Addictions Fight Back

One of the little tricks I've been using to get through the very long days without smoking is to sleep. That might sound like it's just putting off the inevitable, but it really does help. The longer I can go without, the better it is. I ned to get through the physical withdrawals before I can even begin to tackle the undermining effects of the actual habit itself.

The habit is the part that sometimes has me pausing the television (without thinking) when a commercial starts. Perhaps once in every program I'll push the pause button on the DVR, get up and walk over to where my cigarettes... aren't. Oops. It's automatic. Turn around. Sit down. Start deep breathing quickly, because my mind and body immediately revolt against being denied the expected influx of drug. Yes, you've got to think of it like that.

Today it got really bad about two o'clock. I went in and lay down, falling asleep after about half an hour listening to an audio book, Armageddon's Children (Terry Brooks). I'm not sure how long I was out when the need for a smoke got to me. I honestly forgot I had quit. I got up, and put my pants back on. I remember brushing my hair and thinking I looked really tired. I grabbed the car keys and wondered where John was. I didn't think about it being Sunday, or Father's Day. I just went out, got in the car and drove to the store. I bought two packs of cigarettes and smoked all the way home. It didn't seem to give me any relief. No guilt. No pleasure. No sense of failure. It just was. No emotion at all.

I parked and walked in the house, deciding to go back to bed. When I sat down and tried to take off my pants, I woke up. It had all been a dream. I was dreaming that I had gotten up and driven to town, bought cigarettes and smoked all the way home. My addiction was fighting back. Bummer. Needless to say, I wanted one at that point more than ever.

I will label this post as humor, hoping that someday I might actually think of it that way. Today I realize that other people might find it funny, but to me it's not so much. Not yet, anyway. Obviously, I decided not to go back to bed.

This is Your Brain Without Tobacco

If you don't really get my sense of humor, you're probably going to hate me after reading some of this. Just understand that at this point, I really don't care. It's been five days since I've had a cigarette, and it feels like a lot longer than that.

When you give up an addiction, people around you become really mean and petty. They do things specifically to irritate you. I think they lie in wait, just trying to stress you out so you'll fail. Then, of course, you can go back to your addiction and be the old sunny personality they know and love, and they won't have to deal with the cranky you anymore. I'm sure that's why they do it. (Right, John?)

Oh, let's have company for dinner. (Let's not.) I already invited him. (Fine.) Don't worry about it. I'll grill. (Great.) Just marinate some steaks. (We don't own any steaks.) We'll go get some, then. (Like I really wanted another trip to the store.) Can't you marinate that for me? (Fine.) What time is dinner? (This is your deal. You decide.) Six. Let's do it at six. (Fine. I'll have everything else ready to go when the meat is done at six.)

So at five thirty, when I'm starting the potatoes, John comes in and tells me the meat's done, and he's just let our neighbor know that he should come over right away. Why would he do that? Because John got hungry early and moved up the time for dinner. Did he tell me so I could get the salads and vegetables and spuds done early? Nope. French bread is still in its package. Dessert is baking, twenty-five minutes left on the timer. Can't turn the oven up to grill the bread when it's baking nut bread. Can't do potatoes and vegetables and salad in five minutes.

Nobody can convince me he accidentally forgot to tell me to get everything else ready early. He wants me to fail, right? He does this every time I quit: pulls little stunts to add on the stress. Surprise to him. This time it's political. He can pull all the little nasty tricks he wants. I might just go on strike, but I'm not going to fail. I refuse to pay an extra dollar a pack in taxes for Obama and the idiots in Congress to spend on things I don't agree with. And that's the truth. Maybe I'll run away from home for a week or two, but I won't be smoking, wherever I go.

Mama Deer Brings Twins for a Visit

Each Springtime the new mothers start bringing their babies by my yard to show off their new little ones. They seem proud, and don't mind if I go grab the camera for a few shots. I believe this is the second year in a row that this doe has had twins, but I'm not positive it's the same one. I do know that she's running about a month behind all the other mama deer to bring her babies around, and when I see how tiny they still are, I can understand why. They were either late being born, or they were so small she didn't bring them out of the thicket until today. (I refer to their sleeping place as a thicket because I read Bambi as a small child. It stuck.)

