The Fish Pond

Life Has a Funny Way of Making You Remember

I spent most of last night listening to Sunny hack and cough and bark. She's had a mildish cough since the beginning of the week and it has been getting progressively worse, but I wasn't too worked up about it - I've got four kids. I can do croup. Last night was particularly bad, though, and she would get into coughing fits where she couldn't really catch her breath well between coughs. We steamed her up in the bathroom, but she started hacking again the minute we left the bathroom, so off we went to the pediatrician this morning.

"She's not just coughing, she's wheezing. Has she had a problem with wheezing or needed breathing treatments before?"

I started to say no, then nearly smacked myself. The pneumonia following the swine flu. Duh. Can you believe I had forgotten? We've been so healthy since then I plumb forgot just how bad it was.

Very, very, very bad.

Anyway, Sunny earned herself her very own inhaler and spacer, complete with teddy bear pictures on the sides.

Totally gratuitous picture of Sunny using my awesome binoculars to find...a squirrel. On our deck.

And hopefully the presence of such items will make it so I can get some sleep tonight. I have something very important to do early tomorrow morning (and I'm rather nervous about it - not the race itself, but the getting up and getting my butt downtown at the crack of dawn all by myself part).

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Trout will be attending patrol camp in a couple of weeks, and the parent information meeting was this week. Patrol Camp is put on by the county police, so I figured if she's going to go to a sleep-away camp, going with the cops can only be a good thing. At the meeting they introduced the key people who run the camp, among them a 36-year veteran crossing guard. Who happened to live in the house in front of which was my bus stop when I was a patrol 30 years ago. Her daughter was my sister's best friend for a number of years in elementary school. I approached her after the meeting and asked if she recognized me, and she said the face was familiar but she wasn't sure. I told her my name and she freaked out. She's going to keep an extra eye on Trout during the camp week, and I feel a mite less anxious about the whole thing knowing just how capable are the hands she'll be in. I had forgotten the role that wonderful woman played in my own patrol career, but again, life has a funny way of reminding us about things that are important, even when we get so busy with life that we forget.

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Yesterday I was out of bread and granola and I've started making my own, so I figured if I was going to heat up the house baking on a ninety degree day, I might as well go for broke.

We joined a CSA a few weeks back, and so have found ourselves with more potatoes, lettuce, and strawberries than we know what to do with. We've eaten a lot, given some away, and I froze some of the berries for smoothies later, but I still had a ton of them left. So I taught myself how to make jam. No idea how it tastes yet, but since the only ingredients are sugar and strawberries, it can't be too bad. It's a rather hot business, my kids asked how I got my hair to go "all curly like that," but I only burned myself once though I probably moved far too slowly step to step. I'm sure I can go twice as fast next time. I'm looking forward to canning surplus tomatoes and beans later on this summer.

Any ideas on what to do with all this lettuce? I don't know how many more salads I can take without turning green.

Seriously. Wonderful, but lots of lettuce. This was only our first week's share, and we got more and more lettuce the next three weeks. Lettuced out.

Hallo-what? Elect-huh?

Indeed, we have had both a holiday and a momentous day in our history, but I have largely missed them (though I did exercise my civic duty on Tuesday). Where the hell have I been? Um.

Well, first I had the bright idea that since Trout's birthday was three days before Halloween and Halloween was on a Friday, that we could have her birthday party on Halloween and BigDaddyFish could take all the guests trick or treating with our kids while I handed out candy, and then when they got back to our house we could have cake, play a couple of games, and then send them all home on a sugar high. No fuss, no muss, little mess, and no dad-burned treat bags. Brilliant idea, right? Not so much. First one parent called and asked if she could stay and bring her 4 year old. I have a 4 year old, so no problem. Then another parent called to ask if her younger child could come. He's five. Thinking that the parents would be staying, I said yes. That would mean 11 kids to at least four parents - no problem.

BDF was supposed to work from home, but he decided to go in and come home early. My job was to clean the house.

