Dear Prudence

I beg thee pardon for my extended absence, but I fear my return will be further delayed, although I expect not too tally much longer.

You see, upon my journey back to you – having reached the crossed paths along the wooded trail whereupon my direction would veer to the North – I came upon a gentleman whose path was in a direction opposite of mine.

We paused, and exchanged gentlemanly greetings. As I recall, I had remarked upon the fine weather, and he made comment of the cooling in the summer’s air, but it was then I fear our cordiality met an abrupt conclusion!

It was a simple matter, my dear Prudence, and never intended to inflate, however as these things so often can, what began as a mere misunderstanding between two persons became something else entirely. For what occurred, simple as it was, is thus – As the gentleman was speaking to me of the coming Autumnal season, and his anticipation of cooler weather and lengthening nights, a fly had lit upon his cheek.

Had I realized said insect was unnoticed by the gentleman, I likely would have not reacted as I had. However, having just spent a full year among the mysterious Headless Monks of the Leaf, learning their secretive ways of Tea, I had developed an aversion to flying insects that so willfully and commonly take their leave upon one’s flesh.

As you recall, Prudence, in my letters I described the Headless Monks of the Leaf – forever cursed to prepare tea they cannot drink for wont of any sort of mouth. Or head. The flies would torment the nub at the tip of their necks daily, forcing them to pour the heated beverage over the afflicted stump, rendering them then tea-less and in need of brewing another cup they, again, could never drink.

And so, I pray – understandably – I felt compelled to swat said fly.

I’m sure, my dearest Prudence, you may deduce what occurred immediately following.

Before my actions had even registered within the more composed portion of my mind, the gentleman said to me “I accept!”, whereupon he slapped my cheek using his white gloves! As I recall, my surprise enveloped me, giving way to the instinct that governs one’s mind and body during feats of war, and before I could call upon reason and sanity, I heard myself declare thusly “We shall have words, sir!”

I can say to you now, dear Prudence, that looking upon that day with the clarity and sight of remembrance, I would expect the casual observer to enjoy a chuckle at our expense. However, the gentleman and I were not blessed with such aforethought, caught up in the moment as we were.

And so, I fear, I find myself delayed in my return, having engaged in the defense of my honor and skills as a Wordsmith. The gentleman – his name is Sir P. D. Agustus ZuZu Smith – and I shall meet on the field of battle, on the fifteenth day in the month of August, two-thousand and eleven. A Monday, I believe, Prudence, the same as the date of our first sojourn to the fair, following the evening in which I had petitioned your father for permission to escort you.

If I recall, on that day so many, many years ago, a fly had landed on your father’s face as I was saying my goodbyes after the fair. I am reminded by this, of your late father, and shall vow to lay roses upon his grave upon my return.

Providing, dear Prudence, that I prevail against Sr. Smith, and best him in this Word Duel!

Take care, my love, and remain steadfast. I shall send you updates through the Post, informing you of my progress and sure victory.

Until then, my dearest.

Mmmm Chocolate

The paint samples say Tender Twig and Wooden Wagon, but they’re really Milk Chocolate and Dark Chocolate, if you ask me.

My new house colors.

When it gets painted, that is. I didn’t mention how hard it was to get a painting contractor to call me back when I was shopping around for one a few months back. Apparently painting one small house is pretty small potatoes, or these people are just jackasses, but one of them finally did call me back and actually came out to bid the job. Painting a small one-story 80 year old house and it’s newer two-car detatched garage isn’t a big job, but it does require some prep work, and we are changing the color, but we finally found a licensed contractor willing to bid the job, and actually get started.

So yesterday, in preperation for new paint, they came out to pressure wash all the peeling, chipping, old dark blue off. Now the house has to dry, which might be tricky in the “summer” weather we’re having, and they have to do some scraping and a few caulking/patch jobs and the application of a special sealer designed for 80-year old shingles.

But then – if they can find a dry day – my house will magically (because I won’t be home to watch all the hard work) change from grey-blue with dark gunmetal grey trim – to Milk Chocolate with Dark Chocolate accent and White Chocolate (well, white) window trim !

I’m excited.

I’m nervous as all get-out, but I’m also excited.

