't even gonna tell you about it," it taunts. By lunch time today, Bentley (my dog) was so paralyzed with fear that he couldn't even greet me at the door. He just stood in the center of my bed, panic-stricken, trembling, and looking to me for guidance. I think on the way home, I may pick up a 9 volt battery, and leave it on their doorstep with a friendly note. I have concerns, though, that these apartments may have "safety-locked" smoke detectors to prevent residents from having the ability to remove the batteries, seeing as each apartment has a fireplace. With Bentley's age and propensity for heart problems, I doubt he will live to the weekend without a resolution.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
A Bear Ate My Pigs
In my current state of adulthood, I feel fortunate in having had the unique childhood experiences that I had. Back then, of course, I knew no other existence, and presumed that my life was normal.
Right around the voraciously formative age of 4, my family (mom, dad, big sister and myself at that time) moved from our comfortable small-town Ohio home into the wilderness of Northern Vermont. Allow me to define this wilderness: A vast and thickly forested portion of the state, just brushing fingertips with Canada, in a relatively unpopulated area known as the Northeast Kingdom. Holland, Vermont was where my parents chose for us to call home. I'm not sure I'd call it a town... perhaps a village? Empty miles of unnamed dirt roads stretched between homes, and a tiny schoolhouse held all of the maybe 50 total children from kindergarten through 8th grade. 2 entire grade levels shared each classroom (and each teacher), and a cook prepared homemade food for all daily. One of my fondest memories from Holland Elementary School was ice-skating at recess. We would rush to the box of skates in the hallway, finding a pair that fit, and clamber across the snow-covered playground on bladed feet to the skating rink. I believe in today's society this practice would be known as a "lawsuit waiting to happen."
So here we are in the wilderness. Did we buy a house and get quickly settled in? No. No we didn't. We bought land. Upon this land, my adventurous parents pitched a camping tent, and in that camping tent my family of four lived for several months as Dear Old Mom & Dad built a house. Note, they did not have a house built. They built a house themselves, from basement to rooftop, with hammers, nails, and the help of a few neighbors. My sister and I would use scraps of the lumber to build high-chairs for our dolls, in which we would "feed" them any sort of edible or inedible berries we could find nearby. Choke cherries were a favorite, and to this day I can conjure up that acidic bitter-tart taste in my mind.
We had no electricity in the tent. No running water. For drinking water, we would carry empty gallon jugs about 1/2 mile down the road to fill from a neighbor's outdoor spigot. Bathing happened in Seymour Lake, with Ivory soap of course (it floats!). A makeshift toilet was constructed far behind the tent with a toilet seat on a board with a hole in it situated over a hole in the ground. There was a time or two when a curious bear would approach the tent at night, and my parents would somehow manage to convince us children that there was absolutely no reason to be scared, while they themselves must have been bordering on heart attacks.
Just before the cold months of Winter arrived, the house was finished (enough to live in, anyway). Winter storms would easily deposit as much as 6 feet of snow over the property, leaving only a suggestion of where the car might be in the driveway, or how tall the trees might truly be with only the top portion poking up through the whitened world. My sister and I mastered the art of building perfect snow forts, and we also became expert tree-climbers. Our "back yard" contained a brook (great for catching trout with Dad), a beaver dam, a field that was always thick with dandelions in the Summer, rows of apple trees (perfect for Mom's pies), and tall Maples tapped with galvanized buckets for the syrup our neighbors made. Vegetables were grown in the garden, and canned for the cold months. Friends and neighbors who grew various varieties of produce would naturally share, and help each other with harvesting and canning. Meat was either raised at home, hunted in the woods, or butchered on a local farm. Milk came from cows, butter was churned, eggs were retrieved every morning from the chicken coupe (which replaced the tent after the house was built). We eventually built a pig pen and kept 2 pigs, as well.
The chickens and pigs were a real pain for a kid like me. Every morning before school, I had to go to the chicken coupe and retrieve the nasty, poop-covered food and water dispensers, bring them into the house, clean them, and replenish them with fresh water and chicken feed, all the while being brutally pecked at by the vicious little hens. When it was time for a chicken slaughter, several families would gather at one property, set up croquet in the yard, chop the heads off (they really do run around with no head until they die), and then the children had the unpleasant task of plucking out all the feathers while the birds hung from a post, dripping blood from their necks.
