I’ve spent the better part of the last 45 years avoiding sleep. Ask my mother…I hardly ever slept as a child. I’m pretty sure I took naps as an infant, but she’s right about the rest of the years since. I remember when I was three and being sent to my room for a nap. Ha! She could send me to my room, but she couldn’t make me sleep!

Over the years, I’ve been heard saying things like, “I can’t sleep during the day,” and “Nap? Yeah, right,” and “I’ll have plenty of time to sleep when I’m dead.”

Well, guess what I did today?

Yup – took a nap.

Aside from the fact that I’ve been sick all week, maybe – just maybe – I’m coming to grips with the idea that I’m likely not going to miss anything if I take better care of myself and rest when I feel the need.

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Return of the Nap

Was it worth the phone call before I’d been properly caffeinated?

Oh yeah…

You know…she’s got a point. And the dang Vatican isn’t the only example, for sure. So, by posting this, I’m not picking on my Catholic friends…promise.

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Sell the Vatican, Feed the World

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Cheerios Taste Great Off the Floor

Since we won the SuperBowl last year (at least I suspect that’s the reason) I get to see more of their games. Usually, I have to put up with the Cowboys, Chiefs and Broncos….BLECH….but this year, so far all of their games have been televised here.

Since I live the erratic life I live, I record the games so I can be sure to get to see them. Except, my dumb butt needs to adjust the recording settings to record extra time at the end, because on all three of the recordings, so far, it quit just minutes before the games were over. Today, there was 1:01 left on the clock and we were up 20-15. I about came undone! Turns out, the final score was 23-20. We lost. UGH.

So, now we’re 1:2. The stupid Ravens are undefeated and, by extension, first in our division. We’re not off to a good start.

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Diggety-Dang DVR Leaves Me Hangin’ Again!

Yeah, that’s my street…and my oldest and youngest children almost knee-deep in rushing water. Two hours later, we just had puddles.

This is what happens when, as Second Son said when he slopped in from the bus, “Mom! It’s rainin’ out there like Jesus himself is cryin’!”

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So We Got a Little Rain Last Night…

September 6 – September 29 is a Mercury Retrograde, which means we’re smack, dab in the middle of it. If you haven’t a clue what a Mercury Retrograde is, read about it here, explained beautifully by my friend, Lisa.

If you’d like to know when these periods will occur over the next couple of years – you know…so you can PLAN (gasp!) for them – my friend, Donna, published this Mercury Retrograde Table 2009-2012 earlier this year.

And to round things out, pay attention to another good friend’s daily posts over at AstroChatter as she’ll guide you through on a day-to-day basis – thanks, Pam!

It was my friend, Nancy, who first introduced me to Mercury Retrograde back in early 2008. (I was grossly uninformed where astrology was concerned before I met these fine women. But then, all I did prior was read my horoscope fairly frequently, laugh and make fun of how vague it always was.)

Nancy warned me to back up my computer, not purchase any electronics and get the oil changed and the tires checked on my car. She told me a few Mercury Retrograde snafu stories and I quickly got the point. Mercury Retrograde can feel like 3 weeks of everything you touch turning to shit. But…and it’s a BIG BUT…there is a blessing amidst the madness (as usual) and that is as Lisa describes,

During Mercury Retrograde the guidance is to do all the “re” activities – review, revise, redo, revisit, reorganize and work on projects already in process.

This is the time to complete anything you’ve left undone and a good time to look for lost or misplaced information or objects, as things often turn up during Mercury retrograde.

This is a wonderful energy for reviewing your goals, acknowledging your accomplishments and for meditation, reflection and introspection. What are your dreams and your visions for your life?

So, having temporarily gone hillbilly with solving the washer drain problem (a Mercury Retrograde problem, for sure) I have spent the week since eyeball deep in the “re” activities, as Lisa suggests. I am restructuring my business – revising, reorganizing, reviewing, all that good “re” stuff – and I’m getting some great clarity about the direction I need to take going forward.

While I’m at it, I’m going to chill out and not stress about the washer drain situation…it’ll get fixed, I’m sure.

I’ve got roughly 10 days left of this great “re” energy, and I feel so blessed to have the awareness today to take advantage of it. Thanks, Nancy, for first hipping me to it, and Lisa, Donna and Pam for increasing my understanding of how to not only “go with the flow”, but actually “be in the flow”. You all ROCK!

