July 30, 2011
Insert Ark Joke Here, Part II of II
(Continued from Part I of II...)
When last we left our heros (i.e. me, Husband, Billi and Brad), they were standing in eight inches of rain water, watching on Oriental rug float by. (And it's okay to say the word Oriental, as long as you're talking about a thing and not a person. I checked.)
It's a depressing, daunting task, looking at all that water and knowing that, however much back-breaking, knee-aching work you anticipate it's going to take, it will take even more. It's the kind of work that makes anyone over 30 think, Shit, I am OLD.
Now, you long-time readers have read what we moved into Mom and Dad's house when they moved several years ago, so you can imagine what we had to clear out after we forced back the flood waters.
Here is a very incomplete list of what we found, but didn't necessarily throw away:
17 brass kerosene lamps
(When the hippies force us all to only be using those halogen, squiggly lightbulbs, Mom and Dad will apparently be going back to kerosene in protest.)
6 glass kerosene lamps
(Those are the fancy lamps. For when company comes over.)
36 glass chimneys for kerosene lamps
(Thank God we'll never run out!)
3 bankers boxes of walnut wood slabs
(He says "it's for projects." I don't know what he has planned for that much wood, but he'd better get a move on because he's 77, and the clock is ticking!)
2 barrels of misc pieces of wood
(You know how much wood you can fit in a barrel? That's a lot of damn wood. Again, "for projects." I'd better be getting a really kickass tree house for Christmas!)
2 executioners axes
(You know, for when you want to execute two people simultaneously.)
3 bankers boxes of 78s for a victrola
(These we threw away because I don't think he has a victrola. However, we kept the Spike Jones set, probably for the cover art.)
2 record turntables
(Oddly, we did not find any 33 LP records for the turntables. Did he think he was going to play the 78s on them? We'll never know. One we tossed, one he kept.)
2 cigar boxes of old keys
(This will result in the weirdest craft project imaginable. Well, maybe they can use them to decorate their Christmas tree, since most of their ornaments were ruined.)
one huge box of scrap brass
(I... just don't even know.)
one box too heavy to move so we left it and don't know what's in it
ebony & ivory
(Not the 45 record of the hit song from the 80s. I'm talking about ebony wood, and ivory from elephants. Gross, I know, but in his defense, I'm sure he bought it long before it was illegal. Probably to fix our old upright piano that had ivory keys. Which tells you how damn old our piano was.)
Dad's army jacket from the Korean war
(Pretty neat. The jacket, not the war.)
Grampa's army jacket from World War I
(Very cool. It got wet, but I don't think there's any damage done that a good dry-cleaning can't fix.)
Grampa's trunk that he brought over with him when he came to America
(Dad is trying to dry that out, but I'm not sure how successful he will be. It smelled pretty nasty BEFORE the flood.)
a box of brass knuckles, not all of them brass
(I don't know what he's planning. Just don't ever sneak up on the guy.)
And then, of course, we had to have this conversation: "How do we move the canons so we can mop?"
* * * * *
Side note -- Things Husband's Ex found in her late aunt's house:
1 lb. of mercury in a jar
40 bottles still full of Scotch with labels showing they were from Prohibition
(My hand to Jeebus, people. I couldn't make this up if I tried.)
Posted at 09:11 AM | Comments (2)July 25, 2011
Insert Ark Joke Here, Part I of II
Jeebus H. Wind-surfing Christ, I'm talking about weather for the second blog in a row here. I might as well just put on some overalls, stick a sprig of hay in my mouth and go sit on the front porch. I'm fighting the urge to whittle something as I talk about...
The Big Rain!
I hate myself so much right now. But that's not going to stop me from trying to produce a blog for you, my beloved readers.
So. I don't know when the thunderstorm started because I had my earplugs in. But when the power went off at 2:00 a.m., Husband and I were both immediately and simultaneously awake, like two migrant workers in a coffee bean field. Years of conditioning have taught us that No Power = BAD BAD BAD THINGS HAPPENING.
