Distracted

I just finished ordering Mike's annual calendar. I've lost track of how many years I've been getting this same thing for him for Christmas.  I am a bundle of creativity, aren't I?  A vest for my brother, a ceramic vase or platter for my sister, money for the older kids.  Mike always reminds me to get him a demotivator calendar from Despair, Inc., as if I might not remember.  Well, okay, there have been years that I didn't remember, years when he got his calendar on January 11th after we'd taken the Christmas tree down.  I really am a pathetic wife, sometimes.  Mike gives me credit for trying.  I really am trying, but I get distracted.  Why?  You tell me. 

Nick is in the other room, trying to come up with reasons to stay up late.  I read him a chapter from our book, 'Skeleton Key,' one of the Alex Rider series by Anthony Horowitz.  Have I told you I like his books?  They're great for boys.  They read like an action flick.   Right now, Alex is a prisoner and his plan to escape in the trunk of a limosine has failed.  Nick likes imagining himself battling the bad guys in the book, but I wonder if this is the right book for inducing sleep. I think E.B. White had it right, ending so many of his chapters of Charlotte's Web with a sleepy pig. Alex Rider never sleeps, unless someone has drugged him, poor kid. 

So, while I was trying to finish ordering Mike's calendar, Nick needed to get up for some water.  He wanted an apple.  He needed to tell his dad something.  He needed to show us a good night routine that involved jumping around and rapping.  He was still hungry.  His toe hurt where he stubbed it.  He needed an ice pack.  He needed to tell us he loves us.  Nick really has trouble settling down to sleep.  It seems to take two of us to hustle him into bed and sometimes we've posted guard at his door, pretending to keep him company.

Yes, I am distracted.  Thankfully, Teddy is asleep already.  Earlier today, I took him to a three hour Puppy Manners class.  Oh, he had a great time.  These classes are so helpful and the puppies get to play.  Imagine that, a room full of fluffy puppies rolling around on the floor.  The trainers answered all of the questions I could remember that I had.  'You're doing it wrong' never once came up in conversation.  Becky Bishop and her team are wonderful with the dogs and diplomats with people too. I was doing it wrong, but nobody said that out loud.  Okay, to my credit, I wasn't doing everything wrong, just the areas where problems were coming up. 

See, I'm even distracted when everyone has finally settled down to sleep.  I think I crave this time, staying up a little later than everyone else because I can finally gather all the loose threads I call my thoughts, make my list of what I really have to do in the next few days, and settle down.  I think Nick is more like me than I imagined.  I can seldom walk away from a busy room of people to go to sleep.  I like being in this quiet room.  Well, the dryer is still going and there are still cars out on the highway, but if it gets too quiet, it's unnerving.  I was at a friend's house once and I kept bouncing off the chair to look around until I realized that I was used to more noise than this.  So, to me, this is quiet.  The Christmas tree is reflected in the window in front of me.  The lights on the play fort outside are shining through the boughs of Red Cedar.  It's as if someone has thrown a blanket over my crate.  I'm starting to settle, except that I'm hungry.
I'm finally done with Mike's calendar.  The fun part of putting together this calendar is that you're allowed, for a small fee, to add holidays.  I go through the year and try to imagine Mike sitting in his cubicle, reading what to expect for his day.  This year, I came up with a few that I liked, but I can't remember any of them now.  Ha!  I have the memory of a steel sieve.
Oh, here's the one for our anniversary:  For 25 years, it's silver, so for 20, it must be mattress ... or maybe dishwasher.  Oh man, that's not funny at all.  These are the things I keep asking Mike to give me for Christmas, my birthday, our anniversary.  Is it funny to nag on a calendar?  It's definitely not funny if I have to explain it.  Sorry.  One fake holiday I made is called 'You're doing it wrong!'  I've been getting more and more rude every year, but Mike still asks me to make him another. 
One year, my niece helped me come up with the rude holidays.  Now, she was much funnier, not that I remember a word she said.  I have to tell you that I have always wanted to be funny, but Mike tells me I'm only funny when I don't intend to be, like when I spill stuff on my shirt, or fall into hip-deep muck, or say something rude when I didn't realize I was actually speaking out loud.  It's disappointing.  Now, when Nick was describing the way that puke was rolling to the left when the bus went around a curve and then toward his feet when the bus accelerated up a hill, now that was funny. 

