Adventure in a Box

Yesterday we got something in the mail.  Everyone should get  something like this at least once in their lives.  Not necessarily what we got, but something along these lines in this fashion.  Because getting a big wooden crate from overseas is really awesome.
Cue the Indiana Jones theme music (and ignore the existence of the last movie while you do it, please.)
It arrived while I was at work.  I didn't get a phone call from my daughter, (though my DH did--what's with that?!) so I was totally surprised.
Being surprised is super-fun, so actually I didn't mind not getting the call.  And I was working, supposedly.  I just have to publicly hassle my family once in a while.
Anyway, I got my camera and started snapping pictures.  The girl had a hammer ready.  I think she was a little excited too.  :-)
The thing was built like Fort Knox.  Now that I've read 1776 by McCullough, the name Knox has a whole new depth to it.  It's a rockin' name, and a great book.  Highly recommended.  I regret not getting the illustrated edition.  BTW, I have a weird association with McCullough the author and Support Your Local Sheriff, where the bad guy Joe Danby asks what the hero's name is and he replies with Jason McCullough in the middle of a cute, funny section of dialogue.  Also also highly, highly recommended movie.  But I digress.
Getting the box opened was no easy feat.  I had to use my very modest carpentry skills to do it.
Now you can cue the creepy Indiana Jones music where they're about to open the Ark of the Covenant.
And inside the box ... was another box!
I had a flashback to a scene in The Emperor's New Groove.  Also highly recommended.  I don't think as many people saw The Emperor's New Groove as some of the other Disney movies, which is a shame.  It's one of the better ones.  I've rewatched it many times, of my own free will, with no small children to prompt me to do so.

Inside the box was an egg-like object, something wrapped in bubble wrap that was then wrapped in brown mail packaging tape so thoroughly that you couldn't actually see the bubble wrap.
We got a knife and began extracting the contents with surgical care.  My surgical nurse provided tension as I cut and peeled the bubble wrap apart.
This was what was inside.
I gasped.
.... it's so beautiful ....
But our faces didn't melt off.  We were safe.  You can go back to the adventure theme now, if you like.
We put it up on a shelf in the entryway.  Then I started to have waking nightmares about cats hopping up there, as they often do, and knocking it down.  I could actually hear the crash of it hitting the floor in my mind in the middle of the night, followed by the skidding and scrabbling of kitty feet on laminate flooring so that I couldn't even identify the perpetrator that I would have to hunt down and kill.
Not literally kill.  Or even hit, or curse at, actually.  Mostly I would just hug a pillow and rock and sob and tear my hair and throw ashes on my head.  Part of that is very Greek, appropriate in this case.

So we moved some books out of our built-in bookshelves and there it sits in a greek wine amphora-sized cubby.  The cats may still knock it down, but they would really, really have to work at it this time.  It's also nicely at eye level.
It's a replica, of course.  If it was the real thing, I would have to put it in a box.  Preferably a glass box, but back in the wooden box in the meantime, and of course I would never get around to getting the glass box, and no one would ever see it.  Which would be a shame.  But it's a replica, so it's all okay.

I won't have anything nearly so nifty to post about in a while, so enjoy the moment.  I'll get back to our regular boring stuff tomorrow.

The Home of Dreams

The dogs are rampaging.  This cooler weather has made everyone more active than usual.  We're all blackberry hacking, lawn mowing, house cleaning fools around here.  We even went to the laundromat and did all the bedding.  Or maybe it's not the weather.  Maybe aliens downloaded Pride and Prejudice (the 2005 movie) into my brain.  (Sorry, love Colin Firth, but not in the 1995 P&P movie and that sunk it for me.  Sling rotten veggies at me all you like, you can't make me like his performance better.)

