This is the tent in question

1. Ingrid and Brad had a tent- 3 person, REI Taj 3, forest green case, silver and black fabric, gold poles, and a mustard yellow rain fly.  They slept in it on July 16th in Eugene, Or.  It rained all night.  They wadded the tent up, shoved it in the trunk of the car (1998 Nissan Sentra) and drove back to Portland, Oregon the next day.
2. On July 17th, Ingrid hung the tent outside in her backyard on the line to dry.
3. It rained July 17th.  She moved the tent inside during the early evening and stretched it out on the kitchen table.
4. It sat there all of July 18th.
5. On July 19th, Ingrid folded up the tent on the dining room floor.  She usually does not fold the tent.  Brad commented when he returned home from work, “Nice job folding the tent, honey”.  She does not remember if she returned the tent to the basement closet or left it sitting in the dining room.
6. On July 20th, the family left Portland for a trip to Ashland, Oregon.  They did not take the tent with them as they planned to stay at a swanky rental house.  Again, they are unsure if anyone in the family put the tent away in the “gear closet” in the basement or if the tent was left out (but folded and in its case) in the dining room.
7. On August 4th, Ingrid’s sister Anne visited her home with the intent of borrowing camping equipment.  She pulled a tent, a sleeping pad, and a sleeping bag out of “the gear closet” in the basement.
8. On August 9th, Anne visited Ingrid to return camping equipment after her trip.  She presented the borrowed camping equipment.  ”This isn’t my tent,” Ingrid stated.  ”This is the one I got out of the closet”  Anne protested.  ”And  it sucked.  It didn’t have tent poles.”
9. The “wrong tent” is a huge Coleman without tent poles.  It does not belong to ANY of Ingrid’s immediate family members.  No one knows how it got in the gear closet.  And the ACTUAL tent (a decent one that Ingrid and Brad loved) is completely MISSING.

WHERE IS THE TENT?

Ideas and suggestions are appreciated.

On the train, 10 feet ahead of me, a young woman was sitting…. in a zebra print skirt.  Across from me I saw a 20-something in the same zebra skirt plus she had a matching handbag and shoes.

I got off the train.  Neither women got off with me and yet just ahead of me crossing the street was a woman in the SAME zebra skirt.  ”Wait!  Did that chick get off and pass me?  Is it National Zebra Day?  AM I ON SAFARI?”

How can there be so many zebras in Portland?

Just for kicks, what do you make of the zebra-as-fashion?  Love it?  Hate it?  Vote here.

He drew the dog putting the bone in the hole and the bird adding the stick to the nest.

On the next page, he extemporized a bit.

The squirrel does not hide those nuts.  Oh no.  He eats one and “is about to eat” the other one.  And that bird is not about to fly.  ”She’s too young.  She falls,” Zephyr said quite seriously.

This whole assignment had me giggling a bit.  Here is what it would look like if I did it:

We have this squirrel who sits on our fence and displays his huge, furry, well testicles.  It’s true.  Me and him—we don’t get along.  He tries to run up my window screens and jump on my bird feeder, and he even knocked it down once.  So I hit the window when I see him and laugh as he shoots like a firework off the sill because I’ve surprised him.  Then he comes back and hunches over to display his goods.  I’m not intimidated, but I know what would come next in the story.  And if I had two nuts (ha!) I know exactly where I would aim them.

Here is my other one:

Okay!  Now people are wishing that I wasn’t blogging again.  But aren’t the possibilities endless?  What would you put for picture number three?

I finally got my diagnosis for what has been troubling my neck and shoulders, and although it isn’t really funny nor particularly good news, for some reason, it makes me smile.  I saw the spinal specialist again last week after having more x-rays and an MRI done.  Yes, my spine has a reverse curve, and yes, there are a couple vertebrae that “move independently” (that’s bad I guess), but my largest problem is that I have arthritis running down my neck.  It is taking up space and shoving the vertebrae in my spine around a bit, and that is causing me pain.

My grandfather Si was a sweet man, sometimes funny, sometimes whiney, often charming.  As he got older, he often complained of his “arthur-itis”, which always sounded like a proliferance of Arthurs.  Those Arthurs really plagued him, and the family had many laughs about his pronunciation without ever correcting him.  Now arthur-itis plagues me and yet gives me a little giggle.  My grandpa’s goofiness has made something disappointing sweeter.  In short, it is a bummer, but I’m going to be okay.  I start physical therapy on Tuesday, so here is hoping I can kick Arthur in the….neck?

The top seven crazy things that I have actually said to my son in the last month:

7)  You must, must, must learn to wipe your own ass, sweetie.

