Remember that time...

2007-01-26T13:12:00.000-08:00

Here's the box that I made for our family reunion auction. It's just one of those plain pine boxes you get at the craft store, decoupaged with a collage of fancy paper, pictures of my family and family memorabilia. I Used gold leaf paint to paint the exposed edges and used that crackle medium and shellac to give it more of an antiqued look and to protect it from moisture.

2006-04-24T08:48:00.000-07:00

My dad's new cartoon.

That time there was a kidnapper

2006-01-24T22:39:00.000-08:00

I think lots of people go through the kidnapper scare when they are kids. Our town's scare happened when I was in forth grade. I'd walk to school daily with Trisha and my little brother Joe.

One day that year, a some kid at Merriman Elementary said that a man in a blue car approached them and tried to lure them in the car. My mom was terrified. She called Trisha's mom and they arranged to walk us to school daily. We were told of what kind of car it was and to keep an eye out.

Trisha and I were on the case. We kept a notebook on us so we could write down the license of any blue car that looked suspicious. We met at her house for our detective club and shared our evidence. We were obsessed with the kidnapper.

I'm pretty sure all kids in our town were obsessed because more and more cases came in of little kids getting lured by the kidnapper. It was always a nondescript blue car. I'm pretty sure that most of the cases were hoaxes because I got the big speech from my mom that we should never lie to the police like the naughty little boys and girls that were lying about the kidnapper.

After the blue car kidnapper scare, our detective club moved onto other targets like following the town Jesus, and spying on anyone new that moved in the neighborhood. A few years later, the detective club turned into just watching MTV and talking about Teen Bop at Trisha's house. Trisha was the coolest.

That Time Grandma Was a Hooker

2006-01-19T12:54:00.000-08:00

I was watching an episode of Three's Company at my Grandma Bernice's house where an undercover cop thought Chrissy was a hooker. Chrissy got all insulted by the accusation and was complaining to Jack about it. I didn't know what a hooker was, so I went into the kitchen where my mom was putting curlers in my grandma's hair.

I asked my mom, "What's a hooker?"

She looked shocked and then looked at my Grandma with a stressed look on her face. "Where did you here that word?" she demanded.

"TV. Some guy called Chrissy a hooker."

"Turn that garbage off!"

So, I turned off the tv and returned to the kitchen and asked again, "What's a hooker?"

My mom looks at my grandma and then looks at me. She blurts out that a hooker is someone who hooks things. She then motioned like she was knitting and said, "You know... they hook things like mittens and hats and stuff." She seemed pleased with her description and I was satisfied with that explanation, although why would Chrissy be mad that she hooked mittens? Adults are weird, so I just shrugged it off.

Well, months later my Great Grandma Norine knitted me a hat and some slippers. I was really excited about my new slippers and bragged to my third grade teacher that my Grandma was a hooker. I wonder what my Catholic school teacher thought about that.

That Time There Was Gorilla Warfare

2006-01-17T09:54:00.000-08:00

As a kid, my dad would watch Planet of the Apes movie marathons in front of us. We were a tad bit young for such movies and I remember getting really freaked out when I heard on the evening news that guerillas had taken over a bridge in Central America and how the American soldiers might have to intervene. I don't remember the details because I was young, but I do remember being terrified that actual GORILLAS in the jungles of Central America had gotten a hold of guns and were taking over bridges and holding humans hostage. I think I even started to cry until my mom tried to explain to me that guerillas weren't monkeys. DAMN YOU APES!

That Time Molly Had a False Pregnancy

2006-01-16T19:02:00.000-08:00

My mother likes her poodles. Every dog we ever had was a poodle or a poodle mix because of our allergies. My mom will talk about all the cute poodle mixes out there like a shitz-a-poo, Golden Poo (Golden Retriever/Poodle), Doxie-doodles, Cocker-poos, Labradoodles, and peke-a- poos. She likes her doodles and poos. She likes them mainly because of the poor luck we had with pure-bred (imbred) poodles. Every poodle we knew of had mental issues, including our toy poodle Buttercup Molly.

Molly was the craziest poodle around, but we loved her. One day, Molly started carrying my brother Jordan's baby toy around everywhere she went. She guarded it, made nests for it in blankets, carried it outside with her when she had to take a piss, and even rested it on her nipples to nurse it. She was crazy about this plastic, squeaky, baby toy.

We just figured that Molly really liked that toy, but then she started getting really vicious about it. She'd growl at us if we got too close to the toy. I swear her eyes turned blood red with anger every time we walked too close to her 'baby's' nest. Yep. Turns out that the crazy dog thought this plastic toy was actually her puppy. Some switch went off in her brain and she had a false pregnancy. Because of this her mother bear instincts kicked in full force.

We asked the vet what we should do, and he suggested that we put her on birth control pills to help even out her hormones. He figured it was just hormonal, and it would pass. Well, it didn't pass. The hormones didn't help. The only thing that helped was time. Eventually, her plastic puppy got old and it's head popped off, so we tossed it in the garbage. She had a few other 'puppies' over the years, but thankfully she didn't get as crazy as she did with her first 'born'.

So, my mom said that she had enough with purebred poodles and will stick to her doodles and poo mixes. I'll always picture my mom with her little hypoallergenic poodle mixes, and I'll always picture Molly with glowing red eyes, bared teeth and a little plastic, yellow, squeaky toy at her breast.

That time he spat Jesus out

2006-01-13T16:17:00.000-08:00

Maybe third graders are too young to get the host. As a Catholic, you have your first communion in second grade. The teachers spend the first part of the year teaching you about how the host is actually the body of Christ and that the wine is his blood. You were never suppose to bite into the host. It was suppose to dissolve in your mouth. (That was before they started getting actual bread instead of those weird wafer Christs)

Well, all the third-graders were curious. If you bite into the host, will it bleed? There were many theories. One was that the blood is already out of the body because the wine is the blood. The other was that if you bit into the host, everyone would know because blood would start pouring out of your mouth. I thought that you would automatically go to hell if you bit into the host. I wasn't sure how it would happen, but I was positive that you would just vanish into hell and no one would ever see you again.

After mass one day, a few of the boys in class took the host, but didn't put it in their mouths. The teacher was preoccupied so a few of the kids were looking at the host up close. I think one kid pinched it to see if it would bleed. One of the boys told us that he was going to bite it. I told him that he better not or he would go to hell. He laughed at me, but there was a glimmer of worry in his eyes. He bit it and spat it out in the bushes to see if it was bleeding. I was horrified, but found out that you don't vanish and go to hell, and your mouth doesn't fill with blood. It took a few more years until I'd bite into a host though.

That time I sinned

2006-01-12T22:38:00.000-08:00

I was raised Catholic, so I always had a strong consceince. Too strong. I remember taking the sticker off a box in this dime store called Tempo in Menominee, MI because I thought it was a cool sticker. It wasn't an actual item for sale. It was just a sticker on a box, so I justified that it was okay. I was in the seat of the grocery cart and I checked my mom to see if she was noticing. She was too busy reading the side of a box or something. I carefully peeled the sticker off and got it just in time before we took off again. When we got up to the cashier, I was sure that he had noticed. I even remember him asking if there was anything else before he rang my mom out. I swear to God he knew. I thought for sure they'd bust me, so I got scared and hid the sticker. Once we got out of the store, I showed my mom the sticker and she made me give it back. The guy at the counter didn't seem to care, but I felt really horrible, yet relieved that they wouldn't call the cops and put me in jail. I think I was 3 or 4. Wee Sin!

That time I was in a high speed car chase

2006-01-10T18:47:00.000-08:00

I had just broken up with my college boyfriend and was devastated. My high school friend Amanda came down to Stevens Point to cheer me up. We decided that we'd get away and take a road trip from Stevens Point to Madison. The thing is that we had to take a high school kids car. You know how high school kids' cars are. They are usually not very reliable. For some reason the parents of the kids I hung out with (mine included) gave junkers to their kids to drive. They're practical that way. Why give your kid a good car if they are just going to crash it anyway?

Well, the car didn't make it back to Stevens Point. It was super dark out, in the middle of nowhere and we were stranded on the side of a highway outside of Portage. This was in the days before everyone carried a cell phone, so we tried to flag people down to help us out. I figured that we could get someone to drive to a gas station and call the cops or a tow truck, but Amanda had other ideas. A car of fishermen pulled over and told us to hop in. I refused because my mother told me of all the serial murderers out there that will prey on young women stranded on the side of the highway. "Never ever get into a car with strangers," she would say.

Well, Amanda didn't think twice about that old adage and just hopped in. I was in a bit of a predicament. I couldn't sit there on the side of the highway alone. What if a serial murderer, rapists, or Freddie Krueger came out of the cornfield and found me alone in the dark. It's harder to dispose of two bodies than one, so I reluctantly got into the car.

I was terrified. I saw once on a crime drama how the victim had written the suspect’s license plate on her body and the cops were able to catch the crook, but I didn't have a pen. So, I started etching their license plate number into my black nail polish, so they wouldn't get away with killing me and dumping my body. Then, I started to note the fishermen's every feature just in case I survived. My mom did a good job scaring the pants off of me to get me to behave. hehe. I also had a very vivid and morbid imagination.

Well, the fishermen didn't turn out to be rapists or murderers. They were just nice guys who went out of their way to make sure these two young girls got back safely to campus. Once we got to campus, we called a tow truck place to see if they would give us a tow back to Stevens Point. We guessed that the car was somewhere on the outskirts of Portage. The guy who answered the phone wasn't too friendly and told us that he'd open the tow truck place especially for us, but that we'd have to pay. He was crotchety all the way out there, especially when he found out that we misjudged how far out of Portage the car was. It was A LOT further than we had guessed. He was pissed and very open about how angry he was with us stupid college kids.

Just as he was about to grumble again, he got a call on his CB radio from his buddy back at the garage. His buddy was pulling into the garage when he spotted another car parked next to the auto yard next door. He saw some guys climbing over the fence with some items they had stolen, so he called the cops and started to tail them in his truck.

Our tow truck driver gets really excited at the prospect of catching these guys. He calls over the radio that he's driving in the opposite direction as the crooks and how we could corner them. Him and his buddy were communicating their locations every couple of seconds over the CB. The tow truck driver was going about 80 mph at this point with Amanda's little red escort strapped to the line. His buddy calls that the crooks just turned off the highway and our driver found a back road that he could take that would corner the crooks.

Suddenly, we are surrounded by at least 7 squad cars. They are in the same chase that we are in. The tow truck guy somehow gets away with driving top speeds along side the cops instead of pulling over. I'm shaking in my boots, and Amanda is just laughing hysterically. I vaguely recall the driver yelling, "Hang on Girls!" as he almost spins out in this cul-de-sac where the cops and his buddy had cornered the crooks.

The crooks realized they were stuck and made a run for it into the woods. The driver gets out to see if he could help and told us to stay behind. All of a sudden, the cops draw their weapons and start approaching the woods. There's a bunch of commotion and then a few cops come out with the suspects.

Amanda and I are left in the cab of the tow truck yelling "HOLY SHIT!" and singing the Cops theme song. Bad boys, Bad boys, whatcha gonna do, Whatcha gonna do when they come for you. That was a pretty crazy night.

2006-01-10T18:37:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure what to do with this journal now that I don't live in Point Roberts. I had this to document life in five square miles of the u.s. of a. landlocked by Canada. It certainly was an odd place to live when you would order pizza and rent movies from another country. That's over now. So, now what.

Maybe I'll use this journal as a memory log. I could write down the funny stories of my childhood, but then again I love telling those stories to people in person. Bah. I'll do it anyway. I meet enough people that don't know my stories, or have already heard them. Laura wanted to hear about the time when I was in a high speed car chase in a tow truck. That would be a good story to start off with. Maybe I'll scan that ugly picture of me in fifth grade when I tried to work my home perm and polyester green leisure suit that my mom bought for me at a rummage sale. haha. Yeah, that would be fun.

2005-10-31T18:43:00.000-08:00

Baby Yoda (Nathaniel)

2005-10-31T18:42:00.000-08:00

Star Wars Family

Love the one you're with

2005-09-06T20:33:00.000-07:00

I'm missing Point Bob a lot lately. I miss letting Bob run loose without any leashes. We really didn't have to worry about traffic there, and everything felt safe and nestled. I'd still yell at him to stay close when he ran too far ahead, and worried that somehow a car would magically materialize on those cottage rows and run him down. I was so silly to worry like that. Am I being silly now when I put him on leash in Manitowoc? Probably.

I miss looking out my living room window hoping to catch a glimpse of a killer whale. I knew that the whales generally didn't breach in the sliver of the Georgia Strait that my window framed, but I was hopeful. I never did get to see a whale. They even eluded me when I went on that whale tour that had a 95% success rate and guarantees that you would see a damn whale. I did see some pretty cool sea lions though.

