I have been mostly working from home these days, and I have found that it decreases my ability to blog. I am not out in the world having hilarious things happen to me, or brainstorming with my writing partner, Laura. But I do spend a bit of time every day trying to figure out if I should shower. And that shower decision making process was so cumbersome that I decided to make this handy decision tree:
Full size at this link: Should_I_Shower ?
Jack: Mama? Who invented the world? And Phones?
Me: Um. God and Steve Jobs.
I just returned from a girls trip, where gifts were exchanged. My trip came with gift bags. GIFT BAGS!! Love those ladies.
I was the last to arrive in New Orleans, so I planned to carry on my bag to save the fee, and the time when I got there. But I was a little worried that I’d have trouble cramming it into an overhead bin because it was pretty packed. Luckily for me, I was forced to gate check it because there was no more room on the plane. But then I was thinking that if it got lost, I wouldn’t even know the luggage brand name. It didn’t have a luggage tag, and I could barely describe it. So when I opened my GIFT BAG and there was a ribbon on one of my gifts, it was tied to my luggage immediately.
This story skips straight to the flight home, it skips all the fun and hilarity that transpired in the Crescent City. But, as my good friend says, it’s not easy leaving the Big Easy. For example, we saw a guy laying face down on the carpet in the gate area for my flight. My friend’s laughed and said he would probably be sitting next to me on the plane. I walked around, and when I returned in time to board, I noticed that the drunken traveler had risen to a seated position and purchased a beer. His party wasn’t over and good for him. (Fingers crossed that he wasn’t sitting next to me on the flight.)
I bought a few souvenirs and a few dresses, and I received some gifts. (GIFT BAGS!) And I may have taken some hotel samples. So my bag was a lot little bigger and heavier on the way home, and I wasn’t saved by a gate check. So when it came time to put the bag in the overhead bin, I heaved it up and over, and almost into the overhead bin. Almost. I somehow missed a little, and the bag sort of bounced off my head, and partially knocked my glasses off my face. I did the quick glance around to see if anyone noticed. Just about 10 people were staring right at me. The drunk guy gave me a sheepish grin that said, “How embarrassing for you, sorry.” This, from someone who had been face down on the floor just 2o minutes prior. The young gentleman behind me said, “Do you want me to get that for you?” I replied, “Actually, I think I’d like to try one more and redeem myself.” Heave, ho, in ya go. Well, it was sort of in. Should I turn it sideways, or will it fit the way I had it? Wiggle, jiggle, not sure what to do now. At this point, a helpful flight attendant stepped in and put my bag back the way I had it the first time, with the bow side out. I said, “I wasn’t sure it would fit that way, but you are the expert, right?” He said, “Not really.” And he tried shutting the bin and it shut just fine. I said, “Oh, don’t be so modest! Great job! Thanks so much!” I noticed he was sitting in the exit row, and I thought he had just lucked out that the place wasn’t full and was flying standby to get to Denver or something.
I sat down and read my book for 2 hours and 2o minutes. When it was time to get off the plane, I stood up and I was trying to figure out a strategy to get my bag down. Just go for it? Let the people in my row out, and then wait it out until everyone else is off the plane to save myself the embarrassment? What to do, what to do? Someone ahead of me opened the bin, and I saw the pretty ribbon on my bag. I looked at the helpful flight attendant and noticed he was looking into the bin too. He saw the ribbon and I willed him to think, “that’s the bag I put up there for that clutzy lady. I should get it down for her and save us all.” That worked! Next thing I knew, he was handing me the bag. I thanked him again, and wondered why he said he wasn’t an expert at putting luggage into bins. Maybe because he wasn’t a flight attendant? He was a pilot.
How embarrassing for me!
Sand. I always assumed that pockets are filled with sand over the course of the day through extreme and rugged playing. From wallowing in sandboxes, and rolling through dirt.
But I learned otherwise on a hike through the Black Hills in Custer State Park.
We drive the Needles Highway one day and did a hike to the Cathedral Spires.
Jack picked up a piece of wood that was slightly curved, perfect for scooping sand, and there was a lot of sand and dirt to scoop. Jack was a very good hiker that day, almost too determined, not wanting any help over some of the serious rock scrambles. But on the way down, he asked me to carry his piece of wood filled with sand, because he was having trouble keeping the sand from spilling out on the way down. I said he should just dump the sand and then fill it up again at the bottom of the hike. Logical. Subtext: Please lose that piece of wood on the way down. Then I turned forward and started walking again, confident that Jack would dump the sand and follow. After a few steps, I turned around to see him using the wood like a funnel, and filling his pockets with sand. Filling his pockets with sand, on purpose. New insight into the mind of a boy.
Seems odd to have a post about Jack and his antics, but Jack wasn’t really into posing that day. As you can see.
When I can’t remember which cherry tomatoes to plant next year, the answer is Sun Gold.
Beautiful afternoon for picking apples next door.
