OmegaMom

On Friday, in a move calculated to upstage Obama’s Democratic presidential nomination acceptance speech, John McCain announced his surprise selection of Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska, as his running mate.

A horde of angry feminists immediately shouted that John McCain was out of touch for selecting an inexperienced, lightweight, far-right woman as his running mate as an attempt to gain their votes.  What?!  They shouted.  Do you expect us to vote for you just because you have a woman as your running mate!?  How condescending!  How blatant!  How obvious!

Well.  I, for one, do not think McCain selected Palin because he wanted to appeal to hard-core Democrats who were romanced by Hillary.  Nor was he trying to get hard-core feminists.  What I think he was trying to do (aside from shaking up the race and energizing the GOP) was to appeal to two different constituencies:  The hard-core right-wing Republicans, who were only very grudgingly willing to vote for McCain, holding their noses as they did so, and the large group of undecided independent women who were voting for Hillary because she was a woman and they were excited at the prospect of a woman in the White House.  A fair number of those women were Republicans, whose (confusing to me) dedication to gender advancement was momentarily in ascendancy over their Republicanism, but who now have a choice that is much more to their taste.  Another fair number were women who would be willing to go either way, depending on which collection of interests they felt more compelled by, and they will find Palin appealing because of her youth, her vigor, her integrity, and her story.

In other words, by this choice, McCain alienates those who were (surprise!) already alienated by him and the Republican party and gains points with his core constituency and a large group of undecided voters.

So:  What about Sarah?

My email box had a few emails from friends and relatives asking me what we think of her.

She’s pro-life/anti-abortion: She walks the walk, doesn’t just talk the talk. The Palins knew early on that Trig was Down’s Syndrome, but the pregnancy was continued anyway.  There are those who get angered by this, because they’d say, “Don’t assume that everyone who learns they’re having a child with Down’s Syndrome will automatically abort!”.  That’s not my assumption.  My assumption is that there are a lot of folks who are “pro-life” who will claim that abortion is horrible under all circumstances, only to be faced with a similar circumstance and decide that, oh, well, it’s okay for me. 

Pro-Oil: Well, it’s Alaska. The entire state is pro-oil. 

Pro-Corporation (Anti-Environment):  She’s for opening up the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling.  She has pushed through a natural gas pipeline that was stalled for a long time.  She opposes putting polar bears on the endangered list, and thinks global climate change is a buncha hooey.

Family Values (Anti-Gay): Marriage should be between a man and a woman, period; abstinence-only sex-ed is the way to go, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Openly supported “teach the controversy” in science classes when it comes to science versus “intelligent design”.  Then waffled and said she meant when students bring it up.

Claimed to support “transparency” in government, but keeps hella lot of stuff under wraps when requested.  For instance, the governor’s office refused to release state scientists’ emails protesting the state’s official position about opposing putting polar bears on the “in danger” list because the emails were “preliminary” and “not relevant”.

After thinking about the whole “experience” thing, though at first I was worried about McCain dropping dead and her not having experience, it occurs to me that no-one has experience being the president of the United States, and it’s a learn-as-you-go job.  She seems to have done fairly well as governor of Alaska.

My conclusion:  I see a lot to admire in the woman, but her values are not my values. 

I was sitting at the computer tearing my hair out, trying to figure out just why a test web form wasn’t posting.  (I still haven’t figured it out.)  The phone rings.  I let it ring once, so I can see who is calling.  Plumber?  OmegaDad?  Someone else?

Someone else:  T. Biggle, sayeth the little LED screen.

T. Biggle just happens to be the principal of OmegaDotter’s school.

Instantly, the worrier in me rose up full force.  OMG, the dotter’s been sent to the principal’s office!  OMG, the dotter is hurt and they’re letting us know!  OMG, it’s yet another recorded message about school spirit!  We have been getting message after message from Mr. Biggle related to school; there’s a before-school barbeque, remember to register this week, first day of school is tomorrow and we’re all excited to see you again, join the PTA, blah, blah, blah.  I mean, yeah, it’s nice that they communicate, but maybe they could communicate just a leetle less?  Or do two–two–two messages for the price of one?

Anyway, there it was:  T. Biggle on the phone.

I punch the button.

“Hello?  Is Mrs. OmegaMom available?”

“This is she…”  OMG, it’s not a message, what’s wrong?!

“Nothing is wrong with OmegaDotter–”  Obviously, he’s used to parents panicking when they get the phone call from the principal. “–and she’s done nothing wrong.”  Obviously, he’s used to parents thinking their kids have gotten into trouble when they get the phone call from the principal.

“But there was an incident that we thought you should know about.”

So, out of the blue (apparently), while the dotter and this other kid were putting things away, he tells her, “I don’t like little Chinese girls!”

I don’t think I’ve ever felt quite as much like someone kicked me in the guts as I did when I heard Mr. Biggle tell the story.  He said that OmegaDotter was very upset, her feelings were hurt, she was crying, and that he thought I should hear about it so that we could give her some extra lovin’s when she got home.  He assured me that The Perpetrator was reprimanded, and that the school takes things like this seriously.  (Well, hellyeah, when they actually call me about it, I’d say that was “taking it seriously”, which actually makes me feel pretty damned good about the school.)

So, still feeling like someone had kicked me in the guts, I posted.

And I called OmegaDad, who promptly wanted to boil someone (The Perpetrator) in oil.

And we both agreed that I should do a little something with the dotter when she got home.

And we both worried that she wouldn’t say anything about it, and how the hell do you open up a conversation like that, and what do you say?

So I waited at the bus stop, wondering if she’d be a limp, noodly crying child, or would need a hug, or just ignore things.  The bus arrived, she got off, she barreled into me with a hug, we walked off down our street holding hands.  I’m racking my brain for a good way to start the conversation, and she says:

“Mr. Biggle is going to call you.”

Well!  Whaddaya know!  I didn’t have to start things off at all!  And she wasn’t a puddle of tears, just matter-of-fact.  So I allowed as how he had already called, and did she want to talk about things.

“No.”  She darted off to grab a brilliant red leaf from a shrub, then said, “Oh!  I need to give you a note about the bad thing I did in music today.”  “Bad Thing”?  What’s this?!  I haven’t heard about this! I think to myself.  She stops dead in the middle of the street, pulls her backpack off, requests that I hold it, and starts rummaging around in it.

Oy!  One thing after another!

She hands me a “Thinking Page” which shows a drawing of a little girl bouncing about, a written “I wuz takking”, and a drawing of what she was supposed to be doing (sitting still and listening).

I’m supposed to sign this thing and return it.  In the meantime…

Of course, the plumber appears right then, so while she was rummaging about the garbage disposal, the dotter did homework, and finally the plumber leaves (no fixed disposal, but a new one coming tomorrow a.m.) and I say, “Let’s go get ice cream.”