I miss the feel of that place. It's trite to say that things move at a different pace in certain places, but in Point Roberts it really did. It's weird because I didn't realize it when I was there. It just became the way things were. Your body gets used to different time zones, and maybe my mind just got used to the sleepiness of Point Roberts. It always felt like vacation there. The only problem was that it was a vacation with only Tristan and me.

It's so hard because it really was the perfect place, but it's like being in Heaven without your loved ones. It's not really heaven if there isn't anyone to share it with.

My greatest sin is not appreciating all that I have. I don't live in the moment. I have a tendency to look at my feet, which is something I learned after years of bullying in Marinette. I get so focused on my feet and getting from Point A to Point B that I don't look up and take in my surroundings. There was one day in Point Roberts when I'd trudged down the block to retrieve my mail. I got out the bills and cursed because Ben forgot to pay my student loan again. Then I looked up and saw the breathtaking view of the San Juan Islands over the horse pasture kitty corner to my mailbox. That really made an impact on me.

So, here I am reminiscing about Point Roberts when the whole time there I cried for home. Now that I am home, I'm missing Point Bob. My uncle John once pointed this flaw out to me when I was telling him how I really wasn't sure that I liked my boyfriend J anymore. He told me to love the one I'm with and started singing that Crosby, Stills, & Nash song "Love the one You're With"

and if you can't be with the one you love
it's alright
Go ahead and love the one, love the one, love the one your with

He was wrong about J. He really didn't deserve my love at all, but maybe this will work now. I need to stop reminiscing about what I had and live in the moment. Good things are coming now. Ben will work fewer hours, and we'll have more time to be family. We will find other places where time stands still, and we'll always have Point Roberts. God help us not romanticize about our time in Point Roberts. Times were hard there even though we were in paradise.

2005-08-14T16:17:00.000-07:00

The neighborhood horses taking a dip at South Beach in Point Roberts. Lily Point is the white cliff.

2005-08-14T16:16:00.000-07:00

Grandma's Pig at Pt. Bob

Small Border Complex

2005-08-05T22:54:00.000-07:00

This blog was suppose to be about life in Point Roberts, but I kind of strayed to my own life. Oh well. I live here so I guess it still works. I do want to write about what happened at the border when we brought Nathnaniel home since it does pertain to life on the point.

As most of you know, I gave birth in Vancouver since I was worried about traveling an hour and a half through two international borders to get to Bellingham Hospital. One border is enough when you are in labor.

It was a trick paying for the delivery a head of time, since we don't have BC Medical. We arranged it with the hospital. Paid up front and then sent the bills to our insurance in the states. It all worked out great. We even got the hospital to give us his paperwork early so we could expedite his documentation and passport info.

Well, at the border we get stopped by Mr. Drill Sargeant border cop. We know all the border patrol officers at Point Roberts. We see them all the time. All of them are pretty nice, but this guy is always a dick. He takes his job at the most pathetic international border in the world way too seriously. Small dick, um.. I mean small border complex.

Anyway, Ben proudly explains that we just had a baby, and asked about Nexus and if we were allowed to take Nathaniel through the Nexus lane since he is a newborn. Instead of congratulating us, Mr. Dick says smugly, "Everyone in the car must have Nexus."
Ben was taken back and said, "Even a day-old infant?" and the border cop says again in his sargeant voice "Everyone in the car must have nexus." Then, he asked for our identification. We hand it over and he looks at all the ids and makes a stink because Nathaniel didn't have an official birth certificate. He only had the hospital's certificate of birth which you use to apply for an official state birth certificate.

I was so pissed. Come on! They don't pop out of the uterus with a passport and an offical birth certificate. The border jerk went on saying that we caused really big problems for ourselves by giving birth in Canada. He acted like we made a bad choice. He acted like we gave birth in Canada just so the baby could be Canadian. No, we gave birth in Canada because that's the nearest god damn hospital. My labor was a hour in a half once it got started. Active pushing labor lasted six minutes. I'm not giving birth at Peace Arch park for crying out loud.

Even if we had given birth in Bellingham, the baby would not have an official state birth certificate, so I don't know what the frickin' deal was, but I was all about to go mother bear on this prick. The nice thing to do would be to congratulate us on our new baby and let us on our way. I mean really, we live on the Point. There is no way on or off the point without going through the border. It's five square miles completely contained by the ocean and the Canadian border. Is a one-month old a national security crisis? Is he a little terrorist? Does he have a bomb or some blow in his diaper. Jesus Christ.

The majority of the time, the border isn't a big deal at all. As I said, the border cops know everyone. Usually, they just glance up at the screen and wave you through. They are often really sweet and cordial. I can count on my hands in the year in a half that I've lived here how many times we got an asshole for a border cop. This guy ranks up there. What a dick.

2005-07-21T20:03:00.000-07:00

New pic of

2005-07-12T12:32:00.000-07:00

Ooh! I have a precious moment. Nathaniel is asleep and Ben and Tristan are on a walk with Bob.

Well, my water broke last Thursday and then the contractions started. The doctor suggested that I take a nap until the contractions got stronger, since it could be a long day. I finally got some rest, but when I woke up all the contractions had stopped again like they did on Canada Day. I didn't feel the baby move all morning, so I called the doctor back and they suggested that I should come in.

Well, the baby was fine on the monitor so we spent most of the day at the hospital until they finally induced me at 3:45 or so. I gave birth at 5:11 pm. It was a very quick labour. I only pushed for 6 minutes! I'm a great pusher apparently. ;)

The baby is a boy named Nathaniel Benjamin. He weighed 6 pounds 14 oz, but they told us in kg since they are crazy Canadians. He was 51 cm long (again with the metric system). ;P He's perfectly healthy and so am I. I even convinced them to release me early, since Tristan was so worried about us.

Tristan is adjusting fine. Mostly he calls the baby a superman baby which means that he likes him. Every once in awhile he gets jealous and calls him a bad guy baby. He helps out a lot though and says that the baby is cute. I think he'll be fine as long as I give him attention too.

So, all is well, and I won't be online much until things settle down. This is a rare moment indeed.

2005-07-11T22:01:00.000-07:00

Ben and Nathaniel

2005-07-06T22:33:00.000-07:00

Belly picture

2005-06-19T10:54:00.000-07:00

Happy Father's Day! I'm so grateful to have such a great husband who is an equally great dad. He's really shown us his love this year and we have all kinds of cute family traditions we have been doing like Doughnuts at the Beach.

I was reading some Stay at Home mom forum and the wives were bitching about how clueless their husbands are and how they always think SAHM do nothing all day. Ben gets it. He takes over when he gets home to have some time with Tristan, and give me a little break, then we all cuddle and put Tristan to bed. He takes Tristan in the mornings now that I'm in my last trimester and not getting any sleep because of multiple trips to the bathroom, nightmares and the acid attacks. I'm extremely grateful for that. I know he must be tired too, but he really does help a lot.

We got him a video game that he can play with Tristan, a thermos and a book about Daddy and Me. I gave him the thermos a week ago, since he left all fifteen coffee cups at work, and then proceeded to leave the house with my mixing bowl full of coffee since we were out of coffee cups. Oh that man! hehe. I was forced to give him the thermos ahead of time to keep my mixing bowls in the house. He cracks me up.

2005-06-14T20:35:00.000-07:00

Tristan said that I was his favorite mom today. :) That made up for the temper tantrum and crazy antics he pulled earlier in the day. He has this thing lately where he likes to flush the toilet and play in the sink. That wouldn't be so bad if we lived in the city, but you can't do that stuff with a septic system. Especially, when your septic system had an oversaturation problem earlier this spring.

I locked the door and he threw a fit. The advice books say make sure the kid is safe and then leave the room so you aren't giving them any attention for negative behavior. Um... yeah. That wasn't working. This continued on for awhile and then it was sort of quiet. Then, I heard the frickin' toilet flush. Oh that kid! I figured that he was in my bedroom bathroom, but it turns out that he actually picked the stinking lock to the bathroom and got in that way. He's going to be a famous cat burglar(like Sex Pistols song) or something. heh. I'll have to watch this one closer.

He was being sweet later in the day. He wanted to go to the airport to see his grandparents. He misses them and knows that they will be coming soon for the baby, but he doesn't have any concept about time. I told him that airplanes cost about 200 matchbox cars, so he went into his bedroom and got out his matchbox cars. How sweet. Then, I explained that it wasn't actual matchbox cars, but what amount of money it would cost to buy all those matchbox cars, so he got out his piggy bank. I told him we would need a bit more, so he went around the house looking for change in the laundry area. He yelled, "I found money mom! Go to airport?" What a sweetie.

2005-06-13T15:26:00.000-07:00

Ben and I took Tristan to Squamish Saturday for "A Day Out With Thomas." It was at an old train museum park where they had all theses engines, and old trains that you could tour. They had a lifesize Thomas the Tank engine hooked up to a real train and we all got to ride 'Thomas'. Tristan had a blast even though he didn't nap all day and was very tired. The real train ride kind of sucked, but Tristan didn't notice. It only went 2 miles per hour and then stopped, changed tracks and and went forward about 1000 ft before stopping again. Yawn. There were clowns to keep the kids entertained, and Tristan just thought it was cool to be on Thomas. The miniture train was a lot of fun though. It went all over the park and we saw all kinds of old train equipment. I'd love to go on one of those train tours or Canada some day.

I had another Oprah apocolypse dream. I hardly ever watch Oprah. I wonder why she is always in my apocolypse dreams. She must be the anti-christ. heh. Anyway, this one was like Dawn of the Dead. There were these creatures going around eating people and we were hiding out in a grocery store. Oprah's apartment building was one of the places we could go to be safe. I called and tried to get the password, but everyone was being so noisy that I couldn't hear, so I yelled at them to shut up. Everyone got pissed at me for yelling at them, and I didn't get the password right. Ben says that I started talking in my sleep how the password was wrong. We decided to entice Oprah with fresh food from the market like rhubarb and fresh herbs. We figured Oprah didn't have fresh herbs or rhubarb in the middle of Chicago. Oh Oprah.

I also had weird dreams last night about the Falun Gong. There's an exhibit on Granville street where they talk about the human rights abuses and Falun Gong. There's a little hut attached to the signs and someone is usually meditating there in the middle of traffic. Ben and I always wondered what the heck it was about but never looked it up. Anyway, I kept having a dream that I should look it up and then I'd say, "I'll look it up tomorrow." Then irl the baby would kick me in my belly and I'd wake up feeling like I had to throw up because of the reflux. This happened 3 times. One of the times, Tristan came into my room. I almost just got the hell up and looked it up on the internet at 3 in the morning just to get this nonsense to stop, but I did stop having the dream that I had to look up Falun and got back to sleep. Weird. Here's info on Falun Gong if anyone else is curious. Link here

2005-06-09T14:13:00.000-07:00

Grrr. I'm being taken advantage of and I don't like it. B dropped her son off at 9:30 for a play date and didn't pick him up until three. TOO LONG! Her friend stopped by to take her to lunch. Um.. yeah. It took me an hour to eat my frickin' soup because the kids were going nuts. I get warm soup, and she gets time away at a restaurant. The kids were tearing each other apart and I gave twenty thousand time outs. I'm still stressed out and my blood pressure is starting to rise just thinking about it. I had no phone number to call and tell her that this date needed to end. Tristan needs a nap, but now he's overtired.

I know, I know. You can only be taken advantage of if you allow it. I did say that I need a phone number next time, and that this was too long, but I did wimp out. I always wimp out dammit! This is why I get taken advantage of. Next time, I'll have to set guidelines like an actual time it should end, and get her phone number, but I wish I was bitchier and learned how to stand up for myself sometimes.

Ben would say, "I told you so." blah blah. He's so right, sometimes. Bah. Work takes advantage of him too, so all this I told you so stuff is in vain.

2005-06-08T20:17:00.000-07:00

I grocery shopped in Canada today. While shopping I thought to myself, "I like the anonymity of shopping in another country" and then I laughed to myself at how absurd that sounds.

Tristan was being a bit of a stinker in the store. He wasn't being bad like toddlers usually are. He was just pretending to be a bad guy, but I was getting dirty looks. This bad guy stuff is getting kind of annoying. He called some guy in a suit a bad guy in a growly voice, and I got a dirty look. I gave him a couple of warnings and then ended up giving him a time out in the frozen fish aisle. He didn't like that and was pretty good for about 6 aisles until I got to the cookie aisle. He knows that he doesn't get cookies unless he is good. I always save that aisle for last. Well, once we got the cookies he started up with the bad guy stuff again calling a little old lady a bad guy. I warned him, but he kept it up in the checkout, so I headed back to the cookie aisle and put the cookies back. He was mad. It worked though. He's still saying that he didn't get cookies because he was naughty.

