All I've Got

I'm living reclusively these days where it's safe and quiet.
There's something inherantly stressful about family and holidays.
Me and stress are old buddies, but we usually don't get along.

Oh yeah, did I mention that we're moving cross country in less than 10 days and the Navy hasn't given us any money to do it?
I'm sure that can't be helping my emotional state at the moment.

My rattie has a tumor that's grown to the size of an orange. Truthfully, I thought she would die before it got this big. Apparently it's not cancer, so it's not a quick death. This would be one of those rare occasions that anyone would be dissapointed to discover it's not cancer.
I called the vet and since she doesn't appear to be in any pain they said to let her die naturally.
If dying of a large benign preventable tumor is "natural" then I guess that's what they meant. I'm not particularly favoring the idea of dragging Daisy AND two ratties in a cage cross-country.

Ugh.
Getting nauseous just thinking about it.

I keep coming upon this concept of the “universal human element,” the theory being that “all we are we are.”
Perhaps that is a formless assessment of the theory shrouded in simplicity, but the underlying idea being – it is that simple.
Stripped down, bones bared, we tend to obsess with our appearances, and worse, identify with them.
But it is the recognition that we are the human experience, dressed up in whatever hat we’ve chosen to wear, that allows us to see the grand design.
And it’s so brilliant, with an infusive quality that creates an effervescent spirit.
I want to share it and spread it and drink it and live it, ever so thankful that I know it.

The depth of which I feel to be
Significant
Of something portentous and meaningful
is the depth to which I feel
I must write.

There’s nothing casual about it.
Yet I hold it at a distance
To better contain and control
Everything that
moves to the surface.

So what I battle now are demons of my own creation.
I’ve walked into a space of smoke and mirrors
with no sense of direction of
what is within and what is without.
Afraid to look at my reflection for fear of finding that
I am who I thought I was.

There’s nothing worse than discovering
You were the one selling yourself this whole time.

You forfeit your right to cry
when you are the cause of your own tears.

How unfortunate.

Everyone has them, nobody wants them, and often times you'll remember them with either a sigh or a grin. But I've learned that there's always another worse one out there - just be glad these weren't your bad days...

"Curiosity Drowned the Human"
It's something I'd yell at my child for, shake them by the collar and say in a barely contained voice, "What were you thinking?" I know that curious hands do curious things, and often times there's no other explanation for strange accidents. But there comes a point when a mature adult is old enough to know better than to let curiosity get the better of them...and stick a wire hanger into an electrical sprinkler system that is wired throughout the condominium building, triggering the alarm, and causing massive flooding the type of which the fire department has never seen. This is the only time you would curse your highly efficient sprinkler system. I'd hope that my husband would die of embarrassment so I wouldn't have to kill him myself. Let him explain this to the insurance company (which he did with appropriate embarrassment)


"Let's Try That Again"
Do you ever have those moments when you're quietly laying in bed, and imagine what the day might have in store? Let's just say sometimes it's a good thing we don't have intuition.
When the neighborhood dogs decide to have a dog fight directly on top of the hood of your car, then in their riled state of canine infused testosterone mania begin to chew off your grill, it gives one enough pause to think that maybe today is gonna be "one of those days." After helplessly watching your vehicle's paint job suffer beneath paws and claws, and leaving your grill in the driveway, you bravely face the day - only to finish grocery shopping and coming out to find your car's rear bumper smashed in by a hit and run. This is when you deserve a kit-kat. In other words, we'll give you a break and a good healthy dose of sympathy on the side.


"He's in - WHAT?!"
There are crazies out there, we've all heard the stories. And for some reason, crazies like call centers. State Farm's longest and most loyal caller, is in fact, not a customer at all. He's a regular guy, a genuine gentleman, until he catches you off guard by asking you, "So, what does customer service mean to you?" Whether you actually get the opportunity to answer depends on how he's feeling that day. Launching into a profanity laden tirade of lawsuits involving State Farm, this loyal caller has not only earned himself State Farm fame, he has also earned himself a name and his very own procedure. "The Rockford Caller" has been calling State Farm every Sunday, through a claims service office located in Rockford, IL, for eight years. If, by chance, you are the lucky winner and recieve his call, just pull up your handy dandy "Rockford Caller" word track, read it to him, explaining that the claims service office number is to be used for claim related issues only, tell him if he has any questions to contact his State Farm agent (as if he had one), and then disconnect the call.
My favorite, absolutely favorite part of this story, is the part where I tell you that State Farm had finally decided they were going to start tracking the calls to find out where they were coming from, in the hopes of stopping them. Imagine the response of State Farm employees (especially those in IL) when we learned he was calling from JAIL!