So we went to C0ld St0ne Creamery, had ice cream, and she told me the story pretty straightforwardly.

Seems that she and Jay were working with their pattern blocks (?  don’t ask me.) and they started arguing about something.  And arguing.  And finally Jay said–fed up–”I’m going to tell everyone that Chinese girls are mean!  I don’t like little Chinese girls!”

So:  The Perpetrator is a six-year-old boy who has been in class with OmegaDotter for a year, who said this in the heat of an argument.

My stomach feels a lot better.  It wasn’t out of the blue, it wasn’t something learned at home, it was something in the heat of the moment.  Still not nice, but hellalot better than I thought.  However, we have re-iterated to the dotter that (a) she should be proud to be Chinese and American; (b) if anyone says something like that to her, here are some things she can say; (c) it was a mean thing to say; and (d) if anyone says anything like that to her again, she should tell us.

(My contribution was she should say, out loud, “I’m proud to be Chinese.  It’s better to be born Chinese than to be born mean.”  OmegaDad’s contribution was she should say, out loud, “I’m sorry you feel that way.  You’ll miss out on getting to know lots of cool and interesting people–like me–if you feel like that.”  For what it’s worth.)

Someone told OmegaDotter this today at school.  I don’t think I can talk about this right now.  Give me time to calm down.

When GrannyJ was visiting, OmegaDotter and I would snuggle for half an hour to forty-five minutes before trekking downstairs to the family room to waken her.  During one of these snuggle sessions, the dotter asked me if GrannyJ was my birthmother.  When I said yes, she admitted to be intensely jealous:  I could be with my birthmother, she could not.

OmegaDotter is six and a half years old.  She’s at a stage where she can be loving, gentle, fun–those flashes of emotional maturity I mentioned.  At the same time, she can be snotty and smart-mouthed and self-centered and just an all-around pain in the ass.  A pill to be around.  A constant and ongoing battle of wills.

She has even driven OmegaDad, the most gentle, easy-going man in the world, who is wrapped around her little finger, into shouting at her very angrily many times in the past few weeks.

Last night, as we were doing the bedtime routine, she was being sassy and defiant yet one more time, right as it was time for the hug-n-kiss from daddy and the feeling game from mommy.  So, being the kind, gentle, calm, patient person I am…

I snapped.

I coldly and angrily proclaimed that I Had Had It and wasn’t going to take any more of it.  I certainly didn’t feel like hanging around her, and if she wanted someone to be there while she went to bed, she was more than welcome to ask OmegaDad if he wanted to, though I couldn’t see why.  It was time she learned to treat me and him like Real Human Beings, stop being a smart-ass all the time, stop whining all the time, I was sick and tired of it, and for all I cared, she was more than welcome to go to bed by herself.  In the meantime, I was not going to be there.  There was more, but I can’t remember it.

I stormed out.

I took the dawg out for his evening walk.

I read a book in the living room.

And I heard wild sobs from the bedroom.

And I…didn’t…care.  In fact, I was hoping that she was utterly, absolutely, thoroughly miserable at the whole thing; maybe things would sink in when mommy was Madame Fury, rather than the ongoing, “Dotter, you need to ask in a nicer manner.”

After half an hour, OmegaDad carried her out to me.  Her eyes were red, her cheeks and lashes damp with tears, her lips trembling.

“Do you want to tell her or shall I?” asks OmegaDad.

She shook her head mutely.  Then she tried talking.  Then she couldn’t.  Then…finally…she wailed:

“I want my moooommmmmyyyy!”

Um.

Well, shit.

Okay.  Y’see, she didn’t mean me.  She meant her birthmother.

Which afforded us a splendid opportunity to let her know that her birthmother sure as shit wouldn’t put up with the attitude, either.

It also, frankly, left me feeling like a second wheel.  Hey, what am I, chopped liver?

Oh, I know I’m not.  OmegaDad is fond of saying, “I’m ice cream and cookies.  You’re comfort food.”  I’m the one she clings to when she’s sick or tired or needing reassurance in the world.  But I really don’t want to have to constantly consider whether me getting angry at her over something and storming away is going to trigger abandonment issues (trust me, this was serious, absolute, prostrate misery on her part and not a sham).

Anyway, there we are.  She’s going through a stage of pillishness.  I was worried that we were absolutely, totally ruining her and she was turning into a self-centered princess who was going to drive us into misery in her teens until this morning, when I had to run her gym shoes into school (she was wearing her new cowgirl boots, and we both forgot that today was P.E.) and ran into M., her friend H.’s mom.  And unprompted by me, she immediately began telling me that her daughter (a quiet, shy, gentle thing who is always perfectly mannered) is driving her absolutely batty by being sassy, smart-mouthed, defiant, argumentative.

Wait a minute!  She’s talking about my dotter!  Isn’t she?!  And as we were commiserating, she said that yet another mom of another six year old friend of H.’s had been astonished that she (the friend) was perfectly behaved at M.’s house, because she was…sassy, smart-mouthed, defiant, and argumentative at home.

So I’m guessing it’s a stage.  Ugh.

What’s also a stage is a sudden upswing in birthmother/adoption issues.  Though I haven’t dipped into the Big List (Adoptive Parents China) in years, I remember that the parents of older kids described certain ages and stages, and they always seemed to be the same.  Seven was when grief seemed to hit a bunch of them; nine was when anger about being abandoned seemed to hit.

This evening, at bedtime, when we were playing the feeling game, I asked her if anything made her sad today.  She said, “No.”  I lifted an eyebrow and peered at her.  “What about last night?” I asked.  “Oh!” she said.  “Oh, yeah.”  “Do you want to talk about it?”  “Yessss…But not right now!”

Thinking she was going to evade the whole issue, I started to press on her.

“MOOOMMMY!  Not.  Right.  Now.  We have to finish the game first!”

I mentally rolled my eyes.  The whole original idea behind the feeling game was to–OMG!–talk about your feelings!  But, okay, so I had to wait.  Sure enough, when we had gone through the whole litany (happy, sad, angry, scared, funny stuff), then she said, “Okay!  Now I want to talk about it!” and she scrambled down off the bed, into my lap, with a blankie, snuggled down, and started talking about her first mother, adoption, the one-child law in China, and more.  All of which made me realize that she’s actually listened to some of the things I’ve told her about…

Welcome to motherhood.

Dear Very-Distant-Coworker:

When I sent you the email asking you a whole list of questions about how many copies of a particular document you received, I didn’t want a reply of “Yeah, I received a bunch.”  I asked you who you received them from, how many copies you got, and when you received them because (whaddasurprise!) I wanted answers so that I could track down the problem at our end.

