I'm Feeling......Wicked!

Friday night we left our daughter at a friends house, and our son home alone, and we went out for a night in the big city of Seattle. Well, to be honest, dinner was not in Seattle, but it was a good 30 minutes away from our home stomping grounds, so it counts as living the big city life! It was super crazy to do something when we didn't have a babysitter to worry about.

Kind of made me feel Wicked!

Then we went to the Paramount to see the musical Wicked (sort of set the tone for my whole night!) We got there with 13 minutes to spare, just enough time to hit the head and find our lovely seats. We were on the third level of the balcony, but we were in two seats that formed their own row! No one tried to climb over us to their seat, no one was wedged into the seat next to me trying to take my arm rest, and the seats were super comfortable. When the curtain went up and we saw the flying monkeys scampering around the stage, I knew this show was going to rock.

It was Wicked awesome!

We got out of the show just a little after 11, and the night was still young, and I was feeling Wicked, so we did something we haven't done since high school.....To all those people who immediately jumped to 'making out in the car', sorry, we've done that since high school!
No, we hit our local Denny's on our way home, just like we did after Prom. We had coffee with real cream (I tell you, I was feeling Wicked!) and had some pie. Actually, I had cheesecake which is entirely different than pie, and I can attest to the fact that Denny's at Island Crossing has a Wicked delicious cheesecake!
Since we were home so early, we thought we'd be further our Wickedness by watching late night TV while we were snuggled down in our bed with our dogs......
And that's were the Wickedness ends! We fell asleep almost as soon as we laid down. It had been a long day filled with work, then a wonderful awesome date night, and our bed was so comfy and warm and the next thing I knew Joel McHale was signing off and the dogs were taking up too much space.
But, days later, I'm still loving my Wicked Friday night. It was Wicked Perfect!!!

Let Us Feast

Let us feast upon the bounty of our garden. Let us go out into the dew wet grass and hop over the garden fence and gather the glorious goodness that is our vegetables. Let us pick peas, green beans, carrots, tomatoes, zucchini and lettuce.

And we shall be overcome with happiness. Our hunger will be satisfied and our children will cry out, 'no more zucchini'. It is a good thing.

Let us have so much lettuce that we forget that we ever bought it in prewashed bags from the grocery store. And when we happen to see the bagged salad at the store we will be disgusted with it. We will come home and smile at our own home grown salad bar.

Let us be those people that ask everyone they know if they would like some tomatoes, fresh from the garden. Let us turn our minds to the idea of canning the abundant crop of tomatoes so we do not waste anything and not feel overwhelmed by the idea of how hot canning must be. And let us remember this next year and even if the plants are free, we only need one.

Let us be forgiven of our love of corn, that tempted us to try to grow our own, thus wasting a square of garden space that could have been given over to potatoes because our corn was sad and wimpy. And we will not forget that at the end of summer, corn is 5 for $1 at our local produce stand and it is sweet and good and not hard to hand over $1 or more likely $3.

Let us remember this summer of planning and planting and watering and marveling and eating and let us make the garden bigger for next year. And we shall have a better, dog proof, fence.

Amen.

Nobody Puts Baby In A Corner

I so clearly remember where I was the first time I saw Dirty Dancing. I say the first because to teenage girls it became the most romantic movie we'd ever see and a must have at slumber parties. The first time, though, was sitting in the basement of our house, watching it on the VCR, thinking my parents sitting there with me were totally ruining my enjoyment of it!

And when Johnny said, "Nobody puts baby in a corner," my heart melted. There are movies lines that just do it for you. I also get mushy during Last of the Mohicians when Nathanial says, "I will find you, just stay alive no matter what occurs!" And in Coneheads when Prymatt says, "The stench would be great."

But it was the line from Dirty Dancing and the way Patrick Swayze was totally freaking awesome, that made my 13 year old heart go hay wire. I wanted a guy to come in and rescue me like that! The funny thing is, my husband would do just that. He thinks I am wonderful, and should never be regulated to corners unless that's where I wanted to be.

It wasn't just Dirty Dancing that made an impact on me. Red Dawn scared the pants off me. My kids laugh at the idea, but when I was 11, the idea of some communist country taking over the USA was a very dire threat. I was freaked out already, and that movie cemented the idea that it could happen. North and South was the first mini series I ever saw and I totally fell in love with the Civil War (or at least, the romantic aspect of the war!). And of course, Ghost. Honestly, who could watch that and not cry?

Patrick Swayze rocked my world. I don't presume to know the real man or call him friend, but as an actor, he was one of my favorites. So, to all the fans who are saying how much they loved him and will miss him, I will add my voice.

"Ditto."

Tell The Other Flies What You Saw Here Today

In spite of my request to keep the bat gate closed, the screen door to the back yard is always open. Always. We haven't had any more uninvited bats come in, but we have a ton of flies.

Flies are the annoying red headed step child of the insect world. They buzz around you, land on you, for no purpose I can tell except to skeeve you out. Those things are dirty and gross. When you try to swat them, they disappear! I assume they have some sort of magician school they all attend.

