Warning: Goat Crossing (Watch Your Step)

I’m just forewarning you all that I’m going to start blogging more on Above Average Day.  And my next post will involve cheese making, goats, and the poo habits of cows.

You have been warned.

The Garage Sale of Doooom!

Okay, not really. I had a garage sale this past weekend. It was one of those events where I was up by 7 and sitting on my lawn with stuff by 8 and getting rained on by 9.

I learned a few things from the event:

a – you will meet all of your neighbors on the day you have a garage sale.  All of them.  Even the one who NEVER talks, came by and talked.  Is it pity?  The desire to score a good deal on a chipped soup tureen?  Or just plain friendliness?  My dear readers, we may never know.

b – your dogs will go apeshit all day long, so don’t fight it, just pretend they are your greeters – y’know like at Wal-mart.  Except with the potential risk of peeing and/or biting.  But I’ve seen some Wal-mart greeters that might bite too.

c – Unless the item is a dollar or less, people will haggle.  Just roll with it.

d – Beware of the wind.  Because if you put anything tall out, say, a small bookshelf.  And say the wind comes by, and it tips the bookshelf over.  Into a set of bowls and teacups.  Which sends the teacups rolling across the lawn and down the sidewalk.  And you have to run around trying to find them like some variation of an egg hunt.  But with barking dogs and people trying to haggle you.  Well, let’s just say you should prop the taller items up on a tree or something.

e – Your coffee can cash register may not overfloweth.  I made (drumroll please) $21!!!!!  YAY!  I didn’t mind in the end.  I actually enjoyed the 8 hours of forced down time – sitting in a lawn chair reading minus the events of item d – was a nice change of pace.

f – Whatever you do, DO NOT drag all that crap BACK INSIDE the house.  Had I been thinking, I would have put everything in my car and taken it right to a charity.  Instead I dragged it into the house and said I’d do it later.  Dumb dumb dumb.

Well, that is what I have learned, my friends.  Happy Garage Sales to you!  And if you want to see a Heelarious skit about garage sales, visit www.hoopsandyoyo.com.

Like getting fixed wasn’t enough…

he had to get a bow with his haircut too.

Bridal Ignorance is Bliss

I am engaged to be married to The Dude on January 30th.  Someone cue the music.

It’s been a good, but odd experience.  Firstly, the Dude and I are planning the wedding long distance.  Secondly, I’m not THAT bride.  I’m clueless and I don’t quite care to be clued in.  The week after I was engaged, one of my very best friends brought me a stack – yes, a stack – of books that she felt would prepare me for my wedding day.  I was appreciative but shocked – I’m a librarian!  I’ve got enough to read!  Plus, it’s a wedding!  How hard can it be?  I’ll just pick up one of those Bridal magazines in the grocery store. 

I was so naive then.  So young.  Silly, silly girl.

I had the following conversation with the wedding hall a few weeks ago:
“Thanks for calling Christine…so what colors are you planning for your wedding again?”
“uh, colors? colorssss?  Like plural?  I’ve got one color.  Red.”
“No accent color???”
insert awkward pause and pindrop silence here
“Christine, did I lose you??? Are you there??? Christine???”
insert the sound of me gasping back to life and wiping frown of confusion from my face
“Uh, hm, yeah, I dunno, pink, black, white.  Something something, I’ll get back to you.”

Now, let me not come off like a total snot about this, even though I am.  I do think a good chunk of this is quite fun.  But I must say I don’t appreciate the urgent nature of it all.  The pressing “must do now” and the artificially inflated prices that you have to whittle down. 

And must Google harass me with so many wedding ads?  I miss the days when my email account was awash with sushi advertisements.

At the end of the day, it’s all coming together, just not in that breakneck, high drama, whiny way brides seemed to be forced into.  All I’m asking for is a bit of leniency on the wedding shower theme – tractor pull and redneck theme anyone???

Are you always a jerk or just on days that end in Y?

I’ve dealt with many angry, pithy people lately.  I’m not even quite sure what pithy means, but I’m almost certain it describes these people.

My attempts at being chipper are met with cold, hard stares.
My simple, well meaning tries at being helpful are met with “That’s not going to help AT ALL”.
My request for a special order at a store that I  frequent was met with a sarcastic “I don’t think so”.  (Did I mention it was a religious gifts store?)

Can someone please tell me who I pissed off or what I did wrong?

And don’t tell me I’m whining or I’ll so use my “nails on a chalk board” voice.

If through some electronic miracle the jerks I encountered this week happen to read the blog post, let me tell you this:

1 – it’s all in the delivery (you can tell me to piss off, but you could phrase it nicely, you big a$$holes)
2 – people aren’t always trying to screw you over (how did you get so bitter, anyways?)
3 – as much of a jerk as you tried to make me out to be…well, maybe it’s actually a direct reflection of how big a nimrod you actually are

A far more calm and faithful friend has told me to remain calm and be nice to the meanies.  I have been.  Excruciatingly nice.  But I’ll be honest – if the parade of shitiness doesn’t slow a bit this weekend, some big meanie is going get it.

I’ll…I’ll…I’ll raise my voice!  I swear I will!  I might even…stomp my foot!  Clearly you can see that it’s gonna get ugly.

Well, thank you for reading this rant.  If you stopped reading halfway through and didn’t get this far, I can’t blame you.  But if you did, then may I say “Let’s not take it anymore!  Tell meanies to be nice TODAY!”

The past 8 days – a summary

worked worked worked
planted flowers
signed up for cheese making class
stained a small outside table
messed up the stain on an outside table (bird poop is a killer)
learned the beauty of chocolate mint plants
tried to lose a couple pounds
walked a 5k
went to a VFW party
was invited to a wedding
got frustrated with fellow librarians
loved my fellow librarians
pondered planting sunflowers
learned that Marly hates squirrels

yes.  that about sums it up.

