Merry and Bright

Inspirational song: Better Things (The Kinks)

It took several more hours of work and some new parts, but the truck was able to make it home under its own power. I know our family has that whole epic history waltzing through almost every single possibility for auto mishaps, but it just isn't fun for me anymore. I don't want to serve as a warning for mothers to tell their children about anymore. "Take care of your cars or you will end up like the Smiths." How about letting someone else be the bad example for a while? The sad thing is, even if I had an extra forty or fifty thousand dollars to surprise the Mr with a new truck for Christmas, chances are he wouldn't like the one I picked, and he'd sell it and buy a thirty year old F-250 off of Craig's List with the proceeds (and use the excess to buy all the parts he'd need to fix it).

It was a lovely day on the front range today. It was just warm enough to be pleasant, but cool enough that the snow is still hanging around. It's still magical for me. I can't say that the pups are enjoying it as much as I am. My daughter finally convinced me to let her get a sweater for Elsa. She seems to like it, and if it helps her handle the cold better, then I'm okay with it. Besides, it's a pretty pink and gray number, and when she first put it on, she pranced around the back yard like a princess. If she does well, I might get one for Bump too. For Murray, perhaps a cape.

I got confirmation today that I will be interviewing on Wednesday with my first choice brokerage. I'm so excited I don't know what to do with myself. I hope this goes well. I haven't interviewed for a job in five, almost six years. I used to be pretty good at it. Like riding a bike, right? I'll let you know how it goes.

Kids Table

Inspirational song: Alice's Restaurant (Arlo Guthrie)

For the second time in four days, I find myself in a full-on, bloated-belly, carb-overload, turkey coma. We had folks over for a second Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat, and now the house is dark and quiet, and my aching feet are up, and all I want to do is sleep and digest. Several weeks ago, I bought a turkey, knowing that I'd be having my main holiday meal at my brother-in-law's house, but not being quite ready to abandon my own traditional cooking duties. I invited my daughter and some of her circle of friends over, as well as our neighbor who is closer to our kids' age than ours. There was an echo of the same dilemma we faced on Thursday, with my food issues, plus a peanut allergy and an onion allergy to work around, but overall the meal came out very close to my traditional memories of the occasion. And now I have all the leftovers I managed to avoid from round one. Turkey soup has already been started from the carcass of this bird, and I will be eating mashed potatoes and pie at least twice more in the upcoming days.

I expected this to be more of a group effort to put this meal together, but instead I had to drive the man back to Boulder to try to fix his truck (and fail), and I came back and did all of the cooking and cleaning alone. The house wasn't perfect, but the dinner was, and in the end, that was all that mattered. Luckily there was football on, and my wifi was behaving, so the early arrivals didn't mind when I snuck off right before dinner to have the shower I'd put off while I cooked and cleaned, and left them to their own entertainment. That man of mine had spent a solid four or five hours trying to sort out where the electrical failing was in his truck, in sub-freezing temps, in a public parking lot (in a 15 minute parking only zone), and I didn't have the heart to put him to work when he finally got here. Good thing the food was mostly cooked, and the only job he needed to do was the traditional manly turkey carving.

Since that first moment I sat at the table and took the weight off of my swollen ankles, I have been able to think of nothing but how badly my feet hurt. Why is it so necessary to have hard floors like tile in kitchens? It's awful on middle aged legs, having to stand on that crap for so many hours in a row. I suppose I'll just stop blogging right about here, rather than spend the next hour coming up with new and creative ways to say OW. That's all that's left in me for the night. That, and lots and lots of turkey and pie.

Glitches

Inspirational song: One Piece at a Time (Johnny Cash)

I'm getting a little tired of mechanical objects that don't work as advertised. Sure, some of these things have been with me a while, and to put it bluntly, they've had the shit beat out of them. In a household like mine, I should probably be amazed that I only have to replace my vacuum cleaners every seven or eight years. I'm looking at buying a new one in the next week, and I'm at least a year past due for it. I don't really want to do the research like I did for the last one. I just want something that works, right out of the box, and I don't want to regret my purchase. Will I be so lucky?