Sincerely, OmegaMom-the-support-person

Dear Coworker-of-OmegaDad’s:

When he sent you the email stating that he would be in your town to do training, that he needed all people there for training, and asking what would be a good week for this, he did not need a two-page reply outlining all your difficulties, listing everyone’s schedule for two months, and a request for special trips to train Joe, Moe, and Schmoe.  Please don’t get angry when he replies quoting his original email and repeating that he needs all people there for the training.

Sincerely, OmegaMom-the-spouse-who-likes-to-see-her-husband

Dear L0we’s:

Please train your cashiers to use the L0we’s part number, rather than the manufacturer’s part number, when entering data.  That way, we won’t be told that parts that we know are in stock are out of stock and now on special order.  Oh, also, you won’t charge us for special ordering.  And we won’t have to deal with the front desk or the head cashier to get a credit.  Which we can’t use anywhere else.  Which might have been nice to have in our bank account, instead.  Hey, maybe you can start offering, say, checks to people for such overcharges?

Also, this time around, please be sure to deliver when you say you’re going to deliver.

Also, this time around, please be sure to deliver everything we ordered, which was in stock when we ordered it, rather than surprising us at delivery time by not having everything we ordered.

Does this make sense?  Good.

Thank you, OmegaMom-and-OmegaDad-about-to-embark-on-another-chicken-coop-for-smaller-birds

Dear Fruit Flies:

This is a declaration of war.  Die, die, die!

Sincerely, OmegaMom-the-lousy-housekeeper

Dear Kozmik All:

What have I done that I should deserve this ongoing itchy scalp?  The doctor’s antibiotics are not helping.

Sincerely, OmegaMom-the-itchy

Score so far:

Gap curvy jeans, size 14:  too big.  Way too big.  Off to return them and ask for a smaller size.

Nordstrom’s Not Your Daughter’s Jeans, size 14:  Fit perfectly in upper thighs/hips, too big in waist.  Have washed, will see what happens; will probably end up going to a seamstress/tailor in town and getting them taken in.

Still waiting on the Land’s End made-to-fit jeans, but those are supposed to take about a month (a month?!).

Aside from that–we went to the State Fair yesterday, with tickets to the rodeo.  It rained.  The dotter was a pill.  After a few hours, I ended up telling OmegaDad and OmegaDotter that I would have more fun back in the car.  So there.  So I went back to the car.  OmegaDad Had Another Talk with the dotter (the “I would have more fun back in the car” was my result to a very grudging forced “I’m sorry” from the dotter as the result of the first Having A Talk).  Both OmegaDad and I said that if she didn’t shape up, we were going to forego going to the State Fair next year.

The rain was followed by fog this morning.  This is actually very rare in our neighborhood, but I remember it from last fall.

The birch trees’ leaves are already turning yellow and starting to fall off the trees.

Sunset is now at 9:30 p.m., sunrise at 6:35 a.m.; a great galloping loss of light.

The end result of this weekend is that I’m bummed.  Wah.

A box arrived today from Grandma Jeannie, and in it were:

• New cowgirl boots, pink and brown
• New Levi’s jeans
• New cowgirl shirt with sparkles and embroidery
• New cowgirl vest
• New cowgirl chaps
• A book about a pinto pony

So there she is, in all her new finery.  The hat she has had for quite a while.  She was over the moon, and insisted on wearing it all out to dinner.  When she went to bed, and I reminded her of her new outfit when we were discussing what made us happy today, she popped her head over her huge horsie Frankie (who sleeps at the side of her bed) and said, “Oh, yeah, it’s so cool!”

Zooillogix today featured Martin Amm’s fabulous macro photos of bugs in nature, specifically the “wet bugs” pictures.  You have got to see these photographs.

There was a partial lunar eclipse on last Saturday, and the Astronomy Picture of the Day featured a way-kewl time-lapse photograph of the event this week which shows just how big the earth’s shadow really is.

Read all about the work, devotion, trials, and tribulations of a state-fair champion pumpkin grower working to grow this year’s entry.

Remember my parable about vakseens?  Respectful Insolence takes notice of today’s news about how the number of measles cases in the U.S. so far this year is the highest since 1997.

A compare-and-contrast duo:  Back in April, Lenore Skenazy was taken severely to task by NY Times readers for her story of allowing her 9-year-old son to ride the NYC subway all by himself!  Oh, the horrors.  So she created the website FreeRangeKids, posted the column again, and now has 440+ comments.  Today, in a weird sense of deja-vu, I read the post “Riding the subway–to school?” on ParentDish, all about kids 8, 9, and up riding the…wait for it…NYC subway all by themselves to go to and from school.  The semi-approving post has had all-of-three semi-approving comments.  Where’s the outrage there was for Skenazy’s column?  Ironic.

Speaking of judging others’ parenting styles, check out CrabMommy’s tale of being dressed down for dressing down her tot in public.  I am so glad I was able to wrassle OmegaDotter out of various stores while in full tantrum mode without anything like that happening to me.  I seem to recall one time when I hauled her out of Costco under my arm, plopped her into the carseat in the car, slammed the door, and sat out on the hood of the car while she completed her tantrum, and got actually applauded by a few passersby who had seen the whole scene erupt.

Thankfully, that didn’t happen very often, and is now a thing of the past.  I seem to recall it being closer to her fourth birthday than her third, but that was long ago.  Yay!

Readership:  I probably won’t futz with the RSS feed, mainly because I’m too lazy.  Har!  But also because, if even one of my readers finds partial feeds inconvenient, it’s not worth it to me.  (Ahem.  See my halo?  I think I’ve shown it off before.  It glitters, y’know!)  Of course, the same day I was lamenting low readership stats in a half-concealed plea for people to please visit my blooooog (and so many of you took pity, thank you!) someone “Stumbled Upon” me, and I immediately got a big boost for the day.  Isn’t that ironic?

OmegaMom drifts off, humming Alanis Morisette to herself.

The dotter is not on the team anymore.  No biggie; we really had doubts about the whole thing, given her maturity level.  Too long, too hard, too “boring” doing the same things over and over, longer than in a class.

So we’re switching her to an intermediate class, and we’ll see how that goes.

It was rather embarrassing, though–she wasn’t listening to the coach, she was lying down, she was distracting one of her buddies who is on the team, and poor coach Jay obviously got…um…frustrated with the attitude.  But a lot of that was really a reflection of the above:  her maturity level.  And a reflection of an incredible ability to be unfocused, scatter-brained, flitting from one thing to another.

She focuses very well on some things; when she gets into a particular drawing, or a creation of some kind, she sticks with it and comes up with creative solutions on her own.

One problem is that she catches on quickly to some things, so that when something is hard and she doesn’t do it right, she gets frustrated quickly and starts putting herself down:  “I can’t do it.  I’m no good.  I’m doing it wrong.”