It took my sister and I a year to save up the money and settle on a color. Our house has been dark blue on darker blue since we moved in, and when we painted it ourselves ten plus years ago, we just did exactly the same color. And we never painted the garage, which is a sort of …gawd, I dunno, a bluish hue I suppose.

We spent weekends driving around, looking at house colors, picking up sample swatches and the occasional sample can of paint to try out. Our garage, for a year, has been a canvass of samples.

I’m excited about the colors we’ve picked. We were going for chocolate and white, but the painter pointed out that we have a darker blue accent color on the ends of the house, and the gutters, so to paint that a darker version of the house color would look pretty nice, then adding the white trim around the windows. We agreed, and settled on “Tender Twig” which is really a milk chocolate, and “Wooden Wagon” which is a dark chocolate. Then he’s painting the garage to match, so finally it’ll look like OUR garage, and not someone else’s house.

I’m terrified because ever since buying that house, it’s been the same blue color. I know it’ll be a shock to drive home one day and find a completely different house. I remember when my neighbor took theirs from a light blue to a pretty soft yellow – it looks great, but it was a shock and took a week to get used to seeing.

But what really scares me is . . . There’s no changing my mind. Once this house is painted, that’s it. Like it, love it or hate it, there’s no going “oh, it’s just not quite right, let’s try this again in another shade.”

If you’ve been around for a while, you’ll recall what happened when I painted my room !

Unfortunately, when you pay a contractor a couple grand to paint your house and garage, you don’t get to change your mind. Sure, if I’m not happy with the WORK they do, I don’t pay till they make it right – – but picking the color is all on me (and Cindy) so if I freak out and want it changed, I’d have to pay him twice.

Which ain’t gonna happen. So however the color turns out, that’s what it’s gonna be.

I’ve already warned my sister that I’ll probably have a complete melt down and hate the color, and that she needs to be prepared for me to be a basket case for some time afterward. But like it or hate it, that’s what color it’ll be, so I’ll learn to live with it.

Honestly though, it’ll look great, right? I see this color combination in a lot of new houses right now, so it’s “in style” as it were. And I really love white trim around windows. Did you know hardly anyone does that anymore? It looks so sharp and clean when the trim is white, especially on a darker house.

I’m sure it’ll look great.

The house is so small, a darker color can’t possibly make it look any smaller. It’s actually larger than it appears, but I don’t mind looking like I have a tiny house, it makes the land it sits on appear that much larger.

It’ll be fine.

Any day now, hopefully Monday or Tuesday, I’ll come home and POOF! It’ll look like a brand new house. Sharp and clean and freshly painted. Like a shiny yummy bon bon.

It’ll look really nice.

Right?

Somebody hold me!

They’re everywhere!

When I was little, really little, my oldest sister had to get glasses. Her eyesight was so bad, she couldn’t see more than a foot in front of her. For years, she wore glasses, until contact lenses became popular and affordable. I can still remember the day she got those – – she was a teenager, and she’d hog the bathroom we girls shared for hours trying to get the hard glass lenses into her eyes. Then again at night, taking them out.

Fast forward many years, and I’m at the eye doctor with my other sister, helping her pick out frames for reading glasses. I remember making a comment to the woman helping her about how both of my sisters have bad eyes but mine have always been perfect.

“Just wait,” she said. “It’ll happen to you. It happens to all of us.”

Well . . .

Okay, so now I have to wear reading glasses. My eye doctor told me to just go ahead with the kind you get at the drugstore because they’re inexpensive, until they no longer work, then he’ll give me prescription lenses.

So now here I am, someone who needs glasses to use the computer, read a book, read ANYTHING. But I can’t use them to see everything else. So I’m constantly looking up and over them at people, or the television if I’ve got the laptop in my lap while the news is on. I can’t see to walk around the office with them on, but have to use them when I get to where I’m going in order to see what I went there to get.

Which means I’m always taking the glasses off.

Which also means I’m finding myself in different places when I need them. Which has led to – – glasses everywhere.

I’ve got two pair on my desk at work.

I’ve got a pair on the coffee table, to use when I’ve got the laptop on.

There’s a pair in the kitchen, if I need to read a cookbook.

Whenever I have to go to a meeting, I slip a pair into my pocket.

I have two pair in my purse, I dunno why, but I do.

