Anger Management

For those of you who know me, this phrase is a touchstone of mine.  I've been told that I have issues and I'm actually beginning to agree.

Yesterday, I went to the dentist for my twice yearly checkup and cleaning.  Now, for the record, I don't like dentists but I go and get my ticket punched like a good little girl.  I got the whole array of x-rays and the added fun of being put 'into the system' since the dentist had converted to computer based files since my last visit two years ago.

For the past two years, I saw a dentist in Oceanside, CA.  While I was there, I started having sensitivity in two cracked teeth.  I ended up getting two root canals and three caps/crowns.  This was a pricey endeavor.  It cost more than most of the vehicles I've purchased in my life.  Who knew that dental costs could be so exorbitant?  Not me, I've had good teeth and little work so far.  But, back to the present.

When the dental hygienist put my x-rays up on the light box and began making her notes into the new computer system, she was appalled at how my caps/crowns were fitted.  Seems like this dentist in CA, we'll call him "incompetent" had trouble fitting the crowns into my teeth.  So instead of carving down the side of the porcelain crowns, he carved out the enamel on the good teeth next to them.

She exclaimed and gestured at the x-rays and used a pen to show me all the damage that guy had done to my good teeth trying to fit in the new crowns.  At this point, my exclamation (aloud in the office, with an open door) included foul language about the amount of money I paid for my incompetent dentist to damage my good teeth.

And there the back pedaling began.  She quit commenting on my teeth and when the dentist came in to check me over and look at my x-rays, he went no farther than saying he wished I had asked him for a recommendation because a guy he went through dental school with ended up in practice in San Diego.

Professional decorum reigned supreme.  No one else commented about that shoddy workmanship that now fills my mouth.  When I asked the dentist if anything needed to be done, he could only recommend that I become the worlds best flosser to protect my teeth, because there is half as much enamel there between those crowns and the teeth beside them as there should be.

As I left the office, I considered my options:  1) write a tersely worded memo berating the dentist; 2) hire a hit man; 3) floss like a demon and hope for only good luck.  I still have to ask the dentist in CA to ship my records to my dentist in Tulsa, but the prospect of penning a letter that does not include some kind of diatribe eludes me.  I am so angry.  When I'm angry, I clench my teeth.  When I clench my teeth, I crack my molars.  When I crack my molars I have to have them fixed.  It's a vicious cycle.

Possibly I need to take up zen-like breathing exercises.  Or start drinking, I hear drunks are pretty relaxed.  I need something to take my mind off my teeth.  And the money I wasted on them.

--Sandee Wagner

Empowerment by Chainsaw

I have a close friend, let's call her "Marilyn", who always talks about her acreage and having to chainsaw downed trees.  She's pretty much a Southern belle, and while I can envision her frying chicken and fixing mint juleps on the veranda, I've never been able to envision her running a chainsaw.  They're just so deadly.

I worked with a guy who pull started his chainsaw right into his chin...very ugly wound.  Very common in the ERs.  I have a great respect for cutting tools, and cutting tools with power?  Even more respect.

Last week, I had a crew of professionals climb and cut the trees in my back yard.  They are all professionally pruned and shaped and I'm hoping in a few years, my backyard shade will have fully recovered from the ice storm damage from two years ago.

While standing in the front yard, watching the crew feed all the limbs into the big chipper, the guy offered to (at a price!) trim my little trees in the front yard.  I asked him how he'd suggest doing it, but then turned it down.  Really.  It can be reached without even a ladder, and it's a baby tree.  We ought to be able to do that ourselves, right?

I had to go out into DH's hangar for something, and I saw our small chainsaw.  When I looked at it, I realized it was electric!  Not a pull start gasoline fed beast.  Electric is much more in my realm of possible yard equipment.  I thought about it for a few days and decided I'd try it myself.  I would get out the chainsaw and take down the limbs on the little trees.  I decided to channel Marilyn.

This morning appeared to be temperate and without a lot of wind, so I decided today was the day.  I dragged out the little chainsaw and checked the oil.  Full up.  Then I spent a great deal of time trying to find one of the five hundred extension cords I know we have... I finally found one I could reach and brought it around.  Then I hooked up the chainsaw and pulled the safety and the trigger.  And the little baby purred.

I approached the little Shumard Oaks with a plan.  I was going to try to do the smallest limbs on the smallest tree.  If I had any trouble with the chainsaw, I was going to put it all away and pretend some criminal marred that tree.  It was surprisingly easy to graze off the tiny limbs sprouting out.  I decided to take the first of the lower limbs.  I very gently pressed the chain against the limb and gave it a little pressure.  Then I realized that you had to really force the arm down.  Those arborists made it look so easy!

Since I used a wimpy little electric, I figured the payback was having to give it a little force.  It took me a couple of hours, but I got all three trees trimmed up to the level suggested by the experts.  I'm hoping I didn't kill them, but they are still standing at this time, so that's good news.

It was very empowering to hold a chain saw and brandish it at anyone who approached.  I had a kind of an Ash in "Army of Darkness" moment, thinking, "Alright. Who wants some?"

--Sandee Wagner

Is That Really Necessary?

I have lived in Texas and Oklahoma for the better part of my adult life.  It wasn't until I spent time on the East and West coasts that I realized that there are more pickup trucks per capita in Texas and Oklahoma than in anywhere else in the US.

We love our pickup trucks.

I always notice certain trucks.  I notice really old, ratty work trucks that are still running long past their expected road life.  And I notice shiny new, gigantic duelys and glamorous extended cab trucks with matching Fifth Wheels.  For some reason, in addition to the ubiquitous gun rack, newer trucks are now sporting other less attractive decorations.

Don't get me wrong.  When someone has one of those propellers that goes in the ball hitch spot?  I love that kind of decor.  What I don't like is the dangling ball sacks.  You know what I'm talking about.  You have to have seen some.

It started out a couple of years ago, someone took one of those 'net bags with two soccer balls' rear view mirror danglers and put it up under the rear bumper so it looked like testicles... Then, someone painted them blue.  Someone else painted them pink.  Then someone, probably in a sweat shop in China, started minting them in plastic and selling them around the world.

You can actually buy plastic dangling testicles for your pickup truck.  I guess they'd work on any vehicle, but you never see them on a Jetta, only on trucks.  So, I need to ask everyone out there:  Is This Really Necessary?  Your truck is large.  It's impressive.  Must it also exude testosterone and belligerence?

Take down the truck testicles.  We know the driver has a pair, the truck doesn't need a set too.

--Sandee Wagner

Agree to Disagree

I've had it with politics and political discussions.  I can remember when the biggest faux pas in the world was to discuss politics, sex or religion during a social situation.  It was taboo.  Right up there with asking someone how much money they made.

Nowadays, people wear their politics on their sleeves (or t-shirts and bumper stickers).  I'm okay with that.  If you want to advertise for someone who doesn't pay you to wear their name around, then go nuts.  But don't expect me to agree with you.  At some point, you need to recognize that we'll have to agree to disagree.

