No shit. (A goal, not an exclaimation.)

Happy Easter!

This sounds a little blasphemous, but it’s not meant to be. This year, I am thankful, as always, that Jesus Christ died and rose again for me. But I am also extremely thankful that I have running water.

And earlier this week, it was kind of a tough call as to which I was more thankful for.

Oh, man, the stomach bug bit me. Badly. A really bad combination of Thumper and Alien Baby that got brought on by I don’t know what.

Even though I know some folks who’ve been hit, they were hit months ago – like Christmas – and it’s not like I go anywhere. This week, OK, I did hit CVS twice to fill a prescription and treated myself to a take-out burger from Montana Mike’s, but it’s not like I was breathing on anyone.

But Tuesday night. Oh God, Tuesday night. I felt something coming on so I took the baking soda antacid (really - see the box: is there anything Arm & Hammer can’t do?) and then went to bed around 8:30.

And then I was up pretty much every hour from 1 a.m. on. I was just so thrilled I didn’t have to pull on snow boots and everything else. As it was, I came close to curling up on the bathroom floor. It’s carpeted and much bigger than the porta potties on campus.

My stomach felt like there was some sort of recurring earthquake, but other than that, I didn’t feel bad at all. No nausea or anything.

After a work day on Wednesday that was so bad I knocked an hour off my time claimed due to excessive bonding with a latrine, I went home, exhausted, at 5 p.m. Believe me, it was just not possible that there was anything solid, liquid or gas left in my body. I was napping by 5:30, awake a hour an a half later, then in bed at 8:30 p.m.

And no food on Wednesday, either. I had a mini Special Dark from one of the Bible study groups, tea and a Coke. Nothing else. Wasn’t even hungry.

Thursday, I risked it with Eggos for breakfast and although my stomach rumbled all day, nothing seriously bad happened until an hour after I had a cupcake, courtesy of some other group of the church. (Note to hungry people: Attend church more.)

Essentially, through Sunday afternoon, every time I’ve decided I’m OK – no rumblings for hours – I eat something light and then two hours later it starts over.

It’s gotten old. And it’s completely unfair, since I haven’t lost any weight. I did not take physics, but I honestly cannot understand how that’s even possible.

Esme and her seven piglet pups. 

I turned down an Easter lunch (two of them, actually) so that I can stay near my own flushing toilet and not be tempted with solid food. My Easter lunch was soupy grits. Oh, wow.

That was two hours ago after a reasonably rumbly-free morning. And now, right on cue, I’m starting to hear familiar gurgling again.

Jesus lives and so does Thumper. I have such mixed feelings about that.

In other news, I bought a new toothbrush. This is very non-newsy, but just be glad I don’t have Twitter or Facebook. This is optional reasoning on your part, so there.

Anyway, my old Oral-B electric toothbrush finally gave out. It was tough to find an almost identical model because they’re much more streamlined now. My requirements were rechargeable, interchangeable heads and a timer.

After doing way more research than I planned, I up and went to Walmart and narrowed the odds by limiting myself to what was on the shelf. Toothbrushes should not be as complicated to select as they are these days. (See: “First-world problems, exhibit No. 4,836,156.”)

Anyway, I found what I needed, added “Argo” as a point-of-sale purchases and called it a day.

Later, I learned that my toothbrush did not have a timer. The box, as well as the toothbrush itself, clearly said that it did, so I wasn’t happy.

Eyes opening at 2 weeks

But it didn’t appear to be Walmart’s fault, and the $12.87 toothbrush worked fine otherwise, so I opted to keep it and write Oral-B instead. They, after all, were the ones responsible for it. Walmart, for all its faults, was just the middleman on this one.

In the note, I told them my requirements for a toothbrush and expressed my disappointment that the one I got (and I sent them the UPC symbol and the packaging – a real letter by snail mail, not some whiny email). I also said that I recognized I could have sent it back to Walmart but it is unlikely Oral-B would have been told the reason for the return and I wanted them to know that I specifically wanted a timer on my toothbrush.