Wait, this house doesn’t come with a staff?

It has not escaped my attention that I am an absolute crap housekeeper.  For the life of me I cannot finesse a good portion of the finer things* in life.

I was at a small get-together of military wives  last weekend in which a breathless and beautiful Colonel’s wife greeted me at her front door, dressed to the nines.  After leading us to the immaculate kitchen (much like the immaculate conception – I swear clouds parted and angels were seen) she apologized that the wine selection was only sub-par because she had not gotten down to the commissary (the grocery store on the Fort) because she had worked a NIGHT SHIFT as a nurse but not to worry…the two cakes, four appetizers, ham and side dishes were done!

Great.  So she was Martha Stewart AND Florence Nightingale.  That’s just a one-two punch, lady. 

Now, I have never, ever been one to give a rat’s a$$ about what a person owns or where they live.  But the ability to pull together a dinner party, have a home that is completely clutter free and still consistently have glowing skin and bouncy hair?  I would kill a person for that.  No, I am not kidding. 

I spend my days pondering things like, why can’t I keep the kitchen floor clean longer than an hour?  Why do those cob webs come back almost daily?  And why can’t I remember that if I put a 100 watt lightbulb in a light fixture I will nearly blind myself when I turn it on? 

However, I do not need to take on any additional crafts or activities.  I, my darlings, am starting an impressive dust bunny collection.

This Friday I’m supposed to host a small barbeque.  We’re going to use paper plates and plastic ware, and the pièce de résistance…Pepperidge Farm cake RIGHT OUT OF THE BOX!  It’s gonna be a real winner folks!  I’ll be sure to let you know how it goes!

*for the record, said “finer things” include making decent bruschetta, not running out of toilet paper, and avoiding pants that look like I’m attempting to escape a flood.

Doppelgangers everywhere!

Life has been a flurry of activity this week – mostly related to work travel.  It’s inevitable during my journeys that I think I see someone I know, or someone that could be that person’s twin.

Today at the airport in Baltimore I had twin sightings of -

Two library-related people I know – one of whom has passed away (RIP Gloria )
The Governer of Michigan – Jennifer Granholm
And, I’m not even joking – DAVID HASSELHOFF!  But skinnier and less “just out of rehab with a fake tan”-ish.
And at the Best Western the person who checked me in looked like one of my former students from back in my education administration days.

If I ever see my doppelganger, I’ll pee my pants.  She better not have better hair than me.

There’s Smudge in your eye…

He’s been watching me since January.  Standing out on the edge of lawn, sometimes patiently viewing the house and me from across the street.  He was completely silent and more than a little mysterious.  And my gosh, when I tried to give him bacon, he’d run away.

Word on the street was that he was a wanderer.  He had no family, and was scared of everyone.  People told me that he had been wandering about for over a year – very clearly an abandoned pet of a former neighborhood resident.  He’d never settle at one spot…he was permanently on the run.

But eventually, he came around and is now residing in my living room.

After many months of Dog Whisperer-like attempts to get the scared little terrier into the house, it finally worked.  Last week, Smudge, as I was calling him, decided that the torrential rains we were getting were not his style, and soon he was in the garage at 6 AM, the Dude stopping to feed him provolone cheese while coaxing him into a warm dog bed.

After two baths, a flea treatment and some hackneyed fur trimming, he looks a bit better.  We’ve decided to call him Marley, because he no longer looks like a smudge of dirt and dust with feet.  Marley for the dog of book and film fame, Marley for the very cool Bob Marley, Marley because it sounds like the name of a wanderer.

Next week we are going to the vet for a check up, and I definitely think a trip to the groomer is in his future too.

Welcome to the family Marley!  We’re glad you chose us!

The Adult Milliennial and Economic Downturn

So, technically, my friends and I, the 1980 birthday boys and girls, barely qualify as millennials.  Oh, but we so are.

I have read a great deal on who we are.  We are optimists.  We want it all.  We feel we deserve things.  We want instant achievement, but we also work hard for achievements.  We have a sense of civic duty.  We are impatient.  We question things.  We believe in diversity and inclusivity.

We are the children of helicopter parents – the ones that dive in to rescue them at the first sign of trouble.  We are close to our families and are used to a steady stream of communication in many forms.

For the grab bag of good and bad that’s listed, I’d say we’re an alright group.  But it is hard to watch this generation in a time of economic struggle.  It is an excellent lesson for the “I want it now generation” – our opportunities for rapid growth have been stunted in some ways.  Paradoxically, our chances at self-driven growth are expanding.  We know we can’t want it all – because not many people have it all right now, and more often than not we are posting “Didn’t get laid off today – phew” in our GChat away messages and feeling thankful.

I didn’t believe people when they would say that our generation would become like The Greatest Generation.  I always felt that it was a poor comparison – my grandparents and their friends were astounding and amazing.  They survived The Great Depression, World War II, polio, and maybe worst of all – raising my parents during the Hippie era.  However, the more I reflect on this I can see that the older Millennials may end up being more like our grandparents than the younger Millennials.

Anyways, my point is that many of my friends are watching their parents get laid off right now.  I have a younger brother that I want desperately to find steady work for.  My friends and I walk around with a sense of heavy guilt at times – that we are still paying off college debt and can’t help our retiring or laid off parents.  That we have jobs when our friends and siblings don’t.  We are happy, we are grateful, but there is the sense of having a heavy heart at times.

This is the burden of being a Millennial adult. The desire, for some of us, to save our parents and families – to be the helicopters to them that they were for us.   My God, not only do we expect to be successful, we expect to be able to share that success in great abundance.  We are frustrated that not only is the success coming slowly, it is coming too slowly to help others! No wonder we all need therapists!