I gave her a knife sharpener for Christmas

*70s happy elevator music plays on my phone*

Me: Hi Mom, how's it going?

Mom: Well I just got done feeding the calf and he tried to buck me blah blah blah blah blah it has been so cold! I'm freezing my hiney off blah blahblah blah blah blah and that dumb red chicken got out again and I swear it is one step away from getting butchered and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah oh how was Aimee's first day of classes?

Me: *watching tv* She's here, she said everything went great.

Mom: So I talked to Rose and blah blah blah we made spaghetti sandwiches for dinner tonight blah blah blah blah blah blah blah my thyroid turned out to be normal! The doctor said I have high cholesterol! !! He wants me to lose weight AND exercise! Blah blah blah blah blah blah I don't know why I'm not losing weight blah blah blah.

Me: uh huh *whispering* hey Apollo, can you pause the movie?

Mom: Did I tell you about the yearling elk that got tangled in the fence? Blah blah blah I went to the dentist today. My molar hurt when you tapped it, you know like blah blah blah blah blah and then they cleaned my teeth and now I don't have any more pain! Did you KNOW you can get plaque between your gums and your teeth? Blah blah blah blah.

Me: You should try out one of those Sonicare toothbrushes like Aimee has. You would be amazed at how well it cleans your teeth. She got me one for Christmas, I don't think my teeth have ever been so clean with so little effort on my part.

Mom: SOME PEOPLE GET PLAQUE ON THEIR TEETH FASTER THAN OTHER PEOPLE!

Me: It's OK Mom! I'm just saying, it's a nice toothbrush! *wondering how many minutes I have left on my cell phone* Maybe your dentist can recommend something to you to help fight plaque?

Mom: Anyway blah blah blah and I told her, I use a butcher knife to get plaque off my teeth. She just looked at me and said, don't scratch your teeth too much!

Me: *stunned*

So you say

I have been sick lately. Actually, this cold is connected to the cold I got back before Halloween. So last week I finally went to the doctor and had a lung x-ray to find out that I only had a chest cold compounded by asthma. I always feel cheesey about going to a doctor for something as simple as a cold.

Yesterday I got a phone call from the doctor's office. "The radiologist found a high density mass in your lung x-ray. It could be a shadow or it could be a tumor." Why do I always get the people with crappy bedside manners? (Like the time my gyn told me I probably had cervical cancer, "the kind that's impossible to treat.")

So I went in right away and had a CT scan with iodine dye (which make you feel like you are peeing your pants) and I was inserted into what appeared to be a large donut.

"Good news," said the doctor. "You have pneumonia."

Nope, no tumor.

Curses!

Mom has a large potluck at her house every year, one that involves hundreds of people (usually older folk), motorhomes, port-a-potties and the occasional banjo or fiddle, if we're lucky (and when I say lucky, I mean, awwww yeah!!). This year the potluck was considered a success, until about two weeks later when I got a phone call from my very distressed mother.

Mom: The chest freezer must have gotten unplugged when we were unplugging Bill's RV, the water cooler and whatever else!!!

Me: That's not good. (At this moment, I actually remembered unplugging one of the many extension cords, but I stayed silent. Very silent.)

Mom: * angrily and accusingly * Now I have to throw everything away. INCLUDING MY WEASELS!! AND MY ELK HEAD!

Me: Mom, I didn't know you had more than one weasel. Are you talking about weasels, plural, and not the one in the house freezer? Because when I was at your place last, I saw him there propped up against a bag of broccoli and he was still frozen solid.

Mom: Well yes, remember that one I found on the side of the road and brought home for you to see?

Me: Oh yes. Now I remember, with the blood dripping out of its still warm body?

Mom: Will, that one too. (She chronically misspells the word "well." I can hear the misspelling when she speaks.)

Me: !

Mom: Anyway, now I'm upset! Because I have to throw out the weasels, elk head, my pheasant, the rabbit furs....all of it is gone!! I AM SO UPSET!!! When are you going to come over and help me clean it out?

Me: As much as the idea of helping you throw out rotting animal carcases appeals to me, I'm just not sure if I'll be able to come over this weekend.

Mom: Sigh! MY WEASELS!!


