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Wednesday, May 31, 2000 in I Forgot To Pick A Category

embarrassing girl talk

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Side note:
This is one of those hard things for me to talk about. It always embarrassed me, and when my mom gave me the talk, it was brief with much blushing on both parts.
I think i handled it very well. Practicing on Addison first helped.

Today the girls and I had a spontaneous girl talk. Yeah, the talk.

It all started with a blurb on the t.v. about Celin Dion undergoing some fertility treatments, and of course Meaghan-the-curious wanted to know what all that involved. It naturally lead to a discussion about eggs, how women have a set amount, how they run out of them after a while. Then, because she made some leap in logic or is just a good guesser, she asked me what panty liners were for.

So I told her.

Sarah was clearly uncomfortable with where the conversation was going. Especially after I mentioned that something that looks a lot like blood comes out of down there, and it happens every single month.

Meaghan scrunched up her nose and said, “Oh GROSS!”

Sarah, on the other hand, said “Mooooom, can we talk about something else?”

i broke it to her then that not only would it happen to her, it would happen probably by the time she turned twelve.

“Oh,” she said with a thoughtful look on her face.

“Is that why you have those things in the bathroom, too?” Meaghan asked.

“Unfortunately, yes.” I replied. I also told them how their friend, Kendra had hers already (another chorus of “Yuk!”) and the Spice Girls did too. (A look of unbelief at that one). And I said how their brother knew all about it already. When it was clear they had heard quite enough, thank you, I ended with the following statement:

“if you have any more questions, you just come to me and ask. or Kendra, she’ll tell you. I have books too. But don’t ask your father. he’ll just look silly and tell you to come talk to me about it. He told me that’s my department.”

Then we went back to cuddling in the rocking chair, watching the start of Jeopardy.

Tuesday, May 30, 2000 in I Forgot To Pick A Category

teens bribe me

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Side note:
Today was a chilly day, but by the time I was done at the school I was good and warm. With all these temperature changes you’d think I was menopausal or something.

For the past four weeks or so I’ve been volunteering one afternoon of my time to help the 8th grade class make shorts.

Good thing the teacher called a lot of moms to help. I think there’s at least six of us there. And there’s *still* kids wandering around going, “What am I supposed to be doing?” Never mind that the teacher herself has no clue how to sew on a button, let alone a whole pair of shorts.

I am having a fun time, though. Today one of my assigned kids finished her shorts within seconds of the last bell. The determination she had to get finished, and the delight on her face when she pranced around in the finished pair was just…. almost… enough to make me want to teach.

Not that I’m *not* teaching, I mean teach in a school setting of some kind. And I said almost.

Anyway, I was showing one of the boys how to press up his hem when he mentioned how he’d been fishing. I love fish! I mean, I grew up in a seafarin’ town (okay, city) and a week without fish just leaves me craving. So I’m pining for fish a lot. I usually feel like having it on Fridays, too, and I’m not even Catholic.
So Joe tells me, with a glint in his eye, that if I press up his hem for him (“You can do it so much faster than me, and we’re almost out of time!”) he’ll catch me some fish and bring it round to my house, since he lives nearby.

So I pressed his hem, of course.

Next week is the last week, and my one student who has the least amount finished is the one who has absolutely no aptitude in this department whatever. The good thing is now I can give him some undivided attention. He’s come a long way, which means he’s at least learning something.

And that makes it all worthwhile.

Friday, May 26, 2000 in I Forgot To Pick A Category

Grandmas, wakes and water.

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Side note:
We have a well. A dug well. Not drilled, dug. Some of it by hand. It is a good five feet deep and four feet across at the top, narrowing as it goes down. A lot of wells around here are the same way. There’s bedrock close to the surface here so drilling is not always the best choice. We have a bit of problems with it sometimes because we missed the actual spring or something. Over the years, when it dries up some in summer, we go in it and break up the rock on the bottom. It has a much better flow now.
Remember how I said we had such a nice visit with my grandparents? Well, Nanny called, apparently with a bone to pick. She’s British, so it was very, very subtle. Also she worries, partly because we’re not around on a regular basis for her to see that, yes, we can actually function without another grown-up telling us what to do.

The first thing practically out of her lips was “What about our water?” Well, what about it? I had no clue what she was getting at, either. I tried guessing by saying yes, we had now installed a filter and we had worked on the well so it runs better now. She meant in the bathroom. That’s all she said. So again I had to guess. There were two items in the house I had forgotten to clean, and sure enough she spotted them and chose to focus on that. The tray under the dish rack, you know how scummy they can get, and also the toilet. (DOH!)

After I got off the phone and vented to Wendy, she mentioned maybe my grandmother was worried because of this recent news story. Like that could happen here. First off, we have no public officials neglecting to sanitize our water supply. It’s more likely to happen to her than to us.