Sigh.  Oh, do I know that feeling!

On the other hand, she is showing flashes of emotional maturity that surprise me.  (Flashes, mind you, not ongoing, steady emotional maturity!) 

She was the one who wanted to make a card for her new teacher, asked OmegaDad to buy it, and asked me to help her write it when she got home, and kept focused about remembering to take it in to school on the first day. 

She pulled OmegaDad aside to talk privately to him about something that was bothering her, because she knew talking about it might hurt me and someone else, and she didn’t want to upset us.

And in a spectacular combination of creativity, scatter-brained-ness, and emotional maturity, she decided that her new tie-dyed hoodie, with sleeves that were too long, needed to have holes for her thumbs so she could have the cuff as a sort of mitten.  All well and good–a cool idea.  The application of the idea, however, left a great deal to be desired.  When I woke up after OmegaDad had gone to work and snuggled with her in her bedroom, I noticed two huge holes cut into the sleeves of her hoodie, down by the cuffs.  Somehow or other, I didn’t blow my top (it was a somewhat expensive hoodie) but let her know in no uncertain terms that (a) it was a very bad idea, (b) daddy would get just as angry as me, (c) she needed to talk to him about it, and (d) it would be a hella lot better telling him than him discovering it on his own.

She tried to get me to not tell him and keep it a secret.  Har.  As if.  Not only would I not keep something like that a secret (which I let her know), but…well…it was pretty damned obvious.

That night, when OmegaDad got home, the first thing she did was to drag him into the bedroom, close the door, and tell him all about it.

Frankly, that amazed me.  That she would remember it on her own, first off.  And that she would do it on her own, secondly.

Last week, the news headlines were filled with Georgia.

“Russia invades Georgia!”

“Russia moves in as Georgia fights separatists”

“We are all Georgia!”

“Georgia Bigfoot found!”

Wait a minute!  What?!  How did that last one sneak in there?!

But there it was–two hunters claimed they had a real Bigfoot body in a freezer.  They were going to subject it to DNA tests.  They were going to Reveal All in a press conference.  They were working with “Mr. Bigfoot”, the guy who has spent something like 17 years of his life hunting the elusive Bigfoot and with the host of Squatchdetective radio, another Bigfoot enthusiast.

The news shot around the world!  It showed up on FOX news, and other news sources!  Everyone was excited!

(Okay, not everyone…)

Then the DNA tests showed a mix of human and possum DNA.  Oops.  The press conference was, shall we say, a bit of a letdown.

So then the big Bigfoot dudes decided to defrost the thing.

A frozen gorilla suit…

Bahaha!

Ah, the first day of first grade:

Much to my dismay, the picture is blurry, goodness only knows why.  Here’s the first day of kindergarden, as a contrast.

It was also her first day on the gymnastics team, three hours of which wore her out completely.

It was also the day of the first…

Eggs!  Yes, we now have hens that are laying!  Here’s the egg in the nesting box:

And here’s the dotter discovering the egg (okay, it’s a re-enactment, but, hey…):

And here’s the dotter showing mom the first eggs:

All in all, a very momentous day.

In the meantime, OmegaDad is sick and miserable.  We thought he had pulled a muscle over the weekend.  I hauled him into the doctor, and we decided to do a two-fer:  him for the pain, me for my horribly itchy, scratchy head, which I feared might be lice.  But according to the doc, it’s a staph infection.  Um.  This is good, right?  Rather than lice?  Anyway, OmegaDad got progressively worse over the course of the day, and when we returned from the gymnasium, he was running a fever of 102F.  Which does not sound like he pulled a muscle, after all.

When the dotter was two, three, four years old, I would tell her stories at bedtime.  That’s when bedtime was Mommy-only, a long, drawn-out affair that left me (brutal honesty here) seething, because I wanted my time and she wanted me and she was desperately afraid of being alone.

There were just a few stories, the same ones again and again, just like a favorite book or movie or song.  I got very tired of the same stories, but if I varied them–oh, heavens, that never would do!  Somehow or other, though, our bedtime ritual evolved and changed, slowly but surely, and it’s been quite a while since I’ve told those stories. 

For some reason the other night when I was lying in bed trying to get to sleep, I flashed on the beginning of one of our stories.  Perhaps it was because our girl is going into first grade (tomorrow!), and is so excited and nervous about it, which led me to reminiscing, which led me to…

Once upon a time, in a magical kingdom in the forests by the mountains, there was a princess.  She had long, straight, silky brown hair with red highlights that sparkled in the sun, a cute little nose, and a cute little mouth.  She was very pretty. 

But all princesses are pretty, so that’s not what was special about her.  What was special about her was that she was smart and kind and gentle and cared about other people.  Her name was Princess OmegaDotter Middlename Chinesename Lastname, and she lived in a castle with her father, King OmegaDad, and her mother, Queen OmegaMom. 

Now the king and queen were usually busy making sure the kingdom ran right; they’d make sure the trains ran on time, that the garbage was picked up, and that there were flowers in the park gardens.  So when there was a problem, the people in the town would come to Princess OmegaDotter and ask her for help…

Her favorite of the Princess OmegaDotter stories was the one with the rude pink (or purple or blue–she got to choose the color each night) dragon that was eating the cows and sheep in the meadow behind the town.  The lonely giant trampling the town, and the big whale terrorizing the town fishermen sort of got lost along the way; the dragon won out.

I realized as I flashed on that story that I could visualize the meadow…and the town…and the dragon picking up the cows, chewing, and spitting out the bones with a “Ptui!” sound…and the road to the cliff where Princess OmegaDotter would coordinate an effort by townsfolk to push the dragon over. 

(Sometimes the dragon was conquered by tangling it up with Silly String, then loaded onto a cart and hauled off to the cliff; other times, the dragon was led on a chase through the forest, ending up at the cliff.)

These stories had a series of points that I wanted to ingrain in her:  Be Nice.  Be Polite.  Use Your Brains.  Help Other People.  Don’t Be Scared.

Another story was the Monkey Man and the Baby Elephant.  This was actually her favorite, and she still asks for it now and then, at very odd moments, such as when we’re driving to the gymnasium and I can only get a paragraph or two out before I park the car and we get out.  The main point about this one was:  Don’t Be Afraid, Mommy Will Always Find You.  You see, Baby Elephant was out eating breakfast with her mother, and there was this beautiful butterfly, and Baby Elephant chased the butterfly here and there, until suddenly Baby Elephant realized that mommy had disappeared.  She wandered lost and alone until she found Monkey Man and other friends, who helped her find her mother again.

