All posts filed under: Life

Always so surprising.

The kitchen junk basket went rogue.

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I just wanted a rubber band. One rubber band from the kitchen junk basket. This was too much to ask from the junk basket. Four minutes and thirty seven seconds into the task I marched – marched calmly –  to the basement for my sledge hammer. It is a 10 pound sledge. Not the heaviest. It has a shock absorbing plastic handle. Not the most traditional. It works. (When I bought my sledge two older guys in line with me nudged each other a whole lot until one of them worked up the nerve to ask – “Is that for your husband’s truck? Heh heh heh,” they both laughed and poked each other with gnarled index fingers. “Hoo boy, he must have done something pret-ty bad. Heh heh heh.” I didn’t smile. “Yep,” I said.) Anyway. Next time I want a rubber band, the [new] kitchen junk basket should consider giving it up easy.

Snow trash is the best.

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Gloriously foul and endlessly fascinating, snow trash happens when the deep snow melts and reveals the urban detritus of weeks. It is a special seasonal process to be enjoyed only a few times a year. Because I happen to be a professional studier of the material remnants of human activity, I can’t look away from a nice nasty city snow bank. I like them to be really full of good stuff and I stop for particularly rich ones to be sure I’m seeing everything. This isn’t the WideEyedSpouse’s favorite activity, but the dogs sure don’t mind. Dog dookies are ubiquitous in the melting snow banks. Big, small, dark, light. You can really see the variety of diets fed to the neighborhood canines. Here in Buffalo chicken bones also are typical in the melting snow mounds. Perplexing. Yes, Buffalo Chicken wings, but does everyone eat them all the time? They must fly from car windows like confetti. I see newspapers, catalogs, dryer sheets, and Kleenex that appear used but may just be wet from the melt. …

Worm Bin Chronicles: Winter

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“Good thing we have the worm bin,” I said to the Spouse the other day. He gave me a blank, flat eyed stare. “Why?” he asked in a tone that said he didn’t really want to talk about the worm bin, could think of no good thing related to the worm bin. “Because the compost heap is frozen,” I told him, feeling cheerful and content with my little WideEyedEcosystem. The Spouse turned in his chair and peered out the kitchen window to the back garden. I could see him noting the foot of snow draped over the garden. I could see him not making the connection. He, as you may recall (Worm Bin Chronicles: Inception), hates the worm bin. Spine-tingling, hair-raising hates the notion of hundreds or thousands of juicy, wriggling worms snacking, always munching in a bin in our house. “If we didn’t have the worm bin, where would we put the veggie trash?” I asked him. He sipped his beer and thought. “The trash?” he asked. I glared at him and slapped my …

1,500 miles of family, Or, Caviar tastes like chicken pox.

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Stop 1: Scottsville, Esmont, Charlottesville Virginia WideEyedFunks: I was spooning caviar onto a smear of cream cheese at the pre-Christmas dinner snackie spread. Sister-in-law L. and Older Brother set us up with fine cheeses, Dracula’s Dilemma pickled garlic, some kind of awesome aged herbed salami.  And caviar. Our WideEyedParents were across the room and from around the Christmas tree we could hear dad shouting at mom: “Do you want some cold cuts?” “A cool one?” she said, “no, I don’t want a beer.” Heh. Might be time for hearing tests. Sister-in-law N. pushed through Sister-in-law L. and me to get to the snackies, “Quit snack blocking,” she told us. I inched my counter stool over an inch or so, but not really too far. I hadn’t tried all the cheeses yet. I lifted my caviar cracker to take a bite. “You eat that stuff?” Older Brother asked, clearly doubtful. I shrugged and ate the cracker. Older Brother watched me chew. “I don’t eat it,” he said. “Good,” Sister-in-law L. said, “more for the rest of …

Job wanted for newly graduated smallish black dog of limited skills.

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Last Tuesday evening the WideEyedSpouse and I marched down the block with Miss Tibbit to her training final exam and graduation, belching the happy taste of Sahlen’s hot dogs and a reasonable lost-grape-of-Chile Carménère red wine. We were all nervous. Miss Tibbit had been nervous all day with an upset stomach which she emptied explosively on the side of the bed, the bed post, and the floor. Miss Tibbit passed the test with what might be considered a C. Maybe a C+ with a special commendation for savant treat catching. She walks beautifully, sits like a dream, and will not/can not resist throwing herself on people to demonstrate her love. She escaped her leash during Cooper the standard poodle’s walking exam. Mayhem. Demerits. She won a ribbon for showing the most improvement during the course. Which means, of course, everyone recognized her remedial start state. Yesterday the WideEyedSpouse stood gazing down at Miss Tibbit, who was lounging across three remotes, the Xbox controller and the WII wand on the living room sofa. He asked when …

A smug end to weeping and wailing.