Thank you for listening.  This is a good time for one of those little smiley faces.  :jb

Little Faces of Gods

This morning, some kid puked on Nick's bus and as the bus accelerated, this oozy stuff with brown chunks trailed along toward the back of the bus.  The way Nick described the puke rolling into kids' feet, backpacks, and lunch boxes was like a cheese-touch scene out of the 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid' series.  Unfortunately, Nick's backpack fell prey to the puke-touch.

I had just managed to get to sleep after everyone left for work and school.  I figured I had all morning to make that 6 1/2 hours of sleep add up to just enough.  Remember, I had asked Susie if we could work on training next month?  Yeah, I actually did that.  Poor Susie was rejected because her house is too well-organized, but my morning was free so I could take care of me.  Doesn't that sound nice? That was when Nick called from school.

"Mom, could you come pick up my backpack and bring me a new lunch?" he asked.  "Some kid puked on the bus and it got on my backpack."

"Did it get into your backpack?" I asked.

"No, Mom, but it's just so gross.  I just can't eat it."

"It's pizza."

"Mom, please?" he asked.  Then he described what had happened and I told him I'd be there before lunch to give him something different to eat.  Shoot, my morning was back on a schedule.  Still, I figured I could get a little more sleep.  No dice.  The phone rang twice more and, even though it was on vibrate, I answered it.  After a half an hour of sleep, another twenty minutes, and then forty-five minutes, I was done trying.  Technically, it added up to a decent night's sleep when you put all the parts together. 

Then, I tried to get onto the Cub Scout database, but I couldn't because someone else was using it.  Crap!  They were all supposed to be done by then so I could collect the information and head into Seattle to buy the awards for Friday's meeting.  One den leader was going to make it so that none of the dens was going to be able to get their awards!  I ran out of time waiting and emailed this guy before I had to run into town to bring Nick his lunch.  He and I had a nice lunch together, except that I dropped the lid to his salad and it stuck, sloppy side down, onto my pants leg.  Yesterday, I'd had to retire a pair of jeans that had worn through in an embarrassing place and realized that I was down to two pair of jeans that I liked and felt comfortable in.  Crap! Now I have to go home, get onto the database, throw in a load of laundry, and then, if I still had time, drive into Seattle to buy this month's Cub Scout awards.  As I was leaving, Nick handed me a large garbage bag with the puke-touch backpack in it.

When I got home, after I'd started the load of laundry, I found Seth, my gray kitty, snuggled into my favorite white sweater which I'd spread out on the bed, still a bit damp.  There was a gray ring on it where he'd made himself comfortable.  I wondered if the little gray hairs would come out by just putting the sweater into the dryer with my penultimate pair of comfortable jeans.  We won't talk about why I only have two pair of jeans that are comfortable these days, now will we?

I sat back down at the computer to check the Cub Scout database and the same guy was still holding up the show.  So I managed to find his work number in one of my directories and I called him. 

"Oh, I guess I forgot to log out," he said after I explained who I was, why I was calling, and why I sounded like a freight train was going to run me down in the next sixty seconds if he didn't let me get onto that database.  Then, I got a text from Claire asking me if we had her pretty platter that she left at the bake sale last Saturday.  I didn't know, so I texted Mike, asking him.  In the meantime, the landline rang.  I missed that one and it was some cheerful nurse telling my answering machine that all Nick's tests were negative, now isn't that just great news?  I hate when you know that something medical is wrong and you really need to find out the answer and they tell you they have no idea what's wrong after running a couple of tests and try to get you to believe that's a good thing.  Mike texted me back that he had Claire's pretty platter.  And then the doorbell rang. 

Not only was there a Christmas UPS package on my front doorstep, along with a produce bag of Teddy's poop that hadn't made it into the garbage bin, but there stood my friend, the cleaning hobbyist with a dog crate in her hand.  My house, remember, was too messy to invite in poor Susie and here stood Martha Stewart's younger jazzier sister at my door.  'Oh man,' I thought.

