All My Little Words

The last 10 days or so have been crazy, stressful, chaotic.
Tuesday morning, my day off – and only a few days into the move – tendonitis flared up in my right hand, arm, shoulder, all up and down, and it was terrible. I was supposed to move all day that day, but I couldn’t even start until 11am, several hours after I’d intended to. I managed to work late into the night, but from Wednesday through Saturday, that arm just KILLED me. Finally, a combination of treatments and LESS WORK have eased the pain.

We have new living room furniture, a new screen door in the solarium, new light fixtures, and Sage has a new futon and sheets for his bed. Tomorrow, our new bed frame should be delivered to go with the new matress and some new fancy sheets and blankets. And a new fridge.

There is still some stuff to move, but I feel like we’re closing in on it, I guess. I will be so glad when it is all over…
But at least we got cable yesterday, and we sat on our new comfy furniture and watched tv.
Tonight – HEROES!

While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75-year old Texas rancher whose hand was caught in a gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man. Eventually the topic got around to Sarah Palin and her bid to be a heartbeat away from being President. The old rancher said, ‘Well, ya know, Palin is a post turtle.’

Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a post turtle was.

The old rancher said, ‘When you’re driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that’s a post turtle.’

The old rancher saw a puzzled look on the doctor’s face, so he continued to explain. ‘You know she didn’t get up there by herself, she doesn’t belong up there, she doesn’t know what to do while she is up there, and you just wonder what kind of dumb ass put her up there to begin with.’

Finally, finally, finally, I think it’s all over. Well, not all, we still have to finish packing, move and clean, but that’s the easy part in comparison.
Yesterday morning, I went to the bank, got the great big check and then we went to the escrow office, handed it over, and signed about a million papers. We may have missed initialing one, so I have to drop it off this morning. We got one key, and should get the rest today. We bought a new mattress last night, although I don’t think Alex actually purchased the bed yet. Mattress gets delivered tomorrow, though.
Comcast is screwing us on the cable, insisting that they can’t come to “install” it until 10/4. I think that’s bullshit.

I guess this means that Alex and I will potentially begin moving stuff in tonight. He will do a ton more tomorrow, and I think we will get a truck for Sunday and Monday. Wow. Finally. Amazing. That’s all I can say.

Even though I am not a morning person by any stretch of the imagination, there have been many times in my life when I found myself up early, sometimes because I needed to be, and sometimes because I wanted to be. Then sometimes, like today, it just happened.

One thing I’ve noticed about morning – the earlier you are up, the weirder things are, or seem to be. I have already seen and heard some weird shit this morning. I suppose that shouldn’t be surprising, considering that we’ve got the Creature from the Black Lagoon, or Coonzilla or something equally creepy living in and around our backyard.

We’ve suspected for a while now that there was something living under the shed and deck, most likely a rat. I had found a dead rat (sweet!) in the basement, and the dogs frequently “hunt” around the shed and the deck. They stare and manuever as if following whatever it may be. I also found a number of bright, shiny objects from around the house in the middle of the backyard, and everyone knows that rats like bright, shiny objects. I wasn’t at all concerned that there might be a rat out there. Rats are small, it wasn’t coming inside (and if it did, its lifespan would decrease exponentially) and the dogs were ready to get it outside. I also know that EVERYONE has rats. You think you don’t, but you do. Even if you live in a nice neighborhood, are wealthy, and keep your house clean. So much the better. The wealthy throw out tons of perfectly good food and rats don’t even have to risk going indoors to get it.

On Monday, we were about to go to bed, and the dogs were out for the last time of the night, when we heard this horrific (but not dog-like) noise. We rushed out, put the dogs in, and searched for the source. Nothing. Went inside, went to bed. As soon as everyone totally quieted down inside, the thing started to make noise outside. We popped up out of bed, and tried to listen for where it was coming from so we could shine light on it. Nothing. This happened several times, and eventually, we fell asleep.

Repeat to a lesser degree, and without the initial horrific noise, Tuesday night. Now, up until this point, I had been assuming that the thing was just a big, deranged raccoon, despite the fact that some of the noises I had heard were not like any raccoon I’ve ever encountered. And yes, there have been a few. Outside of the fact that we have plenty of urban ‘coons, I’ve run into a number on camping trips past. In fact, most of the raccoons I’ve encountered don’t make a ton of verbal noises. Yeah, they’ll crash through the bushes, and walk right up to you and take food out your hand, but the sounds that actually come from inside the things are not really that loud or ferocious.