One time in our lives, Mr Smith-Park had a brand new truck, complete with a warranty. He never seemed comfortable with it, and when we had to replace my car, he jumped at the chance to sell it and swap it out with a series of unfortunate used car purchases. I swear he was happier when he had old junkers to complain about and absorb all of his free time to fix. He currently has three vehicles, the youngest of which was still manufactured in the last century. One hasn't driven under its own power since we got it nine years ago, and I kid you not, it had no seats at the time it was humanly steered on roads last. I towed it from storage at a coworker's house to our place in New Mexico with the Mr standing in the Jeep, looking over the top of the windshield (top was off), like he was steering an Egyptian war chariot. He got a tow bar for every move since. The 4Runner (my arch nemesis) is only three years younger than the Jeep, and it mostly runs...badly. The Ram is his workhorse truck, the daily driver that was supposed to be reliable. Yet it has been through three transmissions since we got it, and every time he fixes one thing on it, somethings else catastrophic happens to it. It's currently sitting in a parking lot in Boulder, where he stopped for a coffee on the way back from his mountain, where it decided it didn't need to start up again. After trying to fix it in the bitter cold, he gave up and came home with me, and we have to hope that it doesn't get towed before we can get back to fix it in the daylight.

I'm still trying to get a little temperature boost out of that tank heater we bought for Agnes. It has taken a full day for the gauge to read two degrees higher. So it is helping a little, but that doesn't seem like enough. I am tempted to put a second one on it. That seems more energy efficient than our other option of increasing the wattage in her lamp. We both think that would just waste heat going up where it does her no good. Again, I am astounded how much of an investment it is to take care of a free pet. And people back in the Low Country consider them more pests than pets. 

Hideaway

Inspirational song: Cache Cache (The Who)

I spend an awful lot of time each day playing Where's Waldo with a professional hide and seeker. I don't know how well Agnes is doing, whether she is eating enough to thrive. But she is active and mobile, always hiding in a new spot, which gives me hope. Her terrarium moved again today, so that we could get her to a place where we could attach a stick-on heater for her. It's possible her lack of visible interest in food was from insufficient heat for a creature used to much warmer climes. I had no idea that a lizard would be such a difficult, finicky pet. I want to do this well, and I can't say yet that I am doing it right.

While we were trying to warm up the inside of the lizard enclosure, we took the dogs to go run in the snow and cold. It was around twenty degrees outside when we set out for the dog park, but that didn't seem to slow them down a bit. But if we are going to make this a habit on days like this, a certain girl dog is going to need a coat. My daughter tried to convince me to buy one a couple weeks ago, and now I have to admit she was right.

We successfully hid from yet another Black Friday exercise. The only money we spent all day was on peppermint mochas. No one in our family is expecting us to shower them with cheap imported gifts in a month, so it was entirely unnecessary. Our gift giving has scaled back a lot over the years. Some years the only things we want are experiences. I am not sure what the exchanges will be like this year (although I have an inkling what I would like to find for my brother), but I can guarantee what it won't look like. The one and only shopping tradition I would like to revive this year (after missing it last year) is to find an angel tree. I do enjoy buying classic games and toddler clothes for strangers I'll never see. Just not on crazy crowded shopping days.

Above Average

Inspirational song: Hope for the Future (Marillion)

My husband's family has developed a really cute tradition in the digital age. Before big gatherings, like the one today that included two dozen family members (if my memory serves), as soon as the basic potluck plans are made, the smack-talking begins. There are threats of unusual foods, insults regarding culinary skills, bad puns, and general buffoonery. This year Mr S-P and one of our nephews were about to throw down a cooking competition, for the weirdest camping stove creation that family judges would be willing to sample, until calmer heads prevailed and they called it off at last night's basketball game. The email chains with all of this banter and nonsense end up hundreds of posts long. Even during the years when we were on the other side of the country, with no chance of us flying back, we still participated in the smack talking, still enjoyed the heck out of watching everyone try to one up each other. The family is exceedingly clever, and all afternoon today we were continuously reminded of that. I kept thinking of Garrison Keillor's line from all the stories of Lake Wobegon: "All the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average." When the cousins were little, one of my daughters said having them all in one room felt like the overachievers Olympics. Someone was always about to compete in some academic or extracurricular competition of some sort, usually at a state or national level, and here were my kids, moving school to school every few years, often living in places that had little to offer transient student populations. Now all the kids are grown, and they've gone from ambitious students to interesting and entertaining adults. We have all settled into ourselves, and family Thanksgivings are a bit looser than they used to be. I wonder whether that's the influence of the kids. It feels like it is. All those cute, smart kids have been good for us. Who knew? (TBH, we all did.)

