Brisingamen End Of Year Note, 2022 (October)
*Look at that. Remembering ShayLa trying to drink a bottle of Rumchata while pregnant, (you do you, honey) inspired me to rummage through our liquor cabinet and find my 2021 Yule present from Lucas and join ShayLa with my bottle of Rumchata. I know, I know, Rumchata is for weddings, but no one has been getting married! So I will have to buy a new bottle for next year. Now I’m drinking and writing – look what you did, ShayLa! To be completely honest, most of this has been done with beer or wine in hand. Most of this writing has been accompanied with a drink not the actions of the whole year! Are you crazy?! A 24-pack of seltzer – on 12/2/22 – costs $41.99! I don’t have the money for Pennsylvania alcohol!*
Anyway, October – we started October still in Wisconsin. We tried to go to the Milwaukee County Zoo, but it was Family Free Day, which meant people, so no. We decided to stop at Dollar Tree to buy a balloon that Catawba-Lynn wanted to give to a little girl. They were out of helium. They told me they were out of helium like I was supposed to know that or something. So we went to West Milwaukee which ended up being a total shit show, as an employee decided to up and close her lane which was literally 10 parties deep. People were screaming, systematically skipping line, threatening to steal stuff – it was a mess. And it reminded me how much I didn’t want to live in a city; just people peopleing all over the place. Yuck. But we survived! We bought the balloon and chocolate to tie it down with to accompany our wedding present for the wedding the three of us would be attending that evening.
We got our VW back. We paid $750 in repairs for a car I was told was worth $400. Annnnnd, it wasn’t fixed. But we made it to the wedding. And it was glorious. Paul, my best friend from high school, was getting married. He had his hunting lab running around, greeting all the guests. We got ready to be seated for the ceremony. 10% of the crowd was already drunk and 25% had a strong drink in hand. Glorious. We were only in Waukesha County – but we were at a hunting club – rolling hills behind the couple, not a freeway to be heard, clean air, cool weather – we were in Wisconsin. Glorious. The bride looked beautiful. The pig roast was finishing up in the back. The roasted pig head would be plated and used as a centerpiece of the buffet table. The groom walked down the isle with his dog, to the Indiana Jones Theme Song. Glorious. The food was flavorful, the bar was flowing, the reception under a tent with dinner and dancing and no heater in 45-degree weather because Wisconsin. Cold? Have another drink! Satisfying. Glorious. Tawbs finding all the lost children. Taking notes on their stories and attempting to solve the “crime” like Perry Mason – the show she enjoys watching with Grampy when we are in Wisconsin. Not glorious, but made me smile none the less. Being somewhat approached by a woman in the bathroom, leaning on the wall pointing at me, kind of, saying “Looks like an old dress – but it’s not. Is it vintage?” And another woman sliding out of her bar stool – asking if I made my own dress. All glorious. I loved that wedding, made me love being back in Wisconsin. Tawbs danced the whole night – she loved it. Thank you for the invite. We loved it.
The next day, Lucas and I contemplated what to do with the VW. Purchasing another vehicle would double our insurance payments. We didn’t want to take out a loan for a “new” car, we were just stuck. Not wanting more debt won out and we continued on with our day; we were keeping the VW. My mom offered us a car loan, but we declined. My mom offered us money, but we declined again. We were adults – we could act like adults and figure it out. I appreciated the offers from my mom, but we technically could fix our situation – we just didn’t want to take on debt.
My mother throws a cookout almost every time Catawba-Lynn and I are in town. The Klabunde side gets together and we have a decent time sitting around talking. I appreciate it. This time was no different.
The next day it was time to go so we moved the VW into the optimal place for loading all of our crap. We spent well over an hour getting everything broken down and packed into the back, on the seats, or the roof. We were mostly set. Everything was in place and rachet strapped down. I went to move the VW to load the dogs – and – it wouldn’t start.
