Category: Daily Life

With a second hurricane on its way to the U.S. and the cost of living already climbing, my husband and I are starting to prepare ourselves to quickly and drastically scale back our expenses.  I have a feeling that the $300 electric bills I’ve been getting will look like a bargain compared to the gas bills that arrive this winter once we turn on the heat.

It helps a little to have the hybrid car (balanced, unfortunately, by my husband’s gas-guzzling Jeep Cherokee).  I kept yesterday’s $26 fill-up receipt because I predict that it will be a quaint souvenir soon.  Rising fuel costs are bound to have an effect on the price of groceries and other consumer goods, and that’s what really worries me.

On our budgetary chopping block:

• Cable TV
• Twice-monthly housecleaning
• All restaurant meals
• Non-essential purchases (books, music, clothes, etc.)

That’s still not really going to save us all that much.  We’ll need to keep the thermostat tightly controlled, make a point of turning off electrical appliances we’re not using, and probably close off certain rooms of the house.

We’re already delaying all kinds of services that would really come in handy, just because our budget is so tight.  The cats’ shots?  They can wait.  The exterminator?  We’ll make do with a flyswatter.  The plumber?  If you turn the faucet handle just right, the shower only drips a little bit. 

I’m afraid this is only the beginning.  Let’s hope I’m wrong.

There was a time when I would periodically wean myself off caffeine.  I don’t know why I thought that was a good idea, considering all the suffering I put myself through.  I’ve long since accepted my dependence on caffeine, but I mainly confine my consumption to tea and coffee.  I used to drink lots of cola (and in college, Mountain Dew), but I’m pretty much over that phase except for an occasional 8-oz. can of Coke as a treat.

I care a great deal for the canned Starbucks Double Shot Espresso
and Cream, but I wouldn’t recommend drinking one after 3:00
p.m.  At a Starbucks shop, I’ll always go for Cafe Americano in the morning and iced nonfat mocha in the afternoon – on the rare occasions when I can afford a coffee treat.

I like a lot of the flavors of Spark,
but purchasing it is more of an investment than an impulse, so I’ve run
out and haven’t ordered any more.  Spark has the advantage of being
very vitamin-rich, but I have to make sure I don’t drink one after
about noon if I ever hope to get to sleep before 1:00 a.m.

I haven’t made much of a foray into the world of canned energy drinks yet, so I was pleased to see Slate‘s article "Booster Shot," reviewing some of the most popular ones.  I drink a Red Bull now and then (even though it tastes like cough syrup), but I haven’t tried any of the others mentioned in the article.  It may be time for a little experimentation of my own.

Am I missing any great caffeinated drinks?  Iwouldn’twantomissanyopportunitiestodrinkmore!
 

1. Am I the only person who has difficulty with "Press in and pull up" perforated box tops?  I swear, I can’t get into a box of Kraft Mac & Cheese unless I carve out the tab with a steak knife first.  When it comes to big, thick boxes of kitty litter, I almost can’t open them at all.
2. Is it weird to obsessively check a recently sent Evite to see who has looked at it but not yet responded?
3. Did you notice that I finally updated my "Other Blogs I Like" list?  I kept toying with the idea of renaming the list because "Other Blogs I Like" so strongly implies that I like my own blog and, oh, these blogs, too.  Since that’s actually true, I figured it could stand.  I also eliminated the photo sites list because there just weren’t
   enough of them.  I rolled its blogs into the regular blog list and
   figured that y’all could live without the other few links.  Finally, I read a lot of the blogs in the BlogHer blogroll on the left but I didn’t repeat any of my newer faves from that list on the right.  Read ’em all and find your own favorites!
4. If you watched last night’s Emmy Awards, what was your favorite moment?  I have to go with the House writer who thanked someone for "talking [him] out of using the wombat suit from the teaser" because "it was a bad idea."  My second runner up would be S. Epatha Merkerson’s "speech lost down the cleavage" incident, but I felt sorry for her so that made it less amusing (especially since I could imagine myself doing the same thing).
5. Is there anything you’d like to ask me?  I can use all of the blog topic ideas I can get!

