A Road Less Travelled

Yesterday Raquel and I Went Out. This is a momentous enough occasion to deserve capital letters.

First we met at Seth’s work for some nifty van switching. Then we stopped at Naturally Yours to buy enough water to tide the Ben-Ezra family over until I can get out today. And then the Outing truly started.

We ate dinner at Fedora’s which is a little restaurant on the corner of University and McClure. Raquel had gone there for lunch with the Lansberrys and she suggested maybe we get our food to go because Fedora’s doesn’t really have very good ambiance. We eventually decided that we would just end up eating in the van if we didn’t eat there and neither of us felt like that so we got the whole Fedora’s experience.

The food was veryvery good excellent. We got a Reuben sandwich and a Spicy Italian sandwich and split them between us. I didn’t eat either pickle that came with the sandwiches because I decided pickles would be an unwise use of my stomach space when there was such yummy food that could be eaten. The Reuben was a little heavy on the mustard, but the Spicy Italian was perfect. And I was beating Raquel at 500 Rummy at the time so I was having a good time.

The food was tasty, but when Raquel says Fedoras doesn’t have much ambiance she means it’s six wobbly tables, styro-foam plates, dirty ceiling fans and fluorescent lights. The only redeeming feature the restaurant has is the nifty posters it has on the walls. There’s one of all different kinds of olive oil, a poster of tomatoes, a poster of European breads and some others I can’t recall at the moment. Next time I think I’ll have my food to go.

After dinner we went to the Nova theater which is behind the Walmart on University and saw Spiderman 3. The theater was a better price than any other theater in the area, but it smelled funny. And the bathrooms were too hot.

The movie was very good, but kinda hard to watch. I pretty much know how the story ends and it isn’t pretty. Raquel was upset about something that happened in the movie so when it was over she made a break for the great outdoors so she could pace. The only trouble was we couldn’t find the exit. There was wall where an exit should be and the doors we came in were locked. When we finally found the exit everybody there probably thought we were either dumb or crazy. Raquel and I paced for a little bit in the parking lot until all of our upset and agitation had evaporated and then we came home. And a lovely time was had by both.

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I am a Crystal Wanna-Be. She started using henna in her hair and then I started using henna in my hair. I like using henna, but I never think to do it until Crystal is doing it. I feel like such a follower.

Yesterday Crystal was trying out her indigo sample. I wandered into the kitchen and thought “Natural goop to put in one’s hair and turn it funny colors? That looks like fun!” So I got out our new box of henna, mixed the henna up and walked away for a few hours like you’re supposed to.

Now, I’ve tried henna before with mixed results. My hair is so dark it is easy for the henna to get lost among the darkness. Sometimes the henna dyed my hair nicely, though never as obviously as I wanted; sometimes it just kinda sat there and didn’t seem to do anything at all. The other times I tried henna, though, I mixed it with spices to adjust the natural color. This time I just used straight henna and I am so very pleased with the results. The color should change a little over this week, but for right now it looks like I have bright red highlights. That makes me happy. However, when I put the henna in my hair I didn’t use gloves so it also stained my hands orange. That makes me amused.

We bought this henna from the local International Food Market on Main Street. It is very high quality henna and I would reccomend it to anyone who wants bright red hair and/or orange hands.

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Tuesday Seth and the kids made a documentary of our house. This project did double duty as homeschool movie-making project and a way to give a tour of our new house to the folks who don’t live here. You will find the links here. Enjoy!

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 I have dragged, pushed and carried an odd assortment of things down our street. The oddest that comes to mind was a rolling hamper full of dirty clothes. A few hours later I rolled that same hamper now full of clean clothes up the street. I’ve seen people walking stoves down the street and, when we moved, Sanford and Sons walked our stove, refrigerator and freezer down the street. But today I felt ridiculous.

We still have some things at the old house. We have two picnic tables, a jungle gym and we used to have a plastic playhouse. Today I was feeling young and full of energy so I went to the old house prepared to carry the playhouse back with me. Well, it turns out that the playhouse is actually much heavier than I thought it was. And the playhouse didn’t seem to want to come apart at the seams like it should have. Okay, I thought, I’ll just lug it down as it is. This was a good plan except that the playhouse wouldn’t fit through the gate. I pushed, I pulled, I even bent a gate post out a bit, but still the playhouse refused to fit through the gate. Finally, I managed to flip the playhouse up and over the gate. It landed with a crash and I was all ready to haul it away.

It is hard to feel dignified when one is pulling a plastic, pastel playhouse down the street. The pastel colors seem to lack a certain something and when the house catches on every bump and hillock one’s motions lack smoothness and grace. Thankfully, there were very few people out and about. I only saw two neighbors and a couple complete strangers. I got the playhouse all the way down the street, across the street, up the driveway and right to the gate before I noticed a disquieting fact. Our new gate is the same width as our old gate. The playhouse wouldn’t fit through the fence. And since our fence is about six feet tall there was no way I was going to be able to flip the playhouse over it by myself.

Not to fear!, I said to myself. There are plenty of children about. In fact, there were three children out in the back yard. Arianna, Samuel and Noah were very happy to see their playhouse, but not very confident in my plan to get it over the fence. I had just made Noah sit down at the kid’s picnic table to keep him out of the danger zone and had arranged Arianna and Samuel on one side of the playhouse when I heard a shout from the street. The man who had lived across the street from us before we moved had noticed my plight and come to help. He and I flipped the playhouse over the fence with no problems and then chatted about our house. He used to live in our house when it had been three apartments. After he left the kids and I put the playhouse together and they were very excited. It really makes our backyard look like ours. 