I got the house cleaned, but I still needed to go to the store to get balloons and a cake. BDF was supposed to leave at 3. 3 goes by. 4 goes by. Frantic text messages ensued, to no avail. He got home at 5, at which point I blew out as fast as I could to go get balloons and cake. I live under a rock, so I did not know that the shopping center with the party store was having trick or treating there. The store was mobbed. I got the balloons, but it easily took 35 minutes for them to get them done, and I still had to hit the grocery store for a cake. It was on the way home, but I was still driving when BDF started calling asking where I was at 6:15. The party started at 6.

When I got back, I discovered that the parents of one of the extra kids had not, in fact, stayed. Later on BDF told me that they asked if they could go out to dinner and he said yes. There were kids running all over with no one asserting control of the situation. I tried to get them to eat dinner, but they were too spun up. BDF finally put on the Charlie Brown halloween DVD, and that kept them a little calm, but they were still a bit rambunctious. In particular, the set of kids whose parents didn't stay were running all over, climbing on the furniture, and trying to pull out all the toys I had spent half the afternoon cleaning up. The last two guests finally arrived, and everyone tumbled out the door for trick or treating.

Except Nemo. He was overwhelmed with all the people he didn't know, he hated his costume (Yoda. Little Man was Darth Vader. Great in concept, but the Jedi Master pleased was not.), and just freaked. So he stayed with me to hand out candy. I tried to get him to go just to our next door neighbors, good friends of ours, but he wouldn't go past our property line, which isn't very far when you are in a townhouse. I took his bag and put some candy in it to show him how to trick or treat, and he thought that was great, but he didn't want to leave our property. So I held him on my lap outside, with our big bowl of candy, and he slowly warmed up to putting things in other people's bags.

We didn't have very many trick or treaters this year, but I really have to commend the ones we did. We had a bunch of older kids, old enough that I usually get pissed off and only give a single lollipop to. To a one, they were considerate of Nemo and if they were wearing a scary mask, they flipped them up so he could see their faces before approaching us, or they let him come walking rightuptothem and look up their masks to see their faces. I was impressed and rewarded them generously. We still had tons of candy left.

When the kids got back I fed them and did the cake. Kids refused to eat cake (!) and persisted in trying to take out the toys. So I distracted them with the opening of the presents, and then we played some games, games specifically chosen with 8 and 9 year olds in mind, not 5 year old. Our extra child couldn't cope with losing, even though everyone got prizes no matter what. I guess that being in an unfamiliar house, on an out-of-the-ordinary night, possibly past his normal bedtime, and playing with kids that didn't want to let him lose so he wouldn't freak out was just too much. He had a screaming crying meltdown in my living room for an interminable amount of time but probably only 15 minutes before his parents arrived and helped him calm down. I felt sorry for the kid, but was profoundly relieved to send him home. Then it took me all weekend to recover.

Speaking of the weekend, my husband, we'll call him "Randy," enlightened me that he has recently fallen in love with me again*, and seems to be under some sort of delusion that he is, in fact, 21 years old again. I haven't slept in days, dear Lord help me the man is going to kill me with all this lovin'. I realize I could have worse problems, but it's only recently that I've been able to sleep at all without a two year old mauling me while I tried to get comfortable. I was kind of enjoying sleeping more than 4 hours a night. Still, it was an amazing thing to be able to go together to go vote on Tuesday.

I think from being run down due to the birthday party and Randy, I developed a cold that is morphing into bronchitis, hence the absence. I can currently sing bass. It's...interesting.

So how was your week?

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New post up at DC Metro Moms about why I won't tell my kids who I voted for.

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*When you've been married as long as we have, this is what happens. You don't wake up every day loving, or even liking, the person you're with. It takes a strong commitment to the marriage to stay sometimes. I like to say that I'm lazy and stubborn and that has come in handy to weather the hard times, but in truth it's mostly that my husband is my friend, my best friend, and that's what sustains you when he asks you what you do all day while he's at work because your job is so easy and you really, really just want to ram your fist into his left nostril. Then one day he takes the kids for you and lets you sleep in for four hours and you overhear him telling his friend that he understands why you can't get anything done because gah! and you feel secure that he GETS it and you love him all over again. Plus, it doesn't hurt that he's hot.

