set the night on fire

We dig on New and Exciting. The only problem with that is, New and Exciting is most often not Free; most of the time it is Downright Expensive. Imagine my surprise then, one Friday afternoon, when I stumbled across the information that a meteor shower would be taking place that very weekend. Not just any run-of-the-mill meteor shower, either. The Perseid shower of 2007 promised to have the best viewing in quite a number of years, due to the fact that the new moon would not detract from the meteors with the long, bright, multi-colored tails AND early morning viewers (around 4 am, to be precise) would be able to watch the rise of red Mars in addition to all the other technicolor mayhem in the atmosphere. Brilliant. And Free.

Nine pm Sunday evening was clear and not as hot as it could have been. After a dessert of ice cream bars, we gathered the Neat Sheet ™, a stack of inflatable ReadyBeds ™, citronella candles and a firestick, bug repellent, water bottles, a long tether for the dog, and the guitar and loaded up the minivan. Destination: the baseball fields behind the elementary school. It was the only open place we could think of that would be relatively darkened, but close enough to get home at a decent hour. The kids were excited at the prospect of “camping out” under the stars on this beautiful clear night and I had planned on telling them all about the meteors and how to spot them as the night grew dark enough.

Setting up in the almost pitch-black was harder than we expected, having only 2 citronella candles to use for light. Of all the things I thought of, “lantern” never once sprung to mind. Oh well. All the kids settled noisily onto their little inner-tube beds and squeaking and giggling, intently watching the sky and asking, “where are the comets?” literally every ten seconds.

The littlest little pointed “Hey the school’s on fire!” and I gullibly turned in the direction of the school reassuring her with a “No it isn’t silly, that’s just our cand- Oh, shit.” I was on my feet and dialing 911 on the cell phone before the rest of the kids had even turned to look. Running across three baseball diamonds (and their subsequent outfields) as well as the soccer field, I could see the lone silhouette of someone near the second grade wing. The school wasn’t just on fire, someone was setting it on fire. On purpose.

The blaze was half the height of the school. As I got closer, the flames fizzled out, but I kept an eye on the person walking the perimeter of the back of the school now. I still hadn’t crossed the soccer field and into the playground, but I was close enough to see the person was carrying a red gas can and pouring some kind of liquid onto the ground by the school. I could not yet smell what it was. I relayed all this information to the 911 operator, including my fuzzy and darkened description of what I could see of the person, which admittedly wasn’t much. I didn’t want to get too close, not knowing if he also had a weapon, so I stayed back far enough, holding my cell phone flat against my cheek to block the light and hoping he wouldn’t see me.

The Fire Department arrived first with one short blast of siren. Dude jumped ten feet into the air, dropped the gas can, and quickly walked towards the parking lot, doubled back and headed in the direction of the nearest trees. Right where I was standing. Then he saw me and took off. I ran to the fire truck, still on the phone with the police telling them which direction Dude was running. I showed the fire fighters the gas can and the scorch marks on the sidewalk and up the side of the school. They called in an Arson Investigation team and asked if I would stay and give a statement. The police called me back on my cell and asked me to meet them around the corner to ID someone. Damn I was tired of running, but away I went.

I didn’t think I could ID him. The clothes partially matched the description I gave, but I had told them I thought he was wearing a hat, because it looked like his hair was sticking out of the bottom of it. Dude here had a curly mop fringe going around the bottom edge of his hair…..could be him, but I never got closer than 50 yards. He was caught sprinting out of the trees right near where I lost sight of him though, really nervous and sweating like a pig from running. Dude claimed he was with two friends and they all split up because they thought they were being chased by a dog. While they were taking his info down, lo and behold, there went a meteor. I was asked to go back to the school to meet with the Arson team at that point. Man, can’t I get a ride with one of y’all????