Had a devil of a time finding a real address for Oral-B, which, as it turns out, is part of Procter and Gamble.

There really was no ultimate goal to the letter. I knew the big company wasn’t going to give me back my $12.87 – that would have been something Walmart would have happily done. But I did want them to know I was disappointed that the toothbrush clearly marked “timer” in blue did not have a timer and felt they owed me something.

Well, they did acknowledge me. But they might as well not have.

I received a note saying they were sorry I was disappointed in my purchase and here, take this as a peacemaking gift.

Was it a toothbrush? No. Toothpaste? No. Dental floss? No.

Why would they acknowledge my “grip” (as Daddy called it) with something that indicated that they, the Great And Mighty Procter And Gamble, had actually READ the letter?

Although it was signed by someone that did indicate it was from Oral-B, what was enclosed had nothing to do with dental care.

A Tide pod.

Yes, Tide. Laundry.

Pod. That little thing for people too lazy/busy/unsteady to measure a capful of detergent.

A.     Singular. ONE freaking pod.

I could not believe it. I mean, come on. If you’re going acknowledge my perfectly valid complaint, don’t invalidate it by something so irrational it belies common sense.

And seriously, ONE? Way shell out to retain that customer base. Don’t I feel like an important customer?

They should have sent me a toothbrush. Or a coupon for one.

Or hey, Procter and Gamble, if you’re going to use existing customers to whore out your new product, at least give us enough information to make an informed decision on that product. It would have meant more to send me a coupon for a BOX OF pods, not just a single one.

And maybe I wouldn’t have even cashed it in. But you better believe that ONE load of laundry isn’t going to encourage me to spring for some newly packaged laundry detergent.

Especially since the goal of my purchase was clean teeth, not clothes.

More of this later

Pastor Dan stuck up a sign on the wall that shows Punxsutawney Phil and a caption “Wanted for Fraud.”

I knew in my heart spring was a pipe dream, but the reality just bites. Frost bites.

There aren’t even temperatures up to freezing in the long-term forecast yet. Every time I check, warmer weather gets postponed a little longer.

And by “warmer,” I mean 33.

This week, I had to shovel the driveway again. It took two days. I just couldn’t do it. Three-foot high drifts get heavy. Especially when the wind is still whipping.

The wind is incredible here. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s a good thing I didn’t bring Batgirl. She’d have blown away by now.

This winter, I’ve learned the meaning behind the expression “flies in the face of.”

The wind pretty much goes east to west, so when I shovel the east side of the driveway and try to add it to my snowbanks, about a quarter of each shovel full takes flight, smack into my face.

The snow is killing me. Hoth. That’s what one of the sj.com posters called it. I’m living on Hoth.

 

The spare snow, where the dudes dump everything after they plow the road, has pretty much quintupled in size in a week. Check out where the fire hydrant is in the photo from last week.

Now, look at the one from the shot taken on Wednesday. I took them from different angles (I couldn’t open the “front” door this week because the snow w as too high, so I took the new photos from the street) but if you judge by the fire hydrant you can see how it’s grown and why I drift off at night wondering if I’ll wake up in an igloo the next morning.

This late-season snow is scary.

 

They had been predicting us almost reaching freezing next weekend, but it looks like that's been pushed back. I see nothing positive in the
future.

It doesn't bode well for work. Our camp is supposed to open on April 13 and it's not looking like we'll have running water. The pipes are above ground. We have 70 volunteers coming that week and no idea what we're supposed to do with them.

Even if it thawed tomorrow, it probably wouldn't be warm enough to get the running water. This is just not good.

And people here are concerned about floods, too. I mean, this is how it all started two years ago, too. We’re still not done coming back from the 2011 flood and people are worried about it.

Hope springs eternal. Springs springs next week. I hope.

Today we were supposed to have a service day with teams from the community coming. But the partner decided she didn't want to work on Saturday and called it off. It was snowing, she said. That was Friday.

 

Well, it’s Saturday, and, just like the weather forecast said, it’s sunny and cold. It’s really beautiful and it would have been a great day to work. But no, essentially, she didn’t want to work on the weekend and canceled it all.

