Water, Water Every Where

Breaking a 5 gallon jug of drinking water on your kitchen floor is not a good way to start the day.

In One Foot and Out the Other

I injured one foot last week and this week (figuratively) shot myself in the other. I don't know why or what I'm doing to myself. Maybe I just like being miserable?? Time to get my head shrunk again, I guess.

So I injured myself considerably on Wednesday and showed up for Crater Days on Friday at 5 p.m. On Saturday morning I returned at 10 for the parade and spent the whole day at Crater Days (except for a one hour break to return home to get a visor and MORE batteries for the camera). I made it home about 2 Sunday morning, then went in to the (damn good farmer food) brunch about 10 a.m. on Sunday.

After I ate I came back to my rural neighborhood and caught up with Crab who had been helping the neighbors. I sat with them and imbibed, WTF. And my foot hurt. It was probably the first time I looked at it all weekend. My foot and ankle were huge.

Evidently, it is not a good idea to spend countless hours on your feet with an injury such as this. I have tried to baby it since then and it has shrunk somewhat. The bruising has settled in my foot and makes it look like my foot is dirty. But I have washed it, honest.

Here is a pic of Felix helping me photograph my foot:

Killer

As the Ankle Turns 24 hours later

It appears that my ankle is swollen. On the advice of former Air Force Medic Captain Crab, I spent much of the day with my leg elevated. Occasionally, I applied ice packs.

I guess there was blood from the scrape, but it was not gushing blood so I dismissed it. Blood must gush to count.

I don't know what is with that weird blister, though. At first I thought it was a bulging vein ready to give birth to a blood clot that would worm its way to my heart or brain and kill me as snapped photos of Crater Days getting flooded out again. But it's just a weird blister.

I can walk so I know the ankle isn't broken. But can I stand on it for hours on end? No way. I don't know if I can even drive.

I have been reading an Augusten Burroughs book today to pass the leg elevation time. I would tell you which one but I'd have to hobble across the room to look at the title. Or Google it. But I'm too lazy to do either.

Is it normal for pain to make you tired? I'm tired and the most exercise I've done today is strap on ice packs.

I can't wait for this to turn purple and green. And for it to stop hurting.

It Runs in the Family

Over at Random Mindless Ramblings, H has commented that her klutz factor that seems to rear its ugly head at weddings. I don't need a special event to cause damage to my body. Any old ordinary day will do.

Last Monday I hurt my ring finger when installing the window air conditioner. I didn't realize it at first. Later my finger really, really hurt. Inspection revealed that the ring had cut my finger right at the base on the inside of my hand. Wow. Now I know why so many farmers are missing that particular finger and why my husband refused to wear a wedding band. My wedding band went on a chain around my neck. The finger still hurts.

But the house is cool. Well, it is COLD in the kitchen and really warm in Captain Crab's room, but hey, it evens out if you walk from one end of the house to the other.

This evening I was looking out the kitchen window and noticed that it was sprinkling, but only at the kitchen window. It is sunny and hot with nary a cloud in the sky. So I went outside to inspect the source of immaculate precipitation.

Outside my kitchen there is a big hunk of cement that used to be an entry stoop back in 1899. Now its just a big slab and a repository for shit that hides behind my house. Shit like a dog house for the yard dog that we had 10 years ago, the retractable clothes line that is broken but is going to get fixed, dammit, and my hillbilly grill.

I made the hillbilly grill out of cement blocks, bricks and the grates from a gas grill that fell apart after 3 seasons of use. It is not mortared together, but it works on the rare occassion I have enough foresight to start charcoal.

To inspect the source of the moisture I stood on one of the cement blocks on the slab. I deduced, but could not tell for sure, that the water was coming from the vent in the top of the window air conditioner. In an attempt to will the stoop closer to the air conditioner so I might inspect it better I tipped the cement block off the stoop. The block fell off the stoop and onto my leg before hitting the ground.

Ow (at first). Then -- fucking double shit ow.

No blood. Good.

Big ass dent on back of leg. Bad.

Walking is possible. Good.

Made it to house. Very good.

It took me a while to come out of my pain haze to realize I should do something sort of first-aid like. Then I remembered to apply cold. So that is what I'm doing. Sitting here with an ice pack tied to my leg. Hobbling is possible. Pictures of an ugly purple and green bruise to be posted in a few days is probable.

