Deja vu, all over again….

I swear, I’ve written that last post before.  Too lazy to go back & look, tho.   If I’m lucky, it was an IMH post (in my head), and I didn’t just post some repetitive bullshit.

What the fuck, I probably did.  Oh well.  I was serious about those “get my husband home” vibes tho.  Seriously need those.

Damn, I have a popcorn kernel stuck in my tooth.  How annoying!!

It’s raining.  LOTS.  Which means there will be ( a little bit of )water in my basement laundry room.  I have discovered that we are terrible homeowners.  Regular maintenance?  Uh, sure.  Yeah.  Whatever.  We’re busy.  And lazy.  And, quite possibly, just a little bit scared of the potential costs of some of the stuff that needs doing.  Oy.  Ahhh, procrastination.  Gotta love it.  The house isn’t going to fall down anytime soon.

I’ve eaten several bags of really delish kettle corn (it’s sweet! and salty! at the SAME TIME!) in the past two weeks, ever since our SPCA fundraiser involving popcorn.  Not all of it sold, so I’ve been shilling it to people (that 26 bags to the daycare certainly helped) ever since, and conducting quality-control tastings almost every day.  It’s far too addictive.  I’m on my last bag, and I can’t decided if that’s good or bad.  Probably both.
Ok.  Enough randomosity.  I have been overtaken by 50% of the current cat population of the house.  One is using my right elbow as a pillow, and while cute, he’s also annoying.  Later.

The Animal Man cometh.

D is home for the weekend. First one since the beginning of August, after which he had to go back to Ontariario for his grandma’s funeral. He hasn’t had a day off since coming back from that trip, which? Sucks. Sure, the boys & I have done a couple of road trips north to see him, but it’s not the same as having his cigarette-smoking, beer-drinking, poker-playing (cute) ass here for the weekend.

An interesting side-effect of his arrival home? I have been returned to Second-Rate Human status by the animals (except for my baby Gizmo, who will always be MY cat). Yes, Animal Man! is home. And no matter how many months he’s been gone (12.5 & counting, gahhhhh) and how much I have fed and loved them, he is King Shit of the Animals.

The best thing is that the boys are spending tomorrow with D – I’ll be at work, deep in battle with the Evil Paper Monster. They are SO excited. Time with dad has become a precious commodity.

Sigh.

Send me some “let D’s old boss finally give up the ghost and RETIRE all-fucking-ready” vibes, wouldja?

New toy.

No, not THAT kind of toy.

D finally gave up his hard-won 8G Apple Ipod Touch.  To me!!  It was a contest prize through work, and honestly, he’s done nothing with it since it was delivered.  After his last trip to Ontario, he handed it over.  I can’t wait to use it to drown out my travel companion on my trip next month.

I’ve moved over 200 songs into this thing, and it’s not even 1/50th full.  Woo!!  Just waiting for my upgrade to load, and then I’m going to spend a whopping $4.99 on a mahjongg game to keep me catatonic….er, amused.  Hee!

Current tune:  Summertime (DJ Jazzy Jeff & Will Smith)  Holy trip down memory lane, Batman.  This song came out the year I graduated.

This is my life.

I tried out the new steam cleaner last night – got it with my visa card points or something.  Probably only had to spend $4.6 trillion to get that $150 steamer, but hey!  It’s FREE.

So.  Back to the cleaning.  I was excited, considering how often Miss Goldie has had her “accidents” on the upstairs carpet.  I cannot figure out why she must shit on the rug.  Never the lino, because god forbid any of the animals (bipeds included) in this household do something that would be even slightly convenient for me.  Nope, can’t have that!!

Oy.  Can you tell I’ve had a day from hell?  The ranty tangents, they are multiplying….

I cleaned about 1/4 of the living room, then waited for it to dry to see how the cleaner really worked.  Like an idiot, I left the dogs in the house today, fully believing that the pureed pumpkin I fed her (a cure for doggy diarrhea, look it up) would stem the tide, so to speak.  Not so much.  Guess where the bitch shit???