I got permission to go let my husband know I was OK and that I would be up by the school for a little while longer. Then I sat and answered questions from the Arson team for a while. When no one was talking to me I had my eyes on the sky. Dammit, I was missing the show! You know, the meteors I actually came out here to see?? At some point, a call came through on the police scanner that a neighbor near the school saw a lot of activity going on behind the school and was worried someone might be vandalizing it back there. Ummmm, it was us. We all had a laugh at the caller who had just noticed that an investigation had been going on for an hour. Nigh about 10:30, the police finally got into contact with the two friends Dude said he’d been with all night. They hadn’t seen him since school let out. The police booked him.

I stumbled back one more time across the black fields in search of my family. I called “Marco?” several times, before hearing my husband’s return “Polo.” Both of the boys had already fallen asleep, the girls were hysterically exhausted and my dear darling abandoned husband was about ready to choke everyone, including himself in frustration. No they never saw a meteor, not even the bright one that I’d seen. They spent the whole time asking questions and fighting while Daddy tried to answer them. He tried to sing them songs and play guitar to pass the time and they kept shushing each other to the point that there was no point in continuing to play the guitar. He was tired, the dog was wired and we still had to wake the boys and drag them and all our stuff back to the car…..across three baseball fields, the soccer field and the playground. OK, so it wasn’t such a great place to choose after all.

But would the school have been damaged if we’d not been there? Possibly. Would the little bastard setting my school on fire have been caught? Most likely not. I just heard that we might be able to catch a glimpse of the last remnants of the shower next Monday morning. I’ll set an alarm and watch them myself this time. Too much New-ness and Excitement can be a bad thing.

i think i need a new t-shirt

I think I'll go shirt hunting when I'm finished here. A new-found confidence has been lit in me and I just had to share. And yes, I'm bragging. Nyah.

If we're lucky, we catch a man who loves us whether we're dressed to the nines or sitting in a dirty spit-up-stained three-day old t-shirt and sobbing over a seventh poopy diaper in an hour. If we're lucky. And those awesome co-procreators take a minute of each day to devote a comment on our beauty before kissing us on the way out the door. And that beauty consists of skunk-poop-morning breath, pre-shower and definitely pre-coffee rumpled in the bedsheets with the lights off. But they know what they see. Or they will compliment a less-than-stellar dinner because they appreciate the level of difficulty maintaining order in the chaos that is homework in the dining room while preparing dinner and getting ready for scouts. If we're really lucky, half of us get one of those guys with stars in their eyes, still seeing their blushing bride reflected in the cataracts and blue perms hunched over a walker 60 years later. I am one of those. And I am truly grateful for the outpouring of love my man has thrust upon me me in the past decade. At times though, it was more like one of those mustard yellow jumbo team thermoses of ice water being dumped on my head, but it was there and I clung to the fact that at least one person on the planet thought I looked nice enough, even when I put no effort into it whatsoever.

Entering the period of time known as the "thirty-somethings" has changed this perspective, only slightly. Dude, I just realized that I have spent the last decade in frump-mode and while my other female counterparts were perfecting the art of going out in public, I simply made do by not leaving the confines of my home for days on end. I have since decided to make myself look presentable, so that my tweenager doesn't gasp at the sweatpants and ratty t-shirt I wore the last time we went to the mall two weeks ago. Because, yeah, everyone will notice and think that's the only outfit I have. Yeah, uh, right. I'm doing it so I don't, um, embarrass her. *ahem* Slowly over the past two years I have been getting new jeans and cutesy shirts, I bought something besides running shoes for my feets, and I fired my ponytail. I have been walking, running and biking with the dog every night for two months. In other words, I declare myself suitable for the public eye.

And apparently they've noticed my efforts. Last night I was walking my faithful exercise-enducing canine surrounded by all four of my offspring when a car full of guys drove by, apparently went around the block and made a second, slower pass and they all yelled "MILF!!!!" and honked. I waved back as they sped up, a grin literally splitting my face. There's the love of your life telling you that you're beautiful when you think you're not, and then there's a car full of strangers agreeing with him. That feels a little different. So yeah, I need a new shirt, one that proclaims that yes, indeed, I am a Mother You'd Like to Ffffff...fjord.

