Appearances Can Be Deceiving

If you're a blog reader, this is the time of year alot of bloggers like to post about the wonders of spring.  Oh, how they love the first hints of spring.  They post pictures of their first sightings of robins and carry on about the beauty and awesomeness of nature.  I have those photos too.  I got this one by leaning over the counter in my tiny work cubicle, stretching my arms toward the window until I thought my shoulders would pop, and then holding my breath so I could hold the camera steady enough to snap this guy.  Yeah, it was a breathtaking experience.

In our neck of the woods the deer have gotten tired of fighting the traffic and have decided it's time to get the heck out of Dodge. I snapped these guys on their way up the mountain after we had skiied in sticky, wet snow.  It was two hours of slipping when I tried to glide, or starting to glide, hitting a sticky spot, stopping dead and almost falling on my face.  Either way my body was jerked backward or forward.  My back was aching and my brain was telling me, well, I can't say what my brain was telling me.  As it was, I wasn't feeling the joy of spring when these deer crossed in front of us.

People also like to post about the hope new life brings and the joy they experience when they observe it.  I was just hoping I wouldn't step in any of the gifts Shadow left in the yard when I wandered around to take these photos.  However, I was filled with joy by the knowledge that Shadow left those gifts for Dean.  Not me.  Nope.  Not me.

Of course the down side of spring arriving is that summer will soon follow. Not that I don’t love summer.  I do.  I love summer.  Until I get sick of mowing the lawn, or all my evenings and weekends are eaten up by unmentionable building projects.  It's just that I sleep so much better in the winter with the window open and I can see my breath in the bedroom.  Sleeping won't be as pleasant for Shadow either because that down comforter that I gently throw off multiple times a night won't be gradually sliding onto the floor where she sleeps and filling her bed.  And since it's warmer in the summer I am forced to sleep with not just one, but every window open as wide as possible.  I think those annoying, early morning chattering, cheery, chirpy birds sit just outside my bedroom windows just so they can wake me up way too early on purpose.

So, as you can see, I have the same photos everybody else has showing the hope that spring is here.  And I am sure I will not be alone when I don a pair of shorts, hoping it means old man winter is on its way out.  Even though the reflection from my legs will cause an epidemic of blindness in the general public.  But I have something that the rest of the blogland announcers of spring don't have.  I have definitive proof that spring is not just a hope but a reality.  I have this.

When two men (some might say crazy men) are grinning ear to ear, scraping snow off their drift boat while visions of fishies swim in their heads, winter is over. Spring has arrived.

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Appearances Can Be Deceiving

Trolls are not nice people

It’s March. It will soon be March Madness and people will be mad for basketball. They’ll go mad for their team and their picks. They'll cheer and shout and love this month.  But March is not a good month for me. I am just mad. I hate the month of March and most of the month of April. I’m cranky and out of sorts and nothing makes me happy. It’s warm(er) outside so that means nordic skiing is pretty much over, but the hiking trails are either still blocked with snow or too muddy to step foot on. The time changes, so instead of getting up and driving to work in daylight, I'll do that in the dark again. What’s the point of a longer day if it’s too wet and muddy outside to do anything?

To make matters worse my job has been so boring lately that staying upright in my chair has been a feat of Herculean effort, made possible only by the few licorice lentils I allow myself when I feel a coma coming on. On top of that, our yearly blood chemistry results came in the mail yesterday and my bad cholesterol is up a little from last year. So now when I eat those lentils, I’m going to do it with even greater guilt, resulting in an even madder me. But I have to eat them, because if I don’t, I might not be able to control the resulting sloom drool and I’m pretty sure there’s an office policy prohibiting drool on keyboards.

For me, cleaning the house and kneading bread are good ways to get rid of a bit of the stay away from me, life stinks feelings I always experience this time of year. Yesterday, to try and make myself feel better (and improve the odds of maintaining my marital status), I did both. I cleaned the house, and I mixed up, kneaded vigorously, and baked sourdough onion bread. After five hours the house was clean, the bread was cooling on the kitchen counter, and I was feeling a whole lot better.  I even felt a smile pushing its way to the surface as I went downstairs to pull freshly washed rugs from the dryer.  I love newly laundered rugs.  Rugs with no grease splatters on them, no animal fur, no food bits.  I love clean rugs almost as much as crawling into clean sheets on Sunday night.  I carried the rugs upstairs feeling better than I had for days. As I started laying them on the kitchen floor, I noticed that where there had been two loaves of bread when I had gone downstairs to get the rugs, now there were only onion bits and one.  Damn that dog!  That pretty much canceled out any improvement I'd managed to make in my mental outlook.