For the pigs, we kept a slop bucket beneath the kitchen sink. All plate scraps from every meal were scraped into the bucket, and each morning, the plate scraps were combined with a grain mixture and water, creating... slop. This heavy bucket of slop had to be carried out to the pig pen, hoisted over the fence, and dumped into the pigs' feeding trough. Unfortunately, pigs are not the brightest creatures, and would never cease to position their heads over the trough in anticipation, thus forcing us to dump the slop directly onto their heads with every feeding. These were only some of my morning chores, which also extended to such tasks as carrying in loads of freshly-chopped firewood for the wood-stove that heated our house.
It was a very bizarre event for me to arrive home on the school bus one day to find a professional-looking stranger at our home talking with my parents. After their discussions were finalized, it was revealed to me that a large bear had defeated the fence of our pig pen, and had eaten both pigs. The stranger was an insurance man, gathering information and measuring the size of the bear tracks to verify that the accused bear was indeed large enough to have consumed 2 pigs. It was. We were reimbursed for the value of the 2 pigs, and replaced them in short order. We also followed the advice to install an electric wire around the pig pen fence to prevent such an occurrence in the future. Eventually, we were able to eat the 2 replacement pigs ourselves, thanks to having "a bear ate my pigs" insurance coverage.
The end.
So here we are in the wilderness. Did we buy a house and get quickly settled in? No. No we didn't. We bought land. Upon this land, my adventurous parents pitched a camping tent, and in that camping tent my family of four lived for several months as Dear Old Mom & Dad built a house. Note, they did not have a house built. They built a house themselves, from basement to rooftop, with hammers, nails, and the help of a few neighbors. My sister and I would use scraps of the lumber to build high-chairs for our dolls, in which we would "feed" them any sort of edible or inedible berries we could find nearby. Choke cherries were a favorite, and to this day I can conjure up that acidic bitter-tart taste in my mind.
We had no electricity in the tent. No running water. For drinking water, we would carry empty gallon jugs about 1/2 mile down the road to fill from a neighbor's outdoor spigot. Bathing happened in Seymour Lake, with Ivory soap of course (it floats!). A makeshift toilet was constructed far behind the tent with a toilet seat on a board with a hole in it situated over a hole in the ground. There was a time or two when a curious bear would approach the tent at night, and my parents would somehow manage to convince us children that there was absolutely no reason to be scared, while they themselves must have been bordering on heart attacks.
Just before the cold months of Winter arrived, the house was finished (enough to live in, anyway). Winter storms would easily deposit as much as 6 feet of snow over the property, leaving only a suggestion of where the car might be in the driveway, or how tall the trees might truly be with only the top portion poking up through the whitened world. My sister and I mastered the art of building perfect snow forts, and we also became expert tree-climbers. Our "back yard" contained a brook (great for catching trout with Dad), a beaver dam, a field that was always thick with dandelions in the Summer, rows of apple trees (perfect for Mom's pies), and tall Maples tapped with galvanized buckets for the syrup our neighbors made. Vegetables were grown in the garden, and canned for the cold months. Friends and neighbors who grew various varieties of produce would naturally share, and help each other with harvesting and canning. Meat was either raised at home, hunted in the woods, or butchered on a local farm. Milk came from cows, butter was churned, eggs were retrieved every morning from the chicken coupe (which replaced the tent after the house was built). We eventually built a pig pen and kept 2 pigs, as well.
The chickens and pigs were a real pain for a kid like me. Every morning before school, I had to go to the chicken coupe and retrieve the nasty, poop-covered food and water dispensers, bring them into the house, clean them, and replenish them with fresh water and chicken feed, all the while being brutally pecked at by the vicious little hens. When it was time for a chicken slaughter, several families would gather at one property, set up croquet in the yard, chop the heads off (they really do run around with no head until they die), and then the children had the unpleasant task of plucking out all the feathers while the birds hung from a post, dripping blood from their necks.
For the pigs, we kept a slop bucket beneath the kitchen sink. All plate scraps from every meal were scraped into the bucket, and each morning, the plate scraps were combined with a grain mixture and water, creating... slop. This heavy bucket of slop had to be carried out to the pig pen, hoisted over the fence, and dumped into the pigs' feeding trough. Unfortunately, pigs are not the brightest creatures, and would never cease to position their heads over the trough in anticipation, thus forcing us to dump the slop directly onto their heads with every feeding. These were only some of my morning chores, which also extended to such tasks as carrying in loads of freshly-chopped firewood for the wood-stove that heated our house.