He lived in a teeny tiny house at the very tippy top of the tallest tree in the rainbow forest, and that house was just the right size for a Monkey Man.  It had a little kitchen, with a little sink and a little stove and a little refrigerator, and all the refrigerator had in it was lumpy-dumpy.  It had a little bed which was just the right size for a Monkey Man.  It had a little table, and little chairs, and a little window, and a little door which Monkey Man would lock every night. 

Lumpy-dumpy was something that the dotter and her best friend would chant to each other, and I was required to include it, as well as the door that was locked at night.

I could probably continue both of these stories from memory right now, all the way through, all the verbal flourishes and special set points included.  And the “Once upon a time in Guilin, China, there was a woman who had a beautiful baby girl…” story, as well.

It’s been a long time.  The dotter sleeps in her own bedroom now, and these days asks us to turn off the light.  Today, when OmegaDad hauled her off to the grocery store, she insisted that they buy a card for her new teacher, and when they got home, she corralled me and got my help in writing a “Hi!” to Mrs. Nices.  Tomorrow, I deliver her to school, along with the school supplies and the special card, and she starts first grade.

So, let’s see:

Mamasan and Anne suggested Gloria Vanderbilt.  Mamasan also suggested low- or mid-rise jeans, which Wendy, Anne,  and Mrs. Figby seconded.  There were a trio of mentions of “Not Your Daughter’s Blue Jeans” from Nordstrom’s (Noreen, Carol Anne, and Anne), and a couple of mentions of the “curvy” jeans at the Gap (LisaC and an email).

So I decided to try one of the NYDJ’s from Nordstrom’s, one of the curvy’s from the Gap, and one of Lands End’s custom jeans.  Much to my horror, my measurements plopped me into a size 14, since you’re supposed to be ordering by the hip size mostly.  Aaaaccccckkkkk!  I halfway expect them to arrive and fit perfectly through the hips and–as usual–gape like crazy at the waist.  Or maybe just not fit at all–either being too tight or being too loose.  We shall see.

Why am I doing all this?  Well, to be honest, I just hate trying on clothes.  I can handle about an hour, and then I go batshit crazy, start foaming at the mouth, chewing the walls in the dressing room, feeling like ants are crawling all over my skin, and turning into Uber Bitch.  What’s worse is when I do that and there’s no payoff:  Nothing fits, I don’t like any of the jeans I’ve tried on, or there’s a great pair of jeans that just happens to be half an inch too tight, and none of that model in my size.

It’s just an exercise in frustration and aggravation to me.  So I am seeking out the Holy Grail on the intertubes.

(Waving “Hi!” to Wendy and Anne, who delurked.)

As for readership, as one of my long-time readers noted in an email, my RSS feed shows the whole post, and I’d get more hits if I switched to a partial feed.  Now is when we edge close to an ethical question:  Do I provide convenience for my readers (whole-post feed) or do I provide a much-needed ego-boo (partial-post feed prompting click-throughs)?  And the fact that my ego-boo would also provide views on my BlogHer ads is additional ethical fodder.  I happen to know of some people who claim that as soon as a blogger they read switches to partial posting, they immediately drop their subscription as a matter of principle.

The whole readership question is pure narcissism anyway.  It’s a revealing chink in my oh-so-bluff self-confident armor that the drop has made me stick out my lower lip and whimper, “Why is everyone going away?!  Don’t they like me any more?!”  At these times, I have to sit myself down and talk sternly:

“Self.  Quit being a whiner.  You know damned well why your hits have dropped, and it’s called ‘not updating your blogging software and pissing off Google’.”

::sniff::  “But I’m not suuuure!  Maybe it’s not that!  Maybe it’s because I’m getting boring in my old age!  Maybe what I think is good writing, or fun stuff, just plain isn’t, and it’s all been ‘pity’ reading, and they’re just clicking through because they’re sorry for me, and I know they’re all talking behind my back and laughing at me!“ 

Segue into my Self curling up in a quivering heap in the corner of the bedroom and having serious flashbacks to the anguishing angst that is “being a nerd in high school”.  I begin speaking even more sternly:

“Girl, get a grip!  You know that Google blacklisted oodles of blogs who hadn’t upgraded, because Teh Hackers were siphoning off Google search results and gaming the system with invisible SEO terms.  Your Google hits are beginning to pick up again, slowly but surely.”

Self just rocks and moans and nervously curls hair around a finger.  This is difficult, because I have short hair, but Self does it somehow.  This is also a flashback to high school, when I had hair halfway down my back, but the hair beside my face was always filled with split ends and half of it was broken off around chin length because of the constant hair twisting.

BUT!  There is always a “but”:  I’ve read about three or four other bloggers whimpering about readership lately, and they seem like hawt, trendy, interesting gals to me, so maybe it’s all a function of summertime.

At which, Self pops open a suspicious eye, peers at me, and decides that possibly–just possibly–I might be right and Self can come out of the semi-catatonic state and focus on more important things, like the fact that Crayola 24-pack crayons were a smokin’ 49 cents each at the local store, along with other good deals, so the back-to-school shopping was not as frenzy-making as it could have been…

I need reader feedback on this one, puh-leeze!

I have a Victorian figure, relatively slender on top, a well-defined waist, a natural bustle (”I’ve got a big butt, and I cannot lie!”) and wide thighs.  And I’m short.  But not quite short enough to be classified as a “petite” for pants and jeans.  Anyway, almost any time I purchase something that fits me through the butt and thighs, it has a waist that gapes like a fish.

So I’m thinking of trying out custom jeans.

Much to my dismay, after investigation it turns out that the top two most interesting online sites (myjeans.com and makeyourownjeans.com) are…well, let’s just say they have lots of dissatisfied customers.  Then there’s LandsEnd and JC Penney’s versions…Penney’s are less expensive, but they both seem to use the same approach to fitting.

My old jeans are all beginning to wear out; we’re talking “please, please O Kozmik All, please let these jeans not split beside the seams or have that small hole above the back pocket suddenly rip asunder while I’m at the back-to-school picnic!”  I desperately need new jeans.  Also, I need new (bigger, sigh) jeans that fit.

Anyway, I want to hear from YOU.  Yes, YOU.  Have any of my readers tried any custom jeans purchases online?  What were your experiences?  Satisfying?  Not satisfying?  Horrible experience?  Great experience?

(Actually, I’d like to hear from YOU whether you’ve tried it or not; OmegaMom has suddenly jumped up a bit in subscribership, while still lagging in hits, so I’d just like folks to de-lurk and say “Hi!”)

Early this a.m., I drove GrannyJ to the Big City airport, escorted her to the gate, and saw her off.  Then I drove home and fell into bed and slept, and slept, and slept.

I need a vacation from this vacation!

These past few weeks have been grand fun, but very active, and have flown by in an instant.  We climbed a glacier, took a sea cruise, wandered through the back roads in the mountains this way and that, drove up to The Big One, and poked around in non-tourist-y areas as well.

