Fun With WHAT...?!

...worms.

Earthworms, to be specific. This afternoon we took advantage of the fleeting nice weather to go out and play with the kid and chickens. For N. this involves just about anything, with the chickens today it involved J. with a shovel. The older ones know what The Shovel means and come running to stand on the blade as you try to dig.

We weren't planting anything, mind you. Just turning over the earth for the pure sake of breaking the soil, which ya gotta do in warm weather or die. It feeds the soul and calms the spirit.

What with all the rain we've had lately, earthworms were numerous and near the surface. The chickens happily pounce on them, not caring that N. was telling them SHE wanted one to hold and look at. Finally she got one of her own, and as I sat there mentally toting up how much I'd spent this Christmas on toys, she piled some loose dirt on an old cinderblock and commenced to tell her worm about his new house. Then she tried to stuff him into it, only to be robbed of her new plaything by Rita, a small black cochin hen.

Not shy about food, our Rita.

I struggle against laughing out loud as N. looks at Rita in shock and yells, "Hey--! Mom, she took my worm and I wasn't done playing with it!" Not only this, but Bear has noticed the Worm Home that N. has built, and realizes that she saw Rita grab a worm out of it. Destructor Bear moves in like a feathered bulldozer and obliterates the carefully constructed Worm Home, looking mildly annoyed at wasting precious food hunting time when no more worms are forthcoming. We leap to keep everyone happy with more digging, being more careful to seperate the five year old's worms from those destined to take up residence in our chickens.

Eventually the chickens tire of gobbling worms, which is good because several of them look as if they are in real danger of exploding. Liz has fallen into the holes several times when lunging for a worm, and Bear is using the smaller birds for traction.

A few of the birds are squeamish about the worms though. I guess it's the dirt that sticks to them. Phoenix the rooster only takes one for the barest instant, just to be polite, spitting it out with a nearly audible ptooey for one of the hens and then shaking his head afterwards. I do get him to eat a few that I have cleaned the dirt off of, but he doesn't look all that thrilled.

After a while we give up and go sit down. I see that Bear has a bit of root material hanging from her beak, and have J. hold her while I grasp her head and pull it out of her mouth. When I open her beak I get a full dose of Worm Breath, which I'm here to tell ya, ain't pretty. Meanwhile N. is kinda having a good time sending earthworms down her slide...but she has to keep getting a new worm each time, because the old one has mysteriously dissapeared.

Several very happy chickens wait at the bottom of the slide, though.

Did I Miss A Memo...?

Apparantly tonight was "Run Like An Idiot From The Cops" night in our neighborhood. Three seperate episodes of howling sirens going round and round plus the inevitable helicopter. One event merited the fire department getting in on the fun. We sat in the back yard petting the chickens and betting how quickly the cops would tire of the same four blocks over and over again and end it.

Heck, If I'd known in advance I would have set up a lemonade stand!

Ain't full moons fun.

A Serious Question...

OK, I have to ask...is it possible to have too many Christmas ornaments? I know that my sisters would instantly scream, "No!" but looking at my tree tonight the thought did occur to me. The thing almost looks like it was dipped in glue and rolled in ornaments, and I have to admit that I did have trouble getting all of the decorations situated on the branches.

At least I come by this honestly, care of my mother. When I was a kid, every year we would all join in decorating the tree. Carefully unwrapping each ornament from miles of toilet paper and stealthily repositioning favorite ornaments that someone else had foolishly hung in the wrong spot. Sometimes this happened to the same ornament two or three times.