We test drove a 2018 Dodge Grand Caravan with a trailer hitch and stow and go seating the week prior. And I’m not proud of it, I never wanted a minivan, I hate minivans, but we liked it. But the day prior to us trying to leave back home, I had a point: Luke takes the train; we technically only need one car. Technically we could travel in the iQ – we went from Wisconsin to Colorado with it before. Was this trip back home worth $20,000? Did we want $20,000 in debt? “Yesterday” we said no. “Today,” I was doubting it. Lucas held us to it. When we were levelheaded, we said no to a new car. Options were put on the table. Stay in Wisconsin an extra day to maybe get it fixed. Keep it in Wisconsin to fix it and use my mother’s Hyundai to get back home. Junk it and rent a car. Drive with my dad following us. Ultimately, I said no to all those options. I didn’t want to chase the unknown with the VW but I wasn’t willing to scrap it. We were adults and needed to use our own means to get home. Dad didn’t need to follow us; it would be too expensive – us paying for it or not. Lucas ended up getting the VW started and I said we would drive it and if it broke down on the way home, we would deal with it then. I figured so long as we got 10 miles out of Gary, Indiana, we were fine. The rest of the trip was farm country. We left Milwaukee at 11:30, we arrived home at 03:45 and the VW didn’t act up once. We crossed over 210,000 miles with no extra issues.
A day before my 34th birthday, Varsity Tutors emailed me to let me know that our advertising arrangement would be over, effective immediately. That was kind of a bummer, but we had been doing it for a year. We would submit photos and statements to Varsity Tutors and in return we would get access to almost all of the classes they had. We heavily utilized our agreement and kept our side of the bargain. Catawba was even featured in two advertisements! But they said they were changing their class structure (which they did) and were going to be advertising differently. Oh well.
My birthday. Justine, her boys, Catawba-Lynn and I met at Longwood Gardens to go for a hike. Justine was super awesome and brought me potted flowers and a happy birthday balloon, which Catawba promptly stole. We happily wandered about – especially through the prairie, looked at the train display, watched a fountain show, played with pumpkins and invaded tree houses. Sounds like an excellent 34th birthday.
The next day the 5 of us wahoos went to Cherry Crest Adventure Farm. We got there 30 minutes after it opened and stayed until close, 22:00. Again, wonderful. We spent several hours in the maze. The kids were begging for the exit – they were finding all of the cheats in the maze to leave early. Justine and I dug around in our magical hiking packs and found distractions. Drink boxes, clementines, puffy popcorn – anything to get a closer to beating the maze! I suck at mazes. I think Justine knows this. But I am a team player and I tried, and I kept going. We didn’t beat the maze by collecting all of the stickers and getting all of the fun facts, but we all felt like we did well enough to exit.
After the maze and then lunch, Justine and I oversaw pedal car racing, duck races, tiny village play, giant pillow jumping, sling shot shooting, pulley activities, giant tube rolling, a plethora of playground play, and haybale climbing, among other things. We all watched the singing tractor and the pig races. We went on a hayride tour of the farm. We saw baby animals. We drove pedal cars and we slid down giant slides. We pay to go to Cherry Crest. I’m cheap and I think it’s worth it. It allows oneself to get lost on a farm and forget about the city. We did it 2021 and now 2022 and I look forward to doing it in 2023.
Very noteworthy – Lucas did the dishes both of these days – the 6th and the 7th. I told him I would write it down.
Proud moment here, at 4H, Catawba-Lynn knew what a bulk tank was in the dairy collection and milk creation process. Pennsylvania’s Ms. Dairy asked the Cloverbuds where the milk collected from cows went and Catawba-Lynn’s hand shot up. “Bulk tank and then pumped into the tanker truck!” Super proud of her. Going to the Milwaukee County Zoo every week and letting her watch the dairy videos each time taught her something! Love it!
Another super proud mom moment – Tawbs and I were at Books N’ Ballet at the Middletown Library. The topic was dinosaurs. The kids were supposed to suggest what a scared dinosaur would do. Tawbs thought a moment and raised her hand. She said they should all act like the Parasaurolophus – with the hallow crest – and make a tuba noise to warn of predators. That’s awesome. That made me smile.
