On a Roll

Dang, people! I am on a roll: I have posted for three days in a row, so I'm going for four. It's like starting a diet as you come off a nasty stomach flu or a particularly bad couple of days after tripping over the fine line between Saturday night and Sunday morning (paraphrasing here; thanks, Jimmy Buffet!) I was going to put a link in the text there, but let's face it: if you don't already know who Jimmy Buffett is you definitely should not be reading this blog.

So, what's new and exciting around here? Well, I have several things I would like to post pictures of, but Lloyd is fishing today with the camera. Wait, that didn't come out right. Lloyd is fishing, with a fishing pole, and he took the camera with him. To take pictures of the fish, after he catches them by using a fishing pole. THERE. I am quite looking forward to him getting home, so he can take pictures of the giant swollen bruise on the inside of my left wrist. And of the robots. Oh, and also because I like fish. My bruise is not related to either robots or fish, but rather skates. The kind you roll recklessly around on, not the kind that swim in the ocean and might be caught with a fishing pole.

I went inline skating today at lunch, for the first time in many months, and as you might guess, took a nice little spill, leaving me with a 6" by 2" linear, curved bruise from the base of my thumb, down my wrist and partway up my arm. It is currently an attractive shade of green with mottled purplish-red splotches. I have yet to check my butt, so I will spare you the description of that. I was quite shocked, as I am pretty cautious and rarely fall.

Afterward, I kept thinking of the worst skating accident I have ever had. I was working at an Air Force base, doing construction inspection. I liked to skate around the airfield at lunch, and one sunny day I was out in the back forty, where there was a small hilly section, about as far from where I started as I could possibly get. The sun was shining through some trees, making spots on the ground, so I missed seeing some leaves fallen on the path. I went down hard, right on the back of my upper leg. I had to skate all the way back, of course, and when I got to my office I found that I had a serious road rash, about the size of a dinner plate, from my underwear line about halfway down my hamstring. This wouldn't have been so much of a problem for someone a little more gracile; you probably would have just had a little saucer-sized wound, but I definitely had a large plate's, or maybe even a serving platter's worth. Then it started oozing blood and that yellowy sticky stuff, and I had to go to some meetings. My pants stuck to it and all the stinky old construction guys thought I was weird. And I am, but I just had a perfectly understandable sports injury! Geez! When I got home I had to take a bath with my clothes on to get it unstuck and it hurt for at least a week. Wow, that is a gross and unpleasant story! Aren't you glad I posted today?!?!?! Also, you should FOR SURE take up rollerblading right away.

I'm not sorry, though- it was an absolutely gorgeous day, and if Cliff Mass is to be believed, we will soon be suffering another brutal northwest winter, regretting every second we wasted with Facebook or Tom and Jerry whilst the sun shone. This would definitely be a good time to make sure you have an emergency kit in your house, and all your vehicles, too. Last year hundreds, if not thousands, of people were stranded on highways around here for 18 hours in a snowstorm. Just think about that, being trapped in your car on a frozen highway amongst your fellow starving commuters. What are you going to eat? Your seat covers? The skinny guy in the Lexus parked next to you? Oh, I know you could totally take him, but he's likely to be stringy. Would it kill you to have some granola bars, a blanket, a container to pee in, some cash to pay off the crazy-eyed woman in an Odyssey so she won't eat you? Just a little something for you to consider while you're shopping for your new skates. Ta-ta for now!

School

You probably know we homeschool, and that we are about to start Weston's second year of Dead Cat Academy. Last year we did 'Kindergarden'. We had a pretty tough final but he squeaked by, so now we are planning 'First Grade'. I have just started scheduling the first half of the year. It's been our experience that the plans go out the window after a few weeks so it seems we could just cut them out entirely and save me a significant effort, but Lloyd likes to have the illusion of control. I'm pretty unschooly myself, and left to my own devices I would probably go commando when it comes to structure of any kind. Unfortunately for lazyass me, the threat of pandemonium of this nature strikes fear into Lloyd's deeply organized pilot's heart. As a result, I am forced to drag out my book and pencil and whomp up some placebos to soothe his soul.

This year, we are also going to try some proto-schooling for Shane. I'm not super optimistic about this, as he is currently too busy building artificial intelligence from sacks of robot parts acquired from the thrift store and Grandpa's basement to have much interest in such common pursuits as the alphabet and the integers. I'm not kidding, he can't even spell R2D2, but if you want a robot that eats the imaginary garbage off the floor, he's your man. So yeah, I'll be watching with interest. From afar.

