Grandma and Grandpa Texas had three cats. Two of them were originally his from before he and my mom met. Toby was my mom’s baby, taken in as a stray after he’d made friend with the other two. He died last week, the last of them to go. I tried to write something, but I couldn’t come up with anything more eloquent than what she sent me in an email, so I’m posting it here with her permission.

… And not ever again. On Tuesday evening, we had to let Toby go. It was hard, even harder than saying farewell to Tommy and Abby. Because he was our baby. Never mind his age that, in cat years, clearly identified him as senior citizen. It was the right decision, he had reached the end of his last life. It was good to see him peaceful, safe from pain.
It has not quite sunk in yet that he is gone. I heard him purring last night but it was just the humming of the ceiling fan. That familiar lump on my feet? Just my blanket, gotten bunched up. The orange-colored shape behind a shrub? Part of a dried-out palm leaf. And then there is that reflex: “Have to check for Tobs!” each time we pass by the frontdoor, only to realize that his little face will never appear in the side window again.
He is resting now, next to his two best buddies. We cherish the memories the three of them left behind for us. They will keep us smiling over and over again, as we face the next stage of our life.

Eliza returned from Camp Auntie and Cousins this evening.

When we went kayaking last month, we saw flyers for ziplining, and Hello!

I have been badgering Jim about it ever since (Do you sense a theme, here, where I spot something, become obsessed, and then hassle the husband about it ceaselessly? Yes, you do!) and since he was not entirely unwilling to try it out, decided to blow our last kid-free hours in advance of the Small Person’s return thusly.

Ziplining, for those of you who clicked on that link and went all TL;DR (too long, didn’t read, and guess who needs to quit lurking on livejournal, or at least quit it with the jargoning? Oh, ME!) is where they stretch a cable between two points and they clip you into a waist harness-thingie, and push off, and zip from one end of said cable to the other. What makes it well worth your while is that a. you go fast, b. you’re taking in beautiful scenery, and c. you’re suspended anywhere from a couple feet to 35 feet above the ground. In our case, we went to a ski resort near home with a group of 9 plus two guides, descending the mountain in zigzag fashion. Sometimes we went from platform to platform, other times we were over a ravine, other times it was kind of like a very fast ski-lift downhill.

When I decided this would be a good thing to do, I forgot that I am not so much with the heights. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me, but as we rode the ski lift to the mountain top — the very mountain I once tried and failed to ski down (in brief: there was crying, and requests to be allowed to walk), I definitely had an ohshitwhathaveIgottenmyselfinto moment. The hypercompetitiveness kicked in reliably, though, because I was NOT going to be the weenie in the group.

Once we got going the awesome significantly outweighed the “what if the whole shebang collapses and we all DIE.” In fact, at one point Jim and I raced on parallel cables and I may have taken a running start to fling myself off the platform in order to gain as much speed as possible. And on the last one, we all took turns throwing ourselves off the platform backwards just to make things more challenging.

So. freaking. cool.

Here I am in my sexy harness waiting for the guide to clip me in:

Here is Jim coming in for a landing during our last zip, which went from platform to ground:

Jim shot this video of me going platform to platform:

We did 7 in all, and during the longest and fastest allegedly went about 30 miles an hour. They have another series of lines that span two peaks and which are long enough that you build up speeds of 60 miles an hour.

Who’s coming with us?

Oh, hello. I’ve been away and/or sleep-deprived for the past week and a half, which is not so much conducive to posting, and then yesterday on my day off I taught three karate classes. On the upside, I managed to undo most of the food-related damage of my vacation week in one go that way, so I suppose it was worthwhile.

I have adventures to document and I think I will work my way backwards from Tuesday’s Kings of Leon concert. It is a tale of passionate fandom and inventive retaliation. It may be my favorite concert experience of the past year and a half,and you have no idea how disturbing that is to my poor, poor husband. I think he atoned in one fell swoop for all the terrible indie bands and Who binges he’s put me through over the past 15 years. Also, I think he needs a hug. He’s a little traumatized. But I get ahead of myself. Allow me to set the scene a bit.

Here he is, pre-show, already looking not excited:

I didn’t pay him any mind because I was busy concentrating on sucking in my gut.

His discomfort stems from two related factors: 1. He’s just not that into the band and 2. I am. Very, very, very much. Like, I made him take a picture of the roadie whom I recognized as their cousin much. Like, I know the roadie’s nickname much. Like, I can tell you how come he has that nickname much.

This is Nacho, the roadie:

I do these things to Jim in a shoe’s-on-the-other foot spirit, since I know more about Keith Freaking Moon and the rest of the The Who than is strictly appropriate, especially for a girl. We are all about fair play around the Elizasmom Mansion. And maturity, too. It’s the secret to our long and happy relationship. (Also, and somewhat more sappily: even if I could give a flying &^% about the Who or Led Zeppelin or whoever, he’s so damn cute when he’s enthusiastic that I always let him go on for much longer than is strictly necessary with his “This Is Why the Live Version of ‘Whole Lotta Love’ Is Divinely Inspired” powerpoint presentations or what have you. And I suspect his motivations in coming to this show with me are similar.)

