Archive for the ‘Life’ Category

Sometimes I do things that can make me pretty darn proud of myself. Living a single life, I’ve had to learn how to be self-reliant over the years – which means bug extermination, spider elimination and all such squeamish chores are completely up to me. A scream of “ewwww! help!” would only elicit bland looks from the other two occupants of my abode before curling back up for a furry nap in the chair.

Some household chores and tasks present tricky challenges from time to time. Furniture moving in particular. I’ve got a somewhat reliable system which involves scooching, tugging, pushing, and shoving, usually on my butt and with my legs. It may take me longer than what could normally be expected, but I get it done. Most times.

Over the past few months I’ve been gradually moving my office, such as it is, to the upstairs loft. It’s a largish room that overlooks the front entrance and a part of the living room and kitchen area (I have one of those “open” floor plans). The most difficult task was a set of bookshelves for my stash of paper backs and other books that were collecting dust and becoming a mountain for the kitties to play on. It was time to shelve them properly.

The difficulty with getting furniture and such upstairs lies in a rather awkward spiral staircase. A type of staircase that my builder vowed he would never again ever install in a house ever again. Ever. I managed to get the bookshelves up the staircase, unassembled, one box at a time, literally dragging them up and then assembling them upon arrival. Who needs a gym?

Today I attacked the problem of getting the office chair up. I came upon the solution in a round about way. Of course it was the logical and easiest solution, however I’m notorious for going at things ass-backward. I’ve dulled many a blade in Occam’s razor, believe me.

So I needed to get this chair…

…out of that room…

…and up these stairs:

I know most of you have already figured out how to do it in the simplest, most efficient manner. I ultimately figured it out, too. But first, I had to ponder it for a few weeks. Why? I was stuck on the notion that I would have to get a hoist to lift it up over the partial wall overlooking the living room.

While I was trying to figure out how to get it out of the room downstairs in a manner that would not require moving another piece of furniture out of the way in the little hall way, I had that annoying light bulb moment. Annoying because that’s when I saw that I’d been trying to make this a lot harder (typical) than it needed to be.

A quick scan of the chair told me what I needed. I made a trip to Lowes, purchased the tools I would need and after the required stroll around the flooring, kitchen cabinetry and appliances (a girl never stops dreaming about appliances…) I returned home to attack the task.

Of course the solution was to dismantle the chair, haul each piece up the stairs and reassemble it. Duh.

So now I’m in my comfy office chair up in the loft thoroughly amazed at my awesomeness – clumsy awesomeness, but awesomeness none-the-less. And I’ve filed this solution away for future use:

When in doubt, take it apart, dumb-ass.

I don’t know when it happened. I only know it had to have been when I was distracted, or in the dark of night. Any other time, I’m certain I would have seen the peril and avoided its guesome consequences. It was an accident, I swear.

I’m guilty of birdiecide.

I discovered the horror when I left for work this morning. I was cursing my municipality for not picking up all of my trash bags on Thursday. One bag topped the container, not allowing it to close all the way. I’d committed a mortal trash sin which will give you seven days of pennance with the rotting garbage in your garage. That’s the aroma I thought was overwhelming my nostrils this morning.

It wasn’t. Out of the corner my eye, as I was shuffling trash bags, I spied the source of death’s perfume. The little carcas was flat as a pancake right where my garage door meets the floor of the garage. Smashed birdie.

I stood there for a moment, at a loss as to what to do. Then I saw movement… I will spare you the details.

I got in my car, backed out of the driveway and hit the button on the garage door opener in the side pocket of the car door. A routine so automatic, I sometimes do a u-turn before leaving the neighborhood to be sure I’ve, indeed, closed the garage door.

In the street, as I shifted into drive, I realized what I’d just done. Birdie carcascide.

When I returned home this evening, I washed away the evidence. Oh, I know, even a pale imitation of Gil Grissom would have no difficulty in gathering enough DNA, microscopic feathers and fat maggots to incriminate me. But all that pales in light of what I faced when I stepped inside and looked out my kitchen window.

He stood there, staring at me with condemning eyes that said, “I know it was you. How could you? How? How could you?” Oh, horror, horror!

That kid to the left there has just completed 56 years on this planet. It’s one of those “nondescript” birthdays – not a decade or decade and a half milestone, but it feels kinda like it ought to be a major one.

That’s because it’s got me thinking about sex. Yes, sex.

Or, more precisely, the last time I engaged in that bit of pleasure with another person. And I’m a little worried. Not so much because it’s been a shocking* while, but because the memory of the last time isn’t that great.

The guy was an internet acquaintance who’d e-mailed me because I had listed quantum physics as an interest in my AOL profile. After engaging in several e-mails and a few AOL chats we got the nerve to exchange a phone call or two and then decided we needed to meet.

He was pretty brave and made the trip to Oklahoma from Iowa, opting for a hotel. But he only stayed there one night. There was a bit of a physical spark and we pursued our impulses upon returning from an afternoon at the zoo. There weren’t exactly any fireworks, per se, but there was quite a loud siren. A tornado warning siren, to be precise. Timed perfectly to… well, you can guess.

About a month later, over the fourth of July holiday, I trekked to Iowa to visit him. There were no fireworks then, either. Both literally and figuratively. Somehow we managed to miss Independence Day fireworks. We did have a moon, though. Which was bright and vivid as viewed each night from his tree house… The sex, though, was perfunctory. We weren’t exactly clicking on other levels either, so when I left Iowa, we knew that was it.

