Bug Eyes

I am shamed to report that I have backed out of a pact with my husband.

We stood in the kitchen and pinky swore. John promised never to wear Crocs and I promised to never wear giant, bug eye, sunglasses.

I have broken the pinky oath.

I now own, and wear, bug eye sunglasses… with sparkles.

Oh, what a change…

My birthday was last week and for weeks prior Ivy had been telling me that she bought me a present with Grandma Mary. Ivy kept her present secret all the way up to my birthday and when the time finally came to hand over her little box she was grinning ear to ear and about to burst with excitement. Looking behind her to the grin on my Mom’s face it was with a bit of trepidation that I opened her gift.

Ivy had got me sunglasses for my birthday. My very observant and thoughtful daughter remembered that I left my old sunglasses in a friends car over the winter and hadn’t yet got a replacement pair.  According to all reports, she picked them out herself. This I do not doubt, they are large, they are round and they have sparkles. They are Ivy sort of glasses, they are glasses Fancy Nancy would be proud of, they are not unfashionable, hooded sweatshirt and jeans wearing, Mom glasses.

Oblivious to the giggles of my rotten family who were enjoying watching me squirm, Ivy beamed with pride in her gift she leaned in and said, “Don’t worry Mom, if you lose these, I can just get you another one!” And so, I did the only thing a mother could do when faced with ugly glasses and a child beaming with pride. I ignored the snickers of my family, mentally discarded my half formed thought of losing the things, (Ivy was clearly ahead of me on that one), put on my new sunglasses and gave my daughter a big hug as I assured her that I was indeed so happy that she got them for me.

Here is the paragraph you should skip reading if you own these types of sunglasses, that way we can still be friends.  Prior to my birthday I had just assumed that people who wore gigantic sunglasses blindly followed fashion trends without caring or realizing they looked like a bug. Because, clearly if they had thought about it they would realize that looking like a bug is a bad idea. No one looks at a woman masquerading as a bug and thinks, “Now there’s a smart lady.” Nope, bug looks elicit other less kind thoughts about the intelligence of the wearer, (trust me on this one, I’ve made them). Which is why many months ago in the kitchen I had swore to John that I would never wear glasses that made me look like a bug.

But that was, as I said, prior to my birthday. Now I know, it’s possible that there are other reasons to wear ridiculous sunglasses and I am reminded once again why it’s recommended not to judge people. You just never know, perhaps other women also have daughters that are as thoughtful as mine.

Ivy’s thoughtfulness didn’t end on my birthday. No, she makes sure I do not forget my new sunglasses when we get in the truck and if I happen to be driving when it’s sunny out she helps me remember to put them on in case I forget.

She is so very proud to have picked out such a perfect gift for me.

So, while I am shamed to report that I have broken a pinky swear with John, I just can’t help but wear my new sunglasses with pride as I think of my thoughtful daughter….

Picture by Ivy

…at least so long as nobody is looking!

Did I Just Say What I Thought I Said? V

Today’s edition of “Did I Just Say What I Thought I Said?” was an unfortunate choice of words on my part, in that I was proven wrong as the words were coming out of my mouth.

“WE DON’T PEE IN DOG BOWLS!”

Apparently some members of the family do indeed pee in dog bowls.

I shall be working on both my grammar and toilet training this afternoon, emphasis on the toilet.

How Much Wood…

I have seen more woodchucks this spring that I have ever seen before.  I feel fairly confident in my statement since I was trained from a very young age to keep close watch out the window ready to yell if I spotted any turkey or deer. In fact just tonight I won the who-can-find-the-most-turkeys-while-we-drive-to-our-friends-house contest. So, I speak with the confidence of one who spends more time watching fields and ditches than perhaps one should while driving when I say, I have seen more woodchucks this spring than I have ever seen before.

Where did they all come from?

Do they have population booms and cycles?

Am I being followed around by a small group of rouge woodchucks messing with my mind?

What is the plural of woodchuck? Woodchucks? Groundhogs? Marmots?

When in doubt ask Google.

Tonight Google has taught me that…

…there is no use trying to eliminate woodchuck from an area, they will reproduce and migrate back in at a rate so high that there will be close to zero population change in your elimination area. No use unless of course you want to eat them, then you’ll have a steady supply of woodchuck meat but you should remove the scent glands first.

… they are fairly aggressive, they look cute but they aren’t cuddly.

… they are very useful for studying medical things like hepatitis.

… they only live three to six years in the wild.

… and, get this, that they can climb trees. Trees! Woodchuck!

So I have three questions tonight.

1) Have you ever seen a woodchuck in a tree?

2) Have you seen more woodchuck than usual this spring?

3) Do you know if woodchuck have population cycles?

Now excuse me I have to go try and chase a woodchuck up a tree, I’m a see it to believe it kinda girl on this one!

Born to Run by Christopher McDougall

This book is, among other things, about ultra-marathoners.

Ultra-marathons are nuts.

You’d have to be crazy to run for 100 miles/24 hours/forever.

Crazy people make for very interesting reading!

In addition to the stories about crazy people this book contains a lot of talk about the evils of shoes.

Since I have always believed in the evils of shoes it was fun and fascinating to read something that had some facts to back up my feelings.

Would I recommend this book? Yes. I believe it would be an interesting read even for a non-runner – you know, like me.

The Final River Run?

Every year, my friend Steph and I paddle the canoe race in Pewaukee known as the River Run.

Every year my Mom and her friend Donna paddle faster than us.

Every year the big sign for the River Run goes up in Pewaukee but this year a small handwritten sign was taped on top of it: “Final River Run”

To which all of us said: “WHAT?”

