Airplane Tetherball

My sister, Alfred, and I were very creative with the games we’d play growing up.  Often, we’d make our own version of some toy we wished we had or that our school or church had.  My post about our attempts to bungee jump is one example.  We even made our own tetherball, sort of.

Our shared bedroom had a little alcove in it with a lower-than-average ceiling.  - The alcove I wrote about in Don’t Shoot, I’m Not a Real Princess! – The ceiling was low enough that if I stood on my bed in the alcove, I could touch the ceiling.  The ceiling had a light fixture on it.  A round fixture with a round, bulbous frosted glass cover.  The frosted glass cover was held into the metal fixture by 3 screws.  The screws were evenly placed around the fixture and held the frosted glass cover in place by the pressure the bottom of the screw placed on the cover’s rim.  This meant the screws were not screwed in tight such that there was space between the screw head and the fixture rim.  This is relevant, just wait.

Alfred had a toy airplane.  A plastic, Fisher Price airplane that had little round-hole seats in it for passengers and a pilot.  The plane was rather large, probably about a foot long and a foot in wingspan.  It had wheels and coming off the nose was a long yellow plastic cord so that the plane could be pulled along.

For some reason, we decided this large, heavy, plastic airplane would make a great tetherball.  So we took that yellow pull-cord and tied it to one of the screws on the light fixture.  The cord fit perfectly in that little space between the screw head and the fixture rim.

Then, Alfred stood and I kneeled on my bed and we batted the plane back and forth at each other, ducking to dodge hard swings and smacking it back at the other person.  It was all great fun.

It was all great fun until the one time we were playing with it and the round, bulbous frosted glass fixture broke.  Broken frosted glass all over my bed.  Pooey.  The airplane didn’t hit the glass.   We didn’t really know why it broke.  Even looking back, I’m not sure.  Perhaps the screw with the plane on it was twisted just enough to put too much pressure on the cover’s rim, maybe it was tweaked at an angle that pierced the glass and caused it to shatter, maybe the screw came loose and the cover fell out and hit something on the way down.

I also don’t remember getting in trouble, but I’m sure we must have.  We certainly didn’t play airplane tetherball again.

Guardrail, 10. Alfred, 0.

“Here, I’ll test it for you, ok?”  I leaned the guardrail against the wall.   My little sister, Alfred, and I were the kinds of kids who turned everything into a jungle gym, even our grandfather.  Our bunk beds  made a much better jungle gym without that pesky safety guardrail on the top bunk.

--  The beds had been my father’s growing up and so were quite sturdy.  The guardrail was a long piece of solid wood with thick grooves for sliding onto the head- and footboards. 

  When Alfred and I wanted to play on the bunk beds, I’d crawl up onto the top bunk or stand on the side-rail of the bottom bunk and carefully, and slowly, lift the heavy guardrail off the bed.  It was unwieldy and difficult to move, being so heavy and long.  I’d prop it against the bedroom wall, where it would lean, towering over us, twice the height of Alfred.

And then it would fall on Alfred.  No matter how carefully I leaned it.  Now matter the angle I put it at.  No matter what, it would topple over onto Alfred the minute she stepped near it.  I’d place  it on the wall and walk back and forth in front of it, testing it, seeing if any floor boards would creak and knock it off balance.  I’d stand in front of and jump up and down.  I’d go across the room and run past the guardrail.  It would stand still, perfectly still against the bright yellow wall.  --

With trepidation, Alfred took one step, two steps, nearing the guardrail.  She just had to pass it to get to the bunk beds.  Three steps.  Almost directly in front of it.  Four ste—CRASH!  The guardrail came tumbling down on her.  Poor Alfred; she couldn’t win.

My friend, Crystal, on the bunk beds without the guardrail.

Munchkinhead on the bunk beds with the guardrail up.

 

 

The only sliver of wall where I could lean the guardrail.  Facing this spot, the bunk beds are at 8 o’clock.

 

 

Picture up top: Alfred standing where the guardrail would fall, a little older than when it would fall on her.

It’s a Bird, It’s a Squirrel, It’s Goldenrail in a Tree!

“Ba Nchimunya, mulaputa,” it was a common refrain on my family’s compound, about as common as my mother saying, “get out of that tree, you have a dress on.”  But I love climbing trees, and so puta-ing* or not, up I go.

Heels or bare footed, dress or trousers, those branches call my name.  Long arms and long legs make for great climbing.  Don’t worry, I have pantaloons to wear when climbing trees in dresses.

When I was growing up, we had an excellent climbing tree in front of the house, on the strip between the sidewalk and the street.  Lightning hit one of the lower branches one year, and Daddy had to remove the branch.  That made the tree a little harder to climb, but I still managed.  Luckily, I was tall enough by then to reach other branches.

In Zambia, there was an excellent mulberry tree right outside my first hut.  My climbing that tree led to the mulaputa accusations.  It’s branches were small but sturdy.  And climbing it meant access to mulberries that the children hadn’t been able to get.  

The family I stayed with in Nigeria had a beautiful lemon tree directly outside their kitchen window.  I startled the maid one day by suddenly peeking in the second-story window from the tree.  The family’s young daughters decided I had a great idea in getting into the tree and learned to climb it themselves.

Africa seems to be fully of great climbing trees.  At a party for some of the girls’ friends, I found the perfect photographing spot high in the branches of a nearby tree.

That particular climb was extra great because I had on one of my favorite pairs of shoes for climbing.   5” wedges with a very flat ball and toe area.  The small wedge was great for, well, wedging into branch joints, and the flat front flexed with my foot and allowed for good traction on the tree bark.