There's something about Christmas ornaments that carry powerful memories, so poignant and sweet that just holding one in your hand can instantly transport you back to when you were 8 or 10 years old. My collection has been added to slowly over the years as I search for the exact decorations that I grew up with. Thanks to estate sales, thrift stores and ebay, I've partially succeeded. My tree sports, for instance, two oddly shaped ornaments that look just like the ones we used to call "Ramblers" as children. Not until years later did I think to wonder why we named these particular decorations such an odd name--it is because they were the same pale metallic blue as my Dad's Rambler American, a faithful but boxy little car. My ornaments even have the same stripes as the ones from my childhood, and I call mine "Ramblers" as well. Note to self: Explain this line of descent to my daughter, so she won't suddenly wonder in her later years why the Hell she's calling those damned things "Ramblers". Another fav is a plain red ball from the 50's with a white snowy church scene and the words, 'Silent Night' painted on the side. Nearby are the colorful glass clip-on birds with the fiberglass tails, the fabulous indented teardrop ornaments, the red, silver and blue glass bells, the oversized glass balls with the elaborate, glittered scenes painted all around them and the four color glass church with glittered 'snow' on it's roof.

To these nods to childhood I've added my own special pieces: the ornate set of red, gold and silver plastic teardrops that were attached to the top of the first Christmas gift from my husband, the 24 long, sliver-like glass icicles that are ALWAYS a royal pain to retrieve off of the tree each year, the three small handpainted china bells from an estate sale of a couple named Ken and Shirley who lived down the street from me, the two beautiful tiny glass chickens from my sister, the wooden cat ornament from my sister--it waves it's arms and legs wildly when you pull on it's string--, the delicate snowflake sequin ball from Eva, the cinnamon-apple dough ornaments my 5 year old and I made last year, the three ultra-tiny wooden ornaments that barely cling to the very tippy-top of the tree each year and somehow over the last 20 years have miraculously never gotten lost, the gigantic silver ball that I refer to as 'The Queen Mother'--always the last to be hung, with a large red glittered set of poinsettias on one side and an ornate old-world 'Merry Christmas' in blue glitter on the other. And new this year--a replica ornament of the fabulous 'leg lamp' from the movie 'A Christmas Story', a gift from my husband.

The decorations mentioned here barely scratch the surface, of course. This year and last, it took me three days to finish decorating the tree. Last year I put it down to being ill and moving slow, and to some extent the same was true this year thanks to a sinus/ear infection. But the truth is that decorating the tree is something I really love to do, and taking the time to unwrap each ornament and getting that childhood zing and a smile just by seeing it again and holding it in my hands just can't be beat. The tree will stay up until New Year's Day for my OTHER personal tradition, rising early in the quiet while everyone else sleeps, removing the ornaments and packing them away while watching the Rose Parade. So what if I end up watching the Rose Parade a few times because it takes so damned long to unload the tree, right? Which brings me back to the original question: Is it possible to have too many Christmas ornaments?

Ah, um...never mind--I see a bare spot on the tree. There's room for more. Come to think of it, I'm still searching the the heavy plastic filligree bells and the handpainted pale blue ball with the glittering white snowman on it from my childhood.

Forget I said anything.

Another Christmas...so far!

Well, another day of happiness, Conspicious California Consumer style. Right now I don't care if I EVER see another chunk of that Hellish gray wire that toymakers insist on winding around every toy in weird, inaccessable, unexplainable places. And that damned super-strong clear tape they then cover the stupid gray wire with, as if it wasn't already anough of a pain in the neck. All this while an over-sugared, under-slept, hot-wired 5 year dances and emits high-pitched yowls of anticipation at your feet. Something about this makes my brain just flatline and I lose what little fine motor skills remained in my fingers. Soon the kids are watching me with an expression pretty darned close to pity on their faces. This year I tried to circumvent this somewhat by taking the items out ahead of the wrap session and doing away with the annoying gray wire and tape and placing batteries. This worked fine at home but I still looked bad once we got to N's paternal grandparents home and tore paper there. And we still have another family holiday shinding to go to on MY side of the family. I'll tackle that when the time comes, hopefully I'll have a day to rest up beforehand.

The big hit with N. this year (so far) is the replica stuffed bunny I made, using her favorite, worn-out-to-the-nub toy as a pattern. The problem was that I could only work on it at night after she was asleep, and by then I was so tired and wrung out from fighting a sinus/ear infection that I was making all sorts of weird mistakes--sewing heads on backwards and the like. But eventually New Bunny got done, and N. now carries them BOTH around. The other big hit of the day was the huge--HUGE--34 inches--plastic spider courtesy of our ol' fav, Archie McPhee.

