Still Here

She’s still here.

I catch glimpses of her happily bounding through the field with the other dogs.

Her gawky, grass stained, adolescent face makes grin when I see the chew marks on the counter tops.Piper looking down

Out of the corner of my eye I see her flopping down on the bed with a giant sigh.

When I walk by the apple trees, she’s still overseeing the planting operation.Piper by apple tree

The sound of running paws on the porch finds me bracing myself for the crash against the door that doesn’t come.

She’s still here.

But now, as we make plans to move, I wonder, once we are gone, where will I see her then?

Written in response to Prompts for the Promptless Episode 10 – Saudade hosted by Rarasaur.

If like me you have no idea what Saudade means here is Rarasaur’s definition:

“Saudade is a Portuguese word that describes a deep emotional state of nostalgic longing for an absent something/someone that one loves. Moreover, it often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of longing will never return.”

Wicked Bugs by Amy Stewart

There I am, standing at the circulation desk of the library waiting as my pile of books gets checked out when yet another book catches my eye.Wicked Bugs by Amy Stewart

How could I have missed it? The cover is muted red with black and shiny gold highlights. The title “Wicked Bugs” sounds interesting but once I see that the subtitle involves the word “diabolical” I pick it up.

I pick it up and discover that it is one of those hard cover books.

Perhaps someone can help me out here because I have no idea what the technical term is for this kind of cover. All I know is that there are hardcovers, and then there are those hardcovers. Those hardcovers have a matte finish, feel extra soft in hand and once I’m holding a book with one of those covers it’s all over. The book practically screams to come home with me, I must know what’s inside.  Need it even be said? – I love those covers.

Once I’m done swooning over my favorite cover I see that it’s a unique size. Squarish, but not so square as to be awkward, just enough to be different. Smaller and cuter (which is saying something since I count ten bugs on the front alone) than your average book.

So, there I am, abandoning my favorite librarian mid-conversation, already in love with a book I have yet to open.

I quickly page through it and it just gets better. Line drawings of giant bugs, fancy fonts, off set quotes, informative boxes, classifications at the top of the page including “Horrible,” “Deadly” and “Painful” and the paper -it’s good paper, thick paper, I love this book.

I toss it on the top of my already too big pile, attempt to ignore the look from John which is trying to subtly inquire if I’ll ever be doing the dishes again with this pile of books to read and say “This one too!” just in case there is some other library patron ready to swoop in and take my new favorite book from me.

Would I recommend it? Need you ask? I’ve already read it, but it’s not due back at the library yet so I’m keeping it around the house thrusting it at people and forcing them to read crazy, wicked bug facts while admiring the cover.

Also I have made a mental note never to move any further south, too many “wicked bugs” down there where it’s warm!

And a second mental note that I must next read Wicked Plants by the same author.

And that e-readers are probably not my thing.

And that while I just gave this a broad recommendation probably people who go through the roof when they see a spider wouldn’t appreciate the larger than life drawings involved.

And a final mental note that the rest of my mental notes should be on post-it’s as  I’ve been staying up way too late reading to be able to remember all this stuff.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Up

Weekly Photo Challenge: Upjump

It’s very impressive when your husband tells you that he has to do the jumping portion of his workout outside because the eight foot ceilings are too short.

But, when he phrases it this way –

“I hit my head on the ceiling so hard I knocked myself on my ass.”

It’s difficult to show the proper amount of appreciation for his athleticism through the tears of laughter.

Eating Out

As I was going through drafts of posts that had been started and then abandoned I found this one from back in February all written up and ready to go. I’m not sure why I passed it over the first time but it made me laugh when I read it now. I hope you enjoy it as well.

So…

We were headed home on Sunday and the weather and roads were, shall we say, less than ideal. After about two hours of driving we made a stop for dinner. While all five of us got out of the truck and went into eat for the purposes of describing what life with a three year old is like I’m going to ignore them all (sorry guys) and just tell you what Clara was up to.

First, she needed to be carried in, but not by Dad, by Mom. She did ask very politely – so I carried her inside.

When it came time to order it required physically holding of her face in front of mine to get her to focus and discuss with me what she might possibly eat for dinner.

While we waited for our food in the empty (remember the roads) restaurant we let the kids go nuts over in our corner and Clara careened around tables and ran into chairs (and I do mean that literally)  until it was time to sit down.

Dinner came and it was great.

