break out the broom

Lexi and I have been cleaning a local pregnancy resource center for a handful of months now. We make sure the glass coffee table tops are smudge-free (I am convinced that it was either a male or a childless woman who thought glass would make a nice coffee table top...). We empty the garbage, mop, vacuum, clean the bathrooms - the normal routine.

And we enjoy walking away with the place looking ship-shape.

Yesterday after cleaning the center, I put up a broom in the Electrical/Supplies/Leftover Computers/And Extra Fake Christmas Trees Closet.

(Not extra-fake as in super-de-duperly fake, but instead as in "we have way too many plastic green bushes that come with non-removable psychedelic lights on them.")

And then I looked at the floor of the aforementioned closet.
My heart leapt into my throat.

THE CLEANING CLOSET HAD NOT BEEN CLEANED.

There was glitter and tinsel, dead bugs and even a tiny deceased gecko on the floor. And then there were a million pieces of thin, green plastic from those extra fake Christmas trees.

How had I missed this? I come in and out of this closet every week to get mops and brooms, vacuum cleaners and sponges. And yet I had never cleaned it before.

Had I unconsciously assumed that simply storing the cleaning supplies in there would somehow magically clean it? ("A vacuum cleaner, a broom, and three mops walk into a closet, and the vacuum cleaner says to the broom...")

I was flabbergasted and embarrassed. I picked up the broom and started to deal with the mess. I hadn't swept up much more than the gecko when my brain started to sort through my Mental Stack of Unusual, but True Analogies for Any Occasion.

I had gotten so caught up in making sure that the public face of the center looked good that I had allowed the unseen inside to go to shambles (okay, not quite "shambles," but that little gecko definitely added at least 103 points to the Official Dirt Level).

And - of course - there was the unavoidable, ironic fact that the I had missed cleaning the area which held the highest concentration of cleaning supplies.

And this all reminded me of a post I wrote this fall. Cleaning Closets aren't the only things I neglect to clean.

Thankfully, there are brooms that sweep up geckos, and then there are brooms that do a whole lot more.

en garde

I have this unofficial title in my house. I have a couple of them, actually. But the only one that has any bearing on this post is the title of "Unofficially Official eBay/Amazon Purchaser for Individuals Under 18."

You send me the link, show me the cash, and I will forward you the receipt.

I buy dresses and jewelry, silver and Ukulele song books. It keeps my life interesting.
It is pretty easy, pretty low key.

Until these silly Natural Wooden Bokken - Tai Chi Practice Swords came into my life.
(Yes, Griff, I called them silly.)

I bought them for Griffin off of eBay right after New Year. They shipped on the 4th. And then they slipped into that expansive Home for Orphaned Thoughts, Plans, and Ideas in the back of my mind.

They didn't come.
And didn't come.

And the seller didn't give us a tracking number.

They didn't come.
And didn't come.

We kept giving the seller/shipper the benefit of the doubt.
"Perhaps, it shipped USPS."
"Yeah, in that case, we should give it a couple more days..."

So, twenty-two days later the rubber hit the road.

Seriously, does this seller live in New Zealand? Perhaps, the USPS is taking the phrase "snail-mail" literally now? GraCIOUS.

I contacted the buyer.
He sends me the UPS tracking number.

UPS? Oh, dear, yes, if it was shipped UPS we have a problem. UPS could have shipped half of the world's population of Oompa Loompas to India in the past twenty-two days with ease. Shipping two wooden swords from California to Texas does not take twenty-two days. Even if you stop by Vancouver to check out the Olympic Village first.

I pulled up the tracking number.

Oh, yes.

These two swords have been out of California, into Texas, out of Texas, and then back to California.

They arrived locally twelve days ago. They shuffled around to some surrounding towns. Apparently, the seller didn't put my complete address on the box.

Then the box was sent along to Mesquite, Texas. They tried to contact the buyer there.

Why they took the box from twenty-five miles from my house to Mesquite which is three hundred miles away, I am not sure. Mayhap that is secretly the Land of Lost Boxes.

UPS then said that the buyer had moved from Mesquite.
(Really? Too bad I don't remember moving there in the first place...)

And then they shipped them back to California.

AND it appears that the seller received them back in California four days ago.

Perhaps, it is just me, but I feel like if I received a package of wooden swords which looked just like ones I had mailed off three weeks ago I might be a little suspicious that something had gone awry.

But then maybe I am being picky. Perhaps, I shouldn't complain. He does have the upper hand right now. Or at least two more swords than I do.

and now for a blast from the past

I'm still writing "2008" every time I write down the date.

This doesn't bode well for the future.

flakey isn't always fakey

I wanted some hot chocolate tonight. But we didn't have any milk.

And I don't really dig the hot water hot chocolate route. Have you really thought about that mixture? Would you ever make chocolate milk with water? My point exactly.

I rustled around in the pantry, and eventually emerged triumphantly with the box of Non-Fat Dry Milk.

I am a Strange Food Skeptic. If it doesn't sound right, then it probably isn't natural.

Dry milk? How is that actually possible? Milk is wet. It was akin to the weatherman saying, "And today we have isolated showers of dry rain." Yes, dry rain, my favorite!!

Yeah, right.