When we got our preregistration letter we found out more. The Kiwanis Club organizes the race as a fundraiser for the community and they feel they are bringing in too little money to make it worth while. To which I say… well, I say a lot of things to that, but it can be summed up in one short: “Huh.”

Saturday was the morning of the final River Run,  a lovely, 40 degree, rainy, April morning. Which was ugly to wake up to but not as ugly as the sleet that fell on us as we were getting our boats ready.

We all hid in our cars with the heaters running until the last possible minute, jumped out, threw the canoes in and started racing.

Fortunately it was no longer sleeting, just raining and really, it was fine. In fact by the time we were ten minutes into the race I told Steph not to worry I was doing great. I had improved to only not being able to feel two fingers on each hand. Things improved even more when the rain stopped and we warmed up enough to throw our winter hats into the bottom of the boat.

By the end of the race I was wishing I had time to rip off my rain jacket and we had only three boats in front of us. My Mom and Donna, just barely still in sight, a man racing a solo canoe and two guys in an aluminum boat.  I said to Steph that while I had become accustomed to getting beat by my Mom I was not OK with losing a sprint to the finish to a big ole aluminum canoe.

We dug in, chased them down and passed them by. And let me just tell you, it doesn’t matter that our canoe was a much faster boat then their aluminum beast, it’s still incredibly satisfying to pass up two men in a sprint to the finish.

Unfortunately even our final sprint wasn’t enough to close the gap to Mom’s canoe and they beat us again. It did however place us decidedly faster than John and his friend Steve, which helps makes up for that getting beat by old ladies thing!

A few hours later we showed back up at the finish for the award ceremony, and missed it. Which was surprising because we were only five minutes late and the award ceremony has never started until it was at least 10 minutes behind schedule.  Soon we discovered why. The lovely, unvarnished, pine board and plexiglass plaques given as awards had run out. In past years they had always been busily hammering the plexiglass over the fill in the blank paper that makes up the award. No plaques, no hammering, and they were right on time. We picked up our pieces of paper and headed home, completely miffed that the awards we had complained about for so many years had been downgraded to a piece of paper.

Now, let me do a quick re-cap for you. The Kiwanis have declared this to be the last River Run because they don’t have enough participants bringing in enough money to make it worth while.  Meanwhile, we woke up early on an extra cold wet, sleeting day, paid our race fee, despite freezing fingers managed to paddle faster than almost everyone else and were given a piece of paper that I’m not even sure I can hang in the chicken coop for our efforts.

Huh, I think sums it up nicely.

My Kindly Torturer

Early in the morning my kindly torturer sneaks into my bed and snuggles in beside me as I drift back to sleep.

Then she rolls over, and sighs.

Then she kindly covers me with half of her nasty, soggy, stinky, chewed on blanket.

Then she wiggles.

Then she gently rubs my back.

Then she sighs and traces the line of my pajama top ever so gently.

Then she rubs my foot.

Then she traces the letters on my pajamas with her finger.

Then she cuddles in next to me.

She never says a word, she’s very quite, very gentle, very kind.

When I give in and open my eyes and say good morning she gives me a hug and says she loves me,  I return the sentiment.

But the kind, gentle, loss of that last hour of sleep is so painful.

Keeping my mouth shut so as not to scream:  “STOP TOUCHING ME! GET OUT OF MY BED! I’M SLEEPING!” requires so much will power.

Not crushing her spirit as I throw her from the room requires so much effort from my sleepy brain.

Then I start the day swinging between guilty feelings about my decidedly unkind thoughts about my kind daughter and feeling completly justified in my irritation that my day started out with a bit of torture.

There is something magic about that last hour of sleep. Go ahead interrupt me every hour all night, pee in your bed causing me to change it at three AM, cry, whine, throw up, anything, all night, whatever, whenever.

Just please, please let me sleep that last hour.

Please?!?

Spelling

I am a bad speller.

A very bad speller.

I have not been able to spell well – ever.

I shall never live down practicing spelling words in my friend’s kitchen and getting hung up on sweater, which kept coming out as swearter.

Just so you know it is not true that reading will improve your spelling.

Reading more improves vocabulary.

Bigger words are harder to spell.

In my case, that has just made my spelling worse.

But now I have spell check to help!

Which is great help except when it isn’t.

I am sad to report that spelling a word so poorly that spell check can’t figure out what I’m trying to say is a regular occurrence.

Very regular.

It’s happened twice so far in this post.

To make matters worse, now my fingers are betraying me.

Tommorow never comes out right, nor does, untill, recomend and a slew of others. I think I’ve typed them wrong so many times that they are stored in my fingers’ muscle memory incorrectly.

And then there is my nemesis:

Minet.

Minuet.

Mineut.

Minute.

Tonight I’ve been writing about the River Run canoe race, and my nemesis has been cropping up quite a bit. So, if you ever notice that things are taking a few slow graceful dances instead of a few 60th’s of an hour, please forgive me.

I’m sure my editor will catch it, eventually…

The Bachelors by Muriel Spark

After reading Loitering With Intent and The Abbess of Crewe I was all hyped up on this new (to me) crazy author.  I dove into The Bachelors and came up all “eehh.”

It’s not that I’m necessarily against  a story about epileptic bachelors, scam artist, spiritualism, seances, unwanted pregnancies, trials, handwriting experts,  and planned murders, it’s just that I didn’t care about any of the characters. I kept confusing all the bachelors for the first half of the book, was irritated with the women throughout and never got vested in any of them.

Would I recommend it? No, but I’d still recommend the author. I need to take a bit of a Spark break and read a few other books that have been piling up, (Why do all the inter-library loans come in at once?) but I’ll be back to read her other books for certain.