The BoneBlog

So, regarding this post about our stalker:

It wasn’t my friend after all. It was a couple of nutty les/bi broads who live in a fucking RV out there in Vegas. He’d gotten involved with one of them, and when she found out about his ‘feelings’ for me she went ballistic, and so did her girlfriend.

You can’t make this shit up, folks.

We have 266 hits to our blog from the girlfriend’s place of employment logged. That was in one month. On one DAY she hit the blog 112 times. We’re even missing a few days in there so I’m sure it’s more than that. They were blocked but started using proxy servers. After she made a Twitter account and followed me around on that (suggesting that I’m a whore, copying my followers in on posts, releasing my full name to the public, etc.) I’d had enough. Still under the impression that my friend had gone off the deep end, Greg let my friend know that if this shit didn’t stop we were releasing the server logs to his employer, and let the chips fall where they may.

My friend called, we talked, found out what was REALLY going on (turns out he knew nothing about the harassment) and he promised he’d put a stop to it.

Well, he did, but…

…now he’s BACK WITH THEM. Making APOLOGIES for their behavior. Telling me that yeah, they may be loopy but they mean no harm.

Are you fucking kidding me?!

I could just scream.

I am so disappointed that he is going to let a couple of destructive women control his life. They want to move into his new house with him (of course they do! They can’t get one themselves, why not latch onto someone who can?). They STOLE from him.

Well.

This time there will be no warnings. If I even get a whiff of these knuckle-dragging broads trying to interfere with my life – if I even have a suspicion of it – those logs go straight to Clark County’s IT Department.

He might be willing to let The Krazy into his life, but I’ve had enough of it in mine and will not abide any more.

I guess I’m going to go to that handgun training after all.

GAH!

This past weekend Ethan discovered an empty milk jug and cajoled Greg into making a bird feeder out of it. I told Ethan he had to sit down and design it first, and he did, including the drawing of the deck, rain gauge, and just how it should be hung. They dangled it from a long string and even though it swings precariously and twirls around enough to make me sick just watching it, it seems to be a favorite of the local tufted titmouse population.

I just hope the birds brave enough to land on this feeder don’t get sick from the wild ride. I’m not looking to clean up bird vomit from the patio this spring.

Especially when you get your seed order in early:

Okay, I know what you’re thinking. “That’s a pretty paltry pile of plant particles.”

You’d be right.

But that is just this year’s order. I have a lot of seed from last year that I’m pretty sure will still be viable this year, including the spinach I’ve been growing all winter – the very spinach that is still going gangbusters down in the hoop house, 15-degree temperatures be damned.

And so, just for giggles and because I’m putting off showering, I’ve put together a collage of those seeds from last year most likely to make a repeat appearance:

All of these (except the moon flowers, marigolds, and love-in-a-mist) are going to be taking up residence either in used yogurt cups to start seedlings, or directly in the hoop house within the next 4 months or so.

Come on, Spring!

Side note: The seed company always sends a free gift to me with my order. This time it was the love-in-a-mist. According to Wikipedia, this flower is ‘found on neglected, damp patches of land.’ They sure sent it to the right place!

A couple of weekends ago we went searching for the eagles who arrive in our area each year as part of their migration.

Okay, so it wasn’t as exciting as the title of the post would suggest, but we started our day with…

DONUTS!!!!!!!!

Henceforth, I will always do that. In capital letters with lots of exclamation points. Because, you know, they are DONUTS!!!!!!!!! And DONUTS!!!!!!!! make me feel just that way.

So the prospect of DONUTS!!!!!! and the coffee got us all rarin’ to go for the long drive up to Alton for our almost-but-not-quite-annual jaunt to see the eagles.

Before we began our search in earnest, we stopped off at Confluence State Park. None of us had been there, and it was honestly pretty cool. They have built a walkway down right to the very confluence, with interpretive stops along the way. Observe:

And then, ta-DA! The confluence point itself, which has clearly spent much of its life underwater.

Having received our fill of the confluence (and DONUTS!!!!!), we moved along to our usual eagle-watching stomping ground, where we saw this gorgeous pair of birds:

But alas, those were all we were going to see that day. We drove up the River Road as far as Elsah, but had no more luck. Perhaps if we’d waited a little longer in the season or if the winter hadn’t been quite so mild, we’d have seen more.

We consoled ourselves with the knowledge that although we failed in our eagling quest, we saw the confluence, which ranks right up there in majesty. We enjoyed a nice drive on a pretty warm (if overcast) day, and we got our fill of…

…wait for it…

DONUTS!!!!!

Sounds like a winner to me.