I almost offered the kids a quarter for every fly they killed, but decided I would just do it myself. I rolled up a newspaper and killed four. But as I was leaving that room, three more magically started buzzing around. Dang it!

My daughter told me that fly swatters are designed to kill flies, something about the holes letting air through and the fly is not aware that something is about to smack it. Okay, time to buy a fly swatter. My first fly swatter of my life. Of course, it wasn't as easy as it sounds. Took two stores before I could get one. But I have one now and it's going to see some action.

I hunt those suckers down. They love the bathroom, which has caused me to apologize to the guests for the outhouse type feel in there. As soon as you sit down on the toilet, flies start in on you. It's so disgusting, but it's also a good place to start my killing spree. I went in, closed the door and killed five. Next up, the kitchen. Their second favorite place is the kitchen. Stood silently in there for a minute and killed a couple more.

That's right flies. Fly away! Tell all your brothers this house is just a death trap for you.

If I was an Indian, my name would be Swift Fly Killer. Or Scared of Moths Girl. But that's another blog!

My Only Vacation Worry

My only worry while I'm gone on vacation anywhere, isn't that the house will burn down, or we'll be burgled again, or the garden will dry up and die, it is simply this:

I am afraid I'll miss my holds at the library.

I keep all my favorite authors bookmarked, and I check their websites so I know when the newest books are coming out. I put holds on books when the library still has them listed as "acquisitions".

You could say I am a serious holder of books at the library. And I hate the idea of missing out by having a book come in while I'm gone for two weeks. They only hold those books 7 days!

And what if I forget what obscure book I've put on hold? I don't just read my favorites. I branch out and put holds on anything I hear about that sounds interesting. I just don't always remember I've done that until the book arrives on the shelf with the tag "Young Mic".

So before I leave on vacation, I print out my hold list. If I miss one while I'm gone, I'm still sad. But now I don't have to worry that I'll forget some super spectacular book I was planning on reading!

I can not begin to describe the relief this plan of action has given me....it's a life saver!

But guess what I forgot to do before we left on our two week trip? That's right. I didn't print my list and I worried that idea until my husband said he'd stop and find an 'internet cafe' just so I could get my list....but that struck me as being a tad (BTW, any time I write tad, I think of Tad Martin from AMC, when he was in love with Dixie and fell off the bridge and everyone thought he was dead, but we'd seen him wandering lost and confused so we knew he was alive and that was when AMC totally rocked) anyway, it seemed silly.

Although, now that I'm home, I'm pretty sure my holds list is smaller! I should have stopped somewhere to check!

Are Bats Good Luck?

Is it considered good luck to have bats living in your eaves/attic? Just wondering, because we've got them. We've known for years bats lived up there, somewhere. We don't have a mosquito problem, so we can sit outside at dusk and enjoy our bug free, bat swooping yard. And one time, one came in and was on the upstairs wall. The kids found it, my husband wasn't home, so I came up with a plan to capture and release it. Beating it to death seemed so terribly wrong.

Then I got close to it and saw how furry it was. It's leathery wings didn't faze me, but it's furry body sent me running down the stairs to call my brother in law. He used my plan of putting a Tupperware container over it, then sliding the lid under it very carefully, and letting it go outside.

So two nights ago I was on the couch with my husband, watching our new favorite show (Hoarders on A&E) when I saw a giant moth fly through the room. I scrunched down lower on the couch and was about to say, "yikes, a moth," when I noticed my husband was also scrunching down. Must not be a moth. He's not afraid of moths.

Then he said the words that had me reaching for a blanket to cover myself from head to toe. "That's a bat!" Yes. A bat was flying around our living room. It circled and circled then flew to the dining room. My husband got up to follow it, I laid frozen in my blanket cocoon, and the dogs continued to snooze like it was no big deal we had a bat in the house.

It flew upstairs and made laps around the landing. Our luck was good in that all three doors to the rooms upstairs were closed, so it had a contained space. But what to do? This time I said whack it to death, while I stood at the bottom of the stairs, wrapped in the blanket with only my eyes showing, but my husband wanted to shoo it out one of the three downstairs doors that were currently standing wide open, inviting more bats to come on in. He tried to gently guide it down, but the bat wasn't having it.

So he tapped it lightly with the broom and it fell to the ground. He used the Tupperware method of trapping it, and took it outside to let it go.

When he came back in he was upset. He said it was just laying there, he thought it might be dead. I said don't let it fool you. That's what we thought about the other one, but when my sister and I went outside to see the almost dead bat, it made an amazing recovery and swooped around the yard making us scream like little girls. I said in the morning you'll see, it will be gone.

And it was. I just hope it wasn't gone because a cat came upon it.

So back to the original question. Are they good luck? Because we've got them, and apparently, if we leave all the outside lights off and the back door open, bats will just fly right into our house. Needless to say, I'm thinking the screen door might be used a bit more than it was from now on. Looking like a crazy blanket lady on a warm summer night is not my idea of a good time.

I Ate A Carrot

That is an exciting announcement for two reasons.

1. It came from my garden! And it was as sweet and crisp and delicious as I had dreamed of.

2. I've been at death's door with a stomach virus for a week and I ate my carrot without any stomach ache following consumption. I might be getting better!