Five Things I Heard in the Hot Tub

I'm still sifting through the data from our holiday in the mountains. Sift along with me.

1. Our friend told us that his dad and brother, who are in the real estate business in south Florida together, have not sold a single house in the last twelve months. Not one.
2. My sister Amy and her husband regularly give gifts of personal lubricant to friends who are getting married. You see, they know a lot people who, believe it or not, postpone the Full Monty until they are legally wed. And Amy wants everything to go, um, smoothly. You want her on your team, people.
3. Over 200,000 people have applied online for 7,000 jobs in the Obama administration. If you haven't already, here's where you can. Everybody else is doing it.
4. Bear hunting season is underway in North Carolina, and in Jackson county, where we were, more bears have been killed so far than deer. Perhaps in revenge, a bear peeled the top off an outdoor freezer belonging to my parents' neighbor. The bear broke the hinges off the lid and made off with some frozen berries and fruitcakes.
5. My brother Dave was asked, "What is your greatest fear?" He said, "A clown with a bow and arrow."

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Brick and Mortar Life

On this blog, I never really have the urge to break the fourth wall and go meta, but today I feel compelled to share with you some of the material conditions of blogging over the Thanksgiving holiday. We are still up in the mountains of Western North Carolina at my mom and dad’s house. We’ve got a big crowd, and some more friends just arrived this afternoon. What are the requirements for calling a place “off the grid”? ‘Cause the house doesn’t have TV or internet access. The tubes don’t reach up here, apparently. I love that about this place, usually. It’s far from rustic—it’s very comfortable, but it requires us to unplug.

But NaBloPoMo and unplugged don’t really mix. So I’ve been taking daily trips down into town to find some free wifi. The public library has it, and so does Arby’s. Small town. Every day, there are several people who want to accompany me on this outing, usually with laptops in hand. It feels like the 21st century version of going into town for provisions, like coffee, nails, and lard. Only instead of every six months, we have to go every day. It’s fun, actually, and the only real event in otherwise unstructured time.

On Thanksgiving night, I went down the mountain with my mom and sister, only to find Arby’s closed, duh. They didn’t turn off their wifi, though, so I opened up my computer right there in the car. Then my battery died, so I sat on the sidewalk and plugged my computer into their outdoor outlet, thus leeching both wifi AND electricity. Amy said I looked like a hobo—a very well equipped hobo. With beautiful shiny hair. Or she didn’t say that part.

The only problem with the Arby’s blogging situation is that to pay for my table, I buy a jamocha milkshake while I’m here, and then I drink it. So this blog is making me fat. But I am loving it. I am loving the blog, the Arby’s, the hobo scene, the NaBloPoMo thing, and you, my dear Readers. The whole caboodle.

And I say again: have a great weekend!

Geocaching: The Family That Trespasses Together. . .

Instead of hitting the stores for Black Friday, we did some geocaching here in the mountains. Dad has gotten really into this in his retirement. Geocaching, if you don't know, is a kind of game where you use your GPS device to locate little hidden containers, or caches, that people have hidden in out-of-the-way places. You may leave little treasures in the boxes, and take something in return, or just sign in that you've been there. It is great--a more fun version of taking a walk. Some of the caches are what they call "park and grab," as in you don't have to go off into the woods very far, but sometimes, like today, you have to get out of bounds.

We had a multi-step cache that required a couple of waypoints, finally leading us to the site near here where a scene from the movie The Fugitive was filmed. Remember the part where Harrison Ford is on the prison bus, and it crashes into a train, and he gets away? That was filmed right by the Tuckasegee River here in Dillsboro, and the train cars and buses they used are still sitting down by the river. The clues and the coordinates seemed to indicate that the cache was hidden on the wreckage somewhere, but we couldn't actually drive anywhere near that part of the riverbank. Finally we realized that this little road must lead down there. The gate was open, Officer.
The Magellan was our guide, but notice that Dad has the target coordinates written on his hand. So high-tech! Turns out he wrote them down wrong, but we figured out where we were going. Sure enough, the coordinates took us right to the old bus used in the movie.

