milestones in living alone...

there are few times i miss having a roommate more than when it's time to get rid of the Really Huge Bug (RHB).

my friends and family know that i have a mild case of entomophobia, and tend to shriek and hyperventilate when i get too close to bugs. i'm working on it, but honestly, the treatment for phobias is often worse than the irrational fear itself. let's see -- i could use gradual desensitization, where i get closer and closer to scarier and scarier bugs, or i could use flooding, where they just toss me into a vat of bugs. no thanks. so i live with it.

but when i woke up this morning, and a totally terrifying RHB was in my tub, i realized i now lived alone. there was no one else to get rid of the bug. fine. i didn't really want to shower anyway. then i realized i would come home, and the RHB would still be in my tub.

and while i could skip showering for a day, more than that was just silly. i had to be a grown up. i had to get rid of the RHB myself.

so i did it! i got rid of the bug myself, and rewarded myself with a long, hot, shower. and i kept one mistrustful eye on the drain, lest anything else crawl out of it.

the RHB in question, btw, was a common house centipede. i have to say, now that wikipedia has informed me that it injects poison venom through it's fangs, i don't find it all that common. and at 6:00 am it was downright terrifying.

a weekend at the ridge...

i accidentally wound up spending fathers day with my father this year. like mother's day, it's not a holiday my family is particularly gung-ho about. but weeks ago i got myself on his busy calendar, and the chosen date just happened to be fathers day. my sister came down, and we decided to make a family weekend on it. my family is not normally chummy like this, but it was a pleasant way to pass the time.

tom (my dad) and cindy (his wife) live in a beautiful and sunny house in westport, ma. which is named The Ridge. they have converted the garage into a wonderful guest cottage, where the fridge is always stocked with soda, the bed always has fresh linens, and the wifi and cable come in beautifully. downstairs in the cottage cindy runs a new business called westport shells, where she makes these intricate sailors valentines.

they had just gotten two new kittens, in addition to their older cat, casey, and their dog, decker. for those of you who can do the math, this totally breaks the N + 1 rule of pet ownership. however, i figure when you're older, and retired, and living in a quaint seaside town, you can get away with breaking a few rules.

when we weren't playing with the kittens, we spent out time eating way too much food, walking along the beach, searching for stuff on the internet, and listening to my dad expound on his various crackpot theories of the world. my dad is, without a doubt, one of the smartest and funniest people i know. however, this does not mean that me and my sister give him any slack when he starts to bullshit us. we spent a lot of the weekend calling bullshit.

for fathers day we took him to his favorite breakfast venue of choice, ihop, and called bullshit with a smile.

happy fathers day, dad!

the more things change...

it's been a busy month and a half, and there have been big changes here at the casa. shayne graduated with style, and without a lot of fanfare she moved down to NC where she will be attending graduate school. i am staying at the casa and am going to try living alone for a while.

i have owned this house for nine years now, and it has seen a lot of changes. people and pets have come and gone, and the only constant variables are me and boo. i moved in here with jade and andrew, and our tenants were dan and sadie. andrew moved out, and corey moved in. then corey moved out and frank moved in. jade and frank moved out, and shayne and whiskey moved in. in between we had a revolving door of wayward boys and girls and pets and guests who needed a place to crash.

this house has been a home to many people, and i assume it will shelter a few more before i am done. it is my nature to try to take care of others, and feeding them and giving them a roof over their head and a floor under their feet is the best way i know how.

and yet i am going to go it alone for a while, and maybe work on taking care of myself. there will always be more strays to take in and more wayward kids who need a place to crash.

in the meantime, i expect my baking to go very very overboard!