a yen for ice cream

sometimes, even when it is raw and rainy out, you just want something sweet. after a nice dinner tonight, my children dressed to walk somewhere. they seemed to be on a mission. showing that as parents, we were able to house, clothe and feed them nearly adequately. en masse, they stated their need for some ice cream. 

8 pm. dark. raw. wet. a bad choice for walking to our local quik-E-mart. i chose to share the world need for advancement of ice cream consumption. i was willing to drive to the supermarket  or local pharmacy to get some tissues for the one with a head cold as well as the choiciest of creamy cold confections for them all. 

turns out only the boy was willing and dedicated to the dream. he had his coat on. 

we went to the pharm, where the ice cream was easily available, but a lot more costly. i thought that there would be some at the supermarket that was on sale. there always is. of course only off season. during the summer it is nearly the same price as gasoline. this means ridiculously costly. good thing we are not in the midst of the inevitable heat waves coming. so off we went. 

having made all of our purchases, we went to the gas station associated with the supermarket. they offer .05 cents off from their per gallon price, and the discounts get stronger after more groceries are purchased. turns out that my debit card did not want to comply with the general transfer of gas from the pump to my car. so we just packed it in for the night. 

recently, my boy and i have been embattled. usually he is the nicest of the brood. he has a program where he enjoys pretending that all is well between us. if it has not been delightful he acts as if he has been.  he actually tortures his sisters with this. with all sorts of college related events; acceptances, choices and decisions about where to go to college, he has been uncharacteristically stressed out. really stressed out. inevitable separation anxiety has played a role in his moodiness too. and after a extended showing of his mr. hyde, he has revisited his old sweet self again. wha-hoo!

one of the nicer things he does  when in this charm mode, is that pumps gas for my jalopy when we are traveling together. tonight with the debit card snafu i decided to just go home with my ice cream still frozen. i remain baffled about the gas pump issues. it appears that they only work when you make a purchase from the attendant in the boxy office and not directly from the computerized pumps. go figure. convenience interrupted. 

so we drove off into the rain without modest refueling. the car itself takes care of notifications regarding its own belly. for a while its red gas tank symbol was blinking at me from the dashboard. i wanted to silence its insistent "on again-off again" commentary. 

i think of that movement potential, red-line in terms of seinfeldian schtick . i call my husband either "Cosmo" or "kramer" for his ability to drive that car until its last juicy drops of fuel are replaced by hopeful fumes. This is just what Kramer did with a car salesman ... they drove and drove until they finally ran out of gas. it was after all for the thrill of going to the limit. the red line. the very end. luckily for kramer, he has no wife to annoy with phoning in his bail out request. 

i just needed enough gas to get the kids to and from school in the morning. it turned out that the placement of the needle on that familiar line was not done with me yet. there was plenty of gas to get home from the non-compliant pumps to our driveway. 

when we got home finding out,that there was no gas cap for the car. 

dang . IT . ALL!!!

so we backtracked to the store. we walked around on the street , we found stuff too. not the right stuff , but stuff that someone might like. a junkist to be sure. 

we drove at a very low speed. as we were ready to make the next turn or pot hole, we jumped every time a shadowy rounded piece was visible anywhere. 

nothing yet. 

as we neared home base, assessing every pothole, every storm drain, each slightly bumpy, hilly and curvilinear turn at 5 miles an hour,  nothing seemed to show up.

neither the boy nor i considered failure to find the locale of the gas cap a good thing. we knew hubby dearest would be displeased. 

our spirits dampened both figuratively and literally, we cheered and checked out the area for progress, the success rate was pretty flawed. our last two turns were coming up. the first a hairpin turn built around a  luckless used car lot was first. it yielded nothing of personal value.  the final turn opened its arms about 25 feet away. it was the one that created the last leg of our journey. it is the entryway to my street.  as i made it, i saw a good sized LUMP on the ground. it was our missing gas cap!!! we had made the trip to the market for no reason. the cap was on the ground at the base of my street .. 5 houses away. we had gone 10 miles out of the way to find what we were looking for in our own back yard. just proving as always, what you want is usually in your own yard. kind of a "wizard of oz" ending right?

SO...tonight we are irish. 

tonight we have luck. 

tonight we have our gas cap in its approved location. 

tonight, we have humanity. 

and yes, tonight, we have Ice Cream once again. 

oh, and we also have gas from another station too.

Y A H O O !!!!!! 

things seem pretty, pretty good!

nighty night. 

xoxo. 

W.

Coffee anyone?

never in my life, did i think i would become a coffee appreciator. it sorta snuck up on me. i started to drink it in college from the big urns in the dining rooms. it was a surprise that it was soooo good especially with a ton of milk and some sugar. of course i had a lot of reasons to be full of caffeine in those days. starting with studying and ending with a quirky social life. as life has changed, i have held with it since. really i love it. if i could marry it and have chicklets with it, i would.

for many years, i was extraordinarily pampered in my coffee habits. i would drive my eldest to her school, with the dog in the back seat. drop the girl off, sneak down the hill to starbucks and then in my delirious-venti-whole- milk-with-raw-sugar-fog, head over to the dog park. it was the best part of my day. since then, the school changed twice in two years, the dog now takes most of his exercise on a leash or a nearer park and i make my personal elixir at home.