I’ve still got the last laugh, though. My oldest sister, the one who’s had contacts since she was a teen? She’s had to upgrade to bifocals, so she can read.

Noblesse oblige

That was my weekend. Saturday was a wedding, Sunday a funeral.

Saturday was one of those days where you’re forced by polite society and good manners to do something you’d really rather not do, but you do it anyway because we desire a polite society and we have manners.

It was a wedding, at 3:00 in the afternoon, and as luck would have it — although it was not an outdoor wedding because, frankly, in this region you just don’t do that — it was a sunny, warm day. Friday had been dry, and Sunday they’d promised rain for the entire day, and then some, but Saturday was really stellar.

We got up early so we could pick up our Mom and go do a little shopping, but just a little because after we dropped her off, we had to run home to do some chores before the wedding. It wasn’t just a sunny day, it was a LOVELY day, and we’ve had precious few of those this Spring so far. Warm without being hot, sunny but with those few puffy clouds that put interest in your day.

What I wanted to do was change into some grubbies, weed my lily garden and get my new dahlias planted. I’ve never had dahlias before, but when my boss offered some free tubers from his own separations, I couldn’t resist. But it’s been so wet and cold this Spring, there hasn’t been time to get anything into the ground.

And Saturday was glorious!

But I knew if I got down and dirty, I’d get all sweaty as well, and there just wasn’t going to be time to do that and clean up in time for this wedding. So I sat on the back patio and watched birds while my sister prepared the cold dish we were bringing (potluck reception) and wrapped the wedding gift.

Then it was time to get all dressed up and haul our sorry selves off to find the little church. It wasn’t far, fifteen minutes from the house, so I was thinking to myself this wedding shouldn’t last too long, and we’d already decided we weren’t staying afterward, just leaving the food and gift, so maybe . . . just maybe, there’d be time.

You see, it was set to rain by dinner time.

We got to the wedding at the perfect time. I was there as my sister’s Plus One, because these were two coworkers getting hitched. We could’ve sat on either side, since she knows both the Bride and Groom, but we picked Bride and off we were led. I was grateful we were just acquaintances, because those get seated further back. I didn’t want to be anywhere near the front, I didn’t know these people. Aside from one of my nieces who is friends with the Bride, my sister was the only other person I knew there.

So we were seated. And I sat. After about ten minutes, they started, and we patiently watched the usual procession of Bridesmaids and Groomsmen. I lost count, but my sister tells me there were 5. Then the obligatory little boys carrying the ring boxes, and a couple of young girls dolling out rose pedals.

Then along comes the Bride, her father was wheelchair-bound but he brought her down the aisle.

Then the vows – thankfully short and standard, followed by your average candle lighting thingie, then we listened to a song written and performed by the Groom (amazing voice, btw) while they signed the papers. I don’t wear a watch, but I could tell this was about done, and I might just get home in time to get some outdoor work done.

At the very least, I could relax outdoors for a little while, maybe catch a Z on the hammock.

“Thank you all for coming,” the pastor said. “Now we’re going to ask you for your patience while . . .”

Oh, God.

My biggest fear was this would be just like the wedding of one of my stepbrothers – wherein the Bride and Groom go down row by row and “dismiss” you, so you can offer your congratulations one by one. It takes hours, if you’re not in the front rows. Back then, we were the front row because we were family.

This time, we were in the rear. Not only in the rear, but on the Bride’s side, and as it happens, the Groom’s side had to be cleared first so tables could be set up, to house the reception, because it was a small, one-room church.

Oy.

Already sweltering from the late afternoon sun beating down through the window on my left, my sister and I sat there, stewing in our own juices, and had to watch the Bride and Groom release family and friends from the furthest end of the church. The progression was painfully slow, as each individual needed to chat with the newly marrieds, as if they weren’t going to be there all evening to do exactly that.

So we sat, and we sweated, and I stewed.

I knew we could have sneaked out, just popped out to our left, angled around back where the last two rows behind us were stewing and talking and asking each other if they could sneak out and not be missed.

After all, we wouldn’t be missed. We weren’t family, or even old friends.

But still we sat. And I didn’t argue, because my sister had only been working with these people for 6 weeks, and they were all a little family there, and very fond of each other, and I knew it would be best all-around if I just sat there with a smile on my face and let my sister offer her congratulations to her coworkers.

