Will the police let me keep my tin foil hat?

We beat the snow storm home from our lovely up-north holiday. When we got home we were startled to discover that something very important had been taken from our home--our shower had gone missing!

We are currently working on several hypotheses. Perhaps economic times are so tough that people are stealing parts of homes now. This seems unlikely because they didn't nab the copper wire or our computers. The tidiness of the job leads me to believe that this was a botched alien abduction. Our interstellar buddies probably figured the easiest way to get me was by beaming up the whole shower with me in it. Luckily, I was somewhere in a shower up-north. A third possibility is that GM's CEO wanted to down grade his private jet and wanted to replace his nine-person jacuzzi with a three-tone, blue-tiled, 1960s shower (can't get one of those at Home Depot) so he can show congress just how hard the economic downturn is hitting the auto industry. As I was just adjusting my tinfoil hat, I realized that the aliens might have beamed the shower directly into GM's private jet to protect their interests in the bailout plan. I always thought that GM must have been using alien consultants when they designed Chevy SSR.

A dog and a pony go into a cabin

Even though we had seen pictures online, we weren't quite prepared for the degree to which this place has been decorated in a rather rustic fashion. In addition to the mounts you see here, there are couple of deer, a weasel, a red-breasted woodpecker and a duck. Everything is wood and stone and there isn't a towel rack that isn't an antler or a stick that was left on a log that is part of the construction. In one bathroom, the toilet paper holder is such a stick, poking out of a log by the toilet. Many of the antlers are real, but the chandelier of Elk antlers I suspect is imitation. All and all it is a perfectly lovely place to stay, but I couldn't see myself living in a place like this. It is almost a theme park.

The bear lounging on the carefully positioned, built-in log is a bit much, but in many ways, this fella in this lethargic pose has been the mascot of the weekend. The weather has been cold and many of the attractions other than shopping are closed, so most of us have been content to primarily eat and make like this bear. We launched the weekend with a pretty typical Thanksgiving meal that left us in lounge mode and other than the energy necessary to cook the next meal, we have mostly relaxed. Bread pudding and sausages, pancakes and bacon, shredded pork tacos, and of course some beers and a nip or two as well.

This scene is probably the most typical with someone in the kitchen and a bunch of the rest of us around the table doing jigsaw puzzles or playing games which have included Monopoly, Euchre, Pinochle, and Hand and Foot. I expect that today The Settler's of Catan will make an appearance. All of the game playing has fostered some colorful language and difficult to understand metaphors, typified by, "couldn't do nuttin', I had a dog for every pony." Now, every hand of cards ends with some comment about livestock or man's best friend. Some of them make sense, most do not.
Even if we haven't had the energy or motivation to head into the outdoors, we can sit by the fire and enjoy this view of the back property behind the cabin. We have watched deer cross back and forth on the land bridge between the two ponds and we have had some nice gentle snow in addition to what's on the ground.

I have to go and have a nap now, to muster the energy to fry sauerkraut balls (breaded, deep-fried balls of sausage, cream cheese and a little bit of sauerkraut.) These things are a family tradition from a gas station cookbook. The name isn't really fair since the kraut is the least important ingredient. About the time we get that cleaned up, I will winch a giant lasagna into the oven for dinner and hope someone else has the energy to winch it back out.

we won't stay fresh for very long...so eat us before we finish this song

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Trey, Ellis, Scout and I are "up north" (near Traverse City) celebrating Thanksgiving with some of Trey's family. We rented a large cabin, er, more like a lodge I guess. It's extremely cabin-y themed- mounts on the walls, hardwood everywhere, and every hook, drawer pull, and towel rod has been replaced with antlers and sticks. It looks like a Cabela's threw up in here. Fun enough for a visit- definitely not someplace I'd want to live. Though, there is a great view, a gorgeous stone fireplace, and two extremely luxurious bathrooms. We've already had a delicious turkey feast, made more fun by everyone helping out in getting it on the table. And are having a nice time relaxing with the fam. Of course, we're still in the throes of potty training Ellis and only the most liberal definition of "vacation" includes rinsing poopy underwear in the toilet.

Pictures and stories tomorrow, with any luck.

no-one's frightened of playing it; everyone's saying it

Ellis is really into "mine" these days. It's not full on obnoxious -- yet. It does get a little grating when he has, say, 10 toy trucks but no one else can touch one without hearing "No, mine, no no mine!" But at least it has replaced his shouting "Hey, heeeey!" at increasing volume in a similar situation. He is kind of cute when he uses it to mean something along the lines of "Am I permitted to eat/ use/ play with this item?" For instance, the other night he spied a bowl of fruit left over from Trey's lunch. He placed his hand on it, looked up at me, and inquired "Mine?" We've also had one tiny glimmer of empathy in the following exchange over, also involving fruit:

Ellis: Dese my apples?
Rachel: Yes, honey, those apples are all yours.
Ells: Dat my apples. Where mommy apples?
Rachel: I don't have any apples.
Ellis: No apples? (holding out a slice) Here go mommy.