The bus says "Illinois Dept. of Corrections," because the movie was set in Illinois, of course, and the train says "Illinois Southern." So, we knew the cache we were looking for was a magnetic hide-a-key box, and it seemed like it could be anywhere on this bus, or possibly on the front of the train. The margin of error is such that the GPS won't take you to the exact, precise spot, so you have to get there and look around. But with all this wreckage, it was really hard to look everywhere. Here's Laura after I had relaxed my "No Climbing!" rule.

So this cache was unfindable, at least by us. We felt up that entire bus, but it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. We think it might have been taken by Muggles. Yes, the geocachers refer to non-cachers as Muggles. Laura loved that. Down at the railyard, she did find some stocking-stuffers, so it wasn't a total loss. Hurray for coal! So we need to read the online comments on that cache and get some more info. Then we'll regroup for another sortie. But it was really fun getting up close to the wreck, trespassing and all. I think this is great fun for kids, especially if they're with-it enough to work the compass and the GPS. Here's Laura helping pack up a cache that Dad hid.
That little toy with the dogtags is a trackable item. It will travel from cache to cache, with its location logged online. Really cool. And here's a cache's hiding place.
This was down under a suspension footbridge over the river, where you'd really have to be looking for it. Each cache has a friendly and helpful little note in it in case it does fall into Muggle hands. So, lots of fun for the family, and I think the community around it is really interesting. It's just pure play, you know? With no real reward and nothing to prove. I look forward to doing it lots more, and there are TONS of these things all around, so go to the website and check it out.

Hope you had a restful and fun Thanksgiving Friday!

We Are Not Navy SEALs: A Thanksgiving Story

Late last Thursday night I got a call from my sister Amy. Amy, who has posted here before, lives in Australia with her husband and two kids. There was much glumness in the family, because they weren’t going to be able to come to the States for Christmas. My mom had been giving me weekly reports on the degree of wistfulness she detected in Amy’s voice when the holidays were discussed. And her own voice was growing more wistful by the day.

Amy told me that she had a plan. A plan so crazy, she said, that it might actually work. If she booked a last minute ticket to Atlanta, could I pick her up Monday night, and spirit her up to the mountain house to surprise Mom and Dad for Thanksgiving? Um, yes, I thought I could do that. Her adoring husband agreed to hold down the fort there and give her a solo getaway, so the only trick was keeping the secret from Mom and Dad. This is easier said than done. Our mother is nearly psychic, especially about things having to do with her kids. I decided that the best plan was to speak to her as little as possible. The woman notices precise shades of tone of voice, choice of words, and what is said or left unsaid. I am accused, in the family, of having broken the news of Amy’s pregnancy by asking mom, “Have you talked to Amy lately?” So I just went into radio silence. My brother, who was in on the secret, declared that we would only refer to Amy, even between ourselves, as The Package. As in, “I’m on my way to retrieve The Package”, or “The Package’s hair looks really cute.”


So Monday night I picked up The Package. I was afraid that I would be unable to restrain myself from blogging about it. I hated keeping the secret from you, Internets! And indeed, on Monday night, Amy had to turn off her Facebook wall, because her friends in Sydney were posting things like, “Was your mom surprised?” and our mom is on Facebook. She’s hip like that. So we were plugging leaks right and left, worrying that our covert op would get blown wide open.

Tuesday, Amy helped host Pre-Thanksgiving with Matt’s family, then Wednesday afternoon we headed up to North Carolina. We had exhaustively discussed among ourselves the best way to go about the big reveal. We didn’t have a cake she could jump out of, so we were left with deciding how to configure the main elements: Amy, our minivan, the mountain house, Mom and Dad, and time and space. The simple way would have been to have her in the back of the van with the kids, and when Mom and Dad came out to open the doors to greet the kids, there she would be. Surprise! My brother Dave was more in favor of the Gradual Surprise, where Amy was let out of the car before we arrived at the house, and would walk up the road after we were in. They would either see her from a distance, thus prolonging the pleasure of realizing it was she, or she would come up to the house and let herself in. I hoped that in this scenario, neither of my parents would have a cardiac arrest.

