The Art of Getting Schooled By a Three Year Old

Actual conversation between myself and my three year old on the way home from work yesterday:

3yo: (very serious tone) "Mommy. The sun is hiding behind those clouds!"

Me: (not so serious tone) "Yes. Yes it is."

3yo: "Mommy. Please turn off the clouds. Please, please, please, please, please turn off the clouds and let the sun out!!"

So, I jumped at the opportunity for a life lesson here: although me, your average, run-of-the-mill mom, may appear to the average observer that I can do magnificent, magical things like control the weather, I am actually just like everyone else. I can not, in fact, control the cloud cover any more than I can control the spin or tilt of the earth, the color of the sky, or the migration of birds.

Me: "I can't turn off the clouds. No one can turn off the clouds - they just happen!" and on and on about nature, the atmosphere and the basics of how the world works. My long-winded explanation for the current weather pattern was met with MUCH skepticism by the world-wise 3 year old.

3yo: "But, Mommy! YOU CAN turn the clouds off. You have the 'troller!!"

(For those of you unfamiliar with "'troller" it's my son explaining to me that I do, in fact, have a controller that turns the clouds off. You know? Like the TV controller? Or, the surround sound controller. You know, just one more controller I carry around in my purse that goes about controlling things, right?)

Me: (adamant!) "No, honey, I don't have a controller for the clouds!"

3yo: "BUT YOU DO!! At your work! You have a controller at your work!! Turn off the clouds at your work!"

And then it hit me: He knows exactly what he's talking about. I DO have a controller for the clouds at my work. See, every morning on his way to grandma and grandpa's house we pass by my work. And, every morning he comments on the steam coming off the cooling towers. Every morning he tells me, "That's mommy's work. You make clouds at your work!" And, every morning I tell him, "Yes, we DO make clouds at work!" (I figure he's too young to learn the whole process of refining, so I stick to the basics like "yes, we do make clouds at my work" conversations with him.) And last week, on a day when the relative humidity was low and the visible water vapor was low, he asked why we weren't making many clouds that day. I explained to him about relative humidity and temperature (not sure if he "got" that or not), but his follow up comment was, "Oh. You control the clouds?" and I distinctly remember saying, "Yeah, kinda."

So, there you go, yesterday I got schooled by a three year old. I guess I should have stuck to the long version of how the refinery works and I wouldn't have been in that position I suppose....

Cats: They're A Lot Like Humans. Kinda.

The scene: Friday morning, 5:50am. I'm in a hurry to get to work. I woke up with a kid sleeping in my bed because he wet his bed in the middle of the night, woke up and relocated to my room.

So, with the exactly 3 minutes I had to spare that morning, I managed to strip Colt's soaking wet, pee-infused bed down to the plastic mattress pad and toss everything in the washing machine. I silently high-fived myself because now, instead of having that to do when I got home that night, it would already be washed and ready for the dryer....I'm SUCH a multitasker!!

I gathered my coffee, my bags, my lunch, his bags, his lunch, my coat, my keys and headed out to warm up the car. Upon my return to the house to fetch the wee one I heard the distinct sound of a cat covering something up  in the litter box. Only, this noise was coming from the wrong end of the house. See, the litter box is in our bathroom, on the far east end of our house, and this was definitely coming from the far west end of the house. I headed off to explore.

And what did I find you wonder? Apparently Bro, our cat, had sensed the fact that Colt's bed magically overnight had gone from habitation location to giant litter box. I mean, why else would it be sopping in pee smell? The little boy peed here (forgot to cover it up - bad boy!) and then ran off somewhere else. Yes! It's true! This IS the biggest litter box EVER! And she had taken a giant crap right on the spot where he'd peed! AHHHHHHHH.

To rub salt in the wound, (after all, I was already running late, why not clean up a steaming pile of cat shit now anyway?) I came in right at the very moment when she'd discovered that plastic mattress covers are not at all like kitty litter and really don't "cover" very well. Even though she'd discovered that plastic doesn't give her quite the coverage she was hoping for, it didn't stop her from trying. She had ripped that thing to shreds trying to cover her giant dookie.

