Measure twice, buy once.

It is official. We've gone to the scary place that only the mentally unhinged and bird breeders usually inhabit. We have joined the legions of those who have homes stuffed with animal habitats on every available surface, with furniture incidentally squished between bird cages and rickety incubators on top of old TVs. These poor souls usually have floors covered in seed and bird poop, dining room tables and kitchen counters covered in bags of Birdie Bread mix and carpets covered by easily washable towels. It's only a matter of time before we never leave the house because we're afraid to abandon the pets.

Witness the madness:
















Our two itty bitty birds are in the upper right hand corner. Each side is meant to hold one bird. We could fit both birds and all of our other pets in one side and still have room for a cockatoo on the other.
















Do you see how tiny they are in comparison to the cage? What the hell was I thinking? It takes up the entire space of a chair. It's not like we had room to spare in the livingroom, as it's a wee little parlor, but I honestly didn't measure the space correctly.

Hopefully once I have Mom sew a pretty little skirt for the cage, it won't look so very, very white and dominant. I hope.

A glimpse into the future.

Saturday was an eventful day.

Christian is now part of the "Masters" track and field circuit, meaning over 30. Christian did well in the shot put, but the real event was the over 50 age group, which included the 90-99 age group. Yes, the 90-99 age group, of which there was one participant, a sprightly and adorable spindly little man named Leon who is a youthful 92. He joked about having to use the tiny 3K shot and thankfully got to do standing throws, as I can only imagine what a spin or a glide would do to those hips. He had mean form and never fouled. He's actually the national record holder in the his group so we were in the presence of fame and glory. Apparently, there's an over 100 age group as well. I would so dearly love to see that competition. It's my fondest hope that someday Christian will be in that category, carrying his little 3k shots in a plastic bag that used to hold oranges, like the bag one of the gentlemen in the 80-89 age group had with him. It's my fondest wish.

There was almost too much of the sweetie pooperness on Saturday. The camera pooped out at the reptile show, so I only have a few meager and not very exciting pictures from the event, but here is one:
Very young children and pregnant women (ahem, preggers in the picture) aren't supposed to touch reptiles because of the trace amounts of salmonella, so poor Kyan had to reach and point and make lots of "OOOO" noises and faces and struggle vainly to get out of his stroller to pet the pretty snake that could eat him and still be hungry for the next kid. We're training him well.

Jayden wasn't so sure about most of the reptile exhibit, but the petting area was a hit, and even though he's three years too young to touch legally (even though he's handled our snakes repeatedly, but we tried to respect the rules, mostly) he managed to get in a few good strokes. He seemed far more excited about the Purell handwash than the animals, however, so I think he's safe from invasive bacteria.

Joining the club

We, like every other American and some Europeans, who are ahead of us in most things but behind us on this, became victims of credit card fraud. I was rudely awakened at the ungodly hour of 10 am on Saturday with an automated phone call from Bank of America saying that there was a fraud alert on Christian's credit card, and could I please enter in the last four digits of his SSN? No, I thought, I don't know them. I got up, ran upstairs (Christian was at a meet and unable to provide the necessary information), got his SS card and called the bank back. I, of course, am not authorized on his (paid off) account, so I had to call him at the meet, interrupting his discus throwing, to tell him to call the bank, which he could only do 20 yards away from the ring where the event was taking place. He called, got a little information and his phone dropped the call. Gack. I was in a bit of turmoil as identity theft ranks right up with spiders in my bed on the fear meter.

By the time the event was over and he had time to go home to take a shower before we took the boys to the reptile show, it was 1 pm and I was frantic. What if it was money that couldn't be returned? We just paid everything off, and I didn't want to be responsible for a weekend of orgies and bathroom furnishings. He called BoA from home and was told that someone got ahold of our account number and charged $4500 at Bed, Bath and Beyond and some posh hotel. Fortunately, as the account had a whopping $15 balance, they noticed a slight increase in spending patterns and declined the charges, barring the first one that triggered the alert. They reversed the charges and closed the account. And then, they ruined it all by reissuing a new credit card. We didn't WANT them to issue a new credit card, and Christian tried to tell them that. We want all but ONE credit card to be cancelled (per customer request) and use only a Disney card to get points and then pay it off at the end of the month. One more credit card means one more letter we have to write to the BoA asking to cancel the account and one more headache of trying to maintain our credit score while eliminating all superfluous sources of credit. This is why we left BoA to go to WaMu. We don't like BoA's slap-happy approach to issuing cards, and they have awful fraud protection. Oh, they're fairly helpful when the fraud has happened, but they don't do enough to STOP it from happening. I only hope WaMu won't start flinging credit cards at us. I shall be forced to fling back and I'm terrified of confrontation.

So this guy walks onto an elevator...