"Hi!" I said.  I resisted the urge to use my foot to block the door from opening any further.  It was too late.  She could already see the cardboard boxes that needed to be broken down and put into the recycle bin.  I was going to do that.  I really was, but not just this morning.  She explained that since we'd had Teddy in that very small crate, she thought she'd bring over this one that was surely two sizes bigger so that Teddy would be more comfortable now that he's grown.  Thankfully, the crate she was talking about was in my car, so I walked out, in my stocking feet, and we looked at them together. 

"Oh, I think mine's taller," she said.  They were the same height, just a slightly different proportion.  I smiled.  Now I'm going to have to hang onto this duplicate crate for the next two or three months in the spare closet space I don't have, before I can give it back to her gracefully.  This is how neatnicks keep their houses clean.  Let someone else store it for them.  Don't even get me started about the shed and the corner of our office that is filled with Cub Scout stuff that no one else is willing to store.  Mike couldn't say no.

I tried to keep a smile on my face, put her crate where mine had been, and stood there with my perfectly good crate, hoping she wouldn't ask to come into my house.  The last time she came in, she suggested, three times, that Mike and I buy another bookshelf for the left side of the fireplace to balance out that bookshelf on the right.  Doesn't like asymmetry, I guess, but I wasn't going to jump into the car right then to go look for that bookcase with her.  I wondered, if she came into the house, if she'd suggest that I needed to place dirty dishes on both sides of my sink to make them balance the room there as well. 

It was rounding on 1:30pm, the hour beyond which I wasn't going to be able to get into Seattle and back home before the boys got off the bus.  I told her I really needed to go pick up awards and started to head back toward the house.  She walked alongside me until I stopped, half way to my door.  This wasn't going to work.  I stood, trying to listen to her conversation and to think out a plan at the same time.  I wasn't ready to leave yet, but I could fake it.

"Hon, I was about to head out to the Scout shop to buy awards," I said, trying to look enthusiastic.  "Why don't you come with me?  We'll have lots of time to chat in the car.  You can help me get awards at the shop and we can do a drive-thru at Taco Time for salads on our way back?" I tried my most winning smile. 

"Uh, no, I need to go anyway," she said backing away toward her car.  Bingo!  She was out of the driveway in five minutes. I had remembered that my cleaning-hobbyist friend is not a fan of fast food.  My iPhone said 1:18 pm, nuclear time.  Twelve minutes was enough to grab a shower, print the list, and head into Seattle.  Well, you might have figured.  Twelve minutes wasn't enough.  The printer decided that this was the best time in the world to smear each page with little globs of ink.  Right.  I printed two pages again, then carefully laid each page out to dry and finally headed out the door without the comfort of a shower.  Ew.

On my way into Seattle, my friend Laurie called about a Scout award that hadn't made it into the database because, "somebody's hogging the database."   I began to tell her about my lack of sleep, the cat's tinsel-puke, Nick's puke-touch backpack, my jeans, the database hog, and the identical-puppy-crates storage issue when she interrupted me.

"You'd better use latex gloves on that backpack.  You have some disposable gloves, don't you?"

"Sure, why?"

"I just had that stomach bug and believe me, you don't want to get it."  Then she proceeded to tell me about her past four days, in technicolor, and four-part harmony.  I started to feel a little queasy.  There are just some stories a person doesn't want to hear in detail.

Just as Laurie hung up, I began to imagine a family of gods that were sitting on a heavenly couch watching the universe unfold using a remote control that tuned into a sitcom channel.  All comedy.  All the time.  And today, that comedy was me.  I had become an 'I Love Lucy' rerun.  I remembered the time, twenty-six years before, when a whole bus-load of kids were yelling at me in my car at a stop light.  I had left my biochemistry book on the roof and it was heavy enough to have stayed there for a while.  Just then, a bus drew up alongside me on I-90. A couple of tiny kids in the very back row looked over, grinned, and waved at me. 

I waved back.

Thank you for listening, jb

Disorganizing

Today, Teddy chewed the back off my good hand cream. Buddy gave me a tinsel-puke present. Seth jumped into the linen closet and rubbed his big self all over my towels. There's just something wrong when I think of the cat sitting on the nice hand towels that I use to dry my face. The nice hand towels aren't as nice any more because of the dirt left on the boys fingers whenever they wash their hands. I know I should have been a good wife and made my house look like Martha Stewart lived here, but I didn't manage it.