As for Weston, I asked him what he wanted to learn about this year, and here is his list, in order:

Water

George Washington

Civil War

Fish

Atoms and Cells

Mushrooms

Light

Planets

How Cars Work

Rocks

Shrimp

Planets

Why It's Easier to Sleep on a Soft Bed than a Hard One

Plants

How Boys and Girls are Different

How Bodies Work

Why Daddy Always Wears Underwear

I'm reasonably convinced, but not entirely certain, that the last one was a joke. Either way, have fun, honey!

Saturday

I have had a busy week, my friends! I spent three days at a geek conference, and it was more than a little painful. Don't get me wrong, now: I LOVE geeks. They are very useful in many, many ways. I just don't want to listen to them yabber all day about boring ass equations and user defined functions. Especially when they are ALL WRONG. They should ask me; I would tell them. I don't know why my opinion is not more frequently solicited. Oh well, a mystery for another day.

In other news, I have been feeling a definite hint of fall in the air here in the Pacific Northwest. This is also ALL WRONG, because it is the second week of August and summer just started 23 seconds ago. Seriously, I had to go coat shopping. You guys are not going to believe this, but I went TO THE MALL. They have this store? Called Macy's? And there are racks upon rack of clothes that ARE ALL THE SAME, ONLY IN DIFFERENT SIZES. It was very strange, and it took me a while to acclimate, but once my head stopped spinning I found the most awesome black trench coat with white piping on super clearance for $29.98. It had been marked down from $199, which makes me wonder how much profit, exactly, they make on regularly priced items. Oh yeah, A LOT, and all because of outsourcing to countries with super cheap child labor in their slavery-like SWEATSHOPS. Too bad, so sad, score for me, right? To assuage my conscience, I went to Goodwill on the way home and picked up an tan Old Navy trench (also sweat-shopped, natch, but the damage was already done WAY before the coat got into my hot little hands, so yay, me!) and a Cabbage Patch Kid for the boys.

Let's see, what else? Hmmmm..... We have been harvesting garden goodness left and right. We have this crappy apple tree in our back yard, and the apples have been falling off with reckless abandon. I have been snatching them up before the compost rats can get them and slicing them up for the freezer. I feel very Little House on the Prairie, let me tell you. We have also been digging potatoes and performing various other productive chores. The kids LOVE this, which is funny, because they were not nearly so keen on hoeing and watering for the last two months.

If you saw the beach pictures, you will know we just came back from a trip to the coast. SUPER FUN. Also, we had a memorial service for my mother and grandmother/burial service for my grandmother on the way to the beach, followed by a burial service for my mother on the way home from the beach. Confused? WELCOME TO MY WORLD.

Wow, you know what? I think I might be done here for tonight. Oh, I have plenty more to say, believe you me! For example, I am, once again, reading a book about a book, which always makes Lloyd mock me severely, but really, it's quite fascinating and I intend to tell you about it. Just not today. Someday I hope to read a book about a book about a book, just to really blow his mind. That's all for now; have a FANTASTIC weekend!

Friday

Happy Friday, everyone! At my house, it's barely 6 a.m. The coffee has bypassed the carafe and flowed all over the counter, cabinets and floor, along with a generous helping of grounds. I like strong coffee, y'all! The towels were all dirty and there was no soap in the shower. I licked the floor like a thirsty cat, I rubbed the grime off on the shower wall like a cow on a fence, then shook myself dry like a dog, only to discover that facebook is down. OH, THE HUMANITY!

Let me make a slight clarification: when I say facebook is down, I mean I can read it, but not post. They are working on this issue and feel certain it will be resolved shortly. Try again in a few minutes! In the meantime, however, here I sit with rage to vent. Thanks a lot, FACEBOOK!

You know, I hate the legislative branch as much as anyone these days. Maybe more! It's super easy to get whipped into a frenzy, for a multitude of legitimate reasons. But I keep seeing these posts about how they all get their salaries for life, or how they get a full pension after one term. None of these things are true. You can read the truth here or here. Or google it up and find out more. As per the usual, the truth is much less outrageous than the rumors and lies.

More

Just a few more vacation photos....

