I wasn’t sure how I would feel about this night.  I’m keep glancing at the clock, and I feel panicked as each minute passes, but I know when the anniversary minute ticks silently by, the looming impossible one year mark, nothing will have changed.  I don’t know how to express it, but this night is not what I expected.  It’s incoherent and jumbled, it’s brown and red and gray and blue and green and black, and it seems like half-dried paint, muddy on a palette.  Yellow ochre in gray murky water.

Love,

black sheeped

New week.

I went down to see my family over the weekend.  It was a lot of driving (I’ve noticed I get super antsy/shifty/cranky during hour six of the drive, and sort of yell-y at other drivers), but it was good to see them.  Bonus: my sister taught her dachshund how to roll over, and it is wriggly and awesome.

I miss my sister.

On Saturday, we ran into one of my favorite people in the entire WORLD, and I miss her, too.  (BLOGGED, as promised.)  I felt very dramatic and sad that there wasn’t more time to catch up/be loud/swap 30 Rock Tracy Jordan quotes (mind grapes).

On Sunday, on a break during my drive back, I had brunch with a friend who once was very very close to me.  We’d lost touch for the last, oh, five or six years, and when I parked my car on her street and saw her waving on the sidewalk, my hands were shaking.  Seeing her was so good.  SO GOOD.  We have a lot of catching up to do.

I don’t know how she’d feel about me plastering her picture here, but I can probably share this delightful one that her husband got of us.  I don’t know why I was making this face, but we can probably all agree that I should make it more often.

I’ve been wondering what your refrigerators look like.  We should compare photos.  This is mine:

Let’s see.  We have a page ripped out from the NWF magazine, an invitation to my 10 year high school reunion, an Obama pin from the caucus, a picture of a puppy I tore off an ad, sketches of how we remember Kewpie dolls from a beer night with a friend, and other assorted nonsense.  Including our quote board.

In case you’re wondering, my quote was from a shrieking incident involving my head and a June bug.

I HATE those things.

Love,

black sheeped

http://www.sltrib.com/ci_12329871http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iiTl51QngXSouAo6E56RFrBglgnAD982C91O0
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iiTl51QngXSouAo6E56RFrBglgnAD982C91O0

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My hometown was hit by a ridiculously fierce wind storm yesterday–the reports of damage are crazy.  It sounds like tons and tons of huge trees are down and many buildings were destroyed.  Livestock/pets were blown away, roofs were ripped off buildings, trees crashed through homes to living room floors.  My family members are safe and sustained relatively minor damage to their property (my mom said they’ll have to have a new roof and that they lost at least 70% of the trees on their wooded lot, but there was no structural damage), but the clean up is going to take a long time.  The few photos I’ve seen have nauseated me–the trees, the trees.  I wish I was there to help.  I hope they get power and water back soon, and that the rain stays away while roofs are being repaired.  And that the chaos ends quickly.

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Love,

black sheeped

No questions or pet stories this morning, but I wanted to share this.  Someone we knew in Wyoming has been missing for nearly two weeks now in Japan, and if you feel compelled to donate/pray/light a candle/write your representative, do it.  I hate that media coverage is so weird on missing persons–missing men rarely seem to get any attention at all.

Official Facebook page, complete with donation information.

CNN article, Poets and Writers article, and there are more linked on the Facebook page.

Love,

black sheeped

Love,

black sheeped

More photos from this past winter.

Love,

black sheeped

Last night, while we were getting ready for bed, after trying to coax the dogs to pee during a thunderstorm for the millionth time, we realized there was a leak leaking onto our bed.  (New roof last summer.)  Our bedroom is tiny, so we couldn’t reposition the bed without the drip still hitting it, so we dragged the mattress out to the living room.

(Monk was gleeful, because he is scared of thunder, and FINALLY, we were going to SLEEP ON THE FLOOR WITH HIM WHILE IT RAINED.)  We didn’t sleep much, because we could hear the sump pump emptying water out into the front yard.  I don’t know exactly what Jut was thinking, but I was hoping the sump pump would keep working.  I kept thinking I heard dripping water in the living room, or in the bathroom.  I kept thinking about how I’ve been trying to empty the basement of belongings to protect them (either upstairs, or to a storage unit), and how now water from above, and not just seeping up from below, was threatening our BED.

We got up, we took out the dogs, we looked at the spongy part of the bedroom ceiling.  I fed the cats, I saw water creeping across the laundry room floor, into the utility room, around the cat bowls.

I have to go put on a dress now, and I feel all itchy and Jut has an awfully long day ahead of him, and the dogs are worried, and the cats?

The cats are wondering why we don’t feed them a second breakfast already.  They are WASTING AWAY.

Love,

black sheeped

When was the last time I did Friday questions?  Sixty billion years ago?  Let’s remedy that!  Here are the things I have been wondering:  What direction do you prefer to face in the shower?  Which direction feels “correct?”  Assuming you live with other people, and assuming you eat dinner with them on a regular basis, what do you eat for dinner when you have an evening alone?  Do you bother to peel the strings off of bananas before you eat them?

My “correct” direction in the shower is facing the water.  I prefer to stand with the water hitting at chest level.  Obviously I turn around, but I feel sort of relieved when I am finished with my hair or whatever, and I can face the water again.  (Side note: my hair is officially long enough again to SHUT IN THE CAR DOOR.)

Jut’s been teaching night classes this semester, and I am left to my own devices two evenings a week.  When he’s not home, I eat Ridiculous Meals that probably Should Not Count As Meals, or at least Not As Dinner.  One night I had a plate of cheese and crackers and some peanuts.  One night I had popcorn and…some peanuts.  Sometimes I’ll make some rice and black eyed peas, and mix them all up together in a bowl and eat them plain.  But my favorite home-alone-after-a-really-long-work-day-dinner is comprised of a) a big bowl of cereal, preferably Special K with berries or Honey Nut Cheerios and b) wheat toast.   It’s very tricky to time it so that the cereal remains crunchy and the toast crispy/hot.  VERY.

I was shocked to see a coworker carefully peeling strings off of a banana over the trash can.  And then taking a knife and shaving off the top layer of the banana, to make sure she got it all.  My method of banana eating is: peel, eat.  If there’s a dangling stringy thing falling off, I might pull it off, but I rarely even notice them.

Bonus question:

If you made homemade dog biscuits, and the ingredients were whole wheat flour, beef broth, an egg, and a jar of meat baby food, would you eat one to test it?  My gut instinct is: NO, it is a DOG TREAT.  Even though it is made of people food, I can not handle the thought of even tasting one.  My husband thinks I am ridiculous, and he tasted one (while I shrieked in horror), and told me it tasted like chicken.  SICK.  I don’t know if it’s because they’re for the dogs, or if it’s because I am extremely disgusted by baby food in jars (the smell!  the sound of the spoon clinking on the tiny glass jar!) (I am insane), but I even washed my hands after I put them in the dog treat canister.

Love,

black sheeped

(March 15)

Love,

black sheeped

Love,

black sheeped