Until the star of our story tried it, deemed it icky, bad and too spicy as she chewed and spit back out multiple bites.

“Done” with her dinner Clara moved on to her ice water and promptly spilled it down the front of herself.

All of it.

Since Clara’s reaction to spilled water is akin to that of the Wicked Witch of the West I decided we were going back to the truck for pajamas (we still had a few hours of driving left) and made a pit stop at the bathroom on the way out.

In the bathroom she refused to use the toilet while managing to pull the Koala Kare changing table down and bonking herself in the head at least three times before I got her back out, grabbed her hand and told her we were going to the truck.

Frustrated and tired from the circus that was dinner I was doing my best to stay pleasant walking hand in hand with the anarchist. As Clara happily approached the truck my mentally planning of how I was going to get some sort of chocolate fix for the rest of the drive home was interrupted as she piped up with:

“Yeah, I was gettin’ bored here.”

Clara

The face that results from asking Clara to “smile.”

I did a mental head slap, stuffed her in her p.j.’s and braced myself for the rest of the “boring” ride home.

The Care and Feeding of Exotic Pets by Diana Wagman

What was I thinking?

A book about kidnapping that involves a seven foot iguana?

Seriously, I had to know that it was going to get ugly.  The Care and Feeding of Exotic Pets by Diana Wagman

Would I recommend this? It did get ugly, in the way that happens when crazy people who own giant iguanas kidnap people but, like I said, I probably should have been prepared for that. I think this was a good book, I just don’t think it was the right book for me.

Anyone else have an opinion on this one?

Did I Just Say What I Thought I Said? IX

This week the weather has mostly looked like this:rain

and Jane’s good moments have looked like this:DSCN1316-(2sm)

So, perhaps without too much trouble you can imagine that my own mood is dipping south of Merry Poppins territory and headed more toward Evil Monster Mom land.

Unsurprisingly Evil Monster Mom lost her cool this afternoon shouted at Clara during lunch:

“Clara, get that pork chop off your head and sit back down at the table!”

Fortunately, though I didn’t let Clara know it, the humor in it struck me enough that instead of implementing my plan to run away from home to someplace childless and sunny I have instead decided to eat all the chocolate in the house.

… for now….

Weekly Photo Challenge: Change

Weekly Photo Challenge: Changewillow fence with survey flags

Some years spring suddenly changes the land from the grey of winter to a burst of greenery and color. But this year, as spring slowly creeps it’s way forward, the survey markers for the new right of way are the most flamboyant reminder of change in our yard.

The road that you can see through the willows is due for improvements and our house, along with the willow fence, is in the new right of way.

Change is a commin’!

(For more of the depressing details you can read A Line Drawn)

A Study To Determine Jane’s Favorite Items At The Age Of 15 Months

This study is to determine the subject’s (Jane’s) favorite items at the age of 15 months. While the subject’s verbal skills are consistent with her age, they are not adequate or reliable enough for this task and conclusions will need to be drawn from direct daily observation of the subject.

Observation of Jane to determine favored objects:Jane peering

-In the bathroom a wire basket and a half eaten piece of toast are abandoned for a pink golf ball. (Observer was surprised that the golf ball left the bathroom with the subject as usually such objects are left on the floor so that the subject may leave both hands free to empty drawers of toiletries. This drawer emptying behavior was not exhibited during the study and will not be used when drawing conclusions though the lack of this behavior does make the mother of the subject hopeful.)

-A pile of plastic bottle caps are left strewn over the floor in favor of the wireless mouse which is in turn discarded for the batteries inside the mouse.  (At this point the observer was forced to interfere with study subject to prevent ingestion of batteries. A phenomenon known as “Moms ruin all the fun.”).

-Looking at a book in subject’s parent’s bed ends as soon as the subject remembers she can turn the clock radio on.

-Small rocks from the driveway are returned to the ground before the subject was able to taste them when she started to chase a “CHIEN!” across the yard. (Judging by the results, the object in question is a chicken and it is less excited about the chase than the subject.)

-Subject drops all food and toys for ChapStick.Jane pointing

In conclusion the observer believes that ChapStick and chickens are the subject’s favorite items.

Interestingly, the child is also either lacking in developmentally appropriate toys or developmentally appropriate toys are boring and ignored in favor of general household detritus. The answer to this question is beyond the scope of this study and warrants further testing.