Incident at the Liquor Store

Last night I stopped at a liquor/wine/beer store near my inlaws place in Hagertown to buy a couple bottles of wine. When I got to the counter with my selections, the clerk, who I'd guess was in his fifties, asked for my id.

I smirked a bit as I handed it to him. He looked at it closely, then as his eyes zeroed in on my year of birth they widened, and he said "1970?!? Holy Shit!" and then looked worried as though I might be offended or something, though whether he thought I'd be offended about being mistaken for younger or his use of colorful language, I don't know.

I just chuckled as I said, "Yeah, I'm a LOT older than I look," and went home to drink wine with my babyfaced husband.

Olympic Blubbering

Friday evening I was looking at one of the many sites for the Olympics to find out when the opening ceremonies were on and what the schedule was for the other events I was interested in, and as my eye scanned down the page it found and zeroed in on something I had completely forgotten about: the sport that my grandfather judged for over 40 years. I had somehow totally forgotten it was an olympic sport, and when my eye saw it listed there I was unprepared for the waves of grief that washed over me. Within seconds I was sobbing, head cradled in my arms, sitting at my dining room table with my laptop in front of me.

How on earth had I forgotten? For forty years it had taken my grandfather, and later my grandmother, all over the world for meets, to two other continents and to almost every state in the US. It had taken them to two Olympics. They missed my birthday more years than not because the annual convention is always held in late July. Even when my grandfather wasn't judging, which was rare, they followed the sport intently. They used to call us up every time it was on TV, which was a rare occurence, even though most often, especially in our teenage years, we just weren't that interested. They would talk on and on about seeing this person or that person at meets, and after my grandfather died and I had to track down their contact information to notify them, it was as if I knew those people, even though I hadn't "met" them since I was a baby.

I have always watched the Olympics with great enthusiasm. I remember sitting on the floor in the family room at my parents' old house when I was about six, caught up in the excitement and emotion of the games. I remember being upset and angry when we boycotted the summer games in 1980, not clearly understanding why. I have always looked forward to Olympic time, and did so this time with more anticipation than usual, because this is the first Olympics that my older two kids "get" it, understand that they, too, have the potential to do great things in representation of our country if they so have the desire and are willing to put in the hard work to do it.

I guess this demonstrates the lengths to which the mind will go to protect the heart when necessary. I was already missing my grandfather tremendously, and this is the first Olympics where he isn't calling me to tell me that his sport is on and to watch it. I am grateful to my brain for doing what it had to do so that I could look forward to watching with anticipation and not too much pain.

Once again, though he is gone, he is here.

This year, I watch the Olympics with great enthusiasm. I cheer for our team, and revel in the achievement of all the athletes, Americans, allies, or not. Doesn't matter - I just love to watch the amazing things those fit people do with their bodies. I think about the hard work and dedication they all have, that their families all have, and wonder if I could make that kind of commitment, to achieving something like that myself, to helping my kids achieve that. I don't know the answer; my gut says no, I give up too easily, I search for moderation and balance in all aspects of my life. Trout is a daredevil, and I can readily imagine the day she comes to me begging to make the commitment with her to swimming, or ballet, or volleyball, or gymnastics, or fencing, or something or other. I know my grandfather would have said yes, immediately, with no hesitation. I hope that when the time comes, he will give me the courage to say yes.

In the mean time, I'll just continue to be a blubbering mess with every medal ceremony. Michael Phelps just hasn't been good for my emotional state. But he sure is fun to watch.