Now it’s time for life to settle back into a predictable routine.  The dotter’s school starts on Monday, as does her gymnastics team stuff.  I have to delve into my emails, which I haven’t looked at more than once in the past two weeks.  There’s a huge heap of laundry to do.  I have to figure out why our Dyson has stopped sucking and is instead making an odd noise (::sob!::).  I have to buy a full-spectrum lamp for my office, because Winter Is Coming, and I sure as snot am not going to suffer as much as I did last November and December, dammit!

Del asked for a high-res version of the sunset picture, so here it is.

Minot mentioned that the Dread Porpoise Sekrit may not be too secret for too long, as the dotter will be reading my blog before I know it.  This is, indeed, a consideration, and one I thought about before posting.  However, the main problem is keeping it secret for a few months, not years–All Will Be Revealed someday.  I just wanted the dotter to bask in the magic for a little longer.

Then there’s the fact that OmegaDotter seems bound and determined to not read.  I’m hoping that having to do homework will at least get us past the “I don’t want to ‘read’ but will startle you with out-of-the-blue random readings of street signs, trucks, business logos and what-not” stage.  She’s got some kind of block, and the end result is she sort of sticks out her lower lip when urged to read.  So I’m not too worried about the Dread Porpoise Sekrit being revealed all too soon.

Anyway, here’s hoping that now that we’ve returned to a form of normalcy, I’ll be posting more regularly…

Pssst…Come over here.  Shhhhhh!  Don’t tell anyone!

Especially the dotter.

Those Orcas we saw Saturday?

Um…

They weren’t Orcas.

They were Dall’s Porpoises.

OmegaDad was skeptical about Orcas riding the bow wave.  His first thought was some type of conspiracy theory which I couldn’t quite figure out, but anyway, he kept insisting that Orcas don’t do that, and that little Orcas (i.e., babies) stay with their moms for two years, and we should have seen big Orcas around if we were seeing babies.  There was some discussion about maybe painting porpoises black and white…

So he consulted The Google.  He came up the the Dall’s Porpoise.  At bedtime, as I was snuggling down with my book to read a bit, he sat down on my side of the bed, leaned towards me, and said, “This is a secret.  You are not to tell the dotter!”

And he Revealed All.

My response:  Damn, I’m bummed!  Oh, it was magical, yes, but now it’s not quite as magical as I thought it was.  Wah.

Yesterday’s picture?  It’s apparently a classic; if you scroll down to the Dall’s Porpoise part of this page about Monterey Bay, you’ll see almost exactly the same picture.

Please don’t tell the dotter!

The good side:  We’ll obviously have to go out again next year…

When OmegaDotter was a small thing (she’s not small to us, anymore, though everyone exclaims about how tiny she is, hmmm), she loved Free Willy.  It was, in fact, the first “real” movie we ever purchased for her, in a boxed three-movie set containing all the Willy movies.

Free Willy was the movie that inspired her to want to play the harmonica (the “carmonica”).  It also inspired a great love of all things Orca, so she has a collection of Orcas that, while in no way even approximating her horsie collection, is still pretty good.  Stuffed Orcas of all sizes.  Orca magnets.  Plastic Orcas.  Puzzles featuring Orcas.  Stretchy rubber Orcas.  One or two T-shirts with Orcas on them.

When we moved to Alaska, OmegaDad promised the dotter that we would take a boat upon the ocean and see Orcas.

While GrannyJ was in town, we wanted to actually do the touristy cruise thang.  OmegaDad, being the sort who worries, kept pestering me to make the reservations, because everyone knows that the cruises fill up fast.  I kept waving him off, assuring him that I’d do it, and to for Gawd’s sake stop pestering me!  In the meantime, we’ve been checking out cruise ship costs and itineraries and locations off and on for a while.

There were all these scrumptious “glacier” tours.  See 27 glaciers in one day! proclaimed one company.  See the fjords and glaciers of Kenai Fjords National Park!  Park rangers!  Narration!  Go here!  Do this!  See that!

I kept returning, however, to one cruise that really caught my attention–a wildlife cruise.  Y’know, when you’ve seen one glacier, you’ve seen them all.  (Okay, not really, but I didn’t want to do “just” glaciers.)  It started from a town that was further away than some of the others that I was looking at.  I sat there weighing the question:  one-and-a-half-hour drive to “see 27 glaciers!” or a three-hour drive to “see wildlife”?

After dithering and thinking and scrunching up my forehead in Deep Thought, Friday I made reservations for Saturday (so much for that “all booked up” worry) for the Resurrection Bay Wildlife Cruise, a noon departure with a stop at Fox Island for lunch.

We woke up at 6, we were out of the house at 7:20.  All the sunshine that GrannyJ has brought with her had disappeared–of course–so we drove through bouts of rain, oohing and aahing at lovely cloud sculptures and low-lying fog slipping in between mountain peaks.  We drove.  And drove.  And drove.  Large lakes.  Above the treeline.  Below the treeline.  New mountains.  Peeks of sunlight.

We arrived in Seward with plenty of time to spare, and enough time to let the dotter get bored and whiny.  We got on board.  We waited.  Any glimpses of sunlight started being covered over again.  The sky was leaden, the sea leaden as well.  And then we headed out.

I’d like to claim that the clouds parted, rays of sunlight fell upon us like melted butter, and a chorus of angels were singing, but, alas, no:  it remained chilly and grey.  Nonetheless, it was grand.  We motored out to the island at quite a clip, the wind picking up.  We arrived at the island, we ate, we wandered around the beach covered with The Very Best Skipping Stones, we skipped stones, we took pictures, we got back on the ship.  So far, the only wildlife we had seen was from afar, but we were all still enjoying it.

And then, as we motored further out, I caught sight of something breaking water.  I grabbed at OmegaDad, who was with me (the dotter and GrannyJ were inside the cabin on the lower deck), pointed, and we watched as something porpoise-like leaped out of the water a few times.  We couldn’t really tell what they were.  Then they were gone…we were past, there had been no chance to get the dotter to see, but OmegaDad went in and grabbed her “just in case”.  The captain hadn’t said anything about it, though he had been pointing out various birds as we cruised on, so OmegaDad and I figured that no-one had seen them.

And then the ship slowed down.  And then the ship started turning.  And then the captain came on the PA to announce that “we’ve sighted some small Orcas and we’re going to circle back”.  And the ship circled back.

And there they were.  Three to six small Orcas (really small).  The dotter was in the very bow of the ship–a perfect spot.  The Orcas spent five to ten minutes playing with us–swimming underneath the ship, swimming alongside the ship, breaching the water just in front of the bow of the ship over and over again.  We tried and tried to get pictures, but they were moving fast and this is the best we got.

