day 1

Overheard yesterday at College Town Walfarts:

EMPLOYEE:  Today was going pretty good until about 10 o'clock...

Yup.  Yesterday was move-in day at the university for Meego and a squizillion other dorm rats.  We managed to fit all of Meego's worldly possessions plus our three selves into one vehicle to make the haul.  That was partially aided by the fact that he, unsurprisingly, forgot a few things, but all-in-all, the day went smoothly.

The university is a couple of hours up the road, and as we made the trek, I was noticing other similarly loaded vehicles, complete with young people.  I was mainly taking stock of the bicycles I saw.  Some nicer than Meego's, others not.  That was good.  You don't want to have the best bike in the bike rack, but you don't want a piece o' crap either.

At the bike registration tent

It was a good day.  Classes begin on Monday, so he should be settled in time to hit the books.  His roommate seems like a nice guy, and the two of them have things in common.  They met through a university app that's "kind of like Tinder" to pair up roommates.

A friend of mine posted pics on fb of her daughter's move-in at the same university.  Her daughter's room looks like something out of Good Housekeeping magazine.  Meego's room does... not.

I've heard that, as far as dorm housing typically goes, guys are slobs and girls create much drama.  The guys should have the slob part down anyways.

After we got him settled and made two separate runs to the aforementioned Walfarts, we met up with Wolfgang who, coincidentally, lives and works in College Town.  So we got in a nice visit with him and met his new roommate

That's okay, I didn't want to use the sink anyway...

So, our house seems strangely huge and quiet today.  My first order of business is to tidy up and see what's left in the wake of yesterday's move out / in.  Then I'll figure out what to do with the extra time in my life now.  This showed up in my instagram today:

Okay.  I'm on it.  😬

do you want to see?

I'm a blogger of few words today.  This appeared on my FB feed this morning and left me a bit unable to speak...

Know that it's all consensual.

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Linking up today with Mama Kat for the prompt:
2. Share something that entertained you this week, can be an article you read, video you watched, someone’s FB share…whatever!

I guess I'll give him the credit

Here I sit.  Teary eyed and sniffly.

No, I'm not being sad and dramatic.  I'm being allergic.

I've blogged about how I began getting allergy shots about a year ago at my ripe old age of 50+.  I blogged about the initially smug doctor who didn't seem to believe that such an old lady would be getting tested for the first time.  I blogged about his changed demeanor after I'd failed his tests miserably.  I blogged about how I go to get shots and sit among a bunch of sugared up little kids who take copious amounts of candy bribes to deal with their allergy shots.

About a month or so ago, I had a follow-up with Dr. Jekyll (so nicknamed because of  his smug/friendly personality).  He gave me a once-over and asked the typical follow-up things.

During the appointment, I realized:

• I had not snorted any Flonase®️ in quite some time
• I can walk around like a sober person
• I don't have what feel like marshmallows for eyelids
• I can breathe

He also asked if I'd had any troublesome insect stings, and I reported that my don't-look-like-a-flower strategy seems to be holding.  No stings since the timely one that landed me in his office in the first place.  

I concluded with, "I think the shots are working".

To which he responded, "Oh, they're working!" with that touch of smug I've learned to know and love tolerate.  I was all, look at him taking all the credit. What about my lifestyle changes?  Don't I get a gold star too?  

I went in last week for my weekly injections.  I get two:  one for molds and the other for weeds, grasses, trees, and just about every other kind of plant on the planet.  

Geej, my shot giver, showed me a nearly empty vial of the weed etc. antigen.  

"We ran out of this one and need to make up another batch", she said apologetically.  "Sorry I didn't notice it ahead of time to have it ready for today".

I looked around at the manymanymany vials of antigen in the room - each one specifically formulated for its individual patient.  I didn't fault her for not noticing that one of mine was low.  I took my mold shot and left without raiding the candy basket.

So yesterday, I was working in the yard.  I ended up sniffly and a bit puffy.  I'm still sniffly and a bit puffy.

REALLY, allergies?!  ONE missed hit of antigen?!

Okay, Dr. Jekyll.  I concede

first impressions

She didn't like me.  I wasn't expecting that, but it soon became quite apparent.  I didn't know why she didn't like me.  Truth is, I didn't even know her that well.  We were classmates in a small town, so I knew who she was and vice versa, but not a whole lot more.