So, there I was: 6:10am, staring a cat dead in the eyes, and the only thing between us was a shredded plastic sheet covered in kid pee and cat shit. Awesome. This is awesome.

Saying of The Year?: Shit Like This Doesn't Happen to Normal People.

Well, the call from the water association went something like this: "So, Mr. Smeltzer, you guys using extra water up at your place? I mean, your water usage this month is, like, DOUBLE what it usually is!"

Let's think: we've slaughtered nearly every animal on our property in the last 2 months that consumes water. Most of our landscaping was killed during our remodel this year, so we're not watering anything. And, let's face it: we're a bit past the "honeymoon phase" and showering just doesn't seem as, well, pressing as is used to. So, theoretically, we should be using LESS water.

And the conversation went on: "Well, Mr. Smeltzer, you guys been using A LOT of water. Think you might have a leak? Better check."

The though struck my mind to put it off until the morning. I mean, it had been leaking this long, right? What's one more night. We could regroup, reassess and attack the issue in the morning. When it was light. And the hardware store was open, right? Oh, common sense...what were YOU thinking!

So, off we went, shovel in hand, looking for a big puddle of water. And, you ask, what did we find when we checked? A GIANT F-ING leak at the T this side of the meter box! One shovelful and it was like hitting black gold - only of the water variety. Sixty pounds of water pressure spewing forth from the pipe clamps! Obviously the water needed to be shut off. And fast! But, of course! The water meter takes some type of special tool. That's genius - let's make a shut off with a special tool for a valve someone is only going to use if there is an emergency!! Seriously! Great idea! Todd managed to shut it off with some channel locks, but I'm pretty sure we'll never, ever be able to use that 'special tool' on it ever again. Which is OK as I don't foresee ever having this kind of problem again.

So, we've spent the better part of a cold night in the dark on our hands and knees trying to fix a water leak. It's mostly fixed.....well, it's just dripping a bit. Todd, being the awesomeness that is Todd, already has someone lined up to come fix it tomorrow morning while we're at work. Which was WAY better than my plan which was for us both to leave work at lunch and struggle the entire afternoon trying to repair it. My absolute favorite home repairs are the ones that someone else does while I'm at work.

I included a lovely picture of tonight's events, mostly because the video footage wasn't "family friendly". Todd expressed with *great enthusiasm* how excited he was with my decision to put the flashlight down and take some pictures. You can see in the photo how well he's communicating with the broken pipe...

For Crying Out Loud - Let The Grinch Go Already!

So, it's no surprise that a couple of weeks ago Colt caught his first glimpse of The Grinch. We were with some friends on a train ride and he was positioned innocently enough near the entrance to the parking area. He was but a mere blip on the screen of the fun filled day. He, however, consumed the day. And has been the topic of a LOT of conversations since then. Just. Let. It. Go. Already.

As much as we tried to comfort him, he just wouldn't let it go. That Grinch was dressed like Santa. But scarier. And hairier. And way, way worse. So, after a 30 minute car ride home Colt proudly declared, "I want Santa to bring me a Grinch!" Seriously? A Grinch? You just spend an hour scared to death of this thing, clinging to my leg, begging to get off the train and now you want a Grinch for Christmas? Seriously?

...and then, as Paul Harvey would say, he told "The Rest of The Story...." I'm sure I won't do it justice, but it went something like this:

"Yes, I want Santa to bring me a Grinch. I will put the Grinch in the road and cars will run him over. Then, I will throw him in the blackberries and he will get scratches. Then I will take him to the woods and run him over with the four-wheeler and a tree will fall on him. Yes. That's it. I want Santa to bring me a Grinch for Christmas."

I had no idea he's spent the entire car ride home refining the exactness with which he'd torture the poor thing. You should have seen the look in his eyes when I told him The Grinch was a Dr. Seuss book. And that we had the book - in his bedroom!!