"your attention please"

"All passengers with lost luggage please report to the lost and found office located on the lower level. Do not agree to take any baggage into the airport that does not belong to you. Do not allow anyone to place anything into your luggage. All unattended baggage will be subject to inspection and may be damaged or destroyed. Thank you."

I still hear the voice in my sleep. I used to work at the airport pre-9/11 and that recording repeated, calmly, just under every conversation, just over the muzak (tm), just enough to burn itself into my subconscious every five minutes of every day. I rose at 3:30 am to get ready and drive to work, take the shuttle from the employee lot, drop off at the Southwest Airlines (tm) ticket counter, walk under the ramming gate and through the silent walk-thru scanner. I helped open the checkpoint that allowed passengers to board their planes. I dealt with every kind of person you could possibly imagine, and I intend to do it again. Except the pay is now three times what it was in 1998. The people at Burger King (tm) were paid more than the passenger screeners. And people wondered why tragedies happened at airports and on planes.

Money is tight. So I applied for a job with the TSA. Fergus is fortunate enough to hold a position that encourages flex time. Meaning I could work Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and he could work 10-hour shifts four days a week, or simply go in later after the kids go to school and come home later at night. We won't have to worry about daycare now that kiddies are in school full time, and I will still be available during the week to volunteer at the school and work as a substitute too. This just might work.

I am excited at the possibility of getting this position again. I am so nosy. I plan to look at what you have stuffed in that bag. I plan on rummaging through your purse and telling you that the snacks have to go in the trash. I intend to wave a wand over your body and ask you to disrobe behind a screen if I cannot discern what is making that noise. I plan on using a polite but firm voice to make the procedure clear and if you have a problem with what I am asking, I will call the law enforcement and possibly get your ass kicked off your flight.

I am ready for the drug dealers with their drugs ingested and shit out again, wrapped in foil to look like sandwiches in a paper bag. I am ready for the women who refuse to open their purses and call me a racist because something looks suspicious inside. I am prepared for the travelling cowboy with a 14-foot leather whip with a barb on the end refusing to check his weapon at the ticket counter. I can hardly wait for the guy who collects "weird art" consisting of a belt made of live bullets soldered together. (who is insane enough to solder together live bullets anyway???)

Bring it on. Hire me. I am ready for my job again.

the beagle and the bee

trixie just had a bath. so we let her outside and, of course, she does the "ohmygodistink" roll in the dirt to wash off the clean smell. she was excited and happy, jumping and rolling and barking when something small caught her attention.

pounce!

tail wagging, nose sniffing, ears perking.

pounce! she did it again, tail in the air, pawing and snuffling at the ground. she was teasing the bees again. she pounces and chews at them and they buzz in her nose as she jumps away just in time. she gave two short barks, pouncing again and then leapt four feet into the air, taking off into a full run when she landed. we laughed, jeering at her, "see, they don't like it when you tick them off, silly girl!"

she barked and ran around the yard, sniffing the places in the fence where the rabbits leak in from other yards. we took her back inside so i could get started grilling.

i plopped the frozen burger patties over the flames, turning them to sear and sprinkling seasonings and minced onions on top. i went back inside and saw the trixter on the steps. she obviously wanted out to go play where it smelled reeeeeally good. then i did a double take. the left side of her muzzle was swollen up and puffy. she must have been stung!

fergus googled "dog nose bee sting" and we did some quick reading. i grabbed a credit card and tried like hell to scrape across her muzzle to dislodge the stinger. but, uh, how do you find a stinger in a face full of fur that won't hold still for first aid?? next we made a baking soda & water paste and tried smearing it on her nose. she very resolutely kept licking it off. next. i saw an entry suggesting benadryl, then cross checked it with four other veterinary sites. 1 mg of benadryl per pound of dog. the swelling was spreading up to her eye now. she was 30 pounds at her last vet visit......we have 25 mg tabs.....i went for it.

