Susan’s Journal

This morning, the earth was smothered in fog. The sun was coming up, it was a cloudless day, and there was this beautiful white fog rolling around, covering the tops of some trees and the bottoms of others. A water tower off in the distance looked like a boat drifting helplessly in a sea of white, because you couldn’t see the tower below it. I thought to myself, how beautiful these pictures would be. I didn’t pull out my camera and park, though. I have been trying to teach myself that some images are just mine–that you can’t live life through the lens. Sometimes you need to keep those beautiful photos in your own memory palace and not share them with anyone else.

Every year, my parents get Christmas presents for each other, but not how you might think. Mom picks out her own presents, and sometimes even wraps her own presents. Then they go under the tree until Christmas. That way, she knows what she’s getting, and Dad does too, and everyone’s happy.

On a slight tangent, a week ago I was at the old house, and Scott was screwing in the cabinet doors he had just painted, and was using a corded power drill. Well crap, I told him, that’s what I got you for Christmas, I said. He had just gotten it a week ago and I hadn’t seen it yet. He told me to keep the present I bought for him, because it was a cordless drill and that would be MUCH better than this cheap corded one he had bought. The funny thing is I *almost* bought him a corded one.

So anyways, he knew about one present he was getting. A few days ago, I found out that Thomas Harris had written a new novel called “Hannibal Rising,” and I mentioned to Scott I would really, really like it. A package came in the mail yesterday, and I didn’t open it, because it was addressed to Scott. After he opened it, he brought it to me, and said “Here, since I know what my present is, you can see yours.” It was the book! I was SO thrilled!

Well, wrap it and put it under the tree, I told him. Just like my parents.

And in this picture,
This is our two kidlets, and their cousin, a photo from a few years ago. That cousin, we just found out, is moving to our area early next year. Hooray!

And on this day…
2005… no post.
2004… Expensive things always break around Christmas.
2003… no post.
2002… no post.
2001… no post.
2000… The dream about running away from a rainstorm with Sting.

Tuesday night is kids eat free at Dickey’s (well, Denny’s too, but last night we did barbecue) and fifty cent movies at a place in Plano. Sure, the movies are almost out on DVD, but the kids could care less, and it’s a good, cheap time.

After dinner at Dickey’s, which was of course topped off with their free ice cream, we went down the road to the movie theater to see Pirates of the Caribbean, all two and a half hours of it. Did you know that movie was that long? We didn’t get snacks or drinks, and we lasted through the whole movie without having to go potty.

During the movie, however, we had a row of older people in front of us and older people behind us. No big deal, right? Well, at least two times during the movie, someone really cracked one off and it smelled SUPER bad–like pass out bad. I was just like… man… come on. Then, however, at one point, I looked down at Dylan right after I started smelling it. Kind of jokingly, I said, “Did you fart?”

He just looked at me and smiled.

I was ready to pass out from the smell. “YOU farted?” I said pretty loud, right in the middle of the movie–I’m sure everyone around us heard it. He smiled and started to giggle. I absolutely could not believe that this stench could come out of any six-year-old child. It was unbearable.

Yeap, that’s my son.

And in the news,
I found this story on digg. While the story in itself is funny, the real crack-up laugh is the third comment down. I was sitting here at my desk cracking up.

And on this day…
2005… no post.
2004… Tell the nice man in Bangalore what you want for Christmas.
2003… no post.
2002… I think this was to the tune of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.”
2001… No reboots for you! *shakes finger*
2000… Dumb section lunch, and big doc to write.

I don’t like dentists. It’s not their fault. I have had tons and tons of dental work in my life, and I have had bad experiences when I have been in such excruciating pain that I was literally sitting in the dentist’s chair crying like a little girl. So when the time came for me to get two crowns done yesterday, I went far, far away. They asked me if I wanted laughing gas, which I had never had before, and I finally said okay.

Thomas Harris wrote in at least one, perhaps several, of his books, about a place called a “memory palace.” It was where Hannibal would go, in his mind, those months and years he was in confinement. He would open the door in his mind and visit any grand palaces, museums, anywhere he wanted, in his mind. That’s where I went at the dentist yesterday.