A few years back, I burned up a sewing machine. I was mostly interested in sewing garments, and made several for Laurel and even a couple for myself. When I purchased a new machine, I went for a nice one. I bought a quilting machine.

I figured I’d learn to quilt. It’s a tradition in my family, I guess you could say.

That, as I said, was a few years ago. I finally decided to take a class this past fall when Ethan went to Kindergarten.

Then the class was canceled.

So I got a couple of books and got my nerve worked up, and began. I didn’t follow a pattern. I saw a windmill quilting block and liked it, so I went through the entire rigmarole of designing the quilt top myself, measuring, figuring how much fabric I needed, the whole nine yards.

And I’m awfully proud because I only messed up once, the result of which was a trip back to the fabric store for more material. It could have been much worse.

Well, I guess I should say I actually messed up twice. When it came time for the actual quilting, I got a little too ambitious in my design and it just was more than my skills can handle right now. So I picked hundreds of stitches out and tried again.

It’s not a great quilt. It’s got errors in the stitching. It’s puckered in a couple of places. But it’s pretty good for a first try.

I learned a lot doing it.

And it’s mine. Even if it is going on Ethan’s bed.

As some of you know, I’ve been taking a cake decorating class.

I signed up for it a month or two ago on a whim. I knew that with winter coming on, I needed a reason to get out of the house during the day, lest I fall victim to my typical winter doldrums, which hit me miserably right about this time. I had never given any serious thought to cake decorating, but it sounded fun and I knew it would give me something to do other than laundry.

After finishing the first course, I liked it so much I wanted to sign up for the second, which was to continue on the same day of the week, same time. But over the weekend I received the news that there weren’t enough students continuing in the course to hold the day class – but good news, the night class was still available.

That is good news from the standpoint that I still get to attend; but I find that I dislike going out on weeknights in most cases – that is time I like to spend with Greg and the kids without rushing around after dinner and homework. Furthermore, I really wanted to get out of the house during the day so I wouldn’t go stir crazy.

Saturday morning before I left for a  hair appointment, I told Greg what happened.

“How many students do they need to sign up for the class to continue?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “At least one. Maybe two.”

“So just pay for the extra spot so you can still have the day class,” he suggested.

“After all,” he joked, “we’re making all this money. We might as well spend it.”

I got in the car and thought about his offer. Tears of gratitude stung my eyes all the way to the salon. I’ve never known a man so generous. I don’t know how I managed to marry someone willing to pay double the enrollment fee for a class just so his wife could take it at a more convenient time. It must just be dumb luck.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is how I won the lottery. And I wouldn’t give it up for anything.

Ethan has picked up the unusual habit of writing his name on his school papers and following it with ‘6.’ When I asked him why he did this, he told me his math teacher told the kids they should always write their age after their names on their papers.

He’s carried this habit through to everything, not just math.

Yesterday, his regular teacher sent home his graded paper with her own name and age on it.

Very clever, Mrs. N! Thanks for the chuckle – we too wish we could put that number at the end of our name!

Back in October and November when we were putting up the hoop house I wasn’t sure what that really meant. Sure, I knew it would extend my growing season. I knew that it was more likely to be successful in allowing me to begin next year’s season early rather than extending last year’s growing season late.

But this morning I went down and lo, nearly all my spinach planted last week is sprouting with terrific germination (the best I’ve ever had from spinach).

Further, I harvested a big bowl of salad greens and several sprouts:

We eat a lot of salad, but I think in the past 8 months or so I have bought one bag of spinach…maybe two.

I’ve also got healthy rosemary, kohlrabi, dill, and turnips. The perpetual spinach chard planted last spring is still going gangbusters.

I think I have watered twice – if that – since November.

That hoop house just might be a good investment after all.

The good far outweighed the bad. Here’s to more of the same in 2012. Happy New Year, everyone!

January:

February:

March:

April:

May:

June:

July:

(and Laurel’s stay at JBA, plus her birthday)

August:

September:

October:

November:

December:

I can’t believe the entire Christmas hullabaloo went by without a post. So let’s do this right quick.

First, we picked a tree, naturally. We went to our usual tree farm. It was a beautiful day – and early, too. Laurel had a Fiddler performance that we had to get to downtown by late morning, so we were rushing around. All was good, though, and Ethan even broke into uncontrollable giggles at the sight of the farm dog pooping alongside the tractor path.

As if he’d never seen that around the house.

On the other hand, he is a six-year-old boy, and there is nothing funnier to a six-year-old boy than poop and farts.

Ethan was so excited about helping Greg cut down the tree. That lasted for all of about 15 seconds before he realized (as I had told him) that cutting down Christmas trees really is harder than it looks, and that’s why we bring Dad along. No matter, though, Ethan is good at supervising and Greg is good at taking direction, so everything worked out.

