Everyone I Ever Was and Everyone I Ever Will Be

Will hopefully get to a more in-depth review of latest episodes watched sometime next week (Jus in Bello OMG), but for now:

We're driving back home after ordering some more checks from the bank, and I'm doing my usual 'keep switching stations until I manage to find a good song' thing. And what do I find but "Heat of the Moment".

So of course I go into Dean's point-and-lip-synch routine.

Result? My husband does an actual real-life facepalm. The day is a good one. ;-)

-- Kaylee's figuring out how to use a sippy cup. Right now she's standing at her baby gate, amazingly enough holding the cup the right way instead of trying to drink from it upside-down again. She's also gnawing on the spout just as much as she's trying to drink (can't blame her, really, her top two teeth are starting to come in). The front of her shirt is soaked. I'm debating about whether it would be ethically right to just take her out to the backyard and spritz her down with the hose.

-- Probably not, since when I woke up the house was at 50 degrees. I try not to turn on the heater at all until November, but made an exception for that one. Gah.

-- The house is a complete mess. I'm trying not to concentrate on it, but it's difficult. Especially when Kaylee's figured out how to pull DVDs off the shelf and scatters them around the living room. We need a cabinet with doors. Maybe next paycheck.

-- Chris is working from 4 in the afternoon to 2 a.m. all this week. Considering that Kaylee doesn't usually fall asleep until 12:00 or 1 a.m., it makes for some long nights. It's quite possible that I'm turning into a zombie.

-- My brother just got this cool SAS Survival Handbook. I'm going to go through it for story notes sometime. Possibly at the aforementioned 1 a.m. ;-)

So Chris and Kaylee and mom and I went to Cross Timbers State Park the other day. Intended to just drive around and look at the lake, but when we saw one of the nature trails we decided to go for a walk.

What I was thinking was, "Cool spiderweb! Hey, is that a . . . yeah, that's a deer. Quick, try to get a picture!" (I did not. My camera-fu is not very strong) What I should have been thinking was, "Remember how mosquitoes always head right for you? That means ticks are probably even worse, and here you are walking around without bug spray and in sandals, you idiot."

Alas, I did not think that. Now I could play an extended game of connect-the-dots on my legs. Kaylee, fortunately, didn't inherit my bug magnet genes, so she's fine.

From now on I will only go for nature hikes in the winter.

-- Chris is outside working in the yard. Specifically, putting out a birdbath and plotting out what kind of bench and flowers to put in Harley's Garden. :-)

-- The news is depressing me even more than usual, what with the whole "it doesn't matter if you actually pull the trigger, you hussy, we'll send you to jail for killing someone anyway!" thing, so I'm going to write and pretend the world doesn't exist for a while. My sanity will thank me.

-- Kaylee hasn't quite mastered the art of crawling yet. What she does is lie on her stomach, press her face to the blanket, stick her butt up in the air and then push off with her feet, scooting forward. Hee.

-- If I don't get over this stupid cold soon, I'm going to hurt somebody. And/or buy stock in Kleenex.

-- We have no idea what in the world Kaylee's favorite stuffed animal is supposed to be. It's pale green with dark green spots and huge blue feet and it looks like some oddly-colored cross between a cow and a giraffe. So I was playing with her the other day and I dangled the toy in front of her and went, "Grrr. Argh." and Chris laughed and said, "Well, the thing is a mutant", so now the toy's name is Emmy, short for Mutant Enemy. Yeah. We are proud of our geekery around here.

-- Zot is sleeping under my desk. This wouldn't be a problem if he'd stop biting my feet periodically to remind me that he's there.

Specifically, he's participating in the Muscular Dystrophy Association's Lock-Up.

He's working on raising at least $800 in bail money (deadline is April 3), and when we found out that we could set up a website through them to take donations . . . well. :-)

So, if any awesome people happen to be interested: here's his page, and thanks!!

Since we haven't seen enough truly awful movies in the theater this year, Chris and I decided to check out 10,000 B.C. Which fulfills the 'awful movie' quotient until June 2018, I think, but there was one amusing moment.

A scene where the hero is trapped in one of those pits with the spikes in the bottom as it's starting to rain. And when he wakes up, he realizes there's a saber tooth tiger trapped down there, too, pinned by a log. And he picks up his spear and stands there, trying to convince himself to actually kill it, and then finally he sighs and says, "Do not eat me after I set you free." And Chris leans over and whispers, "That has got to be your ancestor."

Yesterday was an exercise in hurting myself. I leaned over to get some laundry and whacked my head on the edge of a stack of photo frames that were on top of the dryer, hit my funnybone on a doorframe. . .

