Show Me The Chicken

Mr. Lee continues to thrive, she doesn't look 18, does she? One thing she's always done - and it's always driven Jackson crazy - is demand her part of whatever chicken you happen to have. The second they sit down with it she makes a beeline and then preceeds to be the most obnoxious pest you've ever met. If the party hoarding the chicken continues to ignore her, she's been known to get right up there and help herself. Jackson did finally give in and let her have some, but he was NOT happy about it. Mr. Lee didn't care, as long as you hand over the food you make all the noise you like. Anyhoo, I took my car to Jiffy Lube yesterday and they seem to think I might have an oil leak so I have to make an appointment for next week when I'm off. The only good thing if it needs repair I'll be off for a couple of weeks with my surgery coming up, that would be the only good thing. In the meantime I'll just be keeping an eye on it. Do you like the school bus pictures - the busses around here are amazing the way they drive. The students are very spread out so they have to travel a lot and quickly but sometimes it's disconcerting how fast they go, especially on these mountain roads. I took that on Grafton Road which if you drive it a lot it's fun, if you don't you spend a great deal of time pulling over to let the Nascar crowd go by. My favorite part is when you get near town the road snakes down hill and it's sort of like skiing in your car (if the roads ice up then it's EXACTLY like skiiing in your car). This bus though was really flying, I was going 70 and lagging, but the driver never missed a beat, I'm sure it's a daily route and if you drive the road enough you know when you can speed up and when you have to slow down. The weather is finally getting better and the Crack Weather Team is continuing with thier new form of weather predicting which is to simply predict EVERYTHING, change the forecast frequently and you have at least a 45% chance of being vaguely correct. Today's forecast throughout the week has been: in the 30's, the 50's, the 40's, sun, clouds, rain, snow, a winter mix with a possibility of pretty much everything. I need that job.

Enough Already!

It snowed AGAIN yesterday and last night, this is getting quite tiresome - even I have to admit it. They've changed the weather report so many times in the past week I don't they even they can keep up with it - Saturday alone had 5 different predictions throughout the week and they managed to predict snow at the last minute making them right on a technicality I suppose. I'm oncall this weekend and had two visits and an open but managed to get them done before the roads got bad. Pearl of course thinks the snow is Wonderful and happily patters all over the yard with the Yucky Rubber Frog in tow. She got herself in trouble yesterday when I went to take her out. I bent down to get one of my boots and she managed to jump up on the church pew at exactly the same time - she hit me like a brick between the eyes, Wow Whee. I'm alright - a bit shocked that my nose isn't broken (I hope), it's a little swollen and more than a little sore, but thank goodness not too bad. David called Cathy last night too - she's the dog breeder who will be providing the stud the next time around - she was telling him that her crew got ahold of a copperhead a few weeks ago and all of them managed to get bitten (she has 7 Vizslas), so they've been giving her a run for her money too - she didn't even want to talk about the vet bill! All survived. Speaking of survival, I'm trying to survive Girl Scout Cookie Season, I think not one more box will cross my doorstep or I won't be able to squeeze past it! Girl Scout cookies are insane - there aren't many in a box, they cost too much  money but they're the  best, aren't they? David ate a box of the peanut butter ones, Jackson cleaned out two boxes of Somoas on his own and last night he and I powered through the last box of Thin Mints while we watched our regular Saturday night shows. I haven't been able to get on the treadmill - my leg is still bothering me from that fall last week. It's just a pulled thigh muscle but I have to stay off the exercise equipment until it stops hurting as I just keep re-injuring it - however, this would be a VERY good time to stay away from the Thin Mints I think.

Friday.

David has been working on the back room lately, it was too cold to spackle it so he had to let it go for awhile. Vincent loves it as he sits on the ladder that David leaves and spies on the birds. He brought me a rodent yesterday which I think he might have gotten out of the woodpile behind the fence, I see them playing back there once in awhile. He brought it to the front door and then flopped it about so I can see what a nifty gift he has for me. Whoo hoo. In other local news I will be having my hernia operation on April 1st, the same day David is getting his neck whacked by the dermatologist - it was the only time they had available. I was telling the scheduler about David having his appointment the same day and she laughed and said "What are the chances of that?!" - I replied "in my world, 100%". but he has to go in at 9:15 and my surgery isn't until 2pm so it should be workable. Of course I'm not happy about being NPO until 2 o'clock in the afternoon - arrgh I HATE that. I'm suffering just thinking about it. Then I'll be off for about 2 weeks or so, it's not a big hernia and it's located in a not bad spot so it won't be too traumatic (I hope).

Home

The other night David and I were talking - we do a lot of that these days with Adam going back in the service and Jackson getting ready to leave - and we got on the subject of the last season of pheasant hunting. David was remembering how much fun they'd had and how wonderful it was to watch Jackson and Pearl, how he got so much more enjoyment just out of seeing them hunt together - it was like looking at himself so many years ago I think. And then he said when he was done, "that for just a little while, I was home again". And that has been echoing in my head since. I don't think he was talking about going back to LI because those hunting fields are long gone - he hasn't hunted pheasant on LI for 15 years or so - I'm sure the place he was talking about is the place we cannot seem to find no matter how hard we look. When people talk about going home, they don't talk about a street or a house, they talk about things they feel and do. When David shuts his eyes and thinks of home it's wide open hunting fields, his dog and Jackson at his side, the cool weather. The home I have in my head has plenty of open land, country roads for walking and a small town. It is so hard to figure out what you want and what will make you happy, the place where you can wake up and just be glad you're there. Part of the scary part of Jackson leaving is it will be just us and our lives, no one else's. I think we'll eventually find a place we can both be happy in, but it's so scary jumping off that bridge.  

