Category: Oddities

Stash

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Over the weekend, I was vacuuming the kitchen when I got the idea to vacuum under the stove. This is not something I do on a regular basis for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that I don’t have the time, and if I can’t see the dust bunnies gathering under the stove, they might not bother me. The second reason is that if I remove the stove’s storage drawer, the cats will hear the commotion and come running. They know that in their overzealous play, they often carelessly chase their toys under the stove, abruptly ending any play session in progress. They also know that when we pull the drawer out, they will re-discover a veritable gold mine of lost toys.

Anticipating a sudden influx of cats, I pulled the drawer out and set it on the floor. A cat ventured into the space where the drawer had been and began sniffing around. I peered under the stove. “Huh,” I said aloud, surveying the array of formerly hidden items. “I wonder what made them put those under there.”

J heard me musing. “What’s under there?” she asked from her spot on the couch in the living room.

“Um… you’ll have to come look,” I responded. I wanted her to see what I was seeing. This was not the usual collection of cat toys and pompoms, and part of me was in disbelief.

She got up from the couch and came in. I was bent over looking under the stove, and she looked over my shoulder and smiled.

“Isn’t that funny?” I asked. Under the stove was a stash of those plastic tags that come on bread bags—the ones that are used to hold the bag closed. I could not imagine how the cats managed to not only get them, but to chase them all under the stove.

“Wanna hear something funnier?” she asked as she raised her iPod to take a picture of the colorful pile.

“What?”

“C and I have been stashing those under there for months waiting for you to find them!”

Ha! They got me!

But of course… you know what they say about payback. You never know when (or where) those tags might make a reappearance!

Disposable

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Yesterday, I learned something because, as we all know, “You learn something new every day.” But what I learned yesterday is disturbing, at best, and indicates a new level of waste and laziness.

My kitchen light is on the blink—quite literally—since last week. I was sitting at the table working when it blinked off. But only halfway. Now, it has that annoying fluorescent strobe effect going. Or it would if I left the bulbs in it. I purchased new ones and then returned them when we deemed the problem to be the fixture.

My 14 year old examined the light and determined it needed a new ballast. He went online to find out where we could get one, and how much it would be. I still have to look in the local big box stores, but the proper part was located on Amazon for $40, which seems a bit steep to invest in an old, ugly light. Then again, I don’t have to invest in an electrician because I have a 14 year-old, but I digress.

When we went to the local home center to look at lumber (don’t ask), we stopped in the lighting department. I figure if I can get a fixture for not much more than a ballast, it might be a better option.

“No bulbs to replace,” my son read off the box of one of the lights as we strolled the aisle. “Oh, that’s not good.”

I turned and looked at the box. “Wait. So those are disposable fixtures?” I asked to no one in particular. “That can’t be right.” And yet, the majority of fixtures on the shelf were in similar boxes, all of which touted, “No bulbs to replace.” As if that is somehow a good thing.

I couldn’t believe what I was reading, so I opened one of the boxes and pulled out the light. In fact, there were no bulbs, and inside the light was a circuit board with several small square non-replaceable LED lights on it.

“Not only are there ‘no bulbs to replace,’” my son said, pointing to the LEDs. “Those are all going to go out at different times.” He smirked.

“Well that would stink,” I remarked, thinking of my own half illuminated kitchen light.

But really, I am still in disbelief. A “fixture” is supposed to be fixed, and yet, the fixtures we saw yesterday are disposable. When did it become so difficult to change a light bulb that it’s easier to remove the entire light and throw it away? And just how is that easier?

Either I’m on a steep learning curve, or I’m missing the purported benefits of no light bulbs.

Socks and Stockings

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I went out on an errand with my son this morning, and we came across an interesting sight. On the side of the road, there was a man walking his bicycle up the hill. That, in itself, is not an unusual thing to see. However, this man was pushing his bike up the hill in just his socks because he was carrying his shoes.

Observing this from the passenger seat, my son said, “Why is he walking his bike?” Because from his perspective, if you have a bike, you should ride it.

My mommy-brain kicked in. “I am more concerned about the fact that he is carrying his shoes and walking in stocking feet!” I exclaimed. Then something in my mommy-brain started to dial back what I had just said.

Stocking feet…

 When was the last time I heard that idiom? Had I ever used it with my son before? Did he even know what that meant? Does anyone know what that means anymore? And I started to think about the word “stockings” and the fact that we never refer to our socks as “stockings.”

Over the years, when my children run through the door and out onto the walkway without their shoes on, I will say to them, “What are you doing outside in just your socks?” I have threatened to make them buy their own socks when walking on the pavement creates holes in their soles. But I don’t remember saying anything to them about “stocking feet.”