The Oriole

My mother was a huge sports fan. She liked ACC basketball, the Olympics, and Redskins football, but her big love was baseball, Baltimore Orioles baseball specifically. She learned how to score baseball games as a child when my grandfather coached my uncle's little league games, and she had a steno notebook that she spent a huge investment of time with a pencil and ruler creating grids where she could score the games. We were one of the first families to get cable in our neighborhood, not because of my dad or to let us watch MTV (because we weren't allowed to watch it at first, no matter how much we whined), but to subscribe to the Home Team Sports channel that broadcast Orioles games. Mom would watch the games and score them in her notebook. When she died we found something like five or six full steno notebooks of scoring of Orioles games. We tossed them. I wish now that I'd kept  at least one of them.

About a month ago I stopped riding the exercise bike very much (not that I didn't like it or that it wasn't working, but I get bored easily), opting instead to go a few times a week, or however often I can get someone to watch the kids, to the Soccerplex and walk the trails there. They have what they call the "Heartsmart" trail that is .8 miles long and loops through the grounds around a small pond. I like that they have the distances marked out in .1 mile sections, so I know how far I've gone, it includes some challenging hills (hey, this is Maryland), and it's a peaceful way for me to both get a break from the kids and clear my head and take care of my body, too.

The pond itself is teeming with wildlife. Not so much the wildlife I have at home, but with several species of frogs, especially some very vocal bullfrogs, and birds. Ducks, geese, some sort of egret or small heron, all sorts of things. It was here, on a walk a few weeks ago, that I saw my very first actual non-mascot Baltimore Oriole. There is a small stand of river birches about 15 feet or so from the edge of the pond, and this little oriole has been following me on my walks, hopping from tree to tree and back each time I pass by on another lap around the pond. It doesn't seem to matter what time of day I come, morning, afternoon, or evening, that little bird is there to greet me with a chirp and a bob of his head. I've come to look forward to seeing him each time I walk.

This year marks 23 years since my mother died. This year marks the first birthday where my life passed the length of my mother's life. And this year has been the very first year when I've felt at peace. I think the little bird has something to do with it, reminding me that she's here, everywhere, if I only take the time to look around and see.

Now With More Color! And Indignation!

First, I told you it would darken fabulously. It's still got a way to go, but here's the current pastel version:

I personally like the lovely olivey green color. Note also the lovely mosquito bite on the left there. Fun!

Two days ago the mailman knocked on our door to deliver a couple of packages. He likes to do this rather than just leave them in the door, mostly because 3/4 of the time they are legos for Little Man who gets all excited about the mail, so the mailman likes to give him a little fun. Anyway, he handed the packages to Little Man and said "Guess what I just saw? A black bear." No surprise there.

What was a surprise was that the mailman was filling the mailboxes one row of townhouses away (for those who don't know, there's a big box at the start of every other row of townhouses that has all the boxes for the houses in both those rows. We all have to walk down a row to the box to get our mail. Kinda like the lobby of an apartment building, but with more weather.) and he said the bear came out of the woods, walked RIGHT BEHIND HIM DOWN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET and went into the small wooded area in front of the houses WHERE OUR PLAYGROUND IS. The bear was completely unconcerned that the mailman was standing there watching him as he waddled down the road, in broad daylight, right in the middle of a townhouse development.

This concerned me. Most wildlife doesn't bother me in the slightest; in fact, that's part of the appeal of living here. We've had bear sightings before in the almost 20 years that this neighborhood has existed, but they were just that - sightings. One shot, and the bear was gone. Never have we had one this bold, one who keeps coming back and who obviously isn't perturbed by people. He's obviously well fed, too.

So I decided to call the Department of Natural Resources, who usually handles these things. I told the woman about all the bear encounters I know about and asked what they do. Well, in a word, nothing. She told me to lock up the trash, put all birdfeeders away, do whatever we have to do to eliminate the food source. I was silent for a second, then I attempted to explain that this is a townhouse neighborhood. It has 150 houses, lots of kids, lots of pets. The likelihood of getting all those houses to lock up their trash when only maybe 20% have sheds in which to lock them is pretty slim, not to mention that our trash has to be out to the curb by 7am on Mondays and Thursdays and what are we supposed to do then? Not put our trash out until the garbage truck comes? Take every Monday and Thursday off so we can wait for them? Obviously this bear isn't confining his food searches to nighttime. She said he's an adolescent looking for girl bears, and when he figures out there are no girl bears here and the food source is gone, he'll move on. I reminded her that I just explained that the food source is going to be there and it really isn't feasible to remove it. She didn't say anything. I said "You really don't do ANYTHING? We don't want the bear hurt, we want it to have a happy life, but we really don't want a kid or pet to be hurt." She told me again the whole shpiel about locking up the trash and putting away birdfeeders. I angrily thanked her and hung up.