Christmas: A Time For Blood and Tears

I picked up Colt last Thursday and our drive home started off with a complete fabrication of a story on his part. He said, "I saw Fenton's Christmas tree." Seriously, kid? You haven't seen Fenton since last weekend (The Bouncy House Party Disaster of 2012) and I know for sure you haven't been to his house. But, the story went on: "It has yellow balls and green balls and red balls. Lots of red balls. And they're glass mommy. Glass balls. And candy canes. Yeah. I saw those things on Fenton's tree." Hmm. So, I played along ('tis the season, right?) "Well, honey, what do you think about taking Daddy and getting a tree tonight? Won't that be fun?"

..so, there I was: unhitching the horse trailer in the rain and dark so the two of them could go pick out a Christmas tree while I stayed home and cooked dinner. In retrospect, this was personally beneficial situation, right?

Now, I'm not going to say I'm Grinch-y, but Todd and I usually skip Christmas. Spend it somewhere warm, ya know? Like Mexico. Or Belize. So, this bit of Christmas-y fever caught me a little off guard too.

Anyway, I heard them drive in (in the rain and dark), then I heard the tailgate go down, then I heard the distinct sound of a toddler's blood curdling cry. Colt staggers inside, blood gushing from his forehead, running down his face into his mouth and all over his shirt and blanket. Lest I say tailgates are the appropriate height to make that type of puncture wound. I stopped the crying, stopped the bleeding and slapped a Sponge Bob sticker right on his forehead and off we went to decorate the tree.

Now, Colt was very excited. Very, very excited to decorate the tree. I showed him the basics: glass ball (the expendable ones, not my the nice ones my mom handed me down from childhood Christmases), metal ball hooky-thing to hang ornament, tree - and off he went! At a snail's pace. The focus this boy had...slowly, very slowly, walking towards the tree, measuring each step as not to trip, staring at the ball, picking his spot, hanging the ornament on a branch - and then CRASH! the ball slipped off the branch, hit the floor and broke into a million pieces. A t o m i c   M e l t d o w n. Utter disappointment. Tears. Wailing. Screaming. Ah.

Twenty minutes later, after I'd cleaned it up and explained there were 100 more balls where that one came from, we set off decorating the tree. I took the breakable ornaments and the hard to reach places on the tree (like everything over 3 feet up the tree). And, as I neared the end of the ornaments and the back of the tree, I stepped back to admire our creation. And it was then I saw Colt, very carefully, removing ALL the ornaments from the front of the tree and putting them back in the box. Seriously? What is this?

"Oh, honey, what are you doing? We need to put the ornaments on the tree. We're decorating it. It's fun. Like this." (Almost sounds like I'm trying to convince myself, right?)

Then, with a completely straight face and an adamant tone he said to me, "Mommy. We are done with this activity and we need to clean up our tools." And I almost lost it. We've been focusing on this very thing for the last long while...so, how do you explain to a 3 year old that we're keeping this holy hell of a mess up in our front room for another 3 weeks?! I was stymied. Then, he said, "Mom. Really. We're done with this Christmas tree and we need to clean it up. And take it back outside."

As of today, the tree remains in our front room. Fully decorated and the lights turned on at his request. He still has no idea what's going on, but at least he thinks the lights are pretty. Although, they probably have Christmas lights in the Caribbean too, right?

Bouncy Houses: Kinda Like the Titanic Sinking. Only Worse....

Today Colt attended a very close friend's fifth birthday party. It was amazing! His parents rented the kid's play area at a local gym, and the kids had access to the entire play place (think McDonalds without the gut-rotting food) and the multipurpose room where the gym had a bouncy house set up.
Colt fell asleep in the car on the way there and took a while to wake up and get involved, but he eventually came to and started mingling. Pinata? Fun. Food? Tasty. Kids? Entertaining. Bouncy House? .....hear the crickets? 
After initially declining my invitation for him to go in the bouncy house, Colt finally relented and  along with 5 other kids listened with rapt attention as the Bouncy House attendant covered the rules. No shoes, no hanging on the mesh, no bouncing into one another, five minutes of bouncing at a time. Sounded pretty simple. Either I missed the "should we encounter a water landing on our trip from Seattle to Spokane, your seat backs double as floatation devices. Air masks will drop from the overhead bins. Secure your mask before helping others" or emergency landings weren't covered in our brief introduction to bouncing. And, in retrospect, it would have come in handy.

