On the Lighter Side

In between the eating and the sitting that took place at my grandparents place I stumbled upon the following description of a pair of pliers in a catalogue on my grandfather's desk:

"Thinner stripper nose. For those tight places where a regular stripper's nose gets in the way".

Heartbreakingly Lucky

My dad once told me that very few people ever meet their soulmate, that finding that kind of love is rare and special. So many things happen between humans that I tend to write off as biological necessity- babies are cute because it's all they have to survive. People fall in love because they have to multiply to propogate the species. But one thing I can't explain are people falling in love and staying together. Monogamy doesn't biologically make sense. The pain and fragility that comes with being dependent on another person to be happy does not make sense. Love does not make sense.

My grandparents have been together for 65 years. I can't imagine being that old, much less being with someone that long. Until my grandfather started having trouble walking, he would open every door for my grandmother, and now she holds every door open for him. They call each other "darling" and tease each other like kids. My grandfather has had to move to a different unit because Grandmama can't take care of him at night anymore, and it's tearing them apart.

You are so lucky if you find someone to be such a faithful partner, but it can cause so much pain. We were looking at old photographs with my grandmother last visit, and there was a picture of her and Grandpapa in college, standing arm in arm in a doorway, smiling at each other. And she talked about how vividly she could still feel that day, how intensely happy she was. This visit my mom brought a picture of Grandmama from college to put in Grandpapa's room, and Grandpapa took one look at it and started to cry. That's the problem with love, you don't live for yourself anymore. And sometimes that seems to be harder than living alone.

Oh, Hai Teh Internets!

I'm in Pennsylvania. Did I mention that? My grandfather is not doing so well, so my mom and I flew up to see him and my grandmother. He's actually doing better than we thought he was, but I'm glad we came. He's getting confused more often, and he's been falling a lot. They live in an assisted living community, and they have their own apartment, but now that he needs more help they've given him a room in the nursing home end of the complex. Mom brought a bunch of pictures and a cd player because he hates going to that little impersonal room at the end of the day. I think it helped. And despite everything they still have their sense of humor. Today Grandpapa was giving Grandmama a hard time about something, so she snatched away the paper he was reading and stuck her tongue out at him. Then he leaned forward in his slow creaky way and flicked water from his glass onto her. I tried to use one of the computers in their library today, and while I was waiting for it to turn on, I listened to a couple going over some list of people and trying to figure out who had died yet and who hadn't. But this place makes me feel a little better about getting old. When Frank was in a nursing home type facility it was really horrible and depressing. This place is very nice and everyone seems to be pretty happy. Plus, it's a Quaker community so everyone is very liberal. Coming from Arizona where it seems like everyone over 30 is republican, it's pretty funny to me to hear these white haired old ladies talking about how great Obama is. You would think I would lose weight coming here, since it's all cafeteria type food, but essentially the daily schedule is:

9am: breakfast
10am-12pm: sit.
12pm-1pm: lunch (dinner)
1pm-4pm: nap
4pm-5:30pm: sit.
5:30-6:30: dinner (supper)
6:30-7:30: sit.
7:30pm-9am: sleep.

Of course, this was my schedule on Christmas break too, so I can't really complain. I just can't fall asleep at 7:30, since that's like 4:30 my time, and then I have to get up at 8:30 for breakfast, so I've been feeling pretty groggy this whole time.

In addition to sitting, my mom and I have gone shopping. She decided that I was old enough that I needed an actual coat instead of my ratty, faded UA sweatshirt, so I'm now the proud owner of a black parka. I drew the line at a fur collar though. It's fun to pet, but I kept picturing the poor foxes who needed it more than I do.

I'll be back on Tuesday, and it will certainly be a shock to go back to 10 hour days of constant running around!

You Can Never Beat A Mom

Danny's been sick. Not deathly ill, but phlegmy and coughy and tired. And every time Danny gets sick he calls his mother. The first time he got sick when we were living together, she actually came over with Campbell's chicken noodle soup, gatorade, crackers, and cough syrup. I tried not to be offended that neither of them had any faith in my ability to nurse him back to health, but it didn't work. We have made progress, though. Now he just calls her and she tells him what to tell me to get at the store. Last night the conversation went like this:

Danny: Mia, Mom says you need to get real Sudafed, Ibuprofen and real Nyquil.
Me: Well, we have Aleve, that's almost the same thing as Ibuprofen. And we have Benadryl, you could take that instead of Sudafed.
Danny: *stony glare* Mom says I need real Sud...
Me: *realizing this is not a battle I can win* Yes! Okay! Real drugs. Gotcha.
Danny: And soup. Campbell's chicken noodle.
Me: We have Italian wedding soup in the pantry
Danny: Mom says I need...
Me: Fine. chicken noodle.
Danny: Campbell's chicken noodle. And remember, you have to get the sudafed and nyquil at the pharmacy, not just the over the counter stuff.
Mia: right.
Danny: in the pharmacy.
Mia: I KNOW.
I gather my belongings and head for the door to go to Walgreens. I hear a faint voice as I'm leaving
Danny: Campbell's soup! And you have to go to the pharmacy!
And sure enough, as I walk in the door after purchasing everything on his mother's list.
Danny: Did you get the drugs at the pharmacy?

