LifePundit

The Hamster Wheel

Today is the first day this week I haven't had to polish Buddy, the horse we have for sale, to show him to potential buyers. I mean polish, too. Like he's about to appear in his own TV show. After you get him clean (no easy job) you spray on Show Sheen, a product that acts like Teflon on his hair and makes him shine. He even smells like a polished, plastic horse. He's a clean thing of wondrous beauty.

Since we keep him at home that means I also have to polish all areas of the house (translation: clear path) from the back door to the bathroom in case potential buyers need to use facilities. And also the first day that I don't have to run Lily back to town for something (orchestra rehearsal, orchestra concert, confirmation stuff) though I did have to haul her and her new horse, Markus, to a riding lesson.

I am worn out. To keep horse, barn, house, etc. in company-ready state and be nice to people is exhausting.

Yesterday's potential buyers stayed three hours. It was hot, too. They were very nice and have taken Buddy home on trial. He can get as dirty as he wants now and I know that will make him happy. They said the first thing he did when he got off their trailer was roll in the dirt. Hallelujah! Not my dirt.

I asked Lily what she wanted for dinner. She said anything was all right. When "anything" turned out to be salad and boiled eggs, she said she'd cook her own dinner. so I altered the menu. She's never had deviled eggs (how can this be? I even have a plate I inherited from my aunt that is made for deviled eggs and nothing else) so I told her I would devil them.

Don't know how. They will probably have horse hair in them. But how hard can they be? I'll mush stuff up in the yolks and put them back together, then sprinkle paprika on top.

We'll probably eat them watching a "House" rerun if we can find one.

Doing nothing is a wonderful thing. I am off the hamster wheel for now.

Yankee Sets Fire to Myrtle Beach

(This photo shows what was left after Sherman's March to the Sea -- I think the location was in South Carolina. For Sherman, South Carolina, the birthplace of nullification and cradle of secession, was a personal target. “The truth is,” Sherman admitted at the time, “the whole army is burning with an insatiable desire to wreak vengeance upon South Carolina.”)

They figured out who started the fires that are raging in Myrtle Beach, S.C. Or at least they think they did. Look at what the accused has going against him:

1. He moved to S.C. from NEW JERSEY.
2. His last name is Torchi. 

What we have here is yet another Yankee trying to torch his way through the South. He's been setting a fire every week for the seven years his family has lived here. And, unlike Sherman, he's just now been successful.

He's from New Jersey and his last name is Torchi? Can you think of a more likely profile for somebody who would set Myrtle Beach on fire?

His house didn't catch fire. But his neighbors lost everything. He says he's getting death threats and is afraid to send his children to school with the now homeless children from his torched neighborhood.

What is it with men and yard fires? We used to live next door to a guy we called "Pyro-Bob" because he burned something every weekend. His pampas grass. His lawn grass. Stuff he didn't want. Pyro Bob lived to burn. You couldn't find our house for the smoke.

And there's a houseful of people from South Florida currently living across the street from our pasture who take down a tree every week and burn it. Soon their yard will look like a beach. Their next door neighbor has complained about the continual smoke, and for a while the fire department made them stop, but they're burning again.

Paul sometimes has a hankering himself to burn something, and unpleasant words are exchanged. We have only had to call the fire department once and that was because his lawnmower, which he stores in the hay shed (you and I both know this is stupid but he won't listen to us), caught on fire and nearly caught the hay and barn on fire. It was spring break when Lily was 8. She had to call 9-1-1 because I was part of the hose brigade. The operator thought it was a crank call until I stepped in. Lily was keeping a diary of her spring break, and that was one of the highlights.

Anyway. It's really sad about the Myrtle Beach fires, which have so far destroyed 70 homes and burned 31 square miles. And Torchi said he called the fire department twice to put out his yard fire when he couldn't control it. Everybody thought the fire was out. But it wasn't.

Even if the guy is a Yankee and probably annoyed the hamsters out of his neighbors with his weekly burning ritual, he ain't no different from Pyro-Bob. Well, maybe he is. Pyro-Bob was a Good Old Boy, possibly even a Redneck, and they have special gifts for burning stuff up without burning other stuff up. Yankees shouldn't move south and mess with fire. Folks still remember the last time.

How Could I Forget "Lost"?

I am addicted to "Lost," but I forgot to watch it last night. Maybe the next thing I 'll do is forget all about chocolate.

Here's hoping.

The Piano Recital

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

To whom much is given, much is expected. 