I’m not keen on having that as my last memory of sex if it is to be my fate never to roll naked with another person for the rest of my life… or if I were to be hit by a bus next week. I am able to reach back a little farther, though, to a time when there was some damn fine sex going on – you know that scene on the train when Diane Lane is thinking about the illicit sex she’s just had in Unfaithful?- it was that good. But doesn’t long term memory get shakier with age?

See my problem here?

Now one might suggest I go for a grab and bag, but that’s not how I roll. At least… not now. I am fascinated by the evolution of the casual sex my generation propagated, though. I hear terms today like “friend-sex,” “fuck buddy,” “cuddle pal” and such. Even anonymous sex. It can certainly fuel some intriguing fantasies. However, my generation ultimately discovered, I believe, that casual sex is an oxymoron. There’s nothing casual about it.

So that is what I’m pondering on on this, the 29th of April 2007, the day of my 56th birthday, and perhaps pining for a special, er, um kind of package to come knocking on my door?

Oh, well. I guess I’ll just have to be happy with a fresh set of double A batteries and….

Sigh.

——

*I’m not going to say how long – each person has their own measure of “shockingly” long – for some it’s a week, others months… or a couple of years… or a decade… or whatever… so, I’m not going to say and don’t ask.

I decided to treat myself to a Panera savory and a latte this morning. I threw in an orange juice, too, just ’cause.

I found a table in the back corner near a table of three people who were engaged in a robust conversation. It wasn’t hard to listen in – but what I heard, I’m not so sure I wanted to hear.

The young man at the table was quoting a study that had followed retirees and compared the age at retirement to how long they lived. He said, “For every year you work past age 56, you’re trading two years of your life.”

There may be some merit in that. My Dad essentially retired at 55-56. He recently turned 90 years of age.

The retirement wasn’t planned. In fact, I think Dad’s lack of work after they made the move to Oregon was a point of contention between my parents for a while. But an inheritance and wise investments ended up fueling a very nice retirement in the long run.

A poor example to set for the kids, though. I’ve been aiming for the same thing since I began the 8 to 5 in my youth. It doesn’t look like I’m going to make it, heh, as of today, I have 20 days to keep the aging clock at bay, if that young man’s information is correct.

I’ll be winging to the Northwest coast in a few days to see my Dad. It will be bittersweet. My Dad recently underwent chemo-therapy for a cancer that’s eating away at him, but it failed.

I’m trying to prepare myself. This will be a goodbye and I know Dad knows that. Our family is pragmatic about such things. It is what it is.

My family is it’s own jumble of familial disfunction – close on some levels, not close on most. I forgave my parents years ago for not being perfect parents and I hope I was forgiven for not being the perfect child.

There will be sadness and difficulty in this next week, but it will be tempered by seeing my family together – my niece and her kids – and spending time with them.

Well. I didn’t intend this to turn into a maudlin refelction of emotional angst… I better end this before the folks at the next table begin to wonder why that woman in the corner is shedding tears all over her lap-top!

Big breath. We go on.

A few months ago I underwent a transformation of sorts. I’d been o-d-ing on TLCs What Not To Wear and felt compelled to launch a minor makeover on myself.

Looking back on it now, I can’t help but wonder if I hadn’t been temporarily possessed by aliens. It was so out of character.

But in all actuality, it more likely had to do with a bit of “aging crisis” that had begun to niggle away at me. I am such a cliche.

At any rate, this compulsion spurred me to actually get a pedicure for the first time in my life, my third manicure ever, girly make-up on my face and the purchase of

bras.

That last item there is what really makes me feel I should plead insanity. You see, I gleefully abandoned the boob straitjackets and liberated my girls a hundred years ago when we women liberated ourselves back in the late 60s. NINETEEN-sixties, mind you.

I eschewed all efforts of Playtex to convince me to lift and separate for nigh on to thirty years. Now, granted, having been what my Dad referred to as Oklahoma’s answer to Twiggy, my little buds really didn’t need the support. But, somewhere in my fourth decade I bloomed.

No problem, though – I got really clever at clothing myself in a way that didn’t make it so noticeble that I was going commando, boastful that “I don’t own a bra” and incredulous at other women who avowed they woudn’t be caught dead without their bra on.

Then a few months ago, after a trip to one of my favorite playlands, I saw a picture of myself and I wasn’t happy with what I saw. There was a frumpy woman grinning back at me. Eek.

This was followed by a near revelatory experience with Stacy and Clinton reaching out to me from the glowing tube in front of me showing me a shining path out of Frumpiness into Hot.

Before I could fully comprehend what had happened, I was sitting on a bar-stool in Las Vegas with painted fingers and toes, mascara, waxed brows, and wearing a Victoria’s Secret Very Sexy bra ‘neath a form fitting red shirt.

And someone said, “You look hot!”

Yeah – that felt pretty damn good.

I kept up with a bit of the transformation – mainly in my wardrobe, not so much in the make-up and manicure department – until today.

Today I could no longer tolerate the discomfort and restriction of the contraption cinching me in underneath my blouse. In a fit of angst, I unhooked and released my girls from their incarceration.

Nothing feels better than that first second of liberation.

Looking hot at the cost of my comfort will have to take a back seat for a while. I know I have inner hot, heh, and the world will just have to be satisfied with that.

Now I just have to figure out how to transport the bra home inconspicuously…

[[UPDATE]] I walked out the office without my bra – it’s sitting on top of my computer’s CPU underneath my desk. The cleaning folk will just have to deal…..