Two Stories, Two Debacles, Two Different Endings

A Story That Starts Bad And Ends Up Good

Saturday was cold. Not just temperature-wise, but there was also a biting, blustery, north wind that cut through you like a serrated knife. I was on my way to a town 40 miles away to watch my daughter sing with her show choir at a competition, and DAMMIT, the car needed gas.

It was at this point that I came to the conclusion that there should be a law that women do not have to pump their own gas. When they pull up to the gas pump, uniformed men should run out to the car to fill it with gas, wash the windows, check the oil, empty the trash, and bring a fountain Diet Coke, like in the old Texaco commercials. (Don't argue that they didn't empty the trash NOR bring soft drinks to the car; you have your fantasies, I'll have mine.)

So, I'm bundled up against the cold and wind, my eyes watering, filling the tank. As I remove the nozzle from the tank, however, between the gale force winds and me POSSIBLY bumping it with the nozzle because I was shivering so, the gas cap fell and rolled under the car. Under. The. Car.

You might expect that I panicked about then, but I did not. Because the hamster in the little wheel that is my brain ran a little harder, and I had a brainstorm: I calmly walked over to where the squeegee was sitting in its brackish water bath, removed it, reached under the car to where the gas cap lay, taunting me, and pulled that sucker out from under the car like a craps dealer raking in the dice.

I felt like a rock star.

A Story That Starts Good And Ends Up Bad

This week, the preschool will be celebrating Pastries with Pops, a time when dad (or grandpa or uncle) can come to preschool with his kiddo, have a doughnut and some coffee or juice, and check out the classroom, since, commonly, dads aren't in our room very often, as they are usually at work at that time. We make a gift for our dads to take with them; the primary class made paperweights by gluing a picture of each child to a river rock and then painting the whole thing with sparkly varnish and the pre-k class made golf towels with a handprint in one corner and the child's name and date written with acrylic paint along the bottom. 

With our extra week of Christmas vacation, we've been a little pressed for time, but we got the projects done in both classes. The paperweights were pretty easy to do, but the hand towels are a bit more labor-intensive. I have a system of checks and balances so I know which child belongs to which handprint: as I make each child's handprint on the golf towel, I write the child's name on a sticky note and stick it to the towel, then lay them out to dry. This, I did last Wednesday. On Friday, after the kids left at noon, I spent over an hour taking each towel, removing the sticky note and setting it next to me (step 2 in the checks and balances), then writing the child's name and date on the towel with the acrylic paint (not to brag or anything, but I can write names with pencils, pens, sharpies, crayons, markers, glue, acrylic pain, and glitter). I left them to dry over the weekend (which was a three-day one, due to the Martin Luther King birthday holiday on Monday), then after the primary class left on Tuesday, I went to the pre-k room to put the towels in gift bags and attach the cards the kids made to each bag. My last set of checks and balances is to match all the cards with the towels by setting the card on top of the corresponding towel. Towel in bag, card stapled to bag, BOOM, done.

Today, I matched up all the cards to towels until I got down to one card and one towel. That didn't match each other. WHAT HAPPENED TO MY CHECKS AND BALANCES?!
I went through all the towels and cards again to see if I had mixed them up, and what I found was two towels with Leah written on them. As I only have ONE Leah, this was not a good sign. And, as there was NO towel for Lexi, that was not a good sign, either.  So, in spite of, or in defiance to, my checks and balances, bottom line is I MESSED IT UP AND IT CAN'T BE FIXED.

The event with the dads is first thing in the morning. 

One dad will be getting an IOU.

I SUCK.

Little Things Mean A Lot

Ten Things of Thankful time, and this week, it's going to be all about the little things. Here goes:

Little get-aways.  We drove to St. Joseph, Missouri, for our first club volleyball tournament last weekend. We were only gone from home from Friday afternoon to Saturday night (laaaate), but it was nice to be somewhere that wasn't home. 

Little wins. Our team was undefeated all day and won 1st place in the tournament - a great start to the season! And in spite of the COMPLETE FAILURE of both my husband and my friend's husband Derik to protect me from errant volleyballs during warm-ups in which not one, but TWO volleyballs whizzed past my head with mere inches to spare, slammed into the wall three feet behind me and HIT ME IN THE BACK OF THE HEAD, I did not show signs of concussion, BUT I COULD HAVE.

Joplin Dunamis 15-1 Team

Little distinctions. This week, the girls are ranked #1 in the team rankings for the Heart of America volleyball region in their age group. Can't say at this point whether it will ever happen again, but THIS WEEK, they are #1. Proof:

Little hands. Precious little preschool hands made into mittens for the bulletin board. 