It's easy to pick on Lily, because she deserves it. She is gifted musically. A few years ago she began to compose her own music. It was good enough to get her some invitations to perform, including in church and as part of a Women Composers Program sponsored by the local piano teachers guild. I don't know how this could be my child but there she is. And she's won scholarships for piano lessons the last two years.

She plays violin in the school orchestra because the alternative is to take gym. When she first started she was a second violin and when one of the first violinists (who took private lessons) would choke and stop playing, Lily would switch parts and play the first violin part to help carry the music. She's not a star -- the first chairs are filled with dedicated violin students (mostly Asians) but she doesn't work at it either.

She has long wanted to quit music. We told her what my parents told me. You can quit music anytime. And that same day you quit riding. 

At the piano recital last night there was a little boy who wanted to take piano so badly that he's doing yard work for the teacher in exchange for lessons. Another teenaged girl has decided she wants to be a piano teacher and had three beginner students playing in the recital. Music is a gift to us all.

Lily's piano teacher is a very stern but sweet elderly woman whose back hurts so much she can hardly sit in the chair while she gives lessons. But she has a job to do, and she's going to teach these children music. No fudging, either. It has to be right. She's an old-fashioned kind of piano teacher. Everybody needs one of those. Lily says Mrs. S is the nicest person in the world until you get on the piano bench. We're all afraid of her. 

When I need to tell her something I know she won't like, I call and leave a message on Tuesdays when she's teaching in another county. I will never feel like a grown up with this woman. I turn into a seven-year-old who didn't practice my music. "Yes m'am" is all I know how to say.

At the end of the piano recital, the teacher gave out awards for the most improved, best student, etc. At the end she had a special award. She described a student who didn't practice and in fact, practiced the least. She said that this student was gifted. Lily immediately knew it was her. The teacher went on to say that she hoped this award, the Most Creative, would encourage this student to use her gifts. 

I hope so, too.

In the car on the way home I tried to talk with Lily about it. (Paul is absent this weekend -- he's part of a Kairos Prison Ministry weekend in Broad River Correctional Institution, a maximum security prison.) 

How do you get a person (a teenaged person) to recognize her gifts and to want to use them? I could use force (take away her cell phone until she practiced) and might end up doing that. But there's something more fundamental here: the squandering of gifts.

She says she doesn't care about piano, though she likes to compose and play her own pieces (yet she's quit doing that). I asked her why when she has been told repeatedly that she's gifted that she doesn't use her gifts. "Because I'm lazy," is her honest and heartbreaking answer.

We will talk about this further. This talk should be called "The Day I Beat My Head Against the Wall Again." 

To whom much is given, much is expected. How about we drop the "much" and say "a little"?

I am out of ideas. 

Her piano teacher says that she has been told a million times by adults that they wished their parents had never let them drop music. And she says that she has never been told by adults that they were sorry their parents made them continue to play.

Choices: punishment, bribery, logic, cajoling. Something creative, like an hour of practice for every hour of riding. Except then I think she'd just not ride, since that passion is wavering with her growing awareness of boys. (Wonder if the boys are aware of her? They're all 14.)

To whom much is given, much is expected. It was given to her, not to me. But she was given to me. 

Need to figure out something. 

The Drama Mama

"You'll probably be getting a call from Carla's mother," Lily said on the way to school yesterday.

Carla is her best friend. They're both 14 and don't date. They do text. I think that's how a crush works these days. You text. Then when you're with the boy in person, you don't know how to talk to your crush. Carla liked a boy, then told him she didn't like him. It (the like), was over. So Lily asked Carla if it was all right if Lily liked him, and Carla said yes because Carla was finished liking him. So Lily likes this boy. And now Carla has changed her mind, I suspect with some help from her mother. Carla likes him. And doesn't want Lily to like him anymore.

Is this like a dog chasing a car or what? What would these girls do with these boys if they had them? Never mind, don't tell me. I'm enjoying my innocence.

Carla's mother has told Carla that Lily violated "Girl's Rules," which include but are not limited to that you never like your friend's ex- what would he be? Ex-crush? Ex-like? I was not aware of it, but something called "Girl's Rules" were handed down at Mt. Sinai. My mother apparently didn't know them either, as she didn't teach them to me. I wonder what other Girl's Rules are out there to be violated.

Carla's mother has called the boy's mother. And now Carla's mother has called me.

Carla's mother is a really nice person. She's just overly involved in her daughter's life. And a bit of a Drama Mama.

"I just wanted to warn you that there may be a bit of drama when you pick up Lily from school today," she told me. I'm afraid I wasn't much fun. I said that this was the girls' problem and that I wasn't going to get involved.