I’ve climbed trees in other heels, too.  On my first trip to Mr. Trizzle’s home, I attended one of his friend’s birthday parties.  It was in a park with a great climbing tree.  So up I went.  One of the party guests was so impressed that I was in a tree in heels, he kept taking pictures.  Sadly, I don’t have any of his pictures.  But there are plenty of other great climbing trees in the Bay Area, like this beauty at Cordornices Park in Berkeley.  It provides a great view of the basketball courts.

 

Maybe someday I’ll stop climbing trees, but I doubt it’ll be anytime soon.

*kuputa roughly translates as to be playing with something you’re not supposed to be playing with

Bungee Fun, or Not-So-Fun

There was a comic in the paper the other week that made me chuckle quite hard; one of those ones that’s super funny because you see your own experiences in it.  It was from Baby Blues by Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott.  Mom and Dad are in their bedroom trying to figure out why their pajama and sweatpants  are missing the elastic from around the waist.  Hammie and Zoe, their son and daughter, are in the back yard.  Hammie is high atop a ladder with a string of elastic tied around his waist, wearing a football helmet and saying “I’ve always wanted to bungee jump.”

We tried that once, too.  Only instead of stealing the elastic out of our parents clothes – which as someone who sews, I can tell you would be a lot more trouble than it’s worth – we got a bunch of bungee cords from the garage.  We climbed onto the top of the large monkey bars in the back yard and hooked one of the bungee  cords’ metal ends through a hole for the swing’s S hook.  Then I held onto the other end and jumped.

Monkey bars and S hooks for swings.

It didn’t work.  The bungee cord hook came out of the S hook hole.  *Thud*  I hit the sand hard. 

Luckily, the swing set wasn’t that high, only about 8 feet or so, and we fell and jumped off it so often that it didn’t hurt.  Well, it hurt, falling 8 feet hurts, but we didn’t get injured.

Alfred jumping from the swing and missing the monkey bar grab

Next, we tried making bungee swings by putting bungee cords into the swing S-hook holes and hooking the other end of the bungee cord into the swing’s chain links.  That sort of worked but wasn’t nearly as much fun as it seemed it ought to be.  In the end, we decided the swing set was far more fun without bungee cords.  Now I only use them for moving furniture.

 

 

10 years and 2000 miles later

On the 10th Anniversary, it seems obligatory to do a blog post about 9/11/01.  But my memories related to September 11th do not start that morning. 

My thoughts start two weeks before that day, when I finished reading Angles and Demons.  For those unfamiliar with the book, a very devoted Catholic stages an attack on the Church in order to revitalize the Church community and support for the church.  I remember finishing that book and thinking, “America needs something like that.”  Tired of people being ashamed of our country, of flags being uncool and patriotism being dead – and this was before I moved out to the Bay – it seemed that the last time our country had been supported by its people was World War II.  We need a cause to rally behind.  I didn’t expect us to get one, and I certainly didn’t expect it to be so dramatic.

The morning of September 11th, I was trying to sort out some credit card bills.  I called the customer service line.  The lady on the other end was all distracted.  “I’m sorry,” she said, “we just heard about the World Trade Center.”  “But that was years ok,” I thought, thinking of the parking garage bombing.  Then my roommate came rushing into the room, let out of her 8am class early.  “Did you hear?!”  “Hear what?”  She turned on the small tv atop our dressers.  Every channel, every single one, was showing the same thing, the clip of the second plane hitting.

There was lots of excitement, people running down the halls, exclaiming any news they’d gotten that others might not have yet.  Candlelight vigils on the campus’s Main Lawn.  Alan Jackson’s “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)” moved even those that hated country music.  American flags everywhere, not just cool again but practically required.  It was a cause to rally behind, and for most of us at my small Midwestern school, that’s all it was.

Ten years ago, I hadn’t been to New York.  I didn’t know anyone in New York.  I didn’t know anyone who would be on an international flight.  New York was like Harvard, a place that only existed on tv and in the movies.  It wasn’t until this week that I learned the plane that crashed in a Pennsylvania field was bound for SFO.  Even if I had known, it wouldn’t have mattered.  As a Midwesterner, I scorned those people on the coasts who flew from one side to the other, treating real Americans like they didn’t exist, “fly-over-country” nonsense.

Ten years later, I’ve been to New York.  I’ve seen the World Trade Center hole, and not because I went there to see it, but because it’s down the street from my friend’s dad’s office.  I know people there.  I know people who are frequently on international flights, including friends and family, and me.  I know some of the “coastal people,” heck, I’m even friends with them.  And while I still disdain the fly-over-country mentality, I don’t hate them.  Ten years later, the events are more real than they could have been to a sheltered twenty year-old.  And sadly, ten years later, the flags are mostly gone again.

I liked that patriotism; I’d like to see it back.  But I don’t expect it anytime soon.  It’s impossible to be both an apologetic and a patriot, and the loudest voices in our society are still demanding we be the first.

September 11th, 2001 may have given us a rallying cry on which to rebuild our patriotism.  But the events of the next 9 years destroyed it all again.  John Yoo said we’re safer and freer now than we were ten years ago.  He’s a good speaker, but I disagree.  When I feel trapped in my city because transportation out of it is either too long or too anxiety-filled due to the “heightened security measures” – not the risks, the measures – I do not feel safe or free.  I never feared the terrorists; I fear TSA.

They won. We have lost both our patriotism and our freedom.

Have I Mentioned I Hate Bugs?

