Rollin', Rollin', Rollin'

The end of August is here, kids had their first day of school, things are shimmying into shape for the mostly-organized portion of the year. To avoid even the thought of polluting my lungs I'm keeping busy. It's a really nice day, too, so a good time to plunge into those remaining boxes I haven't sorted out since the flood.

When other people pack your belongings in haste, the strangest things happen. The sugar bowl in a box of books struck me as weird.  And then there are the things I still haven't found and I think are just gone. My electronic drums, big enough that they should stick out, are nowhere. A framed photo poster of a boy and girl during WW2 walking into the woods (my husband gave it to me), gone. Assorted kitchen things...some books... pieces of jewelry that had been on my dresser... it's so random. Anyway, that's why I'm going through boxes, cuz if the sugar bowl can end up in books, then ladles could end up in holiday decorations.

Speaking of holidays, preliminary plans are under way. If it's not unreasonably expensive, I think I'll make a goose for Christmas Day this year. It's been years. If it is a king's ransom, I'll make ham. And we can have ham and gingerbread sandwiches for breakfast on "Boxing Day". It's all good. My somewhat SO will be going to his family so I won't see him til New Year's Eve. No tears over that; I may have someone much more important here. And this Yuletide is way organized already, so no last-minute freakouts, I hope. There's always a small scramble near the end, but that's usually a good cause scramble.

Meanwhile, Labor Day Weekend is coming right up. My great-niece turned 18, away from home, on her first trip without her parents. Hard to believe she's 18. For the first time, she isn't heading into another school year- she's in another country. Changes all around. The unofficial end of Summer, the beginning of the house party season, time for canning and freezing, and to start using the oven again. It's a week til Stevil's birthday, he'll be retiring this Fall. Special K is back with her Ex, I expect she'll be moving out of the Shire and into his house in Fellows Balls. She's rarely home anymore. There's a big conference in Burlington over the weekend but I only heard about it this week; I ain'ta goin'.

The Beest abides. Her personality change is amazing. From a terrorist to a sweetie pie. She's asleep on the rug right at the tips of my toes right now. She follows me everywhere, even if it's just to the bookcase and back. Like a dog, really.

Since writing this the phone has been ringing and though I've finally caught up to emails, now I have calls to return. Bear with me, folks. I will call, but I was just taking a break from the mess I created in the bedroom and I need to repack that or I won't have a place to sleep. So off I go to that. Catch you later.

Not the First, but I Hope, the Last...

Being that yesterday was the anniversary of the great adventure known as Irene, I thought I'd mark the occasion with something. As it happened I ran out of tobacco on Monday night, so I decided to quit smoking.

It's been about 3 years since I stopped smoking cigarettes. I switched to a pipe, which I knew would lead eventually to quitting, as it has. Pipes are messy. Tobacco in a pipe doesn't stink like cigarettes do but there's the cleaning of the pipe, which brings home pretty clearly what you're inhaling. Changing the screen, scraping the bowl and stem out, the blackish brown globs of nastiness get repulsive. Tobacco is also expensive these days, and I'd weaned down to one pouch a month of organic tobacco so it wasn't much of a jump to nothing. But still, it's gone.

This is far from the first time I've quit. Over the last forty years I've quit at least a dozen times, sometimes for years at a time. And every one of those times I started again by saying to myself, "I'll just have one." It's never just one. But I'm in very different circumstances now. I'm not at work and I don't go out socially much, and there aren't as many people smoking these days anyway, so there's little opportunity to grub the one that starts it all over again. Somewhat regrettably, I'll have to declare my home a nonsmoking area (I do hate smoke nazis but this is my home and health now). 

What really wore me down to the point of knowing it had to go for good is that I can't sing. I've sung all my life. It's one of the things that makes me really happy. All of my family sang, together and apart. To not hit a note, or to lose wind, or to hear your voice crack and just air come out... it's a dealbreaker. My love affair with Mr. Nicotine is over. It'll take a while, but the vocal folds will heal. Without working on it I may not get the range back so I'll start looking into ways to help that along.

For now, I have plenty of chewing gum, which gives the added benefit of killing my appetite. That'll be the next issue, as my senses of smell and taste clear and everything becomes fabulous to the tongue. For the next few weeks I'll be chewing like a demon until things level out. It ain't my first time at the rodeo, I know how this goes. It's time.

I Dunno What's Going On

It's not raining and the power is on.. The cones and signs are still up so everyone parks elsewhere. Nobody has emailed or called or stuck a flyer under the door to say things have changed. Who knows what the hell is up...we're kept like mushrooms around here.

But I'm Being Negative #1859

I'll be glad when this month is over. As if just being who you are doing what you do wasn't enough to keep you busy and awake at night, now people want to talk about the anniversary of Irene. Well, color me stupid but I really don't wanna hear about a parade to commemorate a disaster. I don't want to rewrite history into a pablum of looking on the bright side. It's still pretty fresh to me and I can't imagine how bugged out the elders here are. One of them still hasn't gotten her FEMA claim sorted, and she lost the most- nearly everything she owned, including her cat. Some of them are in nursing homes forever after the shock of this mess took them down a few rungs. There are people who have lost everything, whole houses floated away in Irene. And we're supposed to be yippeekiohing because it was a year ago today that so many people went through so much?

No, that shit's for the people who heard about it, lookie-loued some of the damage and went home to their normal lives, unscathed. Those whose homes, belongings, livelihoods and pets hung in the air for weeks, some that still are up there, don't really want to want to remember. Because they haven't forgotten.

Varys. What the Hell does He Want?

That's a title on a thread of the massive Game of Thrones forum which I'm spending entirely too much time reading. I'm doing just what I did in HS and college with Tolkein and Brooks. Excepting that these days we don't lurk in the library and find otherTolkeinheads. These days we're all online. And we're Martinized.

Anyway, the Varys in question is a one-man CIA in the GoT saga. But nobody knows what his real deal is. And that made me think. Well, does anyone ever know what someone else wants, really? If you believe that theory of wants and needs fulfillment ho-hum, is our want list what forms our characters? Our choices and priorities are pretty much always around our wants. Half the time we don't know what we want, much less what anyone else wants. But motives can be hidden, even from the person acting on them.

I love mysteries. Life would be a drear if everything was straightforward and known. Happily, everything is complicated and most things have a mix-in of unexpected ass whoopings and astounding moments of joy. As I look over at a somewhat SO absorbed in the Game of Thrones marathon on my tv, I wonder what the hell he wants. The Beest is easy. She wants food or she wants petting. Two speeds. People aren't so easy. But they're usually more interesting.

And while I'm at it, what the hell do I want? I want the next freaky thing in my life to happen and get it overwith. There's something coming; I just wish it would get on with it.
In the deep big picture, I haven't a clue. Maybe it's better this way; it keeps the game interesting.