I also said that I was sure their friendship was strong enough to survive this. "I'm not so sure," Carla's mother said, with great warning in her voice. That would be a shame as they are best friends and very compatible. They even have the same taste in boys.

Where is the boy in all this? And how far has his mother been sucked into the drama? Don't know. Don't these people have lives?

So I said again to Carla's mother, "I'm sorry, but they need to work this out themselves. I'm not going to get involved."

"Neither am I," said the Drama Mama. And I didn't say, "Then why are you calling me?"

How to Find Your Rabbit a New Home

Meet Clover, our pose-able bunny. Now say goodbye to her.

You can't really appreciate her from this photo, but I'll try to explain. If you lay her down on her back, she will stay there. If you move her feet/legs into different positions while she is on her back, she will keep them where you put them. Yes, she's a pose-able rabbit.

We've been posing her for two years. But after you've run through all the poses, exactly what do you do with a rabbit?

We decided that maybe she needed another home. A more creative home, where perhaps she would be free to pose however she desires. But nobody I knew wanted a bunny. Not even a pose-able bunny.

Then one day, an e-mail from a 4-H leader landed in my inbox promoting a chicken project. So, I hit "reply all" (yes, if I need to get rid of a rabbit bad enough I will spam you) and suggested that we had a rabbit suitable for a rabbit project. Complete with hutch, etc.

And I was deluged with responses -- none of them threatening to turn me in for spamming. So Clover now has a new home. Happy Easter, Happy Bunny, Happy New Family. Happy Me.

But that wasn't the end of it. Another parent with an unwanted pet saw the brilliance of my spamming the 4-H mailing list and the next thing to hit my inbox was an e-mail declaring: Free Hermit Crabs to Good Home, All Supplies Included.

I don't know if those hermit crabs found a new home or not, but we had a hermit crab once. Worst pet ever. It never moved while you looked at it. I would place the shell the crab was hermitting in in one location in the cage/tank, and if the shell was somewhere else the next day, I took that as a signal that the thing was still alive. I soaked it on schedule, fed it, saw nothing to clean up but cleaned it up anyway. We had to move it out of Lily's bedroom because it could scale the plastic walls of its tank, making a terrible screeching sound like claws on a chalk board. You not only couldn't sleep with that noise -- you couldn't breathe. If you turned on the light, all you saw was Still Life with Crab. Don't know how it did it but it did.

One day the shell stayed put. And it stayed put the next day. And the next day. What a heartbreaker that was (just kidding).

But that's still not the end.

Next to land in my inbox was this reply-all message: "Don't need a chicken, a rabbit, or a hermit crab, but will raise you a horse." And thus went the pitch for a non-free to good home horse.

I assume all is well with Clover. I told a friend what had happened, and she said, "You do know what they do with 4-H rabbits."

Uh oh. "What?"

"You do know what they do with 4-H cows and pigs," she said. Yes, I know. I hadn't thought about this. In the 4-H horse projects, you don't eat the horse.

"Well, they said they'd send me pictures," I said defensively. "And she's a small rabbit -- not much meat."

"If they said they'd send you pictures, it's probably all right. Just hope they don't send you recipes."

Thanks a lot. What else are friends for?

Be a Fountain, Not a Drain

Lily's been on spring break all week. We've spent her vacation in the car, either driving to go look at a horse to buy, or hauling our horse in hopes that someone will buy him, or hauling the horse we've selected home for a two-week trial (Markus, pictured at left). I drove. She listened to her iPod while texting her friends. For hundreds of miles.

Still, we had a lot of quality time in the car. We had a lot of confessions. So far, I'm the only one to confess anything. She said she's not old enough to have anything to confess, and let's hope she keeps it that way. We've talked about:

• What really happened to Princess, the hamster (Tiger ate her, leaving only her hands and feet and head on the laundry rug.)
• Why I would be in a long-term relationship with a guy who thought the overhead passenger handles on the London Tube were germy so he got ME to hold them and then he held onto me.
• Why I would still date a guy (same as above) when he couldn't remember why he was standing outside a men's room so he left with me in it, unguarded. He wasn't there very long -- I promise. I had gone in there to use the facilities and he was supposed to stand guard at the door so I would have the men's room to myself. He was reading a book, forgot why he was standing there, and wandered off. His roommate came in the men's room, saw my sandaled feet under the stall door, said, "Hi, Anne. How are you?" and proceeded to use the urinal. I used my Invisible Walk to exit as quickly and as invisibly as I could. (And no, I was too mortified to cast even a backward glance.)
• And other things that don't make sense from my past.