“So where would you like to go?” It was Anthony Hopkins. “Tell me somewhere you’d like to go–somewhere that really makes you happy.” And then we were sitting on the edge of my dad’s bed, up in his second floor bedroom, watching the trains go by out the window. He was sitting beside me, also looking out the window. “I bet you’re wishing I was your dad right now,” he said, in his Hannibal-analytical way. “But wait. Maybe you don’t. Because that might make you cry. And you don’t want to cry right now, not while you’re in the dentist’s office.” From there, we went sledding, yes sledding, down below that window in my dad’s backyard. We went to the Golden Gate Bridge Park, we went to my Air Force basic training dorm, we went to a half dozen other places that I can’t remember. I’ll spare you all the details, because you’ll think I’m absolutely nuts. But in all, the dentist was drilling and working for over two hours. I walked out of his office with cleaned teeth (he hadn’t done my cleaning earlier in the year and offered to do it today), two metal temporary crowns, and a splitting headache. I lived through it.

And on this day…
2005… no post.
2004… no post.
2003… I had lunch with my parents. Very nice.
2002… no post.
2001… no post.
2000… I was sick, and had slept all night in Rain’s toddler bed.

Let’s see how much of this dream I can remember… the cabin of the airplane was wide instead of long, almost like when you were flying on it, you were facing the right sid of the plane instead of the front. Everyone, all six or so of us (the plane was spacious but not designed to seat that many) had loungers to lay on and sleep during the flight. I woke up just as we were landing, and I was alarmed by how close the belly of the plane was to the ground–it was as if there were no luggage compartment, and the windows were in that lower part of the plane. We landed in a lush, green place, and we were there to do humanitarian work. We had a great time. A month or so later when it was time for another assignment, I readily volunteered. I had a difficult time figuring out how to get on the plane this time, though. The building was five or six stories tall, with lush foreign carpets on the floors and walls. It was beautiful, but I couldn’t figure out how to get on the friggin plane. I know there was more to the dream than that, but I can’t remember more…

We were invited to a Christmas party tonight, so we’ll see how that goes. The kidlets are staying with a lady Scott works with.
And on this day…
2005… no post.
2004… no post.
2003… no post.
2002… no post.
2001… it was raining, and I had a kanka.
2000… I was sick, and the kids were too.

In case you have been hiding under a rock, you know we are trying to sell our house. The market sucks for everyone right now. My mom had suggested going to a Christian store, buying a statue of St. Joseph, burying him in the ground, upside down, in front of our old house, and saying a little prayer for St. Joseph to help us sell our house. Simple enough, right?

Well, there apparently aren’t a lot of Catholics in Texas. My husband went to about six different stores last night, and not one of them had a statue of St. Joesph, and most of them looked at him like he had three heads.

Just as I was getting into the van after our lunch experience at Chili’s, he called me on the phone. “Well, I have Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” he said.

He bought a nativity set. I laughed until I was almost in tears.

Now what lunch experience, you ask?

Well, it started out like any trip to Chili’s–drinks, order our food, except that we didn’t get chips and salsa this time. I guess we were all being cheap. It was my friends Brian and Chris from work, and me. Their food came out (after what seemed like a huge wait, assumably because we didn’t have chips to munch on to pass the time), but my food did not. The waitress said I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, it will be right out. A few minutes later, she came back, I’m sorry; as you can see, she was very apologetic. The third time she came by, she said I’m sorry, would you like some chips and salsa while you wait… I sat there for a second… she said “on me,” and I kind of shrugged my shoulders and said okay. She came back with the chips and salsa, and I picked at it a bit. Then the manager came by to ask us how our food was, and Chris pointed at me, and said, “Well, she hasn’t gotten her food yet.” The manager asked me what I had. I told her nachos. What kind, she asked. “I don’t know, yellow?” I replied. This was just hilarious. She went away. A few minutes later, my nachos came out. At this point, Chris and Brian were pretty much done eating. They told me to eat, they’d wait for me. I noticed the nachos had peppers on them, something I hadn’t wanted; but I didn’t want to complain, so I just scraped them off and ate them. A few minutes later, I gave up and asked for boxes. They gave me my lunch for free too, so I ended up with a big bag of chips, a container of salsa, and the other half of my nachos in a box, in a lunch bag for me to take home. Then the waitress brought Chris the check (he offered to buy Brian lunch). The amount on the check was wrong. He got the waitress’s attention, and she said I’m sorry, I’m sorry, and took it away. She came back a few minutes later with a new check, and the amount was still wrong, and Chris got the manager, and the manager took it away. At this point, Brian thought it was a good time to go outside for a smoke, and I got up to go with him. The manager brought the check back, and this third time it STILL was not the right amount.

