Can-Can

So I just got back from the cannery. Don't you love the cannery? What an awesome idea. Set up a factory where people volunteer their time canning goods in exchange for the privilege of buying some of those canned goods (keeps the cost down, you help others, and you get stuff for you food supply in return). Brilliant.

Dry-pack canning is always tons of fun. Today I bought some dried onions (LOVE the dried onions), rice, potato pearls (yum), powdered milk (always nasty, but Nigel wanted it), dried refried beans and juice mix (I love their juice mix because you don't have to add sugar separately -- yes, I'm THAT lazy).

Wet-pack canning is sometimes fun, sometimes horrible. In past canning experiences, the most fun is being in charge of the mechanical pear peeler. Factory machines just amaze me. The horrible part is being three months pregnant and up to my elbows in raw turkey. I had to concentrate really hard to not have a "C Jane" moment.

I remember GEO's grandma talking about how much she enjoyed touring Welfare Square. I keep promising myself that I'll go there and take a tour. Maybe one of these days, but until then, I'll keep working at the cannery.

Tagging Along

I've been tagged. Again. I guess I'll do this one (I wimped out on the other one because there was no way I could compete with GEO's and Compulsive Writer's great lists of imaginary college courses to take -- besides I still hate school, even pretend school -- and GEO, why do I always write your name in all caps?). Here goes:

5 things I Was Doing 10 Years Ago:

1. Making Nigel get me club sandwiches at all hours of the night while I was pregnant with Frances
2. Giving birth to my first little baby, Frances (who did not want to be born and it took the doctor yanking with forceps and a nurse on top of me pushing on my belly to get her out -- I hope she's not the same way when it's time to go to college)
3. NOT working (I took a whole year off after Frances was born -- my best year ever and I have video proof that my house was clean)
4. Breaking my back getting Frances in and out of her car seat in our little Toyota Tercel (which I still miss, but have you ever tried to fit THREE car seats in a hatchback? Can't be done)
5. Living with Rena and her family for a month and trying not to boil to death or be stung by scorpions, but it was worth it to see Maureen's "happy dance"

5 Things On My To-Do List Today:

1. Clean/straighten the house (OK, that's on my list EVERY day and I have yet to do it)
2. Go to work and NOT work more than eight hours (didn't do it)
3. Take Frances to piano lessons (did it -- how could we miss a lesson with the adorable Babs?)
4. Balance my check book (did it)
5. Write a post for my blog (doing it now)

Snacks I Enjoy:

1. Cherry Blow-Pops
2. Pringles (I like to stick them to my lips and pretend I'm a duck)
3. Cheetos (but I don't like the orange fingers)
4. Cherry Slurpees
5. Flea's rum nougat candies

Things I Would Do if I Were a Billionaire*:

1. Pay a ton of taxes
2. Buy a house with an art studio for Nigel and a garden with fruit trees for me and lots of land for chickens and goats
3. Travel and visit family
4. NOT WORK!!!
5. Share

*Note -- isn't it funny that now we have to say "billionaire" instead of "millionaire"?

3 Bad habits:

1. Speaking before thinking
2. Biting my nails (yes, even the hypnotism didn't work after a while)
3. Not finishing what I sta...

5 Places I've lived:**

1. Clover City, CA
2. Parvo, Deseret
3.
4.
5.

**Note -- yes, I'm pathetic. I've only lived two places my entire life.

5 Jobs I've Had:

1. Clerk in charge of the freezer full of dead dogs at a veterinary hospital
2. Sales girl at a floral shop (which was hard for me because I don't like cut flowers -- I didn't even have any at my own wedding)
3. Waitress (at a tiny cafe in a small town where they once raffled off a mule)
4. Typer of library cards to computer databases -- did I mention the cards were all in CZECH?!?
5. Transcriber of TV news programs and interviews for a certain CNBC financial reporter

5 Things People Probably Don't Know About Me:

1. I'm in an ad for Polaroid cameras in the October 21, 1974 issue of Newsweek (pages 54 and 55)
2. I detest cheesecake
3. I'm scared of horses
4. I was president of my high school's Chinese Club
5. I used to work as a nude model for artists (one of the many reasons why I can't run for public office)

There. I did it. And just like when I was a young girl playing the real game, I'm not going to tag anyone.

New Year's Memory #3

Go back a few years, it's New Year's day and Nigel and I invite Geo and her husband out to lunch at a local Indian restaurant.

