Queen B

Archive for the ‘Random nonsense’ Category

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Baby it’s cold outside

In Random nonsense, Who comes up with this stuff? on January 1, 2011 at 10:19 pm

Well, winter is finally here, isn’t it?  After a 50+ degree day yesterday!  Yikes.

There has been so much happening, and I just feel three steps behind.  Hooks’ passing, the nearly immediate services and all of the activity that was involved with that, my gf Maureen’s party for her husband down on the farm, my son’s birthday, Christmas Eve (cancelled in the traditional sense), my brother and family visiting from the East coast, Christmas, New Year’s Eve.

A pineapple incident that landed me in the ER.

I feel exhausted just thinking about it.

We have lots to catch up on, but I just spent an entire day (practically) uploading photos to Facebook and I can hardly stand it.  You know I have to have at least a few self deprecating photographs I’ve saved up that I just HAVE to share.  Can you say glutton for punishment?

Do you have any patience left for me?  It’s a new year, after all.  I’m sure you can muster up just a smidge.

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Doing the bump

In Random nonsense, They're... family? on December 28, 2010 at 10:16 pm

I hesitated to post anything lately, because with every post, my uncle Hooks got closer to being bumped from the home page.  I had deleted his last message from my phone a couple of weeks before he died, and it was a tiny bit comforting to see his face on my blog as I remember him in happy times.  I very much miss the Hooks of happy times, but I guess I’ve been missing that for many years.

Anyhow… so I’m posting and he’s officially bumped, apparently.  Time to stop dwelling, I guess.

My Christmas was much better than expected.  The family sort of cancelled our regular tradition of spending Christmas Eve together, and we branched off and spent the holiday with our immediate families in smaller clusters.  From what I’ve heard, everyone was pleasantly surprised that they still had a nice holiday.  Maybe in the future we can all come back together, but I’m learning that you never know what the future will hold for you, especially when it involves family!

Tomorrow is the final day of Family Week for me.  We are having a Thanksgiving do-over at my mom’s house before my brother leaves with his family to go back home to Rhode Island on Thursday morning.  It will be a bittersweet day.  I can’t remember if I’ve stopped crying every time he leaves again or not, since it’s been so many years he’s lived out of state now.  Judging by how I feel at the moment thinking about it, I’m gonna guess no.  I’ll sure give it the old college try to keep a dry eye.

Hmmm.  I think I’m a poet!

Tonight we purchased a family Mega Millions ticket, hoping it will make the next visit come sooner when we win.  My husband has also declared that he will be buying a Bentley.

He will not.


I’m trying!

In Photography, Random nonsense on December 24, 2010 at 12:46 am

There are so many of you waiting both patiently and impatiently for photos to be posted.

Shots of the family mourning – but together, drinking parties, frozen landscapes, birthdays and soon to be holidays…

I’m sorry but I’ve been mourning, drinking, getting stuck in the snow, celebrating, and running my ass off.  I intend to have my shit together soon.

Promise.

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Uninspired

In Random nonsense on November 10, 2010 at 4:55 pm

I’m in a rut.

I’m feeling the change in the seasons.  I haven’t been doing much aside from working, homework, dinner, sleep, REPEAT.  I feel so uninspired.

My mom mentioned an idea to keep things moving:  accomplish something every day.  She’s trying to help me, because I am anti-cleaning, yet get depressed when the house is a mess.  Go figure that one out.  She cleaned her bathrooms today (on her day off) and it only took her 1/2 hour.  It made her feel good.  I had had a conversation about that exact subject this morning with my good friend, and I had planned my accomplishment for today.  After work,  I cleaned some things off of a shelf in the garage, recycled a bunch of papers that were in a pile, and added a few things to the goodwill bags.  I think it counts as an accomplishment, because that stuff on the shelf was bound for the recycling bin FOREVER.

I don’t think that baby steps are for me.  I need broad, sweeping change to feel satisfied.  Not only do I feel the same, I still have to figure out what to do for dinner.

Any chance Halloween candy could be considered a meal?