This is a term from my childhood. I can still hear my own mother clearly telling us not to walk around in stocking feet, that we should wear shoes or slippers or something. I half expected to Google the term and see—before the definition—the notation “archaic.” I was relieved to see the notation wasn’t there, and the examples were fairly current.

Perhaps I have used that term more recently than I remember because my son didn’t question my words, and I didn’t say anything more about the man walking his bike and carrying his shoes. Even still, my mommy-brain is stuck on that sight.

Monsters

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There is a monster under my bed. Really. A monster.

Remember when you used to think there was something under your bed? You used to be afraid to get out of bed (or maybe you still are) because you felt that something might grab your ankles as your feet touched the floor? Perhaps this is an unreasonable fear from childhood that has carried over into adulthood.

And you can’t get rid of it. No matter how hard you try.

In the middle of the night, when all is dark and quiet and your mind is racing from some crazy dream you had, you think about getting up to use the facilities, and you can feel that hand closing around your ankle.

Rather than venture the few steps to the bathroom, you snuggle more deeply under the covers, avoiding the inevitable confrontation with the monster.

This morning, I awoke to find that my normal nighttime companion had been abducted by the monster under my bed. I am deeply thankful that I didn’t have to get up in the middle of the night, as the monster might have chosen me instead of my much lighter companion. The evidence left behind by the monster was more than obvious, and I have recognized that this is a warning for the future.

There is a monster under my bed, and I (now) have evidence to prove it!

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Minivan

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It seems I may have kept my minivan about a month too long. Last month, I could have traded it in on another car and gotten a thousand dollars toward my purchase. Maybe more. But this month—what with the van’s sudden desire to ask for a new catalytic converter—its value has dropped. To nothing. “It will cost more to fix it than the car is worth,” I was told, and I get it. Which is why I’m not planning to fix it. And that’s why my son and I were discussing the minivan problem.

The minivan is currently the only vehicle we have that can transport furniture, lumber, bikes, camping gear, farm animals… whatever it is we need to haul. Not to mention, more than a few passengers. This was the vehicle that I acquired back in the pre-school years so that my children could bring friends and we could all fit in the same vehicle, even with car seats.

But the minivan problem for W is all about the fact that we now have no way to transport bicycles. Apparently, he is planning many trips over the summer that will require the hauling of two or three bicycles, and the fact that the minivan is no longer functional is a problem. But W’s brain does not work the way the average brain works, so I was not surprised when I was preparing chicken for dinner and W stated, “How about if you get a tank?” He was in the other room, so I wasn’t quite sure I heard him right.

“A tank? Like a military tank?” I questioned.

“Yeah, a military tank. It’d be really cheap to insure. I don’t think you could damage it.”

“But you could definitely hurt other people with it,” I returned. “Insurance is as much about liability as it is about damage to the vehicle. Besides, I don’t think tanks get good gas mileage.”

“Nope. I suspect not. But,” (and his face lit up with the but…) “They are exempt from the gas guzzler tax,” he added, as if that somehow made driving one around town more appealing.

“Nice!” I agreed. “But I’m sure there might be a blind spot or two in a tank,” I continued my litany of reasons not to replace the van with a tank.

“Yeah,” he laughed. “There are a few of those. And it probably doesn’t even go in reverse.” Huh. I’ve never really thought about that.

“And I don’t think your brother would be thrilled about driving a tank to school. Hey C,” I called into the living room. “You wanna drive a tank to school?” Isn’t driving your mother’s minivan bad enough?

“Nope. I’m good,” came his unenthusiastic reply.

“I think it would be great to drive it to the high school,” W continued. “Everyone would get out of your way in a hurry!”

“Well, you’ll be driving in another couple years. You’d have to drive it next….” No doubt, this piece of information might drive home the impracticality of the tank as an option.

In W’s mind a tank might just solve the problem of our mini-van. In my mind, driving a tank would create far bigger problems than not being able to transport bicycles!

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Glasses

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There are things I don’t really like about getting older. One of these things is that I now have difficulty functioning without reading glasses within easy reach. Like many people of a certain age, I have several pair of reading glasses stashed in various places in the house. At least that’s the plan. In fact, they all usually end up in the same place. Reading glasses… they have a tendency to wander.

Last week, I was certain I left my reading glasses on the kitchen table when I rushed out the door in the pre-dawn hours to attend an athletic competition with my daughter. My beau had arrived early to join us for the day. After a hello and a brief discussion, we grabbed the various bags, papers, cameras, and coffees and headed out the door.

Later in the day when we returned, I searched the kitchen for my glasses. I know I was exhausted and likely seeing double, but I could not find them anywhere. Not on the table, not on the counter, not in any of the logical places that I would have put them. “Did you, by chance, borrow my glasses before we left this morning?” I asked beau.

He shook his head. “Not that I can remember. I wasn’t here very long.” True. It was unlikely he would have had time, and I couldn’t remember him reading anything.

