From the Far Reaches of the Wilderness

I am staying with my sister in San Diego. Scratch that. I am staying in northern San Diego County. I might as well be in the Alaskan outback for all that matters.

Her home is situated in a lovely rolling valley surrounded by avocado trees and citrus. This makes for a pastoral environment, but is hell when it comes to the internet.

There’s some local wireless available, but the signal is weak. I have a laptop connect card, but half of the time I can’t connect at all. The other half of the time, I’m struggling to keep a connection. In fact, I can barely get any cell phone coverage at all. I’m going to have a serious discussion with that Verizon salesman when I get home.

I can’t deal with pages loading at the speed of a snail’s pace, so you may not be hearing from me for a while. Besides, I have to get the young one up to move into college today.

Wintertime in the Rockies

My daughter and I drove to Utah today, about halfway to California.

The past two days on the Front Range have been all about rain. It was a good thing, because they haven’t had much rain in the last month or so. Of course, Mother Nature waited until I drove into town to throw down a monsoon.

When we left this morning, it was cold and still raining steadily. I haven’t seen this kind of rain since we were in NorCal over a Christmas a couple of years ago. That’s when the Napa River flooded the day after we left. It’s usually dry in Colorado, rain normally is an afternoon event, not something lasting three days. I saw four roll-over accidents on the interstate before we drove out of the city limits.

As we took the freeway through the mountains west of Denver, we were shocked to see snow! It was a light dusting, but enough to clog the freeway and cause it to shut down for twenty minutes while the snow plows made a pass just east of the Eisenhower Tunnel.

When we got out of the car on the other side of the tunnel, we weren’t the only ones dazed. The temperature had dropped another twenty degrees, and my daughter and I were shivering in our summer clothes.

The unexpected snowstorm caused me to drive slower than I had expected. We were a few hours behind schedule.

A hundred miles past, on the Western Slope, the temperatures were in the 80s and the sky was blue. Welcome to wintertime in the Rockies.

Thunderous Kitchen

I’ve written in other places about going home, and the things that happen when we all get together. There are six of us siblings, and we’ve always been loud, rambunctious and overwhelming. When one of us who lives far away comes home to visit, the rest get together and prepare a large dinner at my dad’s house.

Nowadays of course, there aren’t just the six of us. There are the grandchildren, and now a great-grandchild. The house isn’t very large, and the kitchen is a basic 10′ x 12′ 1970s model with very few amenities. (In fact, my father never seemed to have a decent set of knives ever, so I took to buying him good knives that were reasonably sharp.) All of us are pretty good cooks, if I do say so. My brother, now a computer programmer and law school student, worked his way through college as a chef, starting out in small eateries and ending up in a classy Denver area restaurant. He’s an excellent trained chef, but the rest of us have our moments, too.

The other thing we share is a dry sense of humor. We tend to pick at newcomers in the fold (new boyfriends, new husbands, new friends). We call this behavior “grilling” the person, like you would a steak. The intention is to make sure that person is worthy of inclusion into this very special circle. The outsider has to have a special sense of humor too. One such person is my best friend from high school. She endured my father calling her Suzie Q 35 years ago, and still shows up occasionally for a family dinner.

Last night we had one of those dinners at my dad’s house. The kitchen is always full of action, and it’s amazing that we can get anything done in there. My own daughter dislikes these get-togethers, because we ARE loud. Come to think of it, my husband never cared for them either. You have to be able to get into the action and hold your own.

My dad takes a beer and retreats into the sun room in the back of the house. He built it especially for these family reunions. The room is the entire length of the house, about 40 feet, with a table just as long in the center of it, and so can easily accommodate 30 people or more.

I ended the evening by arm wrestling my 12 year old nephew and throwing him to the floor. He got into my face after I teased him about his girlfriend. (You love her, you lurv her, lurv her, lurv her!) I think he was in shock that an old lady like me could do something like that.

Actually, so was I.

Becoming Adept at Biting My Tongue

Two days ago, my daughter and I took off from our Rust Belt home, on the way to SoCal and getting her registered for school.

I’m sure it is easier to launch the space shuttle than it was to get my little birdie into the car.