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Becky

In Random nonsense on November 7, 2010 at 12:11 pm

We have spent the weekend working on our basement situation.  My hubby is trying to finish it, and I am trying to help my hoarders sift through things and part with at least some.  It is difficult for everyone involved, but in different ways.  My husband, because he is trying to finish a basement that is overfilled, in addition to his inability to part with anything.  My kids, because they can’t access any of their stuff because of the construction debris, and yet I’m making them sift through toys and get rid of things.  Me, because I can’t handle the chaos, and just being down there makes my skin crawl and I can’t run away fast enough.

Anyhow, this morning the kids and I sorted through the game area.  We got rid of a lot of games and things on that shelf under the stairs.  Every bit helps.  While in the process, this little card fell from the shelf.  It was a pocket card that had at some point been attached to a gift or something with the meaning of my name.  It reads:

Becky

from the Hebrew root Rebecca;

a familiar form of Rebecca

TO TIE OR TO BIND

has a harmonious attitude towards life; a girl who has ideals and aspirations; bright, vivacious, energetic, and attractive; a person who tends to be emotional; keen to other’s needs; possessing beguiling eyes; she is a positive thinking lady; an individual who others have confidence in.

 

All I can say is NICE!!  For someone who doesn’t really care for her name much, this was an awfully nice read on a Sunday morning.  I wish every day had such a great start, for all of us!

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Spam magnet

In Random nonsense on October 2, 2010 at 8:35 am

Here’s something.

If you want crawlers to find your blog and send you lots of spam comments, use the word whore in your post title.  Seriously.  Either that, or spammers are really interested in the Cadillac Ranch.  It could happen.

Just sayin’.

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Balcony House

In Random nonsense, Serious Fun on August 27, 2010 at 8:46 am

I forgot to mention the state of the mesa tops at the park!

Any indication?  Burned.  There have been a number of forest fires in the park in recent years, and all were the result of lightning.  The Ranger told us that they were in the midst of a 9 year drought, and it should have been the monsoon season while we were there in July.  I will remember that, should we ever return.  I felt sort of guilty being so happy that there weren’t monsoon rains while we were camping in a tent.  How selfish of me, right?

We were told that it was a 23 year drought that finally drove out the Ancestral Puebloan in their day.  In case you were wondering, that is.

After the Cliff Palace tour, we took a little break and then headed over to the Balcony House, which is another guided tour site.  The Ranger at the campground had told us that with only one day and two children these two are the tours we should take, and we believed her.  Being so impressed with the previous ruins (and likely being delirious due to sweating 2x my body weight at the Cliff Palace), I was really excited to see Balcony House.  I was kind of expecting it to be more of the same.  I should have been paying better attention to the Ranger when she was explaining the ins and outs of Balcony house.

You start the tour by climbing down a really long and old metal staircase (read:  steep), followed by a winding trail down alongside the cliff.  Suddenly, out of nowhere there’s this huge ladder in front of you.  Double wide, maybe 30+ feet high.

I am not afraid of heights, but the Ranger was going on and on about how SOME people are.  And how SOME people will be freaking out the whole time they’re climbing so for THEIR sake please just keep climbing without stopping.  For God’s sake DON’T LOOK BACK, and if you fall you’re taking out everyone below you, so please…. just keep climbing!  For the sake of all that is good, do not stop, do not take photographs, do not, do not, do not!!  She shook the ladder to show all those scaredy cats that the ladder wasn’t going anywhere, and there was nothing to fear.  Then she went up first.  I’m only guessing, but I figured it was so that those people falling didn’t take her out.  As luck would have it, we were at the back of the pack and the last to go up.  The closer the time came for me to start climbing, the more freakish I got about actually doing it.  I sent the kids up side by side with my husband and I following below.  I had quickly developed an on the spot irrational fear that one of them would probably fall, and I wanted to be there to break my neck attempting to catch them.  Uh huh.  As I went up the ladder, I started to really feel stress and anxiety like I’ve never experienced before.  With each rung that I climbed, my chest got tighter and my breathing more shallow and my heartbeat faster.  My grip on the rungs got tighter and tighter, but I thought it was certain that I was about to fall backwards off of it, and it took some SERIOUS will power to prevent me from looking back, even though I remembered the Ranger telling us not to.  I was COMPELLED to look down!

As a side note, I have to tell you that at home I have absolutely no problem with ladders, whatsoever.  I climb up and down and walk on the roof of our house without batting an eye.  I think that my irrational fears have more to do with my children, so I will be blaming them going forward.