It was a very bizarre event for me to arrive home on the school bus one day to find a professional-looking stranger at our home talking with my parents. After their discussions were finalized, it was revealed to me that a large bear had defeated the fence of our pig pen, and had eaten both pigs. The stranger was an insurance man, gathering information and measuring the size of the bear tracks to verify that the accused bear was indeed large enough to have consumed 2 pigs. It was. We were reimbursed for the value of the 2 pigs, and replaced them in short order. We also followed the advice to install an electric wire around the pig pen fence to prevent such an occurrence in the future. Eventually, we were able to eat the 2 replacement pigs ourselves, thanks to having "a bear ate my pigs" insurance coverage.
The end.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
A Warm and Toasty Christmas Story
I hadn't truly acknowledged, celebrated, or enjoyed a Christmas for the past several years. This wasn't a conscious decision, or due to any unpleasant feelings toward Christmas, or bad associations. I guess I can only attribute my lack of participation to laziness, and not really having my whole family around. My family is rather loose when it comes to traditions, and if my mother was working a shift at the hospital, Dad and I would be equally content to stay at our separate homes by ourselves, eat whatever, maybe watch a movie... just relax and enjoy an extra day off. In 2009, I had just moved up here to Seattle 4 days before Christmas, so I had a legitimate excuse to ignore the holiday that time. I hadn't unpacked my Christmas decor, nor did I know anyone at all in my new town with whom I could acknowledge Christmas. I did cook myself a nice meal, though.
Anyway, this all changed in 2010, and I embraced the Winter holiday in full force (albeit at the very last minute!). Again, I had just moved, this time into my boyfriend's house, and just one month before Christmas. We were still in the throes of creating order and space in a house that was now bulging at the seams with our combined "necessities." Putting some festive lights in the windows was easy enough, and about a week before Christmas, we finally got a tree, decorated it, and hung our stockings by the 50" plasma with care. With my boyfriend's family being local, and my own brother and sister-in-law now living in town, there was no escaping the standard flurry of traditions, meals, gift-giving, drinking, more meals, carol-singing, more gifts, and so on. Game on, Christmas! I was ready to re-enter the world of Jack Frost and sleigh bells after my long hiatus.
Christmas Eve was a fun day of festivities with my boyfriend's family, and after a mandatory gift exchange with that group on Christmas day, we rushed home to prepare for a dinner at our house with my brother and his wife. The meal was great, and the wine was flowing as we talked and laughed into the evening. At some point, we were discussing a next door neighbor, and decided we should invite her over. We called, and a house-sitter answered the phone. In the spirit of Christmas, we invited this complete stranger to come on over for a glass of wine, and to our surprise, 3 complete strangers were at our door within moments. They proved to be very pleasant company, and jumped right into conversations and more laughter with us.
Then it happened. The cat decided to walk across the short wall overlooking our stairwell, and rather than completing its journey, he stopped, and sat.
On a candle. A lit candle. Seriously... the cat sat right on the flame of a lit candle, but I was the only one in the room to observe this action. Lost for words, I started stuttering incoherent syllables and waving my hands around in panic. Finally, my brother who was standing nearest the cat became aware of the smoke rising from the creature, and sort of ushered him off the candle-filled perch, and patted him down a bit, somehow putting out the smoldering fur.
Then the smell hit. It filled the room with a choking offensiveness, eliciting scrunched up facial expressions of horror, and unadulterated groans of displeasure. In short order, the cat was toweled off to remove the singed fur (he turned out to be completely unharmed, aside from the loss of fur on his hind-quarters and tail), the room was sprayed with air freshener, and scented candles were lit. Before long, everything was back to normal, and eventually the guests made their exit, and Christmas was over.
This past Christmas of 2010, while filled with many fond and lasting memories, will certainly be remembered most for one particular event. This was The Christmas When The Cat Caught On Fire.
Anyway, this all changed in 2010, and I embraced the Winter holiday in full force (albeit at the very last minute!). Again, I had just moved, this time into my boyfriend's house, and just one month before Christmas. We were still in the throes of creating order and space in a house that was now bulging at the seams with our combined "necessities." Putting some festive lights in the windows was easy enough, and about a week before Christmas, we finally got a tree, decorated it, and hung our stockings by the 50" plasma with care. With my boyfriend's family being local, and my own brother and sister-in-law now living in town, there was no escaping the standard flurry of traditions, meals, gift-giving, drinking, more meals, carol-singing, more gifts, and so on. Game on, Christmas! I was ready to re-enter the world of Jack Frost and sleigh bells after my long hiatus.
