The Dino-Aspie Ex-Café (for Those 40+... or feeling creaky)

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Sorry for the lapse in writing..... again. I somehow managed to get side-tracked in a relationship with an alcoholic that I abruptly ended 3 days ago. I decided to take a break from moving all his stuff out of my house to write to my friends. I give up on the whole man idea!

Well, Blessedmom is officially an Aspie as of yesterday...( as opposed to the day before when I was just odd. ) I went to see a mental health therapist about my relationship issues and child-rearing challenges and lo and behold... I walked out of there with an official diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome. And a referral to a psychiatrist. Like that's going to help!

Oh, and it's -24 F (-31C) here this morning. And for the first time in years we've had a foot of snow for over a week and not end in sight. We'll have a white Christmas for a change!

Cue Bing Crosby....

it's been raining here, on and off, pretty hard for days.mostly dry today, but the clouds are moving in off the ocean and they look pretty dark. (they said we'd have a dry winter - wrong, wrong, wrong!) but it's really a good thing, as we are/were in a drought.

everything's packed, the pet sitter is stopping by tonight so we don't have to deal with anything tomorrow (christmas eve).

have just noticed spike is acting very oddly. when i take him out he seems agitated, is making crying sounds i've never heard him make before. clicking his beak a lot like he does when he's angry. hope he's not having problems with another egg... i'd hate for anything to happen to the little guy (gal), and hate even more for it to happen on the pet-sitter's watch, as she'd be just devastated.

the cats know, because they know what suitcases mean. but spike's just a little bird, and has never seen a suitcase. i wonder...?

Sodden enough to be flammable? Have you tried striking a match in his presence?


But you can't! Women need men. I'll prove it to you. Here! See?



The theory is that even if a psychiatrist can't make you be normal, you will get professional advice on how to act normal. Naturally, "professional" is not quite the same as useful. That's where we come in. We can tell you how to act normal. Really! We do it all the time. Nobody suspects us.


Ooh, yes! Soap bubbles!

And, I think got your hint - that's cold enough to make soap bubbles freeze, n'est-ce pas?

Allegedly. I never had opportunity to put the claim to the test, not living in a place blessed with as entertaining a variety of temperatures as Lauri's abode.

are you still trapped? is it still great?

boggles the mind, don't it?

welcome back, Lauri! Just think of how much mileage the tossed out alcoholic will get from perfect strangers this holiday season! He will be able to smooze and mooch off of a whole group of well meaning folks!

ah, you have made his Christmas!

Merle

PS Congratulations! you're an Aspie!

Yes, indeed it is!! The little one and I tried that last year and it was fun. I had forgotten about that. Unfortunately the wind started to howl at about 5pm yesterday and the temperature rose 20c in 2 hours. It was -9C when I went to bed last night. No frozen soap bubbles today!

spike laid another egg. hmmm.

i had to go look this up. my "finch lady" says he should be laying two to three eggs in a clutch every 3 to four months. spike has decided to lay one egg every three or four weeks. seems to be otherwise healthy. i guess he was in labor yesterday (finch lady says they do have labors) and was feeling poorly when he hopped into my hand and made those odd cries. (poor little thing!)

so anyway, i had to look online and i cannot imagine how the little things pull this off. given the dimensions in the photo. which is not spike, but a compatriot who became egg bound. that has gotta hurt!

i can't cook whole chickens anymore. they look like spike did before he had feathers. the kid is laughing at me, but i just can't do it.

sure hope the little guy will be ok alone for a week while we're gone. he's going to be really pissed off at me when we come back....