So here are a few more of the photos I took while they played in my paddock this afternoon, around 4:30. They were actually there over a half hour, and didn't mind at all that I stood right above them on the deck, talking to the mother and taking photographs. It's just one of the many joys abundant in life in the foothills.

This little one became very interested in John's tractor wind dancer. While he was playing with it, he failed to notice mama deer leaving through the gate. There's no door on the gate; just an opening.

The two of them played, jumping around together for awhile and running until they realized that Mama had left. Then it wasn't much fun anymore, and they ran to the edge of the paddock where she was standing, watching them.

The next thing you know, she had walked around the paddock to the back and was playing come get me through the wooden bars. They failed to grasp the concept of leaving her to go in the opposite direction to find the doorway they had come in by. She let them guess and wander back and forth along one wall for nearly fifteen minutes before she led them to the right edge of the enclosure.

I finally thanked her for bringing her babies by to see me, told her to have a wonderful week, and went on inside to start dinner. They were out of the paddock by then, but still in the yard, looking up at me. When I looked out ten minutes later, they were gone. They're polite guests, waiting for me to say goodbye, I guess. Now I'll get to watch them grow, and see the spots slowly fade. If either one is male, he'll get his first antlers next year. They'll be tiny, but I'll tell him how handsome they look. I wonder what they really think.

"Hey, Feline, there's that nutty old woman again. She won't hurt you, though, so you don't need to run. Besides, when it snows she'll leave corn for us." Nope. Probably more like, "Hey, what was that?"

Happy Half A Birthday

Three days after Christmas, my oldest son Tighe was born. That was a long time ago, of course, but I learned a few things about having a child so close to such a major holiday. The main thing was that even if you're very careful about making the birthday and the holiday totally separate, there's still a very long time before the next gift-giving day comes along.

Six months after his birthday, I got out my cake layer pans and made a special cake. I cut each one in half and layered them as a very tall half cake. We sang "Happy Half a birthday to you," etc. We gave him a gift and celebrated as if it were a natural celebration for every child. We did this until he started school, and did it for each of our three boys the same way, until they started school. They don't seem to remember it very well now, but at the time it was very special, and they looked forward to it.

Now I have a special friend whose daughter was born on December 30th last year. Her half a birthday is quickly approaching. One of my—well, I won't exactly call it a regret, but almost a disappointment in my life—is that I didn't have another son who could have fallen in love with this wonderful young woman. She honestly wasn't the right young lady for any of my sons, and fell in love with a man my husband and I really enjoy. However, I really wanted to keep her. I've done the best I could to make that happen in the only way I could. I keep in touch, and I make things for her daughter. She's not really my granddaughter, but she's grand.

Stacey and Ryan, I hope you always allow me to spoil your kids a bit. It's a privilege. Thanks for sending me a photo of Hanne in the little half a birthday outfit. If it was her whole birthday, I might have sent pants, too.

Not a Mirage Trailer

I mentioned a few days ago that we planned to stop on our way home, hoping to get a look at my brother Patrick's trailer. He and his wife Betty have had it over a year now, I believe, but there's always a reason we haven't been able to see it when we've been there. It's been in for a facelift, or something.

I started teasing them that it was a mirage. That harkens back to an old joke my father used to enjoy. What's a mirage garage? It's where you park your car when you don't have one. (I know, it's not that funny, but it'll stick in your mind.) At any rate, I was taking bets that there would be some reason that, once again, we wouldn't get to see it. Nobody took me up on my offer, which I believe was fifty cents each. I'm so glad. It's a really nice (but huge) trailer. Here are a few of the photos I took:

This is Pat relaxing for the camera on the sofa. Anyone who pulls this behind their car all day certainly deserves to relax when they're done driving at night. On the other hand, at least he's not looking for a hotel room. I wonder how easy it is to find parking for a vehicle pulling a 25 foot trailer...