Stay tuned for "Part II: Silence of the Lambs Mysterious Animal Parts"

Shamed into shaving

Since our men are gone on a job, Nicole and I have been hanging out a lot. Of course, when girls hang out, all sorts of interesting topics come up. It's even more fun when my sister, a nursing student, stops by and tells us stories about poop, slinging scrotum's, giant labia (it's not often you hear the words, "My hands got tired from holding back her giant labia."), misaligned vagina's and other really fun things we can all forward to in our senior years.

After talking about labia, this is all going to be very boring for you. I apologize. So anyway, the subject of shaving came up. It turns out we both are lazy shavers, especially since our guys don't complain about it. I then proudly told her that since there are no expectations that I should shave, I have hairy hippy legs. And then I laughed as if I had gotten away with something. (I am not happy that my spellchecker wants me to change hippy to hippo.) Nicole looked at me and quietly said, "I shave because I want to be sexy."

So this morning, I shaved my legs and pits. Which reminds me, I glanced at the shaving can and for a split second I could swear it said "shaving cream for whores." I was ready to battle it out when I looked closer and saw that it said "shaving cream for women." The can was probably right in the first place.

Station wagons

I don't like station wagons. I saw one today and it reminded me of the one we rode in with our dog, family and all our possessions across the US in a desperate attempt at a new life. Only, this one had shiny spinners and a bright blue paint job. A mohawked 20-something with tattoo sleeves sat in it, carelessly flipping his cigarette ashes out the window. Somehow, he was cooler than me.

It reminded me of the night we slept at a rest stop on our way to Texas. Mom slept outside of the car, Aimee, Sandy and I inside. We didn't get much sleep since Sandy stood guard over us, barking all night at the cement mixer parked near by. Once we got to Texas, we moved around a bit before living with my aunt and uncle who weren't allowed to have a dog, let alone three adults, two children and a newborn baby in a one bedroom apartment. So, poor Sandy lived in the car. We walked him several times a day and visited him as much as possible. Still, I think of how it must have been hell for him. He barked constantly at strangers and lived only for those moments my sister and I, only 7 and 8, visited him.

Unfortunately, as a pure bred Cocker Spaniel, Sandy developed constant ear infections and some sort of nail issue with every foot. He needed surgery and considering we couldn't even afford our own place, Mom gave him away. Well, that's what we thought anyway. A few years ago, we found out she had him euthanized.

So yeah. I don't really like station wagons.

Mom's animals - the ones the cougars avoid

The day I was supposed to return home from visiting family last January, it snowed. I had forgotten how beautiful snow was but the alpaca was not impressed. Now that I think of it, the alpaca is never impressed. She's always looking down her nose at us and threatening to spit. I have two bags of her fleece though and I'm hoping to get more. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it since I don't know how to spin or anything. That story of Sleeping Beauty getting poked by the spinning needle and falling into a coma haunts me to this day! That and Bambi's Dad getting shot. Oh yes, some day when I don't know what to talk about, remind me to tell you the story about our pet calf Butch which seemingly came up missing and apparently ended up in our freezer.

Mom and Apollo got some hay out of the big barn and drove it down to the horses and alpaca. I noticed Mom didn't try anything sneaky with Apollo like she did with Aimee and me as kids. You know, the typical loving parental stuff like swerving around to "kill a snake" while we precariously clung to the tailgate, slamming on the brakes to skid over the snake again (and again and again...), driving over clumps of snow, dirt or horse dung which hit our feet, causing them to fly up, splashing in water or speeding up and driving through cow pies which then splattered all over our pants. *glaring*

It must have been torture for the horses as they stood there and heard Mom and Apollo over in the barn. I'm sure they could smell the hay too. Unfortunately, I left the gate open after Mom drove her truck down into the field to drop the hay off in the barn. One of the horses ran out and started to take a trip down the road but it only took her a few seconds to realize there was nothing but snow as far as the eye could see and that Mom had all the food. She snorted and galloped past me, kicking her feet in the air. Lesson learned for both of us!

There's nothing like an accusing look from an uptight, cold and hungry animal. Even more so from two crazed horses that haven't been ridden in years. Yikes! At least there's no danger of their suspiciously ending up in the freezer.