Today I had planned to try the county animal control office, but I talked to my neighbor, also a mother with small kids, and she called them when she first saw the bear months ago. They told her to call the Department of Natural Resources. And we know how that went. So I didn't call, and instead posted to our neighborhood playgroup about the bear and the natural resources call, and asked for input about any other bear sightings in the neighborhood. Only my neighbor called me, and I already knew about her sighting. So far I haven't heard from anyone else. I'll wait until Monday, and then try calling the county again.

I am really concerned about the fact that this bear doesn't appear to be fearful of humans. I am worried it is going to take a kid or animal getting hurt before anyone will do anything about it. It's ridiculous that we need to be worried about letting our kids go play in the front yard or ride their bikes up and down the street because of a bear that is somewhere he doesn't belong. It's not like this is a rural, mountainous area that's his natural habitat; this is the DC metro suburbs. Sexual predators? Sad, but sure. Traffic going too fast? You betcha. Carjackers? Yep. Bears? Not so much.

Anyone got any ideas? I'm all ears.

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I also worry about how much I yell. Check it out at DC Metro Moms Blog.

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Believe it or not, I also sometimes find time to scrapbook. Find out how here.

Klutzes Anonymous, Redux

Years ago when we had the water leak in the basement and were trying to figure out where it was coming from, we tore up a couple of boards on our deck. Of course, it turned out the water wasn't coming from outside the house, but rather a cracked pipe inside, but we left the biggest of the boards torn up. We are lazy that way. We recognized that the deck needs to be replaced anyway. We educated all the kids about the hole, and even though it is in a bad location at the top of our steps in front of the gate, no one ever had a problem with it.

About, oh, three? months ago, we got a quote to have the deck redecked, and in the course of doing whatever he did to create his estimate, the guy put the board back in the spot, but of course didn't nail it back down. So since then we've had this loose board that the kids would occasionally step on or loosen slightly, but nobody ever fell through, I guess because they are so light and quick. So we left it like that, and I half hoped that the bear or racoons would fall in, and I also felt it was a cool booby trap in case someone tried to come up on our deck in the dead of night to break into our house - we'd at least hear them coming from all the swearing when they fell in.

BigDaddyFish wasn't feeling well last night, so he didn't take our trash or recycling to the curb last night. This morning he was running late, so he missed the trash truck, but recycling only comes once a week so we wanted to get our bins out. I grabbed a full, wet, dripping bin and headed down the stairs, BDF right behind me with a pile of wet cardboard boxes. We came back up the stairs, me in front and BDF behind me. I am neither light nor quick nor accustomed to carrying trash/recycling down the stairs, and my propensity for klutzy behavior is well documented. Down I went, arms a flailing, landing of course with my left shin hard up against the diagonal edge of the solid part of the deck, catching myself with the middle of my right forearm against the railing. Fortunately, the railing held. Unfortunately, it didn't give very much. BDF told me not to move, but I was pissed and embarrassed, so I yanked my leg out of the deck, shrieking through my closed mouth where I was biting my lip to keep from embarrassing myself even further, and limped to a chair.

The pictures above were taken about an hour later. BDF pulled the board back up so that people can see where they have to step so they don't fall in. I'm calling a guy today who gave me a good estimate to re-deck the deck. I'll take a picture later of my leg later - right now it's just a faint mottled purple under my whiter-than-pale skin and slightly swollen, but I can tell by how fraking much it hurts that it's going to be spectacular.

Make me feel better. What klutzy thing have you done recently?