About 30 seconds into what looked like a very fun bouncing episode is when shit went downhill. And quick. The blower suddenly detached from the air inlet and the canvas ceiling dropped down on the kids as the house deflated. I saw the face of one 4 year old as the roof was caving in and it was sheer terror on his little face! The entrance to a standard issue bouncy house is tiny. No adult could fit through there, so as another mother tried to hold it open I reached in blindly and started the Kid Extraction 2012. I pulled a total of 5 kids out and when I realized someone was still screaming from in there, I ALSO realized it was MY kid! Colt had been bouncing near the back of the house when it started deflating, so he was trapped a ways from the opening. He eventually made it over near me so I could pull him out. Traumatized. And definitely not going anywhere near that thing ever again.
After all the crying and explaining that simply the air blower disconnected and trying to cajole him back in there - he simply wouldn't go. In fact, he walked around and around the bouncy house looking at it, inspecting the air blower and then spent the rest of the party perched on the inflated step of the bouncy house with his arms stretched inside saying, "It's not safe in there. Come out. I'll help you!"
Might he grow up to be an OSHA inspector? Maybe. But one thing's for sure - he's never going in one of those things again!

When It ALL Really Goes To Hell....

  To say that things went to hell when Todd was gone on business would be an honest assessment of the situation. Griz sensed the impending Apocalypse and devoured the recycle bins in the back yard, the horses broke down the fencing and all ended up together in one stall hosting the first episode of Kick Fest 2012, and Colt and I had Hot And Ready Pizza 4 of the 7 nights Todd was gone.

So on Friday morning, the day Todd was set to arrive back home, and the phone rang at 4:15 am I naturally assumed it was him, home early, phoning for a ride home. Or, someone was in a car wreck. Because, seriously, why else would anyone call THAT early?!! So, you can imagine my surprise when I answer the phone and don't recognize the caller, but he's talking to me about something I'm familiar with. Then I realize....this is work calling me? At 4:15 in the morning? Seriously? Then I think, "Something has to be on fire, right?" No. Not at all. The call went something like this, "Rikki. I'm so glad you answered. (WTF?) I couldn't get a hold of Joe (my boss). God, I'm glad you answered. (WTF?)" and blah, blah, blah...which pretty much resulted in "Get in here as fast as you can. We need to sell this gasoline and we don't have a certificate for it. Hurry!"  OK. Single parent (for 12 more hours), demanding job, a boss who's smarter than me and turns his phone off at night and not enough coffee in me to make a sound decision. Off we go!

  I leapt from bed and pulled on my jeans from the day before, grabbed my lunch, my kid, fed the animals, got some coffee and off we went.

  Sadly enough, even with a 4:15am wake up call, I still only arrived to work about 10 minutes early. Because, let me tell you: after the week I'd already had even emergencies needed to be planned out. What really ticked me off was that after this post-sunrise emergency, I arrived to find that there wasn't really an emergency after all. Just a miss understanding. A giant misunderstanding that forced me out of bed an hour early in a panic and caused me to arrive unshowered and wearing my clothes from yesterday. Happy Friday.

  Where the story takes a turn is when I start to work. The lab tech that arrived had been working feverishly on the now-non-emergency and left a lot of the routine work for me. I grabbed a cart and headed to the back sample receiving area where there was an operator adding more samples to the already huge backlog of samples. I recognized the operator, but didn't know him by name. Regardless, I start chatting him up. "How's it going?" "Friday, huh?" "Lots of samples today." You know, the usual. As we're standing there talking it felt like my left pant leg was cuffed or bunched up and it was bothering me. So, mid sentence with a mostly stranger, I gave my foot a good kick to reset my pant leg. This was my fatal mistake. Immediately following the mid-sentence kick a pair of underwear flew out of my pant leg and landed between the two of us.

