This is the last week of the big out of town thing for my husband, and not a moment too soon. The thing started over 6 weeks ago, broken by a two week break in which he worked like heck and was out of town a lot. Prep for the thing has been pretty intense for months, actually.
What with all the Dog and Dog Man mutual affection and mutual deep sorrow at absences, the short times The Man has been home tend to be complete spoil-fests -- rules are suspended! From Clyde's end, any minute The Man is on the premises but not immediately adjacent to The Dog leads to alternating barks and pitiful crying. Mama's looking forward to getting back to a better routine....
Weather is nice! Not too hot; sunny; everything's growing like crazy.
I'm trying to settle in to my pending project, get some speed up -- but fortunately, I don't have to go anywhere for this one.
What's up with you?
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With her permission, I'm proud to spread the wonderful news that Sarah at Ratatat has graduated law school AND was today sworn into the bar of her state! Go, Sarah! xoxo
Sarah is amazing! Hooray!
AW: I think I made a new friend today
W: it involved a 3 hour coffee meeting, and now I'm all introverted out
AW: the fish fry yesterday was delicious. So good and lots of fun.
W: I ate so much that I still feel overfull and yucky today. It was still worth it.
AW: the church gardener gave me the most lovely, small, yellow squash. I grilled them and they were delicious. Not just delicious for squash, but straight up delicious. And felt like a good antidote after fried catfish.
Such wonderful news, Kathy! And esperanza, exciting that you've made a new friend!
AW: at the end of this long weekend, we only have a small portion of fence left to stain.
W: but it's the hard part, with overgrown trees and shrubs touching the fence.
W: also, there's rain in the immediate forecast, and so it might be next weekend before the fence gets finished, and that's going to bug me.
AW: it's weirdly mesmerizing to stain wood. I like it so much more than painting.
W: I no longer can use my arms and legs.
Wonderful news about Sarah!!!
Yay for making a new friend, esperanza! I totally get the three-hour coffee introvert exhaustion.
Good work on the staining, QWP.
W: I leave on Thursday for the Introvert's Nightmare Annual Meeting. These chunky meetings are generally like this, but this one has longer days and More! Celebrating! than ever, because it's the last time this particular group will gather. So, from Thursday to Sunday I will be having a great time whilst wishing I could be alone for five minutes.
Wishing you luck, and some nice quiet walks during the Marathon Chunky Meeting, Sue!
Yay for new friends, Esperanza! And the fish fry sounds so good -- something I miss about the time we lived in the South. I remember my friend's dad manning the outdoor fryer for what seemed like hours, cooking catfish and hush puppies for the masses. Another friend's husband was a shrimp farmer, so they'd bring a bunch. And, corn on the cob, of course, plus a bunch of potluck everything. Mmmm.
WOOT! My beloved won his very long trial! It was a stupid case, and apparently the jury agreed 100%. He'll be home tomorrow sometime. WHEW!
Hooray Mr. Kathy's Beloved!!!
Hooray! Well done, Kathy's Beloved!
Yay!!!!!
--NL
Hooray, kathy!!!! Such great news!
I'm very pleased that the two mishaps yesterday were timed just perfectly to not be a problem: we had a rainstorm at supper time, after I spent the early afternoon staining our gate, but thankfully enough time had passed, and it was hot enough outside, that the gate was already dry, and the water just beaded up and didn't wreck the stain. And we had a two-hour power outage, between 5:30 and 7:30, but we'd started making supper early enough that we were just finishing using the stove when the power went out (and there was enough radiant heat on the burner to finish), and just as we were preparing to put E to bed without her bedtime fan (and using LED candles for story time), the power came back on.
We're planning to go out for tea this afternoon, with my mom and sister, for a belated Mother's Day celebration with my mom! We're going to a cute British tea place, and I am excited.
Adding "cute British tea place" to my list of Things We Don't Have Here.
However, I enjoyed lunch with an old friend at a Tex-Mex place, so I am valuing things we do have here.
W: Imma have to stop looking at news today. I don't know that today is any worse than any other day, but for some reason it's really getting me down.
AW: on the upside, two of the three candidates I voted for yesterday won their primaries. And I'm fine with the one where my person didn't win; I actually had a hard time deciding which one to vote for. (governor, US House Rep, and state House Rep).
I just googled "[big weird city near esperanza] + British restaurant", and there were a few places! One tea/breakfast/lunch cute place, similar to the place where I went, and a few pubs/restaurants and food stores.
oooh, let me google! That's exciting.
It's even on our side of Big Weird City!
Exciting! It seems like the kind of place where you could go and wear a fancy hat while having high tea.
By the way, when we went out for tea today, the place was FULL of fancy-dressed ladies having tea parties. It was delightful. There was a table full of women who were all wearing fascinators, and who were all laughing and taking pictures. There was also a big table of ladies who had been brought from a nursing home; we were seated next to them, and they were DELIGHTED with E. (She wore her fancy Easter dress and a million hair clips, and was on her best behaviour this afternoon.)