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I was lucky enough to be one of the featured BlogHer blogs on the ivillage home page over the weekend with this post. Someone else even linked to me from their forum. Thank you, whoever you are, and I'm glad you enjoyed it. It's like that a lot around here.

Wildlife Abounds

Not five minutes after BigDaddyFish and my wonderful neighbor finished carrying our old stove out to the curb so that the county recycling folks can pick it up, BDF stood on our deck frantically tapping on a window to get our attention. The baby started screaming for Daddy, but nobody went out to see what he wanted, so after about a full minute I finally strolled out.

"SHHHHH! Look over there," BDF whisper-shouted. "Get them to be quiet!"

"What's going on?" I whisper-shouted back. He answered with a point to the edge of the woods.

"Black bear."

And indeed it was. A medium-sized, probably adolescent black bear was wandering nonchalantly behind the row of townhouses next door to ours. I summoned Trout and Little Man, and we stood at the rail of our deck, fascinated. I ran for the camera, but in the 15 seconds or so that I was gone the bear...disapparated transfigured disappeared completely.

"Give me that - I'll get the picture," said BDF as he took the camera from me and dashed down our steps and a couple of steps back into the woods. He stopped, crouched down, looked around. He took a few steps left, and kept looking.

After about three minutes of watching my husband skulk through the woods and fielding my children's queries of "Is Daddy going to die?" "What if the bear eats him?" "What if the bear crashes through the windows?" (my kids watch entirely too much tv, obviously), I got sick of waiting for him and went in the house. The kids gave up about 30 seconds later.

"What'sa matter, didn't want to see me die?" asked my husband as he came in the house about five minutes later. My husband clearly watches too much tv, too.

"No, I could just tell that you weren't having any luck and got bored." We marvelled for a while at the fact that the bear just disappeared. He moved amazingly fast and quietly for a bear.

"If I only had about three other people I could bag it," said BDF.

"What?!? I don't want the bear to get killed," I said.

"No, I mean get its picture." Okay, I apparently watch too much tv, too.

So there's a bear in the neighborhood. I had heard my neighbors talk about it, but this is the first time we've actually seen it. It's such a surprising thing, because this is a townhouse neighborhood. For all that I live in the woods on the edge of a park, this is still the DC metro area. It is incredibly populated. If the part of the county where I live ever decided to incorporate, we'd become the second largest city in Maryland after Baltimore. We had an estimated 85,000 people in 2005. Our townhouse development has more than 150 houses, and although we have the woods and lake out back, we are smack in the middle of surburbia. There are major roads and buildings and schools and stuff within spitting distance. Even the lake and the park get a huge amount of human traffic every single day.

I feel bad for this bear - he clearly is eating enough (in fact, BDF thinks he came near the houses because he smelled our trash cans - more about that in a bit), but I don't think he's going to have much success mating here in the neighborhood. He shows the right amount of fear of humans, and I don't worry much about any of us people having a run in with him. We residents have known about him for a while now, and none of us let our kids out without an adult being nearby (well, except me - but then again I actively encourage my kids to play in traffic), so I don't think him being around is a safety issue. Animal control has been called before and they could never find him (I tell you, he transfigures), so I'm unsure how to go about getting him relocated someplace more ... beary. That's a task for tomorrow.

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Being on the edge of the woods and the lake, we see our fare share of wildlife: Squirrels, chipmunks, snakes, birds (including bald eagles), large numbers of deer (because they don't allow hunting here, our herds are HUGE), foxes, and racoons. Ah, the racoons. There isn't a single resident here that hasn't had their trash cans raided by the racoons on a fairly regular basis. We've tried all the tricks, but the only way to keep them out is to lock up the trash cans inside some sort of structure, which makes taking the trash out a bit more of an adventure than one might think.

Some of the racoons are more timid than others, and some are more easily scared off than others. Periodically over the nine years we've lived here a racoon will show up for a while, eventually we'll catch them in the act of scavenging through our trash and chase them off with a broom, and they go away. Then a few months will go by and the next crew will move in (or the old crew gets ballsy and tries to come back - how long is the life span of a racoon, anyway?).

