The Month of Mail

Two years ago, I wrote this post about some of the letters I’d saved over the years. As a kid, I loved receiving mail and figured out quickly that the best way to get it was to send it. I wrote to my brother when he went to Marine boot camp and to my cousin while she was away at college. After we moved from New York state to Arizona, I exchanged letters for years with my grandmother and the friends I’d left behind. When I went off to college myself, I wrote my boyfriend back home every single day, a romantic strategy that backfired after he started to feel overwhelmed by the deluge. Letters in the mail said more than the information they contained. They were a way to let someone know that he or she was worth the effort it took to set those words on paper by hand.

With the ease of email and inexpensive long-distance calls, I don’t get many new additions to the letter pile anymore, and I miss them. Our communications these days are quickly typed and easily forgotten. Like the pictures we store on our phones and computers, they leave no tangible record of our relationships with each other — unless, of course, you’re Anthony Weiner.

Someone else out there has been thinking about the lost art of letter-writing. Mary Robinette Kowal writes a blog called A Month of Letters, and she’s put forth a challenge. Send out something every day in February that mail is delivered, which turns out to be 24 days (Sundays and holidays are excluded). You don’t have to hand write War and Peace in your missives. Postcards, newspaper clippings, birthday cards, and notes jotted on a PostIt all count.

I’m intrigued to know what might come of this experience. Maybe I’ll be able to coax my handwriting muscles past the cramping stage. I also wonder if slowing down will change what I write. Once upon a time, before I became so adept at the computer, I had to do everything longhand first, then transfer it over. Perhaps the parts of my brain that work more deliberately also allow access to  different ideas. I’m already excited about putting together a list of what to send and to whom. And I’m curious to know what the ripple effects might be for the recipients.

I’m going to try it. One mailing every delivery day in February. I’ll let you know how it goes. Maybe you’ll even hear about it in a letter.

Is It Dark in Here, or Is It Just Me?

Long time, no post. My mother always said, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” (Maybe that wasn’t my mother, but somebody said it.) And it’s been so dark inside my head lately, silence seemed like the best choice.

December was a difficult month. One of our sons was hospitalized while doctors tried to figure out why he was having difficulty breathing. They tossed around the phrase “pulmonary embolism” for two days, which was terrifying until all the test results came back negative. We still don’t know what caused the shortness of breath, only what didn’t. Then one of my friends lost her dad, and another buried her brother a couple weeks later. At the end of December, a woman Mike thought of as a second mother died, and he spent a week in Kentucky mourning with her family. I realize that there are only 12 months in a year, so there’s bound to be an occasional pileup of unhappy events, but knowing that didn’t make any of it easier to take.

I’d been feeling a little “off” since the end of November anyway but chalked it up to the anniversary of my own mother’s death at the beginning of December. When I got past that, I figured, I’d be okay. But not. By then, about half the people I knew were pissing me off, a sure sign that the problem was with me, not them. All right, maybe I’d be better after Christmas. Nope. My writing seemed trite and pointless, I wasn’t sleeping, woke up exhausted every morning, and spent way too much time pondering existential questions that only dug the hole a little deeper. Thinking is the right response to a lot of situations, but if you’re in a dark space, it rarely improves your mood.

The surprising part is that only a few people noticed that I wasn’t doing well. I have no formal training in the theater but am quite skilled at acting like a normal person in public, so the worse I feel, the more gregarious I appear. There’s probably a diagnosis code for that. My husband, of course, caught on first but didn’t know how to help because I wouldn’t let him. My friend Dan tried, too, with about the same result. A small shift finally came when my middle brother called to see if I was, as we say, dead in a ditch — family code for, “Are you okay?” I want to credit him with saying the one brilliant thing that turned everything around, but that would be an exaggeration. He did make me laugh at things that only Yaugers find funny, and talking to him let in just enough light that I started to think I could do something to help myself feel better.