Ow.

Cruisin' for a Bruisin'

I am trying to dig out my house. I am in a twilight zone now, not quite at the "everything must go!" stage but in such a pickle with the mess I've created while trying to dig that I see no other way out. And no place to sleep tonight, for that matter.

And I keep finding things that throw me back a few years. Sometimes I think "why in hell did I ever keep that?" and other times I'm so absorbed in my trip down memory lane that I forget my original mission.

For example: I came across a notebook small enough to stash in a purse. In the back of it were some notations not worth keeping. I almost tossed it. BUT -- in the front was my little diary of the cruise I went on in 1999.

First of all, people, I want you to know I am not a cruise person.

Shortly before I went on this cruise I told someone who was trying to get me to fork over big bucks to go on a "class reunion" cruise that the only way I'd ever go on a cruise is if someone paid my way.

Be careful of what you don't wish for. A few days later I got a call from a friend who'd already booked a cruise for 2 and her significant other was unable to sail away with her.

Being the good friend that I am, I took her boyfriend's place, went on the cruise and recorded events in my tiny notebook.

One entry that really made me laugh was about sharing a room and one tiny hairdryer.

One afternoon we came back to the room after a long, hot day on shore and had to get ready for the early seating formal dinner.

My friend took the bathroom first, telling me "We have 40 minutes!"

Being a low maintenance girl, I wasn't worried. I laid down on my bed and rested. The next thing I knew, my immaculately groomed and coiffed friend emerged from the bathroom announcing, "We have 7 minutes!"

My entry states that she looked great at dinner and was awfully composed considering she knew I wanted to fucking kill her.

Waiting for the Storm

Waiting for the storm is something I've done twice today. The first time was this morning. I expected lightning strikes to take out my desktop while I proofed a poster that I had designed. It is being printed (and changed dramatically) by a beer distributor. Phone calls and emails had to be made, another proof looked at... Dial-up is really painful sometimes.

Another storm came through late this afternoon. The radar indicated it was bearing down on me. Weather weenie that I am, I monitor the radar constantly. When I saw this one coming, I shut down the computer and sat on the front stoop and waited for it to hit. It took it's sweet time.

I played with the snot-nosed cat (technically not mine -- like the rabbit). I picked a couple of peonies. And I took photos. The storm was short and sweet.



Waiting




Felix, the snot nosed cat




Peonies

He's Ba-ack!

A couple of springs ago the indigo buntings came and feasted with the gold finches. I had never seen an indigo bunting alive before. (there is a story of me possessing a DEAD indigo bunting but that's another story.) I was in bird heaven. They hung around for a week or so and then they were gone.

Last week I saw one again. I only saw one briefly that one day. But tonight he (or some bird like him) was back eating thistle seed. It was too dark to take a picture (or maybe I need to wash windows).

At any rate, a blast from bird heaven past:

Pity Party

Yesterday I had a pity party but no one came. So screw you. You're not invited to the next one.

Today I bought flowers and got some of them planted. I feel much better now. Party's over. You're too late. Get out.

It's All Relative

Last night I got a phone call from my sister-in-law*, La La. She and my brother, Grease, were on their way to Nearby Town B to grab a burger and some beers. So I went to meet them.

Grease and I had a good time dissing relatives we hate and lauding those we love and just plain reminiscing. But Grease has different memories than I do because (1) he is older and (2) because he has a penis. Back in the good old days the roles of the sexes were cut and dried.

He learned to tear engines apart and put them back together again under the domineering eye of my volatile father. I learned that girls shut up and do what they are told. No matter, it's decades later now. I've forgotten how to shut up and do what I am told. But Grease took his mechanical abilities and turned them into a viable business (which has since been sold).

At any rate, time flew last night. At 9:15 I thought, "I'm usually thinking about going to bed at this time." And when I got in my car to go home it was 11:30. I'm feeling it today.

I went to the bar last night totally exasperated with a client who got herself into web hosting hell AGAINST MY ADVICE. She was still siteless this morning.

Today was not good. I HATE talking on the phone and spent a good part of the day doing just that. I had "emergency" needs from another client, too, which required a trip to Big Town. I went hoping that someone would win the hosting wars while I was gone. And all I wanted to do was take a nap.