Just plain craziness, I tell you. I gained a free lunch, and what will also be a free dinner, out of the situation, though.

Bill Streeter tagged me on this one, so I’ll tell reveal five things about me that you may not know:
1. I crochet. Not like sweaters or dumb hats, but big, beautiful blankets. I can follow any pattern. I think I’ve been doing it since I was about five.

2. I was raised in Massachusetts. You might think I’m a real redneck, but I’m actually not. However, I was raised listening to the Statler Brothers and Alabama.

3. When I was pregnant with my daughter, I was trapped in the Air Force base hospital, on my birthday, during a horrible hurricane in Biloxi, Mississippi.

4. I am NOT a cat freak. Because of my name, most people expect me to have fifty cats. I only have one, and I don’t think I could put up with a single one more.

5. I have been writing in my text blog for over six years. Most of my videoblogging friends probably don’t know that.

Let’s see… now I’ll go poke Michael, Josh, Bre, Andreas, and Nathan.

*rubs eyes*

Will someone just buy our friggin old house already?

New foundation, new carpet, new tile, new paint, new kitchen, new sink, new everything… I just don’t get why it isn’t flying off the market. I know, I know, the housing market’s terrible… but in a land of houses in disrepair, this thing should be set for years to come with no maintenance necessary. Sounds like a dream to me. It makes me sick. We’ve sunk so much money into it, for it to just sit there.

It’s been in the seventies here–just plain beautiful. And here I am, trapped in a climate controlled building, staring at a computer screen until my shoulders hurt. By the weekend, when I’m off work, I’m sure it will be cold and raining. I’m so positive today, can’t you feel it?

Over the past couple days, I’ve had some really vivid dreams. Saturday night’s were really neat, and Sunday night’s were really bad.First, I had dreams about Mississippi. They were so real, I either woke up or was lucid enough to think to myself, “I should write this into a novel.” I was dreaming about a young man who had suddenly become independently wealthy, and he decided to take a town and make a difference. There was an old abandoned footbal stadium in dire need of repair, and he was going to hire local people from the community to work on the stadium and get it all fixed up to reopen. The people he hired were mostly older, lived alone, and their shacks were barely big enough for a twin sized mattress, many of them didn’t even have doors. After they had been working on the stadium for a few months, he began construction on a new place for them to live–an apartment building with studios that they could live in. All in all, it was just a happy, do-something-for-someone-else dream.

Sunday night’s dreams weren’t so nice. In fact, they were terrible. I dreamt that I was taping off areas to paint furniture, in this case a coffee table. Scott didn’t want me to tape off anymore, he wanted me to paint instead, and he was literally yelling at me because he wanted me to paint. He kept approaching me with a paintbrush, and I was yelling and crying for him to stop. That’s apparently when Scott tried to wake me up, because I had woken HIM up with my screaming and crying. At that point, I told him to get away from me, because I was still kind of asleep and he had been so upset at me in my dream. (Man, my grammar is atrocious in this post!) Anyways, I went back to sleep, and my second dream was worse. Scott had decided to donate himself, alive, to some science project, and they had buried him alive in a box. I was trying to tell some of the guys he used to work with, but no one believed me. It was terrible. Finally I had to go out on my own with a shovel to this muddy, marshy area and try to dig his box out of the ground by myself, and make sure I had found the right box that was him, because dozens of other men had donated themselves to the same cause.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again; Scott thinks I’m nuts because I can so vividly remember the dreams that I have.

And on this day…
2005… my first videoblogging teaching gig.
2004… no post.
2003… no post.
2002… no post.
2001… no post.
2000… no post.