For the past week or so we've had a racoon getting in our trash, but it hasn't made a big mess, not even knocking the can over but just ripping the lid off and dining in the can. Early Saturday morning I was reading in my bedroom when I heard what sounded like a combination growl/scream, and heard the telltale knocking around the racoons do when they get into the trash. The growl/scream was weird enough that BDF came running down from our loft as I jumped up to kill the lights and try to see what was going on outside. I stayed in the bedroom and BDF ran down to the kitchen. He hit the lightswitch outside, and we discovered not one, but two adolescent racoons raiding our trash. One was rather daintily standing on the deck next to the can, and the other was perched atop the old oven that BDF and I had dragged out there because I didn't want two ovens in my kitchen for a week. At first I thought they were fighting over the trash can, but as I watched it looked to me like they were in cahoots. I opened the window and said "Go away!" out the window as loud as I dared at 1 am, and the dainty one skedaddled over the rail to my neighbor's deck. The one on top of the oven simply looked at me and climbed into the trash can to eat his fill. As he started to dine I hissed at him, like a cat, and he stopped and stared up at me. I didn't blink. He started to eat and I hissed again. Three times he started to eat, I hissed, he stopped and stared at me, but he didn't move. After the third time BDF burst out the door armed with the broom, and would you know that ballsy racoon didn't even flinch? So BDF bopped it on the back with the broom, at which time it decided it was time to go and ran off into the woods.

Last night they got their revenge by actually knocking the can over and making a bigger mess. So we're back to locking up the cans again. And before you start telling us all the racoon deterrent tricks you know, we've tried bricks on the can lids, bungy cords on the can lids, and a whole host of other things to keep them out - nothing works short of locking the things away. These are wiley little buggers.

But thanks to the particularly stinky trash due to it being torn open, eaten a bit, and repackaged a couple of times, BDF thinks the bear was attracted to our trash and was coming to eat it. He said the bear was right in the middle of the green space between our townhouse and our neighbor's (we have end units) and was startled by BDF. At 5:30 pm on a summer evening. BDF also told me that the top hinge on our gate at the top of our stairs has been broken off, and we suspect the bear had come up here before and its weight broke the hinge. We kinda like having a bear out back, but on our deck is a little too close for comfort.

The Rain Jinx

About 12 years ago now, my father took BigDaddyFish, Uncle Orca/Agincourtdb and me to the annual reenactment at Gettysburg on July 4th weekend. That year, for whatever reason, the reenactment was held on the actual soil that the battles were fought on, instead of the nearby farm that hosts the reenactments now. That year it had rained for a week before the reenactment, steady, soaking rain that saturated the ground.

Back then there were maybe a couple of thousand reenactors, and they didn't have the living history site and other things going on that they do now. We drove up separately from my father and somehow ended up parking away from where he did. They parked us in one set of fields, and the reenactment was held further down in another field. That year they were filming some of the reenactment, to be used in some movie, but I don't remember which one.

Anyway, they have the battle and we watch and it starts to rain. That doesn't stop the reenactment so it didn't stop us, until it started to thunder and lightning, at which point we all called it quits, filmcrew and reenactors and spectators alike. The reenactors went back to their camps to be miserable, and we spectators started for the fields to go home. The rain steadily fell, heavier and heavier, and it didn't take very long before we were absolutely soaked through to the skin. Never do I think I've been that wet without getting in a pool or bath, even one year when BDF and I went backpacking in the Smoky Mountains and it poured. We still had rain gear then.

We got back to the parking fields and discovered that most of the vehicles were sunken to the top of the tires in mud. The already saturated ground couldn't take the new onslaught of rain, and they had a couple of guys on big tractors taking turns pulling out the cars that couldn't get out. Which was most of them. People were really really stupid about things, loading up the car with five people and then not understanding why they couldn't get out, or getting going only to stop for some reason and strand themselves ten feet away from where they started. It was a disastrous mess.