The joys of living with an only child....

The Most Destructive Force on the Planet

This is a Pomeranian puppy. No visible legs, little fuzzy ear flaps, button nose, demonic look in his eyes. Picture this, but all white and you had the snowball we named Hiccup. I will always contend that pommy puppies are, scientifically, the cutest puppies in existence. When Hiccup was a puppy we would play tug of war with my socks. Eventually he would get so worked up I would pick the sock up off the ground and he would hang from it by his teeth, growling and lashing around like a fish.

My Distinguished Gentlepuppy

We had a barbecue last night, and a dog social hour. We had three dogs in attendance- Daisy, the German Pinscher, a 20-30 lb wiggling ball of enthusiasm. Daisy immediately became so excited to see everything that she filled our living room with urine. Like, more pee than Hiccup can produce in a month. It was a bit overwhelming for us, since we are used to dealing with doggy issues on a very small scale.

Bryce is a 9 week old mini Australian Shepherd who has a delightful round tummy and nibble-able fuzzy ears. Bryce and Daisy immediately began chasing each other around the backyard, wrestling, nipping, and generally making a ruckus. Their internal dialogue probably sounded something like this:

Daisy: OH MY GOD THIS IS SO EXCITING ALL THESE NEW PEOPLE I JUST CAN'T STAND IT.....ahhhh, much better.

Bryce: Play? Play? Play? Play!! Grrr grrr! I'm like a big doggy! PlayplayplayPLAYPLAYPLAYzzzzzzzzzz....." (he crashed after 30 minutes)

Normal dog behavior right? Playing, peeing and sleeping. And then there was my Hiccup:

Hiccup: Who are these heathens? Why are they wasting time mauling each other when there is FOOD. HUMAN FOOD INSIDE WHERE YOU CAN GET FED BY LOOKING CUTE! These vicious creatures keep trying to sniff my genital regions! How outrageous! Seriously, get me away from these hooligans and let me go wheedle food from the civilized people.

I don't know what to do with him, I really don't. He was terrified of the dogs and spent most of the time hiding behind me, behind the furniture, or behind the pool gate that the other dogs couldn't squeeze through. He was so relieved when they left, and he's spent all day today sleeping on the couch.

2008 is going to be exhausting

Goodness, where to begin?

We got a house! Like, we bought it. We can do whatever we want to it. It's on the southwest side, right up against a mountain on 2.2 acres of land. It's a 1960's house, 4 bedrooms, one bathroom. For a while it was an abandoned house, so there's some entertaining graffiti, including some well rendered pot leaves, and a penis-dinosaur with little men climbing on it. We're thinking about leaving that one up. There's an Arizona room with huge windows and a fireplace made out of native lava rock, and a backyard with a mysterious cement pit in the middle of it. There are a lot of mysterious things about this house, actually. Like the fact that the rooms are painted half dark grey, half baby pink.

And the little slate gravestone sitting in the backyard that says "Jace 1983". I'm assuming for my own peace of mind that this was a beloved pet, not a murder victim buried by a suddenly contrite killer with a chisel. And one of the little girls who lived there had written useful labels on her closet shelves (in permanent marker, of course): "Clothes I Will Never Wear but Want to Keep", "School Clothes" and "Regular". I may leave these up, since my clothes kind of break down into those categories too.

There are also a lot of weird little buildings or half buildings on the property. There's a three foot by three foot cement building with a little hole at the base. There's a cinderblock one room building with no roof and an old futon in it. Something that may have been a horse stable but is now four supporting beams stuck in a two foot high platform of horse shit.

But it's ours. It's our horseshit, our gravestone, our weirdly painted rooms. The two acres of desert around the house is ours. As we were driving away the other day, we saw a bunny hoping through the front yard (can you call it a yard if there's no grass?) Anyway, and Danny pointed out that we, technically, own that rabbit. Except, technically, the rabbit is still in escrow until Feb. 13th :)