I could have an entire blog dedicated to conversations overheard in elevators. This one, though, was actually said to me. A teeny, tiny little elderly woman with a perfect white bob and little shiny sweatpants got on the elevator I was riding in the Medical Center. She was with a person I assume to be her daughter and was at the MC for an appointment, according to their conversation. She looked at her daughter, who seemed unhappy, sighed, glanced around at all of us, caught my eye, and, with a huge smile, said, "What is it they say? You're born, you live, you die. Life's a bitch." She was awesome.

Support your local herp

We shall post pictures upon our return. Information here. Come get over your fears! Then you can feed our pets when we go on vacation.

Feather therapy

The best part of the long weekend was getting to spend quality time with the birdies. I really wish I could teach them to play with balls and string and bits of toys, but they seem to only want to eat, sleep and preen. We took them outside quite a bit as the weather was beautiful, and they enjoyed running about on the lawn:















They seemed to especially enjoy the sunshine and the accompanying sleepiness:




















When we were weeding yesterday, we brought them out in the smaller, portable cage, and they spent a good two hours in a grooming orgy, with fluff flying and keratin flaking. Playing on the iPod at the time was the Tiki Room soundtrack, and the birds were deeply confused as to where all the fascinating bird sounds were coming from, and cheeped along merrily with the Tiki Chant. When I finally had to separate them so we could leave the house and go to barbecue #2, we could hear the cries of dismay as we drove away. I think they were convinced that we've come to our senses and finally put them in the same cage permanently. If we wanted to come back to a bald Pierre, then we could. However, as we bought him for his pretty blueness, we'd have no use for him bald and would have to send him back.

Sanity, recovered.

I just returned from a luxurious four day weekend in which I performed twice and slept approximately as much as a traquilized narcoleptic. Get up? Why? I had no plans that couldn't be cancelled. The only problem with going back to sleep after waking up once is that I tend to have either nightmares or really intense sex dreams. Why? Couldn't tell ya. In between sweaty, heavy sleepiness, we weeded, cleaned, walked around the neighborhood, visited the Japanese Gardens with Tara and Lee, ate much grilled cow, lit things on fire (emits showers of sparks!), watched Will and Grace reruns, played with the birds and only took showers prior to leaving the house. The laptop heaved a last sigh and generated a kernel panic, so I couldn't even play Bookworm. Oh, and I got an excrutiating and marvelous massage in my livingroom. It was a good pain, never mind the screaming.

As most family outings begin by our smacking our heads for not remembering to bring the camera, Christian stapled it to his hand this weekend as we knew there would be many fabulous chances to take pictures of me screaming, "Don't take a picture of me!" At the Japanese Gardens, we got to combine two of my favorite things: herpetology and the elderly. We each purchased a bag of koi food that is much beloved by the resident red eared sliders in the pond as well, so we got to feed all the wildlife. Every time a turtle would open its mouth to eat, one of the four of us would make a sound that a turtle would make if eating in an animated film. Yes, we're five, and yes, we like cartoons. We're just providing the soundtrack.















The tour guide was an adorable and quite aged little woman who could not have been less than 85. She walked us around at a leisurely pace and I wanted to carry her at certain points as she was a little tottery. The best I could do was offer an arm.

Christian and I also took a long walk around the neighborhood yesterday as my legs were going to leap from my body in protest if I didn't get some exercise, so we took the opportunity to photograph our favorite house:















It's hard to tell, but the entire house is edged in brick and faced in some kind of river rock. It's enormous, extending back about twice as deep as our house, and has a matching little garden shed. The only house for which I'd sell mine.

And then there was an unidentified klassy neighbor, although I do agree with the sentiment:




















Enlarge the picture. Yep, that's our neighborhood.

She needs a paraffin soak with that.

I love getting pedicures, and Baby seems like she would be an excellent spa-mate. And then we'd go shopping and eat lunch while gabbing about our husbands.

Pushing through

I'm in a production this weekend of two short Menotti operas, "The Medium" and "Amelia goes to the Ball". In "The Medium," I play a grieving mother who comes to the titular character to communicate with her dead daughter. Baba, the Medium, is a fraud but convinces my character and two others in the first act seance that we are speaking with our dead children.

This opera is unrelenting in its grimness. I don't know what Menotti was feeling when he wrote it, but as he was born in Italy before the rise of fascism and has Baba speak of the horrors she's seen in Eastern Europe, namely torture, murder, disease, famine, I imagine that he was writing about the desperation produced by those who lived through witnessing such events and have to make a life for themselves afterwards.