Little giggles. We had show and tell this week for my pre-k class. Each child got to bring one new toy ("N" week, you know) that they received for Christmas. One of the boys brought Buddy the Tyrannosaurus from "Dinosaur Train." I had him (the boy, not Buddy) in a fit of giggles when I said the sound Buddy makes when you stick your finger in his mouth is most certainly NOT a chomping sound, but a burp, and I kept sticking my finger in Buddy's mouth to prove it. He giggled even harder when I pointed out that Buddy's on/off button was located in Buddy's stinky armpit. Love it when kids develop their senses of humor!

Little candor. During the same show and tell, one of the girls was showing her new Lalaloopsy doll. I asked her what the doll's name was, but she hadn't named it yet. I suggested "Dyanne" as a good name for her doll, and she shifted her weight on her feet, bobbed her head from side to side, then, as politely as she could, gently said to me, "'Dyanne' is kind of an OLD name." Ouch.

Little hope. Got a smidge of good-ish news this week, helping to ever-so-slightly redeem what has been a crappy start to 2014.

Little talks. Enjoyed sitting with my friend Traci at Cupcakes by Liz (yum) for an hour and a half, just visiting. And eating cupcakes.

Little breaks. Through an elaborate set of arrangements caused by my daughter attending a show choir competition today and mucking up what might have been a nice, long weekend at the lake house, my husband, son and Ruby are now at the lake house with my parents, and Pete thinks life is worth living again.

Relaxed and Ruby-free

Little kitties. Ruby is living the good life right now, visiting a new house and getting lots of good nap time in while she waits for her mama to get there tonight.

Looking more than a little comfortable

Big or little, get your Ten Things of Thankful posts written and link them up here.

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Wordless Wednesday 1.15

First win of the club volleyball season.

Joplin Dunamis 15 and Under
1st Place Western Winter Showdown
St. Joseph, MO

Baby, It's Cold Outside

Anybody else out there remember Simon and Peabody and the Wayback Machine? Set the Wayback Machine, Sherman, I want to go back in time. While I'm waiting, here are my Ten Things of Thankful for the week:

1. The Polar Vortex, because it is a once-in-20-years kind of event, sounds like a ride at Epcot Center, and because it led to...

2. Snow Day #1

3. Snow Day #2

4. Snow Day #3

5. Finally was able to bust outta here in the afternoon of Snow Day #3 and took Ruby to her final kitten baby check-up. She weighed in at a big 3.1 lbs., got three shots, and still purred so loudly that the vet couldn't hear her heartbeat. (The vet said she heard one thump-thump, so she couldn't tell whether or not she had a heart murmur. I told her not to worry about it, as my husband has always said there wouldn't be any kitty dialysis, or the equivalent thereof, so we didn't even need to know if she had a heart murmur or not.) As soon as Ruby gains another pound or so, she will go in to get her kitty maker removed, along with her front claws. That'll be fun for all. Curiously, the vet also discovered that Miss Ruby is missing hair from a place about the size of a dime on her back at the base of her tail. Our only explanation is that Fletcher finally had it UP TO HERE and took out a mouthful of fur. Hopefully, it will grow back.

6. School finally re-opened on Thursday. Not only did classes resume, but three brand new schools opened, one middle school and two elementary schools that were built after the May 22, 2011, tornado destroyed the original ones. One more step closer to normal. We are still anxiously awaiting the completion of the new high school, which is scheduled for completion in time for school to start this August. (Fingers crossed!)

7. Thursday was supposed to be our first day back at preschool as well; however, at 8:00 a.m., right as the staff started arriving, poof! - the power went out. We learned a car accident on the other side of town was the cause, leaving some 8,000 customers without power. When it wasn't back on by arrival time at 8:45, our director decided we would have to cancel classes, as the building was already getting pretty chilly without the furnace running. After contacting all of our students to let them know school was canceled, we worked (in the dark) on taking down the last of the Christmasy things in our rooms and hallways. I learned that the emergency flashlight that has been in a cabinet in my room since I started working there in 2001 and that I had never once touched other than to move it out of the way to get to something else had a dead battery. Imagine that.

8. Ruby was helpful, as always, this week, lending a hand with both laundry and with blogging.

9. I found out that the money folded up in my coat pocket that I thought was only $2.00 was actually $16.00. Whoop!

10. Finally had preschool today for the first time since December 20. The kids were really wound up, so we just had a Fun Day Friday and didn't even pretend we were going to do any real work. I did come up with a project for us to do that I found on Pinterest. I wrote the letters in each child's name on paper snowballs, which each child then had to put in order to spell out their name. They then glued them in the proper order on strips of paper.  And because there wasn't enough room at our tables to do this, we went out in the hallway to glue, which was a fun diversion. The finished project turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself (and I do).