A Story

I was exhausted, it had been a long, hard-fought battle against the ants.  I collapsed onto my bed, my luxury princess bed in my mud and thatch castle.  The large pile of blankets atop the foam mattress felt like heaven.  I tucked a satin-cased pillow under my head and reached for my book.

Three days, it’d been at least three days, this battle with the ants.  At first there were only a few.  I didn’t mind a few, as long as they stayed on the ground or the walls.  They weren’t the impashi (“ihm-posh-eee,” fire ants) that can devour a human baby whole in a few minutes.  They were regular little ants.  And after all, inside isn’t all that much different than outside when everything’s made of mud and grass.  But then, they’d started getting into things, those pesky ants.  Climbing over the salade (“salad-eee,” cooking oil) bottle, around the balsamic vinegar cap.  Hey, that’s my breakfast!  Getting on stuff I needed to touch: the chair, the table, my sewing machine.  That was when I decided to fight back.  I had no idea it’d be so long or so torturous a fight.

At first, I just swept them out.  Short straw broom, hunched over, sweep, sweep, swee-eep.  Out go the ants, back outside where they belong.  But it wasn’t enough.

I put all the food away.  Well, the little bit that was out.  Most of the food was already tucked away in thick plastic buckets with tough snap-on lids to keep the imbebe (“ihm-bey-bah,” rats) out.  So the few glass jars and such, into the buckets they went, too.  With out any food out, there should be nothing to attract the ants.  Another sweep, sweep, swee-eep, and the ants were gone.  Briefly.  It wasn’t enough.  Time to call in reserves.

Ba Lenix, Ba Feya, Ba Joyce and Hampola came to investigate.  Where were the ants entering?  Maybe there was something we could do to block the entrance, or to make the entrance less appealing.  Considering the windows didn’t close, the roof didn’t meet the ceiling and the whole place was made out of mud, this seemed like an odd idea to me.  Oh well, anything’s worth a shot.

With the hut half emptied into the front yard, we found a few possible entry points and brushed some wood preserver around the areas.  On the brick, on the concrete, on the wood.  Sweep, sweep, swee-eep.  Goodbye ants.  Seemed good.  I rested. It wasn’t enough.  Time to call in the extra special back-up reserves: the village.

Ba Lenix had decided the ants were coming through the cracks in my concrete floor.  We emptied the hut, again, this time everything but the bed.  Ba Lenix and several men from the village began chipping away at the cracks in the cement floor.  The cracks had been small carcks, now they were deep gorges carved out with rough hoes and spare pieces of metal.  The men filled the newly enlarged cracks with new cement from a spare bag they’d scrounged up.  The previously smooth and shiny, but slightly cracked floor now looked like a relief map of the Missouri-Mississippi river system, with rough lines of various thickness running here and there.

It was done.  No more ants.  I was thrilled, absolutely thrilled.  I took out my floor polish and polished my new floor ‘til it shone brightly.  Everything was moved back into place and I polished the legs of my table and chair and bed, the bottom of my bookshelf, anything that touched the floor that the ants might want to crawl up should they come back.  There would be no more ants.  I was determined.

Finally happy and relieved, I dropped my exhausted body into that princess bed.  I lay there reading my book, muscles aching, smile on my face.  Then I felt a little tickle on my neck.  I reached my hand up to move my hair away, but as I brushed at my neck, I noticed my hair was not there.  I brought my hand back to where I could see.  There was an ant.  Slowly, stiff with fright, I rolled my head to the left.  The entire side of the bed was a wave of ants crawling over the mounds of fabric, headed straight towards me.

A Summary

That feeling, that twitch on my neck, the stiff fear that took over my body, the view of hundreds of ants coming directly towards me at eye level, it’s one of my most vivid memories from Zambia.  It was probably my hardest days there. One of those things that once it happened and I didn’t flee for the US made me realize I could handle a lot more than I ever expected.

I didn’t necessarily handle it well.  I jumped out of that bed and out of that hut as fast as I could.  I threw all the blankets and sheets  over the clothesline and hopped on my bike for town.  I  fled.

A Repeat

Today, I got to relive part of this story.  When winter starts in California, it rains.  And when it rains, ants become a problem.  I keep boric acid, and when I see some ants start to come in, I line the baseboards with boric acid.  That generally gets rid of the ants.

My roommate was supposed to move out while I was gone.  He did.  But before he did, the ants started to come.  I had emptied all the trash and put away all the food before I left.  If the ants came before my roommate left, he’d put down the boric acid and they’d be gone.  At the very least, the ants would just be trailing over empty counters.  After all, he’s a grown-up and grown-ups are responsible, right?  Nope.

Apparently, the ants did come before he left.  A lot of them came.  My roommate sprayed them with all-purpose cleaner and left them, large piles of drowned, smooshed ants all over the kitchen floor, the counter, the sink.  Knowing there were ants in the vicinity, he proceeded to leave dirty dishes in the sink, food out on the counter, and empty beer bottles and cans around the apartment.  And then he moved out.  Happy homecoming goldenrail.

Not only did I have those lovely piles of dead, drowned, smooshed ants to clean up, I also had nice streams of live, crawly, creepy ants to clean up.  Armies of ants marching across the walls.  Lines of ants going in circles on every bottle in my liquor cabinet.   A wall of ants covering the sink with its dirty dishes.  Even the faucet handles were teaming with ants.

This time, there was nowhere to run.  No reserves to enlist.  No super-special reserves to call.  Just me.  Me, a pack of cleaning gloves, a sponge and my boric acid.  Have I mentioned I hate bugs?

 

Double click for full-size terror.

Ack! I’m Stuck!