Why P&P rather than, say, The Stepford Wives?  It's the architecture, the elegance, the open spaces and beautiful things that aren't too crowded, but aren't too sparse.  It about having power and affecting the world rather than being a slave to it.  And why the movie rather than the book?  Much as I enjoyed 99% of the book, the ending left me with a bad taste in my mouth because Lizzy fell in love with Mr. Darcy after she saw his beautiful home.  There's little or nothing between the lines to imply that what she saw there filled in his character and told her what he really was in his soul.  It read like plain old greed, at least to me.  In the movie, on the other hand, not only did they fill in all kinds of beautiful expressions and wow, chemistry throughout, but when Lizzy went through his house it was like she was exploring him.  Total foreplay on the screen.

Anyway, I want the house to be less of a nest and more of an expression of me.  I've been nudging it in that direction for some time, but this last week I've been digging deeper.  In writing terms, I'm making my setting more rich, and suggesting character through environment.  

I have lots of cans of paint and I'll probably lavish some on the walls upstairs, but not tomorrow because tomorrow, my first, last and only true love is coming home!!

Which is probably the root of the reason of why I'm going crazy with the clean up, but then again I usually go on a cleaning spree 24 hours prior to a big event, not building up over the course of a couple of weeks, and it's usually a pretty barbaric sort of cleaning.  This is like spring equinox and Lady's Day (May Day) combined.  There's a festival air and sacred breeze flowing all around us.

Yayness!  Bless his flight, and bless his life.  Welcome home, my beloved.

Accomplishment

I was watching "Pride and Prejudice" (the newer version) again.  Caroline asks if Elizabeth wants to take a turn about the room.  They'd been talking about accomplished young women, and Lizzie noted that "And it is a small kind of accomplishment, I suppose." (To take a turn about the room after sitting for a long time.)

To someone like Lizzie, who loves walking and walks everywhere, taking a turn around the room has got to seem silly.  To Caroline it's a ploy.  But thinking about accomplishments in general ...

For someone in really poor health, just standing up is really difficult, if not impossible.  People in really good health look down on this kind of thing all the time.  They say things like, how could someone let themselves get that bad, and so on.  This attitude provides a very handy excuse to not even try.  It's too late, there's no point, I'll never be healthy (which may be true for some--but this is where self-honesty has to be at it's best.  Is there a diagnosis, or a mental block?  Can you and your doctor work as a team to get you better, if not all the way to prime health for your age?)  If I try, I'll just look stupid.  I am healthy, I'm just big-boned.  I should be able to look any way I want, be any way I want, and people shouldn't judge me (which is true, except it shouldn't be an excuse to give up unless there's a medical reason for the situation.)  I'm truly happier this way.  (Which is great!  As long as it isn't a lie--you shouldn't be ashamed to have your picture taken or be afraid to look in the mirror, right?)  Healthy people are born that way, they're lucky.  My genes are against me.  

For the record, my genes are waaaay against me.  My grandmother has struggled against her weight all her life, and lost--she's much too heavy, although she's got low blood pressure and is still able to get around, thank goodness.  My mother has struggled against her weight all her life, and won--thanks to cooking for herself and staying active.  My paternal grandmother died of her obesity.  My father was in excellent health when he died, but he did old-school calisthenics every morning and enjoyed camping, skiing, waterskiing, and gardening.  His father is terribly overweight and a couch potato, literally waiting to die, alone.  My sister was in great shape most of her life, but then her hips began to crumble apart and she was unable to exercise.  The weight packed on.  Now, overweight and with high blood pressure, she's healing from a hip reconstruction surgery (just on one side, the other is still bad but now she can compensate) and she can't wait to get back into shape again.  She's already made huge strides in that direction.

I've struggled against my weight all my life.  When I got pregnant, the pounds ballooned and I felt what it was like to be heavy.  My doctor warned me I was gaining weight way too fast.  I flirted at the verge of gestational diabetes.  At the end of my term I was ginormous--and of course, after the baby was born, I didn't return to my pre-pregnancy weight since I put on way more than breast-feeding and looking after a newborn naturally takes away.  It's not easy for anyone, and it wasn't easy for me.  But I lost the weight again, and after being at a stable weight for many years (give or take five pounds) I'm once again working to get my weight down and my ability to do fun stuff for as long as I want up.  I don't work hard to look like Jillian Michaels.  I work hard to look like a better me.  I have the chance to improve myself every day.  I'm taking that chance today.  I plan on taking that chance again tomorrow.