  An immediate series of events played out: I had jumped up and thrown on my pants from yesterday, not checking first as to the fate of the underwear I'd worn that day as well, gone an entire hour with them riding around behind my knee and then with one kick, they appeared at the absolutely WORST time ever. I screamed, "Oh my God!", grabbed them quickly, pretended like nothing happened and stuffed them in my lab jacket pocket. Because maybe he didn't see, right? Maybe he was pretending it didn't happen. Maybe he'd blocked it out? Whatever the reason, he pretended like nothing happened, we said our good byes and I walked away mortified. With my underwear in my pocket. And it wasn't even 7am yet. Ugh. The awesome part about being a woman at a refinery is you're a major minority. Like 2 in 500. So, the likely hood this happened infront of an understanding lady coworker was, like, zero.

  The good news, however, is the lab tech who arrived early (who, thankfully, didn't witness my amazing powers of materializing underwear from nowhere) came back hours later from a trip out to the refinery and promptly reported, "I was out in the refinery and no one was talking about your underwear." To which I replied, "Were you expecting them to be?"...and he said, "Well, FYI, new like THAT travels pretty quickly. So, I don't think he saw anything."

"'Cause Shit Like That Doesn't Happen To Normal People"

Seriously. Someone said that to me yesterday. There is was: drinking with friends and relaying a hilarious situation that, naturally, doesn't happen to normal people, when it popped right out of her mouth. I didn't take it poorly though because, seriously, shit like that does NOT happen to normal people. The good thing is that I can laugh at the myriad of strange, awkward and inappropriate things that have happened to me. Which is good. I think?

Like the time I inadvertently told my coworker, "Oh, I didn't recognize you with clothes on." Which, I admit, sounds really bad when taken out of context. But, when you know that I ran into him, his wife and family in the mall shortly after I started an internship at the refinery and just simply didn't recognize him without his coveralls on (we all were generic blue coveralls at work. Hundreds of us. All dressed in blue) it doesn't seem so bad. Right?

Or, like the time I left the sunroof open on my car all night in the pouring rain and decided the best way to dry the leather was to drive the car with my seat warmers on and I ended up shocking my own ass. It felt like a 400 volt electric fence grounded on my butt. Not cool.

Or, a crowd favorite: the time I was house sitting and  my high school boyfriend chased a morbidly obese sheep to death on accident. Which, is funny in it's self, but then followed up by the story of my two brothers helping me bury the thing at my parent's house makes you about wet your pants. Remind me if you haven't heard the story about the dead sheep. It's makes you think, "Shit like this really doesn't happen to normal people."

And, there's the time I moved to Cody, Wyoming, and had lived there a total of FOUR days when the barn at the place I was house sitting burned down while I was at the gym. Went to gym, barn burned down, firefighters put it out, left me a hand written note on the kitchen table (small town mentality!), and were gone by the time I got off the elliptical. And, when I showed up to my first day of work a picture of the barn on fire was on the front page. Above the fold. In color.

And, as friends have reminded me lately, I just haven't been writing the blog lately. It's not that the crazy things stopped happening...it's just other things like life, a family, horses, swimming lessons and preschool DID happen. So, instead of remembering all of this crazy things, I've vowed to start writing them down again. And, I promise, I'll get around eventually to updating the pictures on my blog. But, one thing at a time, right?

If Only It Were That Easy

An actual conversation we had this afternoon while waiting for traffic at a busy intersection:

Colt: "Mommy. That is a lot of cars."
Me: "Yes. There are a lot of cars. We have to wait a long time, don't we?"
Colt: "Push the button. Push the button. Do IT mommy! DO IT!"
Me: "Do what?"
Colt: "Mommy, push the button and STOP those cars! Do it!"

Ahhh, the mind of a 2 year old accustomed to watching cartoons on DVR. Oh, how things were different when I was a kid!

Slugs, Slugs and MORE Slugs!

We have been working very hard on not touching the slugs lately. I got plain tired of scrubbing that goop they leave off his little body. I understand that at this age slugs are about the only animal he CAN catch, but still. NO MORE SLUGS!!