Dresses from back in the day certainly had their share of elaborate closures.  As I put on the 1940’s styled dress my mom made me some time ago, I thought, “how did women dress themselves?!”  Then I remembered, they didn’t have to, they never lived alone.  Well, I am not so fortunate, and this morning, that really sucked.

The dress, the 1940s styled dress, was my Easter dress some time back. I think maybe in high school, though it might have been college.  When Mom made it, as usual with my retro patterned clothes, it was too small and I needed to wear a waist cincher.  It fits nicely now, although the seams area bit stretched from previous years of forcing myself into it.  It’s so cute!

However, no matter how cute or how well it fits, it is still not easy to put on.  It has a side opening with metal snaps and a hook and eye, as well as a back opening that is half zipper and half small round buttons with thread loop button holes.  And those loop button holes, at the top of my back, are the bane of my existence today.

I was doing fine.  Really proud that I was managing to put this dress on all by myself.  And then I buttoned a button wrong.  So I tried to undo it, but I somehow put the button through the loop again.  And a third time.  I could not unbutton that button.  So, not only could I not fix the buttons so I could button the rest and be fully dressed, I could not get the dress off to put something else on instead.  I was, in fact, stuck half dressed.

My roommate works a quasi 2nd shift schedule, and he’s a heavy sleeper.  I knocked on his door just enough to see if he was up (cuz I didn’t want to wake him if he wasn’t), he wasn’t.   I was very stuck and as much as tried, I could not undo that button.

Finally, I gave up.  I put on my shoes and my makeup, ate my breakfast, packed my lunch and put on my jacket, mostly to hide the back of my dress.  And it was off to work I went, hi ho, with my buttons not in a row.

Luckily, I have some very nice coworkers, and one of them attempted to undo the button.  She couldn’t.  I had gotten it so messed up trying to undo it myself that it was hopeless.  Snip.  She had to cut the button loop.  Then she was able to button the rest of the buttons properly.  And, she had a safety pin to close up the gap with the now missing button loop.  Hooray!

[Pic: me after being properly fixed.]

Now, the fun part will be trying to get this off.

I Forgot My Toothbrush

It struck me as incredibly ironic this morning, that I had just written this post about not leaving behind that one important item, and then this happened:

I spent a good portion of my Monday working on the personal statement for a Fellowship that I really, really want.  It's a long shot anyway, but I want to apply.  (It's not that I don't think I have a lot to offer, it's that I think there are a lot of people with a lot to offer who will apply.)  I planned to email the statement to a friend as soon as I got home, thus simultaneously backing it up in the cloud.  Fate had another plan.

When I opened my computer at home, the screen stayed black.  I'd been having problems with my computer screen (See Grey Is Better Than Blue post), so this wasn't entirely unexpected.  But two things upset me right away: 1) that application statement, and 2) loss of the ability to communicate with people back home.  I got over number two pretty quickly when my mom responded to my texts and Mr. Trizzle answered my phone call.  But that first one was a biggie.

Trying to Fix It

(Somehow, I have a feeling only Mr. Trizzle and MaryRuth are going to understand most of this section)

Mr. Embassy-man let me try his external monitor, but I could only get into my Linux system.  My machine's on a dual boot and when it starts up I get a black and white DOS-looking (but it's not DOS) screen with a list of choices for loading an operating system.  That screen wasn't visible.  Linux is the default.  Since I couldn't see the screen, I couldn't choose, and Linux booted.

At first, I was happy.  Linux can read my Windows drive (but not vice versa) so I thought I could just get my file, put it on my flash drive and be on my merry little way.  Not so fast. 

When my screen first showed up black, I did the general panic thing and tried restarting the computer, by holding down the power button until it turned off.  This meant Windows didn't shut down properly.  And that meant Linux couldn't access my Windows drive because it was 'in use.'  No file.  Dang it.

I tried guessing about how many times I needed to arrow down on that black and white screen to choose the Windows operating system.  It seemed to load once, but the monitor stayed black.

Linux told me I had two options.  If that other drive (my NTFS partition) was Windows, I should boot into windows and close it properly.  Yeah, ok, great, except I can't get into Windows.  Or two, if I didn't have windows, I could manually force Linux to read the drive (Linux calls it 'mount').  I had no idea how to do that.  'This is why a computer dilettante like myself should not be running Linux,' I thought.

So I headed home (after some yummy cheese and olives!) to wallow in my sorrow (and stupidity).

Mr. Trizzle is a bit of a computer geek trapped inside a lawyer's body.  I called him this morning to explain what had happened, and we spent over an hour discussing options.  He was very patient with me and tried to help, despite his obvious irritation at my not backing up this one important document before I left work.  (But I was going to back it up when I got home!  I was going to pack my toothbrush later...)

A String of Miracles

Today at work, I hooked up the desktop's monitor to my laptop and started trying things.  Eventually, I got into Windows and got it to show up on the monitor.  (A lot of trial and error, using the desktop system's windows as a guide, guessing about how many times to arrow down on that black and white screen and then hitting the right key combination to tell the laptop to use the external monitor.)

Miracle #1: There was power when I got to work.  Ok, not quite a miracle, but not a given either, and definitely a good thing.

Miracle #2: I got into Windows without being able to see anything.

Miracle #3: Windows showed up on the external monitor.

Miracle #4: The internet came on just long enough for my files to back-up in the cloud!

Why I Didn't Go Crazy

You may have noticed I was only concerned about one file.  How?  Why?  I need to thank Mr. Trizzle for putting me on to two amazing programs that literally saved my sanity.  If it weren't for these programs, I would have thought I lost everything.  SyncToy and DropBox.  I mentioned both in my post about my work desktop. 