You probably support some causes that I do not support.  You may have some 'hot ticket' items that really make your blood pressure sky rocket.  Your causes and issues are not my causes and issues.  Clear?

This country embraces a secret ballot.  That means if I don't ever want to announce my political affiliation, then I don't have to.  I can vote in the privacy of my voting booth and never EVER catch hell for it.  I don't have to tell you what I think or believe.  I can keep it to myself.

The media has taken political debates and used them to pad all the 'slow news days'.  Where no controversy exists, the talking heads on TV create one to sex up their programs.  They hunt down the most vitriolic of the proponents of any bill or vote and film them incessantly.  It covers all the news programs and talk shows until you can't help but be sucked into political discussions.

I have an opinion.  I have a soapbox.  Before I kick it out from under the table, you might want to consider the beast you are releasing.

If you don't ask me about it, I won't discuss politics.  But if you insist on having the conversation, then don't be surprised if I disagree with you.  Because I probably do.  For completely different reasons than the news folks have debated.  I'm not trying to be perverse.  I'm trying to reason out and logic my way through complex political problems.  And I'm probably not going to come to the same endpoint that you or the newscasters conclude.

I see things differently.  I don't consider myself to be a particularly good critical thinker, but I will look at a problem from both sides before making my decision.  If you really want to go there, we can talk.  Otherwise, don't take it personally.  I don't vote the way I do because I hate you, or want you to lose some benefit of the current legislation.  I may even agree that the problem is big and needs fixing.  But my opinion on the current legislation being debated may be that this law won't fix the problem.  Or my disgust might stem from the costs involved, or the inability of the law to be enforced equally across this great nation.  Lots of reasons.

I don't take my political stance from any of the news shows.  I read.  I listen.  And I think for myself.  So if you don't want to lose fifteen minutes listening to the diatribe, then don't ask me the question.  Really.

--Sandee Wagner

Thankless Jobs

In an effort to ingrain a little ambition in her young children, my sister used to ask them several pithy questions when leaving businesses.  She'd ask, "what do you think a clerk like that makes per hour?" or "how much education do you think she needed to do that job?"  My big sister was always very aware of the multitude of people who have less income or less education than she did.

At the time, I thought she was just filling the airwaves, but her kids have both turned out to be very ambitious and driven.  They want nice things, a nice home, great cars?  They work hard for them.

I went this morning to the lab to have some blood work done.  When my name was called, I followed a harried young woman down a hallway and was directed into a small cubicle cut out in the wall.  Probably less than 6 ft across and about 4 ft deep.  One chair, a trashcan or two and the counter where the phlebotomist kept all her arcane vials and paperwork.

When she turned to me, I gave her my patented spiel.  My veins might look good, but they apparently jump around like crazy because I am not a 'good stick'.  I've only fainted once, but they always want to know that.  She took her time with me.  I hardly noticed the needle piercing my skin and she drew four tubes with little to no fuss or problem.

I was surprised.  I really usually give them a lot more trouble.  Sometimes they have to stick me more than once.  But not this gal.  She did it all on one jab.  I was surprised and very, VERY pleased.  When I stood up to collect my purse and coat, I thanked her.  I told her that she was so gentle and professional and possibly the best draw I'd ever had.  She was stunned mostly speechless.

I left with my throwaway line, "Don't work yourself too hard!" and she assured me that she would not with a big smile on her face.  So this got me to thinking.  How many people thank the folks that hurt them??  For me, it was a matter of degree.  I was prepared for 'the big bad' and avoided all the trauma.  I was gushing with appreciation (and, apparently blood, hence the single stick).

There are a lot of health care workers out there that have to do things to us for our own good.  Sometimes those things are unpleasant, painful or embarrassing.  But they are working toward the greater good for us--the patients.  We need to remember to thank them.  We need to value their efforts on our behalf.

Because, really, how much do you think she gets paid everyday to stand in that tiny box and process patients like an endless flow of cattle?  It can't be enough.

--Sandee Wagner

Juicers Getting Juiced

I blogged yesterday about my foray into Whole Foods to get a chair massage.  The setup in our store is that the massage chair is stationed in the back of the cafe seating.  Kind of in the corner.  Not bad, and you can have a coffee or juice while you wait your turn.

I ordered a mochacchino frappe while I waited.

The gal in line in front of me, ordered a Veggie Juice "With Everything".  By the time Nathan started mixing her juice, I had nabbed a stool where I could see the blender/juicer setup and watch the progress.  Now, first, a disclaimer:  I'm not a veggie juice drinker.  If I want some vegetables, I'll eat 'em.  That said, I couldn't take my eyes off the process.  Nathan was THRILLED that this guest wanted "Everything".

First thing he crammed into the industrial, stainless steel juicer was three long carrots.  Then he shoved in a bunch (greens and all) of three small beets.  Then he crammed in a handful each of spinach, wheat grass, kale and some other leafy green.  Four more carrots.  He flung in a teaspoon each of ground garlic and ground ginger.  Then he shoved in about six stalks of celery, four more carrots and some more greens.  What flowed out of the juicer pour spout was darkly rich and about 16 ounces of juice.

If you were following the action, what you will see is the same as I observed.  They used so many vegetables in that one juice portion, that I could have made a vegetable soup for 16.  I understand that some people drink juices to avoid eating the vegetables.  You get the vitamins and most of the phytochemicals, but you don't get any of the fiber.  You also don't burn any calories eating it like you would chewing and digesting celery (which is calorie negative for all practical purposes).

So, this woman wasted a ton of food so she could drink something to be 'healthy'.  The store had the leftovers falling into a 'green' waste can for recycling into someone's compost pile, but it was a lot of stuff that was not utilized in the making of that single serving of juice.

I wonder how many healthy things, or 'green' things that are done actually have some component of waste built into them?  I'm not picking on Whole Foods.  I'm sure that machine at Jamba Juice or Smoothie King is full of the waste product of the fruits also.  It just concerns me that one person is consuming so much and creating so much waste.  And for what?  Better digestion?  I don't get it.

If you understand the vegetable juicing craze, please explain it to me.

--Sandee Wagner

Kink in the Neck

In the great cosmic scheme of things, I love getting older.  I don't whine when it's my birthday, nor do I lie about my age.  Each year older is a blessing and I truly embrace aging.  I'm actually looking forward to the day when I can be a crazy little old lady that says whatever comes to her mind.  I pretty much do that now, but it's not socially acceptable below about 80.

I saw a stand up comedian on cable the other night, Greg Behrendt.  He did a whole bit on aging that made me laugh until I almost wet my pants.  Language alert, this guy uses bad, BAD language, so don't click on THIS if you are easily offended.

He started out talking about waking up wrong.  Being sore from sleeping.  I can so relate.  I woke up day before yesterday and my right shoulder and neck were out of whack.  Did I do something physical?  No.  I slept on it wrong.  That's old people speak right there.  You'd think I was swinging from jungle vines like Tarzan with the way this arm and shoulder were inflamed.

