1. This blog. Thank you, WordPress, for having easy to use buttons with words written on them. Without that feature, I may have forgotten how all of this works.
2. Twitter. Do you remember when you were a little kid riding on the merry-go-round, and some giant beast of a fourth grader would swagger up and starting “pushing”, but the kid was actually just a psychopath whose secret end goal was to see the merry-go-round break or make someone puke? Sometimes getting on Twitter feels a lot like trying to hop on that merry-go-round after a fourth grader has had his way with it. I love the ride, but it can be hard to hang on. And I totally don’t want to lose my Trapper Keeper.
3. Any and all refrigerator maintenance. When I was putting away groceries this weekend I found a container of lobster bisque. I remember eating the other part of that lobster bisque way back when I was “celebrating the calories of the season” and “eating like I just got out of prison”, so I’m placing that particular soup somewhere in the early third quarter of 2011. What’s that? No, it doesn’t keep all that well.
4. My underarm hair. I discovered this particular area of neglect recently while swimming mit die kinder. I was doing some sort of “Yay!” move and noticed I was making things all Sasquatch up on the scene at indoor family swim. No additional yays were shared after.
5. My pretty. From late October until, um…about two weeks ago, I left the red nail polish from my last pedicure on my big toe. No, just the big toe. All the other paint had worn off. I haven’t bothered to schedule pedicure update because I’ve been too busy trying to bust all known records for consecutive days spent sporting a ponytail.
I must confess I am an easy target for the winter blahs. Even in a freakishly warm winter like the one we’re having, the naked trees and gray skies just make me want to lay somewhere and grow unsightly body hair until I see leaves again. Having lived with these temporary blahs all my life, I know that short of moving to a place with no winter (and perhaps one where none of the women folk shave?) I will have to deal.
Thankfully, there are bright spots. Like whatever I was cheering about in the pool. Or yesterday, when we met this lovely lady at the World Bird Sanctuary where Jack will be doing some volunteer work:
This is a Barred Owl, sometimes known as the Rain Owl, and as you can see she is being very sassy with the Exorcist head spinning thing. Presumably she likes hanging out in the bare woods in the rain, which were the precise conditions we met her in at the new volunteer orientation. Once upon a time she was rescued and nursed back to health, and because she is blind in one eye she will be kept safe in what looks to be a very happy captivity. In addition to the little show she put on for us, we learned that she likes to play with a tennis ball and sometimes a rope. She also lives next door to a falcon, so you know that’s never boring.
As I type this, the sun is beating out the creepy morning fog for control of the sky. Even though it’s still cold and brown out there, I now have my role model for handling the winter blahs. Until sometime in March, I will party like a Barred Owl. If that doesn’t work, I’ve read that sniffing a freshly peeled orange will also do the trick. February, take this and a hoot:
Like this:
Tags: children, family, kids, momblog, owl, parenting, seasonal depression, volunteer, wildlife, winter, world bird sanctuary
So happy to see you!! You are missed!
Awww, thank you! Truthfully, I miss the crazy merry-go-round too
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If you take out lobster bisque and substitute egg & sausage strata (brought home from a holiday brunch at my mother’s house) you could have been writing about my life.
(Oh yeah and also my big toe has no polish left. But other than that…)
Thanks to you and this post, I’ll be looking for my own Barred Owl today.
And also sniffing orange peel because who doesn’t do that?
Duh.
(And I loved this. In case you couldn’t tell.)
I hope you’ve found your owl, my dear. And now I want some strata. But not super old strata, because that would be a sign that my blahs have turned into something else.
I just ate a booger out of my hair. It must have been deposited some time this am by my snot nosed sniffly son. I reckon I’d chow down on your lobster bisque, 1000u/ml of Salmonella typhimurium and all, over snot any day. I wonder how you’d send that in the post….???
It’s such a shame you can’t pass it along in a post…we could trade!
Actually, I think you’ve just come up with the next big reality show challenge. Contestants offered curdled bisque, child boogers, whatever that is under my couch cushions, etc. First contestant to blink loses. We’ve both got a pretty good chance, yes?
Oh my chances are excellent…for the first round. I’ll never make the next one, ’cause after your bisque I have to be taken to hospital for three days on IV antibiotics, IV fluids and being nursed with very large conti pads for the foamy, copious and excoriating shit that will be dribbling out of my red, blistered anus. But hey, we would have had fun playing!!