This raises a host of question. Basic ones, like "What the heck is he in jail for and how much longer?" and "They give you one call a week and you're calling...me?" This goes beyond having a bad day. This guy must be having, like, a bad life.



I can't leave without reminding you there are important lessons to every story. Today those lessons are:

1. "No wire hangers!" may be a good thing.

2. Sometimes the urge to never roll out of bed can be right on.

The last, and potentially life saving lesson?

3. Caller ID, people. Caller ID.

What's the fun of getting to stay home from work and school for two days, stocking up on water and flashlights, and filling your bathtub with water (so you can still flush your toilet in case water goes out) if it's a gentle rain outside with a nice cleansing breeze?
Come on - give us something to remember! Meteoroligists built this one up and really set us up for dissapointment. We hunkered down to weather Ivan in Pensacola - which hit as a Category 3 hurricane, and compared to that, I feel like all this weather is good for is churning up the surf and creating an exciting day at the beach.
It's only noon, so I'll keep you posted.
I might take a nice walk outside. It's the first time in weeks the humidity hasn't made me want to say, "I'm going for a swim around the block."

"A man’s mind stretched by a new idea can never go back to its original dimensions.” Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Our minds have been stretched, our eyes have been opened; may the passionate and courageous lead the way.

State Farm is the place to be.
I'm so excited to get my foot back in the door. It's a wonderful company to work for and have insurance with. I'm only sorry they don't give me an employee discount so that I can afford to have insurance through them.
I guess when you're number 1, you can afford to be a bit snobby:)
But being in the Customer Response Center, filing claims, talking to claim reps, answering policy questions, it's all coming back to me (8 years really flew by!) and I want to make myself a valuable asset to my team and to myself so that when the time comes for us to move to San Diego in the spring I'll have some relocation options.

Speaking of moving to San Diego, I'm hoping we can stick to North County.
Well, actually I have a lot more to say about the whole experience and all that goes into it, so I'll leave that for another blog.
Happy Tuesday!

My chicken and rice soup is suffering from Clumping Disease.
I added too much rice, which meant i had to compensate by adding more water.
The extra water diluted the flavor, and in the end, it still wasn't enough.
The result?
I'm eating my "soup" with a fork and it tastes overwhelmingly like the color white, which it most definately is.

That was the catastrophe part.

The adventure is: I have made my first loaf of home made bread.
The yeast part scared me. I read the packet and learned they were living!
Consequently, I opened with caution, not knowing what to expect.
Nothing jumped out at me, in case you were wondering.
It was fun kneading the dough, punching out air bubbles, watching it rise.
It's currently in the oven, so I can't actually confirm that this "adventure" shouldn't also be labeled under "catastrophe" as well.
20 minutes will tell.
But I haven't failed so fantastically at dinner in...oh, I don't know - years I'd say.
Imagine that!
Even back in the days when it was Hamburger Helper and Tuna Casserole 4 x a week did I manage to fair better than this.
I'm holding out for the bread.
Time will tell.
It always does.

thank you for the suggestion.
give me a moment to...okay, thought about it.
The answer is no for 2 reasons.

1. What's the fun of planting something if you can't watch it grow? It's a dirty little round piece of organic material that grows below ground. Nothing romantic or inspiring about that.

2. Potatos are threatened by the golden nematode (which has been described in one scientific journal as a "scourge"; I think the last time I read that word was when it was used to talk about a particularly violent, murderous, and nasty rat named Cluny.) Further more, potatos are suseptable to contract Potato Virus Y which simply sounds like a dirty form of a potato STD but one that ends in foliar necrosis. I've never seen foliar necrosis, Matt, but I bet you it's not pretty. And if I can't bare to witness the rape and subsequent death of my beautiful flowering zuchini plant, how shall I stand strong in the face of Ring Rot - a bacterial infection that rots the potatos from the outside in?
Potatoes you say?
Really, Matt, how could you be so insensitive.

though generally not a pragmatic person
there tend to be benefits to rational thinking.
and while i have occasionally been known to behave practically,
crying over a zuchini plant may not be the best example of this.
this is only significant in certain respects, but I refuse to consider which.
i am all right with this.
everyone likes to hide sometimes.