It was wonderful.  It was grand.  The dotter was in heaven.  See this look of pure bliss?

There was lots more to the cruise–some absolutely spectacular wildlife sightings and groovy scenery.  Thousands of birds (puffins, cormorants, gulls, murres (?)) in huge rookeries.  Sea lions basking on the rocks.  Glaciers.  Rocky islands thrusting out of the sea.  The dotter, with her sharp eyes, found the jellyfish swimming in the ocean beneath us, and the purple and orange starfish clasping to the rocks at the shoreline.  GrannyJ caught some amazing bird pictures, with her amazing camera, and now I have a bad case of camera envy, because our little snapshot digicam doesn’t do birds or sea lions or long shots worth a damn.

Sooo.  If you ever come out to Alaska to the Seward area, and want to take a cruise, I highly recommend the Resurrection Bay Wildlife Cruise put on by Kenai Fjords Touring.  It is awesome, spectacular, wonderful.

And you get Orcas.

And if you’re the OmegaParents, you get to fulfill a long-time promise.

Another long day spent out and about.  The OmegaFamily had done the first part of the drive before, up Margaret Pass to the alpine summit lake.  At the lake, I found some purty flowers.  This is some type of sedum, and really very small:

At the lake, we had marmots and ground squirrels and magpies eating dead critters.  GrannyJ got one pic each of the marmot crossing the road (”Why does the marmot cross the road?”  “To get to the other side!”  Peals of laughter from the dotter) and of the magpie chowing down.

Yesterday, we went beyond the lake.  Here is the road we took through the mountains after going past the little lake:

There were mines (one is a state park and defunct, the other is a Going Concern).  There were oodles of purty alpine flowers that GrannyJ was trying to photograph, so here’s a shot of the lady in action:

And the dotter and I clambered about a bit, too:

Then we drove on down the road pictured above, through the tundra above the tree line, and then following a lovely mountain stream down into the beginning of the trees.  The beavers love this stream–everywhere we looked, there were beaver ponds, and a fine beaver lodge or two (the heaps of dead twigs by the side of the pond):

As we went further down, the stream got bigger, and so did the trees.  The dotter spent a delighted few minutes at this stop collecting “gold!”, aka quartz rocks.  We had purchased a vial of gold up at the mine, so she was determined to add to it.  OmegaDad warned us at this stop that it looked like Bear Country and we should Make Noise.  The dotter happily obliged, but, as GrannyJ noted, the stream made so much noise that it didn’t seem like it would make a difference.  We did not see any bears.

Another purty flower from this area, I believe–I think it’s valerian:

Our back road ended at the highway, and we turned northwards in hopes of getting a glimpse of The Big One.  Alas, there were clouds directly over the peak, so we never saw it.  We went on to the tourist town at the confluence of two rivers, which delighted GrannyJ with oodles of moose kitsch.  These were the only moose that she has seen so far in her visit; our marauding garden moose seem to have found greener pastures for the past few weeks.

There was a painting in one of the galleries that I swooned over and would love to own…alas, it’s $800, and that’s enough money for more practical purposes, so we won’t be getting that painting.  We wandered down to the beach by the rivers, and the dotter and I practiced skipping stones, both of us managing to skip a stone at least twice.  Woot!

The dotter is sporting a grand knit cap which was her gift from OmegaDad, and which she slept with (”It’s my nightcap, mommy!”).

Then we ate a tourist-town-priced dinner, and moseyed our way back, with a stop at this little lake to catch the setting sun:

That picture, by the way, was taken by the dotter.

We arrived home at 10 p.m., and all fell into bed soon thereafter.  Today:  a day of rest.  I mowed almost all of the backyard before the heavens opened up and poured down hail and great big fat raindrops; we are now getting afternoon thunderstorms (thunder!  Yay!) growing downward from the mountains.

OmegaMom (the blog) is now three years old.  (I figure most of you will read this on the sixth of August.)  Toss me some confetti, sing a song, wish me three more years of blathering.

My first post was nothing much.  My second was more substantive.  I talked about rubber duckies in the fourth (the third was just a pointer to a cool picture).  I talk about my aunt in the fifth.  I yearn for closets in the sixth.  The topic for number 7 was “beauty, order, chaos“.  OmegaDad–aka Mr. OmegaMom–was the eighth topic.  And my bete noire at the time was elk, not moose.  Life has changed a lot.

More sunny days…we think GrannyJ brought them with her, which, of course, means she will take them away when she leaves.

Yesterday, we took advantage of the hint of sunlight we saw, and headed off to The Glacier.  We were rewarded with the kinds of views that show up on Alaska tourism magazines.

Mountain and river:

Dad and dotter sharing some laughter and nose-rubs alongside a lake:

The lake and mountains looking very picturesque:

GrannyJ in front of The Glacier:

The glacier is advancing at the rate of a foot a day.  At the same time, it used to be where GrannyJ is pictured, and has actually retreated to where it is in the view (half a mile back?).  So the end result:  if it weren’t advancing as quickly as it is, it would have receded quite a bit further.

In reality, what GrannyJ is standing on is frozen icy debris.  It’s astonishing how much grit and dirt and rock this honkin’ heap o’ ice has left behind.  Anyway, you drive to almost this point, then hike the half mile to the real glacial stuff.  The keepers of the private property on which the glacier ends claimed that we could drive GrannyJ to the foot of the glacier…ahem.  They wuz wrong.  Or maybe they didn’t quite understand when we asked how close she could get to it.  Technically, yes, she’s “on” the glacier.  But what we wanted was something like this:

The ice is incredibly blue.  The dotter was poking at one of the numerous rivulets of water rushing across the surface of the ice, and you get an idea of the blue-ness:

The dotter had to try sliding down the ice:

We followed the trail to the lake at the real foot of the glacier:

You can’t tell just how big this is, but I have another picture of the same shot, just a little angled to the left, which has a trio of people crossing the ice midway down, and the people are little ant-like spots on the ice.

At this point, we should have turned around and taken the trail back.  But, hey, we’re wild and crazy and adventuresome.  We wanted to go a different way “out”, so we followed the stream back out from the bottom of the lake.  We had to cross numerous times, one of which ended up with OmegaDad nearly being swept into the water when the “solid ice” in the middle of the four-foot-wide rushing icy stream turned out to not be solid and sank beneath him.  This so freaked out the dotter that at bedtime, when we were doing the Feeling Game, her “I was scared by…” was this, and it led to a discussion of what would happen if he had been drowned, and what would happen if we both were drowned, and “how would I get home?” 

There were some grand carved canyons in the ice:

But after a great deal of slipping and sliding and schlepping through icy rivulets and slurgy muck, we made it out. 