It makes me so mad, but I'm just so tired of it I can't get too wrapped up about it anymore. I'm not even surprised she did it. They flat-out are detrimental to the rebuild.

Is it cold? Duh. It’s North Dakota. And we work inside.

Is there snow on the roads? Yes. Big deal. The teams were local, not traveling in from out of town.

Can we reschedule? Sure. But the fact is, the teams would have come today and the next day. We lost yet another week. And why? Because the partner didn't want to work on Saturday. (She left around 11 a.m. yesterday.)

 

I talked to my supervisor about it and he's just so optimistic I want to scream. Rebuild is their department, so it's their decision, he says. Yes, I know. But how can we be assured that it was the partner's decision, and not just this person's? Who makes the call? And does that person – or process – take all factors into consideration? How can we, as the collaborative, be assured of that?

Honestly, if I believed that who made the call ran it by her supervisor, giving her all the facts (meaning the gorgeous weather forecast for the day), and her supervisor agreed to cancel it, that would be OK. However, in that case, we should have a documented process, in writing, that shows that happened.

 

Instead, an email came saying “It’s snowing. I’m calling off the work day tomorrow and going home now.” At about 11 a.m. on Friday.

This person is the same person who flat-out told some teams they could not come because they weren't "skilled" enough. And there is no one within the partner that will say, "Tell me why you think that." Or, "These people want to come and serve in the rebuild. Can you try harder to fit them in somehow?" or "Screw you; I think they're skilled enough, they're coming."  It's just her call and there is no accountability.

Sadly, there’s no surprise in any of this. It’s almost like this particular arm doesn’t want the rebuild to happen. That stinks.

There is snow all over. That’s normal for this time of year, though. The snow hasn’t dissipated since October, when it started coming down. I’m just so over it.

The boot is to show scale. 
Photo taken from front door.

It snowed a ton on Friday – maybe 5-6 inches – and it’s supposed to come down again tomorrow. It looks like this continues until next Sunday, after which my 10-day forecast is up. I am hoping that it turns into spring, but despite that being on the calendar next week, it doesn’t look really hopeful.

We did have two days last week of over-freezing temps and it was pretty good. I walked to work without the pumpkin pants and my Timberlands instead of my snow boots. It worked out just fine, but the walk home was a mess. Rivers of melted snow and brown slush.

It doesn’t make me look forward to the spring, but it’s just got to be better than the snow.

When I got home last night, I found the two drifts outside my front door had moved, with one now somewhat overhanging the footpath. Normally, this path is several feet wide, but right now, it’s the length of my shovel blade. That’s it. I’m just so very tired of shoveling.

My little triplewide is on a corner. I’ve given up all pretenses of shoveling the sidewalks. I started out with good intentions and these lasted through my visit to South Carolina. But when I got back, it was just not worth the effort.

The dude in the Bobcat who clears snow (he’s outside my window right now), clears up to the sidewalk, and sometimes over it.  (There aren’t real curbs here, the sidewalk just rises a little from the road.) It had been when I was clearing, he would then clear and kick up a bunch of snow right where I’d just shoveled.

So it’s just not worth my time. Earlier in the winter, I liked having the sidewalk clear so I could get to the wheat field and make my way to Walmart. It’s a shorter path than having to double back down the little roads to get to the main road and go down the sidewalk.

I tried to walk there earlier this week to pick up a few things and didn’t get far. There’s a snowdrift that’s at least four feet high and is the length of the entire neighborhood. No way I’m going through that thing. I took the long way.

So, with there being no reason to need the sidewalk, I’m just not going to deal with it.

Next week, spring gets here. I am so ready.

Carolinas and convertibles

Two days ago, I was driving a convertible in 65-degree weather. Today, I’m back to shoveling a foot of snow. In case you weren’t aware of it, life’s very unfair.

My Carolina fun extended through two catering events in Augusta, and I didn’t sleep past 6:30 a.m. once while on “vacation.” But I had a lot of fun.