It didn’t matter that they had no idea who I was. It didn’t matter that, at their wedding, where they’re surrounded by friends and family, they’re going to care if their new coworker’s sister was there or not.

It didn’t matter that sitting there, in that little church, on a hot, sunny Saturday afternoon, was the last place I wanted to be. It just mattered to my sister that I be there. That I show some solidarity to her while she bonded with her new coworkers (all of whom where at the wedding).

And it didn’t matter that by the time we were finally dismissed by the Bride and Groom, found our niece to say Goodbye to her, then picked up dinner and got home, it started clouding over and rained until Monday morning.

The only thing that mattered was the noblesse oblige.

And the fact that my sister now owes me, big time!

Well that settles it

I was waiting for Volkswagen to reveal the new Beetle design, to see if I’d want to trade in my 2002 for something shiny and new.  I was on the verge of trading in last year, when I heard they were discontinuing the New Beetle in favor of developing a car with a “wider appeal”.

Apparently that’s German for: A car men will buy.

See the “original” New Beetle is considered a Chick Car.  Which is fine, seeing as how I’m a girl n’all. And yes, I have flowers in it, and a steering wheel cover with colorful peace symbols and flowers, too. It’s my Hippy Ride.

We kept both Beetles when we picked up the Santa Fe because when you have cars that get you 50 miles per gallon, and you commute 24 miles one way daily, well even I can do that math.

So I waited. I figured heck, it’ll still be the Beetle, right?  They’ve reintroduced the Bulli in Europe (that’s the Microbus us Americans) but so far it’s only in Europe, and it’s an all-electric engine (don’t get me started).

Well last night they made it official.

The New Beetle sucks.

I don’t like it, not one bit.  I think my sister finds it attractive – she might trade her ‘03 next year for one, I dunno. But I personally can’t stand it. It looks like Godzilla stomped on my car. The top is more flattened out, as if someone grabbed the ass of that thing and pulled, stretching it a bit out of shape.  It’s almost as if a Beetle and a PT Cruiser mated, and this is the outcome.

I dunno, maybe this design will appeal to men since that’s what they were going for. But you ask me, I don’t see anything wrong with having a Chick Car. Even marketing it as a Chick Car.  I mean, they have cars designed for and marketed toward Men all the time – they’re called Trucks.  The Scion is for Squares, the Escalade is for the Uber Rich who have only one child. They even have a car now for Hipster Hamsters.

What’s wrong with a Chick Car?

What’s wrong with saying “This car gets 50mpg in diesel, has the most headroom of any vehicle, a Turbo engine, incredible amounts of space, it’s fun to drive and yeah, it’s Cute!”

How do they market a pickup?  They put Marlboro men in one and drive around in the mud at construction sites, dropping wads of metal and dirt in the back and towing things. Doesn’t mean a woman can’t buy a pickup truck if she wants.

Whatevah!

That’s German for Phoey.

What the Frak?!

It is April, right?  Around here the temperature should be in the upper 50’s, low 60’s, with the occasional spurt of sunshine among the cloudy, raining days.

Yesterday, it SNOWED!

Well it hailed, really, although on the car windshield it looked like snow. It actually started to accumulate, enough that I took a picture with my phone and sent it to a friend.

Unfreakin’ believable.  It snowed again this morning in some places around Seattle, but at my house we just had frost on the grass and cars. People who don’t park under cover or in a garage had to scrape some ice.

If we don’t get a Spring by May, I’m gonna be seriously pissed.  We skipped Spring altogether last year, went from a damp, cold Winter into a late, damp, cold Summer somewhere around July 15th.  Never got to plant flowers in the window boxes, never really got anything much to grow outside. My lawn is now 90% moss and 10% grass, which isn’t all that bad, considering. Moss is green and soft and lush in appearance, and it’s a helluva lot easier to mow.

I know we had a really mild Winter, compared to the rest of the country, but that doesn’t mean we have to skip Spring, does it?

April Fool’s Day

Yep, it’s my birthday, and in keeping with tradition, I’m taking the day off work!

I’ll be sleeping in, then spending the day on the couch  with the PS3 on, guilt-free all day.  For those of you unlucky enough not to have been born on April 1st, I give you an LOLcat.

Enjoy.