I Have Broken the Space-Time Continuum

Because that’s what happens when I try to coordinate and organize: I end up in three places at once.

It really makes me uncomfortable when you do that.

On Family Circle’s Momster blog, I’m talking about the benefits of treating your kids with inequity. That’s inequity, not iniquity. I’m not completely evil. (For the record: honoring a request to take one kid to KISS while denying a request to take a different kid to Justin Bieber is not evil; it’s self-preservation).

On Family Fusion Community I write about losing your ~~sh..~~ temper with cute little short people. You just may pick up a tip on how to not break down a door.

Back to the space-time continuum.

Pfft. I break that continuum all the time. See? I'm breaking it right now. — Pfft. I break that continuum all the time. See? I’m breaking it right now.

The only other English word I could come up with that contains double U’s was vacuum. Turns out there are several more, but I had to google them and one is kind of gross so that’s where I stopped reading. I’m leaving the comments open so you can say your favorite word in English that has two U’s right in a row. Or else list one way KISS is better than Justin Bieber.

Scat to the Rafters

My neighborhood is overloaded with wild turkey. The bird, that is, not the pathetic brown liquor that masquerades as bourbon. They nest behind my house. One could see this as a commentary on my gardening skills. There is rather a lot of overgrown brush for them to nest safely and comfortably in… though I prefer the terms “lush” and “verdant”.

In addition to ground nesting they roost in my trees, usually during raccoon and badger hours. Some people believe wild turkeys can’t fly and wonder how they get up there. Wild turkeys do fly. They fly like they’re drunk. Perhaps on real bourbon.

There are ten now, but there used to be twelve. Two chicken-sized babies died on the same day in my driveway and I wondered for a long time after if they fell or were pushed. That’s a lot of mouths to feed. I have a hard enough time with five and mine are old enough to forage for their own food.

They roost on a certain branch directly over my driveway and thus, my cars. One car is way more in the strike zone than the other.

For a long time we vied with daughter #1 for the prime parking spot and CC finally had to issue her a decree: YOU park on the turkey poop side.

Then #1 moved out and we had to reissue the decree to daughter #2.

Last week because I was lazy, I parked in the spot behind #2’s car hoping it was out of turkey poop range. It wasn’t. In the morning when I went out to run errands, I noticed the poop. It was hard not to. I figured I’d take the car to the car wash after I went grocery shopping. Then I sat down in the driver’s seat and decided, based on my view, going grocery shopping first was not an option.

Car Wash Guy: ¡Dios mío!

Me: Turkeys.

Guy: Turkeys?

Me: Branch over my driveway.

Guy: Big Turkeys.

Me: Big branch.

Guy: I give extra pre-wash.

I got the $13 wash and tipped them $7.

The next day CC had to drive the other car and headed, first thing and for the same reason, to the same car wash.

Me: Did the car wash guy say anything?

CC: No. He just sighed, and turned on the hose.

I’m not entirely sure how #2 is oblivious to and unbothered by turkey poop, but she is. The very day after CC took that car to the car wash, it was covered again. He issued a new decree to #2: YOU hose this off, or the damn turkeys can cost YOU twenty bucks a day.

And then he began Operation Turkey Roost Removal.

I’m not going to post pictures of this, for fear of people thinking we actually conduct ourselves at work this way. It involved an extension ladder, an extension trimmer, and me being called out as a witness only. He declined my offer to foot the ladder because, he said, “I may need to jump out of the way and I don’t want to jump on you.”

Turned out he was right.

At work I told some of my city-dwelling co-workers that CC cut down the turkey roosting branch and they responded with “Awww! Poor turkeys!” and I was all, “No, you don’t understand!”

And nobody does, unless turkeys roost in a branch over some part of your property or you work in a car wash. So I’m educating you: Turkey poop isn’t like normal bird poop. It has density. It has substance. It’s somewhere between the size of a golf ball and a tennis ball. A turkey poops a lot. Ten turkeys, on a branch hanging over your car, poop ten times that amount. On your car.

You’re welcome.

The conversation with my co-workers begat the question, “What do you call a group of turkeys? Are they a flock?” While there is some debate as to whether these names are wild or domestic specific, turkeys are either a flock or a rafter.

This was discovered via the interwebz, along with many other weird names for groups of animals that make me ridiculously happy:

I knew about a murder of crows, but had never heard of the unkindness of ravens. I wish like hell that I work that into a story without coming off like a complete douchebag.

An ostentation of peacocks, a kaleidoscope of butterflies, and a romp of otters are aptly named.

A troubling of goldfish, a pounce of cats, and a rookery of penguins are among my favorites.

But the hands-down winner? A business of ferrets.

What are your favorites?

The Truth About Lemon Drops

There’s a recipe I tore out of a magazine over a year ago and haven’t made yet. It’s for a lemon ice box pie that looks divine. The picture just screams summer, and every time I run across it in my recipes I think, I really want to make this pie!

It includes three of my favorite things on the planet: shortbread cookies, a certain type of greek yogurt that’s more fattening than ice cream, and lemon drops (candy in pies is kind of a midwest thing, much like tiny marshmallows in sweet potatoes).

I finally decided to make the pie. My first trip out for ingredients, I had a hard time finding the shortbread cookies. I had to search the whole cookie aisle like three times and by the time I found them, a bunch of other cookies had climbed into my basket as decoy cookies. They said it was so I didn’t eat the ones intended for the recipe. I’m not one to argue with a cookie.

In the aftermath of the cookie aisle fiasco, I forgot the yogurt. I also forgot the lemon drops. That night, I cracked open the shortbread.

The next day I went back to the store. By this time, I’d eaten half the shortbread, but figured there was still enough to make the recipe. I grabbed the yogurt, then was confronted with a horror in the candy aisle:

NO LEMON DROPS!

In fact, there was a total absence of any old-lady candy. No peppermints. No Brach’s sour balls. No Red Hots.

The next day I went to a different store for lemon drops (and shortbread, because we were out. Also decoy cookies). There were butterscotch balls and those gross neapolitan coconut squares, but no lemon drops. I replenished the cookies.

Next day, next store: There were root beer barrels, cinnamon balls, and those little bright blue mint balls, but no lemon drops. I bought a pint of Häagen-Dazs so I wouldn’t eat the yogurt.

Finally, as a last resort before mail-order, I made my way to the drug store in town with the largest candy section, and there they were: lemon drops. Finally. Thank god this place carries shortbread too.

I have always believed lemon drops to be the most innocent of all candy. I remember being able to choose them as my treat when we went to the movies when I was a little kid. They were great because they were sour enough that you didn’t need a lot. Your parents could shut you up for fifteen minutes with two of them.

The truth is that lemon drops have proven to be sort of a reverse gateway drug purely by their elusiveness. Tallying up all the extra shortbread, decoy cookies and ice cream I’ve had while searching for them, each serving of this pie is equal to approximately a month’s worth of calories. The pie that I still haven’t made. I can’t believe lemon drops turned on me. Did you ever have a candy turn on you? It feels like when my best friend in elementary school pretended to be mad at me. Not cool, lemon drops. Not cool.

At this point, maybe I should just dip a shortbread cookie in the yogurt, top it with a lemon drop, and call it good.