“I’m sure they are around somewhere,” I shrugged in attempt to reassure myself more than anyone else. Even though it was just a pair of inexpensive readers, it was my favorite pair. “Knowing me,” I continued, “I’ll probably find them in the refrigerator.” Truly, I didn’t suspect that I had left them anywhere they didn’t belong, but with the degree of busyness and distraction in my life, stranger things had been known to happen. I located a different pair of readers, and continued with the progression of the late afternoon.

I was now focused on throwing dinner together, so we could get out to the high school theater performance—the busyness and distraction continued. I cooked some pasta, and I went to the refrigerator for the cheese. When I opened the cheese drawer, I found my glasses, perched on the packages of sandwich meat. I laughed.

I laughed because I actually found my glasses in the refrigerator. And I laughed because I realized I had left my glasses on the table, just as I had thought!

At lunchtime, C had called me, trying to find the mozzarella in amongst several other varieties of cheese in the drawer. I knew I had just bought some, but he wasn’t finding it. While we were on the phone, he removed the drawer from the fridge, placing it on the kitchen table. While we were on the phone, he proceeded to “inventory” the cheese in the drawer as he removed each package. When he returned the cheese to the drawer, it seemed he accidentally included my reading glasses.

Whew! For now, I can rest easy in the fact that maybe, just maybe, I’m not going crazy. At least not yet.

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Milk

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This morning on the Internet, I saw an article that said, 24 Recipes to Finish a Gallon of Milk. Curious, I clicked on it. I started reading, “Instead of pouring money and nutrients down the drain….” Wait.

What?

People have leftover milk that they have to throw away? They aren’t always wondering how the milk is going to last until they can get to the grocery store to buy more? Meanwhile, here I am thinking it has got to be possible to buy milk in containers larger than a gallon….

So I started to flip through the recipes, just to see what people who don’t drink milk might use milk for. Mac and cheese, fettuccini alfredo… no brainers. Corn husk meringue and corn mousse… WHAT?? Any thoughts on where I might find a corn husk or two at this time of year in the frozen tundra of New England?

Apparently, if you have some leftover milk, you can make your own Ricotta cheese, perhaps some yogurt, or a toasted marshmallow milkshake. Or here’s an idea: you could drink the milk. In our house, that’s what we do. We drink it. We use it on cereal. Sometimes, we cook with it—like when we make popovers. But we use it. Lots of it.

For a bit of perspective…. The childcare center where I work is collecting empty gallon milk jugs to make an indoor igloo for the children to play in. It will take 450 empty jugs to complete this project, so they put out an APB to all staff. The first week, I brought over three empty jugs. Last week, I had a bag filled with six empties, and I was going to take a walk over to the center. Unfortunately, between the cold and the windy, and the busy-ness of my office, I didn’t have a chance to bring it over. When it became clear that I wouldn’t have time, I brought the bag to my co-worker, whose daughter attends the center preschool.

She looked in the bag. “What have you been doing in your house?” she asked, as if having six empty milk jugs was the equivalent of an empty keg or two.

“I have three teenagers,” I responded with a shrug. It was explanation enough, though in truth, the milk jugs were not all from my house.

“Well, just keep bringing them my way! With this bag of empties, today I get to be the hero of the childcare center!” she announced.

Given the alternatives, I think we will continue to drink our milk. In fact, I am glad I don’t have leftover milk. I’m not sure how I’d feel about making corn husk mousse.

Theme Song

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Recently, I realized that every morning, as I’m making lunches, I am humming some sort of tune—a soundtrack for the day, if you will. Apparently, this is a habit that I have had for a long time, but I never really noticed it.

One day last month, I was humming a particularly melancholy melody which seemed to be on infinite repeat as I stacked cold cuts on cheese on bread and slathered on the mayonaise and mustard. After the umpteenth repeat, I became aware of the tone of what I was humming. And I realized that it was different from the usual morning medley. My usual morning soundtrack is upbeat and motivating. The tune that day was not.

Is my brain determining this melody? I wondered as I carefully considered my emotional state (which seemed okay, though maybe not as peppy as normal). Or is this some eerie foreshadowing of the day ahead? It was an interesting thought, one I pushed aside; I moved on with my morning activities, but the tune didn’t change.

Since that day last month, I had not focused on my morning humming. Until yesterday, that is. The tune yesterday was, again, different from the usual. It was a very determined, get-it-done type of melody. Not inspiring, exactly, but more of a dutiful tune that would follow me through the day.

It was not surprising then, when a couple hours into my work day, some not particularly positive news came my way. It was a situation that took determination to process to a marginally workable solution. But as the situation churned in my head, I went back to that theme song, the one that was different and somehow ‘out of sorts.’

Perhaps, just perhaps, my morning humming is my brain’s way of working through the events of the day that have not yet happened. Perhaps this really is a foreshadowing of the events to come since the melody is never a conscious one.