Here's Betty, my sister-in-law, showing all the bells and whistles on her traveling kitchen. It's really nice, with the oven she's next to, plus a nearly full sized refrigerator. That would sure beat a campfire, which is how most of my personal experience of on-the-road cooking has come from. Of course, either one means a clean-up, and I guess I'd rather clean up outside, unless it's hot. I wonder if she's got air conditioning in there. I'm really not able to do heat gracefully.

Obviously this is a table. You can probably imagine all the fun things a couple of people can do with a table while they're traveling.

This is the bed. I'll bet you can probably imagine all the fun... never mind.

John looks like he's giving Pat and Betty advice of some kind. Pat appears to be leaning away from him. (Oh, look! Betty's getting ready to turn off her hearing aid.) It was a long day. I'm glad John doesn't usually read my blogs. Sometimes he doesn't quite understand my sense of humor.

After seeing the trailer, though, I can't say I'd want to pull one behind our car. I wouldn't mind pulling just the bathroom part of it, though. That would be really handy.

Flushed With Pleasure

It's such a small thing, but very annoying to have one of those fancy self-flushing toilets start flushing while I'm still seated. Today while we were on the trip home, we stopped at the Georgetown Visitor Center in Colorado. That's one of our favorite places to stop, since it's only a couple of hours from home, and is always really clean. It's also warm inside in the winter.

Today, however, I started wondering if they had turned one of the "thrones" into a bidet. Not only did it repeatedly flush while I was taking care of business, but it splashed so much I thought I was getting a bath. No, I didn't complain on my way out. That's what you're for.

It felt so great to walk in the door here, though. John emptied the car and I put the food away, but that's about as far as I got. It was great to have Tighe make dinner for us, since I was pretty beat. I've been primarily sleeping in my chair since then. I just woke up and realized everyone else had gone to bed. I think I'll follow their example. I have some photos to post—tomorrow, perhaps. I did get to see Pat & Betty's trailer. It's real, not a mirage. We've also got some photos from the roadside. Perhaps I'll get them together for tomorrow, too. That might be nice. Tonight yawning is more fun.

Heading Home, Day One of Two

We made it from Pt. Mugu, also known as the Naval Air Weapons Station, or Pacific Missile Test Station, all the way to Richfield, Utah (see photo). I'm so thrilled to be more than half way home.

The trip so far has been wonderful, except for the forty-five minutes that we crawled through Las Vegas, and even that wasn't too bad. We sang our way through it. I had the iPod tuned to my five-star list all day. Believe it or not, we didn't even make it to the C's. (Yes, I have them alphabetized by artist.) When you have a favorites list that's culled from over 10,000 songs, you can expect it to take many days to play your favorites. I don't think we'll make it to Derek Coombs' "Freight Train," let alone "Who's Your Daddy."

I'm not always an orderly person. Maybe in some ways I'm obsessive-compulsive. I just feel like I need to do them in order. At least once.

One nice thing was that we never saw a single accident all day. That's a record. We sure saw a lot of cars pulled over getting tickets, though. I would estimate we saw at least two dozen. We just smile when it's someone who has sped passed us earlier. Yes, I sure do love that cruise control.

We'll stop and see my brother Pat and his wife Betty tomorrow. We've been teasing them that they have a "mirage" trailer. They bought it so that when he goes to remote locations with his hiking club, Betty can go along in comfort. Also, when they travel back east to see family, they have a built in home away from home. However, every time we've been to see them, it's somewhere else, and there's always a very good reason why we can't see it. Uh-huh. Mirage trailer. They're leaving on a trip Sunday, so they're picking it up from storage tomorrow and want us to stop by to see it. Right. I'll bet they're not home when we get there. Fifty cents, anyone?

Time for bed. I'm probably too excited to sleep, but I should make the effort. John's been out like a light for quite awhile. Nothing keeps him awake—except driving, which is a good thing.