It's a small sort of accomplishment to walk around the garden every non-rainy day (and some rainy ones too.)  But it's something.  It's a small sort of accomplishment to write for fifteen minutes.  All these small things can be compared to the people who run five miles every morning before work, or write eight hours, or climb Mt. Everest, and of course they come up short.  Unless you're an astronaut, comparing yourself to an astronaut and deciding you'll never reach that high serves no purpose.

There's no need to compare ourselves to anyone else in order to strive.  Strive to do something more than you already do, something important to you (as opposed to what someone has told you ought to be important--just because I'm focused on my weight right now, that doesn't mean I'm pointing at you and your weight!)  Over time, these small accomplishments build into ones we can be proud of.  One day, no, one minute at a time.

The Big Picture

I did it.  I called around, and discovered that the beautiful LCD TV I'd been looking at for the past several months at Costco is over $100 cheaper than the least expensive television of the exact same size at the place advertised as saying "shop around, but if you don't shop at XXXXX XXXX, you'll be sorry!"  I guess I won't be sorry.  

At first I'd planned on waiting until February 15th, and then when the government extended the HD deadline (um, why are we waiting?  Television is not exactly a crucial service, hello!  But I guess I'm being insensitive,) I thought what the heck, I'll wait until June.  But then I went by my daughter this afternoon sitting a couple of feet away from her brother's laptop, watching what should have been a horrific pageant of a war display (Braveheart) but was instead a cute miniature action scene, and I wondered about what waiting would really buy me.  I'd hoped a lot of saved money with the advent of plummeting sales, but the TV I wanted was already half the price of the least expensive big TVs and the prices hadn't budged on President's Day like I expected them to.  

I bet the 'big' TVs I think about are average in most people's minds.  Yikes.  To me, those 50" things are as big as I want to imagine, and those would fill up half our living room (and not in a nice way.)  Our brand new, gorgeous television is 32" and it looks plenty big to me.  Not bulky--it's smaller and lighter than our big box, but the screen is actually larger, and clearer.  I have a hard time imagining one of those monstrosities in the main aisle looming in our living room.  Actually, I take that back.  I can perfectly imagine it, more intrusive than Darth Vader and more obnoxious than Jerry Lewis.  [ducking to avoid protests thrown by Jerry Lewis fans] 

Yeah, yeah, I'm going into raptures over a dumb appliance.  Still, it's good to have our family tradition of the TV dinner theater not just return to its former glory, but exceed it.  Since we go out to the big screen theater maybe once or twice a year, don't have the television turned on from morning to night, don't watch Saturday cartoons, or late night SciFi, and we might catch the news only once a month, the TV was never about mindless passage of time, flipping channels and enduring commercials.  It's about entertainment, and culture (and because I have family members who enjoy that sort of thing, the eye-gouging 'humor' that is Robot Chicken.)  It's about storytelling, and art, and fun for a couple of hours.  With the occasional weekend marathon of our favorite TV series.  I love those.

It'll be fun exploring our DVD collection all over again.  How does The Dark Knight look?  How about Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon?  Pride and Prejudice?  Phantom of the Opera?

I'll enjoy finding out.  Now I'm totally motivated to clear off our dining table and turn it into the center of our social lives again.  We can see the big picture from there.  Crystal clear.

Flash! Bang!

First, a reminder to read Flash Fiction Online.  The new edition is out, and there's a great article by Bruce Holland Rogers.  It's the first of a series, and I can't wait for the next installment.  He has a livejournal you can link to from the wikipedia article.  No excuses, people.  Writers have got to read, and reading a flash is going to take less time than it will to go to the fridge, figure out what you want to eat, and bring it back to the computer.  

