Luck is a two-sided coin.....

Hubster came home from mailing packages and running errands acting kinda weird today but that is not such big news. For one thing, outings have already reached the point of being such great effort that we are gearing up for our spring way of living which involves less frequent, more concentrated and generally very intense trips into town. ‘Mud Season’ in Maine on a dirt road calls for one to be more careful with said road lest they destroy it and have to come up with the money to fix it when it is a muddy, sludgy, pot-holed mess . The town doesn’t maintain our road. We knew that when we bought this property so its not like I’m complaining – it’s just that this has resulted in us thinking about the road so differently that we actually change our living habits to accommodate the fragile time wherein it needs to heal from winter and harden into a passable venue again. The good news is we get to go on lots of long walks on days like grocery days. But, with the snow, the ice and the thawing and storming – the road has become a different sort of adventure. Plus, we had to go out and beat the icicles off the metal roof edge because when it warms up – all the ice will break free too quickly and it is very damaging to the roof (not to mention the solar panels) when all that weight of ice slides off at the same time. But, at least that broke the ice that coated the dish and prevented the flow of net communications from the house. It’s the cup being half-full, ya know?

Secondly, it isn’t big news because he is one of the weirdest people I know. Seriously. I guess I mean that in a good way. So, when he came in with some packages from the post office for moi’ and was simultaneously acting in said manner of weirdness, I figured best not to ask – took my surprise packages (and the one I was waiting for), a fresh cup of coffee, and went into my room to squeal and open the boxes in peace. I didn’t think it was worth investigating until I heard him asking one of the kids if they’d seen his sledgehammer. Disturbing, huh? Unfortunately, I was already well into squealing over the packages and had no intention of stopping just to see why this man was hunting both his torch and a sledgehammer. Gawd, I’m a trusting soul, huh? The thing you should know about hubster is that, though he is incredibly physically agile and able to do the strangest things that would normally take at least 3 people to accomplish, he is basically harmless. I’m sure you are shuddering at our country simpletonesse that such conversation doesn’t elicit the slightest reaction in me. Him being harmless is something I’ve always known about him – though I did question it once.

When we were starting out as a couple of starving students together, we used to go to the ‘big’ library down the street from my apartment in downtown Austin. That was a time ago and I don’t know what Austin is like, now, as it has grown so very big but at that time, it was a really unique place in the middle of a very conservative state. Austin, as it was, was a sort of tolerance biome in the center of the big Lone Star Sate. It was a place where you could go to the library and sit in the reading area and look up and see the following: one geeky hippy dippy chick who rode her bike to Whole Foods when it was just a little city grocer, one guy in shorts and cowboy boots leaning back on a cushion sort of sleeping and reading, a very conservatively dressed guy in shirt, tie, etc. (probably a grad student or new professor) studying a paper intently, a guy in jeans and boots, a guy in chains and bike leathers, a woman in a suit, and a sort of freakish dude in a military jacket and doc Martin’s.

We went to the library together and that was how I came to believe I could live with the man for more than a year and not end up in jail. I’m weird in libraries and you should know I’ve passed the gene down because the Things all have a fervent interest in libraries and they are positively adamant about going on AT LEAST a weekly basis. When I walk into a library – no matter how many people are there, I am totally alone. I like to wander and look and just be quiet. He was the same and that pretty much convinced me to marry him, have his children, and move to a remote wooded, beaten down farm with him. Can I fill your glass for you?

But, on this one day, I came around the corner while reading and he walked by and that little alarm that lives inside a woman who walks around the city at night said, ‘freak nearby, turn and get away’. Now, when they make an intuitive navigational system like that – women will want one, too. He’s not scary or anything but it was just the way he sort of quietly slipped around combined with his total lack of a smile and the boots that made me take a second look. Then, I scanned the room and saw a newspaper go back up, the drowsy guy lift his hat and rouse from his lounge chair reading nap to survey the room, and another staring at him that I knew that he was in trouble. The tolerance hemisphere lay shattered all because a sort of happy, confident and relaxed Californian in combat boots and a weird jacket was in the room. I decided to save his life and walked over to him and quickly told him that he needed to smile or something because his California-ness was making all us struggling southerners uncomfortable and I may have mentioned that he needed to stop walking around looking like some sort of freak. See, I told you – he’s weird.