Baba has a daughter and an orphan boy she is raising and uses the two of them to perpetuate her deceptions. There is a scene where Baba has flown into a rage after trying to get the orphan boy, Toby, to admit that he touched her throat during the Act 1 seance to frighten her. He can't speak, and won't admit to having done what he didn't do, and she whips him, screaming at him. It's into this cheerful little family pictorial that the three duped parents enter again. It's very hard to watch this scene, and, I imagine, even harder to do it, especially as both the woman playing Baba and the man playing Toby are the sweetest people imaginable. Every time Baba has to beat Toby and we then have to enter, interrupting the beating, I see the look in the singer who plays Baba's eyes. I can tell it's hard for her to carry on with the scene after having to put herself in this reprehensible place, that of beating a sweet-faced child, and yet she pushes through. She has an intensity that I've seen in very few people in my life. She's not afraid to go to a really ugly place to make the performance real, and it's absolutely hair-raising. She's been struggling a bit as the music is unimaginably hard, atonal in places, dissonant almost always, but I would take the drama over the right notes any day of the week. It's been an important experience for me. It's pushed me to go to a place in my performing that doesn't feel safe, and it's exhilarating. I hope that I get more opportunities to play a character where I'm not merely the comedic relief.

Actually, I think it's more Pinteresque.

Did the NY Times reviewer just use the phrase "verges on the Brechtian" in her review of the movie "Nacho Libre?" Yes, yes she did. That was unexpected. Now I want to see it. Of course, Jack Black makes me giggle and can sing soul like nobody else.

The perfect response for that irksome co-worker.

Not having children opens up ones personal life to many inappropriate and prying questions, mostly from utter strangers and unbelievably nosy co-workers. I have gleaned some excellent responses to impertinent questions about our childlessness from an excellent thread about this same subject on my favorite Disney forum:

Question: Are you going to have children?

Answers:

1. Alas! My womb is barren!
2. How do you make a baby? We haven't figured that out yet.
3. I was bathed in acid rain as a toddler, so I'm sterile.
4. Why? So I can share in your misery?
5. There are much better ways to contribute to humanity then simply by adding to it.
6. I like to visit elephants at the zoo, but don't want one in my living room.
7. Are you asking if I'm having sex with my husband?

And my personal favorite:

8. I do have a child! He's right h....oh my God! Where's the baby!

Picking up the slack.

As Christian and I are most likely going to die childless and Tina is busy diving and wrassling giraffes, Mark and Shannon have to have enough children to make up for our lack of ensuring that the human race continues past this generation. And a damn fine job they're doing. They've produced the only two children on earth who make me want to have my own.

So, imagine my glee when I found out that I may be sharing a birthday with a new Blewett baby! I make the parents promise to never give combined birthday/Christmas presents or I would report them to Child Welfare. That way, I'd get the kids. It's all part of a bigger plan.

I really want it to be a girl this time. Not that another boy would go amiss, as the first two turned out so well, but I could buy her things like this, and this, and this. Oh, and this. And especially this. And pretty much everything from here.

What, no "sweetie" or "sugar"?

Ah, to be called "honey" in a professional setting by someone, oh, excuse me, a SUPERVISOR, as I was so pointedly informed, who has been here SINCE 1988, as we were also informed, to whom I have never spoken and who is threatening to call security so she can rifle around in a faculty office to retrieve a patient chart, and this at the end of the work day when the owner of the office has gone home and thusly has not given permission to enter his or her personal space, and that the chart in question has no urgency attached to it, and could have easily waited until the next day to be retrieved, but, apparently, SHE HAS THE RIGHT TO DO SO.

I do so adore being spoken to as though I was a particularly simple-minded, nail-filing, gum-smacking, too-short-skirt-wearing, 1950's era "secretary" who answers the phone "Whadda want?" who had barely graduated from stenographic school. I especially relish it when the SUPERVISOR tells my boss that I denied the SUPERVISOR access to aforementioned faculty-empty office to retrieve the suddenly very popular chart that has to be found RIGHT NOW as work as we know it cannot proceed without it. I love the phrase "denied access". It sounds so forceful. Especially when what I said was, "The assistant who would know where those charts are is out of the office but will return tomorrow. Can I give her a message?" But my memory must be faulty. What I must have done is physically bar the office with my quivering body, ready to chain myself to the knob and hinges to prevent entrance. Sounds like me.

Just as annoying as any proud parent.

Do I have nothing better to do? Apparently not.

Fluffy

That's all.

Do you live in Washington State?

If yes, go here NOW. If no, do a search for unclaimed funds in your state. Both Christian and Shannon had unclaimed funds.

And can I just tell you how CLEAN my house is? It's a glorious, wonderful luxury.

It's the little things.

