Campfyre Stories

People stayed late to help me break down the party, but there were a few things that were left for later by necessity.  One of them was cleaning out the fire pit.  Since the party was on Sunday, and trash night is Tuesday, I figured I had plenty of time.

But Tuesday, when I went to take out all the trash, someone had pulled up EVERYTHING and piled it with the trash.  Not just all the pieces of the fire pit, but all the solar landscape lighting I had bought and set up nicely around the yard.  Now I don’t know why that would happen, but I called my landlord to find out if I had done anything wrong in using the *shared* yard and taking my time to clean it up.  He said I hadn’t and would talk to the neighbor who shares the yard, but I still haven’t heard back.

I got a new neighbor on Tuesday.  No big deal, not much to say.  Wednesday morning I brought in the recycle bin and put it in front of my door to bring it in when I got home.  What I came home to was a recycle bin filled with non-recyclable materials, HEAVY ONES, blocking my apartment door.  I rang my neighbor’s bell and said "This is my recycle bin, what are you doing."  She claimed to think that it was shared.

First off, why would I block my apartment door with a shared recycle bin?  Secondly, what kind of sharing is filling it with NON-RECYCLABLE materials?

She told me she only needed it until trash night, which she clearly didn’t know had been the night before!

She also doesn’t lock the damned door, which is seriously starting to piss me off.

The construction zone where I work has expanded, so now I have farther and longer to walk.  I can’t seem to figure out why they keep doing this, since they have more space than they actually use.  It seems like a war of attrition.  For me, it’s just plain obnoxious.

We’re still having problems with my father’s land, which we THOUGHT was sold over a month ago.  I shouldn’t still be having to deal with this, and I do not have the time or energy to put into it.

My plans are to not have plans outside of Spawn’s birthday this month, but the less planning I do, the more things I wind up doing.  I’m not sure how that works.

And blogging?  Pfft.  I don’t have much to say about these things except to whine and/or complain about them.  It sucks, but oh well.  These things tend to work in cycles and not last all that long.  This too shall pass.

Earlier today I found myself feeling like I was standing on the edge of a precipice.  I’m not sure what’s down there, but I’m pretty sure I have to go through it in order to keep moving forward and progressing.

I had a recent catch-up type of conversation with an old friend.  She asked me how I was doing and what was going on and all I really had to talk about was my job and my kid.  She asked, "but what about YOU?" and I didn’t have an answer to that.  Right now I’m pretty well defined by my work and being a mother.

Most years, I have a breakdown on my birthday.  This year, I was far too busy to do that, so I’m starting to wonder if it’s just trying to catch up with me now.  I really don’t have time to break at the moment and I’m not entirely sure what all it would entail.

I’ve been happy to be as busy as I’ve been and now that work is really starting to take off, I have very little time alone with my thoughts, but it’s still sometimes a little too much.  I overthink *everything* and that’s not good for anyone.  I question the nice gestures and apparent good intentions of some of the people around me.  I can’t help but wonder sometimes whether or not they’re actually genuine and what it is that they want from me.  People going out of their way to be nice often leads to a streak of bad events, usually when I let my guard down and start to just accept the kindness.

The people and things that I was questioning a year ago are different from the people and things I am questioning now.  If they were the same, I would have very simple answers, but since they’re not, I just have a whole new set of questions and not as many answers from last year as I would have liked.

Birthday week is over.  Spawn’s birthday comes in about 3 weeks, then I can take a week or two before I have to start thinking about the holidays.  I think this is why I like Spring best of all.  Fewer birthdays than any other season for me.

There were some 20 people at my party.  By consensus, it ended around 8:30, which surprised me, but I prefer when a party just ends when it’s finished.  I suppose it’s a sign that we’re all getting older, though I wasn’t ready for bed at all by that point.

A handful of people stuck around to help me clean up, which only took about 20 minutes all told.  3 days to set up, 20 minutes to take down.  Pfft.  A few people hung around, but not exceptionally late.  At midnight the clock changed from my birthday to my brother’s, so I wished him a happy happy and gave him his presents.

I had two FyreGoddess moments, the first when one of the tiki torches appeared to go out.  I went over to check if it needed more fluid or to be relit and as I touched it, the flame surged up and it was burning just fine.  I have witnesses to this strange little moment, FyreGoddess, indeed.  The second was when they sang Happy Birthday and brought me my cake.  As the song ended, the wind put out the candles.  They relit them so I could blow them out, but still, I was certainly amused.

I can’t say that there were any real surprises, which is actually a good thing.  I suppose you could call it a surprise that so much went off so smoothly.  I often have these birthdays where I look forward to it, but then it just is meh at best.  This time around, I was too busy to look forward to it and I really couldn’t have asked for any more.

