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Just over four weeks now until our vacation out West. In honor of the countown we watched How The West Was Won this past Saturday night. It's on my list of alltime-fave movies now. Our weekends seem more about preparing for the trip than just hanging out downtown. Here’s the rundown of what we did: Friday night we went over to Eric & Courtney’s place with some other (family-oriented) friends to watch MegaMind. It got a few chuckles out of me, but it was no Toy Story 3. Nor did it make me ball my eyes out like UP. Saturday was spent shopping for the trip at the outlet stores off I-95 looking for sunglasses for my husband. He didn’t find what he was looking for, but we got some AMAZING deals on apparel and hiking socks at the Merrell store. As far as shoes though, he’s still a Keen fan. Sunday (at 83 degrees in February!) ended with friends over our home stuffing our faces with a Trader Joe’s snack arrangement (including the ice-cream cookies!!) and rooting for our favorite teams on the Amazing Race. (which really isn’t that amazing this season with repeat teams) So there you have it- how our pre-trip days are being spent. This week, as I mentioned in the previous blog, will be spent taking the CAT test. My husband leaves Thursday for his ManCation to Atlantic Beach. Girls night weekend out, coming up!! :)
Do you remember in elementary school when you had to take the E.O.G.’s (end of grade tests), known back in my day as the CAT test? (And I live a good three days drive from California) I remember them fondly with horror. I remember the monotonous practice drills each day for a month in advance of the CAT test- drills that were 100 times harder than the real thing. I remember my mom making me go to bed at 7pm the night before each test as if I were going to go into REM sleep during the geography part. I remember all the boiled eggs, tuna, and peanut-butter toast she forced me to eat during testing. “ It’s brain food”, she would say as if she were a neurosurgeon. Now, all these years later, my own daughter is taking the CAT test. The only difference is that I am her teacher. Other than that the test is the same, I think even with the same exact dumb questions. It hasn't been revised since 1992. The test itself was not cheap; it cost me $60 which I am considering making her pay me back for. Mamma needs her nails done. It came in the mail today all the way from Kitty Hawk. It was filled with instructions- all the do’s and don’ts of fifth-grade testing. How hard could it be? I read on. Very hard. Too hard. She will have to fill in each bubble exactly so, so as not to throw off the machine that will grade it. I have to fill in all our personal info on the correct lines so the machine knows who is responsible for cheating the grade earned. I have to plan who will administer the test (it’s recommended it not be me), I have to start on the day it requires (this Monday!) and break it into 3 hour test sessions for at least 3 days. I have to mail it back by a certain day and make sure I have paid appropriate postage so it will arrive by the due-date or else I owe $20 a week for each week late. There are fees for lost test booklets, fees for priority grading, and fees for practice booklets for the following grade level. All this plus we have to wait over a month for the test results! I’m way more stressed about my end of the deal than hers. At least hers is multiple choice. Am I sweating?! Don’t get me wrong- home-schooling my own child is a joy, blessing, and protection. (The local news tonight is doing a story about sex on school campuses!) I’m very proud of the accomplishments she has made thus far: reading by age three, fluent in Spanish by age six, cursive handwriting that would make George Washington proud… But all this testing junk is just a waste of time and hard-earned money in my opinion. If I want to know if she gets it, I ask her. That’s it. I mean, I throw in spelling tests here and there but the child is smarter than me. What else do I want?? As long as she graduates by age 18 or before knowing how to write a thank-you note by hand, balance a checkbook (which most adults don‘t), and use Wikipedia I’m a happy parent.