Tomorrow, my new friend Susie is supposed to come over to learn about a Cub Scout administration program. I read that in the Netherlands, people don't wait to invite their friends over until after they've cleaned. Boy, I want to move there.

For the last month, Susie and I have been walking our dogs together and she's been saying how awful her house is because they are renovating. It made me hopeful that I'm not the only one with a messy house around here. I thought I might be able to invite her over without worrying.

There's a real problem in this area with homes that look too nice to actually live in. Ours just doesn't fall into that category. One of my friends calls cleaning her house her hobby. Oh man. I live in the wrong neighborhood.

I'd like to have an organized house, but I don't. I set other priorities, like reading, writing, quilting. Shoot, straightening up is just about at the bottom of my list of fun things to do.

I've also gotten to the end of my closet space and don't know what to do with half of Mike and Nick's stuff that's lying around. I mean, I don't even know what some of this stuff is, let alone where it belongs. I've made mistakes like throwing away the main screw to the tripod when I do get to organizing. I try to manage my own things yet I always have a stack or two of books on the table next to the couch. I have two or three projects out on my quilting table. Cub Scout things are in a pile by the computer where I use them most.

My house feels like a functioning mess, but it is a mess. My best friends know me and love me anyway. Some others, like the cleaning hobbyist, aren't invited over unless I've just had my carpets cleaned. With new friends, I'm cautious. In any other region of the country, I'd worry less, but some of these folks live in $1M homes and have house cleaners and landscapers. I can't compete with that!

I don't want to. Well, I try to tell myself I don't want to, but I do have residual guilt from my neatnick mom. When I grew up, my family was never allowed to use our living room. My mother would vacuum your hair if you were in the way when she was coming through. In the face of that, some kids would comply and some would revolt. I revolted. I just wish I hadn't revolted quite so well.

So Susie is supposed to come over tomorrow and I've never seen her house, but Mike was just there for a meeting last week and said it was spotless. Shoot! I'm going to have to text Susie in the morning and tell her I'm still down with my cold.

See, I could have skipped this and gotten a fair amount done, yet I didn't. And it is true I haven't caught up with things since I slept a lot today, trying to get better. So: I'm not feeling very well yet, Susie. Can we postpone until January?

Maybe I can get my carpets cleaned in January. I always get organized when I get my carpets cleaned. Or maybe not.

Thank you for listening, jb

A Little Left-Out

I hate writing about when I have a cold.  You really don't want to hear me whine about it, especially how I wasted a beautiful weekend sleeping on the couch.  Here's what my family did without me. 

Nick had a fasting blood draw on Saturday morning.  He's been really tired, I mean really tired, so we figured it was time to see the doctor.  So before I even got up, Mike trundled him off along with a plastic container of cereal and a thermos of milk.  Nick really loves his Corn Chex.  They told me that the vampire, also called a phlebotomist, took six vials of blood.  The doctor is checking for lots of things: thyroid issues, insulin resistance, CBC indicating infection or anemia, and Celiac disease.  Any of these would be a bummer, but we'd really like our active and enthusiastic boy back.  After that, they went to the toy store.  Years ago, whenever Nickie got a shot, I took him to the toy store afterward to try to make it easier, so the tradition has held even though it isn't as hard for him now.  He got some action figure from a video game he likes to play.  Also, they threw away Taco Time wrappers when they got home.

Then, yesterday afternoon, Mike and Nick sold the last of the baked goods at the Holiday Bazaar.  That's such a cheerful event and the bake sale table is right by the door.  Nick said he opened the door for about a hundred people.  There's live music, tons of my friends hanging around, and art.  Oh man, I love going to see what the artisans have made that's new this year.  I knew about the hand-felted penguins, but I really wanted to see the knitted hat that looked like a curly blonde wig.  After that, they went to the choir concert at the elementary school where Adrian was singing and over to the tree-lighting ceremony.  Fall City looks really pretty with all of the cherry trees lit and decorated along the river. 

Today, the two of them went to church without me.  Nick is going to be Jesus in the Christmas pageant.  I think they picked him for that because of his long hair.  Jesus, really?  Don't tell Nick I said that.  He really is a good kid.  Afterward, they handed out popcorn that Nick sold for the Cub Scouts.  One woman has slipped out on us three weeks in a row.  She did this last year too.  Then people oohed and ahhed over Teddy when they pulled him out of the car for a mini-walk.

