So yesterday my 10 year old & I had to work on her science project. We're building a Solar Water Heater. My husband had to cut everything, and our job was to nail it together and paint it black (which my daughter thought
could've been a pretty bright blue. Perhaps?)
My husband gets to looking at the parts, and he's talking about how expensive copper is nowadays. "I heard, didn't someone rob some construction site for the copper wiring?" All the time, he tells me. Crack heads.
Ah, yes, crack heads. I start thinking about how I attained the parts in the first place. We used almost all recycled parts, which I was proud of. To get the parts, I had to call the dump.
"I need the
coily thing on the back of a refrigerator, but with the freon removed." The dump manager says he got refrigerators all the time, and if I'd wait a couple days, he'd hold one back for me.
"I need some metal roofing and a window, too." He tells me he'll keep his eyes open. So a few days later he calls to say he has my parts. Bring a screwdriver, he says. I pick up the kids from school and it's one of those heatwave days. Unfortunately, my jeep has no air conditioning, so we've got the windows open and our hair is flying. I put into the parking lot and we go in.
"Hi! The manager told me he had our parts for my daughters science project?" The woman says he's left for the day, and points to a pile of random trash.
"There's a fridge. Good luck!"
Hmmm. The kids sit and play around the dump near the grassy part, and I trying to figure out how to take apart this refrigerator.
"Look! A spoon!"
Shan says.
"Don't touch it!" I don't want to be here very long, I'm thinking. The
coily thing happens to be stuck or welded to something at the bottom, so I'm trying to pull the part back and forth to get the rusty metal to finally break. I need to reach the other side, but stacks of washers and deep freezers are in my way.
And bicycles everywhere. My hair is sweating to my face, cars are driving by, and I'm pulling hard on this
coily thing. I finally manage to get it off, and hand it to Naomi. I let her carry it, since I have to find a way to get a giant sheet of metal roofing in the back of the jeep. I step on it until it folds, then drag it over to the lot.
Okay, so this is for sure a long boring post, but after my husband brings up the infamous crack heads, I imagine those cars passing probably were not thinking highly of me dragging the kids to the dump and trying to force that part off the old fridge.
All in the name of science, I swear.
This weekend we're going on a mini vacation for my little ones birthday. We've told them we're going to a pig roast in Kentucky. We're really going to Disney World. :).
"Pig roast?" she says.
"Yep, it'll be fun!"
"Can I have a party?" No, I tell her, we're going to be out of town. But maybe we'll find a
Chuckie Cheese somewhere on the way for lunch. She's never been to
Chuckie Cheese so she perks up a bit (
Chuckie Cheese is about 50 miles way from us). By the time we get to the hotel, the kids will be asleep in the car. They won't actually know that we're not in Kentucky til we pull up at Disney, which I think is cool.
I'm giddy too, cause I have this crazy affliction...for Caricatures. You know, the silly drawings you get at theme parks. They used to do that in malls, which was a great idea- but it's been phased out and replaced with booths that sell Egyptian nail files or spinning hanging wind
doo dads. All too often cool things get phased out.
Mall Caricature's are one of those things that are due to come back.
(I know these things, keep your eyes open for them!)
What else is new? Spring gardening is going well, but I did run across a wee snag. As a child, I was the one who ran out on the sidewalks to save the earthworms when it rained. I considered bugs little friends. While I still love little earthworms, it's time to end my friendship with certain creatures that will not leave well enough alone, and it's a tough breakup. Fuzzy caterpillar eating away at my rose leaves.
"Kill it," my husband say. "Step on it." I can't do it. I can't. I mean, it even took me awhile to learn to smash spiders in the house, growing up with the omen of bad luck if you kill a spider at night. (Yes, the time you least want to see a spider is in some strange cultures when it's bad luck to kill it.)
Fuzzy precious had cleared a branch of leaves, and I was feeling irate. Not irate enough to smash it. So I put my shoe into an ant mound, leaving an indention in the middle, and I dropped fuzzy into the center of the angry teeming mound. I stood, transfixed. The ants gathered atop their victim, and fuzzy writhed to and fro, making little a c, little u.
(Karma! God I'm in trouble...)
The ants piled in the shoe print, and I couldn't take my eyes off the flowing scene. I briefly thought to rescue him, but the ants were too tough and intimidating. I walked away from the sight not feeling too good about myself.
The next day, once again, a fuzzy precious on my roses. I'd been weeding with the mattock. I threw little caterpillar down on the water meter lid, and smashed it with the flat end of the mattock. His head popped off and green goo flew onto my pants and shirt. Argh.
I took a Facebook quiz "What color crayon are you?"
I was cornflower blue. Am I really? I don't know. I think I'm really purple. Or maybe I just want to be purple. Some of the quizzes I can predict.
Which peanuts character are you? I was Linus. Of course.
Which Muppet are you? Rolf the dog. Easy. Of course, everyone wants to be kermit, but let's face it, it's like with past lives- everyone wants to be someone well known in a past life (take my mother's claim to Chief Joseph) but most of us really were just the ordinary joe or jane. A salesman, soldier, a mom that cuts crust off sandwiches day in and out. A gas station employee. One day you'll incarnate again and say 'I bet I was so and so,' when really you were exactly who you are now, unknown but hopefully content to be so.
I'll take Rowf. Cool.
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