The hosting problem got solved in the middle of the afternoon. The site is up and running again and the client learned that nothing is truly "free". I am counting down the minutes until I get my nap. Hopefully, about 10 hours worth.

*I don't even know why I'm qualifying this but La La is not married to my brother. It's just easier to introduce La La as my sister-in-law. She's been with my brother a little longer than I have been married and I've been married forever.

Every Picture Tells A Story, Don't It?

Picture

Too. Much. Stuff.

(for someone who seemingly has done nothing forever)

I don't know where to start. I've packed a lot into 2 days. On Thursday I:

1. Tested the new DVD player and returned the defective DVD player.
2. Demanded the Target Associate prove the new selection worked and then bought it.
3. Drove to Home County, ate lunch with my brother, went to a garage sale and installed PhotoshopCS on my brother's computer and gave him a quick lesson.
4. Went to my folks, set up the DVD player, watched bits of Fahrenheit 9/11 and listened to bits of Johnny Cash (Mom was grooving to the tunes).
5. Helped my dad put a one-row corn planter together.
6. Went for seed corn with my dad so we could test the calibration of the planter and saw horrific crimes against the environment, nature, God, and anything that is holy.
7. Contemplated the best course of action to report said crimes.
8. Worked on planter calibration.
9. Went to Dam Town and visited with an old friend who was filling in for my Post Master sister-in-law at the Post Office.
10. Went to the dam and took photos for a potential job.
11. Went to my sister-in-laws and helped her clean/sort/throw the remnants of her dead brother's life and drank some beer.
12. Bought a beat-up coffee table from sister-in-law's dead brother and stuffed it into the back seat of my Subaru.
13. Made it home safely.

Friday:
1. Checked emails and blogs, dinked around on computer.
2. Unloaded coffe table from car.
3. Drove to Ames on the fucking interstate.
4. Parked blocks and blocks away from Beyer Hall, as per advice received from H.
5. Walked a long fucking way to Beyer Hall.
6. Got to Beyer Hall too late to see my sister-in-law (hubby's side of the family) compete in her first competition at Special Olympics where she got a silver medal.
7. Went to lunch with the hubby's family (and H, of course)
8. Went back to ISU campus where H and I wandered around.
9. Saw an art exhibition that was open for Alumni Days. The exhibit we wanted to see wasn't open til later.
10. Hiked around the campus some more and went back to Beyer Hall.
11. Sat with hubby's fam who had saved good seats.
12. Waited for sister-in-law's race and tried to fight off vertigo from sitting on a narrow seat on a vertical surface overlooking the pool.
13. Waited for race and tried to avoid the clanging in my head from the reverberating noise and ignore the vertigo and ignore the kid who was climbing over the seats and kicking me constantly.
14. Made friends with the woman sitting next to me and cheered for her teams while waiting for one race.
15. Saw sister-in-law win!
16. Went to the winner's platform with H and took pictures of our gold medalist.
17. H and I bolted from the fam and went hiked to catch the exhibit that was closed earlier.
18. Exihibit not what we expected.
19. Hiked to H's car and went to Reiman Gardens.
20. OMG. Wonderful. Experience. The butterfly garden was incredible. Everything was so beautiful and the good stuff isn't even in bloom!
21. H took me back to my car which had not been stolen or vandalized.
22. Took the scenic route home to shake the city and interstate traffic off me. (E18!)

Today:
Got out of my jammies about noon, filled bird feeders, got the mail, contiued contemplating reporting crimes, worked on a logo and that's enough. I'm pooped.

Happy Mother's Day

This lamb was born in our pasture on Mother's Day. In this picture he is just a few hours old (he's much cuter now especially with the white tip on his soon to be whacked off tail) O.K., he was born the day after Mother's Day. Close enough. O.K., he wasn't born so much as he was pulled from the womb by his observant owner who happened to be driving by and saw the ewe in distress, thrashing wildly in her pain.

I had no idea this had occurred until I went out and saw a new lamb. Cool! No muss, no fuss on my part. I've been arm deep in sheep midwifery before and like goat raising, those days are behind me. Thank God. But there is nothing cuter than a little lamb hopping and bopping in the grass. So I'm glad the sheep and lambs are there and also glad they are not mine.