I was kind of bad in that I stopped at Starbucks on the way home. I should have just left without any treats at all, but I really wanted whip cream. I got a strawberry and cream drink and got Tristan a children's steamer. He ate the whip cream off his steamer and then stole my drink. I didn't mind, because I didn't really care for the strawberry cream thinger, and the steamer was much more up my alley. mmmm...steamers.

2005-06-07T10:09:00.000-07:00

I feel like I'm on an episode of What Not to Wear lately. My shoes were even featured - mary janes. Boo. Not that I like the clothes on What Not to Wear. Not that I watch that show often. I'm just getting too big to do much. I'm pretty much wearing Ben's tee-shirts and sweats all the time. Oh, with mary janes. How silly.

I have a million people stopping by today. The plasterer is coming by to give us a quote on the ceiling. The appliance guy is stopping by to see if he can fix the dishwasher. Yeah... one plus one equals a million when no one ever comes to visit. ;)

---------------------------

Tristan has been calling everything he doesn't like a bad guy again. He was raiding the cookie jar by taking his time out chair and using it as a step stool. I yelled at him and told him that he had to eat supper first. NO SUPPER! BAD GUY SUPPER!
When I tell him he needs to take a nap, he yells BAD GUY NAP! It's hard not to laugh. He also insulted me the other day by calling me a robot. Sure, that's not an insult, but to him it was. It was all in the tone. He got a time out for all of the above. It is kind of ironic that he's using his time out chair to get into trouble lately. heh.

Ben was all worried that Tristan was mad at him for working so much lately. They went for a walk to the beach the other day and talked about it. Ben said that he was sorry to be working so much and asked Tristan if he was sad. Tristan said, "I'm not sad, I'm happy." That made Ben feel better. They walked a little farther pass the horse pasture and Tristan looked out at the ocean and said, "It's a nice day". hehe. He's really growing up.

2005-05-25T23:43:00.000-07:00

I swore at a pie yesterday. Man, I must be stressed out. I decided at 9 pm that I'd make Ben a rhubarb pie. I wanted to make one earlier in the day, but I never have time. Anyway, I never make the crust. My mom and grandma always said crusts were hard to make, and always bought the frozen Pillsbury kind, so I buy frozen usually. I'm a bit crustophobic, I guess. They don't have Pillsbury at our market so I buy the Marie Callendar's kind which is good, but tricky. I have to thaw it, remove it from the tin and then re-roll it for the top crust. The crust was in the freezer since Thanksgiving, so it was being more difficult than usual and kept sticking to my rolling pin and to the cutting board no matter how much flour I laid down. It took forever for me to remember that you could use wax paper and roll it between two layers so it doesn't stick. d'oh. It was late. What can I say. Anyway, when I figured it out and got the bastard rolled out I yelled "Take that mother fucker!" I never whip out the mf word, and I used it just this once on a pie crust. Boy, I must have been tired.

It's probabably a boy!

2005-05-24T19:23:00.000-07:00

So, I had another ultrasound today because the baby was measuring small for gestational age. I was a tad bit worried, but I didn't have any other symptoms of things like pre-eclampsia (nasty preggers condition) ect. Turns out that the baby is growing fine. :) and is probably a boy. It sure the hell looked like a boy to me. The ultrasound guy said he was 80-20% sure, but he didn't really want to tell us, I think. The other guy seemed more sure it was a boy. Of course, you can never be sure since pregnancy hormones can swell the baby's labia and make it look like testicles, and the boy baby could have undecended testicles or something. That would be one swollen labia though. I'm sure it's a boy.

2005-05-24T09:49:00.000-07:00

Well, we made it through E3 alive. Tristan was a little pissed when Ben came home, but warmed up quickly. Before long they were best buddies again and going to the beach and park and getting Tim Horton Doughnuts. Tristan had a blast playing in the tide pools with Ben.

It was a long weekend because of Victoria day so we got started on some of our projects. The bathroom is now painted a lighter green. It isn't sage. It's more cool than sage. Cool as in more blue and less warm than sage. It's kind of a beachy color which works good for this house. I'm trying to play up the ocean view/beach appeal. I liked the old dark olive color, but this color works better for that space. You don't need the light on during the day to use the bathroom and the white toilet isn't so contrasted against the dark floor and dark walls. Before it just glowed in there like a beacon in the dark and it was kind of disturbing. I still find it incredibly weird that I'm moving away from dark colors. They are still my favorite, but man do bright colors save on electricity.

We also painted the deck a bit. It's starting to come together. It will be so nice to put our table back outside and start eating out there again for summer. The best time ever was playing cards on the deck with my family when they visited last time. I wish Ben liked to play cards more. I just roped him into playing Scrabble, so maybe I can get him to play Rummy with me or something. It's so fun playing cards out there and I'm really getting sick of spending every night in front of the tv or computer. If anyone has any board game suggestions let me know. Laura, I'm guessing you do since you and Tim play a lot of board games from what I remember. Ben still wants to get Cults Across America after talking to Tim.

In other news, Tristan hates my singing. I don't think I sing *that* bad. How is he suppose to learn his songs? Every kid knows ABC, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, ect. I put on a CD yesterday with the ABCs and other songs and he said, "NO! Robot Song! I don't like ABC!" All he wants to listen to is the They Might Be Giants cd that his old friend the Caidster gave him, which is super awesome for me, but man, he does need to learn those other songs. Nobody in pre-school is going to know what the Robot song is. heh.

On another random note, we went to a protest yesterday. They are closing down 3rd grade in Point Roberts Elementary and busing those kids over to Blaine daily. That's an hour in a half drive daily twice through two international borders. Insane for an eight year old. They are also cutting a teacher, so we'll only have one teacher for all three early education grades (K-2). These are the grades where kids need the most one-on-one teaching. They have to learn how to do the basics in reading, writing and arithmetic, and socialization all with one teacher. It's like frickin' Little House on the Prarie. So, we joined our neighbors in the protest at the school board. Good points were brought up like how it's a safety issue to only have two people on the premises to watch all those kids. If one gets sick then there is only one person in the whole school. What if someone had an emergency?

I was the instigator parent. All the parents were too polite for protestors. They just held up signs and balloons. I'm guessing they were Canadian. ;P hehe. Too nice. The kids had the right idea about chanting "Save Our School!" since the school board members pulled the blinds on us. I was the only parent that went by the kids to chant. What an instigator. So, Tristan had his first protest.

2005-05-17T23:03:00.000-07:00

This is day one of Ben's trip to LA for E3. It was okay, I guess. Tomorrow will be harder, since today just feels like he's pulling another late night. I think that helped with Tristan too. I wonder what he will think when he doesn't see his dad in the morning. Hmmm. Maybe I'll just keep saying that daddy is at work. E3 is kind of work right? Bah, video game conferences can't be all work and no play. hehe. I wonder if LA is as much of a hole as I think it is. I'm a bit Caliphobic.

Tristan and I dropped Ben off at 8 today and drove back through insane Vancouver traffic. Man, those people need help with their highway system. A highway does not have bus stops on it. You don't converge 6 lanes into 2 drastically and expect the traffic not to bottleneck. Run the highway around the damn city. A highway shouldn't have a stop light every other corner. grr. American highways are so much better. Yay Einsenhower.

We got back at 10 which was just in time for Tristan's play group on the Point. Brenda must have forgot, so it was just me and Alexandra. I got to hold Griffin! He's her 1 month-old. I didn't forget how to hold a baby. I was worried that I'd forget things, but I held him when he was crying and over-tired and he fell asleep in my arms. Tristan was unphased that I was holding a baby which is good too.

I found out that Alexandra and her husband are Packer fans. How weird is that. They aren't even from Wisconsin. Sad that she knew more about the Packers than I did. I don't do football. heh. I thought I had a good excuse for Ben when he was talking to another packer fan and didn't know Favre's number. I told him that if he screws up to say that he hasn't been paying attention to the Packers since he moved to Washington. Now we pay attention to the patriots. Ben laughed at me for thinking that the Washington team was the patriots. I guess that doesn't really make sense. Washington state isn't quite known for colonists, famous American forefathers, and people like Revere, so I don't know where I got that Washington's team was the patriots. duh. I still have no idea which state has the patriots. I guess we are the seahawks or some shit.

Other than that today was kind of boring. I painted the deck some more when Tristan was napping. It will look so nice when it is done. After Tristan's nap, we watered the plants and tackled weeding under some bushes, all the damn yucca, and in a few of the side gardens. Holy crap is my yard full of weeds. I have two Hefty bags full of weeds. I think I'll shove them behind the shed and just let them rot. I dug out a bunch of those nasty lettuce-y looking weeds from my lawn too. Those things have the biggest damn roots.

My pear tree has three wee pears on it. One of them looks like it has a big spot on it so I'll have to look up what to do about that. I also think my apple tree has some sort of parasite too. The leaves are curled and white in parts. Maybe it's just a bug. hmmm. There are a few little apples starting on one of the trees that the arborist trimmed. The other one he did is still dormant. Mine are growing leaves, but I didn't see any signs of apples. I think maybe I did them too late because the back tree flowered a week after I hacked the hell out of the trees in front. Oh well. Next year they should blossom nicely and get some fruit. I wonder why that one apple tree never gets fruit though. Either does one of the pear trees. weird.

2005-05-16T16:13:00.000-07:00

Bah. My journal is so boring lately. I'm too big to do anything exciting besides mess with the house. heh. Oh well, enough excitement will be coming this summer. I can wait a few months and just post boring stuff about paint and plants.

I can't really post political/current event stuff anymore. Reading the paper is becoming increasingly difficult, since Tristan wants to read it with me. It's kind of fun, but he has a better time looking at the car want-ads, and BestBuy flyers, while I want to catch up on international, and national news.

I really want to find out about the Canadian elections, but of course the U.S. papers have nothing about them at all. Maybe I'll have to get a Vancouver Sun. The Canadian elections effect us a lot on the Point, since we pretty much deal with Canada on a daily basis. I feel like a dumb American going to Tsawassen and seeing all the election signs and not knowing what the heck is going on. I do know that there was a big car accident in Seattle the other day though. Oh, and it rained there. I NEED CANADIAN NEWS, not news from a city 3 hours away.

2005-05-16T10:49:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting here waiting for the money man. No. I'm serious. We have a guy that comes to our house and exchanges our Canadian money for American. Sometimes Ben meets him in the grocery store parking lot early in the morning. Our neighbor leaves him a Canadian check in her mailbox, which he takes from the side of the road and replaces with an American check. Sounds shady right? hah. It's totally legit. He's a commodities trader on the move. That's the point for you.

Anyway, I hope he comes soon because I need to go to Home Depot to get some paint before Tristan's nap. I want to finish the bathroom. It was a pretty olive green, but it was looking kind of dingy and dark in there. I painted it a lighter green which strangely enough is the exact color of my grandma's house. Maybe I'm missing her. It's kind of weird. I always liked dark colors. We painted our D&D/game/guest room dark red and part of our living room walls dark green in the old house. This house doesn't have the vaulted ceilings and if I didn't paint, you pretty much need the light on during the day. The kitchen is so much brighter now that we painted the cupboards, that I never put the light on during the day anymore. The bathroom is already looking like it will have the same effect. Yeah, lower electrical bills.
Next is Tristan's room which will go from dark navy blue to a creamy light yellow for the IKEA bug theme.

2005-05-14T20:32:00.000-07:00

There are over a hundred baby spiders that just hatched on our dining room window. It's outside thank god, so it's pretty neat to watch. Wee baby spiders. Tristan is super excited about them and we watched them for a good portion of the day. Thank goodness we are such environmentalists that we never clean the windows to spoil such a natural habitat for spiders and other nasties. heh. yeah... that's the story. It's not that we are just lazy. Fine... we're lazy.

My plants came in the mail like a mail order bride. Mailing nature is just weird. I got two different species of blueberry bushes that I promptly planted along with the lily of the valley, periwinkle and a few strawberry seedlings. I ran out of garden space, so I had a lot of digging to do to find a home for the 6 hibiscus plants and the rest of the strawberry and lavendar. It's all in the ground now, although I'm not sure some of the strawberries and the periwinkle will survive. I planted the periwinkle wrong and only had a chance to correct one bunch of it. The leftover strawberries looked a little wilted since it took awhile for me to dig up a new garden for them. Oh well. Twenty five periwinkle plants are too much for that little garden, although I do hope the strawberries survive. Mmmm Ozark strawberries. I have some cantalope melon vine seeds, and some tomato seeds if anyone wants them. I just don't have the garden space for any more plants and I really hate cantalope.