When I arrived at the top, I felt like I was about to pass out.  I was so flipping relieved and shocked that we had all made it to the top (without anyone falling off backwards, Three Stooges style) I nearly hugged the Ranger.  Then I started laughing at myself while I told her that I had listened to her little ladder speech, confident that she was talking about OTHER PEOPLE.  I ended up being THAT PERSON she was talking about.  IT WAS ME!  No one was more surprised than I was.  Well, aside from my poor suffering husband who had to talk me up the fricking ladder, or possibly my kids who wanted to know why I was so ghostly white when I got to the top.  The Ranger was kind of all “yeah, crazy lady… I told you it was scary, lets just keep it moving.”  Damn.

***I don’t want to spoil this for anyone, but if you are phobic you may want to consider a different tour.  In addition to the dizzying initial ladder, there is also a very small space that you have to crawl through that could trigger some claustrophobia, there is a serious drop, er, I mean, view without walls to hold you back if you’re afraid of heights, and don’t even get me started on the teeny, tiny little footholds in the slick rock after the LAST ladder… yeah, the chicken wire with the chain made me feel SOOOOO much better.  And yes, on that last ladder I totally DID look down.  Take the Ranger’s word:  just don’t.***

The ruins themselves were beautiful.  A lot of the original timbers were still in existence, which I found really fascinating.  We were able to get more of an up close and personal look at everything than at Cliff Palace because it was all one level.  There weren’t really any areas that you couldn’t see.  They have a strict do not enter policy on the rooms, which unfortunately my son found out the hard way (because of his stupid mother who wanted a picture).  The balcony itself was really unbelievable.  The natural spring within the cave was still producing water, 700+ years later!  Not that I would want to have to drink it, but cool nonetheless.

If you look really closely you can see the hand print of an Ancestral Puebloan on the cave wall.  That’s right, make nicey with the Rangers, people!  I’m tellin’ ya, they really give up the goods!

While the Ranger was telling people about the kiva, she said that anyone who had taken a previous tour and didn’t want to listen to the kiva speech could feel free to explore around on their own (thus the misunderstanding with the whole rooms are off-limits thing).  After I got my son in trouble, my kids and I sat on some stones to take in the view and lick our wounds.  All of a sudden we spotted a hummingbird zipping around in the Balcony House.  We were tracking it, and it flew right up to us and hovered first in front of my sons and then in front of my daughters face!  It was that one perfect moment in between the ladders.


Additionally

In Random nonsense, Who comes up with this stuff? on July 29, 2010 at 6:02 pm

If you read yesterday’s post OR of course watch the news, read the paper, or basically have any contact with the outside world you are aware that all of my bear fears were substantiated when people were mauled and one person killed by a Grizzly attack outside of Yellowstone.

No, I didn’t go to Yellowstone.  No,  grizzly bears do not reside in the area where I camped.  No, I did not actually think that I would be attacked by a bear while camping.  Ok, maybe that last one is a wee bit of a stretch.  I did think that it was more likely than my winning the lottery, for instance.  Really though, it was only a fleeting thought.  I think it all the time; for instance about getting struck by lightning, contracting a rare incurable disease, being bitten by a pig, becoming a shut in, being forced to use the flotation device on an airplane…. all more likely than me winning the lottery.  It’s very common.  No worries.

This afternoon they caught what they believe to be the attack-bear in question and two of its three cubs.  I’m sure they found the third by now, hopefully.  I have mixed feelings about it, because I know that they will be destroying that bear once they verify the DNA.  Of course I hate to see that happen for all of the obvious reasons including the fact that we as humans are taking over their space, camping in their wilderness, and generally taunting the bears into attacking us with our sloppy use of the parks, and then expecting them to keep a wide berth.  Not that wide, though, because of course we want to see and photograph them from the safety of our vehicle….

Aghem.

Regardless, here is a link to the article I read this afternoon:

I think we got something!