The next night, I tossed and turned, unable to get to sleep because I was so sore.  Then I decided to do something about it.  I wandered into Whole Foods (formerly Wild Oats) and found the masseuse.  I signed up for a chair massage.  I showed the gal where it hurt and told her to go nuts.

If you've ever had a massage before you know that "deep tissue" is a euphemism for 'hurts like a son of a gun'.  At the time I settled down, I wondered if I was just being sensitive and crazy, but she found a knot in my back that was the size of her fist.  I had a huge charlie horse.  She worked it out, but I'm more sore today (and last night) than I was before.  I'm hoping it calms down.  I could sure use a good night's sleep.

When the cure for the ailment hurts worse than the original ailment, you've got to ask yourself if it was worth it.  At the time, getting it massaged out seemed like a great idea.  Right now, I wish I'd taken a muscle relaxer and fallen into bed.  But I actually don't have any muscle relaxers, so it wasn't really on my list of choices.

Here's hoping that the kink in my neck and shoulder goes away, and soon.  Because if I get much more of this, I will completely understand why some old people are really crotchety.

--Sandee Wagner

The Scourge of Spring

I have a rather egalitarian approach to bugs.  As long as they stay outside my home, I say "live and let live."  With the exception of ticks, I won't really treat the outside to avoid pests.  I don't aggressively try to eradicate anything from my garden.  Outdoors is THEIR domain.

Inside is mine.

I have a strict no bugs policy indoors.  In order to keep this a reality, I pay an annual contract to have my home treated four times a year.  By doing this, I guarantee that any time I see a bug, I can call them back and they will spray for whatever pest is bothering me.

Some years, the spiders are hard to manage.  They have to fog the attic with something to keep them down.  Other times, I see earwigs or the odd silverfish.  But every Spring, we fight the good fight against the Sugar Ants.  The tiny things came early this year, so I called the bug guys out to spray.  My technician pointed to two windowsills and recommended we sprayfoam the underside of the sills.  He was sure that the ants were getting in through those windowsills.

My husband, who takes direction very well, sprayfoamed the heck out of those sills.  There is NOTHING that is going to be able to come through that wall of stiffened insulation.  So, imagine my surprise when I noticed the Sugar Ants on the floor.  I watched them for a few moments as they scurried beneath my kitchen sink and thought to myself, "another point of egress."  Then I picked up the phone and scheduled a respray for two days later.

The next morning, I stumbled into the kitchen to nuke some water for hot tea.  I filled the pot and opened my microwave.  It was a swarming mess of Sugar Ants--inside the microwave vent-a-hood.  I thought long and hard about it, but stuffed my pot in there and hit go.  The ants could just die by radiation poisoning.  They were asking for it... weren't they?  They were indoors.  I leave them alone outdoors.  But inside, not so much.

When I opened the microwave eight minutes later... they were all still moving.  All of them.  I extracted my boiling water and swung the door shut.  No ants in the hot water.  Bonus.

When the bug guy showed up to spray, he waxed poetic about his newest chemical spray.  Seems it's undetectable to the ants.  He sprays them, they trail it home to the nest, where it kills the queen.  I tried really hard to be enthusiastic and interested.  He shot the stuff in a few cracks and the ants just kept chortling around.

I turned to him and said, "Patrick, I don't mind you baiting these ants to kill the nest.  Really.  I think it's a great idea.  But do you think you can KILL these ones?"  Then I swung open the microwave where the roiling swarm of Sugar Ants were marching around looking for food sources.  Even the professional was surprised.  When I told him I microwaved them for eight minutes on high and still they moved, he didn't believe me.

He did go back out to the truck and bring in the poisonous stuff.  The stuff that kills them on contact.  He baited a mess of them, but the microwave colony was gassed.  I wiped their little bodies out with Clorox wipes.  They need to understand, in the great scheme of things, it's better for them if they stay outside.

--Sandee Wagner

Trees, Trees Falling Down

A couple years ago, we had a big ice storm.  I was living in SoCal and my son and daughter in law were renting my home.  I got a call from my DIL and while I was chatting on the phone with her, I kept hearing what sounded like gunshots in the background.  I asked what was going on and she said the freeze was so bad, the tree limbs were fracturing.  Kind of exploding from the inside out as the sap froze and expanded.  Then the ice continued to build up and the weight broke branches left and right.

I came to visit a couple months later and was on hand to hire the climbers to take down the broken limbs and stack the wood on the curb for the city to dispose of.  The heartbreak was that three of the trees wouldn't survive the damage they sustained, and the four left were misshapen and ugly.  I had the three casualties cut down, but the stumps remind me how pretty that stand of trees USED to be.

When the tree service was taking down the deadfall and cutting down the trees, I chatted them up about when I could get the trees shaped up.  They warned me not to mess with them for two years.  They said that the trees would need that much time to recover from the trauma.

Well, guess what?  It's been two years.  For the past two years, I've looked out and seen the crummy state of that canopy and wished that my back yard looked better.  Today, the tree service is coming to do the shape up.

It will probably take a couple of years for the growth of the trees to equal out and the look of them to become balanced again, but the specialists are going to be shaping them up so they grow straight and tall.  And they are grinding the three stumps so I can do something else with that part of the garden.

One of my favorite parts of my back yard was that stand of trees.  Even on the hottest of days, that part of the yard had a cooler shadiness.  It won't surprise anyone that two of the trees that did survive hold up my very nice hammock.  I should be thanking the Almighty that the hammock trees weren't the ones that had to come down.  Maybe that's God's way of telling me to take time to lay in my hammock?  I think so.

--Sandee Wagner

Junior Varsity Weathermen

My sons were athletes in high school.  Of the vernacular I picked up from them, is usage of the term JV to categorize someone who is 'not the best' at something, but gamely playing anyway.

In Southern California, the weathermen are JV. 

There is a complete role reversal here in Oklahoma.  We get newscasters that appear 'just out of school' who quickly up market to another job.  My guess is that they stay about two years in the Tulsa market before they are gone.  In the TV business, it's very common to start out at smaller stations and work your way up to a major metropolitan market.  Although our news talent appears young and fresh faced, our weathermen are multi-degreed professionals with a deep knowledge and respect for mother nature.

In SoCal, it was just the opposite.  The newscasters were mature professionals at the top of their game, and the weathermen were wet behind the ears youngsters just out of school.  When I mentioned this to DH during a San Diego weather forecast, he just commented, "how hard is it to say, 'sunny and 70 degrees'?"

Which made me realize that the good weathermen come to Tulsa because we have interesting weather here.  In Tulsa, they might get vans full of storm chasers at their beck and call.  They have the ability to command multiple doppler radars and aggregate data to write papers and articles for professional journals.  Our weathermen are Varsity not JV.

In San Diego, they had baby weathermen and mature newscasters, here we have the opposite.  Our weathermen are mature professionals who don't want to up-market.  They are right where they want to be.  Right where the weather is epic and the money is available for advanced equipment.

All the local weathermen pegged this late winter storm.  All of our local weathermen, on all the local channels, had plenty of time to see the moisture building and the low pushing through.  They all called it.  We had plenty of time to stock the shelves and stack the wood before the storm hit.  It's nice not to have to depend on JV weathermen.