Yep.  Smack in the middle of my FRESHLY STEAM-CLEANED carpet section.  She must have thought I cleaned it up just for HER.  Because I love her THAT much.

The best part?  While I was at work, the 7 yr old from next door came in through the back window to “check on the dogs” – my kids were staying there for the day, and he must have believed he was being helpful.  He ended up cleaning up most of the poop…..although he missed the stuff on the cord of the new steamer.

(in the end, I’m happy-ish.  the machine works well, and got up most of today’s poopage without much fuss.)

Out of tune.

Ever asked a shipping or moving company for a quote on piano moving?  It’s interesting, to say the least.

Company 1:  $1600.  Yes, that’s for an inanimate object that is traveling a grand total of 450km.  No, we’re not on crack.

Company 2:  Sorry, we don’t do that sort of thing.  Try Company X, Y or Z.

Company 3:  $1000.  Sounds pretty cheap, as compared to #1.  Can we sign you up?

Company 4:  Please to give us more informations?  Thanking you, passing you along to other division.  Other division:  Please to give us more informations?  Thanking you, will send quote someday.

Companies 5 through 8:  Hey, Bob!  We got an online quote request…fancy that.   What now?

Many ideas, little motivation.

Because I’m always looking to blame someone, something, anybody, I’m blaming….er…summer.  Yeah.  It’s all SUMMER’s fault that I’ve been lax in posting.  That damn season.  Always hanging around, showing off with blue skies and sunshine.  Or, in our case, cold mornings and booming thunderstorms.  I swear, I will not turn on my furnace before September 1st.  Will NOT.

Things have been carrying on in their oh-so-banal way at Chez Refinnej.  The boys are enjoying their freedom from school, and I am enjoying the distinct lack of evening-filling kid-related activities.  Soccer & karate?  Not missed in the least.  I’m dreading the fall, just a bit.

I went on a major reorganizing tear last weekend.  My bedroom is looking uncluttered, and I plan to get some sort of curtains & rod to use as a closet “door” as I’m tired of looking at my clothes.  I’d really like to get a decent organizer in there, but it’s not in the budget right now.  A desk has gone to my sister, and a less-than-useful space is now the filing cabinet zone.  I turned our table so it’s perpendicular to the wall it was up against, and I really like it this way.  Much more comfy for family meals.  I even attempted to de-clutter the garage, but it’s going to take time.  I did manage to get a lot of junk to the dump, and plan to get rid of the recycling this weekend.

The animals continue to drive me slightly batty.  Rastis has decided that shitting on my new bath mat is the Best Way Possible to protest the state of the kitty boxes.  I’ve told him to fuck off:  there are FIVE goddamn boxes to choose from, and he’s just being a picky bastard.  He also teams up with Dante and Alex when the food runs low – I need to get a water gun to keep beside my bed for those 4-am wakeups.

Wiley, after finding that his over-the-desk-and-through-the-window escape hatch had been foiled by my furniture rearrangement, once again used my bedroom window to exit the house.  Unfortunately, he trashed the wall doing so.  ARGH.

Jack has had his first loose tooth for about 2 months, and he let me pull it out last night (it was either that, or he was going to swallow it, just like his brother did with his first).  Now he’s excited that the one next to it is also loose.  And the two that were loosened in his bike fall last month?  They’ve both firmed up again, and aren’t in imminent danger of falling out.  I’ve emailed the Tooth Fairy, and she should be here tonight.  If she remembers…

Austin & I were watching a documentary about the Trans-Canada Highway two nights ago, and after seeing the segment on the man who drove a Model A across the country in the 20s, before the highway was really all there, he had a question for me.  “Mom, did you ride in those cars as a kid?”

Damn kids.

Music to my ears.

