Don't look at meeeee!

I really like Indian food, but I almost always have the same reaction: I eat a small portion of some seemingly harmless chicken over rice with sauce (mmm... chicken korma...), and while I’m at the table, I feel like I could just go on eating. But as soon as I get up, that innocuous dish turns into a medicine ball in my stomach. About the time I feel my pregnant-hippo sized body must be obvious to the rest of the world, my brain is attacked. It feels like it is being smothered by down pillows. The safest thing to do at that point is to hold down some furniture and hope no one asks me anything important.

Have you ever noticed that when you see someone being an asshole (like pushing to the front of the line for the bus), that person is indelibly marked as an asshole in your mind, even if someone else is an asshole to the original asshole. And even more oddly, if you are like me, you might kind of admire the second asshole, even if his assholish ways would have gotten him original asshole status if viewed in the absence of the first asshole.

It’s getting cold enough at night that I’ve started bringing my plants in. The sunroom is filling up right quick with the mouse cage, patio table and two chairs, chilis, cherry tomatoes, citrus, two Thanksgiving cacti, and the plant stand full of ivy. The azalea only made it as far as the front hall before I realized I need a drainage dish for it before I can take it upstairs.

After I bragged about my azalea green thumb, I noticed that the local florists all have blooming azaleas out. oof! Guess it was just preprogrammed to happen.

My chilis are finally turning red, and two are almost ready to pick. I told John to get his mouth all ready. But when I went in to check/admire them today, I realized that some of the plants were dripping sap because they were infested with *aphids*. grrrr... The green specks that showed up on my black cardigan after I was messing with the chili plants were a bit of a giveaway. I chopped off the affected plants, none of which had chilis on them, and John is going to smoke his pipe at the survivors later.

After the first battle for the chilis, I felt itchy all over. Of course I realize that to an aphid, my skin would be the equivalent of Death Valley, but I still had the itchies.

Just when I thought the tomato plant was about done for the year and I could chuck it to make some space in the sunroom, it has gone crazy putting out new branches and new blooms. For some reason, we haven’t even managed to eat up the last batch of tomatoes, and now we’re faced with a barrage of new ones.

But I am quite excited that both of my Thanksgiving cacti are about to bloom. Teensy weensy buds are coming out. Yay! If only the aphids will keep their pokey little proboscises to themselves.

Sadly, the other main annoyance in our household right now is Hannah, but don’t tell her I said that. She has had this non-productive, throat-clearing cough for a while, and there are times when it drives me straight up the wall to hear “a-HEM... a-HEM”, repeat a million times a day. I know it is just a tic because she doesn’t do it in her sleep, and she didn’t do it on our trip to Trier, when she was among friends, until after she walked into that pole and was angry, and cough drops seem to have no affect on the tickle that she says causes it. Some nights, when I am trying to fall asleep and she is still reading in bed downstairs—coughing—I just have to yell at her to go get a drink of water or a cough drop or SOMETHING. *GAH!*

I have used the cell phone a total of two times now to make outgoing calls, and I felt like a total tool both times. The first time, I was walking up the pedestrian street to the store to pick up some milk and ketchup, and I wanted to see if John had any other items for me to buy. I waited until the street was fairly clear before I started dialing, but I was totally slow, and when I looked up—still not done dialing—I was 2 steps away from walking into another cell phone user, probably texting. I felt like a total jackass, which doubled while I was walking and talking to John.

The second time, I was at the bus stop after being out later than I had thought, and I was checking in with John about starting dinner. The bus stop is on a very busy street, and it was loud, so I found myself talking loudly to be heard over the car noise. With my phone conversation, I managed to scare away two little bunnies eating down near the river. I’m a monster!

Yikes!

I've been neglecting my poor little blog, but it has been for a strange mix of reasons. First, I had nothing to say, then we went out of town for 2 days, and there was almost too much to say, but I wanted to say it on my travel blog, and then I went crazy and spent a whole day (yesterday) writing. Everything is topsy-turvy!

Now I can't even remember the few things I wanted to post before we went off on our wild adventures. Or not so wild. This is us we're talking about here. Last Friday, we headed for the Spessart to check out a moated castle John wanted to see and to enjoy the fall foliage. Then on Saturday we got up early-ish and headed to Trier with another family we have befriended. Hannah is taking Latin, and Trier is chock-full of Roman stuff--the baths, the Porta Nigra, an amphitheater--so we thought she might be interested, but alas, the best we were able to get was that she and her friend found a place to flop themselves each time our tour group stopped to view something, so at least they weren't disruptive. She walked right into a sign post just before the tour started, so with her subsequent bad mood, it could have gone really badly.

We walked about 5 miles in Trier, so with my own errands in town, that brings me up to 26.15 miles since I started the trek to Rivendell. I am very sad to see that I am still only on day 2, where the "road rolls up and down." *sigh* Classes start back next week, so I will be getting out of the house every single day and racking up the miles.

Ok, I realize this post is completely made of LAME, but I will start paying more attention and taking notes so I can get back to boring you at a much lower level.