Avoiding a meltdown

The past month has been trying. I don't want to bore you with the details but yesterday, it all accumulated into the Mother of All Headaches. My head hurt all day long and though I did take something for it, nothing helped. Everything made me nauseated and I was mean to people I care about. I didn't even knit or pet Zoe! By the time I went to bed, my head hurt so bad I considered I might die in my sleep and that didn't bother me at all. (I know that may seem a little dramatic but at that point, I wasn't thinking straight.) I briefly wondered if a headache could lead to death and then pulled the sheet over my head and went to sleep. Needless to say, I woke up this morning with only a slight headache and am feeling much better, thank you. And I just finished the toe on the second of Mom's socks.

Zoe is still being mouthy about not getting pet. At one point, to get my attention she jumped into the built in shelves in the livingroom, deliberately pulled out one of the teddy bears and sat there meowing pathetically at me.

I've read that to help get yourself through healthy grieving, you're supposed to talk about the person you lost until you can't talk anymore. I don't really want to talk about that so instead, I've been thinking about getting a tattoo. I want to get something to help me remember my grandpa (and no, not a banjo or Chevy pickup truck), so I have decided on either a hibiscus flower or cherry tree blossom. The first being because grandpa loved Hawaiian images (Mom said he loved Hawaiian stuff because of the half naked women). He even had the seat in his truck reupholstered with gaudy flower velvet fabric. The second because of the fragility of life symbolism behind the Japanese cherry tree blossom. While looking at tattoo's online I saw some awesome white ink tattoo's so I'm giving them some thought as well.

Meanwhile, tomorrow I'm going to try to find a salon that will cut my hair without an appointment. Maybe something short so I spent the least amount of time possible on it. I just feel like I need to start over.

Hate yarn? Avert your eyes beyotches!

OK, so I will be the first to admit that I've been in a but of a funk lately. But rather than go into the details, let's talk about how I'm replacing food with yarn!! (YESS! Now if only I could get off my fat ass, maybe I can lose some weight.)

I've wanted to knit socks these past couple weeks but haven't had the brain energy left to even think about patterns. Then it dawned on me. Why not use yarn that creates its own pattern?

Last night after cruising for yarn online, it didn't take much (or any) arm twisting to pick up some more Hazel Knits Artisan Sock yarn. I'm learning to think outside of the box and try out something other than solids and thankfully, her yarns don't do any weird pooling that will cause me to rip out my hair. I placed my order at Hazel Knits (that's Weekend Warrior over there, can't wait to see how it turns out) and decided to do a drive by at Jimmy Beans Wool.

It was then I realized there were only a few hours left to the day before the next months Lorna's Laces limited edition yarn would be available for sale!

And then I did something stupid.

Even though I was so tired I felt dizzy and standing up after laying down made me nauseated and dizzy and even though I had no idea what the new limited edition yarn would look like, I decided to stay up until midnight just in case I wanted some. Especially since last month it sold out pretty quickly (I read one day). Yep, my dedication to yarnage has proved to exceed my desire for good health, sanity and sleep induced happiness. Long story short, the yarn wasn't on the site at midnight so I went to bed.

Sadly, the first thing I did this morning when I got up early (because a certain neighbor can't help but stomp around upstairs and make the windows vibrate loudly until I wake up) was check their site and there it was, SWAK in all its February-esque glory!

I've been waiting to purchase Duet Chocolate Crunch for months now and it's always sold out. SWAK seems to be the substitute I was looking for! I immediately placed an order along with a few other colorways I've been drooling over for months.

Meanwhile, poor Apollo will probably have to deal with my crankiness for another day since I can't take a nap while the Chargers/Patriots game is on. That's just crazy talk!

Maybe I'll surf on over to KnitPicks and check out their needles while I wait for my yarn to come in. I just got paid!! Who's going to stop me?? HAHAAHAHAAH#A@!!!

The usual holiday antics begin

Mom just called me from Emeryville, CA. She's currently on an Amtrak train because she mistrusts airplanes and is afraid of the heights. I may have neglected to tell her about all the recent train accidents.