Unfortunately, it’s even more difficult to haul the tree back to the pick-up spot. This is particularly true when the tree is a spiny fir tree, the pick-up spot is a quarter-mile away, and your six-year-old son is alternately laughing with glee at your plight and trying to trip you as you haul the hulking thing around.

From Festus, we hauled ass to get back home and get the tree into water while Laurel changed into her Colonial Fiddlers costume so we could drive alll-alllll-alllllllllllll the way downtown to the Old Courthouse for a performance. We also cleaned blood from the spots where the tree had poked tiny holes in Greg’s ear as he was carrying it around. Oh, joyful day!

By the way, the acoustics in the Old Courthouse are pretty awesome, largely owing to the beautiful dome:

BUT!

After the performance, out we came, hungry and eager to try a new restaurant when we came upon this:

Yeah, that’s our car in the front. AWESOME, right? For a reading of my attitude about the situation, note the crossed arms and defensive posture in the corner of the photo.

Sigh.

Oh, and by the way, the broad who hit us wasn’t even in a legal parking spot.

St. Louis City being what it is, Greg and I debated back and forth about whether to even bother calling the cops about this. In the end, however, experience has taught us that while something may look minor, you can have troubles down the line, so we called. We only waited maybe 20 minutes for a response – sweet. The officer showed up, thoroughly chafed that he was being bothered about such things I’m sure, but he was fairly adept at hiding his annoyance. He took the information, mistook me as the person who had hit the car until we explained that no, I was not the resident dumbass in the situation. Just as he was wrapping up, the real driver of the car showed up. And boy, was she a character.

“Is there something wrong?” she asked.

We told her what she’d done, pointed it out to her, and she was So Exasperated that we would even dare to bother with such a non-event. And, much to my chagrin, she was wearing an Occupy t-shirt.

Ugh. That’s really frustrating to me, because I support the Occupy movement, and here’s this gal, parking in an illegal spot, bumping into us, accusing us of not having been there when she got there (we assured her we had veritable hordes of witnesses in the Old Courthouse who would happily march out and attest to the opposite), and acting all up in arms because SHE hit US.

She even told us this had happened before and she was shocked – SHOCKED! – when she got a bill a few months later from the driver she hit.

Fucking whatever. If you don’t want to be billed for damaging people’s cars, how about you, I dunno, DON’T GO AROUND HITTING THEM? Looking back, I REALLY wish I’d said something to her about straightening her act up and not representing the 99% so fucking poorly. I mean, dammit, park in legal spots at the very least, and be respectful when you damage property.

At any rate, she was in luck because the next day I had the car assessed and was told the scuffs she made probably wouldn’t lead to a pyramid of damage down the line. Just in case, though, we’ve got her name.

Moving right along.

We didn’t have time to decorate the tree at all until two or three days later. That’s how our December has been, folks. In fact, we might as well just fast-forward past all the orchestra and Fiddler performances, all the classes and baking and buying and all of that, with the exception of one Glorious Day when we had SNOW! A whole dusting of it! And it sort of stuck to the deck! Well, at least it stuck long enough for this:

I think that photo sums it up.

So now on to Christmas morning.

Oh, wait! Silly me. I would be remiss if I didn’t display the manner in which Ethan came home from his school lock-in one Friday.

Talk about a mess. And yes, in the photos below his hair is striped like a candy cane, his nails are painted black and white, his mouth is surrounded by blue food dye, and he has a three-foot-long licorice in a bag.

WOW. We even paid money for that.

And yes, we put up the Christmas lights this year and had them working and the whole shebang, but then we got a bunch of moisture and the GFI kept tripping and the lights stopped working and so all was for naught. Next year, by god, we’re putting them up in October and I will be CERTAIN the damned things are working because it took hours – HOURS for me to do the programming, it was super-cute and made me giggle to see it, and for what? For nothing! Joyeux Noel, everyone! Hell!

Okay, really, Christmas morning.

Ethan bounded out of his room plenty early, and after much groaning and whining, Greg and I dragged ourselves out of bed for the annual ritual of opening the presents from Santa as we wondered why we do this every year. But look! Such joy! Such happiness! Such….

…yeah, well.

We have some photos of Laurel, too, but she was making faces in all of them, so.

And that was Christmas.

The day after Christmas, we had the tree down, the lights down, and everything clear for the New Year. It was so exciting to put those decorations up, and so exciting to take them down.

It was all fun and games (and bickering between the kids and storming around and overeating to excess and bloating and all) but now the break is just about over. School resumes on Monday – not a moment too soon for all concerned.

Happy New Year, everyone.