By 2:15, Husband had the generator hooked up to the sump pump, which, alas, could not keep up with the amount of rain falling... directly into our basement. We stood there watching the waterfull pour into our laundry room. And I don't mean some rivulets were cascading down the wall. I mean there was PROJECTILE FLOODING coming from our window well and shooting into the middle of the room! Seriously, we just stood there. What else could we do?!
Okay, there was one thing we could do. We triaged the basement, in anticipation of the rain never, ever stopping. We moved couches and carried tables. We rolled rugs and put smaller furniture on top of larger furniture.
Long story short -- we didn't lose one Barbie! All that got soaked was a crappy rug from IKEA that we didn't really need anyway. There was much sopping and mopping to do, but all in all, we were very lucky.
My parents, on the other hand, were not so lucky. After deciding at 3:00 a.m. that I probably shouldn't call them, I waited until 8:30 and called them then.
To my inquiries about their basement, my mom replied, "Oh, I don't know. I haven't even looked in the basement."
They live, by the way, four blocks away from us. On the same flood plain we live on! One summer, when I was in high school, the neighborhood we all now live in was accessible only by canoe. Saint Peter at the Gate, why the hell do we live here?!
Rhetorical dramatics aside, since Husband and I were otherwise occupied re-enacting a scene from Last of the Mohicans,...
Stay alive, no matter what occurs... I will find you!
I called Billi and asked her to check on Mom and Dad. Dad said that they would just "wait for the water to go down" and didn't need help. Luckily, we have learned from experience to ignore what he says. And Mom was more than a little happy that Billi and Brad showed up with a new generator and tons of cleaning supplies.
Know what will make an antique Oriental rug float? Eight inches of water!
Posted at 08:48 PM | Comments (0)July 20, 2011
My Sleeping Disease
I don't think I'm shocking anyone with the bold statement that Chicago weather can kind of suck. We had a thousand feet of snow this winter (secretly awesome), and our Julys and Augusts often include air that you can drink with a straw. Kinda like now. It's not weather for sissies, but I've lived here all my life, so the weirdness and extremes are something that I hardly take notice of. I'm neither farmer nor meteorologist, so I do not -- and WILL NOT -- engage in discussions about the weather, other than The sky sure is pretty today.
That being said, this spring was particularly dark and dreary, even by Chicago standards. And I'm not saying this as a complaint because I do not discuss weather; I'm merely informing my non-Chicago-dwelling readers. Both of them. And I found myself thinking, I hope that was what spring was like in 1986. You see, in 1986, I slept through spring.
Yeah, I forgot to set my alarm.
No, not really. I had mono.
Wait, back up. My boyfriend at the time had mono the prior winter. But I visited him, thinking that, since mono is known as "the kissing disease," if I didn't kiss him, I'd be fine.
Wrong! Despite his mother wiping down everything he touched with Lysol, I caught it. And let the record show that he did not visit me while I had mono. Douche.
Anyhoo, shortly after my blood test showed positive for mono in March and I took to bed (much like Beth in "Little Women" -- My sewing needle has become so very heavy, Marmee), Mommie Dearest was gone for a few hours to attend a Circle meeting.
[For those of you who don't worship Mommie Dearest's particular flavor of deity, "Circle" is a group of women meeting for snacks, Bible study, and probably lots of kabitzing. It may be solely a Midwestern-Reformist thing, but I'm not sure.]
She was probably a little worried about leaving her deathly ill teenager alone for several hours, so she had our pastor call me to check-in, oh, about midway through her meeting. And she warned me to listen for the phone because, if I didn't answer, the pastor would assume something was amiss and send a S.W.A.T. team over.
So there I was, coccooned in my blue and white bedroom, the beatific faces of Duran Duran watching over me. By the way, mono "the kissing disease" is also known as "the sleeping disease" because that's all you do all day is sleep. Literally, for twenty or so hours a day. It's creepy.
Imagine -- I was feverish, pumped full of drugs, and the blood had pooled in the right side of my body from sleeping in one position for so long. The phone rang, and this was in the days before cordless phones, so I actually had to get up to answer it. Get up and go to another room. Unthinkable, now!