THEN she started worrying about the whole home schooling Addison again thingy. She had thought we were only *thinking* about it. I had to reiterate my whole spiel. It occurred to me after that maybe she had been talking to glenda, who has a B.Ed. that is unused, and is not supportive of our home schooling decision. She implies we are not qualified, of course.

Now that I was good and worked up, Ron and I got the news that the pastor’s mother of our old church had passed away. She was 93 and reminded me a lot of my own grandparents. Elderly people love me, I don’t know why. Maybe because I take the time to say hi or something. So we went to the wake, which was my first one. You would think since I have such an interest in coroner things I would have gone to a lot of funerals, but no. I tend to avoid places where people I care about are sick (like hospitals) or sad (like funerals).

We walked into the church, and there at the front of course, she was laid out in an open casket. Ron leans over to me and whispers “I don’t want to go up front.” Well, duh, neither do I. It was kind of freaky, the first time I had seen a dead body. We made the rounds with a lot of people saying how much they missed us. *Sigh* Make me feel even guiltier for leaving this church to help start up another one.

I hunted down a friend of mine, Sarah, who was about my age. It was her grandmother who had died, and I knew they were close. Part way through the conversation it got a little surreal. She was saying what a good job the mortician had done, except he had stretched her lips a little wide.

This got me to thinking of course, since funerals are wont to do that. I realized my own grandmother, who would not be with me long, was only trying to help. She does love me deeply, and I her. If… if… if only we lived closer, she would worry less. At least I hope it would be less and not more. If I’m lucky, she’s got another ten years left, even if she does expect to go any day know, so I should enjoy her as much as possible, despite her faults. That’s what love is, you know.

Friday, May 26, 2000 in I Forgot To Pick A Category

it’s just another day in Canada

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Side note:
Fiddleheads are named so because they look like that curly end of a violin where you tighten the strings. And here on the East Coast, it’s a fiddle, silly. The plant is actually a kind of fern that grows in wet, swampy areas, or along river banks. The season is short because the heads quickly unfurl to let loose the fern leaves.
Tastes kinda like asparagus.

Another day, another trip to the grocery store. Halfway through getting ready to go, we realized we had waaaay less money that we thought we did. On the way in, I hastily adjusted my wishfull-thinking grocery list to match. I also brought a calculator. I added things up on my way around the aisles, guessing at the weight of the fresh produce. I came out with $99 and change when I was done. When the cashier rung it all up, the total was $100.37. It’s the little things like this that make me happy.

I also grabbed some fiddleheads for supper. They were $2 a pound, if you can believe it, but it’s not like they’re available year-round.

Ron had dropped the girls and I off at the Oromocto Mall, where we normally shop, while he headed into Freddy Town. The plan was for him to pick us up when he was done, which should be the same time I was. So there we were sitting on a mall bench, catching our breath after going up and down the mall once to look at the various parking lots. Good thing it’s a small mall.

Anyway, from out of the grocery store comes the manager. With a small poodle on a leash. As we’re staring at him, he smiles and says “Found me a lost doggie!” as he heads for the service counter. We watch him wander down the mall a bit, then I figure Ron must be here by now, so we head out the door again to check the Garden center, where I said we should meet.

No Ron, but a huffy, puffy boy of about 11 ran up to the Bag Boy and asked him if he’d seen a puppy anywhere. Me, being ever helpful, said I just saw it and told him where to find it. He then runs off.

On our way back in, because there is no Ron in sight, we see a woman and a little girl walk out of the mall, with said puppy in her arms. She didn’t look too happy either. We continued down the mall, and saw the same little boy barreling down the mall in our direction. As he passes, I say, “Your mom just went out that door.” He looks at me without shock or anything, and says “Oh thanks,” and continues on.

We found Ron right after that and went home. I had piano lessons this afternoon, too. Remember the old Sesame Street skits with Kermit the News Reporter, interveiwing the composer of nursery rhymes? He’d try to play a nursery rhyme on his piano, screwing it up because he can’t rhyme. He’d then bang his little Muppet head on the keys, screaming “I’ll NEVER get it! NEVER!”.

That’s how I usually feel. Even if my teacher says I’m doing really well.

Thursday, May 25, 2000 in I Forgot To Pick A Category

I reveal my plans to take over the world

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Side note:

Oh man, I have so got to update more often…

I haven’t because, well, I’ve had something big on my mind, and I can’t tell you yet. :-)

So when I can tell you, there will be *lots* to talk about.

I promise.