--Sandee Wagner

First Day of Spring

"March roars in like a lion and out like a lamb."  It's been a nice month so far, lots of temperate days and springlike weather.  Nary a bit of roaring.  Not many blustery days.  Not a lot of spring storms.  Hardly a lion of a month.  But all of that changed today.  The first day of Spring.

Last night a cold rain started and this morning, ice pellets are stacking up on the high part of my yard (like the stumps from the trees killed in the last ice storm).  Now, as I look out the window, there are actually some flakes fluttering around amidst the ice.

I finally got tired of my crazy growing trees.  After all the limb removal from the ice storm two years ago, the trees are growing back out like a bad weave.  So I called an arborist and scheduled a tree trimming.  During the estimate, we stood in my backyard staring up at the grand trees.  Okay, we stared at the ones that are left.  We discussed where we could lop off branches to allow the tree to grow more upright, the improve the umbrella.  I'm all about the shade, folks, all about the shade.

I think I got it from my mother, she could not take a tree down.  No matter how damaged or diseased, she wanted all the trees to stay.  She was raised in the flat lands of New Mexico and she treated every tree like a gift.  I'm much more pragmatic.  If it looks good and gives shade, it stays.  If it get sick, or drops limbs on my head, it goes.  The tree guys impressed upon me the necessity of waiting until the trees recovered from the ice damage before doing any shaping.  It's been two years, so I can get them fixed now.

When the tree guy agreed to do the trimming, he put it off until later in the week.  He said there was rain ans snow scheduled for this weekend.  I guess I'll have to wait until mid-week to get my trees shaped.  Unless this ice takes down more limbs.  Then I guess the two year clock starts again.  When does that lamb part begin anyway??

--Sandee Wagner

Rules and the Census

Since the televised Olympics, we've been inundated by commercials on TV telling us we have to fill out our census information and send it in.  Lots of federal funding relies on this information and they use it for everything from gerrymandering the congressional districts to determining which areas need new elementary schools.

I know these forms come once every 10 years, I know I've filled them out in the past, but really, I've slept since then.

I don't know what I expected, but the form was delivered in yesterday's mail.  After all the emails and Facebook posts where people got into heated discussions about the insulting race questions, I expected something more invasive.  I even got an email encouraging me to mark #9 as "other" and fill in American as my answer.

I cracked the seal on the envelope this morning, and fortified with a cup of Constant Comment hot tea, I picked up my pen.  I am a rule follower, not a rule breaker.  Give me a nice set of guidelines or procedures and that's something I will cling to.  You want to count my household every ten years?  I'm in.

I filled in our names, phone number and answered two questions about ancestry.  That's it.  I flipped it over twice reading the whole folded out form looking for the parts that got everyone online wired up.  Nothing.  It's just "are you white, Hispanic, native American?"  Regardless what you choose to select, you can fill out additional information.  So if you object to the Caucasian label (and really, who doesn't?) you can fill out a line that allows you to call yourself whatever you want to call yourself.

Me?  I thought about putting "other" and then filling in American because that is truly how I think of myself.  But it might be a little easier to run some of those demographic surveys with the data if they know I'm a white chick going on 50.  Just sayin'.

--Sandee Wagner

Men's Point of View

I'm critiquing with a group that includes a guy now.  It's very helpful to have a man's point of view on characters and dialog.  It's not a one way street, I think he's been learning a little about women from us.

Recently, we tried to get him to understand 'the fantasy', that the men in romance novels are not realistic guys, they are specific archetypes that appeal to women's fantasies.  It might actually be making sense to him.

I love the new commercial for men's body wash from Old Spice.  This very handsome, sculpted half naked man stands by a shower and tells the women in the audience, "look at your man, now look at me".  This commercial is actually a perfect explanation of 'the fantasy' that is produced in women's fiction.  In real life, that guy is just irritating.  (In the commercial, it's freakin' hysterical!)  But the fantasy is that we want our men to look like him, smell like a man (thus the body wash) and act all alpha male.  Most of us, given an alpha male in real life, would smother him in his sleep.  The fantasy is that we'd love him, or one just like him.

It takes all images to sell products, books and body wash.  As authors, it's important that we understand what we're selling and to whom.  When you write for women, no one ever burps, has gas or forgets to shave (unless the heroine likes unshaven men).  The same could be said for men's fiction.  I don't recall ever reading a John D Macdonald mystery where he slept with the same woman twice.  And none of those women ever had cramps, rough skin or even sunburns.  Perfection in a partner is the fantasy.  Not the reality.

I'm learning a lot from my critique partner.  Look at him, now look at me.  Look back at him, now back at me.

--Sandee Wagner

Happy St. Patrick's Day

I come from Irish stock.  The story goes that there were three O'Hart brothers, two had some local fame and one left for America "where he will never amount to anything".  Needless to say, my family loves that quote.  It shows up on our family reunion t-shirts (We Will Too Amount To Something!)

My DH spoke at an international aviation conference in Dublin one year and I accompanied him.  I spent the better part of a week, walking around the city of Dublin on my own with a guidebook in my hand.  It's a lovely place.  Grand.  My coloring allowed me to blend in like a native.  I was told that they knew I was American only by my shoes.  It seems that in other countries, they only wear athletic shoes when they are doing something athletic.  Go figure.  If not wearing leather brogans sets me apart, then know me as American.  I'm okay with that.

I'm also a good Catholic school girl.  That means that we learned a little about St. Patrick and what he did for Ireland.  Depending on the order of the nuns teaching you, those snakes might have been metaphorical or actual, but he's still the patron saint of Eire.

I love going to Irish festivals.  I love Celtic knot work in jewelry, art and clothing.  I especially love the music.  The Irish have always been musicians and singers.  Some of the most haunting melodies come from Irish folk music.  I'm going to embrace my heritage and celebrate St. Patrick's Day.  Not by drinking a green beer, because, yuck.  I'm going to turn on some music and imagine the green hills of the island.  And wear leather shoes.  That's right.  I know how to blend.

--Sandee Wagner

Your Tax Dollars At Work

I was told once that Minnesota had two seasons: Winter and Road Repair.  While I laughed at the time, living in Tulsa has given me an appreciation for the challenges faced in a region that gets extreme weather.  Potholes become a way of life.  They have to be repaired--quickly--and often over and over again.  One of my dearest friends drove to QuikTrip, loaded up a carrier with four cups of blazing hot chocolate and just pulled up to the pothole filling crew and handed it out the car window.  We're that glad to see the roads fixed.

When I was a kid, we lived in a three story house with wood floors and two long staircases linking the three levels.  When my mother deemed it time to redo the floors she cordoned off a room at a time and redid the finish on her knees, rolling polyurethane thick and shiny.  On the stairs, she used a rather low tech approach.  We had to go up and down, so on one day, she did the even treads.  She gave them a day or two to dry well while we skipped up the stairs.  Then she did the odd treads.  Never did we lose egress from the top floor to the main floor to the basement.  You just had to look at the note on the wall giving you the first free step arrow, then hit every other one and you were home clear.