Regrets? I’m sure she had a few. First off, she’ll be a couple thousand miles or so away from mom and dad and their open pocketbooks. She inherited the spendthrift gene from me, and let’s face it, she’s had a comfortable life. It’s going to be hard for her to keep a budget, although God only knows we’ve been trying to get her to do that the last couple of years. If all else fails, she should do as I did and find herself a mate who is a tightwad (um, I mean thrifty).

She’ll also be a couple thousand miles away from her friends. This includes the current boy du jour. Yes, they are in love. Well, as much in love as a couple of 18 year olds can be. I was half expecting her to back out of moving to California.

It’s not like she’s going to be completely adrift with no friendly faces nearby. Her older brother will be somewhat close by, if you consider a five hour car trip to visit a sibling you’ve been in competition with all your life close. My sister is an hour drive to the south, but Ms. MiniD thinks my sister doesn’t like her. She just doesn’t know that my sister is quite opinionated (like me) and not very laid back (not like me).

The teary goodbye with the boyfriend and the best friend on Wednesday lasted for an hour. I was only moderately annoyed, because I was in tears too. The only way I was able to get her into the car was by flipping the radio over to a classical station and turning it up loud. She got in to change it back to rap-n-crap, and we were on our way.

I tried to talk to Ms. MiniD during the long car ride to the Rockies. You know, say sage nuggets like sure you’ll make new friends, this is a great opportunity for you, you’ll probably have a new boyfriend in a couple of months, etc. Don’t worry. I never got to that point. She did not want to talk, and instead spent a great deal of the time sleeping.

I instead remembered back to when I was 18. I was married. I left home without much fanfare. I don’t remember saying goodbye to my parents, much less to my best friends from high school. One day, I decided it was time to leave my city (having already left my childhood home a few months before that), canceled my lease and my telephone and left. I didn’t have money from my parents, or a credit card, but my own money. A year later, when I “came home” I went to my friend’s house and stayed there until I found an apartment. Later, when I moved to the Tundra to go to college, I was responsible for the tuition, living expenses and trips home to visit mom and dad. Money (or lack of it) was the reason why I didn’t finish college, and it limited my trips home.

My daughter is planning her triumphant Christmas return, even though I have tried to explain to her that we have depleted our resources just getting her to California. If I have to limit my own pleasure trips to the Left Coast because of the money, she will have to bite the bullet and get a job to buy a plane ticket. The days of wine and roses has past, especially with two kids in private college. Besides, if you’re truly an ADULT, you should be able to figure it out on your own.

I still want to say something, but know I shouldn’t do it. She’s not going to listen to me. Kids that age think they know everything. They won’t admit they know nothing until they have their own little birdies.

Instead, I’ve become adept at biting my tongue.

Now THIS is Rain!

In case anyone forgot what it’s like:

RAIN

Sorry, I can’t get it to embed.

Why Didn’t They Steal The Cucumbers!?

My last post dealt with a conspicuous absence of pears.

Today’s will touch on the cucumber plants that took over the world.

I have three: two regular, and one fancy-schmancy Japanese burpless. (There are pickling cukes in the color bowls on my deck, but I’m not counting them. I made dill pickles last night with those.) These three plants have managed to inundate this family and everyone we know with cucumbers.

Here are just a few of them, if you don’t believe me:

I can’t pick them fast enough.

When I pick a half dozen in the morning, I leave with the mistaken impression that I will not have to pick again for a couple of days.

WRONG!

I could easily pick a half dozen in the evening too.

I don’t know what Mr. Demonic is going to do while I’m gone for a week. I have visions of returning home to cucumbers the size of small watermelons. (Speaking of watermelons, I have a couple of those too.)

All I want to know is, why didn’t they steal the cucumbers!?

ROBBED!

I returned home from work yesterday afternoon, and found that someone, something ROBBED MY PEAR TREE!

No crap. Check it out.

There were at least two dozen pears on it yesterday morning, all about the size of ping pong balls. When I pulled in next to the tree last night, there was ONE. That’s the one on the right. For all I know, that one might be gone by today when I get home.

I wish I could say that pear guts were all over the yard, but there wasn’t anything for debris.