Beach

***updated to say: Look at these fantastic vacation pictures! My extremely clever brother-in-law, Stefan, took them with his iphone. Can you believe that? He even had it inside a ziploc bag, what is up with that?!?!?! If I put my phone inside a bag I probably couldn't even use it to swat flies, and here he can take pictures I'd give Lloyd's right arm to be able to take with a big fancy camera.

***also, we are back from vacation, yay!

Nikki Sixx is a Genius

Wow, now there's a sentence I never thought I'd write. If you don't know who Nikki Sixx is, you can read about him here. He's the bassist for the band Motley Crue. Yes, all you headbangers, I am well aware that there are supposed to be umlauts over the 'o' and the 'u', but I have no idea where to find such a thing on here. This is the 106th post on here, and Stories from Korea has 453, and not once before today have I ever had to use an umlaut or any other symbol that is not readily apparent on my keyboard. I find this deeply troubling and feel that I need to broaden my horizons and my vocabulary right away. Send me a note if you know how to find the symbols on blogger, will you? Moving on, Motley-Crue-with-umlauts is a loud, angry, prolific and popular band, known for their outrageous antics nearly as much as for their music.

I was a big fan of the Crue in high school- they use a pentagram for a logo, and I would put one on my arm in blue eyeliner. Oh yes, I was a real badass. The star within a circle went nicely with my deck shoes, acid washed jeans, and pink polo. I also frequently accessorized with duct tape; I had this one pair of 501s that were ripped all the way around one of the thighs. They were my favorites. I would duct tape them up and wear them until they simply had to be washed. Then, unless I hovered over the washer and dryer and snatched them up as soon as they came out so I could pick off the hot, sticky, balled-up tape and start over, my mother would take them and throw them in the garbage. Then I would have to fish them out of the trash, wash them again while standing guard, then begin again with the elaborate taping operation. And sometimes I would put a safety pin through my pierced ear. True story: if you are going to do that so you can look all tough, you need to file the end of the safety pin down until it's dull, because if it's sharp it will stick in the flesh instead of going through the hole. See? BADASS.

I sort of lost track of what the band was doing until recently, when I saw the sign at the Tacoma Dome advertising their upcoming show. I googled them up and saw that they were pretty much still raising hell, and that Nikki Sixx was writing books and taking pictures. I went shopping for blue eyeliner (they still sell that stuff; can you believe it??!?!?) and then picked up both the books: The Heroin Diaries and This is Gonna Hurt. I read 'Heroin Diaries: a Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star' first; it details Christmas 1986 to Christmas 1987 and describes his life as a heroin addict and the beginnings of how he got clean. The book includes wrenching passages from his journals during that time in his life and harrowing stories from his difficult childhood, along with his present day reflections and those of his family, friends and bandmates. Fascinating, painfully honest, and deeply inspiring. And even if that touchy-feely stuff holds no interest for you, the book is worth reading for the tales of total debauchery alone. Just a little warning, you might want to skim parts of it if you have a tender constitution, as the stories of sex, drugs, and rock and roll are pretty graphic. Luckily for me, I have a high tolerance for drunken ridiculousness. The thing I found the most alarming was that of the list of junkie rules of personal hygiene he shares, I religiously adhere to at least one. As an added bonus, proceeds from the book go to Covenant House.

This is Gonna Hurt: Music, Photography and Life Through the Distorted Lens of Nikki Sixx is also inspiring, and somewhat hard to describe. His photography is stunning, compelling and disturbing, all at the same time, and celebrates what some people would consider ugly. He makes the same point, over and over, sometimes with a wrecking ball, and sometimes with a laser: everyone is different, and that's good. People deserve to be who they want, and to do what they want with their lives. We don't have to be what our society has decided everyone has to be to be accepted: thin, rich, and conventionally beautiful. No one measures up to the airbrushed ads that are constantly jammed down our throats, among other things, so we should all just tell the man to kiss our collective ass and do what suits us. To me, he seems to speak to artists in particular, though I'm not at all sure that's his intention. He even bashes the glossy soul sucking magazines and says he keeps them out of his house. I harbor a deep hatred for those rat bastard rags for their generous contribution to our self-loathing, too, and wrote about it here in a post about how hard it is to be a man. See how smart he is?? He thinks just like me! BRILLIANT. Another definite must-read. The Nikki Sixx Facebook page is also outstanding; lots of good discussion and photos, so check it out, and ROCK ON, dudes! I totally just wrote 'duds' instead of 'dudes'. Does that ruin my ending? DAMMIT.