And as you might expect, I fainted on the way to the phone. Dropped right to the hallway floor, like the rabid dog shot dead in the street by Atticus Finch. Well, I don't remember much after that, except I'm pretty sure Mom came home early from her Circle meeting.
Two weeks into my affliction, Mommie Dearest and Dad went to Norway. I'm not making this up. They left the country to go galavanting around Scandihoovia, riding reindeer, buying wool sweaters and cruising through fjords. It's not like I had the sniffles, people!
Their excuse was that "it had already been planned" before I got sick. Besides, they had my older sister and her husband to pawn me off to! And they lived right next door! It was the perfect plan! I often wonder exactly how thrilled Spikette was about having to babysit her sick, undoubtedly crabby sister while our parents were living it up among the herring and akvavit for two weeks. Probably not very.
But for me, staying with them had perks that I undoubtedly would have had to do without, had it turned out that my parents were home.
One, I didn't have to climb any stairs. My brother-in-law carried my sorry ass up and down the stairs. (That was back before my metabolism died, so I was much more carriable.) In the morning, before they went to work, he carried me up to their bedroom so I could sleep the day away in their waterbed. Sweet! And in the evening, he carried me back downstairs to the couch so I could eat my one food item for the day, watch a little t.v., and fall asleep for the night.
Two, my one food item for the day was, for two weeks straight, an Oreo Blizzard from Dairy Queen. Now, I'm not going to say that it was a completely selfless act for them to run to Dairy Queen every night. After all, they undoubtedly got something for themselves. Still, it was pretty cool of them not to lecture me about nutrition or anything. Indulge the sick person -- Yay!
Eventually, my folks returned from their globetrotting, and I was returned to my own bed, but I hardly noticed. I basically fell asleep in March and woke up in May. Completely missed spring! Snow on the ground; eyes close. Eyes open; tulips blooming. Crazy sauce!
All in all, I missed six weeks of school. Technically, I shouldn't have passed a lot of my classes, since I didn't even do any of the homework. But that's the beauty of being a middle-of-the-road student. No one had such high expectations of me that I disappointed them, and I wasn't in any advanced classes that require a ridiculous amount of work just to pass. Other the other hand, I had at least set precedence that I'm not a total slacker, so all my teachers gave me a pass.
"Meh, she would have done the work," they said. "So we'll just pretend that she did."
I was well-liked enough that no one wanted to fail me. Personality counts, people! You never knew when you're going to need a pass, so try not to piss anyone off! (Wow, how was I not validictorian?)
Posted at 06:09 AM | Comments (3)July 15, 2011
Prison vs. Sanctuary
One day, Husband walked into my home office and said, "It looks like a bird sanctuary in here... inside a womens' prison."
I have no idea what he's talking about.
I guess one woman's prison is another bird's sanctuary.
Or something.
Posted at 03:24 PM | Comments (1)July 11, 2011
I'm Having a Cow
Dear Toddler Executive,
Yeah, well, since you already left a voicemail for me on the topic of today's lunch, did you really need to stop me in the hallway and repeat it verbatim? Really? I hope you got what you needed emotionally from that experience, which was probably to remind me how truly, truly special and worthy of my laser-focused attention you are.
Never mind that I spend weeks planning every last detail of this two-day meeting of executives. Never mind that I spent an entire day on the menu, making sure to include vegetarian options. Never mind that I spent my Sunday morning buying break food and hauling it to work. Never mind that my husband spent an hour last night slicing up fruit. Never mind that I've been up and down the elevator eleven floors two hundred times this morning.
What SHOULD have been going through my mind, while trying to make things perfect for forty executives, is Gee, I wonder if one of these executives might have a very special dietary need that I should drop everything in order to figure out? Seriously. Last thing from my mind.
So Mr. Special can't have dairy. And he is, apparently, incapable of opening the sandwich, taking off the cheese, and eating the now-cheeseless sandwich. And, if I'm to understand correctly, it is MY fault that he doesn't have a dairy-free meal.
