Unsolved mysteries

How? Does? This? Happen?

Today, I made a crockpot meal that I have been planning all week.  I saw the recipe in some article about "20 meals for $150 at Costco" or something like that.  On Monday, put some frozen chicken in a ziplock bag and put it in the meat drawer to thaw.  Last night I realized that I had to do something with that chicken or throw it away.  I mentioned doing the crock pot thing to Jeff...who reminded me that he's been anxiously looking forward to 50 cent corn dog day at Sonic for two weeks. (I know, it's the little things in life)

 

Since I didn't want to waste the perfectly good ingredients I had already purchased for this endeavor, I loaded up all the ingredients and my crock pot and brought everything into work. I whipped it all up, set the crock pot to going and produced lunch for myself and my cohorts.  It was very well received even in an office diminished of personnel, what with the upcoming holiday and all.  After all was said and done,  I had about a serving left.  I scrounged through the cabinets to find something to put that single serving into so that I could clean up my crock pot to take it home.

 

In the office kitchen cabinets there was exactly:

ONE container

and

ONE container lid.

They were both square.  Here they are:

 

These two items do not fit each other.  At all. See the rounded corners of the lid?  See how the container has sort of ledge at each corner?

How, in the name of all things good and kind, did this happen?

I can only assume that these items ended up in the kitchen because someone brought left-overs from home and then didn't take their container home...but they didn't bring anything in with this combination.  So how did the one lid and the one container get here separately?

Argh!

Also, APPARENTLY, some vagrant, raised by wolves (in a barn) made his way past the guard station at the gate of the government facility I work at, got down here to the site and broke into the office.  I say this because surely, SURELY none of the people I work with would have dumped their tea in the sink and left their nasy, bloated, squishy lemon wedges for some other poor soul to CLEAN UP AFTER THEM?

Act like you've got some raisin', people.

Homesick

I thought the kiddo might be getting a little homesick by now...so decided to send her a little something from home:

Because the thing is?  There is NOTHING in our house that doesn't have animal hair on it.  Jeff opened up his wallet the other day...you know how cartoons would show moths flying out of a character's wallet to show how broke they were?  Well, Jeff opened his up and about half a dozen Simba hairs Foofed out.

Inspiration actually came because Rosie is shedding her undercoat right now in CLUMPS.  I thought it would be funny to send a sampling from all the beasts & tell the daughter that she could put some pet hair on her stuff if she was feeling lonely.  I already had an offering from Rosie...I just snuck behind each of the rest of them and was all "Pluck!"  The cats were like, "WTH? Insane human. Geez!" Simba was just his normal, happy Golden Retriever grinning self.  Libby (chiweenie) thought I was trying to skin her alive, because she's just like that.

I thought the whole idea was funny and original.

Kiddo called when she got it and was all, "Okay, that was seriously, disturbing as well as disgusting."

But she did take a picture and post it on Instagram.  I think deep down she was touched.

Very bad, no good week

This has not been one of my favorite weeks.  The hubs and I are adjusting to our new normal since the chickadee has left the nest.

(Interesting side note, I texted "What's up, chickadee?" to a friend the other day, and autocorrect changed it to "Wax your chickadee."  Like, what the crap, autocorrect?  Who waxes a chickadee?  Is that a euphamism that I don't understand because I'm old? Is chickadee waxing a thing?  PETA will not be pleased.)

Anyway, the week started with some heavy duty house work.  With the flurry of activity to get the kiddo packed and moved, we'd left a little to be desired on the home front. 

Nothing like finding evidence that certain appendages that have pranced around in a litter box have also been on surfaces that come in contact with your toaster strudel.

You know, I've read studies about how children raised in environments that are too sterile don't develop the immunities they need.  At least I can rest assured that when I sent my kid out into the world...it was with PLENTY of built up immunities.

Then Robin Williams committed suicide.

Damn it!  That really sucked.

And then today, I was at work for 5 and a half hours before I even noticed:

Yes, I had my dress on backwards.

