The Food is Gone

Last week we experienced two back to back thunder storms that knocked out the power at our house both times.  I'm told it was not a tornado either time but trees and telephone polls ripped power lines down out of the skies and insurance men are crawling the neighborhood this week along side the piles of appliance boxes placed on the curb this garbage day.  With the first storm we had no electricity for two days, I didn't open the refrigerator and the house stayed fairly cool while we retreated north to spend the night at Grandma's.  The power came back for a full afternoon before the second storm hit sending cars on Main Street afloat as sheets of water fell from the sky so dense it seemed if you were standing out in it you'd drown. I lost all the food.  It got too warm and everything in the freezer thawed to fast and too dangerously for a "hurricane party" to be thrown.

Instead of restocking right away I packed the kids and headed to Lake Michigan to enjoy the day-after-the-storm waves.  The lake didn't disappoint.  Waves as high as the kid's shoulder pounded the beach and the kids.  Someone on Facebook said they were closing some beaches because of the high waves and still, I stood watch on shore while the kids squealed and pushed the limits of their bravery wading out into the turmoil. I only forced them back inland when their lips were blue and shivering and then I made them sit under dark towels in the sun until they begged to go out again.  Finally warming up fireside that night, Ella pulled out her ukulele and the kids sang all the theme songs to all the cartoons she could remember how to play until it was quiet time in the campground.  Next we told stories about the happiest we'd ever been and the most jealous we'd ever been and the most surprised we'd ever been all the while stuffing our faces with an array of various degrees of melted and burned marshmallows.  At some point Jack asked to go to bed.  We exhausted, scraped up and sunburned campers found our tents and slept hard.  We barely heard the rustling of wild animals in our campsite opening all the coolers and tightly sealed rubbermaid tubs of food or the rustling of wrappers and munching of raccoon mouths on graham crackers.  The next morning I stepped out of the tent to find, yet again, all the food gone.

Post number Seven - List of Things

List of things:
- I hurt my knee in Feb walking the puppy.  It's still hurts I think I need an MRI.
- I'm excited to have some projects planned for fall art scene.
- I'm taking the kids to Lake Michigan tomorrow so we can play in the waves and check out the camping.
- The kid is going to probably get her black belt this winter and that makes me super proud of her. I wish I was half as cool as she is.
- I like taking baths but more often opt for the quicker shower and that sorta bums me out.
- I brought some white sheets and I love when they're fresh out of the wash and smell like bleach.
- I also bought some Borax for some sciency things we were doing and the smell of it reminds me of Atwood camp, in the 5th grade.  They must've washed all the things in Borax.
- The pup feels mostly better after getting her spayed.  She got to take the cone off and she's eating better with the cone off.
- I made potato salad with lemon and mint and it's all I want to eat now.

Post number Six

Dang, facebook has really killed my blog.  I still have things to say but I post them with my phone and get instant gratification, they really do a better job of appeasing my ego than blogger does.  So what the hell am I doing here? I still like my blog.  It's a good measure of where I am in life - a chunk of digital memory that can be slurpped into some sort of navel gazing book later for the great grandkids to see how boring life was in the early 2000s... or not.

Updates:
Work - fricking great!
Family - fricking great!
House - needs work.
Roller Derby - I'm trying to referee (that shit is HARD)
Extracurriculars - needs work.  More canoeing please.
List making - fricking great!

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I made some new friends this year.  I like them (Obviously! jeeze)  This means I spend a good amount of time lately worrying if I said something stupid or didn't do enough of a thing or too much of a thing because I want my new friends to think I am the greatest of friends.  It's like fifth grade again but with beer and without the jump rope (because jumping hurts.) Whenever I get too far into my own head about what I did or didn't do around my new pals I try to remember I'm 44 and pay bills and have control of the t.v. remote*.  I am mighty!

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I feel sad for the dog today.  She was spayed three days ago and she's still not eating much.  She still has to have the cone on her head for at least five more days.  I keep thinking she can have it off but them I'm on 'lick-sound alert' and that's no fun when you're trying to get some work done.  She doesn't know what's going on or why this happened to her despite my explaining the social responsibilities of a pet ownership and strays in the city - she just refuses to accept the stratification of species classes and argues in favor of wild wolves roaming the city and small sick humans just taking their chances when walking to granny's house.  There's no talking to her today.

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*Nobody really wants the t.v. remote anymore.  It's just me flipping between news channels and the weather channel now.  Each kid has the whole universe in their pocket and even if they're on the second floor of the tree house, in the back yard, and the want to see the 15th episode of Gilligan's Island, they can whip it out and call it up and watch it. They don't though, because that would be cool, and I would go out there and watch Gilligan's Island with them - they just watch shitty videos of other kids playing video games.  They don't even deserve the remote.