MY. FAULT.
People, my bra is soaked with sweat. I have been running for seven hours straight, catering to the needs of forty people. It's not brain surgery, but it is a little tricky, and pretty darn tiring.
So at what point is it HIS responsibility to respond to the DOZENS of emails that he's gotten prior to this meeting -- many of which included the word LUNCH -- to let me know that Hey, Wenchie, I can't have dairy. Would you mind having the caterer provide a dairy-free option for me?
To which I would have replied, Certainly, Mr. Special! I'd be glad to! Thank you for letting me know! And I would have meant it! Because, if you are a freak, and you need something weird that your other 39 cohorts do NOT need, then it is YOUR job -- YOURS YOURS YOURS -- to let me know.
I cannot anticipate everything, people. And it's not my job to check the room for freaks.
Asshole.
Posted at 02:28 PM | Comments (1)July 05, 2011
Hot Is Not Hott
I'm officially sick of the word hott. Except when applied to Dr. Hottie, of course, because what the hell else would I call him? By his real name? *pfft* Not.
So. The oppessive, lethargy-inducing heat of summer has hit Chicago. Clearly, someone has pissed off Mother Nature because that bitch has a vendetta! Oh, right, it was probably me, burning those plastic water bottles to heat my bath of sheep milk and virgin blood.
The over-75-degrees heat is particularly distressing to me because I am a sweater. And no, I don't mean that I am a wool-blend cableknit. I mean that I sweat. Profusely. Whenever it's not the dead of winter. I don't glow or perspire -- I projectile sweat like an animal running for it's life. I am, essentially, seared in my own juices.
Please, don't be jealous. I know, it's soooooooooo sexy.
Even when I was in high school, 5'8" and 125 lbs., I still leaked fluids like my Dad's old '46 Dodge truck. Know why? Because I inherited that bastard's sweat glands, that's why! And you know where? On my upper lip! I call it The Sweat Moustache. Am I making you horny?
So it only makes sense that our 25-year old air conditioner would pick NOW to keel over and die. Fucker. It's like my own home is conspiring to make me as unattractive as possible. I'm sweating, my rosacea refuses to behave, and my hair is frizzy. Why don't I just install florescent lights in all the rooms and just complete the ugliness?
Apparently, we have a freon leak. (Wait -- maybe that's the reason Mother Nature hates me...) Yup. The A/C man noticed that we have no freon. Like, none. Which is bad, so he refilled our freon tank.
Since it'll take about a week for us to get appointments for estimates, decide who we want to use, and actually get the guys in here to install it, I asked A/C Guy how long the freon would hold out for.
"Well, it depends on whether or not you have a leak, how big it is, and where it is. Could be a few days, could be a month or so."
I feel like I'm living with an inoperable brain tumor. I could die tomorrow, I could live another few months. Who knows? I just gotta take it one day at a time, and live each air-conditioned day to it's fullest. Because tomorrow, the A/C may die. And I will inevitably follow, drowning in my own sweat.
Oh, and? Our fridge will most likely soon follow in it's freon-deficient footsteps. Like a longtime married couple, the fridge will decide it just can't live without it's cooling soul mate and meet it in Things That Chill Stuff Heaven, where they will look down on me and laugh, knowing that, when I die, I'll be going someplace even hotter.
Posted at 06:44 PM | Comments (2)July 01, 2011
And THIS Is Why I Don't Go Into the City
So I was having Chinese food with Heather, on one of her rare appearances in the suburbs, and she was telling me about her new apartment and the surrounding neighborhood, some of which is not ghetto.
Heather: On the corner by my house, there is this anticipated tequila bar coming soon. There have been write-ups about it already, and it's not even open, yet.
PW: How does that happen?
H: Well, they have some world famous tequila sommelier coming to work there.
PW: A what?
H: It's like a wine sommelier, but with tequila.
PW: Yeah, I figured that out. I just can't believe it's an actual job.
H: I once knew I guy who was a grappa sommelier.