But now that I am starting to sense a pattern, the next time my theme song doesn’t seem quite right, I might just go back and bed to see if I can restart my day. Or maybe I’ll stay in bed until the next day!

Bump in the Night

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It’s one o’clock in the morning, and my daughter has just messaged me. Now, there is no way I should still be up at one o’clock in the morning, but I am balancing three overlapping sessions in my summer online job, and I’m trying to finish up something. Anything. And suddenly, my biggest concern is not that I am still up, but that she should clearly be sleeping. And she’s not.

In fact, sleep schedule has been a point of contention between her father and myself for all of the many years we have been apart. He insists that the children are on the same schedule at his house as at mine. Solid evidence proves otherwise.

“Hi,” she types, as if it’s one o’clock in the afternoon.

I hear the bell announcing the message’s delivery. I read it, and I think, What. The. Heck. “Why are you still up?” I hastily type back.

“Ok so it’s almost 1:00am and there’s this sound outside coming from the middle of the lake that sounds like a little kid saying ‘dada,’” she responds.

And here I am, a thousand miles away, wondering what I am expected to do. I choose to take the reasonable approach. “Frog?” I type. “Bird?”

In my mind, I can see her shaking her head. “So C comes into our room with a knife and a flashlight and we don’t know what to think of it.”

This sounds like a totally safe situation. “Well, if it’s in the middle of the lake, it’s somewhat far away,” I reassure her.

“It could’ve also been W sleep talking and we misheard where it was coming from,” she tells me. And with the next sentence, I know she’s not buying my reassurance. “But creepy ghost children can travel quickly,” she continues, going with the supernatural because it is, after all, the middle of the night. And the supernatural can explain anything. Truly.

“You’re right,” I type. I figure at this point, the only approach is to agree. “I didn’t think of that. Those creepy ghost children can travel very fast. Hopefully, they are only after slow, old people.” I figure I may as well have some fun with this one.

It is only a second or two before she types back, “But there are slow old people IN THIS HOUSE!!”

“Yes,” I say. “I know. They will go after the slow old people and leave you alone.”

“MAYBE. BUT MAYBE NOT.”

“I don’t know,” I finally surrender. “I can’t hear it. It is raining here, and the rain is muffling the sounds from your lake.” Because the truth is, no matter what the sound is or is not, there is nothing I can do when I am a thousand miles away.

Nothing.

But now, I must go to sleep wondering what is calling “dada” in the night.

Oddities #3

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On Tuesday, I took my children to the airport and put them on a plane to travel to their father’s house for their annual two-week summer visitation. Their flight was scheduled for the middle of the day. Lunch time, to be exact. But for C, who has cashed in his school schedule for the teen sleep-plan, breakfast is often the midday meal. When he got up that morning, he didn’t want to eat.

“I’m not going to buy you a meal at the airport,” I told him in my sternest no nonsense tone. “I don’t have money to pay airport prices. Find something to eat.”

“There’s nothing to eat,” he complained. “I’ve already looked. I’ll just eat when I get there,” he stated. As if that was an option.

“You tell me how hungry you are every time you go to your father’s. You say he doesn’t feed you. You say there’s never any food in the house. And now you say the first thing you’re going to do when you get there is eat lunch?” He stared at me with the blank expression that said he didn’t want to engage—with me or the world. “Eat something, please. We’re going to be late.”

He grabbed a box of cereal and a sandwich bag. “I’ll just take a bag of these,” he said, holding up the box. Fine, I thought. At least it’s better than nothing. He filled the bag, and we were on our way.

He ate a few bits of cereal on the way to the airport. When I stopped fast to avoid the car in front of me, the bag of cereal slid off C’s lap, and the cereal scattered across the floor on the passenger side. He didn’t even try to save it.

“Are you kidding?” I asked.

“What?” he replied, as if he had absolutely no control over the situation. He sat there, looking at me. I raised my eyebrows. “What?” he repeated.

“Seriously? Are you going to pick it up?”

He looked down at the cereal at his feet and sighed. He bent down and pushed it into a pile. “Throw it out the door when you get out,” I instructed. Because clearly, that wasn’t obvious. Some days, I feel like a walking, talking instruction manual.

It started to rain. Hard. I turned the windshield wipers on high and wished they’d go higher. They beat their rhythm as we drove. “Do you want me to drop you off and then park?” I asked over the roar of the rain, the drumming of the wipers.

“Sure,” came three voices in unison. I pulled up in front of the doors by the ticket counters. The kids got out, grabbed their bags from the trunk and stepped onto the sidewalk.

I drove around, pulled into short-term parking, and parked the car. Just as I was turning off the engine, I looked down at the floor of the passenger side. Cereal. It looked like the work of squirrels.

I am sure C would blame it on the rain.

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