On Saturday, I drove out to a vineyard with my friend, the Cowboy, to participate in an activity arranged by a wine appreciation group.  The idea was that you’d help with the grape harvest for a few hours, see how the grapes were crushed, have some lunch and get a free bottle of wine. 

We arrived at 10:30 a.m. and immediately set to work filling five-gallon buckets with grapes clipped from the vines using gardening shears.  I’d brought my own shears and a pair of brown, cotton work gloves.  The Cowboy hadn’t brought any gloves and borrowed a pair of shears.  We each took one side of a row of vines and became an efficient grape harvesting team.  Ours were the first two buckets of grapes brought in.

It didn’t take long before my neck and back began to protest the sudden increase in manual labor.  I spend 9-12 hours per day sitting at a desk hunched over a computer, which doesn’t really prepare a person for a lot of steady, physical work.  The Cowboy began to note each rodeo injury by date ("Oklahoma City 2001") as they issued reminders to his nervous system.  We were very glad the first time the buckets ran out.

We stood around awkwardly with the other wine aficionados for what seemed like an hour, waiting and waiting for the truck to come back with more buckets.  Everyone was in couples or pairs of friends and nobody seemed very interested in socializing.  We drank some bottled water and cleaned off our hands while we waited.  By then, my gloves were stiff with sticky grape juice.

Once we got more buckets, we resumed the harvest with a vengeance, but we were getting increasingly tired and sore.  The Cowboy cut his finger with the shears and complained that the purple grape juice in the wound was going to tattoo him for life.  Have you heard of the book, A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace?  That title kept popping into my head as we discussed how ridiculous it was to have thought that hours of backbreaking labor in exchange for a meal and some wine sounded like a good idea.

We ran out of buckets again and waited perhaps another hour to get more.  I was getting really hungry and I heard other people saying the same thing, but we had another go-round of harvesting first.  We wished we’d thought to buy a case of PowerBars on the way there.  We could have sold them for $5 each.

When the truck came back with more buckets, the Cowboy and I filled four more before we called it a day (together we filled about 20 buckets total). 

Finally, we went into town to the main winery.  We walked by a hot barbecue grill that clearly was not in the midst of cooking food.  It was 3:30 p.m. by then, incidentally.  They showed us the machine that took the grapes from the stems, piped the fruit into tanks and spit the stems onto the ground.  The owner showed us the fermenting vats, but by then our interest was waning and we were starting to smell hamburgers cooking.

We ate our burgers, chips and a nice salad, and I went back for a hot dog after all that.  The wine tasting began while I was still eating a mustard-slathered hot dog, so I’m not really sure how much I liked the first wine.  We tried a variety of wines, including the port for which we were harvesting that day, a mead flavored with blackberries, and an apple wine.  The grape wines were pretty typical of Midwestern wines:  sweet and rather lacking in body.  The Cowboy and I both liked the apple wine best, so the instant we got our coupons we made a beeline to the shop, got two bottles and headed home.

What did I learn?  Well, definitely a new appreciation for farm laborers.  I also learned that when someone suggests bug repellant, it would be a good idea to stop and buy some.  Later I learned that Claritin does a pretty good job quelling hay fever symptoms but doesn’t do much for itchy chigger bites.  Finally, I learned that from here on out, I should confine my wine appreciation activities to drinking. 

Yesterday, all 16 of my co-workers and I boarded a bus at 11:00 a.m. and headed to a gigantic indoor amusement facility for an afternoon of fun (and presumably team-building).  What a blast!

We started with a lunch buffet and moved on to a Whirlyball tournament.  Judging by the Google search I just did to get that link, the sport has become quite popular, but I’d never heard of it until this week.  It’s basically a cross between jai alai and basketball played atop modified bumper cars.  I wasn’t very good at it, but it was fun.