I don't know how I managed it, but I went all day without my phone. I ran out of the house without grabbing it off the charger, and since we were late to dinner, I couldn't turn around and retrieve it. I needed other people to take my photographs for me. I gave no instructions, other than asking both the man and our daughter to send me some, and I find it interesting how the same photos out the same window on the same day were dramatically different between my two surrogates. Plus, I got a few interior shots from the Mr. So here they are, unedited and in their entirety. 

Happy Endings

Inspirational song: Pseudo Silk Kimono (Marillion)

How is it already so close to midnight? For a day that started out rough, with an upset stomach and no will to survive, it ended with a smooth finish like a really nice liqueur. I just put on my favorite album of all time, the one that makes my entire body relax like nothing else can, not even prescription painkillers, and I'm letting this terrific day slip away into a holiday weekend. Thanks for the memories, November 25th.

I had forgotten one of our favorite words. When we were kids (that means in our twenties), we had a term for things that Mr S-P created, constructed, designed, or rigged to work: "Glengineering." It was meant to tease, as we always communicated at a third-grade level back then, but over the years, it turned out those things that were Glengineered were actually quite solid and functional. Today we spent hours in the garage, working on a project that showed to us just how far his skills have progressed. I will be intentionally vague, lest the self-appointed Safety Officer of our family get on our case about what we did, but suffice it to say that I was impressed by Mr Man's ingenuity. And it was halfway through the strenuous, and possibly dangerous process that I remembered how Glengineering used to be an insult. Not so much anymore.

Yesterday while we were at dinner, celebrating my victory over the test, I checked the college basketball schedule, and learned that our alma mater was playing a home game tonight. I suggested getting tickets, but put it out of my mind completely by the time we left the restaurant. This morning, the man took my hand, flipped it palm side up, and dropped two tickets to the basketball game into it. I was all prepared to give him full credit, when he confessed that our neighbor, who went to CSU rather than CU, had them and didn't want to go, and gave them up to us. I was still thrilled that the man said yes, he'd give up an evening when he could be tinkering in the garage to go watch sports with me. It wasn't too much of a hardship, since basketball games are short and it's one of the sports our Buffs were likely to win. Also, Mr S-P's brother was there with his entire family, so we had a chance to chat and catch up before the big dinner tomorrow. It was an alumni band night too, but apparently the invitation to that only went out to recent members of the basketball pep band. Oh well. I had things I needed to do this week besides blow my lips out playing piccolo again. Also, the Buffs won. So there's that.

It was misting when we left, not quite rain, not quite ice, not quite snow. We drove through Boulder, finding loads of places where Christmas lights are already up. The big star on the Flatirons is already lit, trees in Central Park downtown were wrapped in lights (and we wandered through for pictures), the Pearl Street Mall was fully decorated, big lights colored the Courthouse, and trees all over town were covered in fairy lights. I smiled and giggled like a child, while Mr S-P swore dozens of baby reindeer died horrible deaths every time someone put up lights before it was even Thanksgiving. He can be grumpy all he wants. I'm finally back in a cold weather state where people get serious about lights, putting them up in November and leaving them on through early January (I'm guessing through Epiphany?). It was odd to me, that living down in the Bible Belt, very few people decorated the outside of their homes for Christmas, and the lights were off by the evening of the 25th. I keep telling the Man, Sunday after Thanksgiving is my day. I want a tree and the first preliminary lights up by then. And this year, there will be plenty of snow on the ground to get me in the mood. Fa-la-la!

Flying Colors

Inspirational song: Hope for the Future (Marillion)

Who's a test-taking champ? This girl!

I paid attention for ten weeks in class, I did all of my homework without fail, I took practice tests, and I read dry state-published manuals even when they were the best sleep aids in existence. And then I got sick and spent two days in bed or lying about the house under blankets, unable to focus on study while my head was pounding and a fever faded in and out. I read almost nothing yesterday, but I wasn't worried. I had an excellent instructor who had prepared me well, and I knew my material.