She LOVES things like this--no dolls for her, she's a plastic dinosaur and rubber bug kinda girl. She hauled both the stuffed bunny and the spider along to Grandma and Grandpa's house to share. They looked at us as if we had three heads, but oh, well.

My big hit of the day is the beautiful black and purple velvet dress/blouse that J. got me. It's got dragons on the purple velvet, a lace-up bodice, long, flowing sleeves and a long, draped back the reaches below my knees. It's so cool I don't think I'll ever take it off.

Along with the goodies, we try to get N. to appreciate and savor the season. We check NORAD's website as they track Santa's progress on Christmas Eve. We make a point of reading The Polar Express and The Night Before Christmas. Another treat is to turn off the TV and stereo and turn off all of the lights in the house except those on the tree, then just sit quietly and look at it. I remember as a child doing this-I'd crawl under the dining room table all by myself, take off my glasses and just enjoy the beautiful, blurry, colored blobs. Our tree this year is a nice one, but sadly is too full to allow the hanging of the lead tinsel (NOT plastic, haz mat be damned). Another fun tradition we started, is that every year on New Year's Day when it is time to take down the tree, we each take a pen and write a short note, memory or comment on the tissue that wraps the ornaments. That way we have a fun history of notes to read aloud to each other NEXT year when we unwrap the ornaments. So far we have about 7 years worth of this. My favorite is the one from a few years ago that notes that N. took her first steps that New Year's Day.

Last night we went for our annual drive to look at Christmas lights. I took along a bundle of jingle bells and periodically held them out the car window and shook them in a Santa's sleigh-type cadence. Several times we got small children to freeze in their tracks. The outing to view holiday lights always turns up with lots of strange ones. This year's oddest was the large, expensive McMansion wearing obviously the OLD house's lights. Waaaay undersized and pathetic looking in a amusing way. Interestingly, we started our annual Christmas light hunt armed with a video camera to search out the hideous, tacky houses. We'd tape it to show our family--surely no one would beleive us otherwise--and our snarky, smart-ass comments ended up on the tape. It's impossible NOT to comment when you see some of these (Santa on a surfboard!). The trip got to be popular with the family and ended up becoming a Pointless Family Tradition--just like putting the bows off of the packages on a sibling's head.

I've just spent the last 2 hours clipping tags from new clothing, setting up new toys, wrestling other items from their packaging and reading instructions. Our giant curbside trash can is stuffed to the gills, it's maw overflowing with bright shreds of paper and loose strands of ribbon. "A Christmas Story" has been running all day on one of the TV stations, last night they were running "A Miracle on 34th Street" over and over. Today we allowed N. to tank up on as much candy as she wanted, to her cautiously puzzled happiness. Little half-eaten bits of it are gathered in a small dish for tomorrow. I'm sure this is typical and a great reason why school resumes NEXT week.

N. still gets up at a reasonable hour, today was 7AM. We are especially thankful for this when J's sister tells us that HER kids start trying to get everyone up starting at around 4AM. I'd use strap clamps and industrial strength epoxy to keep them in bed if they did that to me.

Time to download today's pictures off of the camera. As an aside, the chickens were NOT amused by the giant plastic spider that N. ran out into the yard to "share" with them. I believe they will need extended therapy after today...

Progress, I Guess...

I HATE it, just HATE IT, when a long-time, favorite store of mine closes.

This time it's Stat's--a floral and craft supply store nearby. It's been a family-owned business since way back, and they have something like 5 locations so I figured they were safe. No such luck.

Stat's was one of those stores that was a teensy bit pricey but always carried way cool stuff, especially during the holidays. I love the old-time glass Christmas ornaments that are painted, glittered or otherwise done up in a fancy way, and Stat's carried literally hundreds of them in all shapes and sizes.

The other night we stopped by on a whim and the place looked...wierd. Open, but not. Then we realized that while some of the lights were on, most were not, and they had very little merchandise inside. We knew then what was going on, but went inside anyway to see what was left.