Everything is going well and then Nigel chokes, coughs, and hurls all over the table. He drinks some water and hurls again! What the heck? Nigel and Geo's husband go into the bathroom and they soon return. Everything's OK. Nigel takes another drink of water and spews water all over!

Please note that all through this little episode, Geo is horrified, her husband is helpful, Nigel is confused and I'm going back to the buffet for seconds (it's an ALL YOU CAN EAT buffet! I have to get my money's worth!).

The poor waiter has no idea what's happening. We're trying to hide the barf with napkins, less he think the delicious food is making Nigel sick.

We go home and Nigel feels OK, but he still can't keep anything down. Even his own saliva gets spit up immediately after he swallows.

Finally, he can't stand it any more and we decide to go to the emergency room. We don't have a car, so we call my nephew, Fred, to drive us to the hospital (yet again, Fred saves the day). Fred has just gotten back from the slopes, so he takes us over in full ski gear.

Of course, in the emergency room, everyone thinks that it's FRED that needs help (since he's in the ski clothes), and not the crazy man spitting into a cup.

They finally look at Nigel and realize that a piece of chicken is caught in his throat. It isn't blocking the entrance to his lungs, so he can breathe just fine, but it is blocking the entrance to his stomach, so he can't swallow anything. The doctor has to sedate him, stick a claw down his throat and pull it out.

The doctor is NOT pleased about being called in on New Year's Day (if you don't want to work holidays, you should be a teacher, NOT a doctor) and keeps commenting about how the piece of chicken didn't have a single bite mark in it. Nigel swallowed it whole.

Nigel, on the other hand, is coming out of the anesthesia and drunkenly telling everyone he sees, "It was the best Indian food I've ever eaten! It was so good. It was the best I've ever eaten!"

Hey Geo, want to go out to lunch again? (ha, ha, ha)

Season's Greetings

I have a love/hate relationship with holiday newsletters. I love writing them, but I loathe copying them off, addressing the envelopes, and mailing them (to be perfectly honest, I still have some from last year that I haven't mailed yet -- sorry!).

Also, it seems that I'm sending these newsletters full of "fascinating" tidbits about my family's life to people who are either very much aware of what we've been up to all year or people who really could care less. So what's the point?

I have people that I send newsletters to only because they send me newsletters. Are they only sending me newsletters because I send them newsletters? It's a vicious cycle.

Also, what's the shelf-life on newsletters? Am I supposed to keep these things forever? What about the holiday photos? Keep the ones from family and throw away the others?

Rena got fed up with the stress of getting the "perfect" family photo, so last year she sent one that actually looks like her family (kids with eyes closed, looking in the wrong direction, and/or picking noses). Now that's a photo I'm going to keep!

I'm not a total Grinch. Some newsletters are great. I love Ben's "Holiday Holler" just because of the title -- I even disregard my newsletter/resume rule for it (if it's more than one page long, I don't read it). M-A's newsletters are always hilarious (and my last few have been copies of her style -- I hope she considers it flattery). I always look forward to my mother's newsletter to see how little she writes about me (She'll write three or four paragraphs on Lorna and I'll get something like, "Lois is still alive").

The best Christmas newsletter of all time was one that I received from my friend's mother. She fancies herself a poet and one year she wrote about finding a dead body in the dumpster behind her home -- all in iambic pentameter.

I was all for boycotting a newsletter this year and I almost had Nigel talked into it, but then Geo's husband brought over a huge box of art paper, including some in the loveliest shade of green which Nigel is now enamored with. He says that HE will do the Christmas newsletter. Now, if I can just find a dead body...

Thanks for the "Meme"-ories

So Geo tagged me with a meme. Since I'm not sure exactly what "meme" means and there's no way I can compete with Geo's and Compulsive Writer's very creative and witty memes on the same subject, I'm going to stick with my theme of gratitude:

TOP 5 REASONS WHY I'M THANKFUL FOR GEO

1. When I was sick in bed and bored out of my mind, she brought over her prized Martha Stewart Living magazines for me to look at (as well as her fabulous collection of Esther Williams videotapes).
2. When I lent her my car, she returned it with a full tank of gas AND she vacuumed out the interior!
3. She didn't get mad at me when Nigel gave her husband a pet snake and the feeder mouse escaped and nibbled through her food storage.
4. She's an awesome example of being a caregiver as she's taken in her in-laws, grandmother, friends, relatives and various animals (dog, cat, chicken, etc.).
   
5. She drove me to the hospital when I was in labor with my babies (at crazy hours in the wee morning) AND she drove me back home with my new bundles of joy.