Here's the low-down of my weekend: I accidentally set my whole backyard on fire Saturday thanks to high winds and had to dial 911, spent way too much money on overcooked greek food (how can you overcook a SALAD?!) at a place in Glenwood South called The Artisan, my father-in-law had a mild heart-attack (his third), and I talked my husband into doing the Zumba dance class at the gym with me where he out-danced me and made all the young girls giggle. I am SO READY for my vacation! Five more weeks. I talked to Krista today and she said she's very excited to watch my sweet chihuahua puppy, Maisy, for the two weeks that we'll be gone. I can't get my own sister to even call me back as regards to watching my grumpy hard-headed chihuahua, Jonez. My husband makes fun of me daily because I've been basically all packed and ready to bounce outta here since the end of last year. The really funny thing though is that he's just as enthusiastic when it comes to buying things for the trip. Every weekend I know we will make at least one trip to Wal-Mart, three trips to Old Navy, two trips to TJ Maxx, and one to the mall just to gasp at all the rip-off prices. He's at Wal-Mart now as I type getting a new prescription for contacts (another pre-trip requisite). J & K, who are traveling with us, showed us their stash of organic freeze-dried camp food the other day. We don't have ours yet. Time to get over to REI.
In lieu of my turning another year older this week, I've decided to compose a list of what it means to be me at this age. I think I'm now really starting to "get old" because: 1. I would now never dream of wearing panties so tiny you can't tell the back from the front. 2. I spend way too much time on virtual make-over websites inserting my face on B-list celebrity hairstyles. (see above pic) 3. I hear myself telling my daughter "Because I said so" every time she speaks to me. 4. I would rather sit on my butt and shop online than go to the mall. 5. I look way more forward to Sunday mornings than Friday nights. 6. I wear my old glasses a lot more simply because it takes too much effort to put on my contacts. 7. Brushing my hair to run to the store is no longer mandatory; a baseball cap will suffice. 8. I rush home from work so I don't miss any of the World News with Diane Sawyer. 9.The name-brand of my jeans is less important than the stretch-mark coverage it gives me around the waist if I were to bend over. 10. I love NPR, hanging out in book shops, and most recently, watching Wheel of Fortune. 11. I just entered our names online to be contestants on several game shows. 12. Age 40 no longer seems old to me. If my husband died I would have no problem dating a 40yr. old. 13. I can name all of Erica Caine's former husbands. 14. Either 99% of all pop music sucks, or it's just me being an old prude. 15. I actually don't mind if someone calls me "ma'am". 16. I have less holding me back when it comes to telling people what's really on my mind. And I couldn't care less if you like me or not. 17. Money means less to me; Life experiences mean more. 18. I'm no longer wondering what it will be like when I'm in my 30s and my metabolism slows down. Now I'm praying it won't shut down altogether. 19. I have to be reminded of things more often. 20. I now know that speeding can actually result in getting a ticket and I will gladly let other (younger) drivers pass me on the road to avoid getting one.
And finally, 21. I'm already compiling my mid-life crisis list.
The blog title basically describes my last few weeks in a nut-shell. (not in that order though) I went to a game party where I played that new really fun drawing charades game, had friends over for burritos, went to the movies with K and the girls (can’t even remember what we saw now), took my daughter to the circus when my husband was on business in Orlando, ate too much home-made French bread, and have been learning to speak Karen, an indigenous language from Burma/Myanmar to help volunteer with the many refugees living in our area. Then my daughter got the flu a few days ago and life has stopped to take care of her. I love it. It’s the best excuse there is to stay in your pjs all day and eat organic chocolates. (“I didn’t have time to cook…”) In between all this I also managed to buy my plane tickets for Vegas, order my husband 2 pairs of shoes from Zappos.com, as well as our mummy-style sleeping bags from Wal-Mart.com which we have been sleeping in for the past two nights on top of our bed just for fun. Yep, they work! My husband is so awesome, he’s been coming home early from work each day to help me with our sick daughter so I can go to work and leave her home with him. As I type this, he’s at the new Wal-Mart down the road buying her a vaporizer, Vicks, Epson salts, more cough drops, and a stuffed panda bear thrown in for good measure. He is my man of the year and totally deserves his new shoes.
Saturday night J&K drove me to this place downtown I hadn't been to called Slims. It was just a two-story hole-in-the-wall kind of place but it was featuring several great bands, one of which we drove all the way to Des Moines, Iowa to see, Cashes Rivers. Matt Garcia is the lead singer along with his cute wife who sometimes makes an appearance (see girl on left in video) and his sister (see girl on right in video) Shannon Garcia who is also his record producer.http://aquiestamosrecords.com/ We had a fun night dancing around and getting a couple rounds of free drinks. Check these guys out on YouTube & have a drink of your own.