My new custom Chucks are so cool that not only have my friends been asking about them and comment on them, but random people walking down the street stop me to compliment how freakin’ cool they are, and ask where I got them.  I would be surprised if converse.com had a minor surge from my immediate area, especially since they’re not all that expensive.  Certainly not in comparison to the non-custom Chucks.

But that was yesterday and is in the past.  For now, we’ll keep on with birthday week and spend some time giving my brother the focus.  I think that 18 used to be a much bigger deal than it is now, because, sure, he can vote, he’s legally responsible for himself, but what does it really mean?  He’ll go out tonight with his friends, after we do a family dinner, but I don’t think he’s getting all that much from the "legally an adult" business.  Now, 3 years from now when he hits 21?  THAT will be all his…  and I won’t claim the birthday week that time around (of course, it won’t be a weekend, either, so I won’t really want to, anyway )

As much as I love the three-day weekend, I’m ready to be finished with the overall birthday week.  Just this last one and we don’t have to stress it anymore…  You know, for 3 weeks until Spawn has his birthday.

I was thinking, well, I haven’t thrown a party in a long time and my birthday is coming up…

I was thinking, no one ever comes to my parties, so I’ll invite everyone I know and a small handful of them will actually come.

I was thinking, so what if it rained for THREE WEEKS after I got  back from Falcon Ridge?  How big can the jungle backyard really grow?

I was thinking, Well, yeah, I’m going to DC for a week, but how exhausting will that really be?

I was thinking it would be a fun thing to do for myself.

I was not thinking that as many people as have already RSVP’d yes would actually come.  I was not thinking about the fact that I didn’t have enough chairs or tables or anything to set up the back yard.  I was not thinking about the logistics or the expense or anything else.

And now I’m freaking out, at least a little.

But Slockin came over with a weed whacker and made a first pass (turns out that most of the jungle was spearmint, so now my yard is all kinds of fresh and minty) and will be coming back on Saturday to make a second pass (while I will rake and gather all the dead minty plant carcasses).  And Ed came over with chairs and a table and some tiki torches.  I went and bought solar flood lights, which should, hopefully be bright enough.  I bought some chairs and a card table so I have surfaces to put food (etc.) on.  I have an extension cord so that we can run music into the yard.

Spawn and I are busily cleaning the house because, even though the party is outside, surely people will need to use the bathroom.  I have yet to set up the fire pit, but I can’t imagine that will be *too* much of a pain (famous last words).

I still have to shop for burgers, veggie burgers, beer, soda and suchlike, but it is a potluck, so people will bring food of some sort.  Spawn is going to make a pasta salad, I think.

Mom’s birthday is today.  All my (immediate) family is camping some 50 miles away and want Spawn and I to come up there to celebrate.  I have to buy her gift.  Also RC2’s gift, since his (18th!!) birthday is Monday.  Therefore, today will not be available to make any progress toward having a party.

But I have all day Saturday and most of the day on Sunday to pull this out of my ass.  And once I have everything all put together and set up, I’ll forget about the freaking out and the "what was I thinking?" statements that I’ve been making for the past week.

Right up until I decide to do this again.  Which I’m sure I will…

Trying desperately to get ready for my trip to Washington DC.  I’ll be gone for a week and insanely busy the whole time.  I think I’m also still recovering from Falcon Ridge and I’m also trying to prepare for my birthday, which is getting closer a lot faster than I’d like.

Here’s the schedule:

8/15-8/21 Washington DC and all related goings-on (I’ll try to blog, but no promises)
8/22 Cable people come to turn the internet on in my apartment (2 years without computer-based internet…  Daisy is a mighty fine substitute)
8/23 Tropic Thunder with Spawn and Princess
8/25 Back to mundane work
8/26 American Teen with Princess
8/29 Mom’s birthday
8/31 my birthday and party
9/1 Labor day and little brother’s birthday

Meanwhile, people are trying to get me to make plans for October!  And February!  And April!  Oh hells no.  I’m just trying to get through the month of August right now.  I can’t even think about trying to get out to Boston to visit Girl and see The Dark Knight in IMAX.  I can’t even think about Spawn’s birthday (9/24) and what I’m going to get him…  the bar is really high right now.

And I just keep thinking about how someday…  somewhen…  I’ll be able to sleep.  Or even just to rest.  Yeah, I’m looking forward to THAT day.

Convince Spawn to hang out at home long enough to sign for my many packages
Turn the jungle into a backyard
Set up firepit
Buy chairs for party.  Heh.
Birthday presents for 8 million people
Back to school shopping for Spawn
Attempt to catch up on Movie Night, despite missing two weeks this month
Clean out the back room
Make room on desk for new computer
THROW THINGS AWAY
Help Spawn plan (and later prepare) a meal for his girlfriend when she comes to visit
Go to DC for work
Send postcards to 80 million people
Deal with birthday week
Throw a party/barbeque

Just looking at that list makes me tired.

Ok, so I’m home and boy do I have a saga to tell!