All my work documents are backed-up both on my flash drive and in the cloud.  SyncToy makes it incredibly easy to have matching files in many places.  I just set up my folder pairs and run the program anytime I'm going to close my computer.  My DropBox folder is one of the folders I sync.  Then DropBox automatically uploads my files to the cloud whenever there's an internet connection.  My semester paper, all my research notes, my numerous projects, even if I had lost my laptop completely, I'd still have all those.

I suggest everyone backup their data now (and everyday), and I recommend both these programs for doing that.  I believe SyncToy is a Microsoft application and thus Windows only.

I'm also very glad I had Linux on my machine (thanks again to Mr. Trizzle).  If Linux hadn't been on there, nothing would have shown up on the monitor at Mr. Embassy-Man's house and I wouldn't have kept trying to get into windows.  I would have thought the whole computer was kaput.  I do not, however, recommend putting Linux on your computer, especially not just so you can tell when only your screen is broken.

This Post

This post is my first trial at using my computer blindly.  You'll have to let me know how it works.  I can hook my laptop up to the monitor at work, but there's (usually) no internet.  At home, there is internet, but no extra monitor.  So I can type and work at work, but only upload or download at home.

I spent some time at work today trying to make my computer useable without a screen: taking notes on how many times to press what keys, adding sound effects for everything (my computer says "oof" a lot now), etc.  Hopefully, what happened was, I got home, opened my computer, logged into windows, got into my LiveWriter and posted this post without needing to see the screen.

I think it's time for me to go change some settings in my Thunderbird so I can do something similar with my email.  (Another thanks to Mr. Trizzle for putting me onto that program, too!)

If You Don't Want Your Mommy to Find Out...

Don't put it on the internet. 

Well, it seems that while I was upstairs playing with Dara and   Feyi, Daddy Bunny helped Foo Foo guest post on my blog. Hmmm...  (It must have taken him a long time to type that with his little paws.)

Now, of course I was a bit upset to learn they had taken this little adventure.  What would I tell Munchkinhead if FooFoo got hit by a car!?  And what would I do without Daddy Bunny!?  I sternly told them that I would prefer if they asked me to take them somewhere rather than running around Africa by themselves; I worry about them and want them to stay safe.  However, I did not punish them.

Why?  Because I remember one time when I went off on an adventure with my sisters.  We went to buy Daddy a Father's Day present when Mommy and Daddy were gone.  Mommy and Daddy got home before us and were very very worried about what had happened to us.  They started walking all over the city trying to find us.  I still don't think we did anything that bad because we left them notes and cleaned up before we left.  How were we supposed to know they didn't take a key?  But, boy did we get in trouble!

To this day, when I'm out having fun on my own, I worry that I'm going to get in trouble for it later.  So I didn't yell at Daddy Bunny and Foo Foo; they're not in trouble.  If Munchkinhead wants to punish Foo Foo when he gets home next month, that will be up to her.

The Adventures of the Little Bunny, Foo Foo

Yesterday, when his mommy was at work, Daddy Bunny and I snuck out to explore.  I haven't been outside since we moved into this room, and I was longing for adventure, sunlight, maybe even a few carrots.  I think Daddy Bunny felt bad that he got to go on a trip the other week and I didn't, so he agreed to take me out sight seeing.

Daddy Bunny's mom locks the door when she leaves, but we still got out.  The windows have sliding screens that only cover half the window at the time.  Daddy Bunny is very strong and was able to push the screen to the other side.  We're both fluffy and squishy and small, so we had no problem squeezing through the widely spaced metal bars.  Plus, we're bunnies, so we can hop and jump really well.

The sun was really bright outside and it took a little while for my eyes to adjust to the light.  I wondered if it was easier or harder for Daddy Bunny to adjust, since he only has one eye.  The building that our room is in looks really big from outside.  There's lots of big open space around it, but no grass.  I was sad.  I had imagined hopping through lush green grass.  But instead, it was all hard stone and some prickly bushes.

Daddy Bunny and I were looking around, examining our surroundings when we had a sudden emergency.  This gigantic, mangy, hairy, grey and white beast was running towards us!  We quickly hopped, as fast as we could, towards a big hole in the wall across from our room.  We ducked under the barbed wire and made it safely to the other side.  The gigantic beast stopped at the hole.  He sort of stuck his nose through a bit, then pulled back and started barking ferociously.  (It was much scarier than when my brother, Barks, used to bark at me.)  We continued to flee.

We finally stopped after we darted around some other buildings.  This place was really different than where we'd just come from.  There was still no grass, but the ground wasn't covered in stones anymore either.  It was all dirt.  And very dusty dirt.  There were large piles of garbage all around us, and bicycles, cars and people, too.  We calmly collected ourselves and tried to hop off like normal little bunny rabbits.  

The city here is very different than my grandparents' place back home.  We have a nice big area of green grass out front, and another at the back.  The whole street has similar green patches up and down it.  There isn't a lot of traffic on the roads and not too many people around.

Here, there is very little grass, and what is there is brown and crunchy.  That's ok for chewing on, but not so yummy to actually eat.  And boy are there cars and people!  Several times Daddy Bunny and I had to hop very fast and dodge cars.  It was hard to scamper across the streets because the ground next to the road is often much higher than the road.  We had to leap onto and off of these big black and white stone things whenever we wanted to cross a street.  I'm really glad we didn't see any dead animals in the roads; that would have scared me even more! 

We did see some animals around though.  The birds here are very pretty and small and make beautiful music.  We had to run from a few more wild beasts and some scraggly and hungry looking cats, but we always got away.  (I'm afraid of cats, except for my brother Chuckie.  Although, my mom and aunties seem to be scared of him.  I don't know why.  I always liked his music.)