While we did score some great things at 75% off, it was strange and sad to walk around the empty, cavernous space inside. There was no heat and only a few lights were on. People were talking in whispers to each other, don't ask me why. They had drug everything out of the back storerooms to sell, even things that hadn't seen the light of day in 20 or 40 years. Out of pure sentimental value I picked up a couple of rolls of 1960 era corrugated border paper, it's white and says 'Season's Greetings' in red Atomic Age font with blue Sputnick-style starbursts, the edges of the paper are scalloped to look like icicles. I remember it from my grade school days.

Much of the remainder of the stuff was damaged in some way, which left it looking like decorations for the Island of Misfit Toys--unloved, unwanted and more than likely destined for the dumpster.

Today's Slice...

Well, we are sitting here with the hatches battened down, still waiting for The Big Storm to arrive. It was promised for afternoon drive time, between 3 and 5PM...it still hasn't showed up but the wind is kicking up now and blowing J's sheet music off the amp, where it amusingly enough struck the guitar strings on the way to the floor...music playing the guitar, for a change!

Tonight as my 5 year old daughter was taking a potty break, I CLEARLY heard her singing "YMCA"...she says they sing it at school, complete with hand motions. It gave me a giggle though.

There are currently 4 very large Barn Spiders lving in the nectarine and cherry trees in the back yard. They make huge, impressive webs each night around 9PM and by dawn they have whisked them away and retreated back to their leaves to sleep. I'd been nursing a sincere fantasy about having the twitling who burgled us last year return in the night and become hopelessly entangled in one or all of them while flailing about emitting high-pitched screams. Just like those B-grade horror movies where the heroine runs around at the end opening closets and finding all of her dead friends. Well judging by a wrecked web and a broken off branch of the orange tree the other morning, it seems to at least have partly come true. I consider the broken branch a small price to pay for such inner contentment and karmic rebalancing, and thanked the tree for doing it's bit to physically harm the little bastard while I trimmed off the dead branch.

My vacumm cleaner has reached terminal old age and has broken in three different places, all at once. I'm stubborn and refuse to just trash it though, so in for repair it's going to go. Now if I could only find a few days when I don't need it.

The chickens are suffering through a bout of Fowl Pox, which sounds a lot worse than it is. It's a virus mostly carried by mosquoitos, and other than causing some blister-like lesions on the facial skin of the birds, doesn't do much harm. It does open the door to secondary problems like respiratory infections though, so we'll have to keep an eye on them. It's kind of like when you are a kid and everyone in the house gets chicken pox. The chickens are very aware of their appearance though, and know that they are less than pretty right now. Truth be told, some of them look like little mutants or radiation overdose victims...

Also on the appliance front, my microwave committed suicide today in a very grand fashion when I asked it to make some popcorn. Loud, weird noises and bright flashes made me turn around and then leap for the plug, yanking it and all of the others in the outlet out of the wall. I found a hole burned right through the side of the thing! Good thing I hadn't walked away, it was seconds from catching fire. Stank some, too.

Weird week so far, and it's only Tuesday...

The Olympics And Ridiculous Dreams Of Childhood

Tonight we watched the closing ceremonies of the 2004 Summer Olympics in Greece.

The opening ceremonies were simply stunning. We were so enthralled by both the show and what this small country had managed to accomplish that all three of us had sat there watching the teams enter the stadium, the flame lit, the theatrical performances. We were so engrossed, trying to impart the historical importance of the Olympics returning to their birthplace to my four year old daughter that we quite frankly allowed her bedtime to come and go.

Over the last two weeks we tried to sample many different events to watch--NBC got smart and spread various events over their many NBC-owned stations so there was a MUCH wider variety of options--not just the same old mega-popular events. N. did pretty well and was genuinely interested in a lot of it, but I don't know how much of this she'll remember.

Tonight, I mostly watched the closing ceremonies by myself--N. had been put to bed at a sensible hour for a change and J. had wandered off to take a shower, nursing a probable broken toe courtesy of a late-night foray into the darkened kitchen and an unexpected greeting by the immovable kitchen island last night.