Anyway: opening band number one: mopeymopeyEMO. Then opening band number two: crazyhillbillyGUITARWANKING. Jim liked them a lot, so at least the evening wasn’t a total loss for him.

Then there was a pause followed by a lot of shifting around into viewing spots. I don’t know what is up with the Connecticut gene pool, but there are a lot of short people. God bless the short people. I had an excellent view.

Then the show started and there was a lot of hollering from yours truly, because Followills at 15 feet are magnificent (and loud), and really, screaming and flailing was the only appropriate reaction.

I won’t bore you with the details except to note that in the past few months I have seen a number of good-to-great bands, including The Arcade Fire just two days before, and Kings of Leon spanked them all and took their lunch money and sent them running home to their moms crying. They were good last year, but this year? Oh. Em. Gee.

Jim was the camera man and remember how last year I speculated that Caleb had magical vampire powers because I couldn’t get a clear photo of him? Jim had the same problem, and this was the clearest of the bunch:

Here’s where it gets interesting (and yes, you facebookers have most of this story already): the crowd was possibly a little heat-crazed and/or hormone-addled because it was the most intense pit I’ve ever been in, in terms of people surging forward and angling to get better spots.

There were a lot of frat types and sorority girls, and a lot of people who didn’t respect the Ways of the Pit: In a nutshell, you want to be in front, you get there early. Don’t be the douchebag who weasels past the people who got there 5 hours earlier by pretending to see your friend up front. Not only are you cutting in line, you’re insulting everyone’s intelligence. Peeing is not an option. Beer drinking is stupid. You go get beer, you leave to pee, you lose your spot. I once got a kidney infection because I wouldn’t leave my spot 5 feet from the stage at a U2 show even though I had to pee, and if you try to cut me some slack by muttering about the follies of youth, I will be very quick to correct you that I would do the same thing today.

I do not expect everyone to be this crazy, but I do expect them to respect that craziness in other people.

Anyway, all that is to say that the tall girl who came rushing up behind me during my favorite song to try and elbow her way in front of me offended my sense of proper concert etiquette. Furthermore, ramming into the girl next to me so she poured her beer down my back was not the way to plead a successful case for passage, although it was refreshing in the heat. (The pit is not for people who have cleanliness hang-ups.)

So I told her, “Hell no!” and stuck out my elbow to block her repeated attempts to pass.

She gave up after a minute and slunk away. A song or two later, I ran my hands through my sweaty, beery hair, and there was a clump. A squishy clump.

She. put. her. gum. in. my. hair.

It speaks to the general insanity of the event but I could not stop laughing. As things go, that has to be among the most inventive forms of revenge I have ever experienced, and I have nothing but respect for her. Well played.

I pulled most of it out easily (it was pineapple scented, in case you’re wondering), and trimmed the rest out at home. Thank god for the Sensible Mom Haircut.

When I told Jim, though, he looked absolutely horrified and asked if we needed to leave. My reaction was pretty much, “No! Because then the terrorists will have WON!”

“That’s really disturbing,” he said, repeatedly. I’m unsure whether he meant the original assault or my reaction.

During the encore I was suddenly bracketed by two drunken frat-looking boys who tore off their shirts and sang along and screamed repeatedly at Caleb in adoration. (There were a surprising number of gay guy-with-female-posse groups at the show, as well as many stereotypically-macho-frat-looking men who had a lot of feelings about Caleb Followill. Fun, but not at all the demographic I expected.) Eventually, it seemed like they might squash me in their attempt to reach the object of their desire, so I edged out of the way.

At this point, Jim said he thought this was the kind of pit everyone warns you about and I was all, “Uh-huh isn’t it great?!” and some random 20-year-old girl clutched at me and thanked me fervently for knowing more than one song and being a true fan.

There were fireworks and flashpots at the end and I think what was left of my brain melted, and then we squelched wetly, sweatily, beerishly, back to the car and I wore my concert t-shirt the next day like the big giant dork that I am and it was AWESOME, the end.

1. If you are looking for a book to read, you should read this one, The Quickening, by my friend Michelle. I know a published author, peeps! *basks in reflected glory*

I met Michelle, who has impeccable taste in music and friends (Ha!), 15 years ago when she was in grad school and first working on this book, and I read a piece of an early version of this book, and I liked it then, but I love what it’s evolved into.

It’s a story about two very different Iowa women who are forced by proximity into a relationship to each other, and their lives as farmers’ wives during a time in our history for which the term “hardscrabble existence” was pretty much invented. You know pretty much from the first page that something bad happened to blow their worlds apart, and then the whole story moves toward explaining why and how. I’m being kind of vague because I don’t want to spoil it, plus I am not a published author who is articulate and stuff, but it hooks you from the start and it hooks you good.  I pretty much tore through it in 24 hours.