So, I was SO proud last weekend when, on our routine trip to the barn in the morning, when he spotted a slug he screamed, "SLUG!! Slug, mommy!" Followed shortly by, "No touching mommy. Just looking!" Ah, my heart fluttered with pride. And we walked on.

Three strides later, in the same breath, he looked at me and said, "Mommy licks slugs." And when I gasped and replied, "No I don't! Mommy doesn't lick slugs!" He just looked at me, quite compassionately, and said, "And daddy too. Daddy licks slugs." And then walked on.

Seriously? Seriously. Still pretty cute, even if he talks some smack.

Please Park the Lawn Mower.

This actually happened tonight:

At about 8:00 tonight, I jumped on the lawn mower to "clean up" some of the clippings from mowing the lawn yesterday. After that I thought I'd just do a small area behind the garage. Then, I thought I'd just do the fence line (afterall, tomorrow IS weedeating day!), then I thought I'd do MORE fence line, then I just decided to mow about 2 acres of our 5 acre field. Because that's totally normal, right?
Well, half way through the field I came back up to the house to re-fuel and Todd says, "You need to call the farrier back. He just called."

"Cool." I call, no response. So, I leave Todd with my planner (to schedule my appointment while I finished mowing the field - obviously) and head back out.

When I finally finish (after 9:00 sometime), I say to Todd, "Did anyone else call?"
"No. Oh, wait - someone DID call. Your sanity. It said it wants you back."

To which I reply, "Hmm. I thought I had that number disconnected."

Oh, So Many Things To Cover

Sorry for the huge delay in posts.... now, on to the stories.....

I'm not sure where to start: the long-awaited goat departure, the increase to 200 chickens on our property, the 5:10am chicken wrangling last weekend, or the story about why I'm sitting here with my leg elevated, iced, bandaged and the skin is missing from my right forearm.

Now, let's not get ahead of ourselves.....let's talk about the Moon Story.

So, Colt's new thing is "Cheer-o". I couldn't get this kid to eat Cheerios to save his life, but the tides have turned and it seems like that's all he wants morning, noon and night. His absolute favorite thing to do is bite them in half, hold them up and yell, "Moon! Moon! Mommy - moon!!" Because, obviously, Cheerios bitten in half look like moons. Pretty bright kid, right?

So, last night's dinner appetizer was in fact, Cheerios. He munched a pretty good sized bowl of them and kept exclaiming with delight, "Moon!!" After he'd finished up the last of them he coughed a bit and then started sneezing like crazy. Very unnatural, repetitive sneezing that didn't seem like it was going to stop. I turned to grab a Kleenex, and when I turned back the final sneeze (with much more vigor!) launched the biggest snot rocket I've ever seen on to his upper lip. Holding back the vomit that had crept up my throat, I went in with the Kleenex. 

But, before I could grab it he popped his little hand up there and rubbed it all around. Only, it wouldn't rub around. He grabbed the chunk, looked at it, held  and proudly exclaimed, "Moon! Mommy - moon!" 

Sure enough, that little bugger had crammed one up his nose.  He's a nose rammer. Gonna have to keep an eye on him.....

Who Goes There??

A few nights ago I had just put Colt down for bed, Todd was out mowing the lawn and I was busily cleaning up after dinner. I was alone. Definitely alone. Seriously, definitely alone. When, I hear, clear as day like it was coming from around the corner, a deep, gravelly, manly voice say, "Hey...."

I spun around, and nothing. No one, nothing. Then I hear again, "Hey. You fine..." And, just when I think I'm going mad (because I AM certainly alone) I hear AGAIN, "Hey. You HUGE. You fine."

I didn't know whether to be completely terrified that someone was in my house unannounced or completely horrified that they thought I was huge. And fine?!

So, just when I'm about to tear out of the house and get Todd, I realize Colt has taken his ModoModo toy (from Madagascar the movie) to bed and I'm hearing it coming through the baby monitor.