I haven’t used the D word yet: depression. But of course that’s what it is. It’s not severe, just miserable, and the fact that it’s been dragging on for nearly two months means I can’t just wait it out. It may be a response to recent events or from some hormonal change (and that’s all I’m going to say about that), but either way, it’s brought its suitcases and plans to stay awhile. Anti-depressants are trendy, but I reject the whole take-a-pill response when other avenues haven’t yet been explored. And so…

I have mostly given up my evening glasses of wine, a decision that was nearly as sad for me as the depression itself. However, alcohol is a depressant, which I clearly don’t need, and it messes with my already screwed up sleep. In order not to feel completely deprived, I still drink wine when we go out but have stopped buying it for home. I will grudgingly admit that this has been a good decision, although it means I am nearly out of vices. I resent this a bit.

I’m starting to make myself get out of the house every day because, as tempting as it is to stay in my pink fuzzy robe until after lunch, a little distraction goes a long way toward improving my outlook. Even a shallow chat with the cashier at Trader Joe’s is enough to remind me that I’m part of the human race. Also, Mike’s retirement benefits include a membership at the YMCA, so I’m trying some sweat therapy. I’ve always exercised, but now I’ve bumped it up a notch so I really sweat. I look like a rat running on a wheel when I’m on that stupid treadmill, but I’m not in it for looks. I’m after the endorphins. The steam room has been good for that, too. So is sex. (‘Nuff said. The kids may be reading.)

I am better but not back to my normal self. It’s possible that my normal self is undergoing renovation, so I’m trying to ride the waves without going under. I’m 50 years old now, and it’s fair to expect a lot of changes from here on out. Maybe depression like this is the chaos before the new order. Maybe it has something to teach me. “Bend or break,” my friend Terri used to coach me when I was up against something unfamiliar. This might be the decade when I finally figure out what she was talking about.

The Gift of Lowered Expectations

This needs to be said. Well, maybe it doesn’t need to be said, but without it, the rest of the post won’t make any sense. I am bad at celebrating holidays. All of them. We don’t have picnics on the 4th of July or barbecues on Labor Day. I haven’t attended a parade since the early 1970s. I manage to pull off Thanksgiving dinner every year because I enjoy cooking regardless of the day, but the only hint of it being a holiday meal comes from the menu itself. I don’t do decorations or special table cloths. You get the food and pleasant company and somebody to help you walk off your second piece of pie after dinner. That’s it.

My mother, bless her perpetually optimistic heart, was very good at holidays. She sent out cards, she decorated the house, we always had a tree, and the Christmas dinner table was set with red and green linens reserved only for that occasion. We’d even eat by candlelight for about three minutes until Dad complained that he couldn’t see the food in front of him. She made sure everyone had presents, even knowing that her kindness wouldn’t always be reciprocated. My mother worked really hard to make holidays special, but they were tense and often explosive anyway — because there are some things you can’t cover up with tinsel and wrapping paper. I was in my mid-20s before I experienced a Christmas without a knot in my stomach.

Fast forward a few decades. The knot is gone, but I’ve never been able to generate the excitement that is supposed to accompany this season. It’s nearly the middle of December and our lights are still in the shed, not strung from the eaves. I bake at other times of the year but specifically avoid it now, reasoning that there’s already plenty of fat and sugar in the pipeline so I don’t need to add to it. I haven’t sent any Christmas cards, and my one foray to shop for a tree stalled when I refused to pay $300 for an artificial one. From the look of things around here, it could just as easily be June, not December. I can already picture our daughter’s exasperation when she returns from college next week and finds us in this state.

I’m not completely apathetic. I’ve been knitting almost incessantly, having ignored the warning in my head that some of these projects should’ve been started in October. Unless I break my fingers in the next two weeks, it’ll all work out. Even if I do, it’ll still  work out. Everyone in the immediate family will have presents, albeit small ones. We will spend time together and eat food that we enjoy on Christmas Day. And it will be pretty low-key.

Sometimes I feel guilty for not being more — something — at this time of year. My family has learned to live with my general lack of enthusiasm and low expectations at the holidays, although it’s obvious that some of it has rubbed off on them. I worked harder to fake excitement when the kids were little, but now that they’re adults, they can decide for themselves how much energy they want to invest in the season. I am letting myself off the hook.