Philadelphia sports ball has been big this year. It was supposed to be a busy sports ball day with pol dancers – no – pole climbers and all, so Luke worked from home. I went to move some stuff from the house to the VW but my key wouldn’t unlock the door. I pushed the button – nothing. I stormed back into the house and asked Lucas to help me. We found the doors were all unlocked but the vehicle had no electrical power. I found a place a county out that specialized in electrical problems only. It’s the only thing this mechanic did. We scheduled dropping it off with him and a couple of days later, when we needed to drop it off with him, the VW started and ran perfectly. He had it for a whole week and had no issues with it, so we brought it back home to our garage.
We went to one of Catawba-Lynn’s friend’s 6th birthday. It was a super cool, indoor swimming, unicorn birthday party! We got to meet their adorable new puppy. The party was amazing, it was a blast. The house that it was held at was beautiful. It was also great to see the instructor that introduced us to this family and to Parkside Academy Dance, as she had moved out to New York City to pursue her career. (People do that out here. They are from New York City or move there or frequent there and it’s weird to me that it isn’t a big deal. What has been a big deal to the people out here is the TickTock video of a Wisconsin pizza isle/section in the grocery store. People out here are blown away when they see it. So – visiting New York City regularly or have a selection in the frozen pizza section – I’ll let you decide which is better). I thoroughly enjoyed watching the kids play pin the horn on the unicorn. And the food tasted great. So much fun, thank you!
Neshaminy State Park was the next state park on our docket, and I really needed it. We had been watching a lot of DotA 2 and I needed to get out and move. Neshaminy State Park, located in Bucks County, welcomed us with ample parking, friendly staff and very clean bathrooms! The swimming pool was closed for the season, but we saw it as we hiked by. It was a well care for, cute little park. It had a couple of miles of very easy trails in a mostly wooded area. Tawbs played on the playground while Lucas and I sat on a bench with Sessrumnir. We got back home and were able to watch more DotA 2.
From the 20th-22nd, Catawba-Lynn and I were heavily involved in the Norwood Haunted Woods. Remember, this is the big fundraiser for Norwood’s 4th of July parade, party, and fireworks. She and I baked brownies, helped set up the woods – from tables and chairs to large garage sized tents, to decorations – and then participated in being in the woods, directing traffic and stopping kids from sneaking in without paying. Tawbs helped out with all of it. She calmed scared children down, showing them she was Cinderella.
Some bitchy little punk girl got in my face, claiming I was flipping her off, as I was pointing with my pointer finger to go right. I was waiting for her to go away but she continued her antics until Tawbs screamed at her for “being mean to my mom.” Tawbs is cute. This girl though, quite the piece of work, as she came though twice again the next day – each time trying to start a fight with me. How miserable. Anyway – the woods was a huge success and Catawba-Lynn and I love being a part of it.
Another quick run we did between DotA 2 bouts of matches was a visit to the Colonial Plantation at Ridley Creek State Park. I have wanted to go to this since I went to Ridley Creek State Park for the first time in 2020. This was an important library museum pass for me. The family enjoyed it. I recommend going if you have an hour or two to spare. Library Pass = Free! We stopped in at Newtown Library, grabbed the pass, went and returned in all in a couple of hours. It’s small but delightful. There were sheep running around and away from us. A horse was in the pasture. There was a barn to look at and we could look through an old-time house – which I love doing. One of the workers, dressed in that time’s garb, was working in the kitchen. She seamed very knowledgeable, showing the black soap she made the week prior, speaking of dishes she made in the past and what she was making in the fire that day. It was insightful and relaxing. Like a very miniature version of Old World Wisconsin. I miss Old World Wisconsin.
One other thing I was able to squeeze in while watching DotA 2 all month long was as Aldi visit for the week. Tawbs enjoys coming with so she can sit in the cart and stack all the food into buildings and such. But her favorite part of Aldi is hunting for money. She finds pennies under the bagging area. She runs around returning carts to get quarters. She was in the process of returning carts when two women asked her for the cart they were watching her plug in. I decided to let Catawba-Lynn handle this situation on her own. She looked at the women, looked back at the cart and her locked up quarter and partly sighed and sadly pulled the cart back out for the women. I think it is noteworthy to mention I was wearing my normal, everyday rags and Tawbs was wearing her Green Bay Packer pants – green sweatpants with faded lettering and massive holes in the knees, so large it looks like the pants were disintegrating. The two women looked at Tawbs and noticed she was disappointed but was going to give up the cart – thus give up the quarter. “Oh no! Oh no!” the ladies yelled. “You want the quarter! Let me get you a quarter!” Both women quickly looked through their purses. One produced a dollar bill and handed it to Tawbs who was ecstatic. I told the woman she didn’t need to do that – it was okay – it was too much. The woman patted me on the shoulder, looked me in the eye and said, “It’s okay – I want to give her a dollar.” I felt the sympathy in that exchange. For those of you not getting it – we looked homeless.