Seriously, just one more Valium and I'll be fine. Really.  :)

You're hand shouldn't be dirty, because we haven't been outside yet.

Yesterday morning as Colt was watching some cartoons and Todd slept, I was busily preparing a nice breakfast. Just like I do most weekend mornings.

I went in to the front room and said, "Come on Colt. Time for breakfast. Let's get in your chair!!" And, as he came towards me I thought, "Hmm. I wonder where he got into dirt at?" Knowing full well I had bathed him the night before and we had not, in fact, been outside yet that morning, I was a little suspicious of the apparant dirt.

Which, I'm sure you've realized by now wasn't dirt. Instead, it was a curious boy with a poopy diaper and a stinky hand. And I spent the next 30 minutes collecting everything that wasn't nailed down and washing it.

Gross!!

Saying Goodbye to Texas. Not Really That Hard Afterall....

So, I spent the last week in Houston taking an analyzer training class. I know, I know...a thrill a minute - but I won't bore you with the seedy details of exactly how the chemiluminescence works. Instead I will recap some of my observations during said trip. (And, as a disclaimer, I understand that the blonde shows through sometimes...)

1. Geography 101. News to me! Houston is on the water!! After taking off from Seattle and discovering I was sitting next to a Houstonite, I began pumping her for information. One such conversation involved her telling me, "Oh, just go down over the ship channel..blah...blah..blah." "Ship what?" "Houston's near the ocean?" "Uh, yeah."  Then she whipped out the "Where Alaska Airlines Flies" magazine and made me look like an idiot. Note to self: Self, check where you're going before you get on the short bus. Seriously. "Hey, Rikki, try this purple Kool-Aid. It's really good."
2. Highways. You can always tell when you're near a highway in Texas. Because next to a perfectly good highway, they build another highway. Then, they call that highway a "frontage road." Whatever. Call it was it is: a three lane highway built RIGHT next to a perfectly good four lane one. And, don't even think about calling them "free"ways. That brings me to point #3.
3. Toll Roads. Aren't taxes supposed to pay for that? What's up with charging people to drive on a road that should have already been budgeted for? That's like me charging Todd $2 for dinner when I've already used his money to buy the groceries. And the EZ Pass? Nothing too easy about that.
4. The gyms. Everything's bigger in Texas. Swear: four acres of cardio equipment in this gym. Along with a pool, sauna, steam room, dance studio, rock wall, health food cafe, on-staff massage therapists and physical trainers wandering around giving you tips. I was pondering the need for a gym this size when it struck me: No one in their RIGHT MIND would work out outside. The heat, the humidity, the bugs....it explains it all. Even early April was hot and muggy.
5. The weather. My 3.5 hour flight turned into a 5 hour flight due to tornado/wild weather threats. Not cool. Not at all.

So, all in all, Texas was fun to visit, but boy am I glad to be home!!

Whoa!! Nice Donkey!

So, this is what it looks like when you put a full sized saddle and a normal sized kid on a miniature donkey. He was pretty patient to tell you the truth...

Is It The Weekend YET?

Scene: Our bedroom, day before yesterday. It's dawn, kinda.

I roll over and grogily say to Todd, "Is it a weekend today?" Decent question, I thought, since it was sorta light out and Todd's alarm hadn't gone off and Colt was still asleep.

To which he answered, "OH Shit!!" And, being the master of non-verbal communication I inferred it was not, in fact, a weekend.) So, we rocket out of bed and scramble off to work.

And, a couple of things I thought of after the fact:

1. I have always relied on Colt to be my back-up alarm. He's obviously becoming unreliable.
2. When did it become acceptable to not know what day it is? Really. Pre-baby was like a countdown to weekend fun. Now it seems every day is Groundhog Day. Up at 6:00, bottle, diaper change, shower, pack lunch, start car, work....
3. Cat barf on the hood of your car the one day you're late to work only makes things worse.

Woo-hoo!

Pardon me while I indulge in a little self-admiration..

..Just finished the Bellingham Runnin' O The Green 5 mile run in 43 minutes. And, I ran the whole way. That's right. Eat it up.