We knocked out the first event catering all right. Karen had four people with experience and then 4-5 older (like my parents) people with no experience working in kitchens like that. The four of us who were experienced go-getters were ready to strangle the others.

Zippy, for example, can't hear a thing. She'd be working on whatever mundane task you gave her and then have, for example, the coffee pot behind her go bonkers, but she wouldn't notice. Nor would she hear one of the experienced four scream "Quick! Unplug the coffee pot!" from across the kitchen.

Some of the other old ladies wanted something to do in advance and I told them to fill up a third of the glasses with ice all the way to the top and they would be the waters. First, someone balked, saying that when it melted, it would overflow. She was clearly not a physics major.

Then, someone else said we shouldn't do it because it would melt. I said that was OK, reminding her we were only filling the water glasses with ice, not the teas. She got defiant, saying we couldn't fill them so early because it would dilute the drinks.

I pretty much screamed "It's OK to water down WATER!" or something like that. 

Oh man, but no one died and we had tons and tons of food left over.

I think we had a little over 25 percent of the chicken left. We’d divvied it up into four carrying things and one was completely untouched, plus there was enough for several meals for us.

The salad wasn’t even half used. Lots and lots of food left, and the North Augusta (or maybe Augusta) food bank really got a windfall.

The second event, on Thursday, was much more low-key. I did have a highlight, of sorts, when I had to call work and had a discussion on promoting a work day. Myself and the other contact person had both invited the air force base last time around, so when the other contact asked me “what we should do” about the air force base, I assumed she meant by contacting them and said she could if she wanted.

That is not what she meant. She told me that the public affairs officer, who’s 24, had been arrested for solicitation last month. I had no clue.

I got this news while in the kitchen preparing the meal and I pretty much went, “WHAT?” Holy cow, my tax dollar at work.

But anyway, that event also went fine (lots of compliments on my soup, which was essentially the Outback Steakhouse Walkabout Soup recipe) and Zippy and I headed up to Charlotte to see Charles and Mary Lynn.

That was the first total relaxation of the trip, I think, or it would have been had my cell phone alarm not gone off at 5:50 the next morning. This baffled me, as it was off. But whatever.

Zippy, who is not prone to mornings, slept until 11:30 – I’d been up since 6:30, working on Hope Village stuff – and we all headed off to lunch.

I tell you, there is no lack of good food in the Carolinas. Much of it, this time, I cooked, but the stuff that was served to me was fabulous, too.

Charles had a softball thing on Saturday, so Zippy went to that and we dined out one last time before heading back to Augusta, where we ate one more meal (the chicken) before going to bed.

I had no idea the lousy time change was that weekend, so my 6:30 flight really was a killer. We woke up at 4, which my body felt like was 3, which is 2 in Central time. So by the time I got home, I pretty much was dead, except I also had a foot of crusty snow to shovel.

After an hour or so of that, a neighbor saw me and offered me the use of her husband, who had a snow blower. Done. I crashed, woke up at 6:30 p.m., and then went into work to grab some stuff, including my Netflixes.

So now it’s back to work full-time, and I don’t mind at all. My next “break” is late April, when I head to DC for a few days to take the oral assessment again. After that, it will be full speed ahead through the spring, summer and fall rebuild.

Onward.

I feel like chicken tonight

Sunday morning, my calves hurt. This is a result of spending too much time with chicken on Saturday night

I don’t mean the cutsy chickens that Karen and Henry have. I’ve met all 14 of them and have shredded carrots for them, given them feed and taken eggs from broody hens.

Neither do I mean the Hallmark stuffed Chicken Mama hen that plays an egg-laying “Whoop There it Is” ditty called “Squawk There it Is” as it flaps its wings and lays three plastic eggs over in over. Henry got two of these for his non-existent February 29 birthday, and H2, my cousin’s son, has played them in unison.

My calves are aching from standing on my feet from cooking herbed chicken Lousianne from noon to 10 p.m. yesterday. Sixty pounds of chicken breasts. I sautéed each one three minutes a side in two sticks of butter and the put them aside.