I just wanted to share my concerns about a couple of things I read in this article.  Of course I can’t speak to the validity of the information since I wasn’t the one to produce it, but a couple of things got me to thinkin’:

  1. They haven’t decided what to do with the cubs, since there is the possibility they have now learned predatory behavior from their mother bear.  They may be destroyed as well.  What a drag.  I don’t know exactly where I stand on the whole zoo thing since it essentially sticks wild animals in teeny tiny poorly simulated replicas of their former wilderness area.  If they’re lucky, that is.  More often it’s solitary confinement.  Animals can lose their minds, too, you know.  Cruel.  Ok, I’ve said it.  Zoos seem cruel to me.  Yes, they have their benefits…. research, interest and therefore preservation, etc; I know, I know.  That being said, I’m not even sure if I would rather see bears sent to a zoo than destroyed.  Just my opinion, but could a zoo be a fate worse than death? I’m undecided.  I think this way because I don’t believe that there is really anywhere left in the “wild” you could take a bear that’s questionable after seeing barbed wire line every single inch of open space across the country and back last week, AND I know that the survival rate for relocated animals in the wild is poor at best.  Phew!  Glad I got all of that off of my chest.  So the question is, what do you do with a killer bear or its cubs who may have picked up the predatory behavior?  Unanswerable.  Glad I’m not the one making that horrible decision.  Hoping that there is a fourth option I haven’t thought of.
  2. The bear was caught by putting the tent of the victim OVER the converted culvert trap.  Essentially the bear ripped through the tent AGAIN to be caught.  That just makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck.  DIS. TURB. ING.  I’m all about saving the earth and all its creatures, but seriously.  Scares the living crap out of me that it appears to have been completely on board with round two; more of the same.
  3. Some are questioning whether the bear attack from 2008 may have been the same bear and the last poor bear caught for that incident was unjustly accused.  See, it happens in all species.  Well, always it seems that it’s still related to humans, but whatever.  That theory was of course disputed by those “in the know.”  I’m not saying that I know one way or the other, but I would imagine they don’t just go around killing bears willy nilly in the name of camping.  At least I’d hope.  My thought was this:  could this predatory bear have been an unknown cub of that predatory bear?!  This of course brings me back to the first point, which is that I’m completely bummed and torn for those cubs.  Really, what did they do wrong?

All of this makes those fancy little tow behind trailers or behemoth RV’s THAT MUCH more appealing, suddenly.  I have always camped.  My whole life.  Save for that too-brief period of time when I owned my Westie, I always slept in a tent.  I even kinda sorta judged those people sleeping in a house on wheels with their heat, and air conditioning, and actual beds.  For real though, seeing the natural beauty of the country is not even close to worth putting my kids’ lives in jeopardy.  The scenery looks just as good when you step out of an RV as it does when you step out of a tent, right?  You might even be able to hike better if you can stand up straight from a good night’s sleep!  So now I just need to work on that lottery thing, and everything will just fall right into place…

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Mango Sally Twist

In Random nonsense on July 22, 2010 at 11:34 am

This is my friend.

I used to call her Mango Sally because she drank foo foo drinks with fruit and umbrellas in it.  It was her trademark.  We have lots of stories we could tell of our escapades, and somehow they all involve alcohol.  Sometimes vomit.  Often snow.  We still laugh that my mother thinks that I was a bad influence on her.  Shocking, really.

Mango’s not really drinking these days while she undergoes a little bit o’ medical chemical cocktail.  I did, however happen to attend a nice little get together with her and my old cronies from my years at the telephone company.  I’d post more pics, I have much better pics, but every time I pulled out my camera that day, SOMEBODY would yell out “Becky!! You’re not gonna put that on facebook….. RIIIIIIIIIIGHT?!”  I figure if facebook is off limits with my security tied up as tight as Fort Knox, my open-to-the-entire-world-of-people blog might not fly so well, either.  I selected the joke picture that showed no faces to protect the not-so-innocent-as-my-mother-might-think.  Aghem.

Anyhow, I’m looking forward to being there when Mango has her first drink again (if she drinks again, that is…) someday.  I’m hoping it might be during a blizzard.

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Happy holiday

In Random nonsense, Things we've put the ground on July 6, 2010 at 8:04 am

Oh wait… what is that you say?  Holiday weekends are for relaxing?  Shoot, I wish someone had told me sooner.  My husband and I relocated at least forty truckloads of dirt, moved about a zillion plants, and spread a whole forest’s worth of mulch.  Sorry environment, hope you didn’t need those Cypress!  Not buying it?  Well, we did do that stuff, just maybe on more of a smaller scale.  We worked HARD.  In 90 degree weather.  I in particular worked SO hard, in fact, that my husband said it was the dirtiest he has EVER seen me.  That’s saying something, I promise.