The best link up in the blogiverse starts here:

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Deep Thinking From Someone Whose Christmas Vacation Keeps Getting Extended And If She Doesn't Get Back To Work Soon, She Will Be Too Fat To Get Out The Door

Deep Thoughts:

It is very poor planning to run out of milk the day a major winter storm is expected to hit (actually, mere HOURS from when it is to hit), forcing a trip to Walmart with all the other crazies out buying their snow groceries.

The only saving grace to the trip to Walmart on the day a major winter storm is expected to hit is seeing one of the local tv weathermen exiting the store (in sunglasses, no less, and it was gloomy as a tomb outside) with a grocery cart heaped with milk, bread, and other essentials, leading me to believe that HE DOESN'T LISTEN TO HIS OWN FORECASTS.

Ruby watching the snow fall.

When I see recipes for paleo diets, it just makes me laugh. Paleo muffins? How about paleo apple cider donuts? Paleo peach coconut smoothie? Because, and correct me if I'm wrong, wouldn't Paleolithic man have eaten some plants and small animals (raw, of course, guts, feathers, and all) and insects? I'm pretty sure there were no muffins being cooked there in the cave.

You ever see those banana hangers in the store? It's supposed to keep your bananas fresher longer if you hang them rather than let them lie on the counter or in a bowl (which means bruises are actually the bedsores of the banana). Let me save you the trouble - don't get one. Your husband will take one look at it and laugh at you, and they don't make the bananas last a bit longer.

Banana hanger, not to be confused
with a banana hammock

When the car is making a funny noise, just turn up the radio and - voila! - noise gone. But when the heater doesn't work in your car, you can turn the radio up as loudly as you want, and you're still just going to be cold. 

If you listened very carefully, you could actually hear the temperature dropping outside yesterday.

The jar of ground ginger and the one of cumin look very similar, but I don't recommend getting them confused.

I found a grocery list on my phone that only had Laffy Taffy, root beer and kitten food on it. I was unaware that I smoked crack and made grocery lists, but this proves otherwise.

You know those pony tail holders that aren't supposed to leave a crease in your hair? Lies.

I've gotta bust outta this joint soon....

Grasping At Straws

Hello, 2014. So far, you suck.

Here's the deal: when life is a bowl of cherries, writing a Ten Things of Thankful post is easy as, uh, pie (which is a stupid saying, because making pie is HARD - rolling out crust, making sure it's flaky, making the filling, which can involve much peeling and slicing of fruit, etc.). Then there's the kind of post you write when you're grasping at straws, looking for something, anything, for which to be thankful. Like this one.

1. Friends I can telephone at an outrageous hour when I need some help.

2. Family. Enough said.

3. The awesome electric teakettle we (okay, my husband) got for Christmas and Good Earth English Breakfast Tea.

4. Warm, fuzzy socks.

5. My new Nook. It's a cross between a really big smart phone that doesn't make phone calls and a really small laptop that doesn't have a real keyboard, but I like it and actually plan to use it to read books, too....

6. Electric pencil sharpeners.

7. Reading tweets from Honest Toddler. They make me smile, no matter how crappy I feel.

8. Kittens. Goofy, bouncy, scampering, snuggly kittens. Thinking of one in particular....

9. My bread machine (a new one, since the one I had for about ten years finally laid down and died). I love to bake bread, but sometimes most of the time, I am so very lazy that I let the bread machine do the hard part; that is, I use my own recipe, throw all the ingredients in the machine, and set it to make dough. Mixed and kneaded for me, I just have to shape the dough, give it a final rise, and bake it. Boom! 

10. Wallflowers from Bath & Body Works. Spicy scents for fall and winter, fruity scents for spring and summer. 

How about you? How's 2014 treating you so far? Link up, below.

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The Very Last Time Ruby Climbed The Christmas Tree

Kittens and Christmas trees do not a good combination make.

As soon as I brought the sections of the (apparently no longer) pre-lit tree up from the basement Thanksgiving weekend  and laid them on the floor of the living room, I knew we were in for trouble, as immediately, there was a kitten playing hide-and-seek in the branches. 

The big kitty boys were not immune to the tree, either, especially Fletcher. He was in the middle of everything as well. (Pete would have been, too, if not for still being so pissed off that Ruby came to live with us in the first place.)  

I secured the bottom third of the tree in the stand; Ruby climbed up the middle and poked her head out, eyes snappy and black.

I added the middle third of the tree, and she shot up that.

The only reason Ruby didn't climb up to the very tip-top of the tree was because the branches in the top tier were too close together and angled upward. But she was content to zip up and down the middle of the bottom two-thirds of the tree, occasionally stopping to chase her tail or do a little kitten spaz or to poke her head out an opening in the branches and peek out.