On the plus side of low expectations, nobody here ever feels let down because she doesn’t get the Tiffany earrings she wanted and there’s no new laptop in the heap of gifts. When the credit card bill comes in January, we can pay it. My kids have never experienced a Christmas where all their dreams came true (except maybe that train set when Sam was three), but they’ve never had any reason to dread the holiday either, and that feels like a huge step forward to me. If our expectations are low, they’re also achievable and that alone lightens everyone’s mood.

This what I wish for all of us. Not a jaded, too-lazy-to-put-up-the-lights holiday, if you really like hanging lights. But how about the ability to discern what truly matters, what you can realistically accomplish, and what you can let go of? Bake if you love doing it and have time. Skip it if you don’t. Give gifts you can afford. Trim the tree or don’t, knowing that none of this is going on your permanent record. That way, you can give yourself and the people you love the best present — the gift of a stress-free holiday.

Rotating the Cat

We are on our last cat. I like felines just fine. But several years ago, after Kittyboy was already part of the household, one of our kids developed an allergy to cat dander that sends him straight to the box of Claritin as soon as he walks into our house. Even then, he can’t stay long before his eyes start to itch. The cat is too old and weird for us to find him another home now, but since I’d like our son to be able to visit for longer than an hour, we won’t be replacing Kittyboy when he moves on to cat heaven. He’s the end of our feline line.

Kittyboy followed me home in 1997. He’s always been a little odd, even by cat standards. He’s uncoordinated and one of his eyes dilates independently of the other, probably due to some neurological damage before he arrived here. He sometimes sits in the middle of the room with his front paws crossed and falls over for no apparent reason. His leaps to reach his food dish on top of the washing machine are frequently unsuccessful, despite the fact that I’ve arranged a step in front of the machine for easier access. He may not have figured out what the step is for. He’s not very bright.

Kittyboy was terribly anti-social when he was young. He didn’t snuggle, resisted being held (as many young cats do), and would only sleep on our eldest son’s bed. He fought with the neighborhood cats, to the benefit of no one except the vet who earned a lot of money from patching up my little loser. Dogs didn’t scare this kitty, either. Unlike cats with good sense, he would walk toward any dog he didn’t know, regardless of its size, with an expression like Dirty Harry. Make my day.

As he’s gotten older, some things have changed. Because he’s even less agile than he used to be, I only let him outside a few times a week and never at night. He rarely leaves the yard but is content to scratch his claws on one of the trees before finding a sunny spot to take a nap. He’s even spacier than when he was young and will walk into a room and stop mid-stride where he will stay poised until something clicks in his tiny head. If he could talk, he’d be asking the same question we all ask as we age: “What did I come in here for?”

At this stage, Kittyboy lives for two things: warmth and comfort, a big change from his younger, more aloof personality. He isn’t allowed to sleep in our room because he likes to purr directly into my face with his whiskers up my nose. This is not as cute as it sounds, particularly in the wee hours of the morning. So the next best thing is to guilt me into snuggling first thing in the morning. If I’m already up, he will try to herd me back into bed with the same plaintive meow that convinced me to take him home 14 years ago. Sometimes it works, although he pretends not to understand English when I tell him I only have a few minutes. If he finds me at the computer, he will claw his way into my lap and wedge himself between my body and the desk as I type, soaking up warmth. I do not mistake this behavior for affection. I’m just his hot water bottle.

This morning, he got into my bed and fell asleep standing on his head. When it was time to make the bed, I picked him up, still asleep, and moved him into the guest room. That’s his favorite room in the wintertime because the sun shines onto the bed in there most of the day. But of course, as the sun moves across the sky, so does the warm spot.

So several times a day, I shift the kitty across the bed so he’ll always be in the sunny spot. Getting old should have some perks, shouldn’t it? Even for a cat.

If I’m in the laundry room when he wants to eat, I pick him up and put him in front of his food so he doesn’t have to jump. I don’t let the dogs play with him anymore because he clearly no longer enjoys it, and every couple weeks, I inject him with subcutaneous fluids to help his sluggish kidneys. We look the other way now if he gets on the table while we’re eating unless he’s standing in our food. And I rotate him around the sunny spot on the bed every day. I was telling a friend about all this at dinner recently, a little embarrassed that these accommodations might strike someone else as silly.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, looking at my husband. “If you’ll do that much for a cat, it sure bodes well for Mike as he gets older, doesn’t it?”