I'm nesting like crazy. The back yard is really bothering me because everything is getting overgrown, and the grass is all tufted and lumpy. Big frickin' deal right? It is to the hormonal one who wants everything all perfect for the baby to come. All I see is work when I look outside. I also want to purge a lot of crap we have in this house. I'm going to get rid of all the video tapes that we didn't buy or never watch. They take up too much room and we NEVER watch them. I'm also getting rid of all Ben's software boxes. He's not too happy with that. I think it's a geek thing to have to keep the boxes. They take up so much room and they don't have the software in them anyway. All the software is in the software folder. They are just empty boxes. I'm also going to work on getting rid of a lot of old clothes and books, so I'll probably have a rummage sale. Hmmm. More work. Is that smart, or am I in a nesting fog. I could use the money from this junk to get cute baby stuff. Yeah. That's the ticket.

2005-05-12T09:44:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was pretty busy. I got up and immediately started cleaning since Branden was coming over. He got here a little late, and the kids played nicely for about a half an hour before they got on each others nerves. I took them to South Beach and that calmed them down. They had a blast playing in the tide pools and trying to catch minnows. They found a bunch of hermit crabs and I found a dead starfish lying on the beach. I took it home like last time. Hopefully, Bob won't eat this one after it's been sitting out in the sun for days, and hopefully it won't stink as bad as the other one did. Man, dead starfish are stinky. Cute, but stinky.

The boys were all wet and full of sand, so I had Branden get into Ben's shirt and dried his clothes and threw Tristan in the tub. Then quickly fed them, before Buffy arrived. I was really rushing around like a chicken with my head cut off, when I noticed that Tristan was being too quiet. Being too quiet is usually a sign of trouble, but I found him in the bathroom trying to go potty. YAY!!! He's been immitating Branden like crazy, so I must have this kid over more. Tristan has been really hating the potty chair lately so this is major. He tried a couple of times, but it's obvious that he doesn't get it, and the few times he went months ago were just a fluke. We'll keep trying though. He told me that he wanted privacy and I caught him trying to fill the potty with toilet paper and some water that he put in a coffee cup. hehe. I don't know if he thinks pee is water and that's what is happening, or if he was trying to pull one over on me.

After I got him off the pot, we drove to Bellingham to buy Ben a laptop. Our laptop is ancient and Ben really needs one for a demo and for E3. I can't believe that we put this off so much. Ben is used to be a stickler about computer technology being updated, but the laptop always got put off. Tristan was obsessed with Best Buy and all the buttons. He really wanted a calculator. That's his newest obsession. He loves calculators. I guess Ben was the same way as a kid.

Next, I took Tristan to the Bellingham mall and he played with all the kids in the play area. He was being pretty good and was super sweet and gentle to the babies in there which made me feel better about giving birth soon. One little girl was coughing, so he rubbed her back for her. cute. We ate at Old Crunchy Buffet since I figured that it would be good to get Tristan some veggies rather than stopping at McDonald's again. He actually loved it and it only costs $.60 for him to eat there. The crowd was rather old and they all gave him lot's of attention. Actually, the crowd was a weird mixture of goth/punks and the elderly. The grazers came in later just as we were about to leave.

Finally, I drove to Diegos to get Ben tacos. I think I've written before about how Canadians don't do tacos. They nuke the lettuce and put weird things like mashed potatoes/turkey/gravy/cranberrry sauce together (steamroller's burritos for Thanksgiving). ;P Ben and I always have to make an actual run to the United States border to get good tacos. Diegos are the best. I didn't get back to the other United State (Point Roberts) until 7:30. Ben didn't get home until after midnight, but I got up with him and sat and talked in the hot tub a bit. I just put my feet in of course, since pregnant ladies aren't allowed in hot tubs. It was kind of nice, but I wish he didn't have to work such long hours. At least his producer is working long hours too. Makes me feel better to know that the boss is working so many hours that even he didn't feel safe about driving home. Still, nobody should be working such insane hours. Ben helped him out there since he lives nearby in White Rock.

Wow, I really do have a pointless blog. haha. sorry.

2005-05-10T23:24:00.000-07:00

I'm so glad I started this play group on the point. Alexandra cancelled today because her mother is coming tomorrow and she has to clean. Yay! Human mothers who admit they have to rush to clean to impress someone. Anyway, I met with Brenda and her kids at the park across the border. It's weird. You get in the car, drive to the border check point, tell the guy that you have nothing to declare and then drive another block to the park. Point Roberts at it's best. hehe.

At the park, we saw JonJon from the playgroup that I hate on Fridays. His mom is actually one of the nice moms, but I really hadn't had a chance to talk to her much because she was talking to Bitchy McBitcherson last time. I said 'Hi' and we got to talking and it turns out that she lives on the Point too. Her name is Rosie and she's super nice. Brenda got along good with her too, so she might join our playgroup. She even knows Alexandra. Rosie also mentioned that the Lexy's father, who is also in our playgroup on Fridays, is also from the Point. His wife is expecting in July too.

Brenda might be moving soon. Kind of sucks because she's super cool and Cara and Tristan are finally getting along. He picked her a flower today. :) Other than that, things are still a bit stressful for me. I added some by worrying too much about a friend, and potentially pissing her off.

2005-05-10T10:04:00.000-07:00

I'm super stressed about things including the baby. I have so much to do to prepare, and this crunch has been hell. Then it's 3 days at E3 for Ben with a toddler wondering where daddy went. E3 is great, so I'm not upset about that, but it's going to be exhausting for me here. I'm just worried about all the projects that need to be done. The nursery isn't ready. We haven't gone to Lamaze. The ceiling isn't repaired, so I'm worried that it will be a huge mess I'll have to deal with when the baby comes, or when I'm too big to be able to bend over. I'm 31 weeks already. This date is coming up fast.

I'm also nervous because my ob/gyn visit didn't go as well as normal. The baby is measuring small for gestational age. I'm measuring at 28.5 instead of 31. It's probably nothing. It sounds like this just happens sometimes, but I'm hormonal and stressed about other things, so this just magnifies all my baby worries. I have another ultrasound to see what's up. The baby is kicking, so it's probably nothing. Alexandra (Tygren's mom) said that both her babies were small for gestational age and Tygren is a kid genius.

I hope the ultrasound shows that everything is okay and we get to see the sex of the baby this time. That would help a lot to know if we need to get girl stuff or can kick back with all the stuff we still have from Tristan. It'll also help zero in on a name. The baby is kicking now. Makes me feel a little better to feel him/her in there. Grow little one.

Max Fisher

2005-05-05T20:01:00.000-07:00

I put up a sign at the market a couple of weeks ago to try to start a playgroup. It was incredibly bold of me and out of character. I'm not one to start clubs and stuff. I'm no Max Fischer (kid from Rushmore). I was very nervous putting it up, and even more nervous when two moms called. It was the best thing I could have done though.

We met today at one of the lady's house. She has an uber genius kid named Tygren who says things like "We have company." She used to run a day care so she had tons of toys and a nice play area for the kids. Tristan got along with both Tygren and Cara (cutie). Cara and Tristan had a bit of a standing squirmish over a riding toy. They kept yelling at each other. Tristan called her a bad guy and Cara yelled at him to be nice. It was pretty humorous. I was told by manuals to let them duke it out as long as they weren't hurting themselves, but that still is tough. You don't want to look like the asshole who lets their kid get away with murder. At one point Cara was yelling NEMO!! and Tristan would yell back ROBOT!!! I don't know what that was about. By the end of the day Cara and Tristan didn't want to stop playing together so it was a success.

Both women have husbands who are or were software developers, so we clicked pretty well. We could talk about things other than kids, and it was like we were friends for awhile. These moms are so much better than the moms in my other play group. Those moms are a bunch of pod people, and I'm not looking forward to spending time with them tomorrow. :( I'll do it for Tristan though.

I took a nice long nap with Tristan this afternoon since I did so much this morning. I cleaned like mad, grocery shopped, and hauled in tons of groceries, did playgroup, hunted for worms, and cooked a healthy lunch. My belly and back were sore, so I knew I needed a rest. It was pretty nice. Tristan and I watched a spider eat a bug outside the window before we fell asleep. My explanation was weak - "Spiders eat bugs like we eat sandwiches."

In other news, I tried to buy healthier groceries today like nuts, dates, dried fruit, fresh veggies, Kashi, ect. Buying healthy groceries on the Point costs about 30 bucks more than usual. Kashi will put me in the poor house. Next time, I'll go to Canada. Their stuff is healthier in general. I couldn't even find whole grain bread at the market. There was whole wheat, and multi-grain so I just got the multi-grain. In general, we eat okay. I buy healthier snacks. We eat whole grain oat meal, the healthier bread, and always have a crapload of fresh fruit in the house. I shouldn't be so hard on myself if we eat crappy cereal sometimes, and if frozen pizza, canned veggies, and macaroni are a weekly occurance. Tristan won't eat veggies that aren't from a can. I'll keep trying though.

2005-04-29T14:04:00.000-07:00

I took part in news survey yesterday. Ben hates it when I do these things, but I was bored, and I have a real beef with the news lately. Turns out that none of the channels really cover our county. No wonder I hate the local news. I wish I got Canadian news. Maybe Ben can jimmy rig something.

Tristan was such a stinker at his playgroup today that I had to take him home early. He ran down some girl with a bike. He also wouldn't share and tried to hoard all the matchbox cars. Then he threw a fit and hit me in front of the other parents. GRRRR. Three strikes (timeouts) and it's grounded time. He was so upset that I took him home and kept screaming that he wanted to see the kids. I hope this teaches him a lesson. It did for grocery shopping when I put all the yummy stuff back on the shelf and refused to buy it.

I'm so exhausted. This has been such a long week. If they extend crunch time again, I might just have to go down there.

2005-04-26T23:08:00.000-07:00

Oh, I'm so tired. I will not go to sleep though. The evening news just came on and I will not be like my parents and fall asleep before it is over. The evening news is useless. I don't know why I even bother to watch since we are in limbo between Canada and Washington State. The news we get is American. It's of the Seattle area. I suppose I should be really concerned about this string of robberies, or that accident blocking traffic on I-5 in Seattle. It's only 2 1/2 hours and two international borders away.

Yesterday, a grey baby whale beached itself on Maple Beach between Point Roberts and Tsawassen. I found out about it from our vet today. Thankfully, it was okay, but they are worried that it might beach again. I'm kind of glad that I didn't know about it though. I still haven't seen a whale after a year of living here and I would hate to see my first whale beached. Poor little guy. Anyway, it would be more useful to get local news from Vancouver than Seattle. Apparently, that story made the Vancouver news. I swear half the time they don't even have the point on the map when showing the weather coming our way.

So, today was busy. I took Bob to the vet for his yearly check-up, heartworm test, and boosters. He got his poop shoot shaved. The vet actually called it that which made me chuckle because that's something my mom always called my dogs Molly's butt. Yeah, I must be tired if I'm writing about dog butts in my journal. After the vet, I got Bob a hamburger at McDonald's, and then dropped him off at home. I had to go right away to meet Ben for lunch at Science World again.

The ride to Science World went smoother this time. No bullet holes, no gas station searches. We ate at Triple O's again, and I got the sandwich/donut combo. haha. I didn't get a burger though. Just a turkey on wheat sandwich and a yummy apple fritter. Mmmm. Apple fritters. Tristan took off to find kids right away and I let Ben chase him because I couldn't waddle fast enough. He finally calmed down and we spent 3 hours just hanging out at Science World. Ben had to go back to work of course, but I stuck it out. Tristan got to touch a gecko and a corn snake. We put together a human being like a puzzle, took pictures of our shadows, toured Lego World where they had lego movies of Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Star Wars, and played a lot in the toddler area. Tristan loved playing with this beach ball that was suspended by air, and the ball mazes.

After getting him out of Science World, and back home, I attempted to clean the house, but Tristan wasn't having that. He wanted to look for more worms. He asked so sweetly that I couldn't resist. He even said please, so we went to the side garden with the irises and I weeded away giving him any worm or snail that I found. We found two snails, and a crapload of worms. I also found 5 slugs that I flung over the fence onto the neighbors shed. I'm a terrible neighbor, but hey they are only here on the weekend. I have to do something about those slugs. I hear beer works, but Ben is a beer snob and only buys fancy schmancy beer. I don't want to use good beer to lure slugs to their death. I'm not sure I want to take part in slugicide either, although drowning in a vat of beer must be a great way to go. Nah, Maybe I'll just keep flinging them into my neighbors yard. I don't know. They are eating the hell out of my irises though. What do I care anyway if they eat the irises. They are yellow irises. I wish they were purple. Irises are one of my favorite flowers, but not the yellow ones.

Okay, I'm rambling now. I will spare my journal of the memory jog of all the damn chores I did today, and how the house still looks like a mess, and how Ben's still working a 7 month crunch and how sucky being a game programmer's wife can be. Momma don't let your babies grow up to be ~~cowboys~~ game programmers. grr.

2005-04-22T10:55:00.000-07:00

Wanna Kiss.

Normally he's cute.

2005-04-21T20:26:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I bought Tristan a Retro red flyer tricycle. It's so cool.