MMMMMM.

i do miss that my friendly baristas used to see the nose of my car nudge into the parking lot. they would magically heat my milk for me while i was on line(even ahead of other customers). i got my coffee order and cup all filled by the time i got to the registers. i was soooo pampered and knew it. i think it is the only spot i got some rodney dangerfield style RESPECT. in spite of the many changes over the past couple of years, i love that the dog doesn't test my good will in the mornings. i no longer witness arguments for a parking space or experience the thrill of a quick conversation with an old pal. i guess it is all about the sense of things balancing themselves out.

years ago, my husband's father went to his doc's office. he was not feeling well. this is a huge long story featuring horrors and multiple familial slights. so i will skip through all that for my current purposes. his dad had a massive lump thing , the size of a grapefruit, in his colon. this combined with plentiful other health issues shook my hubby up.

the end result is that now 'hubby dearest' is very responsible about all of his medical issues. the potential, imaginary and the real ones. he has been a card carrying sport about having his biennial colonoscopy. he makes sure he schedules tests, does all kinds of appropriate prep and unlike me, shows up for them.

it is not always fun to get ready for these things either. the first time was the worst for him. ( its no picnic to watch him get ready).

his response after his first event was that," now that he had a perfectly clean colon, he would never touch coffee again!".

so... i laughed.

no other good response was available. he swore he had a clean colon... he was sitting at a computer... he was wearing his clogs and half glasses... and he was drinking tea. i really and truly had to laugh. he was so smug about his new way of looking at things.

i told him that in his newly cleaned up and folksy looking persona, he was more likely than ever to pick up a kitty to make his petly companion. (it bears a little mention that the man hates cats).

years later,i still laugh at his self righteousness about his TEA-ONLY policy.

each summer the old 'dh' hits the campgrounds of New Hampshire. he takes our kids with him to go fishing, biking, canoeing, sleeping on mattresses in tents(quel weenie) and other fun things. I always take pre-trip photos in case i need to have a state trooper look for them.

he always wants to know why i won't go. i tell him that living in our house with the inordinate number of things that go wrong, is as close to camping as any thing i could do in NH.

i am pretty sure that i would wind up cooking all the time if i went. this seems virtually the same as being at home with but a lot more inconvenient.

i think he completely understands how i feel after his uninterrupted week with the kids for the 4th year running (2010). not that they are naughty or anything, it just is constant. nothing seems to stop. they talk about the smallest things and share every nuance ad nauseum (my brain is exhausted by this). then they forget and start the loop all over again. it pre-empts my own ability to process thinking.

while they are away, i spend the week in utter indescribably, heavenly joy. playing with the dog. getting take out coffee AND food. there's even gas in my gas tank when i want to go somewhere. i totally love working on my stuff without cleaning up in between projects. i love sleeping under the air conditioner. i even go to the pool and go swimming. i am the envy of all of my friends.

in fairness, i think the trip is only 6 days, but it is so relaxing, it feels like 7 to me. i start planning mid-april for this event. really, it is such a great time, its not that i don't miss them, but i don't too much. seriously, do you think anyone truly envies me in real life?

i don't, but this week is a great gift.

when the magic is over and the red truck pulls up to the curb ,,, the kids are the first ones to rat out daddy. i count on it too. my youngest mentioned that daddy bought himself a cigar last year. i was pissed but since i had no idea, it didn't really matter. if he wants to smoke some stinky bad cigar in his post apocalyptic age ( after he had his heart attack and a stent inserted...), i have no way to express my concern for him ( yell at him). he knows it is wrong and it makes him feel icky (which serves him right). it will all work out in the long run ... karma right?

last time the kids returned from NH camping, they told me that daddy was sneaking some coffee. well knock me over with a feather ... so much for the fallen.

shortly after this vacation dalliance with a cup or two... a small jar of instant coffee made its way on my kitchen counter. surely as the sun rises and sets, the jars of instant coffee got larger as did the cups of coffee. they appeared more regularly too. then it became an every day event. i can't tell you how many times i offered to make the ole fellow a good cup of coffee in whatever style he wanted. always ,he said no. i am not a fan of rejection. it is my very dear companion. i grow with it. but to reject a cup of coffee seems so silly.

about a week ago, he accepted my offer of a nice cup of home brew. then he did again the next day. then he took my french press, chrome pot out of my cabinet to use it. Never cleaned it.

of course, this MADE me NUTS!

if you are gonna use my equipment, you better not use the one piece that is the top of the line and requires careful hand washing to maintain it. he very rarely does dishes unless he can include casualties in that effort. i do not like him trying out his skills with an expensive replacement glass insert. so here we are.... he is fully addicted again. he knows what a good cup of home made coffee can taste like. he is now as rangy about finding his caff in the morning as i am walking around the house in search of any scrap of chocolate.

tonight as i was doing the dishes, i went to hide my favorite green cup in the back row of the dishwasher. i do it, cause i know the cup nearest the front of the dishwasher is the one that will be used first. now bear in mind it is a rarity that he puts anything into the dishwasher. again, you could have toppled me with that special feather all over again. i found a small, one cup coffee press in the back of the rack.

OH MY GOD.

it has all gone full circk. who ever saw that coming?

surely it was not me.

at least he will not be invading my turf too much. he has some huuuuge bag of beans in the freezer. HE bought it at the JOB LOT. we have two electric coffee bean grinders too.

i am gonna be laughing my butt off this week. and then i am going to get him a really nice thermal carafe style french press pot.

FATHER'S DAY IS COMIN'

for all the crap i whine about, i never have had to fix a thing on one of my cars in 28 yrs. nor have i had to cut a piece of wood, call a plumber or have one of my wild color choices rejected for our painted interiors.

we shall see what tomorrow's fresh ritual offers... i have my fingers crossed.

please join in and wish for luck as the coffee wars start up...

he already is prone to not refilling my gas tank, he better not mess with my coffee pot and beans.

let me wish you a happy night night folks....

all this thinking about the coffee is making me want some. so i best go to sleep early to capitalize on getting a great cup of my friend in the morning.

see you soon . . .

xoxo.

w.