It was our sophomore year of high school and my first year in marching band.  I'd really wanted to be in marching band, but I didn't play a band instrument as a freshman and didn't get on board to try out for the flag team in time.

The stars shined upon me, however, when our band director decided he wanted some "banner girls".  You know those people that walk in front of the band during parades carrying the banner with the school's name?  Well, our band director decided to dress that idea up a bit and have banner girls that did stuff.  As such, each of us girls had our own letter sign that spelled out the school name on one side and the name of our school mascot on the other.  Clearly, it was good prep for my illustrious career as a crossing guard.
I'm the one with the nice "A" 😉.  We were The Miners, hence the hard hats...

So I was in the marching band.  I was a banner girl.  We did some things, marched around, flipped our signs, kicked our feet, even twirled some streamers now and then, whatevs.  It was like flag preschool... which it actually ended up being in my case.

Because the stars shined upon me again when our band was invited to the Portland Rose Festival in Portland, OR that would take place in the spring.  In the interim between marching season and the Portland trip, a certain flag girl became "with child".  Actually, a couple of them did!

With those sperms burrowing into those eggs, another banner girl and I were promoted to the flag line!  My dream!  Yay!  Except...

I needed to learn how to BE a flag girl, and I needed to learn quickly.  A minor detail.

Our band director assigned Paula to be my flag tutor.  I'm not sure why he chose Paula, she wasn't a captain or even a senior.  I assume it was because she was also a sophomore, and she'd been in flag since we were freshmen.  She and I arranged for my first session of flag girl crash course.

I was excited to get started and played clumsily with my practice flag until Paula showed up.  When she did, it was all business.

She showed me several compulsory moves and had me repeat them all until I had them down.  All the while, her face was a stone.  She almost seemed bored, but at the same time, she seemed happy  that I didn't know a darn thing.  I knew she liked being a flag girl and was good at it, and it was me she didn't like.

But I was motivated, and Paula was a great coach.  I soon had the moves down, so she started to teach me a whole routine for a song.  I was having fun despite her coldness, and somewhere during that first session, she couldn't help herself from having fun too.

I don't know how many more one-to-one sessions we had, but we soon became good friends.  We went to Portland with the band and rocked the house.  By the time we were seniors, Paula and I were co-captains of the flag team, and our school's band was kickass.

But Paula and I became more than just teammates.  She eventually confessed that she did not like me before she knew me - chyaah, I already knew that!

I actually had a diverse set of friends during high school, and as such, I didn't really belong to any specific clique.  You could say I was popular in a big-fish-in-a-small-pond kind of way.  I was a rah-rah, joining every sport and club and holding every office.  Paula was not in that crowd.  But she was an excellent flag girl and student editor of the yearbook, another thing in which she and I were in cahoots.

She told me she didn't like me at first because she'd assumed I was conceited from being such a rah-rah and didn't care for "her kind".  But when she showed up to teach me flag, I was... not.  Well, crap.  I wondered if I gave off some conceited vibe?  Either way, I'm thankful to our band director for sparking such a close friendship.

Like I said, I had several good friends in high school, but I think I can  honestly say that Paula was a friend with whom I was most intimate - and I don't mean THAT!  Get your minds out of the gutter.  We just shared a lot of things that we didn't share with other people.  I was also very close with  Ingrid, but I've already written about good ol' Ingrid.

I remember one night after my boyfriend went a little off the deep end, and I found myself sitting in an ER while he was being attended to (a whole 'nother story I might blog someday, but don't hold your breath).  It was late at night, and I was pondering my options for getting my sorry self home.

The automatic door to the ER slid open, and there was Paula.  A sight for sore eyes... but not necessarily a surprise.

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Hooking up with Mama Kat this week for the prompt:

1. Tell us about the moment you met your high school best friend.

missed mountain and moving millennials

We'd planned a little weekend getaway for last weekend.  Go up to Winter Park, do some mountain biking and hiking and whatever.  As it happened, we ended up not going.  The stars just didn't align.  Nothing bad, but a casualty of getting various schedules and other obligations to match up.  And I think everybody made the most of their weekends either way.