Christmas Eve was a fun day of festivities with my boyfriend's family, and after a mandatory gift exchange with that group on Christmas day, we rushed home to prepare for a dinner at our house with my brother and his wife. The meal was great, and the wine was flowing as we talked and laughed into the evening. At some point, we were discussing a next door neighbor, and decided we should invite her over. We called, and a house-sitter answered the phone. In the spirit of Christmas, we invited this complete stranger to come on over for a glass of wine, and to our surprise, 3 complete strangers were at our door within moments. They proved to be very pleasant company, and jumped right into conversations and more laughter with us.
Then it happened. The cat decided to walk across the short wall overlooking our stairwell, and rather than completing its journey, he stopped, and sat.
On a candle. A lit candle. Seriously... the cat sat right on the flame of a lit candle, but I was the only one in the room to observe this action. Lost for words, I started stuttering incoherent syllables and waving my hands around in panic. Finally, my brother who was standing nearest the cat became aware of the smoke rising from the creature, and sort of ushered him off the candle-filled perch, and patted him down a bit, somehow putting out the smoldering fur.
Then the smell hit. It filled the room with a choking offensiveness, eliciting scrunched up facial expressions of horror, and unadulterated groans of displeasure. In short order, the cat was toweled off to remove the singed fur (he turned out to be completely unharmed, aside from the loss of fur on his hind-quarters and tail), the room was sprayed with air freshener, and scented candles were lit. Before long, everything was back to normal, and eventually the guests made their exit, and Christmas was over.
This past Christmas of 2010, while filled with many fond and lasting memories, will certainly be remembered most for one particular event. This was The Christmas When The Cat Caught On Fire.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Kidnapped by a Carnie
I don't go on Ferris wheels anymore.
Innocently, one would not think about how much trust they are putting in another person when they climb aboard this ever-popular carnival ride. There is only one person who decides whether you ever get off of the Ferris wheel, and this is the Ferris wheel operator; a "carnie."
Based on my particular experience, allow me to paint a picture for you of the typical grocery-store parking lot weekend carnival set-up: Maybe ten or so over-priced rides (which were in hundreds of pieces on semi trucks just hours before you trusted them with your life), flanked on either side by two short midways of games, undoubtedly rigged with the odds stacked against you winning a fifty-cent stuffed giraffe, even though you paid $4 to throw three balls. Peppered in between all this stimulating attraction are the standard vendors of fare that can only be considered edible when attending a carnival: tall sticks swathed in pastel-hued cotton candy, deep-fried doughy objects bigger than your head and coated in sugar, deep-fried cheese, Twinkies, candy bars... anything you can imagine has been dipped in batter and deep-fried until unrecognizable, greasy, and gooey. For some reason, this generates an all-encompassing odor spreading across 4 city blocks, which makes us think we should go to the carnival in the first place.
My friend and I (we'll call her Sara), had finished a satisfying sushi dinner at a local restaurant, and eyed the parking lot carnival upon leaving. It was decided that we should relive one of those magical moments of childhood, and go waste some money. Sara and I rode a couple of rides, thoroughly unimpressed as adults with what would have certainly blown our little minds as children. We meandered through the midways, maybe we played a game or two, but failed to take home a goldfish. We knew we were saving the best for last. Before we left, we wanted to ride the Ferris wheel, and gaze upon our modest city and the bright carnival lights from up high in a rickety, rusty basket-of-doom. Tickets were bought, and we waited patiently in line until it was our turn. The carnie running the Ferris wheel was exactly what you would expect in this environment; old and unkempt, missing several teeth, a stained and worn-out shirt unbuttoned over an equally weathered undershirt, and taking an occasional nip from a plastic cup he kept indiscreetly "hidden" at the base of his control stand. He welcomed us aboard with a suspicious chuckle.
My friend and I enjoyed the ride, slow and easy, maybe rocking the basket illegally a few times in the warm Tucson night air. We took pictures and talked and laughed. After a few times around, the ride was over, and the carnie began systematically emptying the seats. Over and over, we rhythmically jerked to a stop as another basket was emptied, and then reloaded with freshly anticipatory children and the occasional romantic adults or drunken college students. Until it was our turn. With an evil laugh and a menacing wink, the carnie throttled right on past our exit window and moved on to the next basket. "Oh well," we laughed... we were on for another ride. For free! We went back to our same antics, and enjoyed another tour of the richly-scented parking lot air. By the time this round was over, we were bored of the Ferris wheel. The childhood magic was gone. It was time to go be adults again... see what our other friends were up to, crack open some good wine, and let the evening run its course. Carnie had other plans. Once again as our turn to dismount approached, he let that wheel chug on past again, leaving us helplessly on board for round 3. It wasn't fun anymore. My friend and I began discussing the reality that the only way off of a Ferris wheel is if the operator decides to let you off. This had never occurred to us before in life, never haven previously been given more "free rides" than desired on a Ferris wheel. What if he kept us captive until the carnival closed, and we were knocked out and dragged into a trailer, only to awaken on a road to nowhere, slaves to the traveling carnival?