Anyway, so she's in Emeryville and her voice sounds scratchy from lack of sleep - I can imagine her eyes are pretty big too from all the staring at people around her. She tells me a story about some crazy lady at one of the train stops. (There's always at least one crazy person on the train when she travels. One day she'll be the crazy lady everyone talks about.) Our conversation goes something like this:

Me: So your train is on time?
Mom: Yes, we were almost late but right now we're stopped at Emeryville...oh can you hear the guy on the loudspeaker?
Guy on loudspeaker: Next stop, Oakland. Please have your tickets and ID out.
Me: Yep, he said something about Oakland and to have your tickets and ID ready.
Mom: Did you hear? He said our next stop is Oakland and to have our tickets and ID out.
Me: .
Mom: Rayleen?? RAYLEEN!?
Me: I'm here, Mom.
Mom: Well I think I'm going to go since I'm losing you, I didn't hear what you said at all. I'm going to turn this thing off since the only charger I have is the one for the car and I don't have the type you plug into your house.
Me: Well, you can check the battery if you want and see how much power you have.
Mom: And plus when it rings, it wakes everyone up around me and I can't get it out in time to turn it off.
Me: You know you can turn down the volume.
Mom: And it's so loud....hey the chicken coop is finally done! Except I don't have any chickens.
Me: Mom, have you tried turning down the volume?
Mom: What? How do you do that?

And so on. Oh, it's going to be a fun week! I'll update you on my sanity as the week progresses.

Day 10: What's wrong with me??

I don't know what the problem is but today after I logged into my bank account and checked my account balances, I actually teared up. Watching my savings account slowly grow actually made me cry! But that's not all, I cry for pretty much any reason lately. Like.....we're out of milk. Ben on Season three of Scrubs died. I love this yarn. I hate this yarn! "Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming?" How beautiful! OMG, I'm in my mid thirties. What do I have to show for myself? Will I look back at my life and think I've wasted all this time here in California? Will I regret it? If so, maybe I should do something now? I hate my body! I'm fat! I am having a hard time not being fat, it's all I know!

That being said, the map above shows the latest about the wildfires. The peach areas show where the fires burned in 2003 and the red is this year. Amazingly, the fire's still burn!

Ravelry, Day 1

After Faythe alerted me that she received her invite from Ravelry, I checked my mailbox and I too had an invite! I registered and of course, that's when I got slammed with work. After work I spent a few hours obsessing over it. I entered in all my needles that are in my notebook (I didn't even bother with the ones floating around in various projects or sitting out), recorded some books and started adding some projects.

I only added a few projects before I couldn't take it any longer and started going through patterns. Ravelry.com is now my homepage on Firefox. I'm tired.

More evidence of The Crazy, but first to lull you into a false sense of security...

OK so I know this isn't the most flattering picture but it's the only one I have which shows how tall my grandma's tomato plants are. They're huge! In case you can't tell, they're the same height as Apollo.

Some veggies grandma gave me. Some of those carrots looked funky, she said it may be because they were growing around rocks. One of my earliest memories involves my great granddad (grandma's dad) who used to tell Aimee and I to go out into the garden and get our own carrot. He'd wash it off and we'd eat them like they were candy. I think I was around 3 years old.

Mom had apples everywhere! So many, in fact, that the elk kept coming into the yard and eating them, despite her many crazy-old-lady like cd's hanging from the tree's to scare them away. When I first drove up I thought, what kind of kooky old lady thing is she doing to her tree's?? It seems they worked on the elk for a couple weeks but it didn't take long for them to wise up to the reflections caused by the cd's. While we were there, the elk walked up into the yard at least twice and ate some branches, apples and stomped holes into the yard. It was like revenge for insulting their intelligence! Ha! If the elk only knew what was in the freezer!

If you remember, there was an incident right about this time last year involving a cougar in the freezer. There may or may not have been a weasel in the freezer, a skunk,* fox, salmon head, or anything else that died fully or partially intact on the property.

Well this time when visiting Mom, she immediately gave us a tour of the freezer without warning us about its current inhabitants. I wasn't really surprised to see this poor soul lying on top of quart bags of frozen berries though.