That sounds lovely, QWP!
We accidentally ran across a little kinda English tea house, in Japan -- no fancy dress, but they had beautiful bone china tea cups (not matching sets), and little bits of beautiful food, and a french press for the coffee lovers. So unexpected!
That's basically what this place was, Kathy! It wasn't intended to be fancy (although they do have high tea options), and it's also the kind of place where you can get beans on toast, but people have started getting into having silly, fancy tea parties there. The owners get into it by hosting fancy theme events sometime. (They had a special royal tea, in honour of the royal wedding, for example.)
This conversation is making me think of the Tea Sh0p mystery series by Laura Chi1ds. I have read a few of them and found them cute, light fluffy reads, with a mystery thrown in, set in Charlest0n. Some of the themed teas described in the books sound delicious. Just a thought...
:) Neighbor Lady
Thanks for the suggestion, NL! That does sound very Charleston -- which is to say, charming.
I scored a beautiful mixed berry galette, to continue the celebration! My beloved hauled all his boxes and stuff back to the office today, and is no doubt clearing up paperwork. Tomorrow, I believe he intends to do nothing but stuff he wants to do.
Oy, friends. The news...
We've had a major rainstorm early this morning, and it's so nice out now! (We've had a lot of drought over the past year.) I just saw that the entire province's fire risk has gone from extreme to low, overnight.
AW: Sweet survived her "Living History Museum" day, and she even admitted it was "a little fun."
W: now she's fretting over field day tomorrow. I am sorely tempted to let her stay home, but there would be a riot from certain other parties.
Esperanza, I hope this field day is organized like others I've known -- lots of cheer and yay for participation. And fun stuff as well.
It is. From the schedule, it looks like mildly competitive things are interspersed with cooperative things. It's definitely tightly scheduled.
W: on Monday, E spent the day with friends (the same place where she caught whatever croupy thing turned into a respiratory infection), and that evening, my friend (mom of kid friends) texted to warn me that her oldest threw up a few hours after E left. The rest of the kids had a stomach bug that had cleared five days before that, and so she said to keep an eye on E five days from then. So, four days later, E just woke up feeling nauseated, and with a sore throat because of some reflux. I gave her Gravol and put her back to bed with a bucket, but I'm also realising that my own stomach feels weird. Also, Mr. Q has to go on a multi-day camping trip, leaving on Sunday, and he always gets hit hard by stomach viruses.
Ugh ugh ugh
And she just threw up. It's going to be a long night.
Oh, QWP!
Hope everyone feels better very quickly!
--NL
She slept through the rest of the night, and has kept down toast and a banana today! My friend assures me that this virus was short-lived in all her kids (a day, or maximum two, of stomach distress, and then a couple of days of tired with low appetite), and it missed the adults entirely. We're now bleaching all of the surfaces in our house, and washing all the linens in hot water, since I'm pretty sure that it was exposure to our friends' house that caused her to catch this.
(And now I cross my fingers that this is it for us, and that Mr. Q doesn't come down with anything before this important trip.)
Crossed fingers, QWP.
My son has today off and came to pick up his kayak. The dog, one more time, went NUTS barking at my son; and backed away at son's efforts to make nice. Sigh. The Dog Man had to go to work today, too, so the dog went to day care.
Crossing fingers with and for you and Mr Q, QWP.
I wonder what is going on in that doggy brain, kathy? Our previous dog had an unholy fear of brooms, mops, wrapping paper--anything that was a long cylinder. It wasn't too hard to figure out that she had gotten hit with something like that in her previous residence. Your son must remind Clyde of someone who was Not Nice to Dogs.
I took pains to talk calmly to Clyde; to hug my son while Clyde was looking, and tell Clyde my boy is safe. (Not that Clyde really gets human language, but I was trying to demonstrate: Not Dangerous!!) Some friends suggested this might be a long de-sensitization process -- if my son comes by more often, and we keep demonstrating son love, that will help calm it down.
Obviously, there is something in Clyde's past that is triggered by my son. We don't know what! The pup is usually a perfect gentleman with dogs and humans alike -- except, if they come in the front door, which is another thing we don't understand. (He barks at ME when I open that door, even though everybody knows I am his alpha dog goddess. Yes, that's a role I didn't anticipate...)
Dates stick in my mind, and sometimes I don't remember why. Turns out this date would have been the anniversary for my nearby cousin -- except, he's going through a bad divorce, and his STBX keeps dragging out the terms of the settlement. Gah. (But also, it is the 33d anniversary for my DIL's wonderful parents!)
Kathy, I know a lot of rescue dogs who've been the same way with men who don't live in their home. My cousin has a dog who hah been on the streets for a while, and we presume had also been mistreated at some point. He would only sleep next to a mirror at first (I think he thought it was another dog), and was scared of brooms and most men for about a year. But he settled in after a while.