He loves it and is actually do a pretty good job riding it. We spent the day riding the bike and looking for bugs and worms again. Well, I actually did gardening, but he thinks that's worm hunting. He takes all the worms and puts them in his bug box, and they escape right away through the screen. We found a ton of them in the garden by the apple tree while I was taking the wild strawberry plants and planting them closer to the tree. I figured this way they wouldn't get damaged by the lawn mower. I think we have a few more plants this year. I'm considering transplanting them somewhere else and getting actual strawberry plants, since wild strawberries are too tiny to do anything with. Still, wild fruit plants are too cool to destroy.

I also ripped up a bunch of ivy from around the other apple tree. It's so sad ripping up that ivy. It really is gorgeous, but the arborist said it was hurting the tree so it had to go. I have no other place to put it. :/ There were tons of bugs under that ivy and Tristan had a field day. He was so excited. He found a nasty slug though and showed it to me. Ew. I told him to throw it away, but he kept picking it up again when I wasn't watching. He got really mad at how vigorous I washed his hands after that. I don't want slug juice all over. ick. The slugs around here are so fat, slimy and huge. What a boy.

Ben just called me outside. He was out there with Tristan and in a split second Tristan dug up all my strawberry plants looking for worms. ugh. They aren't looking too hot. Maybe I killed them by transplanting them. Now he's running around the house yelling "Wormies, Wormies, Wormies!!" The kid is crazy.

I also tried to get a fair bit of housework done, but it's futile. I get the dishes done daily, and a few loads of laundry. I picked up the messes throughout the house only to have them replaced with new messes. I cleared the floor three times to vacuum it, and Tristan would dump something else out in it's place. grr. I did manage to wash the bathroom floor and granite, organize the video tape cabinet, and do some glass cleaning. Tessa is coming over tomorrow to watch Tristan, so hopefully I'll be able to get something done. How people manage to have clean houses is beyond me. Tristan keeps yelling that the house is messy. "This is a messy house," he says. A lot of times he is referring to the cottage cheese ceiling that I'm removing. It's only half done in the hall, and that bothers him. Slug juice doesn't bother him, but a half finished ceiling does. Go figure.

I did finish a craft today, so I'll update on tceku. http://tceku.net/index.php My neighbor made us a blackberry pie the other day, so I wanted to make her a thank you card. I made a beaded flower out of seed beads and a button and went to town creating a card with it. I used to enjoy making cards. Today, it seemed like such a hassel, but I was proud of the end result. I did leave my trademark finger print on the card. I can't stamp a damn card without getting ink everywhere. heh. Oh well. I also made a cool beaded flower which I'm thinking of making a three strand choker necklace of crystally white beads as a web, and have the spider hanging down in back. It might be a little uber goth to wear a spider necklace. :/ Bah, who cares.

Ben's making fun of me for my crafting again. He calls it craps. punk rocker. He laughed when I took a picture of my St. Paddies day bracelet. It is kind of ugly, but you can't get really pretty beads in Manitowoc WI head shops. Oh well. I'm posting it to tceku anyways, because I made it even if it sucks.

Laura... I can't spell 'tceku'. I just went through and edited. heh. I'll have to post the pics tomorrow since the lighting is so bad that the pictures are all washed out. :(

2005-04-21T15:48:00.000-07:00

This is one of my favorite pictures of Tristan. It's old, but it's still a favorite.

2005-04-19T15:28:00.000-07:00

Growly growl growl. I wrote the longest post about my week and Blogger ate it. Blogger! You asshole! I love calling inanimate objects 'asshole'.

Anyway, I wrote how we took Tristan to Science World on Thursday. It was pretty neat and we'll probably get a year pass because we liked it so much. On the way there I got pretty cranky though. I hate driving in Vancouver. I ran out of gas, so I had to exit on Bridgeport road in Richmond (pretty big suburb) to fill up my tank. I pulled into the first gas station and it was full serve only! What's that about. I told the guy that I didn't have enough for full serve figuring that it would cost more, so he directed me to another gas station down the street. I pull in there and it too is full serve only. I yelled a few obscenities (Tristan was sleeping) since I was running on fumes and in a very desperate situation. The guy came over to fill the tank and I asked him where the nearest self-serve station was and he said Vancouver. "You have to be kidding me," I said. Nope. Turns out all of Richmond is full-serve. I felt like I was on Back to the Future. The attendent explained that there were no limits and that it doesn't cost more, so I was instantly happy again. It was pretty nice considering that Tristan was sleeping so I didn't have to disturb his nap to pay for gas.

Once I got back on the road, I ended up behind a white van with three bullet holes in the back of it. I had an ethical debate on whether I should notify the police or just pretend I didn't see anything. This ethical debate took place while I very carefully paid attention to my driving, since you don't want to rear end a van with bullet holes in it. I looked closer and they did look kind of fake. Vancouver is Hollywood lite so there is a good possibility that the van was a prop. I felt like Chunk in Goonies at first though "BULLET HOLES, YOU GUYS, BULLET HOLES!" (Movie reference #2 jeesh).

Friday, I went to my first playgroup with Tristan. It was suppose to be geared to getting the kids socialized and for meeting other parents. I was the youngest mom again. How can I be the youngest mom when I'm almost 30. Weird. Anyway, I don't see myself clicking with any of these ladies. The group wasn't too condusive to adults though since they only had baby chairs to sit in. Most moms sat on the floor and played privately with their kids. HELLO?! Play GROUP! It's suppose to be group play. The teacher forced everyone together for crafts, story time, and playing with a parachute, so maybe everyone will start hanging out instead of just keeping their distance. Talking to moms is weird though. "My name is Jen. That's Tristan. Oh, your kid is so cute. What a big girl!, look at them," You end up looking like a loonie really quick. You can't exactly talk politics or current events when you have to keep your eye constantly on your kids.

Saturday, Ben got major penis points for fixing the rotting deck stairs that I put my big preggers self through. He even painted them without me asking. Wow. We went to White Spot and Tristan and I shared a virgin pina colada. Well, Tristan ended up just stealing mine. I got him apple juice, but mommy's drink looked better. After he blew spit bubbles in it I let him have it to himself. Kids.

Ben had to work Sunday. I went to church with Tristan. He played with Julien in the play room while I went to mass. I love my pastor Jean. She's so great at making you really learn something new about the stories that you've been told over and over again. Every time I've had a woman minister or deacon lead liturgy I left feeling like they taught me something new. They just have such a insightful way of looking at things, and really look into the history. The male priests I've had just use the readings as a jumping block to a Packer joke and some shallow interpretation tied into church doctrine. I think the Catholic church is doing itself a disservice by not letting women share their point of view to their clergy.

Sir Francis Drake in Point Roberts?

2005-04-08T21:28:00.000-07:00

DRAKE, NEW ALBION AND BOUNDARY BAY
By Warren Stevenson, Point Roberts Historical Society

Was Drake's ship, the Golden Hinde, in (and out of) the waters of Boundary Bay? If so, for how long and when? The answer to the first question increasingly seems to be "Probably", and to the second and easier of the two questions, "For approximately five weeks, from June 17, to July 23, 1579." What were Drake and his crew doing here? Among other things, careening-- a nautical term which means tipping over to one side for cleaning, caulking, and so forth-- their now famous ship, preparatory to sailing it across the Pacific back to its home port in Plymouth, England.

To my knowledge, the first person to seriously contend that Drake might have careened the Golden Hinde on the shores of Boundary Bay was the late Will Paulik, a local historian and environmentalist who, according to the article by Jan Westell in the Delta Optimist, dated August 19,2000, "About five years ago presented a theory to the Delta Historical Society that Drake may have sailed into Boundary Bay loaded with treasure from the Spanish, to careen his ship." I was fortunate enough to get to know Will shortly before the article appeared as I became a member of his newly formed Pacific Coast Exploration Society in order to learn more about these matters from Him and his assistant, Ralph Heading (1).

Will based his theory on the close resemblance between Boundary Bay and the map of "Portus Nova Albion," published by a Dutch mapmaker named Hondius who had visited England and consulted with Drake. This map of New Albion is placed in the upper left-hand corner of Hondius' much larger broadside of the world. Well known to Drake researchers, it is conveniently reproduced in The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake 1577-1580, the second of two books on this subject by Samuel Bawlf. The Drake/Hondius map (as it may be called) shows a well formed, sheltered bay that looks much like Boundary Bay when allowance is made, as Will observed, for the tidal spit shown on the west side of the unnamed point, most likely being the now submerged Roberts Bank. Yet, oddly enough, Bawlf never considers the possibility of Boundary Bay as the venue of Drake's New Albion and careenage.

Bawlf's main thesis, which is stated as fact in the Encyclopedia Britannica, 1962, but for which he presents interesting new evidence, is that when Drake set sail from Plymouth on December 13, 1577 with five ships supposedly heading for the Mediterranean, he had secret instructions from the Queen to sail in the opposite direction to raid Spanish treasure ships and towns, and to find the western exit of the northwest passage, as well as a possible site for an English Colony. Because of the maritime rivalry between England and Spain at this time, Drake's purpose had to be kept secret.

Immediately after sailing through the treacherous Straits of Magellan, Drake ran into a terrific storm, which irretrievably separated him from his escort ships; two were already lost, and of the remainder, one was wrecked and the other turned back. The Golden Hinde was blown of course far south past Tierra del Fuego-- which Drake proved an island and discovered a new "southern passage" that bears his name. Only by extreme tenacity and perseverance was he able to reach the calmer waters of the Pacific. Heading northward, Drake made several hit and run raids on Spanish colonial towns along the west coast of South and Central America, amassing a vast amount of treasure for the crown. The nimble Golden Hinde easily eluded her more cumbersome pursuers.

Bawlf maintains that Drake sailed as far north as the Alaska panhandle, citing such details as the extreme cold he and his men endured. The likelihood of this has until recently been obscured by Drake's apparent alteration of his northern latitudinal readings-- all those beyond what Bawlf calls his "northern reach", or cap, of 48 degrees-- in accord with his "secret instructions" intended to confuse the Spaniards in the event of capture. Drake's missing log was evidently sequestered on Queen Elizabeth's orders upon his return, and she seemingly requested a vow of silence. In addition, a general "gag order" was imposed, but gradually relaxed as time went on, permitting others to capitalize on their accounts of the voyage, for which researchers may be grateful.

In the most important of these, Fletcher's (2) shipboard diary eventually published in a book called The World Encompassed, (1968), he mentions the "sparkling white bancks and cliffes" of New Albion, which "lie toward the sea" and by virtue of "some affinity"... with out own country" suggested its name to Drake. "Albion", an old mythic name for England, derives from the Latin "albus" meaning white, because the white cliffs of Dover were for most foreign arrivals their first site of England. One may compare the beautiful white cliffs of aptly named Lily Point, remarked on by regional historian Richard E. Clark and others, which serve as a landmark for mariners approaching Point Roberts to this day.

What else, besides careening the Golden Hinde, occupied Drake and his men at New Albion? Fletcher says that they fraternized with the local natives who regarded them as "gods" and crowned Drake as one of their kings. The native dwellings were conical pit houses, with the entrance and exit through a smoke hole in the roof, (see Bawlf, p 321), similar to those of the Coast Salish Indians. Drake and his crew set up a portable blast furnace, as indicated in a tiny drawing on the Drake/Hondius map, to repair and refurbish their tools and weapons, as well as the melting of tar for caulking. Will Paulik discovered a quantity of old slag near the customs crossing and speculated that it just might have come from one of those portable furnaces. Fletcher also states that before departure, Drake claimed the whole area for the Queen and nailed a brass plaque to a tree bearing an inscription confirming this, as was his custom. The knowledge of this practice has led to exciting finds that have turned out to be deception.

One plausible find was north of San Francisco. That imposter seems to have arisen because Fletcher's diary and the other published accounts give 38.30 lat. -- just north of San Francisco-- for the careenage. However, according to Bawlf's ten degree "add-on" rule necessitated to correct Drake's stratagem of the "northern reach", 38.3o degrees becomes 48.30 degrees which happens to compare favorably to the northwest tip of the Olympic Peninsula. Bawlf calls this Drake's Point of Position because supply ships would round this cape in order to enter the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Bawlf affirms that here Drake took the latitudinal reading which established his navigational landmark for the future colony. This would apply regardless of whether, as Bawlf argues, New Albion was located at Comox Bay on the east coast of Vancouver Island-- not withstanding that the Drake/Hondius map shows a bay facing the southwest-- or as I (Warren Stevenson) maintain, at Boundary Bay which presents no such difficulty.