After that, I did the herbed part – thyme, parsley and something called marjoram (not to be confused with margarine, although we did confuse this earlier – I had never heard of the spice) tossed in with a cup of onions, celery and (sorry, Dana), two cups of mushrooms.

That gets thrown in the pan and then, after it thickens I added a giant thing of cream of chicken soup, white pepper and some Texas Pete (although Slap Your Mama works, too). Once it “smells right” (instructions per Karen), I put in about a cup of cup Sauvignon Blanc until it was done. (This is subjective, but worked.)

I did about 15 pieces at a time – it kept the proportions easier – and although we’d penciled in doing it Saturday and Sunday, I just decided to only do cleanup once and just marched on through it. I am the hero today. Holy smokes, it was so much chicken.

Eventually, this will get combined with a really good rice mixture – and baked together.

It is fabulous. I mean, this is the greatest chicken I’ve ever had. If the only way I could be guaranteed of eating this dish again would be as a last meal on death row, watch your back. It’s that good.

Life in Augusta is fun as I’m hanging out here at Karen and Henry’s, preparing for a mammoth party on Tuesday. Still juggling some Hope Village stuff on the side, but that really was on the side yesterday – the wayside. I’ll get back to that this afternoon, but for now it’s just good food.

Unfortunately, my first day in town I wasn’t able to enjoy it. I’ve been really good on my every-other-day Coke and didn’t have any tea that first day, so therefore no caffeine.

But it didn’t occur to me the headache and subsequent motion sickness was anything more than that. After all, I was a passenger in a car for the first time in awhile, and I’m in Augusta, not Minot. Therefore, hills. This is more of an up-and-down motion than Minot. WAY more of an up-and-down motion.

Started feeling really bad but we decided to try out a new burger place at lunch. It’s a stepped-up Five Guys-ish place called the FarmHaus. Very cool layout and organic foods. It wasn’t just “lettuce” it was “Organic Something Lettuce.” Ditto for all the topics, one of which included garlic.

The burgers were really good (although, I must say, Tom topped it last night with whatever he made – that was THE best burger I’ve ever had) and dual-pattied. In general, a ton of food for $10 (the special, including fries and drink).

But after one bite (or two, if you count the dual patties), I didn’t feel so good again. Since I was in good company (Karen and I also had H2 and a friend alone), I just chatted until I felt OK and ate really slowly.

And drank tea. Lots of tea. (This important fact will come up later. In more ways than one.)

But I still wasn’t feeling all that great, so I opted to take the burger and fries home for later. It was a good burger.

Karen got a new F150 for her birthday. It’s a fabulous truck and I really like it. Got to drive it a little the second day  -- I am just made for one of those things.

I would much rather be in the driver seat than the passenger. We got back in after lunch and immediately the nausea came back. I freaking hate migraines.

Not sure how bad I looked, but we were in the left-hand lane (not so conveniently, at a stoplight) and Karen asked if I was OK. I said we really needed to get into the right-hand lane.

As soon as the light turned green, she hit it and then swerved over. It’s hard to know if that was the best course of action, but it set me over. I totally puked. I had the right idea and held the tea glass in front of me, but I’d filled it up just before we left so there wasn’t a lot of room.

And, just so you know, it’s hard to aim for a tea glass, open a door and unbuckle a seat belt at the same time. And really, how do you prioritize?

I had the window partially down, so I even went for that after the initial backsplash.. Oh, man. All over my jeans, my shoes and socks, the floor mats, the step bar thing, the window and the door. But not the seat, which was good.

Fortunately, everything on the Ford was easily cleaned with a hose. Of everything, the shoes – my suede Redheads – suffered the most long-term damage. But they’ll live, as will I..

It really was mostly tea. I’d eaten maybe a third of the burger and four French fries.

Fortunately, Karen didn’t throw me out of the truck. I felt so bad (although not nauseous) after tossing my cookies, but she let me stay and I even got to drive it the next day.

Of  course, I’m pretty much a rented mule for the rest of my time here, but that is what I signed up for.