I was driving the van, and when we got up on the mountain road to the house, I was amazed at how bare the trees were. All of the leaves were gone, and we could see Dad on the deck (and he could see us, I think) from really far away. We were reaching the critical decision-making point, where Amy would either have to deploy or abort mission. Dad was walking around the house, ready to greet us, but I stopped the car where I thought there were enough tree trunks between us to obscure the car a little. Amy got into position, and I yelled, “Go! Go! Dive!” while she rolled out the door and ran around behind the car. I took off again in a spray of gravel while Amy pulled up her hood and crouched behind a tree. Did I mention that she is 14 weeks pregnant? Take that, Delta Force.

So I pulled up in front of the house and we all acted as naturally as we could while being greeted. Which was not working because I did not feel natural. I don’t think I will win any Oscars for playing myself. Inside, Mom followed Hank to his train table in another room, while Dad went back out onto the deck to check his rotisserie meat situation. I decided to go back out to the van to get my camera, and when I did, I could see Amy jogging towards the house. I ducked back inside and tried unsuccessfully to get everyone in the same room. The front door opened and Amy peeked in. When she saw me standing there alone, she closed the door again. So I started, in a so very natural manner, to say, “Hey Mom, come look at this!” I gestured vaguely in the air. “Hey Dad, come in here!” More gesturing.

Finally Amy opened the door again and walked in saying, “Boy, it’s cold out there.” I have never seen anyone more surprised than my Mom. She said later that she thought she was hallucinating, and she actually had her mouth hanging open. The way people look in comic strips when they are really surprised? That’s how she looked. Then Dad came in and made the same face. Then there was much hugging and kissing. We just finished eating dinner. Today is Mom and Dad’s 40th wedding anniversary, and we are all together, and we are very thankful for that and for many things.

Tonight there will be karaoke and hot tubbing, though sadly, not at the same time. I hope you and yours are having a wonderful day.

Cell Phones and Public Bathrooms: A Point of Etiquette

On the way up to the mountain house today, we stopped at McDonald's so I could go in and use the bathroom. Everyone else stayed in the car. There were two stalls in there, and both were empty, so I had my pick. While I was ensconced in my stall, a woman came into the bathroom talking on her cell phone. It sounded like the conversation had just started; I don't know if she had placed the call or received the call. But she was saying "Yes sir," and giving her name, and starting to ask some official-sounding question. The tone of her voice was that of someone in the supplicant position, like she doesn't often have to call "important" offices and ask for things. While she was trying to get her question out, which was something about her daughter's Social Security check, she went into the stall next to me and was seated. She continued to explain her question to the person on the line--she's divorced, and it seems that her daughter's check is going to her ex-husband's address instead of to her PO box.

By now there are at least two people waiting outside the stalls. Phone woman is actually giving her ex's social security number on the phone, and explaining again that she is divorced and here is the exact situation. I was ready to flush and go, but I felt hesitant to flush the toilet in the middle of her phone call. The sound of those power-flushing toilets is pretty unmistakeable. My neighbor had been actually using the toilet, I think, but now I thought maybe she was just sitting there to finish her conversation. But people were waiting for a turn. And I felt how frustrated they must be. My stall is a total mystery to them, and hers sounds like a phone booth.