As I watched I was surprised to feel myself choking up a bit as they showed scenes of the many amazing victories, failures and strain that the athletes endured. Then it hit me as to why I tried so hard to get my daughter interested in the games, why I got so absorbed myself: I remembered watching the 1972 Olympics from Munich when I was 11.

Still, quiet summertime in Norco, with no air conditioning and the house opened up to every possible breath of fresh air, fans running at high speed. My Dad mostly asleep on the couch as I watched the events. Surprisingly, while the terrible murder of the Israeli athletes towards the end was the prevailing memory of that year, it was also the year that had really fired my every-kid's-wish to somehow, someday, be on that Olympic medal podium myself.

When you are 11 you know that certainly you can do it!

...if only you didn't have to wait until you were older. The problems of being short in height, never having been on a real sports team before and being the youngest child of a large family with admittedly modest means doesn't even enter into it. In my family I learned by watching the older kids--and learned pretty quick not to even dream of playing little league or go out for expensive school sports. My folks couldn't afford it, and what they were able to give us came with a lot of hard work and sacrifice on their part. I think we kids decided privately to ourselves to appreciate what we had, enjoy our family and not whine.

My personal ambition was to be able to compete in the high jump and it had hit me hard. I had seen Dwight Stones in the Olympics and what he was able to do amazed me. Again, never mind that I was lamentably short--even as an adult I don't exactly tower at 5 foot 2--and the high jump bar loomed overhead like a damned skyscraper. I was determined to try. Surprisingly--especially to me--I actually did pretty well and was looking forward to taking the first step along the Olympic road. To me, anyway.

I had been practicing the high jump during P.E. and was screwing up my nerve to ask the coach if I could get at it seriously when--

we moved away.

Not only moved away, but moved FAR away, to a tiny country town where the high school student body numbered exactly 100--for grades 9 through 12. Needless to say, they had no such thing as high jump equipment. When my dad told us of the move I could practically feel any chance of competing draining away from me. Heck, they barely even had a football field, and no track and field program at all. The sports choices for the girls were basketball, volleyball and softball.

I even asked the one girls' sports coach about starting up a track and field team, complete with high jump, and was given a gentle but firm lecture on the small-time budgets of small-town schools.

For a while I tried to practice on my own in the sagebrush-and-fire-ant-infested area up behind our barn. I built two poles with nails every 1/2 inch to hold the bar and marked the measurements on them. My problem was the pit. When you high jump, ya need something large and soft to land in. This is where I was stymied. That town wasn't even big enough to collect old mattresses from. From somewhere I obtained some miserably thin foam padding, cut into weird shapes that was obviously scrap material. There was precious little of it and I had to arrange it juuuuust right to keep from breaking my head. Even then it was woefully thin and eventually, sadly, I had to give up that particular dream. All I was doing was pissing off the fire ants. It's probably just as well and saved me many injuries, failures and disappointments when my lack of height would eventually put a stop to my dream. But I did watch Dwight Stones again in the 1976 Olympics, feeling a kind of kinship with him. We were lucky to even see the Olympics since in our remote area we had three TV stations, and only one was semi-reliable.

Tonight, I was shocked to have that childhood memory and dream of the high jump come roaring back so strongly. I haven't even thought of it in years. It's been filed away I guess, waiting for the chance to pop up. Now that I carry an extra pound or two of scrap metal in my left ankle and have had to give up running in any form I am reduced to watching others strive for that dream. I don't often feel sorry for myself for what has happened to me--heck, if it's the worst thing I'll be lucky--but tonight I do, and it's because I had a huge flashback--being 11 years old and having any possibility in the world open to me. Not only having that door closed, but having it welded shut, still jumps up to bite me at unexpected moments.

I guess that's why it was so important to me to explain to my daughter what the Olympics mean--it's the best of the best, and she won't see them again until she's nearly 9. I hope she remembers something of what she saw this time, and gets to experience that same amazing, breathless, wide-eyed epiphany of possibilities when she gets older. I hope that she trusts me enough to come to me and say, "Mom, can I...?" without any barriers.

When she does, I hope I can remember how I felt in 1972.