Okay, that last part didn't happen. But it did cross our minds. After the third go-'round, we were finally released from our over-used seats on the wheel by a clearly intoxicated carnie who relished in his small victory and flirted as we scurried away fast. So that's the night I was kidnapped by a carnie, and that's why I don't ride Ferris wheels anymore.
Innocently, one would not think about how much trust they are putting in another person when they climb aboard this ever-popular carnival ride. There is only one person who decides whether you ever get off of the Ferris wheel, and this is the Ferris wheel operator; a "carnie."
Based on my particular experience, allow me to paint a picture for you of the typical grocery-store parking lot weekend carnival set-up: Maybe ten or so over-priced rides (which were in hundreds of pieces on semi trucks just hours before you trusted them with your life), flanked on either side by two short midways of games, undoubtedly rigged with the odds stacked against you winning a fifty-cent stuffed giraffe, even though you paid $4 to throw three balls. Peppered in between all this stimulating attraction are the standard vendors of fare that can only be considered edible when attending a carnival: tall sticks swathed in pastel-hued cotton candy, deep-fried doughy objects bigger than your head and coated in sugar, deep-fried cheese, Twinkies, candy bars... anything you can imagine has been dipped in batter and deep-fried until unrecognizable, greasy, and gooey. For some reason, this generates an all-encompassing odor spreading across 4 city blocks, which makes us think we should go to the carnival in the first place.
My friend and I (we'll call her Sara), had finished a satisfying sushi dinner at a local restaurant, and eyed the parking lot carnival upon leaving. It was decided that we should relive one of those magical moments of childhood, and go waste some money. Sara and I rode a couple of rides, thoroughly unimpressed as adults with what would have certainly blown our little minds as children. We meandered through the midways, maybe we played a game or two, but failed to take home a goldfish. We knew we were saving the best for last. Before we left, we wanted to ride the Ferris wheel, and gaze upon our modest city and the bright carnival lights from up high in a rickety, rusty basket-of-doom. Tickets were bought, and we waited patiently in line until it was our turn. The carnie running the Ferris wheel was exactly what you would expect in this environment; old and unkempt, missing several teeth, a stained and worn-out shirt unbuttoned over an equally weathered undershirt, and taking an occasional nip from a plastic cup he kept indiscreetly "hidden" at the base of his control stand. He welcomed us aboard with a suspicious chuckle.
Okay, that last part didn't happen. But it did cross our minds. After the third go-'round, we were finally released from our over-used seats on the wheel by a clearly intoxicated carnie who relished in his small victory and flirted as we scurried away fast. So that's the night I was kidnapped by a carnie, and that's why I don't ride Ferris wheels anymore.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
What Are Daisy Petals?
To state the obvious, they are the petals of the daisy flower; small, white, innocent, and delicate. Often used to answer life's more perplexing questions such as, "Does he/she love me?" or "Does he/she love me not?" But none of that is relevant to this blog.
In this instance, Daisy petals are the tiny, white dog hairs shed from the coat of my French Bulldog, Daisy. My boyfriend coined the phrase one day when he looked down at his once-black sweater, now coated in white fur, and said, "I'm covered in Daisy petals!" It was perfect, and it stuck. These petals, to me, symbolize tiny little pieces of happiness, as this small bowling ball of a dog fills me with more joy than often seems rational or reasonable.
In turn, this blog is my sharing of tiny little excerpts from my life. Stories from past and present that make me smile, and might make you smile as well.
In this instance, Daisy petals are the tiny, white dog hairs shed from the coat of my French Bulldog, Daisy. My boyfriend coined the phrase one day when he looked down at his once-black sweater, now coated in white fur, and said, "I'm covered in Daisy petals!" It was perfect, and it stuck. These petals, to me, symbolize tiny little pieces of happiness, as this small bowling ball of a dog fills me with more joy than often seems rational or reasonable.
In turn, this blog is my sharing of tiny little excerpts from my life. Stories from past and present that make me smile, and might make you smile as well.
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