city vs country: the junky yard

Junky yards are a dime a dozen wherever you live (or at least, in neighborhoods not far from wherever you live). I usually assume the best -- that someone is in the process of cleaning up -- because I've been there before. (Still go there sometimes.) But there is one particular category of junky yard that I never saw when I lived in the city: the eternal yard sale.

A couple of years ago, the inhabitant of a nearby trailer decided to have a yard sale. At the end of the weekend, most of the stuff had not been sold. This is when most people would donate the remaining items, or else shove them all into a hidden corner. But this remarkable woman wakes up every morning with renewed hope and faith that someone will stop by and want something. And very slowly, over the past couple of years, the amount of stuff in her front yard has dwindled, though not to the extent that you can't tell it was originally a yard sale.

Here is what I find most perplexing: some mornings, I see her out in the yard, pulling weeds or raking leaves, and I think, huh. Wouldn't a yard covered in leaves be better than a yard covered in junk? So I suppose she is keeping things tidy for the next customer, and the next, and so on, throughout eternity.

eggs!!!

This is the best thing that has happened to us in a while. The chickens are starting to lay in the coop again. Even our "teenagers" are growing up and we're getting some lovely blue/green eggs.

parental discretion advised

I sweartagod it's only a mushroom. A shiitake. Lee ordered it from Fungi Perfecti. He puts them in his miso soup every morning, along with some fresh ginger.

Lee is a man of many concoctions. He is sitting here next to me, so I think I will take this opportunity to interview him about it.

M: Can I talk about all of your concoctions?
L: Sure. You wanna know what I just now drank?
M: Okay.
L: Five dashes of cayenne pepper in water. I used it to wash down my curcumin pills.
M: What do those do?
L: Oh, everything. I am also soaking two cacao beans in water to remove the skin, revealing the delicious nibs inside.
M: Any others you'd like to mention?
L: Of course red wine, my favorite staple, which I prefer to drink early in the morning.
M: Don't you do some kind of algae?
L: No, alfalfa. I mix 1 tablespoon alfalfa with 1 tablespoon brewer's yeast, and it tastes really good with chocolate soy milk. Earlier today, I mixed approximately 4 ounces kefir, 1 teaspoon ground flax seed, and 1 teaspoon flax seed oil, and then consumed it. But my favorite, as you know, is garlic. Simply smoosh, wait ten minutes, and consume raw. I put it in water and drink it.
M: Yes, that one's fun.
L: I take 1 tablespoon unpasteurized apple cider vinegar with a teaspoon of local honey or blackstrap molasses every now and then.
M: Are you the healthiest man alive?
L: No, but it keeps me going.

So there you have it.

L: But I've got more.
M: Really?
L: Goldenseal root tea, or any old green tea. I like to chew raw cinnamon sticks. And I like anything that's cultured, like unpasteurized sauerkraut and kimchee. I also take a quarter teaspoon of the apple cider vinegar mixed with distilled water in a neti pot to flush my sinuses. Which I quit doing for a while and then I got a cold, so now I'm doing it again.
M: It's way past time for the kids to go to bed.

if it's sunday, it's captcha game day

Today's word is...

ruscapp

Hmmm. How about...

- noun: a slang term used by software developers to refer to an outdated application

Bonus: Jenga! Here is a shot of the tower created during a game between Leah and Lee. It lasted for several more moves, finally falling on one of Lee's turns. A most spellbinding game!

sew groovy

The event that sort of kicked off our string of bad luck was the passing of Lee's maternal grandmother back in October. Since then, we have been making trips to Montgomery to help clear out her house. I believe it's safe to say that this woman kept everything. EVERYthing. I spent a good hour tossing items from the pantry that were not from this decade (or this century, for that matter). Some of the canned goods were oozing black from the bottom (can you say botulism?). My hour of labor yielded no visible results; the pantry is still packed.

So when I was asked whether I might be interested in a closet full of fabric, I was inclined to say no. I am trying to get rid of stuff, not collect it. And when I say a closet full, I mean that she could have started a small fabric store. But once I started going through it, I just couldn't help myself. There was some really good stuff in there:

Those are just a couple of samples of the HUGE and HEAVY bag full of fabric I must now wash. (It's kinda old and stale.) Once it's all ready, I can get to it using this:

Time to start making things for next Christmas....

at long last

Other than some sinus irritation, Leah's MRI results are normal.

Phew. (As opposed to phick.)