This morning I got up early, not knowing what morning traffic would be like in downtown Fort Collins, and I padded my commute by about 30 minutes. I arrived with plenty of time, and was able to relax and chat with other soon-to-be real estate agents in the waiting room. The testing room was warm, as happens with that many desktop computers churning away in a small space, and it was noisy with fans and clicking sounds. I was offered foam earplugs, but that would have been physically uncomfortable for me, so I passed on them. As it was, the fever and headache were still on my periphery, and their intensity increased as the test went on. I had the opportunity to stretch my legs and take a break up to the half hour I had left available between the national broker exam and the state version, but I was already feeling so crappy by that point, I just pressed on so I could be home that much sooner. I didn't get to see the score for the first part until I was done with both sections, which was fine with me. There was very little math on my version of the test (the questions are somewhat randomized, so my classmates may not have the same experience), but a lot more on the ins and outs of the contracts than I was ready for. I found myself facing a choice of two equally likely answers more often than I cared for, knowing I just had to guess.

But apparently I am a really good guesser. Out of 80 questions on the national exam, I missed 3, and out of 74 on the state exam, I missed 5. That came out to roughly 96 and 93% respectively. I had a chance to speak with my instructor this evening, and he asked whether I bared passed or passed with flying colors. When I told him my scores, he said that counted as flying colors, and he didn't seem surprised that I had managed it. That made me happy, even as my stomach bug was still keeping me from actually jumping for joy.

So from here I still have many steps to go to be an active agent. I'm waiting for my background check through the CBI, and I need to find an employing broker willing to take me on. I have a plan of action underway in that regard, but I won't talk about that now and jinx it. For now, I'm going to relax and enjoy the holiday this week, and worry about employment once December rolls around.

Woohoo!

Chill

Inspirational song: A Spoonful of Sugar (Mary Poppins)

The test is in exactly nine hours from the moment I start to write. After being sick for two days, and spending today sleeping and lying about in my jammies rather than studying, I am oddly calm. I believe in my heart that my instructor was good at his job, and he prepared me well for the exam. I will most likely miss a handful of questions I ought to know, and I'll have a one in four chance of getting the right answer on some I just never studied. But I'm confident that I will do well, getting enough to pass the test. And if I don't, I set myself up well for a retake. I have plenty of time to take it again before January first, when all of the new financing laws and closing procedures go into effect and the test changes. I got this. And if it turns out I don't, I have time to get it. I'm chill.

Speaking of chill, while I sat in my basement watching Comedy Central and coloring in my design books, it appears to have dusted a little bit of snow outside. I'm still new enough at this to be thrilled with it. It's supposed to snow some on Thanksgiving day, but I haven't heard threats of a new snowpocalypse yet. I do kind of want one really good deep snow to play in this year, just because it has been so long for me.

There is no reason whatsoever for tonight's song. It's literally the first thing that popped into my head as I climbed the stairs. I think I've officially lost my mind.

Tomorrow's a big day, for me and for other members of the Smith Park West household. Watch this space, and think happy thoughts for us.

Overload

Inspirational song: The No-No Song (Hoyt Axton)

Ow. Ow, ow, ow. I don't know whether it's nerves, a bug, or something I ate yesterday or the day before. My stomach is cramped, I'm experiencing distress (you don't need to know more), and my mind is not receiving any more new information. I'm done studying for the day, and I'm caught up on Walking Dead but still two weeks behind on Dr Who. I have to turn off the television and drag my unhappy butt to bed. I really hope this plays itself out before Tuesday, else that test is going to be an extra unpleasant experience.

I've been saving a few cute animal pictures for a night like this when I just couldn't compose anything of significance. Rabbit will speak for me. Good night, all.

It Means No Worries

Inspirational song: Circle of Life (The Lion King)

The most elaborate set of costumes we ever made, back in the days when we had a costume design company, was for a Boulder Ballet production of The Carnival of the Animals. At the time, we felt so professional and artistic, thinking we were really being abstract and creative with our animals--the little birds with their hand-painted chiffon wings, the swan with her feathered chest plate (she was a bit of a prima donna who freaked out at a somewhat plain white lycra costume, swearing that people could nearly see her nipples through two layers of fabric, which would be unacceptable, so we gave her feathered armor). I spent hours hand-knotting yarn for a gorgeous lion's mane, and when he spun on stage, and his mane poufed out and his tail whipped around, I was so happy to have made that wonderful outfit. I loved putting that collection together.