My favorite flower in all of my yard is in bloom.  My most precious balloon flower.  A transplant from my Godmother’s house.  When it grows in the garden of someone not so lazy as myself and gets supported properly, the coming flowers look like hot air balloons at the tips of the stalks that get bigger and bigger and bluer and bluer until it pops open to reveal the most perfect pointed petaled cup of a flower.  How did I reward this little lovely for blooming while I wasn’t looking?  Why, I dug it up, of course.

And I replanted it.  With support.  And mulch, in case you’re wondering.  It’s fine.  It’s only been watered every ten minutes since, and verbally “encouraged” in the most annoying baby talk you’ve ever heard in your life.  Did you know that baby talk is my most hated form of language?  Why would people do that to their children?

That sucker is so forgiving.  I hope I don’t kill it, though.  You see, my Godmother offered me some free plants from the side of her garage one day when I first bought this house.  I didn’t know jack crap about plants, and so I just dug up a bunch of stuff to plant in the shade at my house, and voila!  It flowered!!  I thought it was a hosta, but I was so sorely mistaken in the best possible way.  Maybe she didn’t even want me to dig up this plant and take it home with me, but I did somehow, and I don’t even feel bad about it anymore.  It was the first plant I put in this yard that I really fell in love with, and it wasn’t needy or fussy or difficult.  Honestly, I don’t even water it (well, unless I’ve recently dug it up).  It was the flower that made me like flowers!

Anyhow, although my husband might argue this point, I don’t move stuff just to move it.  I didn’t have a choice.  We had a bed that was way too high with dirt that needed to be knocked down a notch.  The unfinished dig of 2009…  We had a new stone walled turret that was low on dirt.  We had plants that needed to be moved for the dirt shuffle, and beds with nothing in them but dirt and weeds.  You following me here?  It was a long, long few days.

This is my newly replanted hosta bed.  Every one of these hosta were relocated to this shady spot on the West side of the garage from other beds.  Originally they were down the sidewalk closer to the back of the house, but we lost a huge tree overhead and then the neighbors hacked the heck out of the remaining trees on their side of the property line and I ended up with a bunch of burned hosta.  I’m sure they’ll do much better up here.  First we had to dig out about two feet of topsoil from this bed to get the dirt away from the siding, because we live in a wood house and it was touching.  There’s no touching allowed.

Down at the very end of this bed are my million delphinium.  OK, five.  They’re looking a bit worse for the wear at this point, but it’s only their first full summer here with us.  I staked them very late, and then we had about ten thousand wicked storms in a row to beat the holy living hell out of them.  I’m ok with it though, because I know that delphinium only get better and better every year.  They are currently working on their second flush of blooms and the seed pods from the first round are about to bust open to volunteer that million delphinium I mentioned earlier.  Blue delphinium are one of my favorites; I used to have one at my town home outside of my family room window, and the hummingbirds would come and sip nectar from each flower every morning while I nursed my daughter.  It was amazing to see, and my delphinium was so large that the poor little bird was sucking nectar for about twenty minutes at a shot!

Anyhow, the two beds that have been left empty by the hosta migration, in addition to a bed on the East side of the house that was originally to be planted with veggies are now open and in partial to full sunlight.  I have been planning some serious stuff.  I already know that the hummingbirds are in my yard.  They just don’t have enough to eat yet up by the house.  I have seen them down by the creek sipping from the Touch Me Nots that grow wild.  They’ve zipped past on their way to my now deceased butterfly bush.  I’m trying my friends, I’m trying!  It all just takes a bit of time.  I am far too lazy to remember to fill and change and clean hummingbird feeders.  I apologize.  I know that eventually my trumpet vine will begin to flower.  I have tons of seeds from online seed sharers that I intend on planting to feed hummingbirds and butterfly, including some host plants for the butterfly as well. I planted two new butterfly bush this year.

I’ve been weeding.

Sorta.

Did I fail to mention that I also love the goldfinch?  If you let it go to seed, they will certainly come!  Plus, these babies are prickly!

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