Until yesterday, we had utterly catastrophic water pressure in our shower. A tepid trickle, a sad stream, an insignificant issuance. However, my BRILLIANT husband, after seeing the variety of sediments filling our pipes when a blockage caused by basil stems (ahem) necessitated a call to the plumber, he decided to take apart the shower head and piping to see if similar detrius had accumulated therein. He opened the filter on the showerhead to find ROCKS, little pebbles, jangling about in the joint between the pipe and the head, trapped behind the filter. It was like a maraca. I could do a little Carmen Miranda number in the shower.

Anyway, aforementioned brilliant husband cleaned the shower head and OH MY GOD, I had a real shower for the first time in two years. TWO YEARS I TELL YOU! I swear it took ten minutes off my routine. I could rinse without doing a little dance when the pressure was too weak to get all the soap off and I think I actually got all the shampoo out of my hair. Conditioner, too. My hair is so shiny and manageable!

I feel so clean.

If we could just do all these things on one income.

As Blogger was down, I have many mental posts and, if I don't write them down, my head shall explode.

I received unadulterated and will-destroying Disney propaganda in the mail this week. Actually, I was OVERNIGHTED temptation, that's how important I am. I put in a request on the DVC website to be sent their "guaranteed to crush your pitiful resistance" book and DVD, describing in excrutiating detail all the benefits of joining the Happiest Borg on Earth. And what a lovely little package of soul destruction it is. Disney doesn't mess around with people who could possibly be convinced to spend, and yes, this is the right number, $15,000 to join their plot to incorporate every American into the Disney dream. The informational book is hard bound, glossy picture crack. I found myself stroking it lovingly and Christian laid on the floor while eating, reading and muttering words like, "Pretty" and "Oooooh" and "Wow" for about an hour. We then had to watch the DVD, with the requisite wanna-drop-her-off-a-cliff perky blonde popping from location to location in an escalating campaign of subjugation through travel lust. Of course I want to use my vacation points to travel all over the globe! Duh! I, too, could visit the Far East and throw in a trip to Tokyo Disney and Disney Sea while I'm at it. I mean, I can visit over 500 locations around the world, Disney and non-Disney while I'm at it! What's $15,000?? Well, it's everything if you don't have it. Oh, but they have financing! Financing vacations. Never a good way to secure fiscal solvency. But the book is sooooo pretty.

We're surrendering and hiring a housekeeper. In the two weeks that I've had off of singing, the last thing on earth I've wanted to do is clean. Yes, work at taking care of other's needs all day and then clean and cook and do laundry when I get home. It will be an unimaginable luxury to come home to a clean house. With the two of us working so much, it just isn't feasible to come home and vacuum, dust, mop, and our house is suffering. I usually clean on Saturday mornings, but I've been way too tired and, on my few days off, I want to knit or go to the movies or sleep or do anything but sweep under the bed. Now, if I weren't working a day job, I would relish cleaning. I actually really like making my house neat and pretty when I have time. But, when I don't, it can go hang because BookWorm is more important, dammit! I CANNOT wait to have someone else clean the baseboards of the kitchen. And the stove. They're going to have to have artillery to clean the stove as we can't use oven cleaner with the birds in the house. The heat and the drippings have probably combusted to create life hitherto unknown which will require small arms to destroy. But, I won't have to do it. Ha! I just have to make sure I'm not home when she's there or I'll walk after her with a duster and ask her if she really thinks the entertainment center is clean enough.

I think that's all for now. If I'm bleeding out my ears later, I'll know I've forgotten something.

Weighing time at the zoo, Part 2.

And then there were the snakes. Sigh. Wiggle. Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle. Cling. Grip. Dangle. Flick, flick. And me, shouting, "Get in the damn bowl! Stop gripping me! Leggo!"
















I love this picture of Frederick's little wistful head.

Weighing time at the zoo, Part 1.

Please forgive the lack of posting the past few days. Blogger was experiencing some technical difficulties but promised to get back to me shortly!

We have taken to weighing the pets as a change as small as 5% in body weight can indicate health problems in animals at the bottom of the food chain. They have to maintain an appearance of health so they don't get eaten in the wild, and only show signs of illness when they're ready to croak, to pardon the pun. We had to purchase a gram scale as the birds are so dainty they don't even weigh an ounce. Fluffy bunnies. The frogs, too, are more accurately measure in grams.

First, the birds, on their handy little scale perch:



















We did, of course, weigh them separately and record the weights, but it was cuter to show them together. Note that they're so small, they weigh NOTHING! Actually, if anything is on the scale when it is turned on, it tares that weight. It'd better for $80.

Next were the frogs, and, as you can see, that was great fun.















There was much resistance and hopping away. Poor chubby trinkets. Squinky, of course, winkled on me.

Gwendolyn was easy and bewildered, and she can be weighed in ounces on the kitchen scale (which we, of course, don't weigh food on, Mom.):




















And, as I STILL can't get all of my pictures to post, see part two for their squirmynesses.