West to California

A fast, fun trip to California where we visited my brother and sister-in-law. Planes, trains, automobiles and the ocean. Midwest Airlines is a carrier of choice in my book - business class seating throughout the cabin, fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies, and a FULL can of Coke (not just a bit poured over ice - in a small cup - like some airlines offer). On our flight to L.A. Joe received a "First Flight" certificate signed by the crew along with a BAG full of cookies. While waiting for Craig to come home from work the first day, Jackie and Joe played an amusing pretend game of Dorothy the Dinosaur (Jackie) meets Bob the Builder (Joe). Although our stay was brief, we enjoyed ourselves and Joe was an excellent traveler. The whirlwind, off-the-beaten-path tour included visits to Travel Town, Santa Monica Pier, and, for late afternoon relaxation, Roxbury Park (and to make sure Joe was good and tired). It wouldn't be a vacation for me without a "won't find it in Kansas" dining experience. In Santa Monica I feasted upon a Cornish Pastie, chips & peas (yum - thanks, Craig) at Ye Olde King's Head while Joe gulped his spaghetti. Unfortunately I was too full to partake of the Bread & Butter Pudding for dessert.

That's my boy

Joe fell asleep while eating his bed-time snack. Literally - he was chewing when I took this picture!

Out with the old...

This is the old kitchen floor after removing the nasty, dirty carpet that we tolerated for about 8 years too many. That gray spot in the top-left picture is the actual pile of dust that remained after removing the carpet. We didn't pile it up like that - it was there on it's own! Farther back in the picture you can see where we'd already cleaned up. After the carpet the underlayment had to be taken out (the gold/brown colored part of the floor). This was just stapled down, fairly easy to remove and revealed (middle picture) the lovely vinyl tile circa 1940. I wouldn't have picked it, but it was definitely better than the nasty rug. Luckily, it made a great surface to install the incredibly cheap and easy peel-and-stick tile ($200 vs. $1400 estimate for professional floor installation). After several hours of work during the past week...


Now we actually have to clean up spills so we don't slip on the floor. Lucy is adjusting to the new floor and, as always, is willing to help with most any food/liquid cleanup.

Joe's thorn to bear....

This thorn is what remained after spending almost two weeks in the bottom of Joe's foot. I recall seeing about that much taken out soon after the original incident. However, how it got there isn't nearly as interesting as the time since then. After Joe hobbled back to our friend's house, we removed what we thought was all of it then cleaned up with rubbing alcohol and put a bandage on his foot. Well, next day it didn't look much better and looked a bit infected. Much to Joe's protests, we drained the wound, a small piece of the thorn came out, and we re-bandaged it. It still didn't look very good after another 24 hours so we called the doctor. He looked at it, prescribed some antibiotics and did a staph culture since this happened during the wave of staph infections sweeping through Manhattan. Joe and I were leaving for California (will post more soon) the next day and we wouldn't know the culture results for two days. Rhonna could tell that the doctor really wanted to say that we couldn't leave town. We left anyway with our antibiotics, bandages, and high-powered antibiotic soap to wash the wound three times a day. Saturday came and Rhonna called to say the culture was negative (big sigh of relief). We had fun in LA, but the foot still wasn't getting better. Joe had is annual checkup scheduled for early in the week so, in spite of his otherwise excellent health, he still had a sore foot. The doctor scheduled a sonogram to look at the wound in case there was more thorn in the foot. The sonogram was inconclusive which is hard to believe considering later that same day we returned once again to the doctor to have her remove the piece shown in the picture. Good grief, just how far was that in the foot to take nearly 2 weeks before it began to come out? Well, Joe's just fine now and the sore foot never did seem to slow him down much, amazingly enough. The only issue now is his allergic contact dermatitis from the bandages the nurse used to cover his four immunization shots he received during his annual check-up. It looks like a combination between poison ivy and chicken pox. Nothing serious, but enough already!

Buying off our guilt

On Thursday when I was driving back from the airport, I had the joy of hearing this piece on Talk of the Nation. Peter Schweizer talks about carbon off setting, exploring other ways we could offset our guilt, such as, maybe you could eat as much junk food as you want and get as fat as you want, but offset it by paying for someone else to go to the gym. In case you can't tell, I think offsetting is a crock. I remember when it came out that Al Gore uses a lot of energy and he responded that he offsets it. Ok, I love Al, but this made me angry. I live, with my husband and two kids, in a 1,000 square foot house. We've been debating for over a year about whether or not it would be appropriate to add 300 sq. feet to our house since that would contribute more carbon to the environment. So to hear about Al Gore and his huge house rubbed me the wrong way. Maybe instead of paying someone to plant trees in India, he could quit driving an SUV or maybe install some solar panels.

But I shouldn't be so hard on him. We all have our little environmental secrets. I hate to chop veggies. I love the idea of gardening and getting fresh produce from the Farmer's Market, and I love the flavor of fresh veggies, but Kirk has to chop them up or I'll let them rot in the refrigerator, in spite of my best intentions. Janisse Ray wrote this article about preaching to the choir. We environmentalists like to complain about the "others" who are doing horrible things to our world, but it probably wouldn't hurt for us to look in our own closets a little.

Flowers in Autumn

So summer's officially gone, but no one told my crapemyrtle. This one's just recently opened since it's a bit more shaded than the ones in the backyard. I forgot the variety because I relied on my memory instead of writing it down and who knows where the tag is - probably on a pile somewhere in the basement. The small blue flowers on the right are a variety of (perennial?) ageratum that I received at a plant exchange with my former coworkers. I haven't checked to see if it's spreading by roots or re-seeding itself, but either way it's prolific and the blooms last several weeks. I'll have plenty to give away next spring if anyone's interested. There might be other plants as well.

This used to be a strawberry patch that was delicious the first year, but has declined to just a handful of runners. I'm going to make this more of a perennial flower garden and let the strawberry plants intermingle should they continue to grow. In the backyard there are a handful of cherry tomatoes on one of my two tomato plants (that was the extent of my vegetable garden this year) and although my vegetable garden of yore is now grass I plan to makeover and expand an existing flower bed to make room for a few more vegetables next year. I just can't let well enough alone. I think Joe's got a bit of the gardening gene as he told me last week where his garden is and, pointing over there, told me that that's my garden. With my encouragement he's very aware of where and when I've planted seeds or moved plants and sometimes let's me know when the plants grow & change.

Flash from the Past

I was stunned when I looked in my mailbox to find a postcard from my high school classmate, Rick Uhlig. He had written a book, Last Dance at the Frosty Queen, about coming of age in a small town in Kansas in the 1980's. My first reaction, obviously, was hoping that he had written nothing incriminating about me. I got ahold of the book as quickly as possible and gobbled it down. There was nothing incriminating about me. This reminded me that my high school lifestyle really was not the stuff of novels.

It was an entertaining dark comedy about being different, figuring out the opposite sex, dealing with your family, and the realities of small town life. It was well written, if a little over-the-top.

What was fascinating to me was seeing glimpses of people I did know. None of them matched exactly and no real names were mentioned, so it was still in the realm of fiction, but some were clear and not always flattering. This made me wonder: how fictional is any fiction? There must be little nuggets of true stories everywhere. How do people feel when their story is written down and saved for the ages?

Best of luck to Rick. When I forgot about this being the town I spent my last years of high school in, it was a good story.