The Tulsa road crews, with their 'shovel ready' road repair projects have not learned that same lesson.  As far as I can tell, all the roads that run North to South in Tulsa are ALL under construction at some point from Admiral to the Creek Turnpike.  I have tried jigging from road to road trying to find that one stretch of cross town street that is clear of the orange cones, barrels and signs.  But there isn't one.  Not one single street is free of a road construction project.

I want to go down to the city planner's office and grab someone by the ears and shriek, "What were you THINKING??"

My DH and I have been discussing why we think this is happening... there are some excuses that we've thought of that may or may not be true, but they sounded especially possible.  DH conjectures that all these roads were built at the same time, and they are all experiencing major breakdowns at the same time.  Another equally plausible idea was that half the projects are road repair (one department) and the other half are actually water main upgrades (another department) and that the two different groups are not communicating and coordinating their road closures/slowdowns/traffic stoppages.

The highway overpasses are state projects and lots of that funding is the Obama stimulus package.  Since the bridge collapse on I-40, the state has aggressively inspected all the overpasses and determined that LOTS of them need total replacement and repair.  Since that evaluation was complete, those projects were planned and estimated and ready to go when the stimulus money was offered.  "Shovel Ready" had to be Oklahoma's middle name.

The problems facing all the North-South connectors are not overpass related.  There might be construction at one or two of the overpasses, but the majority of these projects are where two lane hardtop is being replaced near intersections.  Traffic is squeezed down to a single lane, sometimes both directions.  And there is no other route available without its own issues.

Can I say, "bad planners, BAD!"  No cookies or cigars for these bozos.  I only did project planning for two years, but even I know that this is not the best way to do things.  Better to start at one end of town, working from East to West (or vice versa) and hit each North-South throughway one at a time.  Then complete one before shifting to the next... the traffic will find the newly completed avenue and avoid the one that's under construction.  But this is not the way it's happening in Tulsa today.

I once told everyone who would listen that I would always vote for every bond issue where the politicians used the words "schools" or "road repairs".  These are two areas that I feel Tulsa needs a great deal of improvement; however, I didn't consider that they'd all be under construction at the same time.

I can only assume that these are my tax dollars at work.  And quit my whining.

--Sandee Wagner

Change of Makeup

Those of you that know me, know that I'm redheaded.  Or I used to be before the gray started taking over.  When you're a redhead, you end up buying very specific makeup.  All the color on my face is painted on daily.  I am jealous of women with naturally dark eyebrows and eyelashes, but they have to shave their legs all the time.  That's the tradeoff.

For years, I've used the same eyebrow color.  Instead of using a pencil and trying to draw in something resembling a brow, I use a powder that can be brushed on.  It allows me to just color in what pale hair I have.  For the past twenty years or longer, I have made a special trip to Merle Norman to buy their 'ash blonde' eyebrow color.  It's a small compact with a tiny brush and costs about $28.00.  It lasts so long, I've never complained about the price, or the special trip.  Until now.

I made my trip to find the nearest Merle Norman store in California.  I asked for the 'ash blonde' color and the attendant very excitedly told me they had something NEW!  I'm not sure I like change.  At least not in my eyebrows.  So, I asked her to explain it to me.  She broke open the compact and showed me where there formerly was a single bar of compressed color, now there were two.


My look must have said it all.

She explained (at length) to me that people's hair was multicolored, and so their brows should also be varied.  So, now Merle Norman is packaging two colors in a single compact.  She explained that you applied the dark color and then went back and applied 'highlights' with the lighter color.  Right.  I'm too lazy to color my hair, but I'm going to spend extra time highlighting my eyebrows.  I know women who've tatooed their eyebrows in place.  They got tired of tweezing and coloring, so they tatooed in a brow and they don't mess with it any more.  In my mind, the drawback there is being a little old lady with jet black, perfectly arched brows.  But I digress.

The Merle Norman manager allowed me to try out the new brow color at the shop.  What I found out was that one half of the compact was a color that was Way To Dark for me, and the other half was the color I wanted.  So, half as much product for the same full price packaged in a single compact.

I went ahead and bought the compact, but now that I'm getting to the bottom of my eyebrow color, I'm a little bitter.  I'm going to be throwing away a compact with a nearly untouched slab of color.  Seems so wasteful.  I should find a darker haired person with the same issue and swap compacts.

While I was at Walgreen's the other day, waiting for a prescription to be filled, I wandered down the cheap makeup aisle.  A display of brow color caught my attention.  It was powder that brushes on... just like I like it.  I looked to see if they had any pale enough for a redhead.  They did.  Guess how it's bundled?  Two brow colors, I guess for those highlights I always forget to apply; a highlight eye shadow, a mirror, a pair of tweezers, and applicators for both the brow color and the eye shadow.  All for $5.99.

Now, don't get me wrong, this new set has less actual shadow.  It's looser, not densely compacted,  so it appears to be going faster.  But for less than a quarter of the price, I'm a fan.  I think I'll go down to Walgreen's and buy all they have and just shove them in my drawer so when I run out, I can bust open the next package.  When I throw this set into the trash with all the dark powder still left, I'll have the satisfaction of only wasting $3.00, not $14.00.  Plus, tiny tweezers.

Who highlights their eyebrows anyway?  If you do, let me know.

--Sandee Wagner

Springing Forward

Well, Spring is coming.  It's not quite here yet, but you can scent the promise of it in the air.  I live in Tulsa.  That means we can get a snowfall on Easter, and we have.  So I don't actually do any planting before Easter, but I do like to plan out what I'm going to do.

This year, I have to redo all my flower beds.  Scrape out the weeds, plant new plants and re-mulch all half a mile of them.  This year I've decided to try a little REUSE gardening.  I have some friends in Virginia who swear by this, but they get the Washington Post.  I think that has something to do with it.

To block the grass/weed growth between plants, you layer the ground with sodden sections of newspaper, one half to an inch thick.  And soaking wet.  It's kind of a yucky job.  I trust these people, but last fall, I did a test patch to see if I wanted to try this in the Spring.  The alternative is to dig out all the beds, put in new soil and start completely fresh.  So, I took a small stack of newspapers, wet them down and papered about a 2 ft by 4 ft section of my front flower bed.  I planted five or six plants and mulched it.  I've been inspecting my test patch for months now.  As the wild strawberries and crazy weeds started springing up through the ice and snow, my test patch stayed clear.  So the newspaper treatment is a go.

My next problem was locating enough newspaper to do the whole job.  Have you seen our local paper?  It's not even fat on Wednesdays or Sundays.  (The Washington Post is over a pound a day.) 

I asked a few friends to save their papers for me--I would recycle them instead of the Tulsa Waste Department.  I got a little stack going.  When I looked through my yard at all the beds facing me, I despaired.  Then I relented and posted a cry out to my writer's loop.  I begged them to save their papers and bring them to the next meeting.