6)  Take that toilet plunger out of your mouth!

5)  Why are there barbecue tongs in your bed?

4)  Do not scrub the sand out of your butt with your toothbrush!

3)  Don’t chop that tree with a hammer; get an ax!

2)  I don’t want to ever, ever see you putting gravel in your foreskin again!

And the top quote, which I swear I have said multiple times this month to both my older kids:

1)  ”Take your feet OUT of your sister’s mouth—NOW!”

Trouble

This last week Francis got poison oak…. badly.  The kids like to play in a pretty spot of the woods at my parents’ house, right on the edge of our property and the neighbors’.  Unfortunately, it is full of the stuff.  I did see it, but as I seem to be immune from the stuff, it didn’t occur to me that it could hurt any of us.  Wrong.

On Monday Francis had a rash on her face.  I didn’t immediately think of how we had been through poison oak.  By Tuesday it itched.  Her school sent her home.  While on a shopping trip at New Seasons, a nice man instantly diagnosed her rash in the shampoo aisle.  ”Of course!” I thought, and bought the product he suggested (Tecnu).

I brought her back to school Wednesday with some calamine lotion slapped on there.  The school was not hearing of it.  They wanted her to go to a doctor.  They weren’t going to let her come back to class until she brought a note.  ”What?!  For poison oak?  That is ridiculous!” I said, muttering under my breath how this would never happen in the county.  Haven’t these silly city people ever seen a rash from poison oak?  They wanted to know how I knew it was poison oak.  They didn’t like my answer much.  (I guess growing up in Sheridan does not grant you medical credentials, nor does chatting with a nice guy in the shampoo aisle.)  So we went to the doctor.

Good thing we did.  Francis’s rash got worse throughout the day.  By the afternoon her eye was swollen shut.  An icky crust formed over the rash which the doctor diagnosed as a secondary staph infection.  Yuck.  Prescriptions ensued.  The good news is that she is feeling better and was allowed to return to school.  The bad news is that maybe tomorrow morning it will be her other eye.

Evelyn might well be my hardest worker around here.

She is laying almost every day.  This last week she popped out this MASSIVE egg.  It was the second of its kind to be presented by this lady.  When I told Brad that it was a double yoker, he was unduly surprised.  ”Those are real?” he said.  Of course they are real!  Even though he had heard about them all his life, because he had never seen one, he didn’t really believe they were real.  Weird denial of reality is what I call that.  I hear that the sun is made of gas, and you know what?  I believe it.

This is a comparison photo:  normal egg from Hasty, giHUGIC egg from Evelyn.  This worries me a bit actually.  It is fairly common for chickens who produce these huge suckers to get egg bind, a condition where the egg literally gets STUCK inside them.  A friend on our street lost a chicken to egg bind lately.  I am freaked out that I might have to reach up in a chicken and break an egg to get it out if this were to occur with one of our hens.  Here is hoping it doesn’t.  A friend of a friend also told me that she gave her hen a warm bath when she had egg bind.  The egg came right out.  Hmmm.  I guess I like baths.  I’ve never had one with a chicken though.

More photos to impress and (in the case of Anne) disgust?

Ahh yes!  Look at those old lady hands!  (It was because I was working with clay all day; I got a lot of terra cotta stuck in the cracks in my hands.)

We need to hurry up and come up with a use for this egg as it does not fit in the carton.  Really.

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

It looks like it might rain this week.  Do you think the question marks are saying something?  Like maybe, “what do you make of all this rain?”?

Anyway, this is the illustrious “fart” egg or as the English so charmingly say, “wind” egg.  It happens when a chunk of reproductive tissue within the chicken breaks off inside her body and flows into the egg production part.  Her body naturally wraps the chunk in shell and plops it out dutifully.  If we break this little guy apart, there will not be a yolk, but rather a little chunk of grey tissue.

Isn’t that fascinating?  I tried to tell a chicken-keeping friend about this and she started making gagging/vomiting noises, so I had to stop.  I really wanted to tell my story!  I don’t know what her problem is.  I think it is way cool.

Another chicken neighbor has quite a collection of bizarre eggs, some tube shaped, and one covered in wavy divets.  Her husband blows the eggs out and keeps them in a bowl in their living room as a sort of conversation piece.  If I didn’t have a million other things to do today, I would do that too.  It seems clever, but as I have to get to the store and buy school supplies, finish dealing with rotting figs, pick up Francis at school, cook an amazingly clever and balanced gourmet meal, and get Francis to soccer practice by 6pm, well, you will just have to settle for this picture:

It is very small, you see. Small like a pen.