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It is an unfortunate quirk of WideEyedFunk life that I can’t have anything nice. I drop things. Trip over things. Knock things from mantels, shelves, the wall. My ruination of something precious is always followed by stomping and loud wailing on the theme of “Why can’t I have anything nice?” for fifteen to thirty minutes This time it was my Cleo Skribent left-handed nib, stainless steel, piston reservoir fountain pen.  I don’t carry this pen out of the house because it will be lost. I use it at my desk and planned to do so for the next 40 years. And then over the weekend I dropped it. Of course I did. Because the Cleo Skribent is so wonderfully heavy, it fell with authority. Because the Cleo Skribent hand-enameled nib is so wonderfully lovely and precise, it bent all to crap. The fall from my desk was effectively the annihilation of all that is nice about my desk life. I love this pen and I love the peacock blue ink I put in it. Go ahead, …

I really like trains, I always have.

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Maybe I like trains because I grew up knowing that PopPop used to drive trains (I also knew he carried an ice pick during peanut deliveries to bars in Harrisburg but that didn’t have the same intrinsic appeal at first and I didn’t appreciate his genius for years). Grandma once told me he came home tired and awed because he had piloted a new kind of engine across Pennsylvania from Ohio. “Oh Myerly” he told her as he flopped across the bed, “that engine was something.” Maybe it was the awesome train set we had in the basement.  I had my own SOO engine before I was 7. White with red trim. It gleamed as it soared, shicka shicka shicka, past our model station and waiting matchbox cars. It stopped for no one. Maybe the liking struck c. 1977 when I rode the commuter train into Philadelphia with my dad. It was near Christmas so it was chilly and smoky exhaust and bits of flotsam blew around the train when it heaved into the station. …

It simply isn’t possible to give thanks without cranberry sauce. And stuffing.

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WideEyedSpouse and I sat in the Mini in the only remaining spot at the far, littered end of the suburban Wegman’s supergrocery last evening. The teeming swarm at the city Weg’s where we usually shopped had been too scary to brave. I figured suburban families would already have their feasting supplies and we’d be ok out here in the hinterlands. I watched a grannie yank the last grocery cart away from a hapless young man a few car lengths away. I had a bad feeling I had miscalculated terribly. The Spouse held up the list. I held up the grocery sack and the tire iron. We bumped fists and rolled out of the Mini in good formation. Evaporated milk, stuffing mix, jellied cranberry sauce -in-the-can, Reddi-whip, condensed mushroom soup; the critical essentials of a classic Thanksgiving. The rest of the ingredients were already at home, but without these final pieces it would just be a nice dinner, not THANKSGIVING dinner. Problem was, the ten thousand pushing into Weg’s up ahead were after the exact same …

Dare I wear surgical gloves on the plane?

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Would I look like a freak, or would people be jealous? I don’t want to touch any more crusty, sticky, or slippery patches. I’ve had enough. To prove I’ve had my fair portion of gross, I’ll share a few of my highlight ick moments from the past week. I was heading to the farmer’s market on Saturday and I needed cash. Evidently farmers prefer that I pay for my $1 butternut squash in cash-dollars. I hit the ATM on the Canisius College campus. It is also near the Metro entrance. My fingers slipped from the greasy ATM buttons so badly it was actively difficult to punch in my digits. And oh, the ATM foyer stank of pee and vomit. So nice. WideEyedSpouse and I hit the Central Library on Sunday afternoon.  I felt something chunky under the entrance door handle. The skin of my fingers tried to crawl off. I am so thankful that whatever it was had dried to chunks. I scooted into work on Monday. The stair railing on my way to my …

Miss Tibbit does not care for pixies.

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Nor does she like princesses. Finds Captain America alarming. Is disturbed by tiny Spidermans. Chefs, nurses, steampunkers, post apocalypse victims, bees, cats, and ninjas – also Not OK. Miss Tibbit alerted us to her concern for three continuous hours last evening. A tiny pixie quivered and shook in fear as she selected a tootsie roll from our bowl of treats. Miss Tibbit’s gaping, toothy maw was visible and audible in the large window behind me. I get that it is a little weird for Miss Tibbit, having strangers tromp up onto her porch. Ringing doorbells. Yelling in high voices “Trick or Treat”.  But I had to ask her, Miss Tibbit, where were you when someone stole our middle sized pumpkin yesterday afternoon? Why wasn’t an actual perp more disturbing than 30 inch high vampires? Miss Tibbit had no answer for me. She sniffed my face while I asked and tried to look intelligent.