(Don’t you just hate it when people tease you like that?)
So The Big Visit went well, although it almost didn’t happen at least twice. Once because *somebody* went and ordered lumber and didn’t think it would be good to have them around while the house was torn apart, and the next time was when neither car would work. Yes, that left the truck, but the grandparents can’t really get into it. Literally. So we wound up borrowing someone’s car to pick them up. I figured Gabe couldn’t say no, because of what happened last time.

They had such a great time, and we really didn’t do anything. I guess in the run of a week they don’t really see too many people, especially children. I showed Grampy how to surf the internet (way cool) and broke it to Nanny about homeschooling Addison next year. Change makes her weepy. The strategically placed copy of “The Ultimate Guide to Homeschooling” got looked at, so I think she’s okay with it now.

The lumber Ron ordered still hasn’t arrived, but it will be to build the master bedroom wall. I am also proud of the fact that he arranged for a couple of friends to come over and help him build it. This is highly unusual. He’s always so “I can do it myself.” Or with little ol’ me to help. He doesn’t have any big contract or jobs coming up in the near future, so it looks like we’ll get some things done around here. I really think we will because he’s had long enough to “recover” from past stressful contracts, and well, it’s summer and he’s always full of energy then.

We have two other rooms in the downstairs of our house that we really don’t utilize much, mainly because they are full of “stuff” . The smaller one is under the living room and has animal feed, the deep freeze and a whole pile of junk in it. It also had a sort of trapdoor to the outside. We plan on walling off part of it from the stairwell (it is a huge hear-sucker in winter) and using the walled off section for firewood and feed. Since it will be accessible from the outside, it will make bringing in firewood sooo much easier without cooling off the house near as much.

The other room is a lot larger, and where the wood stove currently is, right under the kitchen. Mmmmmmm…. cozy toes in winter-time. Since the walls are concrete up to four feet, it warms up nicely in this spot in winter, and is ice-cold in summer. Unfortunately there is a large pile of lumber in the middle of it. It also has no windows and is pitch-black unless you turn on the one light. The water pumps and stuff is here too, so it gets a little noisy.

Our plan for this is simple. Well, it sounds simple, but it hot, heavy *dusty* work. All we need to do, really is get the lumber out of there. First we have to move all the coats and empty cardboard boxes, stray tools and other miscellany from on top of it. And the lumber has to be moved through the office to get it outside.

Unfortunately, this lumber is not useful for building walls.

Simple, huh? The only light on the horizon is that we will move the living room downstairs for the summer. Remember how I said our house is shaped like a barn? Ever been to the top of a barn in summer?

Hot, huh?

Wednesday, May 17, 2000 in I Forgot To Pick A Category

so I’m not really dead

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Side note:
I had no car at all today. Gabe borrowed the truck to take the old folks to town. He also hit a deer on his way in, but fixed the bent bumper when he got back home. The deer bounded away on its own.
The volvo is in the shop getting a new alternator, and the wagon wouldn’t start *at* all. It apparently need a new battery.
Ron would have driven us down to road on the tractor, but there’s not room for us all without hitching up the wagon, and it’s illegal here anyway.
Well, now. I’m not going over the whole where-I’ve-been list, and most of whatever I did I can’t remember… The first week of the month, though, I mainly forgot to update. The second week I was just busy procrastinating. Life happens.

There are burn marks in the field. Upon inspection from Ron, since it was smoldering when Addison found it, he figures something fell burning to the ground.

There’s only a few things this could be, you know. I did mention we live near a military base. Sure, the base entrance is a half-hour away, but their training ground extends almost to the back of our property. So this leaves us with a few possibilities.

a) the army guys dropped something whilst flying overhead.
b) a meteor or parts thereof landed.
c) aliens are among us.

What do you think?

Since I moved here to be with my beloved, some 10 years now, I have had many questions about the activities of the surrounding military. There’s weird lights at night, until you realize they’re just flares. Pilots like to buzz housewives when they hang out the laundry. And something called a “long walk” which I thought was a joke, not really a form of punishment.

Until the day two privates knocked upon my door dressed in full battle gear in the summer’s heat. Could I spare a couple drinks of water? I did of course, and asked them if they were out for a little walk. They looked at each other, got that guilty look and said “Yeah, thanks for the water.” and left. Do I need to mention again that we are miles away from anywhere?

Bookmobile day today, and we walked the country mile, dragging our bags of books behind us.

Needless to say, we were very selctive about our choices to lug back home.

Also have about twelve children’s books which we “forgot” to take back. It took the girls a good half-hour in their room to find most of them after we got back home.

“They should make us have a limit” Sarah says on the way home. She couldn’t see me roll my eyes at her. I’d teach her self-control, but I’d have to be an example then, wouldn’t I?

Monday is a holiday, and I’ve invited hte Little Grandparents up for a fun-filed day. This was mostly so I could get my butt in gear and really, *really* clean the house. Almost there, so no wonder I’m so tired.