After that we had an hour to disperse and play video games or whatever else we wanted to do.  I started out with a roller coaster simulator that was pretty darned cool.  For old times’ sake I played one game of Ms. Pacman and lost pretty quickly.  I played air hockey and eventually lost, although we kept the game going for quite some time.  Then I discovered the go-kart track!  I hadn’t driven a go-kart since I was a teenager and I’m a LOT more confident driver now.  Whee!  I started out fairly behind, but I think I eventually passed almost everyone else.

After that most of us regrouped and played laser tag.  I came in 14th out of 15, so clearly I don’t have the requisite killer instinct (or self-preservation instinct, for that matter).  When it comes to "shooting your friends" games, I think I might appreciate paintball a little more, just because there’s more incentive (ow!) not to get shot.  With laser tag it’s more, "Oh well, you got me."

By the time we wrapped things up around 3:00 p.m., I was ready for a nap.  Unfortunately, I still had lots of work to do and a board meeting in the early evening.  Still, I was glad I’d had the chance to spend the afternoon running around instead of being planted in front of my computer.  I just hope the chiropractor can get me in this evening…

I’ve been noticing that many female members of what my sister would refer as the "Look at me, I’m so alternative" crowd are sporting the Bettie Page look lately.  Not so much the partial nudity, but the black hair with bangs, often paired with a smart early ’60s-style frock. 

It makes me think two things:

1. Whew, my bangs aren’t completely out of style, and
2. I’ll bet their parents are breathing a sigh of relief that their daughters are carefully styling their hair and wearing dresses instead of piercing and tattooing miscellaneous areas of visible flesh.

Yeah, I’m getting old.  What can I say?

Our house alarm went off at 4:18 this morning.  We were deeply asleep, of course, but in the scramble to turn it off we could see that it was indicating something amiss with the sliding glass door that leads to our studio and office upstairs.  We were too muddle-headed at first to see that the readout also indicated a fire alarm.

My husband went to investigate the studio while I looked for a phone so we could be ready when the alarm company called.  He found that the door was securely locked, as were both screen doors.

The alarm company didn’t call and didn’t call.  I picked up one of the phones:  no dial tone.  I opened the laptop and launched Firefox:  no Internet.  Since we had discovered nothing amiss around the house, it was starting to look like the VOIP glitch had triggered the alarm all by itself.

After about 15 minutes, the broadband blinked back into service and Brinks finally called.  We were still shaken enough to agree to have the police department stop by.  They also sent the fire department because one of the alarms indicated a fire.

While we waited for the emergency services to arrive, it occurred to me that I hadn’t realized initially that the "F" on the alarm readout meant "Fire."  I figured I should check the garage to make sure one of the cars wasn’t smoldering, even though I’m sure my husband would have noticed from upstairs.  Again, nothing was going on.

By then, the police had arrived and we were certain that the whole thing was nothing but an alarm malfunction.  As I finished giving my information for the report, the fire department arrived – without sirens but still noisily – and I hoped we wouldn’t wake up the whole neighborhood.

I can live the the idea that there’s no 911 service with a VOIP phone during a power outage (all our phones are cordless anyway, so it really doesn’t make any difference), but I’m not at all pleased with the idea that the alarm can be triggered by one of the many minor service outages that our broadband experiences.  It’s scary and a waste of time for the police and fire department.

I think this calls for a follow-up call to the alarm company later.  For now, I’m going back to bed.

Moving backwards through my weekend, the most interesting thing I did was attend the Missouri Gay Rodeo Association Show-Me State Rodeo on Saturday.  One of my friends has been competing on the circuit for the last few years and I’d been waiting for a chance to go to one nearby.

I missed his first event, calf roping.  The rodeo events began two hours earlier than originally scheduled because there were so many competitors registered.  I did get to see him compete in the chute dogging event (catching a young steer as it leaves the chute and wrestling it to the ground).

The majority of the events were traditional rodeo competitions:  roping, riding and wrangling, you might say.  There were three "camp" events:  steer decorating (tying a ribbon on a steer’s tail while your teammate tries to remove the rope looped over its horns), wild drag race (cowboy and cowgirl or drag queen team directs a steer across a finish line, mounts the "drag" on the steer and rides back across the finish line), and goat dressing (two-person team runs 50 feet to where a goat is tethered, picks up the goat, puts jockey-style underwear over the animal’s hindquarters and runs back to the starting line). 