She laughed until she cried. She even turned off her iPod and stopped texting for a few minutes.

When I ran out of things to confess, I took in the scenery. And I saw a country church sermon sign that I think I will take as my new motto: Be a Fountain, Not a Drain.

Happy Easter, all!

Trying Out Cats

We're low on cats -- down to just Izzie, who likes me best. This makes Lily crazy because she saved up her money and jumped through hoops to get Izzie as a kitten from the pound three or four years ago. If we're watching TV, Izzie will only get in my lap. If I hand her to Lily and settle her in Lily's lap, Izzie hops right down and hops back into my lap. Once I get past thinking this is funny, I feel sort of bad about it. Having a cat in your lap is a most pleasant thing and I'd like it to be a memory from her childhood. Unfortunately, her memory will be that her cat liked her mother better. 

Izzie sleeps under my side of the bed. She sits on the back of my office chair while I work, or on the floor nearby. I have an advantage in Cat Charming because I work at home and am here more than anyone. The cat hangs out with me. Plus, there's that little business where I take care of the cat, feed her, pick catnip for her, clean out her box, etc. 

"That cat is biased," Lily says. "She likes you best." I used to deny it but it is true. 

So, since we've always been a two-cat family, when Tiger died Lily figured it was  inevitable that she'd get another cat. One that liked her. (Note: Tiger liked everybody so that wasn't an issue with him.)

Unfortunately, Tiger's medical expenses (diabetes care and various infections) made Paul wary of getting another pet. If you are a responsible pet owner, pets can be expensive. And besides, Paul says that Lily doesn't play with Clover, her rabbit, so why should she get yet another pet?

I'll talk about the bunny later. I do believe that Paul has a point but I also believe that having a cat in your lap is good preparation for life. No, I believe that having a cat in your life is a necessity, up there with food and water.

So, Lily and I go to the pound a couple of times a week to see what's in. And almost every visit we fall in love. The pound seems to specialize in the exotic, if that's a possibility in stray cats. White blue-eyed cats with grey-striped legs. Cats with six toes. Cats with no tails. Very sweet cats. Very fat cats. A calico that was split down the middle, one side of her face grey tabby and the other side -- clearly marked by a straight line right down the middle of her face -- was orange tabby. Her tail was tortoiseshell with an orange tabby tip, like God had dipped her the end of her tail in orange tabby dye. She was sweet, too. She's gone, quickly adopted out.

The fancy ones and the plain but loveable ones don't last. The lady who works there said that they all eventually get adopted. I guess if you make it into the adoption room you get to live, I don't know. 

Lily is working on Paul to get him to go along with another cat. She's not nearly as good at getting things out of her father as the average daughter. She's too nice or something. Anyway, we visit, knowing that we won't be taking a cat home....yet.

In the meantime, Lily has devised a test to see if a cat is right for us or not. We sit down on the bench in the cat room, side by side. Lily holds the cat. If the cat leaves her lap to get in mine, the cat fails the test. She's looking for a cat that will like her best. (I suggested that she feed it and take care of it....)

It's not really a fair test, because the cat is out of its cage and wanting to move around. If it starts in Lily's lap, the next place to go is mine. 

A few days ago we found a cat biased in her favor. A 9-month-old long-haired male that just wanted her to hold him. His family lost their jobs and had to move. They gave up this sweet cat. We stayed and stayed, the cat never wanted to get down. Lily put him down, and he was playful and followed her around. 

"What shall we do, keep this cat or dad?" I asked. "Never mind, don't answer."

"I've never had a cat act like this," Lily said, holding him like a baby. He was so content, just limp and purring. "I need this cat."

"Call your father."

"That never works. He just gets mad," she said.

Maybe I should have overridden Paul and brought home the cat. This cat was special. But Lily was leaving town for the beach on a confirmation retreat with church, and this might sound silly, but I thought if I brought home this cat and was the one to tend to it while she is gone and they never have a chance to bond alone, I'd end up with two cats in my lap and she'd have none. 

That cat is probably already adopted. In the meantime, Lily came home and tended to all the animals. The dog got a bath. The rabbit got a rejuvenated hutch and some play time. The horses got massages. She even picked catnip for Izzie, though Izzie let her know that she wanted something else that Lily will never, ever discover. 

I'm sure there's another cat or kitten in our future. And even if it is against my nature, I'm going to be mean to it (or at least ignore it) so that Lily can do all the cat charming.

And Izzie and I will just go off somewhere in a huff.