It's a Sailor's Life For Me

The Navy recruiter was here last night to go over the final papers and have Jackson sign off on them so that is that. His tentative date of departure is Sept 2nd but the recruiter is working on having that changed back to August. Jackson will have to attend monthly meetings until he ix-nays out of here and he's totally excited about starting his new life. I offered Pearl - lene as a Navy dog but the recruiter adeptly avoided addressing that subject, Pearl spent most of the evening trying to see how much of her red hair she could get on that dark blue suit. Adam will be ix-naying on the 24th - he's heading to a short stint in bootcamp and then to Mississippi for A school, then back to where ever they decide to send him. As for me and David, we will be enjoying the scenery here for at least another year while we decide what we want to do - it'll be the first time we don't have to consider the school system and that really frees you up a great deal. We're just waiting to get through all of this upcoming stuff going on - it is a lot. Work has been very busy - and of course there's always Office Drama to keep me distracted. Yesterday was one thing after another but since it was Monday that's nothing new. I have to do an injection training today so I brought home the kit to go over it - Jackson was not as interested in self-injecting Humera as you would think, he lost interest after the first 5 minutes. So did I, but I get paid for it and he doesn't it so it sort of behooved me to watch it so I would remember what I would be doing. All of these drug companies come up with fancy injection pens some of which take longer to set up and figure out than to do the actual injection! I started another knitting project but I'm not sure I like it so it might get frogged and I'll start something else in the meantime. I usually end up starting two or three projects before I find one I like.

End Of The Unisock

Yes, the socks are finally done! It took longer than I thought it would, but on the other hand there were two other projects inbetween so it probably didn't take as long as I think it did. I didn't end up going over Susan's yesterday, she was in the office part of the day and I had a bit of a spill in the driveway so I was on the heating pad most of the day. Nothing serious, there were some slick ice patches under the snow and fortunately I landed on my bottom - had I fallen the other way it would've been face first on the railroad tie retaining wall so I'm not complaining. Pearl's version of First Aid was to jump all over me hysterically and stand on my chest, it didn't help half as much as you think it would but it certainly got me back on feet pretty quick. I pulled a muscle in my leg and my back was a bit sore but I'm alright today. It was ok though since it gave me an excuse to finish up the second sock. Dr. Who and Torchwood were both on last night (two episodes each) so Jackson and I were parked on our respective couches quite enthralled for the evening - those shows just keep getting better and better. Jackson is rather full of himself these days since he's an official E1 and is the Ranking Person in the house since David, I, Pearl and the cats don't hold any rank at all. We've reminded the E1 however since he's living in a civilian house he still needs to clean his room and change his sheets - he can just do it in a professional way now. He's very excited about the whole thing and reads us various bits out of his DEP handbook and we worry about saluting and stuff now. Vincent wasn't overly impessed I might add and I might ship HIM off to the navy - we are still fighting the Litter Box Wars and he's winning. I cannot make him go to the bathroom outside - this morning he was particularly obnoxious by coming in, using BOTH the litter boxes and then wanting out. David just laughs and thinks it's a losing battle - Vicent can hold out much longer than I can.

All This Excitement!

Jackson got dropped off by the navy last night around 5pm - he had been too nervous and excited to sleep so he was a bit wound. Despite all the dire-ness of it all he passed everything and is Officially Recruited. He'd hoped to go in at the end of July but they moved it to September which he was a bit disappointed about, but given our past experience that may be subject to change. We got to hear every tiny detail and were shown all the freebies of course - he got a leather backpack, tee-shirts, etc so the only thing wrong according to Jackson is it isn't happening fast enough. I'm letting him have the car on Sunday so he's making all sorts of plots and plans - I'm going over Susan's today for a little while. I was thinking of sneaking over to Michael's but I don't really need anything and I did get all the clearance yarn that I wanted last week - it's soy yarn and usually goes $4 a skein, I got it for $1 - whoo hoo is all I have to say. But as I added it to my stash I came to the sad realization the Yarn Hater might be right - if I gave up eating, sleeping, working, etc and just knit I might be able to get through it all before I died of old age. But then I realized I don't give a crap - yarn on clearance is a wonderful thing and if you don't get it, someone else will and I do indeed still have a lot of closet space..... I did take time off from the Ugly Sock and knit a Bunny doll with a pacifer. I forgot to take a picture of it though before it went sailing out the door, but I plan on making another one at some point (I actually have to as the yarn I bought for that I still have 3 more skeins due to the fact it also happened to be on clearance..) Pearl is still in heat which stinks since we won't be breeding her until the next round, David can call Cathy today and find out the  when and where of it all so we'll be prepared the next time. Apparently there's some sort of rigamarole you need to go through before you get to the puppy part of the program. I would have loved to have done it now as since we're not selling the house for awhile it would've been the perfect time, but I guess with the fact  I have to have surgery, Jackson, etc.. maybe we do need to wait.