She helped me add string after string of lights to the (non) pre-lit tree.

She watched as I wrapped fishing line around the center post of the tree and secured it in two places to the wall, hopefully preventing her from tipping the tree over.

She even helped me put ornaments on the tree, although, to the casual observer, it looked a lot more like she was taking them off and running away with them.

Think "Where's Ruby?" instead of
"Where's Waldo?" or follow Fletcher's nose

Ruby had several methods of getting up inside the tree. One was to sit below it, wiggle her behind, and jump up. Another was to stand up on her back feet, hook her front feet over a branch, and pull herself up into the tree, chin-up style. The most exciting way Ruby gained access to the tree was to run full-tilt into the room and under the lowest branches, then leap like a flying squirrel up into the tree. She would then scamper up the inside of the tree as if she were on a spiral staircase.

We took pictures of her in the tree, eyes bright. She was so STINKING CUTE!

Then, she got sillier and crazier. The whole tree would shake (and we had an alarm bell of sorts on the tree: a tiny wind chime ornament that would ring when she started climbing the tree). She would chase her tail endlessly, making the wind chime dance and sing, but the tree never toppled over.



By this time, she had quit exiting the tree by climbing back down the center in the same way she climbed up, and instead, would stick her head through a hole in the branches and ski down the outside of the tree, ornaments flying in her wake (I wisely didn't put any of the precious or breakable ornaments on the tree this year, thinker that I am).

Preparing for dismount.

It was at this point that it ceased to be so cute that Ruby was in the tree, and we were resigned to saying, "Dammit, Ruby, get out of the tree!" and trying to extricate her before she knocked any more ornaments off the tree.

But finally, it was Christmas morning! Our family was gathered in the living room, everyone emptying their stockings. Santa remembered the kitties, too, and they had new toys scattered about already. We were just getting ready to open gifts when Ruby decided to make a dash up the tree. My husband was filming the kids with his phone and turned the camera on Ruby to document her Christmas tree climbing skills.

And that's when it all went wrong.

She was about four feet off the ground, chasing her tail, when she started crying, sharply. Then she began thrashing and making the worst sounds I have ever heard come out of an animal. The other two cats ran towards the tree, hesitated, then ran right back out of the room, their tails poofed out, their fur standing on end.

I jumped up and thrust my arms through the tree, where she was screaming and thrashing. As I grabbed for her, she sunk her needle sharp teeth into my finger, her claws scratching me, so frantic that I didn't know if I would be able to help her. I finally got my hands around her little body, and as she twisted and writhed, my fingers found the fishing line that secured the tree to the wall, twisted and wrapped around her hind foot. Since there is some stretch to fishing line (and this was very thin line), I was able to hook my finger under it, pull her foot free, and remove her from the tree.

Bitten. To. The. Bone.

She was still terrified, as was I, and continued to fight me for a bit, but I held her tight and soothed her, finally calming her down. My husband, who had abandoned the video at some point, came over to see if I was okay. I was shaking so, I could hardly walk, but I made it into the kitchen and began to run cold water over my bitten, clawed hands and arms. My son ran upstairs for peroxide and bandaids. The kitty boys slunk upstairs from the basement where they had been hiding, tails still poofed, eyes black. 

My hands were shaking so hard that I couldn't pour the peroxide over my bites and scratches myself, so my husband did it for me, bandaged my hands, held me until I stopped crying. What if I couldn't get her loose? What if it had happened when we weren't home? What if, what if, what if?

About that time, Ruby sauntered into the kitchen, headed to the food dish, and had a little snack, as if nothing had happened, the little shit.

We all assembled in the living room again and opened our gifts. Ruby hung around the periphery, but didn't get very close to the tree. The boys didn't get very close to her. And as soon as all the gifts were opened, I cut the fishing line and removed it from the tree. 

The tree didn't get knocked over.

Choosing an ornament
to take off the table

And the next morning, I took the tree down. I just didn't have a happy feeling about it anymore and wanted it put away for this year. Ruby was nearby while I took the ornaments off the tree and laid them on the coffee table. She even snagged a few off the table and played with them. She watched me unwind what seemed like miles of lights. She played with the branches of the tree once it was disassembled and lying on the rug.

But she didn't try to climb the tree, not even when my fingers were wiggling inside it, fighting to untangle the strings of lights.

I don't know how long Ruby's memory will be of this event, whether she will remember next year when the tree goes up that horrific event of the last Christmas (my husband says I'm giving her way too much credit in the brains department in that case), but I do know her memory is at least 24 hours long, and she didn't climb that kitten-eating tree again.

One life down, Ruby. Eight to go.

Watching me box up the ornaments
was EXHAUSTING.