I'm an optimist, so I drove the pickup truck to the meeting on Saturday.  About five different ladies brought me a couple of weeks worth of the TulsaWorld to use and it's an impressive start.  I told them to save up and I'd take their next month's worth of papers.  If they do that, I may have enough to layer up the beds and get them all re-done.  If we were all reading the Washington Post, I'd have enough already!

--Sandee Wagner

Harry Reid is a Bad Person

I don't care about your politics.  I don't care whether or not you support nationalized health care.  It doesn't matter whether you are a card carrying Democrat or not, Harry Reid's latest antics are unsupportable.

Harry Reid's 69 year old wife and his 40 something daughter were rear ended by an eighteen wheeler yesterday and rushed to the hospital.  They are described as being in stable condition.  Where is Harry Reid?  Is he at his wife's bedside, holding her hand?  No, he left the hospital to go back to the congress and stump for the health care coverage plan.

His wife is laying in the hospital with a broken neck, a broken back and a broken nose.  His daughter has  who knows what other injuries.  And no one else in congress can carry his torch.  HE has to be there to fight the fight for passage of his legislation.

Guess what?  You have now undermined public opinion with your arrogant tactics, Harry Reid.  Shame on you.  You should sit at your wife's bedside and enjoy your very comprehensive medical coverage.  You should hold the hand of the woman who has supported you through thick and thin for the past fifty years.  There is no reason why you had to leave the side of your wife and daughter.

At the point where our congressmen lose their perspective on what's truly important in life, we, as voters, need to ship them home.  Harry Reid has lost his mind.  If I was his wife, I'd be calling for a lawyer, then a press conference.

--Sandee Wagner

A Tuna Talent

We had tickets to see "Tuna Does Vegas" at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center last night.  As we were driving home, my husband and I discussed the fact that we've seen all four of their shows:  Greater Tuna; A Tuna Christmas; Red, White and Tuna; and Tuna Does Vegas.  And we've enjoyed each one.

My husband said, "do you think they do the same show over and over again?"  Possibly, I looked askance at him--"Yes.  I'm sure they do.  They've done four shows in the past twenty years.  They are doing the same shows over and over again."

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure Joe Sears and Jaston Williams have done other stage work during the past twenty years, but they have made a living playing the wide cast of characters that IS Tuna, Texas.

I was first introduced to this type of theater by a small, local company in Houston, Texas, called The Radio Music Theater.  In this small, personal format, I saw three actors play the multitude of characters that inhabited the small town of Dumpster, Texas.  The Fertle family have been through all kinds of big doin's, including Weiner Day at the Rollercade and Just Shut Up and Drive.

Both Tuna and Dumpster are populated by many Southern stereotypes acted by just a few people.  In the case of the Tuna shows, the actors have complete costumes and wigs to aid in the transformation.  In the case of Dumpster's personalities, often a hat and glasses are the only props to aid the actors in making a personality shift.  Both are fascinating exercises of the actor's art.  The audience loses itself in each unique character with assorted tics, traits and speech patterns.

Eventually, you don't see that the actor beneath is the same, you see only the change the writer wanted when the new character walked on stage.

There will always be a soft spot in my heart for live theater--but I believe that as far as acting goes, it's harder to play a cast of characters believably than to perform a single role each night.  The casts of Tuna and Dumpster have my unending respect and admiration.  I should be so talented.

--Sandee Wagner

Medical Science Doesn't Scare Me

I'm generally an upbeat and positive person.  I always believe that if there is something wrong, then a doctor can fix me.  I say, "better living through chemistry" every time I get a prescription filled.  I do physical therapy and rehab just like the doctor orders.  I follow all the rules and do all the things--thinking that it will get me better.

Lately, I've had some allergy issues.  By 'lately' I mean that for the past 18 months, I've had post nasal drip.  That's it.  That's the only symptom.  No scratchy eyes.  Very little sneezing.  No rashes or skin outbreaks.  Just the constant liquid running down the back of my throat.  At the point where my general practitioner realized I was taking four Benadryl a day, every day for over a year, he decided to try the big guns.  I've had a couple of rounds of steroids and several of antibiotics.  When the GP hit the bottom of his bag of tricks, he referred me to an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist.

This guy checked my mechanics.  He scanned my sinuses and really looked me over, then he refered me to an allergist for testing.  At this point, I disclosed that I'm almost 50 and I've never had any allergies.  He informed me that Yes, you can get allergies late in life.  So off to the allergist for another look up my nose and some scratch and poke testing.

Yesterday, the allergist informed me that I'm not allergic to any of the usual suspects.  He's very concerned that what's happening in my sinuses is such a longterm issue (not like a seasonal allergy) so he's leaning toward some of the more glamorous molds and dusts that are cropping up in homes today.  Some of the more arcane are not available in an extract commercially to use in scratch testing.  So, we're at an impasse. 

The allergist decides that first, we have to get my sinuses healthy.  With this in mind, I'm to flush my sinuses twice a day for a week and use a new nasal spray.  No more Benadryl.  Okay.  The allergist even showed me a video of a small girl doing the sinus flush.  Made it look easy.

I took my prescription to the pharmacist and purchased the necessary kit for the flush.  I laid off the Benadryl.  By bedtime last night, my head was filling.  This morning, I read all the detailed instructions on the kit, filled up with warm water and shook it carefully.  I was prepared.  After watching the video of the little girl, I understood the position to assume and the splashing that was to occur.  I decided on the shower.  I know, gross.  But what the heck, if its gonna make a mess, why not do it someplace that's easy to hose down?

Thank goodness I made that decision.

I can only assume that either I did it wrong or that something is VERY wrong with my sinuses.  As I gently (per package instructions) squeezed the bottle, after having achieved a good seal with my left nostril, the flood that rushed out my right nostril scared me.  Both my ears popped and felt like they were filled with liquid.  This is NOT how it looked on the video.  The doctor had very carefully pointed out how they started squeezing gently and then, when a few drops leaked out the other side, they stopped.

I checked my seal and tried again.  Same thing.  The full amount of liquid shot up one side immediately pours out the other side.  This was not in the film.  Maybe if I stood on my head, this might actually do some good, but with my current technique, I think I'm just wasting solution.  I gave myself time to drain, then blew my nose as directed.  I felt a little clearer.  Then I tried the new nasal spray.

Now, I've used nasal sprays off and on for the past year.  I've tried all the steroidal and non steroidal mixes.  I know that some burn, some don't and most can leave a gakky taste in your mouth.  But I was NOT prepared for this stuff.  Half an hour later, I was still fighting my gag reflex and horking into tissues.

This is how I'm supposed to get better?  I've spent the better part of the morning wondering if I should call the doctor's office and throw myself on the mercy of the nurse to see if I did the rinse wrong.  Or ask about the nasal spray.  What kind of toxic waste am I shooting directly into my brain?  And how is this supposed to be better than post nasal drip?

I must be doing something wrong.  This cannot be normal.

--Sandee Wagner

And The Oscar Goes To...