The doctor's office was extremely apologetic about how long it took. The holidays, combined with the moving picture quality of the results, delayed the feedback. Thank goodness we don't have to do that again. I'll be consulting with them and the pediatrician again next week to determine whether we need to shift gears and visit the twitch clinic. Some days it's so minimal that we hardly think about it; others it's so bad that she holds her eye and asks for a warm, wet washcloth, and the worry grabs hold again. The twitch clinic would try to determine whether it's your basic twitch, or whether it looks more like Tourette's (the age of onset fits).

Did I hide my nervous wreckishness well?

would you like to play a game?

CAPTCHA: Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart

Of all the captchas I encounter on various different sites, I like Blogger's the best. They're readable, they don't include numbers, and they're never actual words, although they have actual word potential. Perfect nonsense.

For several days, I have been recording my captchas with the goal of creating definitions for them. (Here is where taking Latin instead of French and Spanish would have been useful.)

Today's captcha is...

phick

- noun: an unsophisticated urbanite (a big-city hick)
- interjection: expressing upset or tension as opposed to relief or fatigue (opposite of phew)

What do you think phick should mean?

a little something i left out

Death of a Jeep

I told myself it was because he never downloaded the pictures onto my computer, but really it was because it was all just too much at the time. Dear readers, you'll never believe what happened today: a small portion of the universe imploded right over our house! Now, I know you've already left several concerned and sympathetic comments, but please keep coming back for more!

So here's the story: In between the death of our dog and Leah's MRI, a three ton company van ran a red light and crashed smack dab into Lee. I mean, like, the only thing between the van and Lee was Lee's car door, which couldn't be opened afterwards. Pieces of the dashboard flew off, Lee's head broke his door's window, and the sandwich he was eating for lunch ended up on the hood of the van.

When Leah found out, she said, "Poor Daddy. First Dee died and then the Jeep died." Which pretty much sums it up.

Lee is absolutely fine. Physically. But he gets depressed every time he sees a Jeep, and because the Jeep used to be mine, I can relate. You can't beat the turning radius on that thing. And it held all of his tools, ladders on top, without being obnoxiously big. The red-light-runner's company's insurance paid for a rental truck, which was a bigass pickup that was impossible to park and made us feel like ugly Americans. So he's driving my old Altima and looking for a replacement Jeep.

And lo, we shall make a mess of hoppin' john on the eve of the new year, and we shall eat that hoppin' john to bring forth many miracles; to know but good news and glad tidings in the days to come.

merry morning

Still no MRI results (I think the pictures ended up being pretty messy; we might have to do it again, with sedation -- ugh), but we managed to have a very merry Christmas anyway.

Here is Neal telling Santa that he wants a trampoline. Santa must have listened, because there was a mini-trampoline under the tree that Neal and Leah have taken turns bouncing on all morning long.

mri

if everything comes apart in this helium cooled
superconducting electromagnet,
we're coming apart
together
i think
as i hold your hand that won't
bestillnomatterwhat

rings and zippers -- no worries, they said
just before the wallmuralwhales
began to thump and howl and
my ring began to vibrate so
i moved it to my other hand --
the one that was holding your feet that won't
bestillnomatterwhat

no worries, they said from behind the glass
but my baby didn't come with one of those
mr safe green stickers
and good thing i thought of her ponytail holder
-mom, does she know she's moving her feet?-
two minutes, maybe; two hours, not likely she'll
bestillnomatterwhat

i want to fall asleep standing up
-- no, i want to crawl inside the tube,
poke fun at each other's ear plugs,
notice that you are weeping
- mom, is she okay?-
i think so, just fidgety, just
bestillnomatterwhat

The Commons

A while back, the Library of Congress partnered with Flickr to place a bunch of really cool old photographs online, open to comments and tags from the public. Since then, other libraries, museums, and archives have joined in the fun. To get a sense of what's out there, and the remarkable way that folks can participate in the conversation of history, go here, being sure to scroll down through all of the comments until you get to the really good stuff.

from halloween to hohoho

Wicked:

In case you were wondering what we do for fun out here:

Abstract, by Leah:

The first version of this sign said, No Boys Aloud. I thought that was equally appropriate.

Hiiiiiiiideehooooooooooooooooo:

yesterday was hard

Lee found her. Close to home, beneath juniper branches and leaves, lifeless but intact. We suspect she was hit by a car and crawled into the brush. She still looked so D -- I found myself staring at her belly to be certain it was no longer making little ups and downs.