AW: we got through the school day without puke, and E is acting like nothing happened.
W: I'm exhausted and have a terrible headache.
It's not other men who don't live in the home -- it's something about my son in particular. SIGH.
Well, the boyz went for a good long hike up in the regional park, which they haven't had a chance to do for a while. That should leave the canine sector happy and tired.
I'm still feeling a bit sick and worn down, and need a distraction that isn't social media, because there's a giant mega-conference in town (a bunch of the academic fields share one huge annual conference), and it's making me moody. There are friends coming to town, egg is great! I also am emo about not being involved in the field anymore! It also means seeing people be super condescending about my hometown, and trying not to defend the honour of our local food scene! (A friend proposed that people attending a certain session with her tomorrow go out for pizza afterward, and I recommended a beloved restaurant, and then a bunch of people from big cities sneered about the idea of good pizza existing here.)
Their loss. Meeting up isn't about the food; it's about the connection, and so if your friend's willing, you should do it. xoxoxo
I should clarify: while I'm meeting up with said friend later this week, she was just arranging a supper with conference attendees on Book of Faces, and said she had some recommendations for good pizza places, and I chimed in that I hoped one beloved one was on the list. It was other attendees who responded with snark about their doubts that good pizza was possible here (and suggestions as to why pizza likely is bad here). And then I felt defensive, because it's so frustrating when people act like this is some backwater, but decided to walk away from the conversation.
Yep, best to walk away from that -- let them figure it out. And yay for the meetup!
Wah. It's hot here. Mr. E and I spent about three hours outside, mowing, weedeating, and trimming our ridiculously-fast-growing tree. It wasn't the hottest part of the day yet, but it was plenty warm. And now I'm sore from manual labor.
Oh wow, I just looked up the temperature there, and it really is hot! It went up to 30C yesterday, and we wimpy Canadians hid indoors for the hottest part.
W: Mr. Q leaves for his camping trip in a few minutes (and then he has another school camping trip a week and a half later).
AW: it seems like this stomach virus missed him.
In this week's installment in Annoying Presents Mr. Q Gives E And Then I'm Left To Deal With The Fallout: a pool noodle. I told them that it had to live downstairs, because she was already swinging it everywhere, and somehow it immediately got left upstairs. And now he is gone for three days, and E and I have already had several fights about it (she insists that she's safe with it, and I ended up threatening to confiscate it after she almost hit Mr. Q and my framed wedding photo, and now she says she doesn't like me anymore and is going to live in the basement forever).
AW: while I was writing this comment, my sister texted to ask if she could take E to church (she heard that we were staying home because I still felt sick, but that E is feeling better). And now they're gone! And I've put the pool noodle in the basement.
Yay for the sister intervention! Yeah, can you make a family rule that the noodle is an outdoor toy? Or, it can only be used in a designated room where it won't cause damage? (i.e., noplace close to breakables.)
Yikes on the heat, Esperanza!
I really really really have to spend less time online, and do some power work. So, I'd be grateful if somebody can take hosting next week. xoxoxo
I can do it! But it might be later in the day before I can get the post up, because I can only make new posts from my home computer.
And I did make a rule that the pool noodle is only for downstairs or outside, but Mr. Q must not have heard me say that, or something, and so because E had it upstairs yesterday, I'm having more trouble getting her to comply today. But now I've moved it downstairs myself, and we have a busy few days ahead, during which I'm not even bringing up the pool noodle.
I have this same category of complaints, QWP. Add to my list this week: Lego sets. Sure, they're good for a few hours of Baboo entertainment, but putting them together is so entrancing that it is difficult to get Baboos to do anything else: eat, sleep, bathe, get dressed and get ready for church already, etc. And they are messy. And Daisy the puppy wants to eat them. But sure, Mr. E, that's a nice treat for the long weekend.
W: I made a bad call and decided that E and I were well enough to go out for supper with friends tonight. E had milk, since she's been tolerating dairy for more than a day now, but friends and then our meal were late, and so she went for an hour with only milk in her stomach. (I thought this would be fine, since we were still eating by 5:30.) We ended up having to rush away because she was nauseated (I'm not feeling great either). She hasn't thrown up yet, but she's spent the past hour groaning in the bathroom. I fear putting her to bed.
I miss Mr. Q.
Yep. She threw up within minutes of going to bed. The good news is that she was in a very good mood after that. The bad news was the clean up. (And hopefully that was the last of it.) I abandoned the BRAT diet too early; because she handled all kinds of food so well yesterday, I made mac and cheese for lunch, and she ate a huge amount of it. That, plus the cups of milk while we waited for her supper, were our undoing. (And I would have kept her on the BRAT diet for longer, but she and Mr. Q insisted she was fine! I was just about to let her have dairy, and Mr. Q said he'd already given her milk, because E was insisting that she's already rebuilt the lactase in her tummy!)
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