Today I admitted to myself how primitive we really were. We went with a large group of friends (enough to fill two theatre boxes) to see the touring company of the Lion King, and in all seriousness, the costumes are the stars of that show. It made me feel like I was holding up a crayon drawing next to a Rembrandt, even remembering my lion that I had loved so much. The show was great, the dancing wonderful, and the singing angelic. But the costumes made this musical what it is. The story, sure, is as compelling as always, but it was like a karaoke of the movie, to be honest. The actor who played Scar made sure he sounded as much like Jeremy Irons as he could, and the actor/puppeteer who played Zazu mimicked Rowan Atkinson down to every syllable and squawk. The only real changes to the vocal performances were that they let the children playing Simba and Nala use their own voices and accents, and Rafiki was played by and staged as a woman.

But those costumes, though. I can't stop thinking about them. And I want so much to try and walk on the giraffe stilts. Me, so desperately afraid of heights that I can barely get up on a step stool, and I want to be on stilts on all fours. Or at least jumping around with some of the big, flowing, silky fabrics that made up the water and the sky. I feel a new design project coming on. Must resist, and wait until next year.

The Cold, Hard Ground

Inspirational song: It's Too Late (Carole King)

It was a Park maintenance day, and a study day, and not much else. We realized that we had left all those flower bulbs we bought recently in the dining room, near the heat register, and they were in danger of sprouting before they were planted. The real cold weather was bearing down on us, and we were running out of time to dig before the ground froze. We also had two trees who needed permanent homes, so we layered up and went outside to stab the ground with shovels. The front yard now sports a dormant cherry tree, a teeny-tiny spruce tree, and a random smattering of daffodils, hyacinths, tulips, and crocus. I promised the spruce that I would leave it alone this year to get settled, but next year it is totally fair game for Christmas lights. 

I made it through almost half of the four bags of flower bulbs before I was completely over digging in the sticky, wet soil. I came inside to study, and spent the next seven hours trying to apply myself to practice exams online. I'm still stuck right around 88-89%, but you know what? That's a passing grade. I need to apply myself to studying regulations, commission positions, and fines still. I'm great at theory, but since I don't plan on cheating -ever-, I am having a hard time remembering how big the fines are for which transgressions.

While I sat, test taking, next to the front window, the fifty square foot single pane of glass started to fog over and sweat into the living room. I couldn't see outside to know what was happening until after full dark, when I got up to peek. Finally, after all of my whining, I got the snow I've been demanding. When last I looked there were between two and three solid inches of snow on my cars and lawn. So I'm doubly glad we pushed ourselves to plant today. Another few hours and it would have been too late.

All Grown Up

Inspirational song: She's Always a Woman (Billy Joel)

On this day, some undisclosed number of years ago (more than a few, fewer than a lot), my life took a dramatic shift, and my world changed forever. A very young me became the mother of an even younger version of myself - also an opinionated, passionate, strong, and vibrant version of myself. It was Me 2.0: tougher, smarter, louder, braver. Any early fantasies I had about this petite flower being a little princess were expelled early on. While not precisely a tomboy, my little miracle always managed to look like she had been dragged through a bush backwards. She told me quite emphatically that I was to give up on the idea of her ever becoming a lady. And now that she is a woman, I realize that she was right, and not to her own detriment. Being a lady would have been too quiet for her. Instead, she is a champion for the voiceless, a fighter for what is just. She knows instinctively the difference between right and wrong, without relying on dogma or authority to tell her first. She makes me proud to have been the one to set her on the path she ran down without waiting to see whether I can keep up.

She was ready to be on her own almost ten years ago, but we weren't ready to let her loose on the world until she left for college. Not surprisingly, the days I like best are the ones when she calls and we end up talking for hours, until both our phone batteries are dead and my voice is tired. She still makes a few mistakes, but chalk that up to inexperience. She learns as she goes, and she gets better every day. When she was little, she used to tell us her life goals were to complete high school and then save the world. One goal down, and one in progress. She also said once that she ought to have a backup plan, like cosmetology, if she didn't make it as a scientist. Lucky for her, she is a professional in her main field, and only a skilled amateur in her backup.