Phone Lady began to repeat the story of her divorce, and she gave her husband's mailing address, and her own. (I guess identity theft is not in the forefront of her concerns.) I was peeking through the crack in the door, and I could see that there were three people waiting now. One of us was being rude, I thought, either Phone Lady for the entire situation, or me for enabling her and colluding with her bathroom-hogging by my reluctance to flush in the middle of her call. I decided to go ahead and flush--I was obviously more embarrassed for her than she was for herself, considering that when she started this call, or answered this call, she could have turned around and left the bathroom. So I flushed, and as I did, she raised her voice, very loudly now, to finish her sentence. I winced and felt sorry for a second, then I thought, "Why am I the one who feels responsible for this situation?" Then I gave it another flush.

So, if you must conduct a private and sensitive conversation in a public bathroom, don't camp on the potty the whole time. It is possible, probably, to hold the phone in one hand and finish your business and leave. Oh, or maybe just don't be in this situation AT ALL.

Random Purchases Tuesday, Also, Getting My Party On

I have cleaned two bathrooms, changed numerous beds, put the kids' rooms in order (Laura helped with hers), vacuumed the floors, and done all kinds of dusting and prettifying. I was totally ready to get into Thanksgiving mode, but something was lacking. Then my mother-in-law arrived with half a Honeybaked ham, and suddenly everything was perfect. That is some delicious ham. And that sucker cost $44. Is that possible? That's what it says on the little sticker. I've never shopped there so I don't know.

And since it's Random Thoughts Tuesday at Un-Mom, here is a picture of the little turtle I bought at Goodwill, which caused me to spray paint my fingers. Michele, in the comments of that post, said that she had happened to see this exact turtle at that exact Goodwill. Freaky. The turtle is hanging with some owls over the potty in the kids' bathroom. I gave the frame one coat of spray paint, and I was going to go back and do more, but I liked it this way. It has a pickled, sort of distressed look.

Now, more random purchases, all brought to you by the letter 'T'. A tiny fake tree that I got at Target for $5. Right now it's anchoring a display of Laura's pottery.

It is five dollars-worth of cute. And finally, ALSO at Target (could I please be more boring), they have little painted wooden vehicles up front. They are a buck. You know we didn't get out of there without some trucks. Not sure of their lead content yet.

So, 'T' is for Turtle, Tree, and Trucks. And Tuesday. Have a happy one!

You Cannot Beat That With a Stick

While waiting for the dog to get bathed and have her anal glands attended to--Happy Thanksgiving, Percy!--the kids and I took a spin through the dollar section up in the front of Target. Target, I have often said, is my safe place. It only makes me feel good, and never makes me feel bad, and today was no exception. In their section of junky holiday decor, they had two different felt garlands. You know how suddenly we're seeing these homemade letter garlands all around? Here's one example. Anyway, at Target they have felt garlands for $2.50. One says, "Happy Holidays," and there's this one that I got.

It's all felt. Each snowman is really cute. Not bad for $2.50, so go getcha one. While I haven't started decorating for Christmas yet, I went ahead and stuck this on the mantel. I'm calling it a transitional piece, I guess. When we break out the Christmas decorations, I'll move it, because I've got a different garland I like to put up there with the stockings. I have snow on the brain because my mom told me it's snowing at the mountain house, which is where we're going on Wednesday. Fun! First, though, we're having Pre-Thanksgiving here. And the dog is clean, Praisallujah!

I also swept through Publix with a sheaf of coupons in hand. Scored lots and lots of canned broth, canned veggies, French's onions (green bean casserole, oh yeah baby), bogo Hellman's, Club crackers, raisins, cake mixes, and I don't know what all. Spent about $52 and saved $57. CVS was a little meh. I got the free Maybelline make-up and some much-needed bogo All. Cassie had sent me a $3 off $15 coupon, for which I truly give thanks. I haven't really figured out all the Black Friday stuff happening at CVS. I usually don't shop at all around Thanksgiving. Is anyone taking the time to do that? I love to go to the movies on Thanksgiving night, but we'll be in the wilderness, so I don't think it will happen.

As always, thanks to Fiddledeedee for help in figuring out the Publix deals. Check over there to see what the Supersavers are doing. Sorry to be so brief, but I'm still cleaning house. Have a good night, y'all.