The only camp event I saw was goat dressing, which elicited a certain amount of disdain from the cowboys seated near me.  Judging by the apparent dangerousness of many of the events, I think they considered it too silly and too tame.  Steer decorating and wild drag are kind of silly, too, but also carry a fair amount of risk.

I hadn’t been to a rodeo in a quite a few years, and I noticed that there’s now a great deal of safety gear available for participants.  My friend has broken several ribs and a collarbone since he began competing, so he wears a heavy vest to keep steer horns from damaging his midsection.  I also saw some helmets worn during events likely to dash the rider to the ground.  Not everyone takes advantage of the extra gear.  Plenty of competitors had nothing between them and potential injury except cowboy hats and western shirts.

I couldn’t help looking for things that made a gay rodeo different than the other rodeos I’ve attended, but what was most striking was how little difference there was.  The riderless horse ceremony took on an added dimension of poignancy in the context of the AIDS epidemic, but the National Anthem and opening prayer were about as traditional as you’d expect in any red state rodeo.

If you’re interested in going to one, the International Gay Rodeo Association website lists all of its member organizations’ scheduled rodeos for the year.  It was a great way to spend a morning and afternoon (I finally took off when it got really hot, even in the shade).  The next time I go, I hope I can stick around for all the events.

I was going to blog about my weekend and other fun and lighthearted things, but I got distracted this morning when I went to put in my contacts.  As I raised my left contact lens to place it in my eye, I looked into the mirror and saw that most of my left eyeball was a horrible blood-red.  Aaaghh!

Naturally, I sought advice from a dozen websites of varying shadiness.  There was a reasonable amount of consensus that:

• It’s a subconjunctival hemorrhage
• They’re not a big deal
• They heal up on their own in 2-3 weeks without treatment

Apparently this often happens when someone coughs or sneezes (both of which I did quite a bit yesterday thanks to my allergies).  Considering that I managed to break a blood vessel in my finger the weekend before last while wrapping up instrument cables, I’m guessing it didn’t take much to violate the tender little capillaries in my eyeballs.

The Internets couldn’t give me a definitive answer about whether or not it was okay for me to wear my contact lenses, but considering that my glasses give me a headache and look really, really ugly (not that my hideous red eye isn’t ugly, but you know…), I decided to put my last fresh lens in my left eye and take my chances.  My eye doctor hasn’t returned my call, but I have an appointment with him on Saturday anyway, so I suppose it can wait.

If you’re tempted to leave alarming comments about potential underlying medical causes, you’ll be happy to know that I have a complete physical scheduled for Friday morning.    In the meantime, I’ll wear my sunglasses as much as possible and try not to scare small children.

Every year, my husband and I throw a gigantic party and invite everyone we know.  Our house is miniscule, so the party must be mainly confined to our back yard, back patio and deck.  This means we have to choose the date carefully to make sure it isn’t too hot, too cool or raining.

Last year we made the huge mistake of having our party over Labor Day
Weekend, which made for a very light turnout.  This year we’re shooting
for mid-October.  It’ll still be nice out, but probably not hot.

When we have some disposable income, we do a nice party with catered food, kegs of beer, etc.  This will not be one of those years.  This year it’ll be potluck and BYOB, but I don’t think our friends will mind.  We’ll buy some ice, hot dogs, bratwurst and buns, fire up the grill and let the rest work itself out. 

We plan to set up on the deck so that my band and at least one of my husband’s bands can play, then we’ll open it up so our other musician friends can jam if they want to.  I always worry that the non-musicians will feel left out, but they seem to enjoy themselves.

We sometimes have as many as 100 people come by over the course of the day.  There’s minimal overlap between groups and I notice that people ordinarily find a person or two that they know and cling to them until they leave. 

My question for all of you:  what can we do to encourage people who don’t know each other to mingle?  I’ll take any ideas I can get.