As I’m writing this a thought occurs to me. We still have two picnic tables and a jungle gym left at the little house. There is no way I’ll be able to get them here by myself. I have decided I’m not even going to try. 

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Yesterday I finally got to use the day off Seth and Crystal gave me for Christmas. And what a day it was.

First, I got up at a reasonable hour and took Seth to work. Not exactly how I would have liked to open up the day, but I wanted the van so I had to get up. After that I went to the bank and did some exciting bank stuff. Wheee!

After the bank I mosied over to Kohls to try and find some pants that would be comfortable, affordable and comfortable. I managed to get two pairs of verysuper comfortable pants for fifty per cent off each! They need to be hemmed because apparently only seven-foot tall, plus-sized women were going to be wearing these pants, but hemming isn’t too hard.

The rest of the day was mostly taken up with various book stores. When Seth and I organized the books after we moved he went through and purged out the books no one is going to read again and so I took a large box of books over to the Book Nook and exchanged most of them for credit. Here comes the bookstore review. Ahem- The Book Nook is a used bookstore dealing in paperbacks of all kinds. The prices start at about two dollars for a book in good condition. I found some books there that I have been trying to find for some time. I found several books by an author that has been difficult to find. I found all the books I was going there for and then when I got to the front counter Michael, the proprietor we know from somewhere else, got some books out from behind the counter that he knew I would like. He gave us almost forty dollars in store credit for the books we traded in and I was able to use some of it and store the rest for later. The store is a little messy right now because he is in the process of expanding into the next-door store front, but I was still able to find what I wanted easily. I give it two thumbs up and would highly recommend the store. In fact, I think I have already.

After the Book Nook there were some other book stores and then I bumped into the Lansberrys at the library, but I couldn’t stay to chat because my meter had run out. Theresa had tried to feed it for me, but it was jammed. After the library I went to Barnes and Noble to finish the eleventh issue of a manga I’ve been following. Then I bought dinner at a grocery store. Dinner consisted mostly of cheese. I ate too much cheese and felt slightly sick afterwards. Or it may have been that I was sitting too close to the screen at the movie I went to see. I saw The Holiday which was a delightful chick flick. Every time I started thinking about what I wanted to happen next it would happen and I would be glad. It was almost a private viewing, but at the last minute another woman came in so there were two of us in the theater.

I got home just in time for the finale of Esther and to watch somebody else do dinner clean up. When Keith, our gaming friend, showed up I beat he and Seth at High Society and then was promptly romped all over in Blue Moon City. Before I went to bed I put all my new books in their places on my shelves and just looked at them. Then I pulled some out that I want to take to Erie with me. You did know that I’m going to Erie on Monday, right? Oh, well, you do now.

So anyway it was a good day. A day full of books and friendly people and absolutely no diapers or dishes. Thank you Seth and Crystal!

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Friday was one of those odd days. And when I say odd I mean strange and fun. I knew it was going to be busy, but I wasn’t exactly sure I was prepared for what I got.

 The first thing you need to know about Friday is that the Lansberry’s and we did not coordinate our plans at all. There were no planning sessions or plots. We were not stalking them. It just kinda worked out the way it did.

So, to start with Crystal and I gathered up all the children and trucked them out to the Trinity Lutheran Garage Sale. It was a little tricky to be a thorough as I would have like with either Noah’s hand clutched in mine or Justice in the stroller and all the other kids in tow. I did manage to find a set of four brown soup mugs. You know, the kind that look like little pots. I found some books, though not as many as I would have liked, a travel mug in really good condition and a dress I think will fit nicely. The real find, though, was an electric organ Arianna found and bought for ten dollars. It came with a bench and some music, too. The kids each bought some toys and Noah bought a little bike with training wheels.

 After the yard sale we stopped at a grocery store for some things we would need that night and then we stopped at a ‘restaurant’ (McDonald’s) for some ‘food’. From there we proceeded to Joann Fabrics for the big sale and met the Lansberrys as they were leaving. We met another family in the store and yet another family on the way out. I found some really cool orange fabric to make more orange pants and some black fabric to make a tunic that won’t clash with the orange pants. I like to be considerate to the people around me. I bought some other fabric that was suitably nifty, but I can’t quite remember it right now.

I made my purchases far before Crystal was ready to leave so I took Justice, Samuel and Arianna out to the van so Crystal could have some measure of peace. Justice managed to wander around the front of the van and have a good old time which I was really glad for because his day had consisted of a lot of sitting so far. Crsytal came out and we went to Leaves and Beans the week’s coffee supply (mmmm, coffee) and then we headed home. We put the littles down for naps and then Crystal and I flew around the house tidying up. We made food for many people and then headed over to the Lansberry house for Game Night. I had a lot of fun and even injured my hand during a game of Jungle Speed. It still kind of hurts. I went home tired, but it had been a good day. A strange, odd day, but a good one.

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Several weeks ago Raquel and I started walking together in the morning. We started walking because we both wanted the exercise, but as we walked I started looking at it as an opportunity to connect with our neighborhood. Over the several weeks we’ve been walking I have felt more of a connection with our neighborhood than before because I’ve walked around it and been to most of it. Today marks the third week in a row we have walked every day. I see this as something of an accomplishment because there have been many days in the last three weeks I thought we were going to have to cancel our walk. But, through no fault of our own, we have now walked every day for three weeks. And today we got an indication that we are connecting with the neighborhood if only a little bit.

We were about to cross the street when a women in a car pulled up next to us and beckoned us over to her. She rolled down the window and told us that she sees us walking around every day and she just wanted to tell us that she likes our clothes. I felt rather surprised by this, but I felt encouraged by it on a couple different levels. The top level is simply that someone has noticed us. Someone has actually noticed us everyday and had something complementary to say. That made me feel glad.

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