Saturday, February 9, 2008

Rambling

Sometimes, I don't blog because I feel like I ought to have a theme. A topic. Today, I've decided to be a slob. Why should I focus? It's Saturday. BTW, my spell-checker is STILL on the fritz!



This Saturday is all about birthday parties. Nathan went to one earlier, and Sara's at one now. The party for Nathan's little friend C. was held at Jungle Jim's Playland. Are these place all over the country, or just here? It's like an arcade/indoor carnival, and I always feel on the verge of a psychotic episode when I have to go in there. Still, kids seem to like this mayhem. I was introduced to C.'s father, a sweet, red-headed bear of a man. Very nice - I was almost able to forget that he had a sharpened ivory spike piercing through his lower lip.



Both of my own kids have birthdays coming up next week as well, only five days apart. I have noticed that there is a birthday-surge in February. My theory: in this part of Salt Lake, so close to four ski resorts, you have a "company town" effect. Loads of other parents who send their kids to the same school/daycare/Girl Scout troop/whatever are in the ski industry, like Si. The ski season ends and everybody finally has time and energy to have sex again in May, thus the rash of February births.



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I have accomplished great things today. The birdfeeder is filled. The gaping maw of the laundry-monster is being stuffed with dirty clothes and is disgorging them, clean and dry. The dishwasher is in similar mode. The crock pot is silently simmering something the cookbook calls "California Chicken". I see nothing "California" about it, except that the sauce involves oranges. In other words, I currently have compliant appliances.



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Last night as I was dropping off, I considered the fact that I'm incapable of falling asleep unless I'm lying on my right side. Even if I'm comfortable and relaxed, but on my left side, sleep will not come. I realized that I developed this habit as a survival tactic when I was a small child. Did anyone else out there ever see the old black and white film version of "Tom Sawyer"? The scene in which Injun Joe murdered Doc Whatshisname with a shovel in the graveyard scared the s*** out my little five-year-old self. At night, I couldn't fall asleep because there was a closet in my bedroom that contained the trapdoor to our attic crawl-space, and I was conviced that Injun Joe was hiding up there. It was to my left as I lay in bed; so I would turn my back on it and wait for the fatal shovel-blow. At least I wouldn't have to see it coming...

This has me thinking of other things I do unnecessarily, out of long habit.

I can't bring myself to flush toilet paper. When we lived in our cabin, flushing toilet paper was a no-no, and I still don't. We had other rules about flushing, too; the kids couldn't flush without permission, which is why I keep finding unflushed toilets and...not really caring that much.

I also find myself refusing to make two trips when I unload anything from the car. I will thred 8 canvas totes over my shoulders and all up my arms and then start scootching a big thing of laundry detergent across the garage floor with my foot, inching slowly toward the door; then I remember that I can go in, put stuff down and come back. Again, this is left from the days at the cabin, when the car was a couple hundred yards from the house. I would put the baby in the baby-backpack, the toddler in the sled with my briefcase and the diaper-bag and the milk. The rest of the grocery bags I would string along my arms. Or I would thread the hip-belt of the baby backpack through handles of a bunch of grocery bags to free up my hands for more groceries. I would get all set to go, then remember that the pull-rope for the sled was lying on the ground at my feet. "Sara, sweetie, can you hand Mommy the rope?" "I can't! The milk is on top of me!" Now, I have a garage. And both of my kids can walk. So I have no idea why I still load myself that way.


I'm collecting stories today. Can you think of a (now irrelevant) habit that you developed out of necessity a long time ago?

7 comments:

Elizabeth Penmark said...

I'm really glad that you rambled today. I enjoy ramblings. It helps me to see another side of a person. It helps to humanize people a bit. I hope it helps you, too, in realizing that you don't need a theme to be loved. You are equally loved when you have nothing to say as when you have something to say.

No stories come to mind right now, but I'll think on it. It is an interesting thing to think about.

Maria said...

I can hold my pee all night long. I grew up in an old farmhouse where all the bedrooms were upstairs and the one bathroom was downstairs and you had to walk through a pitch black hall, living room and dining room to get to it. I was terrified that if I looked at the sofa or the dining room chairs that there would be dead people sitting on them, so I didn't go pee unless I was on the verge of going in my pants.

Now, I will wake up at 3 a.m. and think to myself.."just how bad do I have to go?" And I have a bathroom less than six feet from my bed...

cinnibonbon said...

LOL..loved your theory on the "sexy" MAY's. The toliet flushing story had me cracking up.
Girl exactly what is up with spell check, I'm having the same issues too.

Amrita said...

Hi Kate,
Happy birthday week also Valentine Day.Your birth boom theory is interesting.

We are all are uniquie in some way or thee other.

I eat with my left hand and write with my right.This is becauase I was a book worm and couldn 't bear to book down even while eating. So I used to hold a book in my right hand and eat with the left.

My spell check is not working and it doesn 't show the edit tab too.

Anonymous said...

yeah it's just to ramble and talk about nothing...gosh...hmmmm... maybe i'm the same..I fall asleep only on one side and I also only make one trip from the car to the house..but it's nothing to do with childhood habits..it's just pure laziness I think.... LOL!

Rebecca said...

I do have some ingrained habits, but I cannot for the life of me track them back to anything significant. I must sleep on my back. Can't fall asleep any other way, but there isn't any reason for it, especially since I am old enough to have been placed on my belly as an infant. But I remember being a small child and falling asleep on my back...after i kicked my dolly out of bed.

Diane said...

I remember lying on my back, one knee up, with one ankle crossed over the other knee. My cousins caught me sleeping like that and woke me up with their laughter. This was in Arizona when I first fell in love with deserts.

Kate, I was going to write you that I read that you won't get heartburn if you sleep on your left side.

As for the one-trip from the car, I do the same thing, and though I used to live at Alta and have to hoof it up a steep trail, I did the same thing before then. Or did I? Hmmm. Well, I know dyed-in-the-wool city folk who do it. Who knows..