Three Years

The date might seem a little off. My mother died on December 2, 2008, and according to the calendar, this post is premature. But her passing took us all by surprise the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, so today feels like the day even though the calendar says it’s not. The heart must keep its own anniversaries.

Aggie, ca. 1943

After three years, the biggest chunks of grief have resolved as much as they’re likely to. I can drive along the street where she lived without thinking I should stop in to visit. Big band music doesn’t make me cry anymore. I get nostalgic, but not heartbroken, at the sight of flowers like the ones she used to grow on the farm. I no longer believe I will feel better if I move to another house or get a career or have a little plastic surgery, even though I seriously considered all of them in that first year or two after she died. When the brain fog lifted a bit, it became clear that no matter where I live or what big changes I make, nothing can fill the hole her absence has left. Lacking any choice in the matter, I accept this. Resignation will have to substitute for resolution.

Aggie & Fred, 1947

I have given up wishing my mother’s life had been different. Mostly. It’s a hard habit to break, even though it’s an obvious waste of time. Tragedy makes more interesting storytelling, and many aspects of Mom’s existence truly were harder than she deserved, but I’m starting to see that portraying her as a victim does her an injustice. No matter what was going on, she always managed to carve out a corner where she could do what she enjoyed in the company of people who loved her. I don’t know if she ever expected to be happy, but maybe that corner was enough.

Aggie, early 1950s

I feel a bit untethered without her, which you could take to mean either “without anchor” or “free,” and both would be true. As in, “Huh. Nobody needs me.” Or, “Yay! Nobody needs me.” My phone is quieter than when Mom was alive and couldn’t remember something I’d just told her an hour earlier. I am not on a first-name basis with her pharmacist, dentist, or physician  anymore. I don’t do her shopping, manage her finances, arrange her appointments, provide her transportation, pay her bills, or dose her medications. These days, I’m only responsible for my own household. For months after she died, I didn’t know what to do with all the extra time. Now I write a blog and am working on a book. I’m a hospice volunteer, a job that feels more valuable than anything I could get paid to do. When my friends want to see me, I have time. One of these days, I’ll be taking care of someone again. This is just a breather between gigs.

Aggie & Michelle, Easter 1968

Still…

Even though I know I should keep moving forward, I call Mom back now and then. I take her to Granville and make her live in a drafty farmhouse with no heat upstairs. She is very patient and allows me to dress her in faux Chanel suits and pillbox hats like a 1960s paper doll. If I listen carefully, I can hear her singing at the piano or swearing at a painting she’s working on because the Virgin Mary’s hands don’t look right. We go to the library or visit her friends. Sometimes I just lie on her bed and talk to her. She doesn’t stay long, though. She doesn’t belong here anymore. Besides, she hates to see me cry.

“Tomorrow will be a better day,” she promises before she goes.

Makeover: The Reveal

When last we left off, I was refurbishing an old wooden dresser in order to avoid shopping for one. Also, like other Tucsonans, I am in the throes of the autumn version of spring fever. It’s like what the rest of you get when the sun finally comes out after a long winter, only in reverse. After months of huddling next to our air conditioning vents, we can finally go outside! In the middle of the day! All those projects we ignored, as our ambition evaporated with triple-digit temps, suddenly seem possible. I feel a little manic, but in a good way.

After much sanding and prepping, the painting went well but when it dried, the dresser looked a little more orange than the terra cotta I was shooting for. (The colors in these photos are not true, so you’ll have to use your imagination.) The pillow on the right is the color I wanted.

Judy, who knows about these things, suggested wiping a little walnut stain over the paint to tone it down and give it more of an antiqued look. I bought a small can of gel stain and attempted to read the directions on the can. They looked like this.

I tried a different pair of glasses. I carried the can into better light. Then I took it to Mike. He began to read: “Before and occasionally throughout the project, stir until crazy…hmm, that’s probably not right. What’s that word there?”

“I can’t read it. That’s why I brought it to you.”