In some ways it’s not even about plot, though, because the story, which is set in the first half of the 20th century in Iowa, is so redolent of place that you can smell it and hear it. Michelle weaves in all these wonderful, telling details about life on a farm without ever being all “LOOKIT MAH RESEARCH!” about it.

So, to sum up: Buy her book and no, I am not being paid, I am simply a proud friend!

2. Might you be looking for something to do on Aug. 7?

If so you should come to Astoria, NY, to the Saw Festival.

The Saw Lady, whose blog I love, is the organizer of this festival, and she reminded me that it’s coming up again. Jim and I went last year and got to be witnesses to a world record setting performance of Ave Maria (most musical saw players playing together), as well as hearing some music that went far outside our usual scope. Musical saw and opera singers! Old-timey bluegrass-y stuff with spooky saw accents! Spine-tingling and worth checking out to the degree that I am actually in the process of shifting around significant portions of my weekend plans for Aug. 6-8 so as to be able to attend.

If you are going, let me know! Blogger/saw meet-up!

3. I have apparently taught all of western Massachusetts how to throw a punch. I say this because it has now become an immutable fact of my life that if I set foot outside my door, I will run into someone I know from karate. I guess it’s good that I am not in the habit of public drunkenness or other vulgar displays.

4. Appearances to the contrary, this child is not experiencing angst. She has simply passed out from the exhaustion of being 5:

5. Here, have some teeny tiny toads, lovingly gathered by a grubby-fingered kindergartner:

6. I feel that it is important to note that on this particular day, she was wearing underpants under her bathing suit bottom. Which was on backwards.

My kid is pretty smart for a five-year-old, but it’s like she used up all her brain cells on the reading and the spelling or something, because her underwear situation can habitually be summed up as GIANT FAIL. Seriously, it is a good day if she is wearing them at all, much less properly. Most of the time, she forgets. When she doesn’t, she has them on backwards or has contrived to put one of her legs through the waist hole and her waist through a leg hole. Most of the time, I catch her before she heads out the door completely bare-assed, but if she’s wearing skorts or pants, all bets are off. It is really, really baffling.

Does anyone know of a support group for the Parents of the Underpants-Challenged (PUC)?

7. My hair is still really bright, y’all:

8. We went to see the Flaming Lips and the lead singer got into a giant hamster ball and crowd surfed. I want to know, where does one find people-sized hamster balls? Also, there was such a proliferation of pot smoke in the air at this show that I fear I may no longer be able to claim I’ve never smoked pot. Stinky. Of course there were karate people there, but I guess we were all in the same condition so it’s OK:

9. Proof of my possible second-hand highness: I raised my hands up in unironic peace signs at one point during the show:

10. No one is responsible for this batshit hair color except me and Loreal (and I’ve grown unreasonably fond of its trainwrecky brightness to the point that I will probably do it again), but I’ve gone back to the bossy Ukrainian lady at the mall for my haircuts and I shouldn’t have cheated on her, because she takes the back of my head very seriously.

“Who did hair last time? Is too long! Need to cut higher for work, this stack! Sorry it’s taking long time! Need to do right!”

Ah, the holy grail, achieved once more: a haircut that looks good sweaty and bouncing around:

Pipe cleaners for anklets….

A faux bloodpressure cuff and a poodle purse for a bracelet…

And a bear attached to her back.

I have a bag of toys in my office and it appears that she decided to play with all of them at once.

So, yeah. Camp. In the words of mine own child: Not so much.

Last week she said some kids made fun of the way she talked, and while I was not cool with that, we talked through it and

****

* uh oh* She is standing here reading over my shoulder saying, “Why are you making a message about me?” Her reading comprehension skills are really becoming a problem.

****

… and I figured, that sucked but I can’t protect her from every asshole, and then they seemed to stop so it was OK and she seemed to have a couple of good, fun days.

But then the counselors started giving her grief of some sort for taking a long time to change out of her bathing suit into street clothes after swimming and she is is 5, people, wet suits are HARD, and she started to get anxious, and then they told us to tell her to change faster, and she started getting more anxious which made her slower because she’d spend time freaking out and spiraling misery and whining and no more swimming in swim camp which WTF I am paying you to teach her to swim and then some other kids started making fun of the way she says “Um, uh,” a lot, and then there was crying this morning and at first Jim and I continued to hold to the into-everyone’s-life-a-little-rain-must-fall line but then I stopped and looked at my teary-eyed, panic-y kid and remembered what this was like and I said FUCK THIS FOR A GAME OF SOLDIERS.

I haven’t called the camp yet to tell them because I’m about 50 percent able to recognize that some of this is legit not the camp’s fault, but that leaves about 50 percent unreasonable mamabear who is sorry she didn’t march in there last week in her karate uniform to loom at and/or threaten the offending parties, so, um, I think I will wait a bit before I make that phone call.