Here is NOT a photo of any of US at Winter Park, but let's pretend...

SOURCE

For me, I went to P.E.O. on Saturday and met with a student on Sunday, so it sort of feels like the weekend didn't really happen.  What day is it?

As I type this, there's activity going on at the Millennial House next door.  I capitalize it because that's the name I've given the "estate".  We have no idea how many people actually live there, but there are lots of vehicles, and the residents' average age works out to about 20.  That value is kept quite low because of the fact that there's now a baby in the mix.  Apparently, it's not just the bunnies in the neighborhood that have been gettin' busy.

We're pretty sure that mom and dad of one or more of the habitants owns the house and rents to the pack.  I've met the owners and they are quite friendly, but it's rare for them to visit.  Despite their ages and demographic stereotype, the kids are okay as neighbors *knock on wood*. In fact, I rarely see them during the day, which makes notable the current activity.

My main dislikes are the late-night (more like early-morning) bonfire gatherings they like to occasionally have in their backyard.

Most of the guys drive full-size pickups, which fill up the street and driveway, but also attest to the fact that they all have jobs.  This morning, I see that three of the pickups have furniture and boxes loaded into them.  Someone's moving?

I hope it's not the baby.  He's cute, and he seems to have mellowed the household, from my external perspective anyway.

But maybe for the baby's sake, I hope it is the baby.

terror on the doorstep

A pleasant bug man came a-knocking a few nights ago.  He gave me the old, "Hi, I'm here in the neighborhood killing bugs over at Vic's house, and I can give you a deal to kill your bugs too since I'm already here 😁" bit.

And I was thinking, "What makes him think we have bugs?"

Actually.  No.  I did not think that.  It's obvious, especially from where he was standing.  Our front porch...

Let's get a close-up, shall we?  Of one of the many spiderwebs full of bounty that adorn the front door.

I spray them. With water.  I spray them goooooood.  I spray them because they are so strong, a broom doesn't really hack it.  I spray them on full hose pressure with the nozzle set on JET.

The spiders laugh at me and rebuild within a day or so.

No, I didn't take the bugman up on his offer, mainly because I don't give in to sales people who come a-knocking.  But... should I have pest control come?  What all do their materials do, anyway?  Bugman says he can kill existing bugs and repel future wannabes.

I've pondered this before, when my spraying can't match the spidery zeal.  Wolfgang was my voice of reason last summer.

"They're doing you a favor."

"How's that?"

"See all the bugs they catch in their webs?  If it weren't for the spiderwebs, those bugs would be inside the house."  

So that can be my excuse.  Our front porch spiderwebs are not unsightly, unwelcoming, creepy things.  

They are the moat to our castle.  

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Linking up with Mama Kat this week for the prompt:

2. Write a blog post inspired by the word: dirty

rain, algebra, cats and dogs

Went and had brunch with the mother-in-law and step-father-in-law today.  It was nice, and we got into a bit of a "spiritual" discussion.  We didn't come up with any answers, but a nice discussion nonetheless.

July is coming to a close, and it's been a good month, I'd say.  Most of the fires in our state are out or under control, and we're getting blessed rains.  Certain burn bans have been lifted, which means our millennial neighbors will probably start up again with their late night bonfires, but I'm liking the rain and afternoon cool downs. 




I was just looking over my tutor stats for the month, and I'm happy with them, considering it's mid-summer.  Summer is typically the off-season as far as tutordom goes, but I've managed to keep somewhat busy despite the slack-off. 


My college student confessed that this is the second time he's taken this particular math class.  He's had other tutors before, but he thinks it's actually going in this time. 







"I think it's helping me because you like math, but... you also have a personality!", he says.

HA!


We dogsat last weekend with Chaco's new dog, Ella.  Chaco was going camping and didn't want to take her because she was still recovering from her spay surgery.  She's really a great pooch, smart, energetic, and inquisitive.  Made herself right at home.

She was also quite interested in our cat, and not in a good way.  I know her instinct to chase the cat can be trained out of her.  I suggested dog school to Chaco, and he's thinking about it.  It's his dog, but our problem, and only when she comes over, so we'll see.  Advice is welcome. 

The cat loves a good fight, but I don't think he's up for this one.