So sweet. Then right back to his usual devil self.

In an unrelated note, I am starting to freak out about Christmas. Gift giving specifically and how much to spend, rather people don't like homemade gifts or gifts of charitable contributions. The saving grace this year is that my siblings have switched over to drawing names.

So it begins

Old man winter blew into town today, well yesterday actually, with a nasty blast of "wintery mix". Opening day of deer season was pretty hard from what I hear and the number of deer taken was down, perhaps because many, such as my father, decided it was just too nasty to stay out more than a few hours. It must have been pretty bad, because my dad ice fishes without a shanty and once advised me to, "roll up your g*d-d*** sleeve and reach down the hole and grab the g*d-d*** fish." I was eight. Just kidding. I was about 15.

Today was much better with nice big flakes floating down all day. A couple of heavier moments here and there left us with some accumulation, but the streets were too warm to hold snow. We had quite a day at the bird feeders. If you care to, you can count six finches on there. We have had as many as nine between two feeders and the surrounding brush. The blue jays, cardinals and nut hatches were thick as well. So thick in fact that I have to wonder if no one else around us is feeding. We have also had a plethora of woodpeckers. I think we have identified two species for sure and perhaps a third. Two of them can often be spotted back there at the same time.
Ellis had the right idea on a day like this. I love this pose because he looks so studious like he is thinking, "even on the 43rd viewing I notice something new in Caillou." We dont' really let him watch much TV, but Caillou is 90% of what he does watch. If we have a bad storm and lose internt for a few days, Rachel and I will be able to act out most of the episodes. The weather today does have me looking forward to being snowed in once or twice this winter.

knock me over with a feather

At Ellis's daycare, the kids in each classroom are broken into groups of 4 or 5. One staff member is responsible for dressing, changing, eating lunch with that groups of kids. Usually, the woman who looks after Ellis's group is gone by the time he's picked up, but yesterday I happened to see her and went to chat about how Ellis's day was, how potty training is progressing, and so on. She mentioned that the day was kind of hectic and Ellis had spent quite a bit of time choosing his own activities and playing independently. Apparently, he does well with this and is one of the better behaved children in the class!

What?! The child who pulls the door seals off while riding in his car seat, systematically gets out bowl/scooper/spoon to help himself to ice cream at breakfast time, and pulls out the dresser drawers to climb up to the keys and loose change we've left on top? The one who strips himself naked before finally collapsing to sleep at night and gleefully tells me "I'mmma debil doggie."
That Montessori "prepared environment" must be some kind of kid-calming voodoo after all.

Toilet Learning

Ellis earned good marks this week at school with his potty training. Being a fancy pants school and all, of course, they call it "toilet learning". Bourgeois pigs we are. What was it called in the olden days I wonder. Maybe it was just called "learnin' him to go outside before he does that". And then when modesty was an issue moving it into the old back house was the natural thing to do.

Ellis still wears a diaper to sleep, just to be on the safe side. Our usual ritual is a change to a diaper and jammies, brush teeth, read a book and then leave him in his room until he falls asleep. Sometimes he looks at more books or gets up and gets some toys to play with. Then when he is asleep we go in and tuck him in proper and turn out the lights. But tonight, when we went in to tuck him in, we found him under the covers sound asleep, the jammies on the chair and his diaper on the floor. Apparently, nudifying himself was more fun than his toys tonight. Being able to remove his own diaper could be a good or bad sign. Perhaps he is really interested in getting rid of the diapers entirely and he is ready to go to the next level with the toilet learning, or maybe he has just found a new form of civil disobedience with which to register his displeasure with things like going to bed. I wonder if the civil rights movement would have been quicker or we would have pulled out of Vietnam sooner if people had been having nekkid sleep-ins instead of clothed sit-ins. The possibilities are mind boggling.

Tick-or-Teat

I decided to put up the pics from trick-or-treating here and put all pics from the Halloween weekend at Picassa here.Ellis was pretty much this serious throughout the whole process. His mane was itchy but he seemed pretty comfortable all around.

We went to about 30 houses and I am proud to say that Ellis walked most of it.
After I straightened him out at the second house, where he thought he had to trade his first piece of candy for his second, his stride became more confident as he understood the value proposition in this endeavor. No matter how heavy his basket got, he would not allow me to carry it. He also took each piece of candy in his hand and placed it in his basket himself. "Your hand doesn't get near the basket. I want to see the candy myself and I will do all basket touching myself!"
I was in a partial giraffe outfit. My spots fell off in the car but we got them on better the next night for the party. Ellis struggled with "trick-or-treat" but was very good about saying "thank you".