When I was little, I think maybe ages 4, 5, and 9,* our family went to Oglebay and stayed in a cottage, and went to the Good Zoo, and the playground, and the pool, and had talent shows, and played red rover. We made the occasional side trip to Prabupada’s Palace of Gold when people were having trouble getting along and needed to be separated. My oldest cousin napped in a hammock with my youngest cousin. I was told if I woke up my youngest cousin (soon to be 30 now) from her nap, I’d have to change her diapers until she was in college. We recorded (on a tape recorder) one cousin speaking complete nonsense, and when we played it for his mom, she said, He said, “I have to find my mom before she eats my cinnamon bun.” Shreaks of laughter because she was already eating it.
I can barely separate what I really remember from what I have seen in family movies. But I think of Oglebay whenever I go down a slide with rollers. It’s not the same without my dad there, sporting a rugby shirt and a mustache, but it does make me remember those times (or those videos) fondly.
We did a lot of playing in the grass, and one thing I remember doing for what seemed like hours, was rocking in a directors chair until it tipped over and I fell out. Repeatedly. This picture of Luke and Jack reminded me of an Oglebay summer. Some day those two will fondly remember their trip to the Black Hills.
* Please correct the age in the comments. I know I am right about being there when I was 9. The other two were guesses based on Beth being in diapers one year.
** Why yes, I did get some adorable pink tennis shoes, thanks for noticing.
We went to South Dakota for a long labor day weekend, and I was ecstatic to learn we’d be passing through Wheatland, Wyoming on the way there. Years ago, possibly 10 years, I had an Italian cream soda at Terra Grano in Wheatland, Wyoming and it was fantastic. (Terra Grano is Land Wheat in Italian. Possibly.) What better way to kick off a totally Americana trip to see giant heads in a rock, then by planning to have lunch where I once had a delicious drink a decade ago?
Dave was skeptical, and I have to admit, the cream soda didn’t change my life, like it did the first time. But we did have an laugh so hard you cry experience that made it more than worthwhile.
We ordered cream sodas all around, and two pizzas. Oh, and we got there after 1:00 pm, so we were all preeeeeetty hungry by the time the food arrived. Luke took a bite of his pizza, the cheese sort of flipped up onto his nose, he started fanning his face and yelling, “HOT NOSE!! HOT NOSE!!” Being the loving, nurturing, caring mother that I am, I started laughing. Then, Luke followed up with a giant belch before he got up to get some more napkins. Jack was laughing too, and he let out a world weary sigh and an, “Ooooh. This is tooooo funny for me.” The sort of thing your Great Aunt would say as she tittered and dabbed at her eye with a hankie. That made me laugh a little harder, when Luke got back with the napkins, I had already almost shed a tear. At that moment, Luke chose to say, “Excuse me” for the belch that happened so long ago, I had almost forgotten about it. Then it was all over. It was a laugh like the Big-Lebowski-quoting-coffee-spitting-great-partly-saying-wedding of 1998. The one where I had to put my head under the table so I could focus long enough to chew and swallow my food in order to fully laugh without the very real fear of choking.
We laughed, cried, pulled ourselves together, made eye contact with each other, and started again. Many times.
Hot Nose! The new family vacation memory.
Well,I quit my job, and during my two weeks notice, I tried to never work in the evenings, same thing for during the week of in between jobs, and of course, for the first two weeks of my job. Now that I am in week three, I could no longer prevent myself from logging on in the evening to do some work. What does this have to do with anything? Excuses for not blogging of course!
But what have I been doing all this time???!!!
I can account for at least three days like this: purchase the first book in the Hunger Games series, go home, read the whole thing, go to sleep between midnight and 2:00 am depending on how much I was able to ignore my family, wake up groggy, repeat for books 2 and 3.
The first time I tried to buy The Hunger Games, I went to the Boulder Bookstore and looked in new fiction and couldn’t find it. It had been recommended to me by at least 2 friends like this, “It’s not normally the kind of book I would read, but I couldn’t put it down.” So I thought, “Maybe it’s too low brow for the Boulder Bookstore? Maybe I should be looking for it at King Soopers or the airport or something?” Then I looked online and saw that the Boulder Bookstore actually had 38 copies… and that they were in the Young Adult section. Ooooooohhhhhh. You know where else they had some? Right in the entryway with the rest of the bestsellers. I am just blind, apparently.
I decided to recommend The Hunger Games to my friend Chad, and that was a embarrassing as well, because apparently he recommended them to me months and months ago and I said, “meh. no thanks.” So have you heard of this series and not been intrigued? If you have 5 straight hours available, you might as well read the first book before the movies comes out. The trailer was released today. I’d link to it, but you should really read the book before you see the movie trailer.
Speaking of YA books, I have also read the first 3 Harry Potter books, and some adult books as well! State of Wonder by Ann Patchett, That Old Cape Magic, by Richard Russo, and probably some other stuff that I am too lazy to look up right now. That’s 8 books in 5 weeks, not bad at all!
In other news, I have also baked banana bread and a peach cobbler. And when I asked Jack if he wanted any butter on his banana bread he said, “No, just give it to me straight.”
I just wanted to share this very cool project that is happening in New York:
If you love food, gardens, sustainability, cool people, getting a plant named after you, or all of the above, you should donate ASAP to their project! And by donate, I mean, pledge money, and get fun stuff in return.
MetaMegan 