It's only Wednesday.

The ties that bind

I'm getting ready to change offices. Actually, my whole office is about to move to a new building. We've been steadily working on pruning down all of the stuff that we're not taking with us, throwing away things we don't need to move, etc.

In cleaning out my credenza, I found this:

It's a 6 year old's version of a pop-up book.  The front and back look like a house (our house) and inside are all of the people and animals who live in it.



Yeah, still blurring out the kiddo's name, even though she's an adult now.  I'm still amazed at the detail she used to give things...like how she really tried to capture the patterns of the cats' fur. And she made sure to show that one of her hermit crabs lived in a shell with a flower painted on it.

Also?  You may notice that her dad has earrings.  That's because he had recently gotten them.  Baby girl had wanted earrings SOOOOOO bad. But she was EXTREMELY terrified of anything even remotely needle-like.  We had taken her twice to get her ears pierced and she backed out.  Finally, she was in the ear-piercing chair, and Jeff said, "What if I do it first, so you see it isn't so bad?"

So that's how she finally got through it.  Jeff and daughter sat side by side, and the lady pierced Jeff's right ear...then Kiddo's right ear. Boy, she did NOT like that sensation at all!  But then her dad was all, "You're not gonna leave me like this with one earring are you??? Come on, I'll do the other one if you'll do the other one."  And so they did.

And she thought it was the coolest thing ever that her DAD had earrings.

We live in and around quite a conservative bunch, but Jeff proudly wore earrings.  And in every picture the Kiddo would draw of the family, her dad always had earrings on. I need to add that her scale was a little off...he really wore very discreet, small hoops usually. The 80's door-knocker look that he's sporting in the picture above was more to make sure everyone could tell she'd drawn him with his earrings than a true representation of how big they were.

And if I had to, in a nutshell, pick a story out to try and describe their relationship (as I see it), it is this story.  Jeff would do anything for the kiddo. Anything at all.  I am sure that he would lay down his life for any number of folks...me among them.  But only for his daughter would he get his ears pierced and proudly wear earrings for the rest of his life.  Sometimes the two of them (they are very, very alike) have trouble discussing their feelings for each other.  Jeff, in particular, has a hard time being "mushy".  I know part of it is that he's a man, and part of it is that she's a teen (though rapidly leaving the teen years).  But a huge part of it is just...that's the way they are.

When we took her to move into her dorm yesterday, it finally came time to say our "good-byes". Kiddo had warned us that everyone got one hug...not too long of one either (she's not very touchy-feely). Her best friend came with us and insisted on getting photographic proof that she'd gotten a hug.

Can you tell that she's barely tolerating it?

Then came my turn...which I'm sure you guessed ended with me blubbering and snotty.  After several rounds of "Are you going to be okay?" from everyone, Jeff hugged her and said his goodbye,

Jeff: "I love you, baby."

Kid: "Love you too"

Jeff: "Just remember, I'm leaving a little part of me here."

Kid: "Why? Did you fart into my couch cushions?"

He will cherish that bit of smart-assery for the rest of his life.

Put in perspective...

As you may have heard through my many blog and FB postings and various tweets, my daughter is leaving for college. I have wailed, I have gnashed my teeth, I have done the ugly cry…and yet the day of her departure moves inexorably closer. In about 36 hours we’re going to be loaded up and headed to T-town. Where she will become part of the University of Alabama student body. Which has a headcount of roughly 35,000 students. Tuscaloosa itself has a population of approx. 100,000.

Our hometown has a population of approx. 21,000 and the kiddo’s graduating class was 280. She has accomplished a whole bunch in her short life…graduated 5th in her class…varsity cheerleader…various clubs and honors societies etc., etc. She’s been a pretty good-sized fish in a pretty moderate-sized pond.