Either she doesn't like onion, or she only had time to grab and run with it before we interrupted her afternoon refreshment because there was only dog drool, no missing chunks.  And Dean wonders why Shadow and I are not friends.....

So, as I said, it’s the month of madness and I've been mad. But there are all kinds of madness. There was a time when one madness led me to another madness which led my whole family to yet another madness.

In 1981, during a previous oil and gas boom, Dean and I were renting a house in Rock Springs owned by an ancient and evil troll who lived two houses away. This evil troll called us over one night, and with soft cheese sticking to his false teeth, he sat with hands on his TV tray and said to us, "the grass in the yard of the house I am allowing you to rent from me is 1/32 of an inch too long.” It so happened that it was my job to mow the lawn due to the fact that I was a stay-at-home-mother of two young daughters with nothing to do, and Dean was required to sit at a computer and lift a heavy mouse all day. “But Mr. Ancient Evil Troll”, I said. “I have two young daughters. One is but but six months old. I must mow while she sleeps and she sleeps so little.” “I care not!”, snarled the troll, as soft chunks of cheese fell out of his mouth and dribbled down his chin.  I got mad.  "I'll show you", I said to myself.  And instead of personally placing the next montly rent check in the evil troll's gnarled hand, I put it in an envelope, stomped down to the post office, and mailed it.  This did not set well with the troll.  “Be gone!” he bellowed as spittle flew out of his mouth.  "Leave this place!"  And we did. 

However, due to the oil and gas boom, there were few places available to rent, and greed was king.  We had no other choice than to explore other options.  On December 1, 1981 we moved here. 

Over 40 miles from the nearest town.

And stayed for nine months.

With no electricity. With no natural gas.  With no running water. With no ability to communicate with the outside world.  But with no evil trolls. 

                                                   Laundry day.

Maybe sometime, if I sense any interest, or I just feel like writing, I will tell you about the time I thought we were going to die, in our truck, stuck between two snowdrifts.   Or about the day I butchered my first (and last) chicken all by myself.  Or the day I almost killed (unintentionally, of course) my youngest child.  Or what I did that time when drifted highways kept Dean in town for two days. And I had run out of firewood. And the wind was howling. And the temperature was below zero. And I was alone. With my children. 40 miles from nowhere. Or maybe I'll tell you what cabin fever REALLY means.  If you're interestered.

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Trolls are not nice people

12-Step Program

My name is Dean and I am a BFD addict.  All summer my life has been controlled by chunks of wood.  I have fooled myself into believing I was in control.  I thought I could stop working on the BFD at any time.  I was positive I could be at home for one full weekend without the uncontrollable urge to sort, inspect and touch wood until the perfect board is found.  I thought I could resist planing this newly discovered perfect board on my awesome jointer/planer until it was so soft and smooth I could rub it along the beard-free portion of my face (or maybe the larger area on top of my head) with no worry of slivers.  I told myself I could stop vacuuming stray specks of sawdust from this chunk of wood any time I chose.  There was no doubt in my mind I could say no! when my friend cried out for waterproofing to bring forth the soft lustre of her grain.  I believed it when I told my wife it would be easy to stay out of the garage for one whole weekend.  I promised I would not touch one power tool this Labor Day weekend. 

I am a BFD addict. I cannot stop. Help me....

Fessing up update:  Okay, I wrote that.  But I'm absolutively, positively, no-doubt-about-it sure that's what Dean WOULD have written if he could have.  I've heard admitting you have a problem is the first step.◦

12-Step Program

Living In Disneyland

It occurred to me today that marriage is like living in Disneyland. There's the excitement and anticipation of a life with your Prince Charming (waiting in line for tickets), the proposal (finally arriving at the ticket window), the engagement ring (fast pass), and the wedding (entering the hallowed gates). Marriage is everything you had hoped for (you never have to wait for a ride). As time goes on, life with your Prince Charming is good and you support each other through the ups and downs of a life together (puking after the Mad Teacups ride). Many years pass, you raise children, (Mr. Toad's Wild Ride) and as you each evolve and mature, over time you (Cruella de Vil) and your Prince Charming (Goofy) develop your own unique married-person language that goes something like this:

I'm leaving for work (arms outstretched for a hug), I What do you mean you're hope you leaving? You enjoy your field have to drop me off trip. You at the didn't hotel! tell me I had Yes, I to take did. you. You I can't take were worried about you. how you'd get your car in. I have to drop my car How else off at Honda. I told will I get you last week. there? No, I only I can't leave wondered my car at the who hotel for could pick three me up days. We since you talked about this. would be You gone. knew that you had to I take me! didn't know. Yes, I you did did not. Fine. Okay. Let's go. (Big Thunder Mountain Railroad).◦

Living In Disneyland