After locating New Albion at Comox Bay, Bawlf relocates the site of careenage to Whale Cove, Oregon, although estimates of Fletcher, John Drake and others maintain that careenage was done at New Albion. In an article on the Internet, Raymond Aker (3) analyzes the use of "The Anonymous Narrative" of Drake's major voyage to bolster Bawlf's claim for Whale Cove as the site of Drake's careenage. Aker asks why, after his exploration further north, should Drake have neglected better harbors en route to "settle for tiny, dangerous Whale Cove." (Aker p.4) Aker also disagrees with Bawlf's interpretation of a part of the deposition of John Drake, who, according to Bawlf, told the Spaniards that Drake named "the largest and best of the islands Nova Albion." (4) Aker continues: "What John actually said was 'Captain Drake gave the land, which lies in forty-eight degrees, the name of Nova Albion. (Aker, p.5 ; compare with Bawlf, pp 205-207, 224.) He did not say it was an island!"

Unmentioned by Bawlf is the fact that the Drake/Hondius map is confirmed and even enhanced with additional features by a map based on a freehand drawing that is reproduced in Robert Dudley's "Dell' Arcano del Mare," published in Florence (1647). Fig. 2 This map has its own handwritten inscriptions that may have been added by Dudley, including "La Punta" where present day Point Roberts is located and "B. (Baia=Bay?) Di Nova Albion" at the head of the bay, where the delta mudflats are now. To the east of the bay-- a stylized singular large mountain (Mount Baker?) in lieu of the large one flanked by smaller ones in the Drake/Hondius map, as well as two small rivers close to one another flowing westward into the bay (compare the Nickomekl and the Serpentine, both near Crescent Beach.) In the lower right hand corner is a projecting "C. de Nuova Albion", located approximately, where the present day Birch Cape is. Whoever drew this map, which Drake may have given Dudley before he left England for Italy, must have been aboard the Golden Hinde. My guess is that it must have been Francis Drake's young cousin, John Drake.

One may conclude that the location of New Albion on Vancouver Island is evidently a misinterpretation based on the misreading of John Drake's deposition. The deposition strengthens the case for establishing Boundary Bay as the site of both New Albion and the careenage of the Golden Hinde, as it is in more accord with the available evidence. The defense rests!

PORTUS PLAN "Portus Nova Albion"- Hondius

Robert Dudley's "Dell' Arcano del Mare," published in Florence (1647)

CURRENT AERIAL PHOTO OF POINT ROBERTS

Landsat image by Robert Stacey, WorldSat International Inc. - National Geographic, August 2004

Footnotes:
(1) Ralph Heading is the current head of the Pacific Coast Exploration Society also featured speaker at the April meeting of Point Roberts Historical Society.
(2) Francis Fletcher, Cambridge educated, served as Captain for the voyage, kept a written and illustrated diary of the voyage.
(3) Raymond Aker, Internet "Analysis of Samuel Bawlf's Secret Francis Drake Mission to Discover the Northwest Passage."
(4) John Drake, cousin of Sir Francis, was an accomplished artist and assistant mapmaker on the Great Voyage. He was taken prisoner on a later voyage and gave his deposition to the Inquisition in 1584-1587. Aker is relying on the official transcript of this, Bawlf is relying on a presumed later version by the Spanish historian, Antonio de Herrara, pub. 1606.

Ultrasound hell

2005-03-31T11:58:00.000-08:00

I have such a headache, and I'm so frustrated that I'm crying. Hormones I guess. I just feel like these receptionists think I'm stupid, and whiny. Here's the thing. I haven't had an ultrasound yet. They are typically given at 18 weeks, but I'm now 25 weeks. What happened was that my family practioner handed over my treatment to an ob/gyn so I could get one at around 22 weeks. Since the ob/gyn never saw me, they did the typical workup to make sure that I'm on schedule. I got the sonogram to hear the heartbeat, got my uterus measured, and checked my pee for protein and sugar irregularities. Normal stuff. I assumed they would set me up for an ultrasound and that's where I went wrong. I should never assume. Anyway, when I figured out that it was bad of me to assume things, I called the clinics receptionist, Iris, and asked her about the ultrasound. Tristan was really clingy that day and was mad that I was on the phone. He kept crying and trying to grab for the phone and I kept having to scold him and put him in time out until I told her that I would just call her back. I called back, but I was flustered and embarrassed about Tristan. Tristan's doctor in Wisconsin was Dr. Jenkins, so I associate the name Dr. Jenkins with America and with babies. Iris aked if I had asked Dr Jenkins if I was going to get an ultrasound. I was confused and explained to her that I haven't seen Dr. Jenkins since my first month so why would she order an ultrasound. See, I was confusing the new ob/gyn Dr. Jenkins with my old one from Bellingham in the states. I've seen 3 doctors already and really didn't get to know my first doctor. I haven't seen the Canadian Dr. Jenkins because she was on call the day I visited the clinic, so I had no idea that my new doctor was named Jenkins too. Anyway, we talked in circles with me getting frustrated that Iris wanted my old doctor from the United States to order an ultrasound, when she was talking about the Canadian doctor. ugh. Once I realized what was going on, we worked it out and she told me to talk to the Canadian Jenkins at my next appointment. I was embarrassed so I agreed to that.

Ben wasn't too happy with that response, and he was right not to be. He told me that Iris is the billing lady and she probably didn't know what the hell. He told me to call the doctors office and speak to someone else. I did that today. First, I left a message asking when I'd get an ultrasound, and guess who called me back - Iris. grrr. She's nice, but I didn't want to start at square one again. Iris went through the same thing about how I needed to talk to Canadian Jenkins at my appointment. I told Iris that I wanted to see if Jenkins had set up an appointment for an ultrasound. That's all. It seems simple to me to check the chart and see if I have an appointment with the ultrasound people or not. If I wasn't set up for an appointment, I wanted her to set one up for me. Big deal. Well, apparently it is. Iris told me to call the oncall pager since Jenkins was on call. I called that number which said "FOR EMERGENCIES ONLY" This is not an emergency. grr. The lady on that line acted annoyed that I called the emergency number for an appointment issue, and transferred me to the ultrasound office. The ultrasound people told me that I need to talk to the doctor, and that they are booked out for another three weeks. I was suppose to have my ultrasound at 18 weeks. If I wait another 3 weeks I'll be 30 weeks preggers. GRRR!! The whole time this is going on Tristan is screaming at me, "
I GOTTA GO POOP!!!!!"

I hang up, change Tristan, and call Iris again, because I was peeved that 3 weeks ago I called Iris about getting Jenkins to set up an appointment and now I have to wait another 3 weeks. Iris told me to call the oncall pager. Tristan starts screaming, "I GO POOP, AGAIN!!!" over and over and Bob pukes up an Easter egg right in front of me. Tristan then gets curious and goes over to the puke. I have to yell again, and pull tristan and Bob away from the puke, and start bawling on the phone that I just want to know if my baby is normal or has two heads with horns. I just want an ultrasound. Iris must think I'm mental. She took my name and told me that she will have Canadian Jenkins call me. This is all I wanted in the first place. I just want to know if I have an appointment or not, and if I don't, I want them to set one up. Now, I have a major headache.

Surly Little Bunny

2005-03-24T18:02:00.000-08:00

Despite worrying about having guests coming tomorrow, today was great. Normally, when I have guests coming, I go nuts with making sure everything is spic and span. I really didn't have much time today which was stressing me out a bit. Tristan was not feeling himself this morning, so I did a lot of cuddling. I gave Tristan a bath and he wasn't too happy with that, so we had to do some more cuddling. Finally, it was nap time, so I went to get some dishes, and cleaning done. I really wanted to wash the floors, but Jack showed up.

Jack is the adorable, six year-old that lives next door. He wants to be a fix-it man when he grows up because of all the work his parents did on their house, his grandmas house, and now he has a 'job' as a foreman for my neighbor Barbara who is building her dream house two lots down. He came over with his tool belt on and offered to fix our rotten stairs. It couldn't hold my fat preggers self, and I busted through it the other day. He had his tool box with a hammer and nails, and his little saw. It was pretty cute. I told him that we didn't have the lumber and he'd have to come back to help Ben later. He looked sad, so I told him that he could help put the rock garden back togethe, since Tristan took it apart yesterday hunting for worms and bugs.

Jack's mom Suzanne stopped by and told me about a Easter Egg Hunt at Light House Park. I really wanted to go, but I had a lot of housework to do, and Tristan was still sleeping. Then I had the idea to have Jack vacuum while I got some of my other chores done. I gave him a couple of toonies since he also helped a lot with the trees. We got everything done, and Jack's dad came to pick up Jack to head out to the Easter Egg Hunt. I decided that I'd go since it would be nice for Tristan.

I had to quick get out of my nasty housecleaning clothes and dress like a normal person, then got Tristan out of bed to head and changed to head to Light House Park. Tristan didn't want to go, and was crying because he wanted to hunt for worms instead. I had to force him in the car. I told him that it would be fun and that we'd see kids, and he just yelled "NO KIDS!" He's definitely going through a "no' phase.

Anyway, I rushed so fast that I forgot his Easter basket, and he was the only kid with a shopping bag to find eggs. Poor ghetto kid. ;) He was still surly when we got to the park and only wanted to play with the big kids. He wanted to climb up the ladder to go on the slide, but it was full of older kids who were rough housing like older kids do. I didn't want him to get hurt, so I made him come down and play with the toddlers. He got upset and had the biggest pout on his face. Don was trying to take pictures for the newspaper, and tried to get a shot of Tristan, but he just sat there like a bump on the log pouting, because his mom is a mean old nazi who won't let him hang with the big kids.

Then, Tristan decided he was too good for the little kids and wanted to go to the beach instead. I told him that we couldn't go to the beach and that we had to find eggs. He yelled, "NO EGGS! GO TO BEASCH! (beach)" I made him stay again by holding him until the egg hunt started. Suzanne yelled, "Go!" and all the kids ran for the eggs, and I dragged Tristan in there. He started poking around and picked up a few rocks. Then he got excited because he found a pine cone. I kept asking him if he wanted any eggs and he kept saying, NO EGGS! Then, he saw how excited all the other kids were to get eggs and he reluctantly picked up a few. Finally, he got a bit excited about the eggs, but by the time he got into it, most of the eggs were gone. He was really excited when he found out that there was candy inside.

We went back to the park and he ran around with the kids a bit. He climbed the slide which was kind of high, so I was a bit nervous. There were other little kids on the slide so I let him, and guarded the areas where he might fall. He had a blast once he finally got to go way up high like a big boy. He was squealing and peaking over the railing at the other kids below him like an alpha male baby. He went down the slide a few times while the nice guy who owns the dump read off the names of who won the contest.
Lots of names were called: Georgia, Eli, MyKala, ect. Most kids got a prize. Finally, they yelled out Tristan's name. Tristan was way up on the slide and I called up to him that he had to come down because he won a prize. He didn't want to come down, so he yelled, "NO PRIZE!!!" They called his name again wondering if he was still there. Finally, I gave up and yelled, "HE'S HERE, BUT HE WON'T COME DOWN FROM THE SLIDE!" Jack went up to retrieve the prize for Tristan. Turns out that the prize was the grand prize and I think it was a little anti-climatic for them to not have the actual child go down and get the grand prize. Tristan spoiled another photo-op. heh.

That's a stubborn two-year old for you. He's usually not this bad, but as I said earlier, he wasn't himself all day. He's been having stomach issues, and nose issues. The day ended with him handing me something. "Here bum," he said. I opened my hand and he drops something in it. I ask what it is and he got all excited and told me that it was a booger, and then tried to get another one. Yuck. Two-year olds are gross.

Lucy and Nathaniel

2005-03-23T10:41:00.000-08:00

I need to start thinking of what we are going to name this child. Ben and I were throwing names out months ago on a drive to Bellingham, but that was without any reference books. For some reason the name Lucy was brought up for a girls name. I liked it at the time, but I'm not so sure now. I don't know how many LUCY???!!! responses I've had and references to the Peanuts Gang. I was thinking that this kid wouldn't know anything about the Peanuts since I barely know anything about Elmer the Elephant, Howdy Doody, and other shows my parents grew up on. Nathaniel was brought up for a boy, but Ben doesn't like the name Nathan and is afraid kids would call Nathaniel, Nathan. I think we got the name Nathaniel from Six Feet Under.

The name Lucy has been coming up in a lot of bad ways lately. In this cop drama, Lucy was the 18 year old knocked up girl on crack. In this other show Lucy was the mom who 'abandonned her child'. I don't want to give my child a name of the stereotypical knocked up crack whore on tv. How horrible would that be. Isn't Lucy the vampire in a couple of vampire flicks too? Well, that's not as bad as a crack whore, but still. Plus, the name Lucy is a nickname. I HATE the name Lucille. Reminds me of that country song my dad used to listen to. "You took a fine time to leave me, LUCILLE." It also is a bit grandma-y. Lucilynn sounds kind of cute, but a little country too in that Billy Bob, Jimmy John, Loretta Lynn way. :/ Lucienne is a bit too French, but I kind of like it. Lucianne just doesn't look right. Hmmm. Maybe we should scrap the name Lucy. It's just odd how it keeps sticking like this child wants to be called Lucy. My mom already started saying "Little Lucy" It sounds kind of cute with Tristan too in that British way and I'd like to use the nickname Lulu since I love the 20s. Naming kids is too much stress.