I tore open a packet and had my suspicions confirmed. Not only was it dry and flakey, but it smelled like that dreaded Astronaut Ice Cream. As a kid, I admired astronauts until I saw their version of ice cream. After that I never believed in them again.

I mixed water with the white stuff that milk would look like if God had made it a solid, apparently.

I laughed because the mixture reminded me of an incident from The Man Who was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton:

"As you also know, his death was as self-denying as his life, for he died through his faith in a hygienic mixture of chalk and water as a substitute for milk, which beverage he regarded as barbaric, and as involving cruelty to the cow."

(There is nothing quite like being reminded of book about anarchists while mixing up hot chocolate.)

As I stirred it up, I had only one coherent thought: "This is NOT natural. It looks like MILK now."

What?! Where do these things come from?! Why do we have stuff like this and yet still don't have flying cars, or teleportation?

I mean this stuff is just like the real deal.

It even boils over in the microwave like normal milk does. Take my word for it.

or in my purse

Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely about the things in my pocket. But I found it would be too long; and the age of the great epics is past. - G.K. Chesterton

let's see

Am I the only person who puts on her glasses in the dark and expects the lights to come on?

On a Crusade for LOVE. Sorta of.

I am on a crusade now days. I bought some banners at Party City, and picked up some panhandlers to serve as my squires. We are en route to retake something that might be lost forever. We might fail. And if we fail it will probably be epically. Want to join us?

We are retaking the word 'love.'

Yes, love. Sounds like fun? You would love to join us?

Oh. You just disqualified yourself. You can't love to join us, and still join us. You are ineligible due to frivolous and incorrect use of the word love. You just killed the cause. You poured water on my fire, which I started with my very last match.

You would love to join us. You probably also love waterfalls, warm mittens, Facebook, your hamster, Luby's, and your mom.

How can the same word be applied to some like new shoes or hot cheese dip and then be applied to a lifelong relationship or something of such depth and width that if it were actually cheese dip you would drown in it.

Because the word has been ruined. (I am partially blaming this ordeal on McDonald's... do, do, do, do, I 'm lovin' it! Seriously, lovin' it? How about stomachin' it? Thanks, freaky dude with red hair.)

The other partial bit of blame I'm laying at my own feet. Not that I am in anyway the sole source of this issue, but I am one of a million who are. I use the word love a lot. And actually... if this weren't the post this is, and if I weren't the new person I am, then I would probably say: I love to use the word love.

Flipping through the blog archives of mine I have realized that I have loved...
... movies made by cousins...
... musicals...
... driving in the country near sunrise or sunset...
... my dad's truck...
... reading the book before watching the movie.

And that might not seem like a lot to love... but the use of the word love has become a recent phenomenon for me. It has become a beautifully flexible word to describe any positive emotion I might feel.

Instead of preferring to read the book before the movie, I now LOVE to read the book before the movie. I also love my family.

Uhhhhh.

Something doesn't equate.

And that is why I am crusading. I am marching forth to return the word love to its rightful place in the American vocabulary.

If you join us, bring along a sack lunch.
We won't be making any lunch stops at McDonald's. (Or at Luby's for that matter.)

hello, atmospheric conditions...

Who are you, and what have you done to my dear Texas weather?!?

lost in the transaltion. somewhere.

I knew roughly where we were going. I had pulled up the address on Google maps before we had left, but had planned to rely mainly on the lovely little GPS. Except we had forgotten the GPS. (I am still figuring out this musical cars game.)

But perhaps we could wing it.

We had time. Our stomachs were full. We had Starbucks. And our gas tank was almost full.

Three girls in a car with coffee would give the Energize Bunny a run for his money.

We took a right and wandered around. In search of a street that was somewhere nearby. Maybe.

"On Google maps, it said the Consulate Executive of Poland lived near the house we are looking for," I said.

And this didn't look like the area the Consulate Executive of Poland would live in.

We puttered around a bit more.

"Wait, that street again!?"
"We went in a circle."
"We couldn't have!"
"Oh, that is just the other end of that street."
"Oh."

I called mom.

"Okay, go left on... and then left again."
"Thanks!"

We went left. And drove. Then we never found the second left. And then we were clearly not near any Consulate Executive's house.

"Hi? Mom? So..."

Right. The first left was actually supposed to be a right. Right. Gotcha.

We crossed over, exchanging that left for the right. And now this was feeling right. This felt Consulate Executive-ish. Tak.

A few turns later and the mystery was over. The house was found. And once again everything was right in the world. Prosto, prosto.

now for my new year's revolution

I don't believe in New Year's resolutions. I never have.
(though, my hard line stance against them has softened a bit over the past year...)

Perhaps, it is due to my personality. I'm not a list-making person. I don't function that way.

I do make mental resolutions all year long, though.
I don't write them down. I don't have monthly progress reports.
They are just there, tucked in a corner of my brain humming along.

Sometimes they are obvious, but still ridiculously tough to stick to.
Sometimes they are unique, but something I can't wait to make into a habit.

But I never feel a need on January 1st to stack up a list of goals for myself.
I just chug along quietly making adjustments and altering the game plan.

So, no, I don't have any New Year's Resolutions.
I just have a Whole Year Revolution.