“Oh! Stir until creamy. Wait, is this next word prosthesis?”

As it turned out, we could have spared ourselves a lot of squinting because after I wiped down two of the drawer faces with the stain, I hated it.

Sadly, while it’s easy to stain over paint, you cannot just slap another coat of latex paint over the stain if you don’t like it. It won’t stick. Back to the sanding block I went, taking the finish almost all the way down to the gross white paint I started with. I now have arms like Michelle Obama’s. Then I painted the drawer fronts. Again.

All that sanding gave me an idea, though. I decided to “distress” the edges of the dresser to give some definition to the lines so it would have a little character. What I am saying is that after doing my best to make sure the paint on this dresser was as smooth and even as I could possibly get it, I intentionally screwed it up to make it look old again. Then I applied polyurethane to protect the screwed up finish. I cannot explain this in any way that makes sense.

It did take awhile to read the directions on the back of the can of polyurethane.

And removing the top of the can was a challenge, since the black-on-black directions appeared to say, “To open, pity off.” Turns out the word was “pry,” which was a much more effective approach.

We started here…

 And after a few days’ work that was more fun than you’d think it would be, I’ve got this…

Damn, it really looks orange in these pictures. It’s not. I swear.

Makeover: Part 1

I have a fondness for other people’s castoffs. Our living room furniture used to belong to a lovely couple in their 70s who decided to sell everything they owned and travel the country while they were still healthy enough to do it. Our guest room is almost entirely furnished with vintage pieces that were given to us — except the mattress, which was bought new. I do have some standards.

My beloved antique chair had broken rockers and needed new upholstery when I found it at a yard sale in New Mexico.

This vintage patio table also came from a yard sale. It was a little rusty but solid, so I scrubbed it down with a wire brush and painted it blue, then changed my mind and re-did it in an earthier color.

I am not above hauling stuff home that other people have tossed out. This solid wood bench was just sitting unloved on the side of the road. And free is my favorite price. After some sanding and a little varnish on the top, it looks pretty good under the aleppo pine.

This little stool was abandoned in an alley. It’s also solid wood and was signed on the bottom by the person who made it in 2003. By the time I rescued it, the wood was gray from exposure to the weather and so dry that it took an entire can of spray paint to cover it. But it turned out. (The rug it’s sitting on was made from a batch of castoff T-shirts, but that’s a story for another post.)

Recently I decided that I am fed up with storing my out-of-season clothes in those plastic drawers you get from Target. I am a grown woman, for pete’s sake! There is no shame in needing a second dresser, especially since two of us have shared one dresser and an 8′ closet for our entire marriage. I found this one on craigslist. It is from the 1940s or 50s. It is also butt ugly.

Ms. Potential

 Once, she was an unfortunate shade of pink. Later, someone with no regard for grain lines painted her white, and you can tell she’s been knocked around. But she’s the right size, and for reasons I cannot explain, I am infatuated with these drawer pulls.

The drawers also have dovetail joints. This is good.

For $25, I liberated her from the storage unit where she’d been held captive. My friend Judy, who is the Frieda Kahlo of refurbishing, gave me a free consult on this piece, and the smart people on Google filled in the rest of the gaps in my expertise. I spent a couple hours sanding and prepping (bleh!), made two trips to Home Depot for the right shade of terra cotta paint, and worried way too long about how to get the drawer pulls off without destroying this little cap on the inside of the drawer that covers the back of the screw.

This morning, I got down to the fun part: boiling the drawer pulls.

If you boil paint-covered hardware in baking soda and water for awhile, the paint peels right off. Mostly. After a little encouragement from a wire brush. As the last bits flecked away, I thought about the possibility of lead in the old paint, and then decided I would be just as happy not knowing.

While my daughter is away at college, her bedroom makes an excellent dust-free zone for painting. This is the first coat of terra cotta. The second coat and the polyurethane will take a few more days. (Don’t worry, honey, the smell should be gone by the time you come home for Thanksgiving.)

I sprayed the drawer pulls with some of the bronze metallic paint left over from the patio table project because I am…what? That’s right. Cheap.