We drove further up into the mountains, above the tree line, and got a grand postcard-like vista:

We ate dinner at a roadhouse which had this lovely little jewel of a tundra lake behind it:

And then we drove home.

All told, about 10 or 11 hours out-and-about.  I have to say that by the time we were about 20 miles from home, I was ready to kill my dotter.  This child cannot stop chattering.  It was endless.  I was at the point where I was desperate for peace and quiet!

But there you have it:  Yes, there is sunshine in Alaska.  Yes, there are glaciers and forests and mountains and lakes and rivers in Alaska.  I am mentally storing up all the sunny days in my memory, so that if it keeps raining, I’ve got that sunny memory to keep me going.

So Marley did a meme, and I remember seeing this meme somewhere else, and I’m looking for something to pop into the ol’ blogeroo while I’m gallivanting about with my mom and my dotter, so I thought I’d do this.

You type your name followed by “needs” into Google.  You choose 10, hopefully the top 10.

So.  Herewith:

Kate needs a shave.  Ooookay.  Look, I know I’ve got this menopausal thing going on, and I know that I have hair growing in odd places now (while it stops growing in other places), but isn’t it a bit rude to be telling me I need a shave?!

Kate needs a cold shower.  Um.  I’m afraid to look.  It’s a video.  It’s probably not safe for work.

Kate needs a date.  With my husband, of course!  Who else?!  And I do.  We’re considering getting season tickets to the symphony in Big City.  It just so happens that my heartthrob symphony conductor from Small University Mountain Town left his position there a year and a half ago.  Guess where he turned up?!  Big City!  Woot!  Now I can go and sigh mistily as he tosses his mane of raven hair about while conducting.

Ahem.  I remind myself that the date we’re talking about is with my husband, not with aforementioned conductor.

Let’s continue.

Kate needs a stylist.  I totally agree.  Anyone want to donate a few visits to a stylist to me?  (Note:  it’s actually Mary-Kate, but we’ll accept it anyway.)

Kate needs a macro-system.  Don’t we all?

Kate needs to get lost.  Well!  The noive!  Besides, if I were to get lost around here, we’d have Real Problems.  People who get lost around here get eaten by bears.  Or die of starvation.  Or freeze or get hypothermia.

Kate needs your help.  I always do.  It could be monetary help.  Hint, hint.

Kate needs to think before she speaks.  Yowzah.  I am totally down with this one.  This is soooo true, sometimes.

Kate needs better keyboard usability.  Yup.  And better eye-interface usability.  And better finger-joint usability.  Oh, heck, toss in a bunch of usability stuff, I’m sure I need it.

Kate needs to go on a diet.  Um.  Who’s been looking at all the pictures of me I don’t put up on the web?!  Okay, look, this one’s about Mary-Kate again, and, hey, y’know, in every picture of that girl I’ve seen, she would be the last person on earth who needs to go on a diet; if anything, she needs to stop dieting and start eating again.  As for me?  Well, let’s just say I do need to go on a diet, but I need to do it on the QT, because I’m damned if my dotter hears me uttering those words and grows up thinking that’s the way to approach life.

By the way, we’ve been in Alaska a year now…

Tap, tap, tap…

Pffffttt…Pfffftttt…

“Hello?” Tap, tap.  “Hello?  Anyone there?”

Yes, it’s OmegaMom, reporting after four days of silence.  Hi, there.  Yes, I’m alive.  Yes, OmegaGranny is alive.  My computer is being filled to the brim with OmegaGranny’s pictures, which I am supposed to burn to CD or DVD just before she leaves.

I fully expected to find at least one, maybe even two comments taking me to task for my vaccination post.  Nope.  What a disappointment!  That was supposed to be controversial, dammit.

Oh, well.

What have we been doing?

Let’s see:  Driving in to Big City at midnight to pick up OmegaGranny, arriving back home at 2 a.m.  A day spent recuperating and peering out at grey and gloom.  Two days wandering around the area in the sunshine.  (YES!  Sunshine!  TWO DAYS of it!) 

Two failed attempts to return OmegaGranny’s fancy-schmancy portable oxygen doohickey which she used on the airplane (the little franchise store was closed, even though the sign claimed it was open.) 

One failed written drivers’ license test, courtesy of yours truly.  Ahem.  Hey, look, I just didn’t read the manual, and had no idea what the basic speed limit on roads was if it wasn’t posted (55 MPH), got my solid and stripy lines mixed up in a passing zone question (I thought I was on the stripy side), and depend totally upon my insurance agent to tell me how much insurance we’re supposed to have.  Ah, well; we’ll try again on Monday.

And a visit to the veterinarian.

With a chicken.

Yes, I took one of our chickens to the vet.

This was at OmegaDad’s behest.

Winnie, our golden-laced Wyandotte, had cracked her beak, you see.  I figured it was like a fingernail; it would grow out and all would be well.

But OmegaDad wanted it checked out.

OmegaDad, many years ago, was concerned about the big black spot of rough skin on our 2-year-old butterscotch Teddy Bear hamster.  I told him, “Hmmm…It looks like cancer.  She is two years old.  There’s not much we can do if I’m right…”  So he took the hamster to the vet.  The vet looked at the hamster, poked, prodded, and said to OmegaDad, “Hmmm…It looks like cancer.  She is two years old.  There’s not much we can do if I’m right…”  Then he added, “But we could do a biopsy, if you really want to…”

OmegaDad did not get the biopsy done.  Our hamster lived happily for another six months, slowly going bald, and getting incredibly wrinkly skin.

Anyway, he wanted me to take Winnie to the vet.  I made sure we all returned early enough from our excursion that day that we had time to put her in a box and haul her off.  When I entered the vet’s office, a customer at the counter looked at me, and the box, and the dotter, and said, “Oh!  You must be the chicken!”

Yes, we were the chicken.  Apparently, our appointment was a great source of amusement for everyone.

Anyway, Doctor Sheila–a fine vet–came in, exclaimed at how beauteous Winnie was, and how tame, gently chucked her under the chin, peered at the beak, and called her “Sugar.”  (Doctor Sheila calls all our animals “Sugar”.)  Winnie, normally a high-strung bird, drank it all in.  The only evidence of chicken nerves was when Doc Sheila came at the beak with a trimmer, at which point I had to put Winnie into a chicken-hold.

I kept explaining that it was my husband’s idea to take the chicken to the vet.

Doc Sheila reassured me by telling me that she had done much more ridiculous pets than that…for instance, she had done surgery on both a goldfish (!) and a frog (!).

So Winnie’s beak has been trimmed, we have been reassured that she’s a splendid specimen of a bird and quite healthy, and I’ve been ferrying OmegaGranny and OmegaDotter hither, thither, and yon to various splendid scenery and tourist spots.  I now have some 300 posts in my BlogLines roster to wade through…