Once upon a time, near the end of the 19th century, my great grandparents were given a piano to celebrate their wedding. I don’t know the story of the first 60-odd years of its time with my family, but since I was a child, it’s been there. There are photos of it in my grandmother’s house, and my parents have had it since I was little.

I learned to play the piano as a child, starting lessons around age 6 or 7. I continued lessons until my early teens, when all the angst and hormones (ha) worked their evil magic and turned me into a raging lunatic at the thought of yet another Conservatory Exam. Those things were really fucking nerve-wracking. For a shy kid (me, I swear), the prospect of playing multiple pieces in front of a total stranger who was going to judge me? Akin to torture, I tell you. Torture.

So, I stopped. I played now and then, mostly at Christmas or when I was upset. I still do sometimes, when I’m at my parents’ place and their basement tenant is nice enough to allow me access to the piano.

Recently, there have been many changes in my parents’ lives. I hired my mom. My dad retired last week. They are planning to sell the house I grew up in, and move here permanently. Whee! Of course, this means that my mother must finally make good on her promise to give me the piano. All forty-million tonnes of its upright grand splendour.

OY.

I love that piano. I can’t wait to have it here. Even though my house is pretty small, and there’s no hope in hell of it getting into my basement, I am making it work. It’ll be in our living room, and I’ll be able to play whenever I want! I can teach my kids the basics, if they’re so inclined.

To me, the piano, any piano, is a beautiful instrument. This one needs to be tuned, re-keyed, and refinished (there’s a great story to that, just ask my sister). I don’t care that this one won’t sound quite right, or that it’s showing it’s 100+ years. It’s going to be mine, and that’s all that really matters.

Loss.

Two weeks to the day that the kids and I returned from the wilds of Ontariario, D’s grandma passed away in her sleep.  She was only 76, and she was the consummate grandma:  cookie-baker, hug-giver, grandchild-lover.  She reminded my of my grandmother, the one whose name I received (middle).  In many ways, Grace was like a replacement grandmother to me, and I truly loved her.  I ran out of grandparents eight years ago, and the grandmother closest to my soul has been gone for eleven.

I am sad because my children will not have her longer.  They will, however, remember her, and that is precious.  I am glad that I spent my last full day in her hometown with her, on the beach that she has loved all her life, watching my children play in Lake Huron.  Grace & I could talk about anything – she did have six daughters, and she had heard it all.  And then some.

I am sadder because my husband does not grieve well.  He is male.  Need I say more?  He spent this weekend drinking beer and getting melancholy.  He would then tell me that he “has to” go home again, although his mom said repeatedly that he didn’t need to….we were just there.  Last night it became clear that no matter the cost, he definitely has to go.  I am not willing to spend the rest of my marriage hearing about his regrets over not attending his grandmother’s funeral.  I finally told him that I was booking the flight, and he could just shut up.  Not once did he say “I want to go home”, but I know full well he does.  Desperately.  He’s worried about his mother, and finds the distance unbearable.  So, he’s on a (kind of expensive, but not that bad in the grand scheme of life) flight tomorrow morning, and will be back on Friday.

I just wish I could go.

This post, it is random

Let’s see….what’s new….

No masked men this week.  Hopefully never again.  Lots of comments and questions from our clients and the general public, especially after the story hit the front page of the local newspaper.  The amazing part about a small town?  We’ve received flowers (twice) and everyone was treated to a free lunch at the deli we frequent.  Gotta love it.

Work is crazy.  I can’t seem to get a handle on the Paper Monster, and he’s definitely winning the battle.  Bastard.

The weather has been absolute shite the past week.  I came thisclose to turning on my furnace last night.  In JULY.  That is just all levels of wrong, even in the Great White North.  The sun looks to be a maybe today.  Hmph.

My finger hurts.  One joint has been aching since last night, so much so that it woke me up a few times.  If this is the beginnings of something like arthritis (I have an inner hypochondriac, shut up), I’m not going to be happy.  It’s not pleasant.

I need to go now.  Work beckons.  And I have a free sitter today.  Woo.