If there were one principle in this world that I have fought against with all my might, it has been this; if there were a truth that I have struggled to dismiss as the bitter hope of an atheist, it is this: chaos is the order of the Universe.

I am witnessing the unraveling of the fabric of this world, of my life;
my zuchini's have been raped.

I know not what has caused me to find them in their abused and violated state, only that I know they will not survive, or if they do, they will forever live in the shadow of the glorious plants they almost were.
This pains me deeply, such that I am left gingerly peeling away the thick, hollow, succulent filled stems and choking on my despair.
Shall there ever be sacred order in my life that is not susceptible to violent thrashing forces?
This cannot be allright.
I cared for them so tenderly - have wiped their broad hirsute leaves from biting ants and hungry caterpillars, have tromped and challenged the moles that threatened to invade their root systems, carefully lifted and inspected the vibrant yellow flowers in anticipation of the swollen fruit that was soon to emerge.
And where has my energy gone? The particles of love have been scattered in the wind, dissipating into the atmosphere, never to exist in its intended form.

Truthfully I am more enraged than devastated, but dare not let myself acknowledge this.
It is a quiet belief of mine that anger is not to be entertained but divorced.
Anger has no place in a loving universe, in love itself.

So.
I will stand tonight with my sadness in hand, and be witness to the literal darkness that has gathered above my home.
It will wash away this tragedy and in its place I will find faith.
But first, I must stop pouting long enough to mourn.
Come the dawn, I will have found the strength to do what must be done - as it has always been this way.

I need privacy from myself.
I invade all my thoughts, and it isn’t safe to think or create without having to endure my own criticism. Do you know how painful this can be?
Most.
I don’t dare write a line for fear that the care that went into creating it might be disregarded as inadequate or unworthy of existance and therefore subject to DELETION.
Words that are carefully arranged, one next to the other, tenderly and delicately, often cannot withstand the pulverizing and destructive force of my own analysis.
Perfectionism is my demon and I facilitate it by cooperating.
I do not write because I have not faced that fear.
I fear exposure, and subsequently, rejection.
“Better to never try and envision dreams of glory, than give your all and find out it wasn’t good enough.”
What a defeatist!

And she carried the world in her arms.
Slow and heavy was she,
but happy to know
That she was a woman with purpose.

Fact #1.Moles do not own scuba equipmentFact
#2.Moles do, however, laugh.

As day three commences, I walk barefoot out onto the battlefield to inspect the integrity of the ground. If any of you have dealt with this enemy before, you will know that the mole's subterranean travelling weakens the ground, uproots grass, and displaces dirt. If, by chance, you cannot see where the mole has traveled, you can find it by placing pressure upon the ground and if it sinks beneath your foot - Bingo.At what first seemed like a successful combination of tunnel demolition and drowning, I have only come to discover that instead of choosing to stay and die, the moles have done what I simply could not and had not expected: They moved.The effects of this migration remain unknown.The upside?They are moving towards the neighbor's fence.The downside is if I fail to herd them properly I will only succeed in managing to spread the destruction of the battlefield to include the ENTIRE backyard.Time to think and regroup.
Moles: 1pt
Me: to be determined

The day has dawned. What shadows remain resting on the grass are not enough to conceal the stark truth - the Moles have remained undaunted by Phase One of the surprise attack (code name Stab & Destroy) aimed at their colony. Obviously intending to dishearten me with the speed in which they regrouped and rebuilt, they have unwittingly given me valuable information.There is a large mound of displaced dirt that towers high above the rest.This is no doubt Mole Headquarters.Consequently, Stab and Destroy Phase 2 begins here.In resuming the bombardment of tunnel demolition from yesterday morning, I have added a new element...Let's see if these guys can breathe under water.