And then there’s her family. She was the first grandchild on both sides. She was her Papaw Gary’s ONLY grandchild. She is mine and Jeff’s only child. We live in a 2800 sq ft 4 bedroom, 2 ½ bath home…and she occupies 3 of the bedrooms and a bath by herself (I’m guessing 1250 sq ft).

Sidebar: Here’s how this happened…so she has a bedroom and a bathroom, right? Well, we turned one of the spare bedrooms into her “TV room” so that she could have a place where she could have her friends over and not commandeer the whole living room, but that wasn’t her bedroom. Also…she would go into this room to do her hair and makeup because for some reason, the lighting our bathrooms (there are rows of big, huge bulbs that are back-lit with brass, because it was decorated in the early 90s and I can’t bring myself to undertake a remodel, so here we are) causes the room after a shower to be just shy of the temperature of the hammered down hinges of Hell. So I couldn’t really fault her there. All of her shoes live in the TV room. It is utter chaos. I can’t even look in there without a complete meltdown. I quit letting her invite her friends up there because I just didn’t feel like our liability insurance could cover it. It really isn’t safe to enter without a tether. Then…when she reached the age of 12 and essentially stopped getting any taller, her wardrobe grew…and grew…and grew. She ended up buying a rolling clothes rack, which she moved into the other guest room. I know, I KNOW. Starving orphans in China would love just ONE room to leave in a state of complete disorder. I’m not justifying…I’m just explaining how she has spread out across so much of the house.

In Douglas Adam’s book The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, there’s a thing called the Total Perspective Vortex. It’s a torture mechanism that no one can survive because it shows you your relative importance in the universe. An infinitesimal dot on an infinitesimal dot with a sign that says “You are here” or something. (Invented by a man who’s wife was always telling him to get a sense of perspective.)





I think you are probably getting the drift of my concern.
I'm afraid that we've raised this kiddo to believe that she's the center of the universe.  And really, nothing she's experienced in her life has given her any evidence to the contrary.
Is she going to be alright when she steps into a lecture hall that has the same number of students as she had in her whole senior class?
Of course, in TRatEotU, our hero was not annihalated in the Total Perspective Vortex because it turned out he was actually in an alternate universe built to keep him safe...so he WAS, in that universe, the most important thing EVER.
Would not surprise me if this doesn't turn out the same.
(I am her mother.)

What if?

(Me and the monkey in 4K. It was only 3 or 4 weeks ago, I swear.)

Daughter is leaving for the University of Alabama in 3 days.  Welcome to my head:


What if she gets sick?

What if she gets lonely?

What if she gets overwhelmed with all of the school work?

What if she gets into those huge lecture halls and feels insignificant?

What if she gets into a sorority and they are all Mean Girls?

What if she gets into a sorority and they all like her and encourage her to do too much and her grades suffer?

What if she doesn't keep an eye on her grades?

What if she doesn't keep an eye on her checking account balance?

What if she's crossing a parking lot late at night and somebody gets her?

What if her appendix bursts?

What if she fights with her room mates?

What if she breaks up with her boyfriend?

What if she doesn't break up with her boyfriend and he wants her to quit Alabama and move back?

What if she gets to feeling sad?

What if she doesn't miss me at all?

What if she doesn't eat right?

What if she doesn't change her contacts out regularly and gets a horrible eye funk infection?

What if she forgets to pick up her prescriptions?

What if she's crossing a parking lot in broad daylight and someone gets her?

What if she gets talked into going to the wrong party?

What if she falls for the wrong guy?

What if she falls for the RIGHT guy, but before she's finished school?

What if she never asks for my opinion again?

What if she hates her major?

What if she gets a crappy teacher?

What if she spends up all of her money the first two weeks she's there?

What if her car breaks down?

What if her car breaks down and she's nowhere near anything and then somebody gets her?

What if she's in a wreck?

What if she chips a tooth?

What if she never remembers to get her oil changed?

What if she finds something she'd rather do than come home for Christmas break?

What if there's a fire and she can't get out of her 3rd floor dorm?

What if she doesn't call or text me every day?

....and repeat