i gave her a pill stuffed in a bit of hot dog and she swallowed it down. the burgers burned while we dithered around, but i managed to scrape the charcoal off the one side, leaving them dry, but edible. i sat and held an ice pack on her wee nosie for as long as she let me, cooing and telling her how dumb she was for bee-teasing the whole time.

an hour later her nose was almost normal sized again and she was begging for a walk. i think the pain and the benadryl kept her from noticing as many rabbits as usual, and that was fine by me. this morning the swelling is completely gone. i'm just glad the little dork is feeling better. hope she learned that time.

gunpowder falls to the rescue

I know why my stomach hurts today. Money is tight. Things are not going well in the banking and billing department. There is nothing I can do to change the way things are headed until I can work at the school in the fall. Hopefully I can keep my stomach at bay long enough to resolve our money problems. We promised the kids a mini-trip every week this summer, in lieu of a large family vacation that we cannot afford. We were supposed to go bowling yesterday, but we have no funds. And I mean none. I can't squeeze a drop from the money machine and the kids watched the little box spit my card out without any money; their little faces fell. Damn.

I could mope and be miserable about it. But since I'm looking at the bigger picture today, I suddenly remembered something we could do for free. Out in the wild. I just hoped I could convince the kids to be excited about it.

There's a trail head for a HUGE state park ten minutes from our house. We donned water shoes and hats. I passed out icy water bottles. I gathered up a few small plastic tubs, the camera and our bugscope, and we headed for the trails. We hike a lot out here, so they recognized our destination as soon as we rounded a certain curve. By the time we parked, they were chattering on about getting to slosh through the creek. Usually we forget our water shoes.

We first noticed that the creek was low and murky. We talked in depth about the lack of rain and how that effects the water system. We watched a rather large (creeeeepy) spider wrap up a little something for its lunch. We caught a daddy longlegs and looked at his body through the bugscope. Did you know that daddy longlegs legs are fatter where they join to its body? We do now. We got to the end of one path, where we usually turn back, but today we plunged in and marveled at everything we got to see. We caught a few crawfish and watched them scurry in our plastic tub.

We also managed to track down this super speedy tadpole, and used our bugscope to see it's teeeny eeensy legs forming on its sides.

The dragonflies and pond skippers were too quick for us, but we snapped some awesome shots of two different species of butterfly, sunning on the rocks. I have not determined what kind of butterfly is above, but this is either the eastern tiger swallowtail or the appalachian swallowtail, below.


The Princess trying her hardest to catch those quick minnows...and catching lots of water in the process!

A sopping wet Hercules thoroughly enjoying his catch....of rocks! Would you like a taste? I can cook them to order!


King Schmoo of the creek says: no mere rushing water can knock me down! See how sturdy I stand in the water pouring off the rocks. Alright, ma, take the picture already.

Big Sister Bear, minnow catcher extrordinaire! She actually caught about 15 of the little buggers and let the kids hold them (in the buckets) and get pics taken. Those are some FAST hands!!


On the way back to the car, we happened to notice that our eight-legged recently-fed friend was no longer in its web. In fact, the entire web was missing as well. We could only surmise that it made a tasty treat for any of the robins or cardinals swooping in the trees nearby. Today I learned that I really had nothing to worry about on this excursion. They proclaimed this to be more fun (and more educational, one pointed out) than sitting in the bowling alley anyway. They had so much fun, they asked if we could make this our trip next week. Except next week, we'll need to bring a picnic lunch. Sitting back and watching the kids splash in the creek and looking at the big picture, things aren't so bad. We'll figure this money thing out. Then we can go bowling; that is, if the kids still want to.

finally getting to the fourth

I love the Fourth.

Unexpectedly, it pounces on me with the pop and crackle of fireworks and the dusty smell of phosphorus the last week in June. New Old Glories wave in the breeze from businesses and car windows. Buntings and variations of stars and stripes dangle from apartment balconies and dress up front porches. People seem to have a little more bounce in their step and I can be caught humming bars from John Philip Sousa or Francis Scott Key at any time.