I took the kids over to Mom's for a belated Thanksgiving dinner while Lee took D over to his dad's to bury her. Now she makes things grow.

recommended reading

Okay, so clearly I have not yet gotten the camera and am still using my cell phone, but Christmas is a-comin', so it could happen. I just had to post this grainy shot anyway, because among the pile of books I found in Leah's bed (just next to an issue of Captain Underpants) was Mom's. (To be clear to readers who might come away thinking I'm a Durr, Mom edited this autobiography from recorded interviews.)

Now, to be honest, I think Neal grabbed it when she asked him to bring her a big book to put under some drawing paper, but still, it was neat to happen upon this particular juxtaposition of books in my daughter's bed.

meme

I think normally people ask you to do these, but I ripped mine off of a blog I was browsing via another blog:

WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: Farmer Dean
(Mother’s & father’s middle names)

NASCAR NAME: Curren Cecil
(First name of mother’s dad, father’s dad)

STAR WARS NAME: Wamarg (Wameg for short)
(First 2 letters of last name, first 4 letters of first name)

DETECTIVE NAME: Cobalt Dog
(Favorite color, favorite animal)

SOAP OPERA NAME: Barnard Hayden, but everybody calls me Pace
(Middle name, city where you live)

SUPERHERO NAME: Indigo Stella
(2nd favorite color, favorite alcoholic drink)

FLY NAME: Maes (or Mees; it's superfly to have an alternate spelling)
(First 2 letters of 1st name, last 2 letters of your last name)

GANGSTA NAME: Strawberry Thin Mint
(Favorite ice cream, favorite cookie)

ROCK STAR NAME: Sika Pinecrest
(Current pet’s name, current street name)

PORN NAME: Candy Overlook
(1st pet, street you grew up on)

day three

Some things just don't fit. When your dog disappears, vocabulary is too snug; requires unbuttoning. There is no trace of predator, no trace of accident, no trace of unfortunate event. Coyote, car, snake -- there is none of that. She does not roam away from home. Ever. We have called and driven and walked and made signs. Leah made a list of places to look, and clues, and kept asking, But what's different about today? And the answer is nothing. Nothing but the missingness.

We keep expecting her to show, keep looking sideways out the front door, over to where her bed and an unopened bag of dog food wait for her return. My head feels cloudy, as though there is something that will suddenly become clear: Oh yeah, I forgot, she's in the ....

Yesterday, a turkey ambled through our yard, mingled with the chickens for a bit, and went on her way. I might normally take this as a sign of good fortune -- a Thanksgiving shout out from Mother Nature. Instead it just seemed weird and haunted. Nothing fits.

tending fires

Field grows frost in the big of night,

in the negative space where cold and quiet silently implode,

leave behind the empty big of night

where slow things grow.

Earthworms find us out,

discover we have made sun like gods of the indoors,

abandon the unturned compost,

curse the floor and wither.

We want to make a man of snow.

In the shadow of the broken rooted oak,

shoulders under shawl of hay and leaves,

we shall build his predictable demise,

then crawl inside to tend the fire.

the left side of the page

Look what I found in Leah's school tote bag. Pretty typical Alabama split.

I had to laugh when I heard someone in another state talk about using a touch screen to cast her ballot. Here in Hayden, we used black magic markers to connect one side of an arrow to another.

home on the free (?) range

Free range chickens. You think you're so natural and eco-friendly -- tossing your corn, strewing your hay, gathering your eggs. So many eggs -- you give them away! And the surprise chicks are adorable, aren't they?

Flash forward. Going on 20 chickens, all but three of which are hens, laying eggs everywhere but the coop and roosting in the trees. They're still great garbage disposals -- between them, the rabbit, and the compost, not a scrap of food is ever really wasted. But when there are so many, it's hard to think of them as pets, and when you're not willing to eat grocery store eggs anymore, but you're not gathering any, either -- well, not a lotta egg eatin' goin' on. Which is kind of a bummer.

Our neighbor Mister Sanders says they'll come back to the coop in the spring. And he's probably right -- most chickens don't lay much in the fall and winter. And after the sadness that accompanied the death of our first Rooster, Eddie, I was tickled when the new roosters, hatched in the summer, began crowing for the very first time just last week. A feeble but noble attempt, growing stronger each day. No better sound in the world to wake up to.

So we strategize. We make plans to lure the chickens into the coop and create a chicken run, so that they have limited freedom but also no choice but to lay where we can find the eggs. Because as much as I love having them roam about, the romance is over, and I want mine scrambled, thank you very much.

roboparent

Leah: Mommy, Neal's putting his butt in my face.

Me: Neal, stop putting your butt in other people's faces.