Argh!  We're under attack!  Please stand by ...

Yes, we finally reached the day when we went on our battle cruise on the glorious Lady Washington with the graceful Hawaiian Chieftain.  

I wish I had a deeper way than photographs and movies to record what we experienced.  Oh, wait, hey, I'm a writer!  Woot!  

I'd say it fulfilled a lifelong dream, but since I never imagined it would be possible to sail on a ship with cannons firing, well, I guess I can say it fulfilled a lifelong dream I never knew I could have.  

See the sail folded up neatly along the mast and angling into the boom below the sailors in the rigging?  That's the spanker (first definition on the link), and my job was to manage the brails--the lines that keep the spanker out of the wind until it's needed. Ten people to a side are ideal to manage the brails when we're hauling it in, about half that when we haul it back out again.   During the battle we hauled that baby out and tucked her back tight several times.  Sometimes the spanker sail helped, and sometimes it actually slowed us down depending on the situation with the tight, variable conditions on the river.  The captain made the call, and we'd haul the outhaul or haul the brails.  I had to sling my camera back right quick every time I heard the captain say spanker.  In a different context, I guess that could be considered kinky ...

When they asked for volunteers I thought for certain that every passenger on board would leap up and cry me me me!  But only about a baker's dozen of us, almost a quarter of them kids, ran back to help.  I got to manage the brails on the port side, but then I lost my job to Brandon for a while when he asked if he could take my place.  Later he got promoted to the helm and, with a whole bunch of other kids, ran the rudder back and forth at the captain's command, so I got the brails again.  Yay brails!

It got cold, but we didn't have rain so it wasn't miserable by any means.  The capricious winds made for an interesting fight.  The Lady Washington is amazingly nimble, and I mean really incredible. 

The crew was very welcoming, informative, and patient with their guests.  I highly recommend touring the ship, sailing with it on a sunset or battle sail if you can, or best of all (a personal goal of mine) signing up for one of the family adventures they offer in the San Juan islands.  I probably won't go this year (watch me change my mind as longing for sailing and the sea keep eating at me) but next year I hope to be a passenger on their nature and historic tour of beautiful coastal Washington State.  They do it right.  

BTW, the kid in the lifeguard shirt?  Yep, that's Brandon at the brails.  He was a real shark for the fun posts.  I wonder if he'll become a sailor one day.  I know someday when I grow up, I'd like to be a sailor, even if it's on a wee river sailboat, lazy rigged so I can run her all by my lonely if I have to.  Judging by how the family reacted to the experience, though, I won't be alone unless I beg for it.

!!!!!

I booked our sailing trip!  I'm so excited I can hardly contain myself.  Yes!! Yes yes yes!!

I'm doing my duty and spending (some) of our economic stimulus thingy.  It's a sacrifice, but someone's got to do it.  And what better cause than for The Lady Washington, official ship of our fine state, and her beautiful companion the Hawaiian Chieftain?  Looks like they offer summer camps.  Can we get another stimulus check?  I know just where to spend it.

Check out Gray's Harbor Historical Seaport and be amazed.  

I may have to save up money for the family camp.  I just can't imagine a better summer vacation.  Er, camp, you know, learning opportunity.  It'll be hard work and all.  Really.  I'm sure we'd all have a terrible time, exploring islands, taking the helm (!!) of the Lady Washington and such.  I can't believe people would pay good money (where's my wallet?) to do such a thing.

But I'm getting way, way ahead of myself.  This is all for research for Signet anyway.  Ho hum, boring.

!!!!!!!

Curse of the Crazy Paint Lady

I wondered today, at about 8:15 (the time when I was supposed to be leaving the store) if blogging about customers now and again had somehow messed up the customer character generator in the big game of retail checking. Characters seem to be melding into each other, or creating weird dopplegangers. Either that, or history is rewriting itself with my full awareness.