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Eyeball Deep in the “Re-” Activities

Granted, there are a few irritants associated with this stop-gap solution. No, we can’t go in and out the back door at will while doing laundry, and yes, there’s a gap for flies, moths and mosquitoes to come flying through (though that could be solved by stuffing towel in the gap, I suppose), but when you’ve got to wash your daughter’s uniforms for school in the morning, this gets the job done in the semi-autonomous fashion intended for a washer and dryer.

After a lengthy troubleshooting session with my brother-in-law this evening, we remain unconvinced that I have a collapsed pipe. He wants to eliminate the possibility of a clog in the line either at the Y where the washer drain meets the main sewer line, or just a little further in the main line, itself. Since the first plumber didn’t try snaking the actual washer drain line, itself, we’re gonna do that tomorrow. I’m going to compare the cost of having someone come do both the washer line and the main line with the cost of renting an auger and doing it ourselves. Whichever way we go, if I still am stopped up after that, then I’m going to shell out the $250 for the plumber dude to come back and run his camera down the line so we can see what’s what and where – exactly.

I still may have to spend big money and dig…but then again…the hose is workin’ pretty good…

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Had to Go Hillbilly With It, After All

Not so for me, I’m afraid. Either there’s nothing stuck in the trap in that pipe, or I can’t get a tight enough seal when I try to put the Shop Vac hose in the hole to suck whatever it is out of there.

Part of the problem is there’s about 8 inches of rigid plastic at the attachment end of the Shop Vac hose and I’m trying to stick it in a drain hole with about 5 inches of clearance above it. Thus, I can’t get the right angle on it and the rigid plastic doesn’t bend. I did get about 2-3 cups of clear water, but no ball of lint, sock or other obstruction.

I did, however, find a hole in the drywall through which a clean-out cap is visible. Hmmmm….I don’t think I’m gonna have any better time with the Shop Vac hose there than I did up where the washer drain hose goes, but I’m gonna give it a whirl.

Then, before I call my brother-in-law back, I’m going to see if I can get a wire coat hanger through the trap. I so wish I had x-ray vision so I could see what my problem is and where. But I don’t, and I can’t, and I’m trying hard to resist the urge to cut away the sheet rock, even though I know how to put it back.

Looks like there’s a good chance some real labor will be occurring around here on Labor Day.

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I Could Give My Washer Drain Line a Hickey If I Could Get the Right Angle On It

Well, they sent the same 15-bricks-shy-of-a-load guy that they sent last year, but I figured, “No problem, he’s just gotta get the ball of lint or whatever it is built up in there out…he did it last year, he can do it again.”

Have you noticed that I am overly optimistic by nature?

Dude comes knockin’ at the front door when he was done, and since I was on a conference call, I just waved him in and held up the check I had written for him so he could be on his way. He motioned that he didn’t want the check and needed to talk to me. Great. So, I told the peeps on the conference call to hang tight a few minutes while I talked to him.

He proceeds to tell me that he was not only unable to clear my drain line, but that I must have a collapsed pipe under the house somewhere because his snake came back with mud on the end of it. He was going to have to call the office and have them send out a different guy, probably Tuesday, since Monday is Labor Day.

I sent him on his way, finished up the conference call and called the office myself. Given that I’d talked to Sara (the office manager) several times already trying to work out the logistics of getting someone here on the Friday before a holiday weekend, she already knew that I was not going to be happy to wait ’til Tuesday, so she sent her ‘best plumber’ over right away.

Mr. Best Plumber arrived, and to be fair, he was really nice, really knowledgeable, and really patient with my endless questions. His prognosis was not so nice: “Uh, well, ma’am…if you’ve got a collapsed line under there, I’d really recommend we just bypass it and run a new line over here to your sewer main. We can redirect your sink drain while we’re at it, since both your washer drain line and your sink drain line run under your deck, and I’m pretty sure you don’t want us tearing that up, right? Right…well, to divert the two lines, you’re looking at $1,700.”

Gulp.

After I exhaust him with all the questions I can possibly think of – all directed toward avoiding spending $1,700 – I thank him, take my copy of his written estimate and send him on his way.

Plumber dude needs to put the crack pipe down if he thinks I’m gonna cough up $1,700 to avoid wet socks. Especially on the word of Mr. 15-Bricks-Shy-of-a-Load who assumes I’ve got a collapsed line, but doesn’t know for sure.

Uhhh…no. I may be female and I may not be an expert in plumbing, but let me tell you what – I’ll duct tape the 27 ft. vacuum hose from the pool to the drain hose on my washer and run that sucker out my kitchen window and down to the access cap for my sewer main before I’ll cop a case of the “Okie Doke” and shell out $1,700 on a “maybe” collapsed pipe. Who do these jokers think they’re dealing with, anyway??!!