As for human mothers, I managed to remember Mother's Day and procured appropriate gifts (mother & mother-in-law) well in advance, which was quite remarkable for me. It's hard to find gifts for people who have tons of junk already. Plus the fact I remembered it was Mother's Day. Woot.

I went to visit my mother last Friday and brought her gift. I was excited to give her something that I thought she would use and thought she would like. It was a DVD player. Just a little, inexpensive one.

Oh, you shouldn't have, oh, pj, oh, oh. She seemed happy. I was thrilled that I made her happy. Until I couldn't get the damn thing to work. I had her all primed to watch the Michael Moore Fahrenheit 911 DVD and nothing, but nothing made the player play. I even took the player into my brother's house in town thinking HE WOULD MAKE IT WORK. But it never happened.

So I picked up a Pasquales pizza and went back to my folks and we ate the best pizza in the world. I left my folks with my car full of stuff, including the defective product which went back to WalMart today. WalMart sucks!

WalMart took the thing back without even looking in the box. WTF?? When I purchased it, I got the alarms and the shake-down at the door when I was leaving. But when I return it they don't even look to see if the box is filled with faucet parts from my junk drawer??

I took my money and ran to Target and got a replacement. I will test it first, then if it works I will take it to Mom. Then mother's day will be happy.

Rocks

Life above the crater rocks. Not really, it's just hype. Once in a while a little town has to let down its hair. Crater days is coming and I've been working on it in my fashion.

Bird Watching

Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between birds fighting and birds mating.

People Watching (bartender's perspective) :
Reminds me of bird watching.

Morning Mist

Around the May Pole

Happy May Day. Sorry I didn't make you a May basket.

I'm running out of steam. I just finished one project and have a magazine left to do, countless chapters to read and papers to write. Next week - finals.

The project I just finished is for an instructor I detest. Maybe it's jealousy. She's pulling down a good salary and has great bennies and she doesn't know squat about any of the subjects she teaches. I like her as a person, I really do. She just has no business being in front of the classroom.

So why do I give a shit? I don't want to mess up my four point oh this close to the finish line.

Back to the project -- Thanks to H and Hulles, but damn, people, you didn't give me enough to go on. Drum roll....... Sincere thanks to Mush who not only gave me a title, she gave me an author's name, a jacket blurb and a publisher.

If it sucks, wait a week to tell me. This is just part of the book jacket.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

It has been raining for a few days now. It's getting tiresome. And depressing. I went searching for a photo that I know would have expressed the mood perfectly.

I may have even shuffled past it, I was having so much fun tripping down memory lane. The photo I was looking for is this: a little girl looking out the rain streaked window. The trees in the yard are blurred by the rivulets of rain running down the window. The little girl is back-lit by the dim natural light. It is an awesome pic. It says "Rain, rain, go away so I can go outside and play" or whatever the hell we used to say when we were kids.

I did not see that photo but I came across so many jewels I did not know whether to sit, spin or make a necklace. I scanned some and will present one now, circa 1987. We might call it Minature Housewife.

Little H is "reading" In the Land of Dreamy Dreams by Ellen Gilchrist. Good stuff. The poor thing is trussed up in pink foam rollers, an attempt to girlify a tiny person who gave not one whit about her appearance.

There is a cup of coffe by her side. It is not hers, of course, but I wanted the illusion to be there. I did resist shooting her with a lit cigarette tucked between her tiny fingers. It would have made a MUCH better picture, though.

Gopher Addendum

I fell for the same stupid trick again. I'd like to tell you that as a member of the Smart Kids Club I figured it out on my own. But I enlisted the help of the smartest human I have ever met, Jeremy.

Now I feel really stupid because this is the same as the stupid card trick that I came across several years ago and figured out right away. Maybe I should remove these posts to retain my illusion of smartness. But thinking back, I'd have to remove even more posts. Maybe I should get back to Project #1, now in version 8.

I Surrender My Membership to the Smart Kids Club

If you want to waste some time go here and match wits with the magic gopher.

Really, I have better things to do. I am on version 7 of one of my projects and I have 2 others that haven't even been started. Eek.

While I'm here I must confess that I've been having a bitch of a time editing my HTML and getting things to look the way I want them to. Time for my own domain and my own code, I guess.