I know they say not to make a mountain out of a mole hill.But whatever genius coined this phrase has surely never been forced to live with mole hills pocking his green grass like round turds protruding from the ground; they might as well be mountains for all the dirt that is being displaced!I have found moles to be rather sensitive creatures prone to mild cases of flatulence, poor dental health, and the occasional hankering for a sweet morsel of chocolate. Who wouldn't be any of these things after eating earth worms day in and day out? I understand that a mole is a mole. He was born a mole, he will die a mole, and it is only fitting that he act like a mole in between.I like to think of myself as trying to live in tune with nature and the environment. I'd just as soon remove a spider from the ceiling and take it outside than kill it with the rubber tread of my husband's tennis shoe. (Unless it's a large hairy spider the size of my hand that jumps into the house from the back patio and attempts to crawl under the couch. Then you're dead, sucker.)But, I'm not a violent person by nature. Like everyone else, I have lines that any creature of nature may inadvertently cross. Somehow I've managed to convince myself that the aggressive behavior directed at the moles in the backyard is simply a matter of self-defense. What complicated my moral compass was when Daisy entered the picture.Now, Daisy is a digger. I'm beginning to believe she loves dirt as much as moles. From the very first day we brought her home, she's had her paws in the ground and her nose in a hole. After digging for minutes on end, fervently searching for the source of some exotic smell, more often than not it's nothing more than a rock. (Unfortunately for me, there seem to be a lot of them in the ground.)This particular afternoon I caught her digging, it turned out to be more than a rock. Creeping closer, through squinted eyes it looked as if she had caught a toad.A toad with pink feet."Daisy, did you eat the skin off that poor toad's feet?!" I shrieked.She looked at me and cocked her head.At the time I just thought she was having trouble understanding why I wouldn't have done the same. Now I realize it's because she thought I was weird for thinking it a toad. Upon closer inspection, it dawned on me that toads don't have fur. And that was when it began to burrow back down into the earth."Oh, no you don't!" I shouted.Shoving Daisy Stand aside, I grabbed the most resourceful and useful thing I could find – the 3 ft shovel for the pooper scooper.At this point, the mole was too deep to simply pick up. I would have to dig. It occurred to me that I couldn't actually say with certainty whether moles were dirty creatures tainted with rabies, or notorious for being aggressive little buggers who bit at any finger reckless enough to get in its way. Faced with this unpleasant prospect I decided it was best to try to get beneath the mole with the flat end of the scooper and lift him, like a spatula would flip a pancake. Daisy watched with unbridled enthusiasm, as I imagine she was thrilled to see me engaging in one of her all time favorite activities. (That's what I love about dogs. She could have called me a hypocrite, but at that moment all she felt was gratitude for having a human mom that finally understood her passion for digging.)Several times I imagine how close I came close to crushing the frightened creature in half. The queasiness I felt in my stomach at that thought was when I realized with certainty that I could not kill a mole.1 minute later the mole was sitting in an orange bucket on my kitchen stove."Crap," I thought. "Now what?"Turns out moles are the opposite of aggressive. In fact, they play dead.I know this because he was laying there in front of pretending to be dead.Perhaps he was trying to invoke some sympathy, perhaps he was being calculative and manipulating my emotions. Whatever the motive, he succeeded in convincing me that he was creature of passivity and would never have hurt me given the chance.This whole episode took place minutes before I had to leave to pick up Emma from school, which prompted the most ridiculous conversation with myself:Do I take the mole with me?No. Don't be stupid. Who does that? Look at it. It's a mole in a bucket.Where would he sit – in your lap?Well I can't just leave him here – what if he jumps out.Moles don't jump.Well they could! What if I put the lid on?No Dummy! He'll suffocate. Why don't you find a more suitable container and put some dirt in there so he isn't so scared.Hold on. You're concerned about his feelings?? He's a MOLE.And so it went. Needless to say I felt ridiculous.But don't worry. Later that evening as David and I sat watching a movie, listening to him in his plastic container digging in circles, perhaps wondering why he wasn't getting anywhere, I suddenly knew what I would do with him.I left the house and crossed the street to the mail box. Under the cover of darkness I dumped the container of mole and dirt beneath a big bush in the neighbor's yard and wished him well.Let's just hope moles don't have that special homing ability that pigeons do. That, dear friend, would just make this story rather embarrassing.