Apparently one of her pheasants died and she's planning on getting it stuffed. (Yes!!) Oh yeah, and under the bags of blackberries, strawberries and blueberries is a black plastic garbage bag with an elk head in it. It's the last elk she got all by herself. She's so proud! I have to say holding the bird by its feet was damn creepy but I promise, I only did it long enough for her to move the berries out of the way so she could show Apollo the elk bag.

Anyway, Mom has paid her debt to society for freezing the cougar skin without letting the officials know she trapped it. (Did you know there's a specific period of time you have within to report a cougar death?) The elk is totally legit! The bird? Well let's all just hope this sort of crazy isn't genetic. *grumbling*


* Ziploc still hasn't responded to Mom's complaint letter about their bags not containing the scent of the skunk and contaminating all other foods in the freezer. I have to admit though, it was I that prompted her, while snickering, to write the letter. Man, if I could have been a fly on the wall at Ziploc when they got that letter!

The nightmares return

Though I didn't spend my entire life here, I usually say "I grew up" on Indian Creek Road in Oregon. The house is in a very remote are and if you can't tell, we couldn't get teleivison reception. So, when we missed the school bus, we cried, called Grandma and asked her to come pick us up. We would then start walking down the road until someone saw us and felt sorry for us. We also read books. LOTS of books!

While visiting this last month, I took Apollo for a drive to show him where Aimee and I grew up. The house is about 7 miles away from where Mom lives now. Anyway, I was a bit shocked when I saw it. Bushes have grown up, the grass is going crazy and the fence around the yard is pretty much rotten and only being held up in some places by other bushes. That gravel area you see in the front is what remains of the driveway.

I was sad when I saw it. I walked around the house and it mostly looked the same, except for the fact that time has not been kind. You know, that whole tore up look. And the silence...it was deafening. The window you see on the second floor was to my bedroom. I used to sit there at night and listen to the bear(s) eating blackberries or the occassional coyote hooping it up. (Click the pics)

The black walnut tree in the front yard has taken over. It's HUGE! You can't even see the house from the road. All it needs is a big storm, some tree rott and it's over for the house. I'll never forget the time I saw a cougar jump from the walnut tree, through the yard and over the fence toward the barn. The big cat was chasing one of our house cats. I assume he got her eventually since she (Smudge) came up missing. She was my favorite cat. :(

In front of the house looking towards the barn and the bridge over the creek. When the water froze every winter, we'd take the wheelbarrow and fill it up by lowering buckets over the bridge. We then wheeled it to the ungracious cattle in the coral who gulped it up like it was nothing. I was going to take more photos but my aunt's dog suddenly started barking at us (he was sleeping in a dog house on the porch) and we weren't sure if he would appreciate us hanging around. Plus, who wants to look at acres of blackberry bushes growing over buildings?

I look back at these images with mixed feelings. I miss the serenity but the isolation we felt as kids sucked.

News flash

I was promoted today!

Mom using her evil powers for good!

Emails from my Mom are always interesting. Well, emails and all conversations. Nobody can say my Mom is boring! So this morning on the way to work I call Mom and wake her up. She says she was taking a little nap but really, who takes a little nap at 8:20 in the morning? Nice try Mom!!

The first thing she asks me is if I got her email yet. It seems she sent me an email at 2:11AM! When I got to work, I checked my email and first she tells me that she has just finished cutting the dogs fur and, "He is not a pretty sight." Poor thing! He's an old man and gets grouchy if the cat walks by him anytime after 7PM, which is his designated bed time. Can you imagine the horror he had to endure while Mom cut his fur all night long?

Next, she informs me that she's going to be doing some lobbying at the state capital, Salem. I, for one, think Mom would be a great lobbyist! I have no idea what she's lobbying for or against but Mom has the skill of nagging down to a T. And we all know that nagging yields a certain power.

Seen here with Liz and Mickey, Disneyland has an auto-switch off policy regarding nagging.