But we had a Jeep. A 4WD cherokee, back when it was still just a little box on wheels. We also were smart, so BDF got in the Jeep and Agincourtdb and I stayed out. Agincourtdb scouted out a route through the mud and sunken vehicles to the one paved road going out of the place. I simply tried to stay out of the way. Just as BDF got ready to go, a man stepped behind the Jeep.

"You can't go. I won't let you." Excuse us?

"I'm next. The tractor's coming to pull me out because I have to be at blah blah blah whatever justification and I'm next. You can't go."

Agincourtdb has always been far better at dealing with the public than the rest of us, so we let him handle telling the guy that we don't need the tractor and we are going to leave. The guy became more and more indignant, insisting that we would just get going and get stuck in the way so that the tractor couldn't get to him and he wasn't going to let us go. Agincourtdb tried to explain to the guy the error in his thinking, but the guy wasn't having it. Finally Agincourtdb said "Sir, I suggest you move. We are leaving now."

The guy didn't. We tried to warn him, but he didn't move. So BDF did what he had to do, and You Can't Go was treated to a mudbath. He was covered with mud, where he had been only wet before. BDF got the Jeep out, skated over the mud along the route that Agincourtdb directed, to the road, where the guys directing traffic saw what was happening and stopped everyone to let BDF get on the road. He opened the doors and Agincourtdb and I got in, waved to my dad who was waiting for the tractor, and went home. It took a day for my hair to dry.

I tell you this amusing story because this year we took the whole family and went to the reenactment at Gettysburg on July 4th. This year, like a decade earlier, it rained, but no thunder and lightning, and nobody got sunken in mud. We did, however, get drenched. But unlike then we have kids, and unlike then they had a living history village and reenactors of all ages. There were sunbonnets and hoopskirts and muskets and uniforms everywhere. They were filming again for a new movie, and there was so much to do and see besides the reenactment of the battles themselves. So the rain was only a minor distraction. Our kids loved it and showed such a huge amount of enthusiam that I think we may try some reenacting in the future.

But maybe only when the forecast calls for sunny skies.

At one point the commentator said something to the effect of "Now is where I get goosebumps - Americans fighting Americans on American soil on the Fourth of July." Indeed.

Afterwards we drove around through the actual battlefield park. Some of us went up the huge observation tower overlooking the Peach Orchards and the Eisenhower National Historic Site. I almost chickened out two flights of stairs from the top, but then I decided I'd be pissed at myself if I came that far and didn't go all the way to the top, so I pushed on. I'm glad I did and I'm proud of myself that I didn't let my fear get the best of me. Unfortunately my knee started acting up on the way down, and I ended up favoring the left knee with my right thigh. Today was the first day I woke up without pain in that thigh.

We were too late getting home to see any local fireworks, but we did get to see bits and pieces of about six different displays along our route home. Sunny was upset that we missed the fireworks but as BDF pointed out, we kinda did have fireworks that day, and we were able to see the encore performance of A Capitol Fourth on PBS, so she got to see fireworks after all.

Much better than 12 years ago, despite the rain jinx.

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Check over here to see a bit more about what my kids thought and did the last two weekends.

Or, if that's not your style, see what I thought of "What Not To Wear Mom Makeovers" over here.

6:55 pm

Due to a trifecta of summer break, water restrictions due to a huge water main break, and some wicked thunderstorms, my children are absolutely crazy. I can't do laundry or wash dishes, we have to minimize flushing the toilet (!), pools are closed, they can't go outside and play, we have to boil our damn drinking/tooth brushing/hand washing water, and I'm going crazy! We have paper plates and plenty of bottled water, so we're fine there, but I am losing my sanity.

During dinner, Little Man, who screams just like a girl, yelled "Hey! Let's all scream loud enough to break the windows!" I Said NOOOO! But they did it anyway. Then I yelled at them. Then they did it again. I'd had enough.

Dinner was over, and I marched them up and put them to bed. When we got upstairs, Trout looked at the clock and said "But, Mom, it's only 6:55 pm."

Close enough.