Happy New Year

Here lies the obligatory New Year's blog. I have not been writing much since...well, a long time. I don't really feel much like doing it right now either, but I hope that by sending these resolutions out into the world, I might be more inclined to keep them.

This is a partial list in no particular order:

1. Learn web design
2. Research our home & document the process
3. Start the collaborative Aurora project with my fellow A-town enthusiasts
4. Take more pictures & learn about lighting techniques
5. Start sewing again
6. Stop being so defensive
   
7. LESS STRESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
8. More patience with myself & everyone else
9. Write more
10. Work more
11. Let go of the past
12. Be more considerate
13. Stop leaving half-empty glasses of water all over the house
14. Save money
15. Decrease vanity
16. Make some split pea soup
17. Listen

Oh, and here is last year's list.

Happy '09

Tupperware & iPods

Ya me canso de llorar y no amanece
Ya no sé si maldecirte o por ti rezar
Tengo miedo de buscarte y de encontrarte
Donde me aseguran mis amigos que te vas
Hay momentos en que quisiera mejor rajarme
Y arrancarme ya los clavos de mi penar
Pero mis ojos se mueren si mirar tus ojos
Y mi cariño con la aurora te vuelve a esperar

Y aggaraste por tu cuenta la parranda
Paloma negra paloma negra dónde, dónde andarás?
Ya no jueges con mi honra parrandera
Si tus caricias han de ser mías, de nadie mas

Y aunque te amo con locura ya no vuelves
Paloma negra eres la reja de un penar
Quiero ser libre vivir mi vida con quien yo quiera
Dios dame fuerza que me estoy muriendo por irla a buscar

Y agarraste por tu cuenta las parrandas

So cold

It is always so cold in our house. Even in the summer. Sometimes I am afraid I will never be warm again.

I better get used to it, huh?

New and Improved

In the past year there have only been two times I felt free. One time was last fall and the other last week.

Recipe for Survival

Dignity
Silence
Smile
Retreat

And so on.

This is how I love you

He really is my favorite.

From up here you look so small

I am in a monogamous relationship because I choose to love my partner to the exclusion of all others and I trust him to do the same. Apparently not everyone shares that ideal. I am eternally surrounded by people who cavalierly enjoy the genital delights offered by someone other than their significant other.

According to an online article from Discover, one in twenty-five men are unknowingly raising another man's child.

From a simple evolutionary standpoint, the advantage of a monogamous relationship for a man is that he will not expend resources on a child that is not biologically his (without his knowledge) and he is ensured that his lineage will continue for at least one more generation.

For a woman, it's important that she will not have resources diverted from her own offspring to that of another woman with whom her partner has also bred with.

It's always about sex & money.

Ann O

Baby wipes: $2.19; Roto-Rooter service call $413; The shame in having your asswipes fished out of a pipe by a stranger: Priceless

Who knew a few seemingly innocuous Target-brand baby wipes would end up costing almost as much as a Schecter Stiletto bass guitar?

While it's true that the package warns "do not flush", I thought that was another tree-hugger scare tactic like "global warming". Apparently they really mean do not flush. At least if you live in a house that was built during the hey-day of outhouses.

George, the kind Ghanaian service technician also informed us that "flushable" personal cleansing cloths and tampons are also sewer no-no's. Guess that means my hygiene will have to become as primitive as our plumbing. Lord knows I hate emptying the bathroom garbage can more than once a week.

I also have vowed to never again let a chicken set foot in my oven. Roasted poultry be damned after the crap (literally) I had to contend with to get a hot meal on the table for my family this evening.

Originally I had planned to have my significant other, Kevin pick up one of those delicious grocery store rotisserie chickens on his way home this evening. This was before the turds hanging out on our basement floor became a serious issue.

After work I called Roto-Rooter and they said they'd be out within an hour or so. I did not want to venture into the basement with a potentially creepy man to show him where human excrement was bubbling up from the foundation, so I told Kevin I would get a chicken to roast in hopes that he would get home quickly.

Things started out like a 1955 copy of Better Homes and Gardens. After treating the clucker to a nice bath, I gently fisted her with a palm full of salt and stuffed her cavity with a halved onion for moisture. I lovingly rubbed olive oil and seasons into her supple, plucked flesh and deposited her in the oven for a little r&r before the big show.

Now I've roasted a couple of chickens before and I've never had the entire first floor of my house fill up with smoke thirty minutes into the production. It's 85 degrees and humid outside, we don't have central air and our oven hood does not ventilate to anywhere. I wander around for ten minutes thinking I need a fresh pair of contact lenses before I realize that my three year old daughter is going to develop a smoker's cough from Tuesday night dinner if I don't do something quickly. We start opening windows to stave off asphyxiating before the first course.

Apparently the piece of wood propping open the dining room window decided to stop working. While frantically fanning smoke and boiling green beans I heard the window slam shut. Upon investigation, I see that the piece of wood has become wedged between the window frame and the sill. After dinner I ask Kevin to fix it. He tries opening it and CRACK. Broken glass and an indignant toddler asking "Why did you do that?"

Summary:
If the sewer wouldn't have backed up, I wouldn't have roasted the chicken. If I wouldn't have roasted the chicken, I wouldn't have opened the window. If I wouldn't have opened the window, the glass would still be intact. Ergo, no more roasted chickens in this household.

None of this stuff is a big deal and I'm not terribly upset by any of it. The plumbing issue was resolved, the chicken was edible and tomorrow morning I'll take the window frame to get repaired. It's just money and time, our most precious commodities these days. On a night like tonight you just have to laugh. And drink. I recommend Guinness.

Last time we had an evening like this it involved a dying refrigerator, bats and a six-foot tall drunk Mexican. But that's another story.

Namaste, Ann O