When I was little, my dad always used to tell me that the fireworks were all for me. We'd sit in lawn chairs at my grandmother's house, sipping soda through straws, watching the neighbors put on fantastic displays of colored lights. The air grew thick with the smell I associated with birthday cake and, incidentally, our nation's freedom. I was crushed to learn in school that the fireworks were actually for the birth of America, not me, and that the displays had gone on for exactly 199 years before I was even thought of. But not all the magic was lost; I still pretend they are for me. *hmmph*

Even with all the excitement, we never went anywhere else for the Fourth. I never knew of parades winding through the streets of town. Never saw a community block party. Never stood on the curb catching candy, wearing red, white and blue while waving a flag at the fire engines. Never clapped for the local high school marching bands. We didn't go downtown where all the action took place. There were murderers and thugs and "bad people" there. I never knew what I was missing until I was married with kids of my own. And we finally discovered small-town America's Independence Day Celebrations.

Classic cars decked out in their finest, polished to literally glow in the summer sunshine. Marching bands with their fancy flag corps routines and the tuba line doing a kick step as they marched and played "Yankee Doodle." My kiddies sitting on the curb, clapping their hands in time with the music, nudging each other and saying, "Hey I know this song!!!" Fire engines, lights ablaze, with their families seated on the back of the truck, waving their flags to their friends in the streets. Boy and Girl Scouts tossing patriotic Tootsie Rolls and fake Americana tattoos and carrying their troop flags alongside Old Glory herself. Legions of American Legions displaying the progression of our flag from her days of thirteen prim stars in a circle on a field of blue liberty, all the way through the brilliantly billowing banner of today. Kilted bagpipers, fife players sporting tri-corner hats, social organizations, drama troops, dance companies….please excuse my excitement; this is all new to me.

And so the end of the parade trailed into early afternoon, when we went home for a picnic lunch and some swimming. Our plans were far from over because we still had to wait for nightfall before my favorite part began. We planned to attend the local carnival before the show, and those plans were dashed with the phrase, "the tornado watch remains in effect until 10:30 tonight…" My mid-western nose and I ran outside and sniffed the air. It was damp. Yes it would rain, but the light breeze didn't have that certain indescribable smell of danger. The sky was foreboding, but not the classic green tint that signals funnels dropping from the heavens. My nose and I decided we were safe. So we put doggie into her crate with soothing music and a running fan to dampen the terrifying booms that would be heard in the near future. We packed umbrellas and the Neat Sheet™, and left the house in a soaking rain. Halfway there (less than 5 minutes down the road, that is) the sun warily poked a few fingerholes in the clouds, giving a truly awesome sight of golden sun in a driving rain. By the time we paid the Boy Scouts for the use of their church parking lot, the rain had stopped and we fairly skipped the whole four blocks to the show. I secured a spot in view of the field and watched kiddies play on the school playground equipment. Every pattern of our nation's colors was visible in a crowd clutching beach towels, bedspreads, garbage bags and umbrellas under threat of more rain. Giggling children smelling of bug spray and cotton candy frolicked barefoot in the damp grass, waving sparklers. The live band played in the secured stage, making announcements for the event organizers. While huddling under five umbrellas, eating funnel cakes and snowballs, the band stated that the show would begin early because a storm cell was headed right for us. As if to confirm that, Mother Nature grumbled warily to our southwest. The display began in a hurry.

It was still light and we could make out the forms of the pyrotechnicians scurrying to simply set fire to the night before the rain hit. The result was loud, unorganized, brighter than daylight, and fantastic. I have never seen so many large-scale fireworks go off that close together and it was as scary as it was fun. The booms shook in my chest and drowned out the delighted screams of the kids. The thirty minute show was chopped to almost twenty minutes and as the last burst of color and sonic booms died away, down came the rain. Lightning flashed and thunder followed close on its heels as we gathered our shoes and umbrellas and made our escape under buckets emptying themselves from the sky upon the crowd.