Alas, they all chained up and left when there was a break in the weather. Two sons, one with spouse and two sons made it safe to Kirkland. One son with spouse and big dog they claim is a pit bull but looks like a cross of boxer and hound to me made it safely back to Spokane. One daughter with delightful baby girl made it back to Battle Ground. One niece survived the three block trip to where she lives with our wookie, and brother-in-law with nephew got to a sister's house in Canby. Best Beloved took our houseguest out to visit his wife in a nursing home in Battle Ground and will do so again today. (Weather permitting) He will also pick up our telephone book collector friend. We have some telephone books from WrongPlaneteers he will receive as a Christmas present. Since our refrigerator still has a lot of food in it, I think I shall give him some to take home. He hasn't left his apartment in some time and he may need it.
Ah, you should have seen our one year old girl with a halo of fuzzy black hair penguin-walking about and shouting Hi! at everybody over and over again. What a sweet three-toothed grin. It was good to see the siblings all enjoying each other. My husband and I had lots of quiet time because we got up at seven am and went to bed around 9pm, and the kids got up around noon and went to bed sometime long after we did. One of the nights some house-cleaning fairies straightened up the house.
Oh! All of you need to look at a preview of Scribblenauts! One of the Kirkland sons is working on that (the other on GuildWars) and I finally found a game I want to play!

Brother-in-law Chris (www.comeandseeafrica.org) weighed my luggage and, Aargh!, I need to carry two extra suitcases on this trip to Rwanda. That's gonna cost. He gave me 150 reading glasses to carry and he has the other 300 he put me in charge of for giving out. I am taking, of course, books, for the University and some of my friends. Also, Artemisia annua seeds. It has been recently discovered that drinking a tea made of artemisia flower buds cures malaria! So now people can grow their own cures! WooHoo! I have Teacher Big Books for the two extra weeks I plan on staying to teach American English to the two schools Best Beloved and I support over there. (www.africamissionalliance.com) and presents for Ritah and Aaron who go to those schools. And card making supplies for Marie Jeanne. And software for Sarah who is illustrating the little tri-lingual booklets I thought I would get done this year but maybe will next year. (Does anyone know why Brodurbund Printmaster gold 18 shrinks the font a size every time I save it? Or how I can add the french accent marks without using another layer?) And packets of emergency food if I get shaky hungry where I can't get food (this year I came down with diabetes)
We will have a lay-over in Ethiopia and Chris promised I would get to see a Coptic church! The oldest denomination in the world! I am so excited. Then Chris and Best-Beloved and nephew who almost became a Benedictine Monk had an esoteric discussion about how the Armenian church might be the oldest. And Chris spoke to me darkly about missing planes. Hey, That was two years ago and I don't know how to apologize any more for it and I didn't actually miss it because it sat on the runway for an extra two hours so I did too make it (I just gave him heartburn for two hours). And last year I saw no reason to get in a hot stuffy line until they announced boarding.
Anyway, we had hoped to have a fund-raiser for the Congolese refugees but this time turns out not to be the time for such. So we scraped together a little money and hope to reach a Rwandan city on the border to give money to the local pastors to use in their ministry to refugees.
Also coming with us is a professor from Stanford who will field test a thirty-five dollar teaching computer that is charged by the kids playing with it.

Oops. In the time I took to type this, enough snow fell that Frank announced that he is driving nowhere today and maybe not on Christmas either. During yesterday's break when everyone left, my sister's family spent 12 hours in their car getting from Klamath Falls to Longview. Frank had planned to stay with the wookie while niece and I went to Longview. Maybe not. I hope enough snow melts that I can leave on the 28th as planned for the first leg of the trip to Rwanda.

Oh, and Nan, check out the posters at Heathrow (if the ones I'm thinking of are still there). I think they're hilarious.

Oh, Nan, you're going to hate me. The first thing I thought when you said Spike was laying eggs was "Mmmm, tiny omelets."

ewwwwwwwwwwww, lelia, that's GROSS!

enjoy your trip, lelia. i could not have handled that many people in one house at one time, in the snow. will watch for the posters, whatever they are i'm sure they'll be obvious.

ok, all, i'll be signing off of WP now for a week or so. have to get up well before the sun in the morning so i'm going to do some last minute stuff and spend the rest of the evening listening to the christmas broadcasts on RTE with a small glass of red wine. will take lots of photos and be thinking of ya'll.

and see, look - it's true! dreams DO come true. and i've got two tickets on northwest airlines in my hand to prove it! i'm going to see the castles!

have a very, very happy christmas (or yule, or whatever you choose) and a safe new year's eve.

nan