Now why would a relatively sane Kami think that?

Because today, shortly before closing, the crazy lady dashed in. "I have only one thing!"

Sure, whatever. The store is pretty full at closing today, so I figure she might arrive at a line if she hurried too much. I would probably be outta here in no time with just a few go backs to take care of when she inevitably changed her mind about her purchases. Except.

The crazy lady reappears near the front of the store. "Um, I need help at the paint counter."

Um, ack?

Someone dashes outside to get the hardware guy (who is doing his job starting the close up the store front since it's now after 8pm) so that we can have the hardware guy help her ASAP at the paint counter. Meanwhile, my line dwindles to zero. The other closing checker gives me a pitying look as she shuts off her light, ropes off her register and heads off to count out for the night. "It shouldn't be too long now," she says.

Uh huh.

Memories of the paint lady coming in (this was during the holiday rush crush) flood back. Could it have been the crazy lady back then as well? The crazy lady I remember from a different day, the post-holiday major percent off holiday stuff sale, where she was fine buying a $2.99 roll of tape (there was a different brand for 1/3 the price) but refused chocolate candy because even with the percent off it was too pricey. That was all fine and good, I get paid either way, and go-backs are a fun way to take a break from checking. I call it anti-shopping, cheerfully skipping through the aisles with a cart of things that need to go back on the shelves and stopping occasionally to spring on unsuspecting shoppers with an overly cheeful "Are you finding everything okay?" or, for thrills and variety, "Can I help you find anything?"

I imagine, as the minutes tick by, the crazy lady choosing colors very carefully while the hardware guy messes with the paint mixer, paces, stares at the different cans of paint and tries to anticipate her decision-making process by asking such questions as "light or dark color? Gloss, semi-gloss, satin or flat? What brand would you like?" How about we go with the first can that comes into my hand and go with, oh, I don't know, pure white?

I have one major consolation. I wasn't sure I would have enough fives, ones and pennies to get through my last hour, and I didn't want to call for those because A. if I didn't use them I'd just have more to count and B. if I used all my pennies and had to open a new roll just before closing, invariably someone, like a child, would come along with lots of pennies to get rid of, say an entire 39 cents amounting to the change on their balance, and I would have 89 pennies to count.

But it turned out that I would make it with change to spare. Yay! Even the crazy lady can't make me require a roll of pennies and a bundle each of fives and -- now don't be stupid, Kami. She might have a $100 bill, buy and candy bar, and want all her change in fives, ones and pennies.

The crazy lady arrives at last with her 'one thing,' which includes 4 large clear Rubbermaid storage bins, two paint rollers, a tarp, candy, sunscreen, and I don't remember what all else as well as the paint. "I'm an Oregon resident," she declares.

"Great!" Sounding like a cheerleader is my primary defense against being annoyed. Being annoyed is no fun for anybody. Just put on a smile, raise your voice half an octave, pretend you have DD breasts and bounce! The job's a game just like in Mary Poppins only career oriented! Check it out! I'm Barbie with a menial job!

I ring her up, but by the end I've forgotten the Oregon thing and I have to back up from the total, not a big deal, but she pipes in with, "is it too late to add an ice cream bar?"

It's not too late to ring up half our office supplies, ma'am. Bounce! "No problem."

So the ice cream sandwich gets added in, tax is removed, paperwork is achieved and I'm done for the night. A supervisor loiters at my checkstand. The hardware guy is locking up the cigarette case behind me, crowding me while I'm trying to get out of my register. The crazy lady is forced to edge around a palette of goodies now blocking the back door. Two employees help her carry her stuff to her car because there's no way a cart is getting out.

I guess that's the way to get primo service. Only next time, I think the managers might close the store a bit early if they see her coming. As for me, I got primo service too. A supervisor helped me count out, and I was on my way out to the car by 8:24. All's well that ends well.