The names are kind of boring for us. I'm kind of sick of all the crazy ass names out there, but then again with the response people have to the name Lucy, maybe we are the craziest assholes out there. Maybe people will say "Lucy? That's just mean. Why would they name their kid Lucy?"

Pause, Fast Forward and Rewind.

2005-03-21T14:35:00.000-08:00

I wish we had more time this weekend. We did have a nice time in Steveston before it rained, but it was brief. I took Ben to PaJo's. It's that fish and chips shop floating on the water that I showed pictures of before. Tristan loves Steveston. I think we might take Amy there this weekend if we have time since it's free, and fun at the same time. There's so much to do around Vancouver that is free. I love it.

It rained a lot this weekend, so we didn't do too much. The fence blew down twice because of the strong gusts coming from the ocean. Ben fixed that and cemented the floor in the bathroom so it's level enough to put a toilet in there. He did a lot of fix-it jobs this weekend which seemed to take up all the time. There's always something. heh. Today, the step in the backyard broke so we'll have to repair that too. We knew that it was rotten, but I was hoping it would last until summer.

We cleaned up the mess from the apple tree pruning job. It looks so much better now. Ben also got the old boards out from under the deck so it doesn't look like we have a bunch of garbage under there anymore. Today, I weeded some gardens and picked up poop. Wee! Tristan found worms, and bugs and chased the neighbor dog around before falling into the pond. This is the second time he's jumped in the pond, so I had to take him into the house as punishment. Hopefully, he'll learn.

I can't wait until Ben's crunch is over. He's going to take a vacation in April and we have to decide where to go. I was thinking that maybe we should check out the San Juans since Ben has been begging to go all year. It's up to Ben though. He's the one working so hard, and I could be happy anywhere from going to the islands, to renting a cottage in the mountains. We need this time off together. Everything feels like it's on fast forward lately.

Crying Over Bad Chinese Food

2005-03-18T20:05:00.000-08:00

Tristan and I were sick all day. Tristan had stomach problems and a runny nose, and I had a huge headache, stuffy nose, cough and general fatigue. It sucks being sick when you're pregnant because you have to just tough it out. They don't sell the anti-histamine that I can safely take when preggers. I've been a big ball of emotion because of it, and because Tristan was within five inches of me all day. I got NO space, and no time to unwind a bit. I did manage to get him to take a nap with me, but he spent the first hour trying to pick my nose and wiggling around since he wasn't as tired as I was.

I asked Ben to get me some Chinese food because I've been craving Cashew Chicken. I haven't had Chinese food in more than a year because Ben doesn't like exotic foods, so I was very happy to hear that I would be getting some. The restaurant didn't have Cashew Chicken, so I ordered Lemon Chicken. They also didn't have Chicken Fried Rice listed on their take-out menu which is about the only thing Ben likes, but he went with the chow mein. It took awhile to get the food, and then when Ben finally came home with it, they forgot my appetizer, and the Lemon chicken was just chicken. I almost started to cry. It was ridiculous. I was going to cry over bad Chinese food. Surely, it was the emotions of being pregnant and sick.

We live next to a huge Chinese community, and surely this is real Chinese food and not the Americanized version I'm used to in the states. Maybe Lemon chicken is suppose to be just regular chicken with lemons on top. The hell if I know. I know if they ate the Lemon Chicken dish with rice and yummy sauce that I'm used to they'd all weigh 900 pounds. I just REALLY wanted the Chinese food I was used to. I wanted Cashew chicken, or at the very least Lemon Chicken.

I didn't eat any of it. It was like chicken nuggets with sliced lemon. Bland-o-rama. Ben's chow mein looked too much like the worms, and with all the worm and bug hunting Tristan has me do, I couldn't bring myself to eat it. All I could picture was Tristan's fist full of twisting, wiggling worms. It was kind of like that moment in Lost Boys when the rice looks like maggots. Tell me Michael, how could a billion Chinese people be wrong?

I had to get out of there, and headed to the grocery store for the other items I was craving, caramel and Fruity Pebbles. All day, I had been thinking of Fruity Pebbles. I tried real fruit figuring that cravings are your body's way of telling you what nutrients you are missing. Well, that didn't work. I think that theory is bunk anyway, unless there is some crazy nutrient that's in Fruity Pebbles that I'm not aware of. My body sure doesn't need the sugar that is in Fruity Pebbles and caramel. I did pick up some other odd items in my hunger. I picked up Sparkling cider, root beer, and strawberry quik. Weird. The root beer wasn't exactly what I wanted either, and I almost started to cry again, because I wanted Sprecher root beer. Man, my hormones must be out of whack.

Oprah, Tivo and the Apocalypse

2005-03-17T13:34:00.000-08:00

I've been having very vivid dreams lately. They are so vivid that I want to keep "watching" so I'll make up excuses to stay in bed. Yesterday, I told Ben that it was my turn to sleep in. Every weekend I get a turn on Saturday to sleep in, and he sleeps in Sunday or vise versa. I turned Wednesday into Saturday just to continue my apocolypse dream with Oprah Winfrey in it because it was my subconcious mind found it that exciting. Ben was confused as to why I was demanding that it was my day to sleep in, but I think he understands now that I'm just wacky in the mornings.

I don't remember what was so good about the Oprah/apocalypse dream. I don't even remember the apocalypse stuff except that it was very Sodom and Gomorrah because I spent the day arguing with Dixie Pixie online about her reference to Sodom being destroyed because of the gays, which isn't very honest in my opinion. http://www.livejournal.com/community/right_left08/78417.html?thread=1369169#t1369169 . Anyway, this is where the biblical apocalypse stuff came in. I'm just saying the source, so you guys don't think I have psychic dreams or visions like Nostrodamus or some shit.

I do remember a few things from the apocolypse dream. We were the first people on the Point to get a Tivo machine that would rewind our lives. We were using our Tivo machine to go to Vancouver island for a night out without having to stay away from Tristan so long. The babysitter was shocked when we got back 20 minutes later, because you can't get to Vancouver Island that fast. The tivo machine was like a rocket ship and ran like one of those cars kids have that you pull back a few times and that revs up some motor that makes the car go by itself. Yeah... I didn't explain that very well. I'm not sure what those cars are called.

Oprah came into the picture because she was telling everyone about her Tivo life machine and how it was one of her favorite things. She had one that could tivo your life back 5 days, while ours only worked for a few hours. I was jealous of the audience that all recieved the 5 day tivo life machine. Stupid Oprah. Then, we all blew up for some reason, but I survived to see and somehow live in an apocolyptic wasteland.

Last night, I had another not terribly exciting dream about shopping and deconstructed clothing. I had loads of cash and there were such pretty things, but I was too pregnant to fit into anything, so I ended up buying Tristan some Hotwheel cities. Exciting stuff.

Cement Pig Legacy

2005-03-15T22:35:00.000-08:00

The cement pig arrived! The mailman almost had a hernia bringing it to my door and it cost $25 bucks to ship it, but it's here in one piece. This is the first time the pig left Wisconsin. Oh, I guess I should explain about the pig. My grandpa used to make cement molds for his garden by taking plastic lawn ornaments and filling them with cement. He made the pig out of a piggy bank. There were two pigs made, and in the eighties someone stole one of them off my grandma's porch. She filed a complaint with the police and was embarrassed when the newspaper came out the next day and the police blotter listed her name and address and how her pink cement pig was reported stolen at such and such a time. We had no leads, and the pig was never seen again.

When my grandma died, my family was pretty shook up. She was the matriarch of our family and we had a lot of great memories of her house, my grandpa's pranks, and my grandma's generosity. Family life revolved around my grandmas house, and we didn't want to let anything of that house go. Every little thing went to someone and was treasured. My grandma wasn't wealthy, so she didn't have diamonds, bonds, or expensive antiques to fight over. The valuable stuff she had was the stuff that held memories. The cement pig was one of those items because of the laughs it brought us over the years. Nobody wanted to claim the pig as there own. Maybe because it's a pink cement pig and nobody wanted to be tied down with it for the rest of their lives, but I doubt it. Everyone is excited every year when they open the mysterious extra present at Christmas. It's either the pink pig or the block of coal. This year I was the first grandchild to get the mysterious packaged marked To Jenny, Love Santa. I wasn't expecting it because the grandchildren never get the pig. Only the uncles, and my mom get the pig. They wanted me to take it to Canada and take pictures of it's journey. I can't wait. hehe. It'll be like a garden gnome voyage, only garden gnomes are a tad bit lighter than a heavy cement pig. ;)

I'm so glad I grew up with the family I did. It might sound hokey, but when I hear about wills and inheritances destroying family relationships and how some families just squabble over the possessions of their recently departed loved ones, I get very sad. I shouldn't get sad. I should feel blessed that my family was so worried about offending people and hogging a family relic that we pass around a crazy cement pig every Christmas. I think I'll make a new tradition and take pictures of the pig in my garden, and maybe photoshop the pig into my Vancouver and Whistler pics to show what we did that year. I'll make a little album and encourage other pig recipients to do the same with the year they get the pig. Next year, I think I'll pass it to my cousin Dan. He's getting married and surely they will need a cement pig the first year of their marraige to remind them to laugh every once in awhile.

Womping Willows and Rocking Toilets

2005-03-15T15:58:00.000-08:00

I just spent the last hour in a half sawing on the apple tree out front. This is the apple tree that the arborist told me to just cut down because it was so neglected and badly pruned. Ben's a tree lover and can't bear to cut down any tree, so I'm trying to thin it out. It does bear decent fruit, but the fruit gets spots and sores because the tree is so overgrown that the fruit gets damaged. At first I thought it was apple scab because I don't know jack shit about apple trees so any spot must be apple scab.

Anyway, I named part of this post "Whomping Willows" because the apple trees around here look like the whomping willow they had in the Harry Potter films. They are so wacky looking. My grandma never pruned her apple tree, but I'm guessing that the Wisconsin frost prevented it from growing out of control like they do around here. I'm imitating the job the arborist did on the back tree so all the tall branches are coming off and I'm taking out all the extra branches. There should only be one coming off each major branch. Yeah, that doesn't make sense. I should have listened better in botany to describe what I'm doing with the branches on my apple tree. I hope the thing doesn't die because of my major hack job on it, but then again it was already badly pruned and we were told to cut it down anyways.

Ben and I got in another fight last night. We just can get along when there are household projects we need to do. Ben put in the toilet all by himself the other day, and I was so proud of him. He scored major penis points for that one. He was pretty proud of himself too, but then the next day the toilet started to rock like a rocking chair. I told him about it and talked to my dad about what could be causing it. We both kind of knew it was because the previous owner of our house didn't install the floor properly under the toilet. The bathroom floor is this beautiful black granite slab, but Paul (previous owner) sloppily left a huge portion of the floor out under the toilet figuring that the nasty toilet he pulled from the trash would be covering it anyway. Well, the new toilet, doesn't have the same shape that the nasty 80's toilet has, so Paul's half-assed job is biting us in the butt. I told Ben to go to the hardware store and ask if they had any cement, or compound that we can put in the hole to level it out, but he decided last night that he'd pull a hack job too. He took the decorative tile sample we got for our kitchen and smashed it up and then puttied it together making a shim to keep the toilet from wobbling. He called me in there asking what I thought about how he fixed the toilet. I wiggled it and immediately it started rocking back and forth again. I looked at his fix and saw the tiles sticking out under the toilet and told him that he will need to go to the hardware store because that wouldn't do it. I guess I could have been more sensitive. He really thought he was clever with his tile idea, and I just got transported back to all the half-assed, hack jobs Ben has pulled over the years to fix things around the house. He's a software designer, not a carpenter. He got a little huffy and was mad that he'd have to take the toilet out. I took his anger as directed to me, like I was just a picky little bitch about every home project because I want it done right. (Common theme in our household). He kept trying to justify his logic, and I was getting madder and madder until I just left the room in frustration.

I don't know why we can't do house projects together. Every house project is a huge ordeal and fight because I AM picky and want it to be level, even, and done right, and Ben is more of a "good enough" type guy. I'm so much like my mom and Ben is so much like my dad. They squabble every time they do a job too. My dad will just lean trim against the wall for five years instead of nailing it, and that annoys the crap out of my mom. Ben reminds me of my dad in situations like that which I think magnifies my annoyance level and makes me all the more pissy because I hated the arguments between my mom and dad over household jobs and how my dad would never finish anything right.