But before I even go hillbilly like that, I have other resources available to me that I’ll tap first. Like Baby Sis’ super-handy, Master Electrician, Knows-Something-About-Every-Damned-Thing-Imaginable hubby, for one.

After talking with him last night, I’m off to Wal-Mart to buy a Shop-Vac to implement his first idea, just as soon as my kids return with my car.

Stay tuned…

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Plumber Dude Needs to Put the Crack Pipe Down

But first, let me tell you what I really LIKED about the Twilight books. It’s the same thing I like about Disney/Pixar movies:

The story might be for/about kids, but they’re written in such a way that adults get a whole lot more out of them than kids do.

In the case of Twilight, there are no graphic sex scenes. Period. None. Hell…Bella and Edward don’t truly “get their groove on” for real until the last book, for cryin’ out loud. But their love story is the point of the whole series. And believe you me, baby, my heart was a-flutter well before the first book was done.

Why?

Because the story is written with a less-is-more attitude about graphic depictions of a love story. Our imaginations are our strongest aphrodisiacs, my friends…and I think too many authors (teen and adult fiction alike) have forgotten that.

When I think about my daughter reading the Twilight series, I realize she’ll be reading it through the filter of anticipation, not experience. And her heart will flutter just like mine, but for different reasons. She, at 10, doesn’t have the first clue what it feels like to have mind-blowing sex with someone you love inside-out, upside-down and sideways. I do. She’ll “fall in love” with Edward or Jacob for very different reasons than her mama is slobbering at the thought of those two. And that’s just as it should be.

Which brings me to the reason I won’t mind if she doesn’t read the Twilight series: Bella is not the model of self-esteem I want to see PDD following through her teen years. I mean, really, Bella doesn’t truly “get” any of her worth until the damn last chapter of the last book.

I get that fiction writers need to create conflict. I get that they need to create drama. And human relationships – particularly among teenagers – are full of both, for sure. But give me a royal break, will you please all ye fiction writers out there who insist on making your heroines subjugate themselves and their self-worth to the point of ridiculousness, all in the name of love.

PUH-LEEZ!!

Having been a teenage girl myself (though, admittedly, it was many eons ago) I know that low self-esteem and low self-worth run rampant in that demographic. Some of us carry that crap right on into adulthood with us, until we wake up one morning feeling like we’ve been dipped in wet cement and hung in the corner to dry, our coating of protective self-loathing is so thick. Bella would not ring true as an American teen without some of that going on in her head. I get that.

But does it have to be EVERY conclusion she draws as to why this or that happens? Every single time?

That is the one bitch I have with the Twilight series. Stephanie Meyer wore Bella’s insecurities out before the first book was done…and then kept on, and kept on…until I wanted to reach into the pages of the book and give Bella a slap like Cher gives Nicolas Cage in “Moonstruck” and scream, “Snap out of it!”

And this very thing is why I don’t read romance novels anymore. They’re unhealthy, IMHO.

I get that many women read them for “escape”. I get that. But I can name a few names of women who read them and substitute them for reality.

I hate to break it to some of you romance fans, but no man is going to “read your mind” and see how much you love him while you’re busy denying your attraction to him, much less your devotion, and come chasing you down to declare his undying love and sweep you off your feet into the happily ever after. Just ain’t gonna happen in real life.

Will a man pursue you despite your foibles? Uh, yeah. Duh. Will a man love you despite your imperfections? Uh, yeah. Double-duh. But will a man put up with you and your incessant “less-than” mentality forever on end? Not only no, but good God, I hope not!!

I know a couple whose marriage is, was and likely always will be teetering on the edge of emptiness largely due to the wife waiting on the husband to act like the Romance Novel Hero, and anything less than that leaves her disappointed. But will she speak up and say what she wants? Oh no…he’s supposed to read her mind and just give it to her.

There is a concept I learned the first week of computer programming school all those many years ago that applies to just about every aspect of life:

I’m pretty sure Bella would have been just as interesting, maybe even more so, if she’d been a little less self-loathing and a little more self-aware. And she’d have been a whole lot more ‘real’ an example for PDD than the default, “I’m so worthless I don’t see how Edward could love me” that played until the last few pages of the last book.

Maybe Stephanie didn’t see Juno yet…

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Why I Don’t Read Romance Novels (…Anymore)