..ok, now that we have THAT our of our system, here are a few important realizations I came to during the race. Most of these came to me about mile 3 - ya know, too far away to turn back (would have been longer to turn back at that point anyway) and too close to quit. Plus, there was this 85 year old lady I was tailing the whole race and I wasn't going to let her get away from me.

1. Whole milk. Bad idea. Phlegm, phlegm and more phlegm. Thankfully my music was loud enough that I couldn't hear my hacking. Can't imagine the other racers liked that.
2. Garlic and onion hash browns the morning of the race. Stinky, burpy nastiness. Nothing like pushing through that hill, burping onion the whole way.
3. The night before the race - not a good time to clip your toenails. I don't consider toenail clipping a full-contact sport, but one wrong move and those 5 miles get pretty uncomfortable.

Anyway, still ran a really good time (I thought, anyway). So, more hill work and less onions, garlic, milk and toenail clipping and I'll be good to go for those 2 half-marathons I'm signed up for!!

Who ARE These People. Seriously.

So, I just got back from the grocery store in what has to be the weirdest 10 minute drive EVER. About half way there in the 45mph zone a little kid (maybe 10?), on a bike, with NO helmet, dressed in a black and grey hoodie, headed towards oncoming traffic, riding in my lane because there was no shoulder appeared out of nowhere and I had to swerve in to oncoming traffic to avoid crushing his every bone. Geez.

Not 50 yards later....another person, a walker, thug-villain style with his pants down around his knees, ALSO dressed in a dark hoodie, trying (not really) to get off the road so I wouldn't crush him.

Nearly a mile later I was slowing to take a left in to the grocery store when I see something in the middle of the intersection that I SWEAR was the elusive and scarcely seen Cascade Grizzly Bear. Just when I'm about to take out my stun gun and cap the bear (no, I don't really have a stun gun, but it sounded good), a PERSON leaps from the sidewalk and runs DIRECTLY in front of my car and pulls the bear by it's collar to the sidewalk. Only then do I realize it's not a bear: its a HUGE dog. And there are three more on the sidewalk. Huge like bear huge. Who in their right mind takes four St. Bernards out off leash walking in the middle of the night (OK. It was 7pm - but it was dark!)? I swear.

Now, in retrospect, I'm going to say the brown sugar wasn't worth the trip.

Wow. So That Hurt Pretty Bad.

While I was at the mall today exchanging the gross of shirts I purchased for Todd I thought to myself, "Self, you deserve an eyebrow wax." I consider getting my eyebrows waxed a non-necessity - somewhat of a "splurge" - because truly its nothing I can't accomplish with some time and a good set of tweezers. I've only had it done twice before but today was a special day! Luxury!

So, I head off to the salon. The lady behind the desk says, "What can I do for you?", to which I say, "I was wondering if you had time for an eyebrow way?" She ushered me in to the back room and sat me down...and in her very accented voice says, "Oh..eyebrow wax? You want lip wax too?" Kind of offended, I scoff, "No!" But then, very secretly begin thinking, "Wait. Do I need it waxed? Why would she ask if I didn't? Is my lip really hairy or something?" So, I say to her, "Uhh. I've never had it waxed before...do you think I need it done?"

Ah. Silly Rikki. Never ask someone you're paying if they think you need more work. She pulls in for a close up - seriously - inches from my face, then draws back and says, "Hmmm. Oh yeeesss. You need lip waxed!" And I wasn't sure if I was more offended by her response or horrified to have been running around looking like Chewbacca this long!!

I (silly Rikki) asked "Does it hurt?" To which she replied, "Not more than eyebrows." So, I think to myself "Crap. That really hurts. I bet this is really going to hurt." And it did. I was obviously the first waxing of the day because she had to heat the wax up in the microwave so it was like fresh napalm on my face. Awesome. Thank God I wore a hat to the mall so I could kinda hike my red mustache and the red rings around my eyebrows. I looked like a fool.

Four hours later (after the redness has subsided) I kinda like the outcome. By man, it did hurt!