Working on this dresser has been hugely satisfying, in a way that makes me lose track of time and forget to take a shower. I’m making a second life for something that might otherwise have ended up in a landfill. When it’s done, it will have provided me with a few days’ worth of problem-solving and creative experiences. It’ll be useful, isn’t made from particle board, and didn’t come from China. If I had a paying job like most people, I could go out and buy a new dresser. But look at all I’d be missing.

When in Doubt, Make a Sweater

I have been knitting in a compulsive sort of way lately. I am not one of those die-hards who carries a ball of yarn in her pocket so she can knit while she walks around the mall. I can go weeks without picking up a pair of needles. But this past month has contained some big lessons in humility and compassion, the kind that leave me wondering how I thought I knew anything at all — so now I have four knitting projects in process at the same time. Bear with me here…

In October, I spent several days with friends who needed extra help with their aging parents, and I came away with a better grasp of what it takes to care for someone with dementia or Alzheimer’s. My own mother had dementia so I thought I knew something about it, but she died before the condition became advanced. What I learned recently is that it is possible for a person’s body to continue to function normally while the wiring inside the mind completely short-circuits. Memory is the foundation of nearly everything that makes us ourselves. It contains our personal history and gives context to who we are in relation to the people around us. It contains basic information like which utensil to use at meals and how to find the bathroom. As I saw last month, dementia strips away those essential details, leaving the person feeling disoriented and fearful because everything is new from moment to moment.

For the first time, I also witnessed a couple nights of sundowning, a phenomenon in the Alzheimer’s or dementia patient that manifests in extreme nighttime agitation and restlessness. At about 11:00 p.m. (just when I was ready to fall asleep myself), my friend’s father would get out of bed. Sometimes he needed to use the bathroom, but many times, he didn’t know why he was up. He also had difficulty following simple directions like, “Walk toward me,” which meant that getting him settled might take 15 or 20 minutes, leaving about an hour for sleep until the next time he awoke. This cycle went on all night long. I was going home in a few days, but I felt a new empathy for caregivers in these situations, especially those who have to go to work the next day, no matter how exhausted they feel.

Then last week, I went to a hospice workshop that focused on the special needs of military veterans. Most people, as they near the end of their lives, have unfinished business they want to resolve: difficult relationships with family members, or coming to terms with unrealized aspirations, or concerns about the welfare of those who will be left behind. But as I learned, veterans often carry special burdens. The workshop presenter talked about the Army nurse who’d had to decide which soldiers would be treated and which ones could not be saved. And the Viet Nam vet who risked his life only to be condemned or ignored after he returned home. And the WWII vet who suffered from survivor’s guilt because so many of his buddies didn’t make it back alive. We all have parts of our lives we wish had been different, but fortunately, most of us don’t carry life-and-death burdens around for decades. Many vets do.

But it was still an intellectual exercise until the workshop presenter asked all the veterans in the group to stand. Hospice nurses rose to their feet. Guys with long, gray ponytails and younger men in business suits stood. So did a Native American woman at my table, and I thought about how little we can really tell about each other from appearances. Then the presenter spoke about those veterans who came home changed by their service in ways that made them difficult to live with. She asked anyone whose life had been touched by a veteran like that to stand, as well, and nearly a third of the people in the room got out of their chairs. Again I was struck by the realization that people around us are carrying pain we may never know about, and we should probably all give each other a break more often than we do.

Maybe if other people had had these same experiences in less than a month, they would think it was no big deal, but I feel like some of my inner workings have been rearranged. So while they’re sorting themselves out, I’m trying a completely unrelated antidote to this sense of disorder.

Sock in process (Yes, I do know that I can buy socks at Target.)

Hat will be much cuter when there's a small child under it

2/3 of a shawl

Baby sweater -- 3 days, start to finish

You have your coping mechanisms, I have mine. And if I keep up this pace, maybe you’ll get one of mine for Christmas.

Smashing Pumpkins

“Anything this stupid has to be fun.”

Grownup life carries a lot of perks. For instance, you can eat pie for breakfast every day if you want. You can own your own car and drive it without having to beg for the keys. You can stay out all night and not have to explain why — unless your spouse objects. Being an adult means never having sex in the backseat again, unless you like that sort of thing.