The strangest thing was when we went down this really busy road.  These very very large birds were walking around, pecking at the ground.  I asked Daddy Bunny why they weren't flying and what they were.  I'd never seen anything like that before.  Daddy Bunny said they're called 'chickens.'  He knows because his mommy had some in Zambia and because he saw some in England with her.   They didn't seem very smart.   One chicken walked right up to me, leaned down and peered at my face, his beak right in front of my nose.  His eyes were big and bulgy and he just cocked his head back and forth kinda jerkily.  I was scared.  I thought he was gonna try to eat me!  (Oh, Daddy Bunny just told me the chicken was a she.  He says she didn't have the beard that males have and that males are called 'roosters' and make really loud, painful, noises.)

The trees here are also very different than the ones at Grandma and Grandpa's house.  They go straight up really high, but their branches stay tucked against the trunk.  Daddy Bunny said they look like his mommy's fake Christmas tree when she took it out of the box.  At first I didn't like the strange trees.  Looking up at them made me very dizzy and I thought one would fall on me.  Then I saw Daddy Bunny.  He was near the bottom of the tree, munching on leaves.  Because the branches are folded down like that, the leaves nearly touch the ground.  Perfect height for little rabbits like us to get a snack!  Good thing too, all this hopping and dodging and running had made me very hungry.

There was one other odd thing I noticed.  Tombstones.  I know about tombstones because my mommy really likes vampires.  She has a lot of books with pictures inside or on the cover of cemeteries, graveyards and tombstones.  From these books, I learned that people back home put all their dead people in one place, so they can all sleep peacefully. 

Here, I kept seeing these little tombstones in very busy areas, between the road and the paths for people to walk.  I thought maybe they put the children where it's noisy because children like to play and have commotion around them.  Maybe the children wouldn't like a quiet cemetery.  I figured the tombstones are for children because they are so small. And what's really interesting, they only have initials on them.  Maybe there's not enough room for the full names.

I was standing and staring at one of these little tombstones right outside our gate when Daddy Bunny grabbed me and pulled me into the bushes.  I had been so busy wondering what this little child had looked like, liked to do, how she died, etc, that I didn't see Daddy Bunny's mommy coming up the street!  Luckily, Daddy Bunny recognized her humming.  His ears may not look so good, but they still work really well.  I was also surprised because I had expected to hear a car, not see her walking.

Daddy Bunny and I scampered along the edge of the gate and squeezed underneath it just as his mom was reaching the driveway.  Thank goodness the guards are so nice and always greet her when she comes in.  That distracted her enough for us to hop onto the big metal box sticking out of the wall under the window and back through the window.  Daddy Bunny pulled the screen shut again and we hopped onto the bed, trying to suppress our giggles about such a narrow escape.  Hopefully, his mom won't notice that we're both a bit dirtier than when she left for work.  We were so dirty to begin with, I don't think she'll realize the difference. 

It was a very fun day; I only wish my sister, Gibby, had been here to go on the adventure with us.  Of course, she'd only move in the trees, not hop with us.  Oh yeah, and there were no carrots.

Why You Little Stinker!

I was recently working on an art project using old family photos when I came across this picture of my aunt, uncle and daddy in London.

First, look at the smirk on my aunt's face:

  It's a little hard to see, but I tried to make the picture as big as I could without major distortion.

 

 

Now, take a close look at her hands:

I've heard stories about how mischievous these kids were, but this seems to be starting awfully young.  Maybe it's just a coincidence, or an accident, or something.....   Maybe....

He Won, Accept It

Ok, this just really pisses me off!  A former assistant state attorney has filed a law suit alleging that Obama is not qualified to become President because he is not a natural born citizen.  Alan Keyes filed a related suit in California.

Really, people?  The country overwhelming selects this guy to be our next President and you're so bitter about it that this is how you decide to try to fight it?  Apparently, the suit alleges that Obama was born in Kenya, not Hawaii.  All the stuff I've seen says Hawaii, but then, I haven't seen any birth certificates.  I think it's extremely unfair that this is all coming up after Obama's grandmother passed away, especially since on of the "arguments" in the suit is that there aren't any witnesses alive to verify where he was born.

According to many news specials and Obama's books, Obama's parents met in Hawaii when his father was studying there.  I find it difficult to believe that a young American woman would choose to travel to Africa to have a baby, especially in the 1960s.  Additionally, all accounts I've heard say that Obama only saw his father for a few months when he was 10, nothing about him being around when Obama was born.  If Obama was born in Kenya, his father would have been around.  How about talking to his relatives in Kenya, and asking them if he was born there?

Most of the arguments outlined in the brief report about the suit seem very nit-picky.  They also seem to attack his international upbringing, which many see as one of his best attributes going into the Presidency.

I'm so angry about this, but I refuse to believe this can succeed.  Not after everything the country's been through.  God would not let all our hopes and dreams be taken away like that.  So that means in the grand scheme of things this suit must really have a different purpose.  Maybe it will cause Congress to amend the Constitution and open the door for Arnold to run someday. ;)  Hey, gotta stay positive.

Warning: Iron is Hot When On

Oops.  It's a cute burn though, really, as burns go.  On the side of my leg, just at the bottom of my knee.  A neat red tapered line, about 2" long.  It goes nicely with the blue veins just below that give my leg a sort of marbled look.  And it doesn't hurt, anymore.