But best (worst?) of all, I was getting the cats' food when one of them nudged the door open and raced into the pantry. I automatically reached down to grab him, and my hand got too close to the base of the door. The shooting pain in my finger let me know what had happened (I'd done it once before during a play rehearsal) but I really didn't want to look at it. Chris was in the room by this time, having heard my yelp and subsequent swearing, so I just held out my hand. I knew from his "Ohhhh man" that I'd definitely gotten myself good.

I hurried to the sink and ran cold water over it to numb it, and told Chris to get the camera, deciding that if I was going to zap myself this bad I'd at least get a funny story and accompanying photograph for later.

Managed to pull the splinter out and head into the kitchen before I had to very abruptly sit down.

It's doing better today-- I can actually pick Kaylee up, unlike yesterday-- and so far today (knock on wood) I haven't hurt myself. I'm still not going to operate heavy machinery.

I'm kindof surprised that so far I've been pretty calm about this whole upcoming-parenthood thing.

See, I went on one date in high school, and after that nada for a few years. Went through all the usual stages--
1) Oh god, what's wrong with me I am such a mutant.
2) Boys are annoying anyway, who needs them.
3) Fine, I will die alone and unloved see if I care world.
4) Eh, nothing's happened yet, maybe that'll change and maybe it won't, but in the meantime I have writing to do.

Fortunately for my psyche, most of my time was spent in the last one. Got used to the idea of not having kids, though, to the point where even after all the discussions and the preparation and looking down at my disappearing lap it still seems vaguely unreal.

But the only real downside is my overactive imagination. Normally I love it, but not when it gets started with the "what if this goes wrong" scenarios.

So far it hasn't been doing too much of that. Had a brief freakout moment during the sonogram-- it was about half, "ohhhh, look at that!" and half, "Umm, excuse me, what the heck are you doing in there; I can't even take care of myself, I have been known to survive for a week on Cheetos and Pop Tarts".

Other than that, it's been more along the lines of, "Hey Chris, help me find my RENT soundtrack. I want to make a tape to play in the nursery." "Okay, I think it's over-- wait, what?" ;-)

I have a feeling, though, that my worrywart mind is just letting me off the hook temporarily and as soon as the kid's born, it'll go into Mach 93 Overdrive and all my hair will turn white overnight.

If so, I'll post pictures.

Okay, so since there's quite a bit of flooding around the area, Chris and I decided that going out of town for an anniversary dinner would be a bad idea. Went through some recipe books, I decided to make some cookies. New recipe. Mixed together all the ingredients, and it was supposed to make a roll-out dough, but it was still a bit runny. Put some more flour in. Basically no change.

So Chris stirred while I double-checked the recipe. I put more flour in, and when it still didn't work I shook my head. "There's gotta be three cups in there now instead of just two. I swear, I have never seen flour act like this."

The light dawned.

We both looked at each other, and he tasted the 'flour' and started laughing. Yep, yours truly had grabbed the powdered sugar. Oy.

Anyway, speaking of the flooding, last night we went driving around in the country to see what roads were washed out, etc. And when we were driving down a narrow road, this white blur dropped down out of a tree and right in front of the passenger side tire. We hit an owl going about 30 mph. Chris looked at it-- basically just a wing sticking up-- and thought it was dead, so we reluctantly drove on.

Got to a flooded road, turned around . . . and the owl is sitting in the road, staring at us, looking completely dazed. I hear dogs barking nearby and considering that and the water rising in the ditch-- animal rescue time. So Chris takes my coat and wraps it around the owl, and I hold it on the way back to town, talking to it. It was actually pretty calm, except for a few mad scrambling fits.

"Umm . . . these claws can't tear through the coat, can they?"
"They definitely can."
"Ohhh great. Good owl. Don't do that anymore, k?"

We managed to get it home into our garage. When Chris unwrapped the coat, the owl took a step or two and then flew around a little bit, landing up near the roof and just tracking us wherever we went. We're both seriously surprised he was alive, let alone flying.

But the important thing is-- we got pictures. :-)

( See the unkillable owl! )

ETA: We left the garage door open all night, just in case. When we got up in the morning and went to check on him, he'd flown away. :-)

He was removing a section of fence day before yesterday, and while it had rained recently, the truck was doing fine out in the backyard-- until it turned just so and promptly sank into some mud.

That in itself wouldn't be really funny . . . except for the fact that then a few friends came over and tried to get his truck out, and this was the result:

( Of course I took pictures. I'm evil, remember? )