The Stream

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Random Ruminations


Mat returned home from his conference in Boston. He was supposed to arrive home at 11:30 PM, but the flight was delayed and he finally rolled in at 4Am. Sadly, he was on call the next night and after a few retinal detachments and a flood of consults later, he again rolled in at 4AM. He then had to get up at the crack-o-dawn and drive to Fayetteville (1 1/2 hr away) to operate. Seeing that he was a tad foggy and fearing for his patients, I offered to be his "Driving Miss Daisy," which he responded, "Thank you kindly ma'am."

After operating that day, we decided to visit the special ops museum (Surprisingly, Mat hadn't hit his wall yet). Fayetteville is located 10 minutes east of Fort Bragg, home of the paratroopers and special operational forces. If you visit you will see a lot of waving flags, tattooed, bic haired men with cuffed sleeved t-shirts, and sometimes their overdue pregnant wives. Fayetteville offers some nice museums that give you some insight on war and some relief from the 100 degree heat. In this museum, you see a complete history of how war was/is fought from the perspective of the special ops teams. There were buttons on uniforms that had hidden compasses, silent guns, maps made from cloth so that they didn't make noise, MacGyver door picks, fatal wound piercing knives, books that could explode, hidden cameras in cigarette boxes, etc. If you were into GI Joe fighting the fierce terrorist COBRA or like to play the Call of Duty Four Modern Warfare, you would like this museum.

I believe my second child is going to be reincarnated as Tigger. She is constantly making up words like Tigger: cruncher (stapler), milky (milk), spicey (soda), or phrases like: I'm going to stepity up there, you've got to reachy reach your arms, put me on the hangerdabars so I can swingy swing. My first born has already transformed himself into a coati for over a month, seriously! Gloves and dark Sunday socks for paws, tail made of curtain cord adorned with masking tape to create the stripe look, and pointy orange ears to top it all off. These trappings only come off for bath time, swimming and church (which technically he's still wearing his feet paws).

My ears are addicted to Q-tips, especially in the mornings and after showers.

Long time listener, first time sealer. I got my paws on the church's sealer-o-matic. Never done it before, so I thought I would try. I hauled all of my food surplus up to Gretchen and Micah's room to stow it under Gretchen's bed. Not wanting to haul my 50lb bags back down the stairs again, I set up my shop after the girls were asleep. There I was at 11PM at night thinking, "no rice shortage here." After my prep was complete and oxy absorbers intact, I dragged my bins to the my bathroom and turned on this mass of a machine. It looked like it could have once inhabited the island of Lost mostly pertaining to the Dharma initiative. As not to transform myself off the island, I turned the apparatus on. I read the directions 10 times before doing anything and then I carefully poked and prodded as to be sure that what the directions were telling me were true. I stuck in my gently folded mylar bags and voila! food for the next century.

I truly smell like a patch of onions from mowing the lawn.

7 comments:

Krista said...

Mic - I was going through and cleaning my email and there was one from you! I was so excited to see your blog, your family is really cute! I love your little girl and her cutting her hair, I can only imagine how fun your kids are with a crazy tree climbing mom like you...

Stoker Family said...

When are you leaving? I am hoping to see you when I come out there. Love your blog and your music.

melancholyjune said...

Seriously, can I package you up and bring you with me? Your kids getting their funny quirkiness from you and I LOVE it. Dharma initiative. where is the island?

Jessica said...

Mic, glad you found me! I love this blogging stuff! We will be here in SC for another 3 years or so. We don't really know, it all depends on my husbands company and when they decide to let us move back west. It would have been a complete surprise to see you in Charleston after so many years. Let me know next time and I'll make sure you visit the sites worth seeing. :) Which plantation did you go to?

Emily S. said...

Isaac used to say soda was "spicey" too! And stop using q-tips! I used to be obsessed like you and developed otitis externa (infection of the outer ear) - the worst pain ever!!! I have really backed off - only once a day and only one side of one q-tip for each ear! Are you coming to Utah or what? Are we going to see you?

Caroline said...

haha, seriously you should publish something. So fun to read your ramblings, and I just finished my first food-storage experience with a lovely trip to the cannery this week. It really does feel good to have cans of oats sitting on the shelf!

Also, I had one of those whale fountains on my sick growing up and loved it. You kiddos are lucky!

Dave and Mel said...

Love the random thoughts- as I can relate to things being random. here are some random comments- i love your hair in the "green shirt" pictures, Mat has a lot of hair these days, just checked out "what mormons like- very funny, love the pic' of the kids on the shelves, Becket's talk was quite impressive, and Gretchen reminds me of YOU!