Before we crawled out of bed yesterday morning, my DH showed me his laptop where a kid in NYC does movie reviews and is tagged by the morning shows to give his Oscar picks each year.  I'm not sure how old Jackson is now, but he started his movie review website when he was seven.  Basically, the morning shows are giving air time to a movie critic who is too young to see more than half of the nominated flicks.

Why?  Because it's cute.  He reviews these R rated movies that he can't see (even in the company of his parents) by reading other grown ups reviews and forming an opinion about them.  I'm not going to trust a critique by someone who hasn't seen the film, or is too young to understand the homage it represents to an earlier classic.

It reminded me of when the Austin Powers movie first came out.  My kids were in high school and went to see the movie.  They thought it was so funny--but they'd never seen a Bond film.  We rented a beach house for a week that summer and the TV/VCR combo came with a stack of all the Bond films on VHS.  We watched one each night we were there... then all of a sudden, they GOT the jokes embedded in the Austin Powers satire.

Because of our early morning discussion on a kid critic, I was reminded that the Oscars were last night and tuned into them.  My husband watched out of the corner of his eye, working on his laptop the whole time.  His comments mainly dealt with the crowd that the camera panned over... he kept saying that no one looked like they were having a good time.  I guess the parties come later, but he had a point.  Very little smiling or laughing.  It was kind of serious.  Maybe these people all consider this to be work?  I'm sure they write those dresses off on their taxes.

I was not surprised by many of the awards--perhaps when Sandra Bullock beat out both Meryl Streep and Helen Mirren for best actress--but the show itself was compelling.  This year, the guys who directed the show chose to do a little different thing for introducing the nominees for best actor and best actress.  They had a single person stand on the stage for each nominee.  Then the spotlight hit that actor or actress and they told a personal story about working with the man/woman nominated, then wished them luck.  So you had an ensemble of actors on stage at one point, each of whom had a personal relationship with the nominee.  It was really a nice touch, and different from just the two presenters reading off the list and a clip of the movie playing on the big screen.

Another little tweak in the programming was for the writing awards, best screenplay, and best adapted screenplay, they had the presenters actually read from the screenplays including the stage direction and asides.  It was an interesting way to differentiate the writers from the actors saying the words.  It made the performance somehow distinct from the actual words in the scripts.

Overall, my favorite part of the Oscars is always the dresses.  I will watch the Fashion Police show over and over again looking at the glorious gowns and fabulous jewels.  But this year I'll remember the show itself because it was just a little bit unique.

--Sandee Wagner

The HGTV Influence

There is a possibility that we might be moving at the end of the summer.  The idea of putting my house on the market in this economy is daunting to say the least.  For some reason, the outside chance that I might be putting a For Sale sign in my front yard in less than 6 months has engendered an almost psychotic need to watch HGTV.

I watch Designed To Sell, The Unsellables, and House Hunters daily.  I even watch For Rent and Income Property.  Each show spends a portion of the time showing just how to make a house look attractive to buyers and renters.

I understand the basics of cleaning, de-cluttering, and staging.  Now, every room I walk through becomes a list of 'do's and don'ts' to me.  I'm not looking at my yard and flower bed planning spring planting because I like it, I'm looking at it from a curb appeal perspective.

At some point in my thinking, I have already surrendered ownership of this house.  I'm already thinking of the next place and what I want to have in that home.  There's a lot of work to be done to make my current house sellable.  I'm making lists and checking them twice.

My parents were not big home improvement people.  They moved into a house in 1971 that had twenty year old wallpaper on the kitchen walls and when they sold that house 31 years later, that wallpaper still hung in all its past glory.  They managed to make money on every house they ever bought and sold.  So I know that I don't HAVE to do a lot of improvements to sell the house.  I'm just becoming conditioned by HGTV shows.

They tell me to neutralize the colors on the walls and surfaces but to give the rooms color and POP by curtains and throw pillows and accessories.  They tell me to de-clutter and de-personalize the spaces by removing family photos and replacing taste specific art with more generic pieces.  Based on what I've observed on TV, I should pack up most of my books and almost all my framed photos. 

I don't really want to do all this.  I just feel driven to do so.  When I do call the realtor about listing this house, I want it to be in great shape.  I want one less worry if I have to move.  So, I obsess about the cabinetry in the bathrooms and if the fixtures should be replaced.  I wonder about staining versus painting the woodwork.  I fret about lighting and countertops.  When will it all end??

I think I should tune into the Food Network and quit worrying about the house.  But I'd probably gain 20 lbs.  Better to do some work on the house, I think.

--Sandee Wagner

Facebook Friends

I am not an early adopter of all things technological.  Sometimes, I'm pretty set in my ways.  I have a good buddy, we'll call him Jim, who is a 'heat seeker' and does everything the minute it's available.  For a couple of years, he tried out every social networking software that he could find.  He'd send me links, I'd join up, and then we'd be able to communicate.  He had me up on Twitter a full two years before anyone I knew used it.

Of all the social networking sites, two of them have become very useful to me.  I use LinkedIn to keep in contact with work people, and I use Facebook to reconnect with friends from my past.

Let's face it.  If I know you, I probably have your email.  That's the main way I communicate with people.  But there are a lot of people in my past: folks I've lost touch with, moved away from, or dropped contact with; these are the people I'm finding on Facebook.

I don't always find them, sometimes they find me.  I get a friend request, look at the name and realize there's a 'blast from my past'.  I don't just sit down and type in names from my high school yearbook, sometimes, when my fingers are on the keyboard and I think of someone, I do a search.  Sometimes I find them, often I don't.  But it's certainly opened up an avenue of detection that was formerly too difficult to handle.

I recently had a high school buddy look me up and keep in contact while he suffered and died of cancer.  I later learned that tickling the keys on his computer was about all he had the strength for.  He enjoyed finding people and getting caught up on their lives.  I'm blessed that he reached out to me and allowed me to share a few memories before he moved on.

What astounds me are the number of total strangers who send out friend requests.  Like if they are friends of someone you know, you will also want to know what THEY are doing.  This baffles me.  If I don't know you, why would I want to keep up with you?  If you're interesting, I'm sure our mutual friend will tell me about your trip to Everest, or your visit to the ashram.  Otherwise, leave me be.  That's right.  Don't send the request.

Tenuous friend of a friend links are good when job hunting.  Then you can sometimes get your resume right to the person who needs to see it, or controls the job.  That kind of network link is great on LinkedIn.  On Facebook, not so much.

--Sandee Wagner

Making a Mess

When I was a child, I went to Catholic school with all my older brothers and sisters.  I was the youngest of eight.  When I got to a nun, she'd usually been 'broken in' by my older siblings and sometimes it was hard to live through.  Sister Celine was an art teacher.  I'm not sure she was a good art teacher, but she was what I had in second grade.

As an eight year old, I must not have displayed much in the way of artistic talent.  In those days, no one worried about crushing your feelings.  Kids were allowed to fail.  And although she didn't fail me in second grade art, she did give me a D.  Now, in my household, grades were key.  You didn't get D's.  Certainly, not in art.  I remember that spanking like it was yesterday.  I never took another art class.  If there was a way out of it, I figured a way.  I took six years of speech therapy and convinced my school guidance counselor that it was best if it was scheduled during art class.  I wouldn't miss much that way.