I was warming up the iron so that I could iron un-wrinkled clothes just to avoid having some fly hatch in my skin.  I noticed something I needed to pick up from the floor.  I don't remember what it was.  But, I squeezed in between my bed and "desk" (two nightstands with a cardboard box bridged across them), and leaned into the iron on the bed in the process.

Oh well, that's still less scars than last time I came to Africa.  They're like my own little battle wounds, a story behind each one... this one's from fixing my shoe, falling of my bike, when my brick oven collapsed... etc.  They make me, me!  Character, that's it, character. ;)

A Walking We Will Go

I really like walking to and from work!

My feet however, may feel differently about the matter.

Little Green Men and the Big World

Once upon a time, in the faraway Kingdom of Wisconsin, there lived two little troublemakers named Caitlin and, um... Susy, yeah, Susy. Caitlin and Susy lived in a special town where they could do everything together. They lived in the same building in this special town, and had rooms right across from each other. Both Susy and Caitlin traveled to other parts of the town and to a castle outside the town. At the castle outside of the town, Susy and Caitlin slaved away for an evil step-mother. They had to do the laundry, sweep the floors, prepare the morning meal, and all kinds of other chores. Back in the town, they listened to the town elders teach them about other far away places. Susy spent a lot of time with the elders, and Caitlin spent a lot of time at the castle, but they still had plenty of time to make trouble together.

When Caitlin and Susy did their chores at the castle, the evil step-mother gave them some paper. This was not any old paper, but a magical paper. It was so special that they could trade this magical paper for other things. Usually, the more magical papers they traded, the nicer the things they could get. But sometimes, they could make people think the paper was extra super special magical and they could get nice things for just a few sheets.

A few days a week, Caitlin and Susy went exploring into the neighboring city. It was much bigger than their special town. There was a special place they both liked to go, where they could get yummy fairy cream. They would travel into the city, go to the fairy queen's house, and tell her elves what kind of fairy cream they wanted. The elves would take one or two of those magical pieces of paper and poof! they would turn it into delicious fairy cream. Caitlin and Susy liked this fairy cream very much.

One day, on their way back to town from the fairy queen's house, they decided to stop at the market. Inside the market, they found the most wonderous thing, a little bag full of little green men. And they could get the little bag for just one piece of magical paper. How fun! Caitlin and Susy gave the market man a magical piece of paper and took the little green men back to town with them.

Once they returned home, Susy and Caitlin looked at their little green men and saw that they were not moving. But Susy and Caitlin were smart little girls. They knew that special little men like these don't move until the bigger people aren't watching. They wanted to help the little green men, and give them something to do. So, Caitlin and Susy took the bag of little green and men and gave them little homes all over the building. Some men moved into the bathrooms. Some men set up camp on top of the red teleporters in the hallways. Other men perched on top of doorways. A few men hid inside of little cabinets and crannies. When all the little green men had homes, Caitlin and Susy went off to find more trouble, confident they had made the little green men happy.

The other people in the building liked the little green men a lot. They helped the little green men move often. They wrote notes about the little green men on signs. They even told stories and laughed about the little green men watching them. Soon, many people were very fond of the little green men.

Caitlin and Susy wanted more people to share in the joy that the little green men brought, so they went looking for more. This time they found blue ones and green ones. They hid the little green and blue men all over the town. It was great fun!

As the years went by, other people started to find homes for little green men, and little blue men, and little grey men, and even little yellow men. More and more people found homes for more and more men. The little men could be seen in the town and in the city. People even heard stories of little men in very far off places like the Kingdom of Nebraska or the Kingdom of Tennessee. The little green men were so loved that even to this day, they still find homes in strange places. Why, just last week the postman brought this letter to Susy from her mother:

So - I put on my red gingham dress today - you know the one - the "tablecloth" dress - and I put my hands in my pockets...and guess what I found?!?!?

AN ARMY MAN!!!

Those little green men really like to get places. Susy even found one in her shoe. So next time you're feeling sad and blue, remember the little troublemakers whose story I told you. Trade a paper for a pile of the green and the blue, make someone smile, like I've made you.

(Original Post)

Bedroom

Giddy

That new Weezy!!!

Meet the Schrams

A General Story

Since mentioning the Schrams in the previous entry, I think it only fitting
to expound on this and add another story about adventures with them.

First, Meet the Schrams:

The dog: I don't remember it's name. I don't know if it's still around.
But it had one blue eye and one brown eye, so it deserves mentioning.

Lester and Mary, my parents friends - pretty cool for being old like the
folks, but then, I think you'd have to be pretty cool to handle being
friends with my parents, especially Daddy. They kind of sort of grew
up/went to school together. I don't remember all the details on who did and
who didn't go to Bay View (I think I grew up thinking that was the only
place anyone went!) or who was what in which wedding. Anyway, they rock
and are uber-cute together.

Then there's the boys, Mikey and Bryan. Mikey is 2 years older than Wendy
and Bryan is 2 years older than me (at least school wise). Mikey was
Wendy's first boyfriend (everybody say "awwwwww" with me). So whenever we
played games, we paired up in like manner. Katrina traded off on teams
once she was old enough (I suppose we could have paired her with the dog) .

Our most frequent game was Hide and Go-Seek in the Dark. Always fun,
sometimes a little dangerous. Somehow always a little safer played
upstairs at the Shrams' (their house is always cleaner), we once in awhile
played at our house. One particular time, Bryan and I were searching
everywhere for Mikey. Having already found Wendy and Katrina and weary
from searching, we decided to rest, so we all went into my room and sat
down on the bed, thinking, discussing, trying to figure out where on earth
Mikey could have gone, where hadn't we looked. As we sat pondering the
extreme hiding abilities of Mikey, the mattress suddenly jerked a little.
The four of us sitting on the bed looked at each other, "what the...?" It
moved again. We jumped off to see what on earth was going on. Much to our
surprise, Mikey wriggled out from under the mattress. The poor boy had
been hiding there the entire time; he had been not only under our noses,
but under us! (and we were not a light load).