3 Things Standing Between Perfect Contentment and Me

Because even though everything is fine, life could always be better.

1)I spray painted three of my fingers just now. This is my trouble with crafts: I have a great interest in homemade and crafty stuff, but I lack expertise, so I try to half-ass it. Yesterday I picked up a little framed needlepoint of a very 70's turtle at Goodwill, priced-to-love at $1.91. It is adorable and I'm sure you will see it, just like you will eventually see everything in my house. But I can't show you yet because I'm trying to spray paint the frame. It's out in the garage. I was too lazy to take the frame, glass, and needlepoint apart properly, because probably thirty years ago, someone put masking tape all over the back of the frame. So I did a quickie job of covering the glass with paper and post-it notes (really, I should put all these tricks in a book), and then when I got out to the garage, part of the paper started peeling up, so I grabbed a pencil and poked it down while I sprayed, and then I sprayed my fingers. They are a pretty celery green, and so far neither soap nor vaseline will get the paint or the sticky feeling off. Spray paint is not like regular paint. It is nasty. Why did I think vaseline would help? Oh yeah, because I was raised to think it was the cure for anything.

2) The house is a mess, and so far today, limited progress has been made, though Matt is valiantly blowing leaves right now. (I know, I know, leafblowers are a nuisance and they are bad for the planet. The first Fall we lived here, we raked. But you would not believe the biomass of leaves we're talking about. Now we blow.) We've got a busy week ahead, but I thought it would be more fun to spray paint my fingers than pick up Legos and do laundry. Matt's mom and brother are coming early in the week for a little pre-Thanksgiving house party, and I need to get my act together quick. Also I guess I'm dealing with some leafblower guilt.

3)I know I'm killing you with this Room Mom stuff, but late last night, I got this cry for help from my co-room mom about our auction basket:

UGH!!! You should see the PATHETIC amount of stuff that was donated. I’m going to have to make a little go a LONG way!! This is going to be embarrassing! :( What do you think we should do? Jan

I told her that I think she needs to stop being a crazy person, wait a little longer for parents to send things in (because the auction is not until December 6), and that she needs to not botch her every email communication with the class, because probably people didn't read her auction basket emails, and that the way she listed each little wooden spoon and bamboo skewer individually probably made people think we had a long list of stuff, but ABOVE ALL, she needs to wait a little longer for items to trickle in. This morning she responded

You’re right, parents must have thought we had enough stuff but I guess I assumed they would each STILL send in an item or separate $$. That’s why I think I screwed up by not being specific about class money. I bet most parents think that it’s for the basket too. I will add my stuff to the basket that I had bought for my husband for Christmas (I was making him a BBQ basket, that’s where I got the idea). I have all the receipts but I will “donate” most of it since a lot of it I bought awhile back and on sale this past fall. I got my husband a great gift yesterday to take the place of the Basket. Did you know you can have a regular photo turned into a painting? It’s all done by computer! I’m having a picture of my kids walking on the beach at Disney made into one. It’s big but it only cost $160. I can’t wait! I almost forgot, I had bought a whole set of dishes at CVS for almost NOTHING. I think it was 90% off. I can’t pass up a deal! They are plastic ones for a picnic or BBQ and I think they have a fish or shell shape. Can I add them to the basket? I still have a whole set of Christmas plates (from CVS) that I bought 2 years ago for 90% off. Do you know a needy family or where I can donate them? They are breakable so I don’t want to put them in a donation bin. Don’t worry, I’ll get the basket done today and it will be fine.

Does this email seem totally ADHD to anyone else? I do think she is very sweet, but she has a touch of The Nutso, and it's contagious. And apparently she didn't hear me at all when I said DON'T DO THE BASKET YET, WAIT A LITTLE LONGER.

So, fingers are green, house is a mess, co-room mom is a little kooky. All else is well, and I hope you had a lovely weekend.

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