As I became older, I had a little more control over my class assignments.  I never once took an art class.

I love art.  I've dragged my family through every art exhibit within a hundred mile radius of my home, in every state I've ever lived in.  I took art appreciation in college and studied the lives of the great masters, and their most famous works of art.  I've seen bronzes poured and glass blown.  All art fascinates me.

Finally, after forty years of avoidance techniques, I decided to take a class on oil painting.  I learned how to paint using a pallet knife.  My canvasses are kind of Picasso-esque, more LeRoy Neiman than Michelangelo.  They seem to do well in children's rooms.  Kids are very forgiving about art.  If they like the colors, or can even tell what it's supposed to be a picture of, they're happy.

I wish Sister Celine had been more childlike in her treatment of art.  Maybe it wouldn't have taken me so long to get my hands dirty.  Today, I'm making a mess.  I've got my easel set up and all my bright oils laid out.  I'm going to paint some pictures for my grandson.  He likes trucks, cars and earth moving equipment.  I'm sure he won't care if I don't stay between the lines.

--Sandee Wagner

Bad Luck

A couple years ago, we remodeled our master bathroom.  In the course of deconstruction of the old space, we removed a wall full of mirror.  We actually got it out of there in two big pieces, but if I was facing seven years of bad luck, I was going to get my monies worth.

I decided to bust the mirror up completely and mosaic something with the mirror chips.  You're asking me if I had done a lot of mosaic work?  No.  A lot of other glass work?  No.  A single stepping stone at a Home Depot "how to" party?  No.  I just looked at the mirror and said, "I'm going to mosaic something for the garden."

Then I started looking for the perfect something that needed to be covered with mirror shards.  It had to be weatherproof.  It needed to be mostly smooth because I couldn't see sticking mirror over any ornate detail work.  It also needed to be porous, I'm pretty sure you can't bond mastic and grout against an impervious surface like glaze work.

I trolled the garden departments for months, and then I saw them--in the garden center of the Tinker AFB Exchange--birdbaths.  They were smooth, two piece, lovely birdbaths.  Perfect for my vision of mirror mosaic.

At the time, I bought two of them.  Not because I was so sure it would be successful, but because I had that much broken glass.  When you take a big pane of mirror and start nipping it into smaller pieces, you end up with a lot of glass.  In shards.

Thus began the birdbath project.  With two lovely terra cotta, smooth surfaces ready to be mosaiced.  I determined that I would not cover the whole thing, I would cover about three quarters of the pedestal and the inside of the birdbath bowl.  I found some slate tiles leftover from a flooring project to use to line the edge of the bowl.

Without a lesson or any guidance of any type, I went to the hardware store and bought mastic and grout.  I read all the packages and selected the unsanded variety (for working with glass tiles) and made sure it would stick to terra cotta.  Then I came home and set up on the back porch.  It was spring, the weather was fine, and I got to work.

My best friend, Tammy, came to visit one weekend with a pair of glass nippers for me.  She and I broke all the glass together and began the project.  She had to go home before the pedestals were halfway covered, but I think she got the idea what it would look like finished.

Over the course of the next week, I spent my evenings on the back porch, filling in the surface with mirror shards, breaking them to fit the puzzle and make the curves.  Once all the pieces were stuck, I let them set, then brought out the grout.  Grouting is a mindless thing, and very messy.  But the end product looked very good.

Tammy has one birdbath on her deck and I have the other one in my back yard.  When I look at it, it makes me happy.  I didn't just throw away that broken mirror.  I made something lovely out of it.

I still have some broken mirror left.  So I decided on a new project.  I'm going to cover two tall pots to flank my front door.  Wish me luck.

--Sandee Wagner

A Moment Of Silence

The Olympics are over now.  The closing ceremony was last night and they made a production out of the flame prop that failed in the opening ceremony.  It was a pretty fitting celebration for the games.

So, what did I learn about the Winter Olympics this year?  Let's break it down:

1.  Curling is a cross between shuffleboard and housework.  Aside from being able to complete a deep lunge, it doesn't appear to require a great deal of athletic ability.  Like bowling, you can have a spare tire.  The Norwegian Curling team had the best uniforms.

2.  Male ice skaters can look strong and graceful, or just gay.  After extensive viewing, I'm pretty sure the gay looking ones throw their hands up above their heads more.  Regardless of the spangles or feathers on the tight fitting uniforms, some of the guys managed to not look gay.  These guys kept their arm movements limited to their shoulder level and below.

3.  The Luge is a very dangerous sport.  For years, I've joked about it and my DH keeps saying he's going to take it up so he can get one of those skin suits and cool helmets.  After the tragic loss in a training run, there are no more jokes about luge riders.

4.  Ice skaters are the bravest competitors in the Olympic games.  They are the ONLY ones doing what they do without a helmet.  Everyone else gets protective gear.  They slap sharp blades on their feet and clamber around where it's slippery.  They have cajones.

5.  Skateboarders appear to be having fun regardless of the competitiveness of their sport.  You get the feeling that after all the ceremonies, they went back to being BFFs and twittering each other constantly.  They are young.  They are flexible.  And they are adrenaline junkies.

6.  Speed skating is not for the faint of heart.  Those knives they are zipping around the short track on are like the sharpest blades in your kitchen.  When giving the background on the heavily favored to win competitors, the sportscasters often used the words "eighty stitches" and "thought he was out for sure".  You don't just have to watch your own blades, you clump up and have to watch for others to wipe out also.

7.  Alpine events are for real men.  In spandex.  Falling down the side of a mountain, hurtling at speeds approaching 80 mph, and dodging flags and gates takes control and fierce competitive drive.  I still can't tell the difference between the super-G and the slolam.  It all looks like the same course to me.

8.  Cross country skiing with breaks for target shooting is just craziness.  After schlepping up and down the side of a mountain, they shoot at targets and every missed shot costs them another lap around a penalty loop.  I think the Winter Olympics is the only time you see a guy skiing with a rifle strapped to his back.  Excellent marksmanship AND stamina.  Plus, they looked great in those skin suits.

9.  Snowboard cross and ski cross events were new this year.  The competitors race down a mad track full of jumps and turns in a pack of four, vying for the best speed.  It was exciting to watch and more interesting than watching a single skier or snowboarder on a single run.

10.  Canadians are the best hockey players.  It's their national pastime.

11.  The ski jump requires some kind of human aerodynamics that only a physicist can understand.  They all assume the same position and look eerily similar.  But the distance is always significantly different.  Possibly we need a windsock to appreciate the challenge.  It must lose something on the small screen.

According to all reports, the Vancouver Olympics were well run, ably managed and challenged by weird weather conditions.  The volunteers were friendly and made a great impression on the athletes and the fans.  Last night, one of my dinner companions bemoaned that it would now be another four years until the next Winter Olympics.  I guess my look of bafflement showed.  She said, "it's like waiting for four years for the SuperBowl!"  I told her to think of it like the World Cup.

--Sandee Wagner