This afternoon, Mike and Nick headed over to Tolt MacDonald Park where they were meeting two of the boys in the Cub Scout Den who hadn't finished all their requirements for their Arrow of Light Award that will be given next Friday.  Now, they made hot chocolate and cider, packed for a trip, put together a dehydrated meal, and let the dogs play.  They took Teddy along with them and another of the boys brought his dog too.  When they all walked back into the house at the end of the day, Teddy walked slowly up the stairs and jumped right on top of two pillows on the couch and fell asleep.  He looked like the princess and the pea. 

What did I do this weekend?  I slept, blew my nose a lot, washed my hands, and tried not to touch anything that either Mike or Nick was going to use. Mostly, I tried not to feel left out.

Thank you for listening, jb 

Give-Away Bake Sale

Every year, for the past five years, I've baked pies for the Cub Scout bake sale at the Chief Kanim Holiday Bazaar.  The bazaar has a surprising number of interesting booths including felted art, hand-painted Santa ornaments on oyster shells, wreaths, amazing cakes, and live music.  I didn't get all the way around this morning after I dropped off my pies, but one booth was selling knitted Viking helmets!  Oh I wanted one of those, but knew I'd never have the courage to actually wear it.  I'm just not one of those people who likes to be out on the edge with anything, let alone fashion.

Last year, I worked in my kitchen all day on the Friday before the sale and made eleven pies. I even made a lemon meringue which sold for $14 within five minutes of its arrival at the bake sale.  By myself, I brought in $124 dollars for the Cub Scouts and got kudos for my pie.  I like making pie.  After working at the bake sale table for a while that year, I had discovered that some people had bought cookies and repackaged them for the bake sale.  Oh, that made me mad.  I mean, why bother?  I would hate to buy something at a bake sale and realize in the first bite that it wasn't even homemade. 

This year, I was feeling bad because I only had time to make four large pies and three single-serving ones.  I worried, as usual, about handling food for sale to the public.  I wash my hands a bunch and tried to follow the rules I learned when I got my food handler's permit.  In the end, my pies looked good and I hauled them to the bake sale early this morning, wrapped, labeled and priced. 

Every other year, we've charged $10 apiece for a whole pie except the lemon meringue.  I only asked them to charge more for that because it's so labor intensive to make.  So when I labeled my pies, I priced them the same way we always did.  I have to tell you that I buy quality ingredients for my pies, fresh lemons, organic King Arthur pastry flour, a variety of crisp apples, organic eggs.  I make for other people what I would serve to my own family.

So, as I was walking away from the bake sale table, someone dropped a tray of baked goods, including one of my pies.  Then, someone else was using her fingernails to try to lift off a label I'd put onto a pie.  I paused to see what was up.

"Oh, we're pricing all the pies the same," she said, smiling up at me.

"How much?" I asked.

"Five dollars," she said as she went on with her fingernail scraping.  Oh man, I was speechless.  I ended the conversation, tried to keep a smile on my face, and left.  I can't even gather the ingredients for a pie for $5.00.  I roll out my own pastry, chop up my own fruit, sometimes using berries I've picked and frozen in the summer.  It's a labor of love.  This year, I used canned cherries and was feeling bad about the short cut.  Now, I won't worry about it for a minute.  This year, making pie was a labor of love handed out for free.

Thank you for listening, jb

An Early Birthday and Christmas

Mike's birthday is one week before Christmas.  By the time the expiration date on the milk in the fridge is Mike's birthdate or later, I know it's time to get on the job of buying his presents for him. Over the years, he's learned to be very specific about what he wants.  We don't like returning things.  We will, but we don't like it.  Mike likes getting just exactly what he wants.  Most of my surprises are a bust anyway.

This year, the top thing on Mike's list was an iPhone 4s.  His old 3G was getting painfully slow.  Oh, I think it was the comparison with the way my iPhone 4G worked.  Did I ever tell you how much I love my iPhone?  Well, Mike and Nick love it too and it seemed like they were asking to use is more and more.

So last night, I made myself a decaf breve Earl Grey tea latte and when I put the half-and-half back into the fridge, I noticed that it was time to get Mike's birthday present.  One of the milks even had a New Year's expiration date.  Oh man, it's time to get going!