But, there’s so much that, once again, I’m going to break it down by day.  I have 5 days to tell about and I’m not even entirely sure if I’ll be able to remember all the stories and pieces that I want to tell.

If you want to wait for the whole thing instead of reading it in installments, come back in a week

Otherwise, I’ll give you the day-to-day rundown starting sometime this afternoon…

So I know I told you about the guy at the bus stop.  And I know I made mention of the pathetic and desperate loser on the bus.  And it’s weird that these things are happenning, because, as a fat chick, I am unaccustomed to being targeted, especially so aggressively,  but it just keeps going…

Well, on Sunday, I was running around like a madwoman.  I had just started my laundry and was power-walking to pick up some smokes.  I smiled at a guy sitting on a bench as I walked past and he smiled back.  No biggie.  But then, when I was coming back, he says "Are you in a hurry?"  "Define hurry," I said, because I kind of was, but didn’t actually need to be.

"You’re walking really fast.  I was just wondering if you had time to stop and talk to me."

"Um.  Ok.  You can have 5 minutes.  What’s up?"

"Oh, I’m just waiting on a friend, and was getting kind of lonely."

Huh.  So we chatted for a minute and then his friend showed up.  I took back off and finished my chores.

THEN, on Monday, as I was walking to the bus stop, TWO carloads of people slowed down to lean out the windows and shout "Heeeyyyy!" at me.

Here’s the thing.  I’m not doing anything differently.  I haven’t started wearing makeup or doing my hair.  Hell, I haven’t had a haircut or touched up the color in probably too long at this point.  In fact, most of the time when these people are hitting on or catcalling me I’m sweating like crazy because it’s hot and I’ve been power-walking for miles, or I’m just waking up and still partially asleep.

I don’t know why any of this is happening, but I’m not displeased.  Just a little confuzzled.

So I have decided that with all this attraction that I am apparently sending out to the world, now is the perfect time for me to try…  speed dating.

Yes, that’s right, I said speed dating.  And it’s something I’ve been wanting to experience for some time now.  In fact, Princess and I have been discussing it for YEARS.  Unfortunately, she will be out of town for the first such event in our area.  I guess I’m gonna fly this one solo, which is ok, because I think I have some kind of mojo on my side.  I feel like I’m *supposed* to go to this.

Worst case, I get a good blog post out of it, though, right?

… it’s that I really dislike airplanes.

So I’ll be going on a work hard/play hard business trip in August down in D.C.  I asked my company if it was ok for me to take the train (only a 6 hour ride) instead of flying and my statement that I don’t mind flying, but I can’t stand planes elicited laughter.

But it’s true.  There’s no leg room, there’s no getting up and walking around, everyone is in a bad mood and trapped in this squished cabin, it’s expensive and I doubt they’d let me carry on my guitar (which I am not leaving at home for a week).  Planes, to me, feel like being on Greyhound, and I do adore trains.

Not only can I get up and walk around, I can go to a communal area and connect with other people.  I can not only bring, but play my guitar.  I can sleep, I can plug in, most trains have wi-fi these days, certainly they must from NYC to DC.

I can’t neglect to mention the stories.  I mean, think about it.  Wouldn’t you rather read cool stories about interesting people I met or unusual encounters I had than to hear me complain about being trapped in a tin can with pissed off people who just wanted to be there already?  Gods forbid that something actually HAPPENS on a plane, really.  It would be just my luck to wind up on a plane where someone has a medical emergency in the seat next to me.

Yeah, not so much with the whole plane business.

So I’m gonna take the train and, in a very cool turn of events, I have a ride home with my boss.

Of course, I have a whole month before this even happens and all kinds of plans during that time…

I cannot wait to leave.  9 more days until I pick up my rental car (whatever they give me), pack all my and Spawn’s crap into it and head to a farm in the middle of nowhere for 5 days of music, dancing, sunshine, shopping, friends…  all that stuff.

Never mind that I have to confirm that someone is, actually, going to feed my cats.  Never mind that I still have to clean one more room of the house.  Never mind that this coming weekend is one where Spawn is home and I’ll have to follow him around with a bullwhip to ensure that the rest of the house stays in the decent condition that it’s already in.  None of that stuff matters.  What matters is I am going to my festival!

Every weekend I’m busting my ass to get a little closer to ready, a little less frantic, a little more antsy about it.

In addition, I’m finding that, suddenly, I seem to be in high demand for various things.  Phone calls, invitations, conversations on the street, demands/requests on my time of whatever sort, and this is in addition to all the plans I’ve already made.  NOT that I’m complaining, mind.  In fact, I kind of enjoy it, as long as it’s not actively infringing on my preparations to leave.  Which it’s not.  Not yet, anyway.

So now I just have to finish a room, keep up on the rest of the house, try to get in touch with my family’s attorney and sell dad’s land, see Batman with Spawn, confirm the catsitter and get the hell outta town. 

Cake and pie.  This is totally doable.