Last night, I called Sasha thinking she was outside. Instead, she came running from inside to be let out. So I figured, okay, one last time for two minutes while I went to the bathroom. I go to let her back in and hear this insane, crazed snarling/growling/snorting, I don’t know what.the.fuck. I call the dog, and she’s not coming and I’m running around looking for her and I’m not seeing her, all I know is that this noise is coming from the corner of the yard or MAYBE the neighbor’s yard, just the other side of the fence. Sasha spends a lot of time back in that back corner behind the shed, and often crashes around back there, I had often thought maybe trying to jump over the fence. But maybe it was her trying to get the yard monster?! I ran back inside to get a flashlight, and of course when I came back out (little Rolando trailing behind me, snarling his little ass off, ready to killkillkill! – I had to stuff him back in real quick) Sasha was RIGHT THERE. But the thing was still making some shitty noise, so I threw her inside, but by the time I came back to the yard, the thing had shut up.

Went to bed. As soon as we all shut up, we heard the thing again. Here’s the thing. It snorts and squeals like a pig, in addition to the snarling/growling noises, so I am pretty sure I have an urban Chupacabra in my back yard.

Can’t. Wait. to. Move.

Good Lord, things are crazy. The house is a maze, something I hope to rectify today.

On top of all the other phone calls I have to make, yesterday I discovered that the insurance check I received for the guy hitting me 3 months ago, was in Canadian funds, so part of it was deducted from my account. That will take about a million phone calls to clear up, I’m sure.

Then, last night, I received a call from work saying that my father had called. No message, or indication of level of urgency, but it raises my level of anxiety to at least Orange Alert. He and I don’t talk, unless you count the letters he sends, which are filled with wild accusations and are obviously intended to make me feel guilty for something. I personally feel that I have the right to choose to whom I speak or don’t for any reasons whatsoever, no matter how good or bad, but he doesn’t seem to agree. I don’t think that I should have to have a “relationship” with him, just to satisfy his sense of self worth or whatever it is he is trying to acheive. I don’t have time to develop a whole new relationship with him. Plus, experience has taught me that when it comes to “family” – i.e. blood relations – one should be extrememly cautious, especially when you haven’t had much contact with them for a long time and don’t know what their motivations are. I’ve been burned – badly – in the past, and I’d rather just keep my distance.

Last night, the dogs went nuts, and we heard this crazy, crazy sound. Of course, when we went out to look, we didn’t see anything. At all. So we settled everyone down, and lay down in bed. Shortly after Alex fell asleep, I heard it again. Whatever it was sounding like it was tearing flesh apart or something equally crazy. Of course, when we looked, nothing. Alex falls asleep again, crazy noise again, we pop up and look…nothing.
I’m sure it’s just a raccoon (although I’ve never heard one that sounds like THAT) and they are all over the city, but it makes me more glad that we are moving. Everytime the crazy noises happened, both dogs would race around the house, bumping into shit, and looking for a way to get outside. For the first time in months, we slept with all the doors shut all the way (usually, doors are partly open and screens are shut, but I didn’t trust a screen to protect us from a rabid raccoon ). Eventually, crazy sounds ceased.

Time to go leave a check for the cleaning lady at work and go get some cleaning suppplies of my own.

There sure is a lot going on lately, in Seattle, and the world around us, although I’ve felt the need to just focus on myself, mostly because it is all too overwhelming. But as I near what seems to be the finish line, I take notice more. I’ve talked about the upcoming election, and man, am I ever scared, but we do what we can and while I will be upset if the outcome is not to my liking, I will be ANGRY like crazy (I sure as HELL was last time), I will still have to focus on my own life and my own stuff.

I am excited for Seattle though. A lot of things happening here seem scary too – more foreclosures, Boeing is on strike which is supposedly causing layoffs among other related industries, and WaMu may be about to sink like the Titanic. But we’ve also got The Crocodile making a comeback, and the rest of what I might refer to as “real Seattle” (it’s clubs and bars and other mainstays of life here) seems to be thriving.

A good while back, I noticed that something was happening here, and I saw a whole timeline that has played out pretty much as I thought it would. A lot of people came here. And then a lot more. And then even more. A lot of them had money, and they, along with a lot of people who were already here, made a lot of money on a lot of stuff. Real estate, finance, dot coms, nouveau riche shishi boutiques, Hummers and other gas guzzlers….and on and on and on. Who knows what will happen beyond today, but right about now, it is all seeming pretty flash in the pan. Things happened, and they happened big, but now they are fizzling. Some people who made money got out quick, and others have lingered trying to milk it. Well, keep trying because that cow, my friends, is dry as a bone.