Plus, did I mention there were surprises? Oh,Linda is such a sweet woman! Every time I have done a drive, a hat knit for charity, or even just asked for a helping hand with something – Linda does something good. She sent warm wishes and the cutest hot water bottle I’ve ever seen. She felted a cover on it! How awesome! As I get older, weirder, and more unable to regulate the body thermostat – I have come to really appreciate the comforts of sitting down in a comfortable chair with your feet warm (or your back, etc.) and reading, knitting, or spinning to help you take off the day. She’s been doing some felt work in her shop as well.

Remember Lisa? Well, when we were chatting last week or the one before about the mysterious arm-injuring days, I happened to mention that the straw that broke the camel’s back was the lack of coffee in the house as being injured and unable to move comfortably had the unanticipated effect of making me want to stay awake for it all. Not really, I just wanted some comfort and coffee is where I go for that for the frozen months of the year. You gotta love this woman. She sent coffee! Lots of it! And candy, and other goodies that will make these next few weeks of ‘more winter storms’ much more bearable. Aww, ya’ll are so nice! (psst - for those of you wondering how someone as crochety and mean as I have happened onto such great people and managed to impress them in some manner that has earned me such kindnesses - paws off! They are mine!)

And the box I knew was coming? Well, thing 1 and I are sewing more these days so I splurged last week and got us some fun fabric. Actually, all of us are sewing these days and the mention of velvet immediately set Thing 3 to hankering for a velvet sheath for his toy sword (guess what I’ll be doing first?) It’s just so beautiful that I don’t feel right taking a pair of scissors and cutting it but I suspect my more sinister side which demands some sort of play amidst all the chaos will win over soon and no yard shall be spared my wrath!

Top it all off by the funniest card from my friend of too many years to count, Heather. She’s one who loves cards – so she is spectacular at picking just the right one all the time. The kids still laugh about the fart joke card that she sent Thing 2 for this 10th birthday. I mean, what is more entertaining to a ten year old boy than a card of fart jokes? We all laughed so hard and he still saves that card somewhere in his ‘treasures’ places. This one, if you can’t read the blurry pic – says, ‘Adding to my misery – no one here thinks I’m funny’. Ha ha aha - she kills me with the funny cards, I’ll tell you. Speaking of good friends, fiber love and buckets of laughs - good luck this weekend at the fibrefest Rabbitch! If you're in the any reasonable (or slightly not,even - especially if you are good at justifying such stretching of the 'reasonable' concept) distance of this celebration of wool, go buy some of her great yarn!

So, at this point, it’s been another challenging day on the homestead and , though there have been some tense moments, all in all things seem pretty darn great. You could even say perfect. You could feel so very lucky to have neat friends, great kids, a weirdo for a hubster, and the house in the woods you’ve dreamed about since you first thought about leaving your city. You might even forget about the torch, the sledgehammer and all the noise out in the driveway. Don’t worry. Just turn it over and look on the back, there. That is called ‘the other side’. The other side to this really cool but crazy day was that while hubster was venturing back into the homestead, after the much ice and sleet we got last night, and he was trying to get the drag aligned (fyi- a ‘drag’ in Maine means the sort of opposite of a plow – instead of pushing the blade with your vehicle, you drag a very heavy plate and it smashes down the ice and snow) and some sliding was occurring, the door of the truck got caught and was….well, sort of pulled back the wrong way. Nevermind, the good news is that he beat it back into something like its former shape so that, with the sledgehammer wedged in it – it will stay closed long enough for us to get somewhere and pay a few hundred dollars for another door. Smile!

I’m off to get warm, make coffee, scarf on candy with the kids and hubster, and spin some yarn. I suppose I will worry a little about how we might get through the night without our sledgehammer. I mean, what if we’re attacked by trolls or something? In a stroke of accidental or instinctual brilliance, I seem to have chanced upon the perfect theme of our life with this evening’s choice of dvd watching. Ya’ll know I stroll around on Netflix from time to time getting those ‘my kids have gotta see this because, well hell, I did’ sort of movies and a while back I added the first season of ‘Hee Haw’. I don’t know for sure what I was thinking, it may have been a flashback or I might have thought that it was time for them to know where the ‘gloom – despair’ song came from. Nonetheless, the fact that we’ve just come to that flippant selection is kinda creepy, huh?