So, now we have the kitchen floor to do. I know deep down that it would be wise to just do it ourselves and save a load of cash ($1,400) that it would cost us to get the floor guy on the Point to do it. It's not technically our money since it was from an insurance claim, but with the septic system's drainfield partially failing due to over saturation, and the $1,200 we have to give the Vancouver hospital for doctor bills, it would be prudent to just do it ourselves. I just HATE working with Ben. I know the tiles won't be evenly spaced or cut correctly, and I'll want him to redo it and he'll get mad because I'm too picky, and I'll get mad because he's not picky enough, and we'll have another war on our hand. Of course, it's not going to end up in divorce court or anything, but it will be a major headache. grr.

Yeah, I shouldn't be posting my arguments. I should censor that out, so every thinks Ben and I never fight. Fights are personal, but it's life. We made up. We're happy now, and I'm just examining on what went wrong, and if I just want to have the guy do it or suck it up and work with Ben.

Donuts and Dirt

2005-03-12T17:22:00.001-08:00

Tristan got me up at 6:30 am on a Saturday morning. grrr. We read the paper together while I drank some mint green tea and ate marmalade toast. I love sitting in front of that window reading the paper. Lots of sail boats were out on the Strait today, so it was amazing sitting there watching the boats from my dining room.

I woke Ben up at 9:00 and he decided he wanted coffee and donuts. He wanted me to join his weekend tradition with Tristan. I'm glad I did. Usually, I sleep in one day, and Ben sleeps in the next day on the weekend. On my day sleeping in, Ben usually takes Tristan to get a cup of coffee and a donut and then drives to the beach. We all got in the car and headed across the border to go to Canada to get a donut at Tim Hortons. Tim's was way too busy. Canadians are addicted to donuts or somthing. They are crazy about them. Do you know that Canadians have the most donut stores per capita? Crazy Canadians. ;) Since, Tim's was busy, we decided to just go to Safeway and get some Starbucks and grocery store donuts. Then, we drove back cross country. I was a bit concerned that the border patrol would confiscate our donuts. We all know how much cops like donuts. Border guards are sort of like cops, so I joked around that they would try to confiscate them. "Sorry m'am those donuts have egg products in them. We'll have to take those." They didn't take our donuts though, and we went to Lighthouse park and ate them while sitting on a huge peice of driftwood.

After the donuts, we went to the park there, and saw some very wealthy Indian family set up these massive brand new tents for their daughter's 15th birthday party. She's coming of age. It kind of reminded me of that god awful show on MTV called "My Sweet Sixteen". Crap. Did I just admit that I watched that show. I only saw 15 minutes of it. I swear. I really don't watch that crap. ;P They kind of looked concerned that we were going to crash the party, so we headed to the beach again, and found a nice sunny spot. We hunted for trabs (crabs), and then saw Buffy, Amy, and Branden walking with their friend who had her daughter Charisma with. Charisma is two, so Tristan was all excited to have another toddler around. He started showing off by showing Charisma how high he can jump, and showing her his trabs. She wasn't too impressed with the crabs. haha.

We decided to join them for lunch at the marina. I never ate there before. The food was pretty cheap and good. The kids played ring around the rosie on the dance floor area while we finished our food. Tristan yelled Asses Asses FALL DOWN! He meant ashes ashes, we all fall down, but yeah, he's just learning. They took off and we walked around the marina a bit, then went home to work on the front yard septic problem. Neilsen's Hardward dropped off another load of sand and we spread it out over the area. Then they came back an hour later with the top soil. We spent most of the day leveling it out and packing it down. Ben went to the store to buy some stakes and they didn't have any. While he was cutting stakes of his own out of some board, the neighbor dog Buster came over and stole the tape we were using for the makeshift fence (stakes and tape). Jack and Tessa were chasing this dog around trying to get the tape back. Buster thought it was the best thing in the world to have all these people chasing him. Jack finally got the tape, but Buster made it into a game of tug of war. We finally got the tape from Buster and Ben started putting up the fence. He put his staple gun down, and Buster ran up and grabbed it. Tessa and Jack started chasing after the dog again, but we had to stop them because it's kind of dangerous playing tug of war with a dog holding a staple gun.

So, we had a fun day. Ben has to work tonight because he has some major bug that he has to fix. He gets to work from home though which isn't as bad. Maybe I'll rent a suspense movie. Ben hates suspense murder movies.

Tina's Coma and Trabs.

2005-03-11T14:22:00.001-08:00

This week has been trying to get me down, but so far I'm still pretty happy. Tristan and I spent a lot of time at the beach searching for trabs (crabs). He loves turning over the rocks to see what he will find. We went with Brandon Tuesday and they found tons of crabs because the tide was going out. Of course, we only find the itty bitty crabs and hermit crabs (so cute) and not the huge crabs you cook on the grill. I was helping brandon pick up a rock to find some crabs and Tristan somehow found a pretty good sized crab about the size of his hand. That kid has no fear. He didn't get pinched or anything, but he scared the heck out of me. Brandon and Tristan were upset when I said that we had to put the crabs back because we had to head home. Tristan was bawling that he didn't want to put his crabs back until I suggested we make the crabs a nice house out of rocks. They got all excited and we made a little mound of rocks with a little cave and put the crabs in there. I was so proud of the way I handled the situation and thought I pulled one over on them. I didn't realize that Tristan had pulled one over on me. We got home and all of a sudden there was a crab running across the floor. Tristan is yelling TRABS, TRABS!!! and laughing like crazy. I thought it must have stuck to someone's pants, but we figured out that Tristan put some crabs in his pants pocket. Crazy kid. Now I have to check his pockets for crabs, worms, bugs and grubs. He's almost cartoonish at times.

Wednesday, we headed to Burlington to get the car fixed. I stopped at Crispy Creme because I'm craving pastry like crazy lately. Mmmm. Apple fritters and coffee are glorious together. I drank my allotted coffee consumption for the day in a park with Tristan. We got there kind of early and the men were on lunch, so I drove around a bit. I discovered a neighborhood development on a bluff with the worst name ever. It was called Tina's Coma. I was sure it had to be a typo, but it wasn't. Why the hell would you name an expensive housing development after a vegetative state due to head trauma. Odd. I'm sure it means something wonderful like Tina's Little Piece of Heaven, or Tina's Nirvana, but this is 'merca. In 'merca a coma is caused by a blow to the head.

Anyway, the fix-it guys finally came back from lunch, and Tristan and I sat in the waiting area reading Hot Rod magazines. Tristan had all of them out yelling, "Bum, look at this car." Oh bum, awesome." I tried to read People's best and worst dressed because I'm not really into Hot Rods, and Tristan got really annoyed with me and forced me to read Hot Rod. hah. We waited until they came back to tell us that they didn't have the part on hand and would have to order it, so we have to go back sometime next week.

I decided to spend the rest of the day at the mall in Bellingham. I got a magazine at Target and some Easter stuff. Tristan played in the Playland while I sat with my cart like a bag lady reading my magazine. It was fun. I felt social for once even though I didn't talk to any of the other parents. Just being out was nice.

I have been a bit more social this week. Buffy and I got together a few times to let the boys play. She watched Tristan while I went grocery shopping, and I watched Brandon while she worked late. It was nice. Tristan saw Brandon's bunny and then saw Buffy's neighbor land his helicopter in the backyard. Crazy. We call him Magnum P.I. We also got to see the other neighbors pet raccoons. He's the flooring guy that's going to do our tile work, and turns out he raised these raccoons since they were babies. He has a zoo quality pen for them, and is crazy about his raccoons. His wife let us come in to see the male raccoon, since the females were a little crabby because of Raccoon PMS. They let this raccoon sleep right on their bed like a dog. It was pretty cool. The point is such a quirky place sometimes.

So, even though our septic system is kaput and we might have to spend $5,000 on a new system, if this tempory fix we're trying doesn't work. The septic guy says that we might not need a new system if we put sand around the drain field that is over-saturated, and fix our toilet, and cut back on water usuage. We'll try installing a toilet this weekend and hopefully that will work. I really don't want to pay $5000 on a new septic system. ugh. I'm pretty okay about it though, considering the stress. The insurance company isn't going to cancel us anymore because we made such a stink. The hospital let us work it out with a decent payment plan and the insurance might work with us on paying our bill ahead of time, so it's looking good about giving birth in Vancouver. So, maybe this will work out too. Let's hope.

My frickin' pelvis is going to separate

2005-03-09T09:05:00.000-08:00

Ben and I got in another tiff on the phone again. He's really worried about the insurance company screwing us on the bill in Canada, even though it's approved already. I assumed from the start that we'd have to pay for the delivery upfront. We've been paying for the doctor's bills up front from the start and we have so many calls to this Denise lady at Regency that she must know our case by heart.

Anyway, Ben's been complaining left and right about how many hours he's been on the phone with these guys. He's only on the phone so much because he freaks out about every little thing. We already have it tape recorded that they will pay the bill. He called today on the way to work and brings up that maybe we should give birth in Bellingham again. I lost it. I'm scared to death about giving birth in Bellingham, plus if I switch now I'll have seen 4 doctors. I need to stay put and actually get to know the person who will be inches from my cooch during birth.
Giving birth in Bellingham would mean driving a half hour to the mainland on Canadian highways, two international borders and taking a highway for another hour to Bellingham. No frickin' way. I'm scared to death that I'll end up giving birth at customs or on the side of the highway. There aren't a whole lot of exits to take in parts of that highway, and I just want the safety of being surrounded by city, and having a couple local hospitals nearby like Ladner, or Richmond just in case we don't make it to Vancouver. Ben apparently didn't understand how freaked out I am about giving birth in Bellingham. He sees it as an hour trip instead of a 40 minute trip. He always underestimates how far it is to Bellingham. It's at least an hour in a half trip to the hospital. That's assuming that the Nexus lane is open and we can bypass the line to get into the country. Birth doesn't happen on a time clock. I can't just assume I'll be giving birth during Nexus hours.

Ben apologized, but I'm still worked up. I'm still a little scared of birth even though I did it once before. I have no one to watch Tristan, although I'm sure our neighbors would help out. I'll have to wait until Ben gets home from Vancouver after I call him if he's at work. What if we hit rush hour? ugh. I remember thinking Meriter was going to be a trip from the west side. I WISH I had that trip now.

When I told Caroline about my worries, she told me this crazy story about how her friend rode herself 5 miles to the hospital during labor on her bike. Her friend got to the hospital, and they told her that she wasn't in heavy labor, so she should go home and relax a bit. So, she drove her bike home, but ended up giving birth on the way. They didn't know she drove there on a bike. Obviously, I don't have the balls this lady does. Maybe I complain too much though. Maybe I'm just a big worry wart. I should repeat the mantra - Birth is natural. Birth is not a disease. Birth can be easy. AahHH!!!! MY frickin' pelvis is going to separate! I just want to be in a comfy bed when it does.

P.S. Note to all you vagina nazis, there are no midwives here. Midwives are at the hospital, and they will be helping me out.

2005-03-07T14:28:00.000-08:00

well, here's my first post on the new blog.

Ben and I had a great weekend after a not so great week. We got in a huge fight because he worked until 2 am one night on the game. I'm so sick of gaming crunch times. I just can't handle it anymore. We fought and fought, and I felt all pissy because we moved cross country to get away from these crazy hours. 5 monts of crunch is TOO much. Anyway, we hashed it out. Ben understands my point of view more, and I get his a bit better. All is well again, but I swear if he works another night like that I will march into his producer's office and scream my head off.

We got a babysitter Saturday, and went for some brunch and ran some errands. It was really nice doing errands without Tristan. Maybe we should do that more often. We ate at cute little cafe called Petra's which reminded me of Madison. Then we ventured over to three different hardware stores to find the one item that we needed - pond sealant.

Once we got home we worked a lot on the yard. I sawed down the diseased branches of the apple tree and discovered what was making it so sick. Someone had tied a wire around the trunk. Poor tree. I also trimmed up the weeping mulberries and the pear tree, but accidentally stepped on my croucoses. Poor little flowers. I still have a lot to do, but the yard is looking better.

Sunday, we ventured down to Blaine, so we wouldn't have to pay the levy on the CDRs we needed to buy for Phil and Mike's cds. Blaine isn't half bad of a drive, and at least they have Rite Aid and Costco, so we can get diapers and other things that are super expensive in our area. We decided to check out Birch Bay and just do a small day adventure with no concrete plans. I used to love just driving to some random town and checking it out. We found a public beach that was full of oyster shells, and watched an eagle hunt over the bay. It was so fun.

After Birch Bay, we decided to get Mexican food, since Vancouver is seriously lacking in good Mexican food. The place in Blaine looked like a dive, but it was pretty good. Ben ate enough to feed a small army, and I think he was feeling it for the rest of the night. We stopped at Rite Aid and picked up some flowers that they had on sale. I got a bunch of primroses that look like cartoon flowers and some pansies. We spent the rest of the night outside planting flowers in the planters and clearing out some weeds. It was productive, but fun.