In a sea of running people and umbrellas, I knew the kids would have trouble staying together. Mama Duck took the lead, holding tightly to the closure strap on the littlest little's umbrella and they all stair-stepped up to Daddy. "Keep your eyes on your siblings' shoes in front of you and DON'T BREAK THIS LINE!!" I ordered. The police shut down all traffic and believe it or not, everyone respected our little umbrella train. No one broke through the middle; in fact, most people hung just behind me as if I was the cow-catcher of this express or something. For some reason it made me feel tall. We made it to our car as the rain began to taper off a bit, but as we opened the car doors, the floodgates opened once more. We managed to find a back street that led in the direction of our home, but away from the police- and traffic-jammed streets. Laughing, soaked through the skin all the way to our bones and happy, we slopped out of the car and into our house, filling the bathtub with sopping clothes, shoes and umbrellas; home again. After toweling heads and tucking excited kiddies into beds, we crashed onto the couch in dry, clean pajamas and said, simultaneously, "Well, that was fun!"

I love the Fourth.

a slide show to accompany my story is right here.

an unlikely field trip

Anyone who has been invited to view the slideshow of our yard's face-lift will be able to note that we moved quite a lot of dirt, sod, rocks, brick, old concrete, rebar, railroad ties and a full cubic foot of broken glass (with the exception of the bottle from the local dairy back in 1950-something that we managed to extract whole). We ended up with a rather large pile headed for the dump. Due to the difficulty of moving so much debris, we decided to rent a local hardware store truck and caravan out to the dump and work together. The kids, never having actually seen a dump before, were ecstatic to go on the trip. "Why do we have to go? Can't daddy just do it alone? I don't waaaaaanaaaa!"

Mid-wail, the garbage truck pulls up in front of our house. The guys waved to the kids and asked their permission to take the trash away for us. For some reason, the hopper is always full when it gets to our house and they squish it (as it dribbles messily out of the truck into the street...) engine roaring, pistons skreeling, contents bursting. All three of them watched, wide-eyed as the garbage truck did it's thing. Oh, perfect. I snapped into teacher mode immediately. Before the smelly backside of the garbage truck was out of sight, I pulled out a dog-eared, well-loved copy of an awesome book: "I STINK!" by Kate & Jim McMullan. It describes in fascinating kid-like detail exactly what the garbage truck does. It lists the parts of the truck and the jobs of the sanitation workers and it addresses the most serious kid-inquisitive topic of them all: "what is in there and where is it going?" The book works it's way alphabetically from apple cores through zipped up ziti with zucchini accompanied by accurately watercolored drawings of the trash contents. NOW they really were excited to follow the trash truck to the dump.

Once there, we watched the trucks drive onto the scales to weigh how much trash they were bringing. We couldn't see the numbers, but the kids were fascinated by the ever-slightly-swaying platform. Next we drove past the place where you dump just wood and yard debris like tree branches, grass clippings, and leaves. From where we sat they could see the mulchers spewing piles of chopped and splintered wood higher than a bus and three times as long. We talked about how they recycle those things and re-use them to put wood chips on the playground at school. We continued around a curve and found the concrete dump. We unloaded most of the truck and the kids dutifully stayed in the van, watching out the open door as we added our cinderblocks and chunked concrete to the piles of flagstone, bricks and paving stones. We buckled the kids back in and followed a winding dirt road that kept going up, up, up....all along the left side we saw lots of grass and pumps used to alleviate the pressure of the building methane, I'm sure. At the top we reached the actual dump and the kids were thrilled to see an actual garbage truck emptying its hopper onto the ground. They watched as a bulldozer covered Mount Trash-O-Rama with dirt and let the next truck in to do the same.

They complained about the smell a bit and we reviewed what, exactly, we were smelling according to our book. All the way home they recited different specimens found in the book's trash cans and then they spun off to tell what they had most recently put in the trash can themselves. All in all it was an extremely successful morning. We finished our job, the kids had fun, there were no complaints the whole drive there or back, and they all volunteered to take out the trash when we got home. Normal, we are not.