PW: I didn't realize there was enough grappa in the world to warrent a sommelier.
H: I know, right?
PW: I'd love to be a pudding sommelier. Wouldn't that be an awesome job?
H: YES!
PW: I should get business cards. Wenchala McPirate: Pudding Sommelier. I could totally pull that off. I mean, you can't prove I'm not a pudding sommelier.
H: I wanna be cheese monger. Because I really like cheese.
PW: Cheese monger would be a great profession. You could have goats!
H: Yes, but as I live in an apartment right now, I can't have goats. So I can't mong.
PW: You are mong-less.
H: I long to mong.
At that point, my laughter was so unflatteringly out-of-control that I couldn't even apologize to Heather for her having to wipe my chewed-up Kung Pao Chicken off her face. Of course, she was quite taken by hysteria herself, so she probably didn't even notice the small piece of peanut in her eyebrow.
Eventually, we composed ourselves and drove over to Heather's new crib, which is quite sweet. She and Mr. Heather (have I ever given him a name...?) each have their own bathroom. The ceiling is high and vaulted. There are skylights and many large windows. It's quite architectually awesome. But the pièce de résistance is inarguably the taxidermied kudu head in the foyer, which came with the apartment.
After the tour, we sat down to catch up on the various aspects of our lives, as the grey-green storm clouds gathered outside.
H: So how are the dogs? Daisy is feeling better?
PW: Yeah, she's fine. But frankly, my dogs have outlived my love of owning dogs. I'm tired of fur and pee. Once they're gone, I think that's it for a while.
H: Will you get more once you have your hobby farm and they can be outside dogs?
PW: No. No more animals. Only foliage. I wanted a couple of pygme goats, but then I found out that, when you go on vacation for a week, you can't just leave the goats in the field and let them fend for themselves. You have to, like, get someone to take care of your goats. Which is ridiculous. I mean, in Peru, the goatherders just take the goats up to the mountains and let them fend for themselves for weeks on end! Do I need to get Peruvian goats? Apparently, Midwestern goats just aren't that savvy.
Heather's Husband: Um, there's a lot more land in the Peruvian mountains than you will probably have on your hobby farm.
You know, I really hate it when someone interjects sense into me and Heather's conversation.
PW: Anyway, I will only get an animal if it can bring some huge benefit to my life. Like a Clydesdale that can move my furniture.
H: Ohmigawd, AWESOME! Can you imagine how skinny I'd look standing next to a Clydesdale?!
PW: It's the perfect accessory pet! And I can braid that hair they have around their ankles and put bows in it!
H: Like those muckluck boots that were so popular last year!
PW: Muckluck is a GREAT name for a Clydesdale! Or Kevin!
H: Or Peanut!
PW: Or Bitsy!
Heather's Husband knew better than to try to interject more sense at this point. It would be futile.
And then the hail came.
You know, high ceilings, sky lights, and lots of big windows are all well and good until it is HAILING JEEBUS' WRATH, and then it's like being in a fucking hamster cage. Modern architecture is just no match for a smoting from the Lord. I refused to look at the skylights because I knew that, once the frogs started falling, the skylights were not going to be pretty.
Being smoted sucks. We waited it out, much like the ancient Egyptians, but being so glad -- on many levels -- that none of us had a firstborn son. Or any offspring, for that matter. I called Husband to tell him that I was essentially trapped at Heather's, and the car probably has hail damage.
And he was all, "Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Hey, I'm watching The Last Samuri here."
Oh, okay, well, don't let me concern you with my petty problem of trying to drive home on the expressway during an act of God.
The streets were very autumn-esque, there were so many leaves covering the pavement. My car had so much foliage on it, it looked like a parade float.
Once I got on the expressway, things were fine. It hadn't rained one drop in Wenchieville. Apparently, the locals sacrificed a couple of pretentious, douchebag sommeliers, which abated Jeebus' wrath right away. That's right -- we suburbanites can be every bit as resourceful as you urbanites!
Posted at 01:07 PM | Comments (1)