For example, one time when Aimee and I were around 8 and 9, we were driving by my Uncle Scott's apartment when she saw the door was open. So she did a U turn and went back to see what's up (I guess she knew he was gone). She ended up following two guys out of the apartment, down the stairs and into the parking lot with one hand on her hip, the other one with a finger wagging in the air. And her mouth? WAH WAH WAH WAH WAH WAH

The thieves did their best to leave the apartment with my Uncle's personal items in their arms as quickly as possible. One of them finally turned around and looked at Mom and pointed a rifle at her. Without skipping a beat, she said "What, are you going to shoot me? My two daughters are in the car right there and are watching every move you make. Do you want to leave them motherless??" *sigh* I mean, MOM, they could have left us motherless! Or even worse, shot us all!!

Long story short, they left, she called the police and all ended well. At least I think I did. Well, we didn't get shot so that's good enough for me.

The only times nagging didn't worked out for Mom is when Aimee was supposed to clean her room. For some reason, Aimee passed out on the bed or floor whenever she was supposed to clean her room. Amazingly, some of my stuff would end up on her side of the room whenever that happened. WEIRD! No amount of nagging kept Aimee from losing consciousness or keeping her room clean. To this day she claims she's allergic to cleaning (this includes doing dishes, it makes her legs itch).

Anyway, I think Mom's finally found her niche. She's found something that will make good use of at least one of her finely honed evil powers!

Rthr the deaf cat and Dolly the calf

A few days ago I reminisced with my sister, Aimee, about our childhood. We had a good long talk about all these stories we want to tell but are concerned that, while they make good fodder, they may also make people uncomfortable. As you can see from all the blahbittyblah up ahead, I opted for "good fodder."

For example, a good story might be ....(struggling to think up good story)....oh yes, about Aimee's deaf cat Rthr. (Aim had a knack for odd names.) Rthr was a pretty cool cat. Aimee and Mom discovered him one day in an alley. Shortly after his discovery, a fire alarm went off directly above Aimee's head. Aimee jumped and covered her ears but Rthr didn't move. In fact, he kept on purring.

He was a medium sized lanky cat, white, blue eyed and had half a kinked up broken tail. I used to pretend his tail was one of those wind up things you see on the front of antique cars. Winding him up with a "wow wow wow" sound always made Aimee upset so I did it as much as possible.

If he thought he was abandoned in the house, Rthr would scream these awful howls and we'd have to flail our appendages wildly until he saw us or bang our feet on the floor until he felt the vibration. The first time he screamed we thought he was hurt but no, he was just alone in the kitchen.

Rthr had a good life on the ranch. A life filled with happily sitting on the road while being honked at by log trucks, catching hummingbirds in the horse trough near the honeysuckle bushes and laying in the green grass in the warm summer sun. Yep, it was a good life for Rthr, a loving, good natured, cooler than cool cat. Thankfully, we never knew what happened to him. He just disappeared one day.

A bad story would be about the time that Grandpa decided he wanted to shoot one of the bears eating blackberries in our backyard (it was a big back yard, we lived in the mountains). While preparing, he told a bunch of old-timey bear stories and got himself all wound up. I say old-timey because we have no way of telling if they were true and besides, his nickname is Banjo. 'Nuff said. As he told his stories, his eyes got bigger and bigger by the minute. It was hard to not get sucked into his tractor beam eyes which bulged out in a cartoonish manner.

Anyway, Aimee and I went out to put away the goats (Brandy, Mo and Rambo) and pet calf (Dolly) when we heard a gun shot. Long story short, Grandpa went outside early (hello, the grandchildren were out attending to the goats!) and shot at what he thought was a bear. How he mistook a red and white calf for a bear, I do not know. He didn't kill her or anything though. Just put a bullet through that fatty area near her wind pipe and set up an infection.

I don't really remember what all happened after that. I put up a big wall around that memory, it still makes me sad. Let's just say it ended a couple weeks later with us receiving a load of packaged meat with the words "Not to be consumed by the penicillin sensitive" stamped on them from the meat packaging plant. Aimee and I used Sharpe's to draw fun little pictures of cow faces with eye-lashes on the white freezer paper along with "Dolly's burger" or "Dolly's back strap" before throwing the packages into our huge deep freezer. Yes, we ate her. We were poor.

Life doesn't care about your feelings, what's fair or what makes you uncomfortable. If you can't poke fun at it and laugh, you'll just end up bitter and depressed. At least, that's what I learned.