So after I dropped Nick off at karate, I headed over to the AT&T store.  The first obstacle that I had was getting my name onto the account so that I could make changes, like buying Mike a new phone for Christmas.  It turned out that if I have all the information, I can add myself to the account.  Scary.  So I got onto the 611 with a rep and did it, after a few problems hearing him over the Christmas music in the store.  I won't tell you my address, phone number, or any social security numbers, or you might be able to add yourself to our account too. 

Then the cheerful woman helping me asked if I wanted a 16, 32, or 64 Gig iPhone.  I would guess 64, because Mike likes his toys to have some punch.  I remember the days when 16K was a lot of memory for a computer.  I'm so old!  Shoot, I remember when my dad came home and told me about these great inventions called microchips and how you could fit an entire computer into one small room now with 1032 bits of RAM.  Ha!  He would have loved that I have 32 million times the memory in the palm of my hand now.  Those things amaze me too, stuff all the rest of you take for granted.  Twenty-two years back when I was working for AT&T Bell Labs, I got a tour through their clean room for a project I was writing.  I remember the man telling me that the silicone lines on the cards were so small, you'd have to blow the card up to the size of a football field to make the line three inches wide.  He was so proud of his tiny silicone lines and the microchip that allowed you to have a 64K computer on your desk!

"We don't have any of the 64 Gig phones in stock right now," the cheerful sales woman said.  "You'd have to come in earlier in the day.  We'll get another shipment tomorrow."  What?  This was going to go the way of the Tickle-me Elmo.  I was going to have to wait until tomorrow and I'd get there it was going to be out of stock until December 23.  I would end up going down to a Renton store on Mike's birthday eve, where they still had a couple in stock.  Then, I'd find that, after driving for forty-five minutes through stop-and-go traffic, they'd just sold the last one to that nice man over there. See?  The next shipment comes in two days.  I was going to have to consider tackling that man, throwing my Visa card at the nearest cheerful sales woman, and run screaming out of the door with the last 64Gig iPhone in the entire state of Washington. 

"I'll find out what he wants," I tell Cheerfulness herself and I turned my back as if she was going to look over my shoulder and read as I texted.

"Do you want 64 Gig for your phone?  They have 16 and 32 as well.  I'm assuming black, not white," I wrote to him. 

Cheerfulness and I stood there trying to look useful while we waited for his reply.  I went to check out Otter boxes and earbuds.  She played with her computer.  I wondered if she played Scrabble Free with anyone anonymous.

"Ping!" my iPhone said without too much delay.  Thank God!  He wanted 32 Gig and black.  Even though I knew we'd both wish we got him 64, I rushed back to the counter and told my new sales friend his answer.  I was still picturing how I'll end up in handcuffs down in Renton being half-dragged out of the AT&T store because I'd tackled that guy and he'd still get that last 64 Gig iPhone in the entire state of Washington, plus have a good story to tell his wife on Christmas eve.  The worst of it was that she wasn't even going to even appreciate the fact that he got her 64 Gig instead of 32.

So then, Cheerfulness and I went on our way through the process.  I was spending all of Mike's hard-earned cash and Cheerfulness herself was selling the only 32 Gig iPhone she'd sell all week.  We were both very happy. 

She started in on asking me about sim cards.  I answered her questions thinking of the old days when you just slipped one sim card out and slid the other one in.  Oops, I forgot that I was in the dark ages and there's no getting into the back of my iPhone now.  It's probably a good thing for most people, but Mike is a software engineer and good with mechanical problems.  He could handle it without breaking it.

"Well, you can take it as is and bring it back after Christmas to get it activated, no charge," my friend said, still smiling.  We were both imagining the lines out the front door of the store on Boxing day.  I realized I don't have to do that even though she will, regardless.  I felt some sympathy for this woman.  I wouldn't want to spend all day on my feet watching that line creep along, getting nowhere.  One fewer person in that line would be just fine with me.

"I think I'll just go ahead and do it now," I told her. "Why wait?"

"You realize that your old phone won't work after we make this change.  Will that cause any problems for your husband?" she asked.  She really is a nice woman, sales person or not.

"Oh, he'll be okay.  I'll text him," I said, getting a gleam in my eye.  That time, I didn't turn away from her as I texted.  I even read it out loud as I typed:  Your phone is going to stop working.  Now.  Ha!