(Original Post)

Contemplative

Spinnathon

A General Story

As anyone would know from reading previous stories, Wendy and I had lots of
fun games that we played growing up. One of my favorites drove our mother
extra-nuts. Wendy and I would clear off the floor in the living room,
probably by putting everything on a chair. Then we would put on one of our
favorite cassette tapes, Queen for We Will Rock You or the Beatles
for Back in the USSR and we would begin our Spinnathon!

Yeah, the name pretty much gives it away. We would spin, as long as we
could, and the last one left standing won. Sometimes it was a as simple as
that, sheer stamina and the ability to stay upright. Sometimes we allowed
"Dorothy". "Dorothy" meant a break taken by throwing oneself onto the
couch. As all good spinners know, just because you stop spinning doesn't
mean the room stops too. Lying on the couch, the room still felt to spin
around us and it reminded us of the house spinning in the tornado on the
Wizard of Oz, hence "Dorothy".

But sometimes we made it more of a challenge; sometimes you could bump into
people. (Hey, sometimes it was people, we roped our friends into this
debauchery too.) The bumping wasn't meant to be mean or to hurt or to
include slapping or anything...but hey, it's not my fault my arms flew out
from my body, that's centripetal force - it just happened to cause my hands
to wind up at the same level as Wendy's face. You can see why Mommy didn't
like that too much!

One of our most extreme Spinnathons ever actually happened after we moved.
The Schrams were visiting, old family friends of our parents. Mikey and
Bryan joined us for a Spinnathon that lasted well over an hour and a half!
Talk about Dizzy!

(Original Post)

Sick

Winter War

Ok, 3 more to go to make up for this past weekend.
Another General Story

The NG wasn't just a summer group, we played together in winter too. We really enjoyed playing in the front yard after (or during) a large snowfall. Normally each of us would create a slide or tunnel out of our designate snowbank, but one time we decided to add some extra fun. Beyond a normal snowball fight, we created an all out war. The object of this war, like most, was to capture the most territory. We took out the small American flags given out at summer parades so we could mark our beginning territories. One team was the right side up flags, the other, upside down. We placed our flags, in their respective positions, in our snowbanks and the war commenced.

In order to capture a territory, one needed only to turn the flag to their position. Sounds easy, right - nope. As typical in winter, our weapons were snowballs; if we got hit with one, we were injured and had to lay down on the ground right where we were until our teammates could rescue us. In order to do this, they had to hoist the "injured" person onto a saucer and pull it back to one of their teams snowbanks. All this had to be done while still defending the banks in possession and attempting to get new ones. Needless to say, it was much easier when Katrina or Jennifer got hit than one of us older people. It was loads of fun until Wendy got hit in the face with a supposed ice-ball and ran inside crying. Then a very angry Mommy showed up at the door, I got yelled at, and we all had to go home for the night. :( I don't even know if anybody won.

Feeding the Pandas

Oh boy! I owe a great many back entries at this point, sorry folks. Let's jump right in:
A General Story

When we were little, there a was beautiful birch tree in our backyard near the swing-set. On summer Daddy decided the tree needed some trimming (I think it was growing over the garage), so he went to work and created a nice big pile of birch branches and logs. Wendy and I, with our ever-over-active imaginations, declared this wood "bamboo" because that's what we fathomed bamboo to look like.

Now, of course, where there is bamboo there are panda bears. So we decided to feed the poor starving pandas who couldn't get to the piles of bamboo near the garage. Wendy and I would gather up arm fulls of the tree pieces, little sticks for the baby pandas, and the larger branches for the mommy and daddy pandas. We would get the food to the pandas by laying some of it in an open area of the yard and then booking it as fast our little legs could carry us to the safety of the back door - pandas are big and strong and bears are very dangerous for little girls. We would watch through the screen door, pointing out to each other, "look there's a mommy and a baby eating that piece" or "there's a big one by that pile."

After we had scattered much of the birch trimmings around the yard Mommy came along (this usually means "UH-OH"). She was upset we had ruined Daddy's nice neat pile of tree branches by scattering the entire back yard with leaves and branches. For some reason, the explanation that we were feeding the pandas didn't go over too well.

Excited

The Sea Monster and the Pea!?

Summer Stories

One summer day at home, the NG grew tired of the same old same old and decided to do something really fun and new. We wanted to touch the ceiling..but how? So we went up to my room which had a day bed at the time and tried standing on that. Not everyone could reach, but then...we got a brilliant idea. We went through the house and took every twin size mattress we could find, including the one off the trundle. We stacked them all on my bed and then put blankets on top. It was quite the tower - 4 mattresses! Then we climbed up on top of the bed (this was no easy task) and pretended it was a ship. We would take turns being a sea monster that would try to pull the others off the "ship". Of course pretty soon some of the blankets were on the floor, and then top mattresses began to slide off and people clung to them for dear life as the sea monster pulled on them. We decided it hurt a lot when we landed on the floor anyway, so we moved the trundle mattress to the floor, which made the sea monster higher and the ship lower, but the ground softer. It was a great day of fun...until Mommy and Daddy came home. Rule 1: if you know you'll get in trouble, you probably shouldn't take pictures - esp. when you're too young to get them developed yourself.

(Originally posted April 15, 2003.)

Mischievous