I'm at work right now. The doors are all shut and the windows are locked up tight. The cleaners are here. One of them is spraying Lysol right underneath my chair as I type. I think it's Latin Lysol, bought from El Mercadito de Knightdale. No, I'm not racist. (keep in mind I used to live on the equator) These are friends of mine- Abran & Angelina who I have chatted with and admired since I met them about five months ago. But at this moment the harsh chemicals that they spray every other week are killing me slowly like an under-the-kitchen-cabinet roach who simply came out into the daylight for a Dorrito crumb and got blasted by a stream of Raid. Now they are mopping the tiled floor with some sort of solution made from bleach and ammonia, surely. Mr. Clean is raping my lungs something awful and now Angelina is shaking Dollar store Rug-So-Fresh a few feet away from me. I'm getting up. I'm staggering over to the back door that opens onto the screened porch. I fling it open for one last desperate breath. My friends forget I know Spanish: "Why did she leave the door open?" Abran says as he wipes purple-scented Pine-Sol on the fridge doors. "I dunno, she didn't say" Angelina says, shaking the feather duster over my hair. Now at this point you're realizing I don't clean my house with chemicals. The main reason being that it kills brain cells and lowers the immune system, but also we live on well water and I don't want that going into the system. My mother-in-law, who is a cancer survivor, has also shared much research with me on the effects of chemicals building up in the body over time. I clean my home with not much more than what's pictured above. I have a squirt bottle in every room with plain white vinegar that kills just as many germs as Lysol wipes. For dirtier jobs like the toilets, I use a powder scrub or maybe a thick squirt liquid from Whole Foods. Happily, these products are well liked by other consumers too and have entered more mainstream markets such as Target and CVS. I'm at the point now that the chemicals in this house are giving me a headache and making my teeth hurt. I think I'll have to start bringing a gas-mask in to work.
All the crazy snow storms across much of the US has been rain for us here down South. I’m not complaining-- I’d much rather have to use my umbrella than a pair of ice-skates to get around town. But this past Saturday was just a wash-out the entire day and previous evening. My husband and I sat on the couch with our dull, sleepy faces and hot coffee having that “I don’t know, what do you want to do” conversation while our ten year old bounded off the walls shouting “How about the ZOO!?”. After a nice hot breakfast of scrambled eggs and chorizo we braved the cold rains. “Zoo” was not typed into the gps. We ended up at Old Navy and some other shops picking up items here and there for our trip out West. We even got our tent, which I may attempt to set up in the living room today for a test run. It’s been years since I have gone camping, so I thought it wise to print out a camping list so I don’t forget the priorities. The list is four pages long. “Really?!” After reading aloud over items such as pots & pans, welcome mat, bucket, and rake I wondered what’s the point of ever leaving home. At least people with RV’s can stash all that crap in closets and cabinets, but a person like me will have nowhere to stash it except…hey, wait a minute… How am I going to get even a fraction of all this junk on an airplane without being charged $5,765 for the extra weight? Then add to that the fines we will incur due to my husband insisting we will need to pack hunting knives and mace. According to him the knives are for cutting rowdy tumble weeds (I don’t even know what that means) and the mace is for any bears we may encounter. I’m not sure there is such thing as a desert bear, but spraying it with mace will probably just piss him off and make him eat me with more fervor. And I’m sure the desert hyenas would just laugh at the fact my husband bought me the mace enclosed in the breast-cancer pink case. (He found that gem at a military store) Hey, I may be spraying the eyeballs off of Grand Canyon wildlife but at least I’m also making a statement. After picking up a few more trip items, including a travel pillow, headlamp, and a Frisbee (just going by the list) we headed over to our friend’s house in Morrisville to go bother them. They were indeed in the middle of a big home project but we made ourselves right at home like always with turkey sandwiches and a cozy spot by the fire watching retro TV. Did you know there was The Bill Cosby Show before there was The Cosby Show? It was lame but entirely worth watching to make fun of it. And who knew Bill Cosby’s career began at an age younger than I am now?? The things you learn on rainy days.