I’m so depressed, I don’t know what to do. No canned pears this year. No poached pears. No pears flambe.

I need a drink. Make mine a pear flavored cosmo, and make it a double.

News Flash: It’s Way Cooler Under the Tomatoes

Yesterday was Sunday, so in the early morning, I went out to weed the garden.

As I related in a previous post, Mr. D loves to water. Not just the fruits and vegetables, he waters everything. Grass, weeds. I don’t think he knows the difference. He just likes to sprinkle everything, including the muddy, barren area that has recently been dug up. After it turns from mud back to dirt, the sparrows come by and take a birdy dirt bath. By the dozens.

Mr. D waters by hand too: I think he likes to gaze upon the foliage.  So, combine a huge water bill with temperatures in the 90s, and what do you get? Answer: a boatload of cucumbers (I was going to say “butt-load” but that image was rather distasteful) and lots of weeds.

Thankfully, part of my vegetable bed is right below an ancient oak tree, so it gets shade in the early morning, before the sun heats everything up.

I hadn’t even looked at my tomatoes, since I’ve been up to my armpits in grapevines and cucumbers. (Another weird mental image.) We have a tangly vine thing called a creeping Charley. It makes me want to hate all Charleys, but I know that’s a gross exaggeration. I found that my tomato plants have become trellises for the creeping weed, which is a rather annoying green thing. I usually like green things, but not this one. It would take over my yard and then my house if I let it.

My tomato plants tower over me now. I’ve found out from working under them that it’s a good ten degrees cooler under there. They make a rather interesting leafy bower.

I would have stayed longer, but I’m allergic to tomato plants. Not the fruit, just the leaves. Besides, it only took an hour or so, and I was all Charley’d out.

A Hot Weather Update

It’s still hot.

It still hasn’t rained. They keep promising rain, but they lie. I can’t remember the last time I took my umbrella out.  Hmm… I wonder where my umbrella is?

The weeds are losing the war.

If anyone wants a cucumber (or two or three or a couple dozen), give me a call. I’ve been shipping them them to the starving artist-college student on the Left Coast, so it’s not beyond the realm of possibilities.

The tomatoes are coming along. This year they are slow, but sure. I’m sure when I’m gone for a week getting the youngest Demonic into college, they will go hog wild and Mr. D will largely ignore them.

Did I say it’s still hot? Because it’s still freakin’ hot.

Update on the Lazy Woman

Despite recent reports from local weathermen, rain has refused to fall out of the sky. Instead, we find our humidity clinging to every blade of grass, every dirty, disgusting muscle shirt, and every sweaty-assed landscaper. Believe me, I’ve seen plenty of all three of those things in my yard just in the last week.

When it doesn’t rain, Mr. Demonic goes crazy with the watering. He thinks it’s important to have green grass. As the grass cutter of the family, I do not think it’s important. He thinks the grass will “die.” In all of my experience at this house and others, grass does NOT die if it doesn’t get water. This is because regular lawn grass is a member of the Weed Family. It just goes into a dormancy until the next downpour.

The past week of hot and humid has made this Demonic lazy. However, since the other half has gone hog-wild with sprinkling, today I have had to drag my limp butt out of bed early this morning to mow the front yard. Even though I started at 6:45, I was a whipped, stinky, sweaty mess by 7:30.

However, you can’t tell Mr. Demonic to stop watering.

As for other Lazy Woman News, the kitchen has been largely dark. This is because Mr. Demonic is thrifty (i.e. cheap) and refuses to turn the A/C on downstairs. I can’t have both ovens going without A/C. This, in turn, has caused quite a bit of consternation over on the Left Coast, where Mr. Demonic Junior’s roommate has threatened to have the Hell’s Angels come and pay me a visit, and it doesn’t sound like a friendly one. I believe him, since the dude writes for a motorcycle magazine and a guitar magazine. He’s made it abundantly clear that chocolate chip cookies had better be forthcoming or else I would be in deep trouble.

I guess I will turn the A/C on today and bake some cookies.

I took advantage of the heat to finish another book. It’s relaxing to sit right under a ceiling fan and read. You will have to read my book page to find out which one it was.

A recent check of the weather shows more promise of rain. I won’t believe it until I see it, though.