I see Seattle slowly but surely returning to something that resembles what it always was: a down & dirty, nitty-gritty, working class city. Sure, we have wealth and class, and art & style here – but that is not what keeps us afloat. It is the barbers and the builders, and the machinists and the bartenders. It is the people who work hard for a tangible result, not people who have floaty, effervescent job titles and jobs that even they can barely explain.

I am not an economist, but the boom time was terrifying. It was like realizing that you someone had built a rocket around you without your knowledge, and suddenly you realized that you were flying int space at incomprehensible speeds. And everyone was like “It’s cool, it’s great, things will be amazing!” but no one really knew what they what they were talking about. While rocketing into space WOULD be hella awesome cool and super exciting, when it comes to real life, I’m a down to earth kinda girl from a down to earth kinda town. So I’m pretty glad that it feels the rocket is coming in for a landing – on Earth.

I know that the desire for wealth is a powerful thing in this country, and I sure wouldn’t complain if someone handed me a big stack of cash, but beyond that, wealth is not important to me. Call me simple, I won’t deny it. I never wanted to be rich and drive a big, fancy car and live in a big, fancy house. I just wanted MY car, no payment and A house. Period. I guess I cannot deny anyone else the opportunity to try to achieve whatever wealth they want, but all the desire for more was affecting the rest of us, and not in a good way.

Now that we are certain to be moving into OUR house soon, I don’t care one bit what it is worth next year or the year after. I just want to live there a good long time. I don’t think we have any reason to worry about making our payments because we have a fixed mortgage, and we both have jobs doing tangible things.

Last night, while we lay in bed, for the first time that I have ever noticed, a big, bright moon shone in the window, bathing us in the most beautiful light. It was something I may not see after we move, it may be specific not only to a certain moon phase at a certain time of year, but to this spot. It was one of those things. It’s fnny how sometimes you only see something like that right before you’re about to leave a place and may never see it again.

Goodnight Moon.

Last night, as we were having celebratory dinner and margaritas with friends, the conversation turned, unsurprisingly, to Sarah Palin.

After we ranted about what we’d heard about her for a few minutes, I had to relate one of my favorites so far.
That I had read that the town that Sarah Palin is from, and was also Mayor of – Wasilla, a town of less than 10,000 people – was the meth capital of the world.

Before I go any further, allow me to clarify that in referencing the article I read this morning, it only says meth capital of Alaska. (However, this IS on the internets, and things on the Internets have been known to…you know….change). BUT – in searching for the ACTUAL meth capital of the world, I found that no one can agree upon one. I do suppose that it changes from year to year, as one place becomes known for its meth labs, and subsequently becomes a shitty place to cook meth, if only because it is too obvious. The other interesting point that I observed is that every other reference to “meth capital” of anything referred to a state, not a single city, much less a town (with the minor exception of a personal blog regarding a visit to Portland, in which the blogger’s friend referred to that city as the “meth capital”.) with such a small population.

In re-reading the article, it sounds to me like my first impression (that Wasilla is the meth capital of the world!) could feasibly be true.
The article does say that it is the Matanuska-Susitna area that is the “meth capital of Alaska”, but further research shows that Wasilla is the largest city in this “borough” (the Alaskan equivilant of a county). It also references other towns in the borough as the locations of meth labs themselves, but the article doesn’t really say anything about meth use. Although I have observed that many meth labs are often found in outlying areas, there was a reference to a lab in Wasilla, and it kind of sounds like the whole borough is an outlying area. We are talking about a total population of 59,000 people for the whole thing. What is that, about the same as Ballard?

What I did get right for sure though, was this:
“The calls about meth to children’s services in Wasilla accounts for as many as 40 percent of the agency’s total monthly child protection calls.”

So while I apologize for blurting out the wrong facts in general (meth capital of the world -oops, I mean Alaska!), the importance lies in the specifics. I know we’re supposed to go after McCain, not Palin, but when there is so much talk about his age, and it seems totally possible that he could drop dead if he were elected, that would leave us with a President from the meth capital of Alaska, if not the entire world.

After I had brought this up, Christine said I should blog about it, so she could point it out to others. So here it is, for all its slightly incorrectness ; )

And please, could anyone tell us what the actual meth capital of the world is? Not sure if that should be based on number of labs/square mile (the Mat-Su area had 42 known labs within its 24,682 square mile area last year, according to the article) or per capita? Should it based on number of meth labs, users, or both?

Oh shit, I think I just realized why McCain chose her.
Dudes have got to be hot for her, huh? Dudes will vote for McCain because they wanna boink his VP.

Ewwwwwwwww. I am so nauseated with that realization.