But sometimes, if you’re not looking, adulthood will suck all the fun right out of you.

After years of being a terrifically responsible human being, I realize that I have misplaced my concept of fun. I have pleasant experiences or interesting or educational ones. But that flat-out, WOOHOO kind of good time? Elusive. (Maybe the fact that I’m a person who uses the word “elusive” is one clue.)

Recently, my friend Judy and I were trying to figure out what to do with a Sunday afternoon. Lunch? Meh. Movie? Maybe, except the one we were considering was about a guy with cancer. It was billed as a comedy, but somehow I couldn’t see how that was going to pan out. Besides, we do lunch and movies all the freakin’ time. I wanted something different, so I looked through the paper for something that I would never, ever go to.

How about a pumpkin hurling contest?

Judy was game, so we got on our bikes and rode to the University of Arizona campus. In ten years of friendship, we had never ridden bikes together, so that was new. “Look at us! We’re being recreational!”

Here’s what we saw when we got to the UA. In case you never had children who were obsessed with these things, they are called trebuchets. They were originally used in the Middle Ages to hurl heavy objects over the enemy’s castle walls. Old-school missiles, as it were.

These days, they’re really good for flinging squash. Several teams of earnest young people had constructed trebuchets for this contest, and the complete and utter pointlessness of the project was irresistible. I wish I could show you video of a pumpkin in flight, but my technology assistant is away at college, so you’ll have to use your imagination.

The kids load up the trebuchet with a pumpkin. Here’s the countdown: 3! 2! 1!

If all goes well, the orange globe arcs high overhead before crashing to the ground several dozen yards away, and the crowd goes wild. Destruction is fun! The official measurement is taken by this guy. I suspect he is an engineer. Please note the striped socks and sandals.

All the folks working this event wore hardhats which, if you could see the speed at which pumpkins can be propelled, makes all kinds of sense. They also got these cool orange t-shirts, which said

Tucson Pumpkin Toss 2011. Caution: Flying Pumpkins

I’d have bought one, but there were no vendors. Surely by next year’s event, this oversight will be corrected.

Part of the contest also scored how accurately each trebuchet could aim its missile at a stack of cardboard boxes. Overall, the answer is, “Not very.” Only one team hit the wall with its pumpkin, and we were giddy with joy at their success.

Weatherwise, it was a beautiful day for pumpkin tossing. We chatted with the other spectators near us while we waited for the teams to re-load. We oohed and aahhed at each successful launch and commiserated with the poor kids whose squash just couldn’t go the distance. And when it was over, we rode away on our bikes while someone else cleaned up all those pumpkin guts.

It was a goofy way to spend an afternoon. Absolutely not like anything I would ever normally do. And it was a lot of fun.

Random Thoughts from a Foggy Brain

1. Four days seems an adequate amount of time for a cold virus to have its way with me.

2. This is Day Five, forcing the inevitable conclusion that viruses can’t count.

3. I am not pleasant when I’m ill. I manage not to say three-quarters of my critical, bitchy thoughts when I’m in this mood. However, the remaining quarter has been enough to drive my husband out into the yard where he cannot hear me.

4. It is wrong to snarl at the one person who will bring me tea and Kleenex. I apologize every time I look at him and am still not caught up.

5. The cat prefers me in this weakened state. He plants himself on my pillow, hogs the blankets, and and is shamelessly soaking up all my excess body heat. When I am well, he will go back to liking Mike best.

6. Being sick is boring, boring, boring. I have a book to write and a dozen other projects I’d like to work on but have no energy for any of them. Except knitting. The knitting is going well. Ditto for the movie watching.

7. I am hungry every three hours, which is weird since my only exercise has come from walking from the bedroom to the couch. Sometimes I walk from the couch to the bedroom.

8. I want to call my mother. I always want to call my mother when I’m sick. A little Mom sympathy with a ginger ale chaser is very therapeutic.

9. Unfortunately, they get lousy cell service in heaven. As in, no bars at all.

10. I am a big whiner. It’s a good thing I don’t get sick very often.