I wish I hadn't let the month of November slip past me so quickly, but I was self-absorbed in training for my new career. I didn't prepare much in the way of a material gift. But I think she knows that even if nothing came in the mail today, she was in my thoughts all day, and occasionally on my Messenger app. I was inwardly celebrating the anniversary of one of the bests days of my life, even if outwardly I was stuck doing schoolwork. Happy birthday, Junior. I'm so glad you are around.

Gusty Winds

Inspirational song: Roll Me Away (Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band)

It is amazing the things that you forget when you move often. I spent four years in sultry South Carolina, and I totally forgot that winters out west mean biting cold winds and tumbleweeds. Today was the first real high wind day I'd experienced since we left eastern New Mexico years ago, and as we drove out of town, I was startled by my first sight of a tumbleweed darting in front of the truck. It was quickly followed by several more as we drove south into the western Denver suburbs, and there were thousands more stuck in barbed wire fences all along our route. A few years back, there was such a buildup of them in the New Mexico town we'd left, that we saw photos on national news sites of people's houses completely blocked by walls of them as high as the eaves over their doors. I hope that this year's wet spring doesn't mean we'll see that sort of thing up here this winter.

The winds were so bad, an old friend of mine in Boulder narrowly missed having his car crushed by a streetlight that blew over and crashed into the street. His car was parked on the street, and he came out to find it blocked off by caution tape, with the pole on the ground pointing towards his trunk, and the light assembly smashed about four feet behind his car. I'm glad for all involved that there was no property damage, or worse, personal injury.

After spending all day out and about, I struggled to refocus on my studies. I finally found the state-specific information I should have started reading weeks ago, and now I feel dreadfully far behind the power curve. The exam date I paid for is six days away now, and I gave away six or eight good studying hours to go play in the wind. I'll go up for the study session with my classmates tomorrow, and hope that I can cram in all the info for the Colorado test before I need to head up that way. My dreams of blowing away the exam first time through are feeling pretty pie in the sky right about now.

Accidentally Agnes

Inspirational song: Suddenly Seymour (Little Shop of Horrors)

My weary world traveler returned mid-day yesterday, about an hour before I headed up to take my final exam. He had spent the prior week back in South Carolina, to reassemble and paint (with all rhino liner type paint) his Jeep and retrieve the last of our belongings that had been stored at Bonfire Gardens, which were sold as of yesterday. When we ran out of space in our crazy animal truck this summer, we abandoned a large collection of plants and stuff to Bonfire Gardens, with the assumption that they would be there for several more years, and all would continue to chug along just as it has for four years. Things change, and old assumptions fall by the wayside. So now we have things back in our possession, like our rototiller and lawn mower and most of the plants we bequeathed our friends. Mr S-P was bringing in the plants from the truck right as it started with the chilly rain yesterday, and he made a startling discovery. He did not travel here alone.

He picked up a large philodendron, and his stowaway passenger leapt from its leaves and hit the pavement. It tried to run into the street, and then turned tail and hid under the truck. It was captured and brought inside clutched in the man's cupped hands. A tiny anole lizard made the harrowing journey across the country, hiding tucked away in the philodendron at all the hotel stops overnight. It's a good thing it never got too cold along the way. I ran and emptied out one of the big plastic storage bins that we never emptied of canned food when we moved here, and we dumped the lizard and a smallish plant inside, and locked the lid. The bin had at least 8 gallons of space inside, so we weren't too worried about the little thing suffocating. We were more concerned about what to do to keep it alive until we had a more permanent setup.

Today I went and got my daughter's unused large fishtank, and then I went by the pet stores (2) to get a metal screen for the top, a heat lamp, some moss, and a temperature gauge. The Mr had already gone out for live mealworms. Gosh, I'm so glad to have those in my house. Jackie has discovered the lizard, and gotten very excited that her favorite snack food is now available west of the Mississippi. She will be very disappointed when she learns she's not going to get to eat it.

I'm leaning towards believing that it is a female lizard, because I have seen no sign of the big pink neck flap that males have. Thus we have Accidental Agnes the Adventurous Anole Lizard. The nature park is growing again.