...as I mindlessly continue to fold two loads of clothes.

how to prepare for an economic downturn

1. Move into a house that you find on the side of the road. Strike a deal with the owner that you will be nice to the house in exchange for taking comfort in the house.

2. During the first couple of months at the house, boil water on a camp stove to heat the bath water that was filled from the hose into the tub on the front porch, because you have not yet treated the house to a working bathroom. Hang your children's giant, multicolor parachute in front of the tub so that the rare passing car doesn't see you naked in a tub on your porch.

3. Spit your toothpaste off the side of the porch during those first couple of months, too.

4. Again on the front porch, wash your dishes in a different tub and dry them on a rack. You do not need the parachute for this. It is okay for rare passing cars to see this. They will just think you are a bit strange. But you're pretty sure they already thought that.

5. Send your children to public school. This has the added benefit of authenticating your belief that the government should provide decent public education for all children, and inspiring you to become actively involved in that cause, because you are now privy to the actual budget.

6. Get free food from yours and your neighbors' gardens.

7. Sleep with your family in a tent inside your house because of the spiders. When you finally overtake the spiders and create actual bedrooms, you don't take them for granted. And you know that you could go back to sleeping in a tent if you had to.

8. Save up for a wood burning stove. In advance of your purchase, be sure you have acquired a husband who will become obsessed with scavenging free wood from the side of the road.

9. Come by your other big ticket items in curious ways. For instance, rather than purchasing a television set, get one for free from your husband's brother's anarchist friend who found it necessary to flee to Canada all of sudden.

10. Eat rice. A lot of rice.

happy

Rainbow over Birmingham

Lately as I drive down the road, wishing I could capture the colors of this season in words or paint or pixels, I find myself erupting into spontaneous fits of laughter. Barack Hussein Obama. I don't think many people have felt anything but cynicism toward the government since Watergate days. Who would have guessed that we would feel a collective sense of hope again?

(And by the way, rabbits poop a LOT.)

bumper sticker politics

Like many Americans, and at long last, I woke up this morning feeling proud of our country. But even before the acceptance speech of last night, I was already feeling hopeful, and not just because of the polls.

The other day, I spotted a car with a "Choose life" license plate. I happen to be in favor of a woman's right to choose what happens to her body, but the thing that struck me about this car with this license plate is that it also had a blue dot sticker and an Obama sticker on the bumper. In all my travels along the interstates and highways of this state, I have never until that moment seen someone express any level of complexity on his or her bumper. It's usually either "You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands" or "F the president." What we would normally think of as a mixed sociopolitical message struck me as diversity of thought and a refreshing expression of opinion without any accompanying obnoxiousness.

A few days later, I was recycling at the Conservancy downtown when a car pulled up with a McCain/Palin bumper sticker that said something about pitbulls and had a lipstick smooch on it. I stopped myself from mentally rolling my eyes, because damned if they weren't recycling. Back in the day, the only people stopping off at the Conservancy were hippies and upper middle class Volvo drivers. This car with this sticker at this place in this time. I think we are starting to come together.

belated boo

Happy pumpkin

Scary pumpkin

a day in the life

(I'm jumping over some important things, a funeral and Halloween among them. I'll come back to them later.)

Part I: Morning

Woke up at 5:45am and prepared to run in the annual Vulcan 10K. Vulcan, the Roman god of fire and forge, is also the world's largest cast iron statue. Built in 1904, he has watched over Birmingham for over 100 years. As part of a traffic safety campaign, he once held a torch that glowed red if there had been a traffic fatality in Birmingham, and green if there had not. I was never a big fan of the glowing torch. Thankfully, it was removed during the renovation of the statue and surrounding park, and Vulcan now holds a spear as sculptor Giuseppe Moretti intended.

Knocked 10 minutes off my 10K time compared to last year, and enjoyed the traditional post-race beer, band, and bagels.

Part II: Afternoon

A couple of days ago our nearest neighbors invited us to pick greens in their garden, so we made our way over to their house and discovered that, in addition to greens o'plenty, they also have a pear tree covered in pears! They let us pick to our hearts' content. We have bags and bags of fresh food. And they let us pet their donkey, which Neal kept calling a honkey, as it did in fact honk.

Part III: Evening

Returned home to discover a most remarkable invasion of ladybugs. Hundreds of them. Everywhere. I am talking about a crazy lot of ladybugs. Now, I know that ladybugs are very beneficial in the garden, but these weren't in the garden. They were in our house. All of them. So we sucked them up in the shop vac and released them outside, where we hope they will stay.