Then I sent another one: Happy Birthday! Merry Christmas!

"Oh, you are just bad," she said, laughing.  I figured Mike was out walking with Jay and he wouldn't really need his phone for that, even though he and Jay are both attached to their phones with very short mental leashes.  While my friend was working on setting up Mike's new phone, I sent Jay an email just in case Mike's texts didn't get through.  She read my mind. 

"Oh, he got it, but he didn't get that second one you just sent."  We were both laughing then, as I handed over my Visa card without looking at the total.  I think she knew how men are with their toys.  By then, she was all done and handed me a cute miniature shopping bag that reminded me of the Clinique bags I used to come home with from Macy's, with the lipstick, blush, and the mini samples in it.  I loved those bags. 

I wasn't quite ready to stop talking to my new best friend yet.  I wasn't going to get the chance to talk to her the day after Christmas after all, so I clutched my tiny bag and told her how I was a convert to texting and living with my phone even though I'm old and should still be using a flip phone for emergencies instead.   She nodded and smiled.  I'm sure she was thinking of the kudos she'd get for getting rid of one of those old 32 Gig iPhones. 

After picking Nick up at karate, we drove home and gave Mike his present.  He wasn't surprised at all, but he was happy and suddenly, it felt like Christmas.  I put Dr. Demento's Christmas CD on the stereo.  Nick played with his new/old iPhone 3G.  Mike got to work playing with the voice recognition on his new toy.  Later, while it was syncing, we put lights up on our naked Christmas tree.  Now, I won't have to make that trip down to the Renton police station after all or stand in line for an hour in the rain on Boxing Day.  Life really is pretty good, isn't it?

Thank you for listening, jb

Filling the Void

I'm still trying to fill Nick's Advent calendar. This morning, I scrambled to find something to put in for December first. We used to buy the paper Advent calendar with the chocolate disks behind each flap, but Nickie started having trouble with chocolate processed in a plant that also handles tree nuts. So a couple of years ago, Mike came home with an Advent calendar that looked like a tall narrow doll house with twenty-five little numbered doors. Each compartment is about an inch and a half square.

I was surprised that Nick was enthusiastic about a dollar coin, a paper dollar, and a chocolate coin hastily placed there before he rushed out to find it this morning. Whew! That's one day. I just had to get the rest of the twenty-four days filled.

Last Saturday, Mike and I had gone to Target. We picked up one present from Nick's Christmas list. One. He's eleven. It starts getting harder as they get closer to being teenagers. I started looking for the tiny toys I could put in. Nothing. He's done with Bakugan. Beyblade won't fit. The tiny little figurines that look like erasers don't interest him. The silly toys that look like horse pills and move strangely because they have a ball bearing in them don't cut it any more either. Nick still likes the mystery mini Lego kits, but Target didn't have any of those. Argh.

So this morning, after I got Nick and Adrian to band practice before school and after just a little more sleep to top off my night, I headed out to ToysRUs. They had the mini Lego kits, Halo Reach Mini Megablock kits, small funky candies shaped like soda cans, and a mini slinky that probably won't work right anyway because the weight won't be right. Plus, I got a package of Butterfingers shaped like bells and Santa's coal bubble gum. Slap me now because I spent $54 on this junk.

So finally, Nick had gone to bed, with his usual excuses for staying up and a few extra. It's 11:15 pm and I'm still up trying to get this thing loaded. I dropped the cash box that only had coins and no singles in it, so that Mike's slippers probably now contain an assortment of cash. The ghetto kitty is pawing at my leg for attention.

The mini Lego and Megablocks kits don't quite fit. I got one jammed into the hole by letting the air out of the package. It's kind of like the time my brother's RV got jammed under a bridge that had sunk a few inches. They finally got it unjammed by letting the air out of his tires. That didn't fix his crushed air conditioner, but that's another story.

The dog is begging me to go to bed. The smell of chocolate is making me hungry. The tiny soda cans are just big enough that the magnets on the doors won't catch. The bubble gum just doesn't fit. No way, shape, or how.

And Nickie is up again, this time with a cough and a stomach ache.

Oh man. I just want to get to bed before midnight. Next year, I'm going with money, pure cold hard cash. It's got to be cheaper than this.

Thank you for listening, jb