I had a mostly free day with Tawbs, so we did classwork at the Tyler Arboretum in the tree houses. When we were done with the papers for classwork, Tawbs did what Tawbs does and collected all of the things and put all of the things in all of her pockets. This is why we look homeless – because Tawbs is allowed to crawl and climb and jump and splash and squelch and trudge through nature. I don’t retire clothes as soon as there is a hole – I couldn’t afford to clothe Tawbs if I lived that way. We just keep using them until she grows out of them.
We got home and I changed her into some dance attire. I threw her previous clothes in the basement to be washed. She had her previous recital costume, which I realized too late was too small for her. But we were already at Sharon Hill Library for Books & Ballet (different from Book N’ Ballet). 5 minutes into the program, I realized there was a spot on Tawbs’s shoulder. I knew what it was but I was hoping it wasn’t. Sure enough, as I got closer, I could see it was a tick. It had bit in, so I excused her to the single stall bathroom. We had to ask for a key. Okay – Sharon Hill Library is very small, I would dare say the footprint of my house, if even. To get to the bathrooms we had to walk past 4 computers which were occupied by 4 black men, who had to have heard that my bright red, sequined, double skirt and tutu wearing daughter had a tick, especially since Tawbs was actively trying eyeball the back of her shoulder blade as she bounced behind me, hustling to the bathroom. The door closed behind us and Tawbs got louder and much more active. I knew the men could hear what was going on. The shuffling commenced. “Will you stand still? Stop moving! Quiet! Shh!” it didn’t matter what I said Tawbs was hopping all over the bathroom. The library didn’t have tweezers (why would they) and I couldn’t pull it out by hand, so I put a bit of hand sanitizer on the tick and area, hoping the alcohol would piss it off and it would let go. (Later, we were told by medical staff not to do that because alcohol makes ticks puke up all of what’s inside them). I was wearing a broken pair of capris that I wear a clip with. So I grabbed my shirt and moved it up to take off my clip to use it to grasp the tick. Well, Tawbs saw me move my shirt and she knew I always carried a knife. With wide-eyed excitement, Catawba-Lynn, in the one bathroom this tiny but full library had, with cardboard thin walls – Catawba-Lynn looked at me and shouted “Your knife?! You’re going to take the tick out with your knife!?” Now she was hopping all over that bathroom, crashing into things and yelling no. I caught her. I got the tick out. With my clip. And we exited the bathroom. And not a one of those men looked at us – they buried their faces intently into their screens as we handed the bathroom key in and Tawbs skipped back to go dance ballet.
Catawba-Lynn and I got to use her last Longwood Gardens pass with Justine and her boys. It’s expensive to go to Longwood Gardens so when we get free passes, we make sure to use them before they expire.
I had poll worker training which I didn’t need to attend but if I did, I would get an extra $30. I wanted the $30 but decided hanging out with Lucas was more important. Well, luckily I did, as I was going to take Catawba with me to training. Instead, I had time to take her to a Swarthmore Library Halloween Trick-or-Treat parade. Tawbs went dressed as Cinderella. She wore her big Cinderella dress, and I crocheted her white arm-length gloves with a blue ruffle up the arm, a blue headband and a black necklace. She was all dressed in the car. We were making good time. She wasn’t wearing her glasses though and Tawbs has gotten carsick at times when she wasn’t wearing her glasses in the car. I looked in the rearview mirror. She said she wasn’t feeling too good. I was at a complicated muti-way stop sign. As soon as I made it through, I stopped and I tried to talk to her or hand her a reusable bag or get her out of the car, but as I pulled over she puked all over her dress and car seat.
I got her out and slipped her out of the dress and layer under that. I wiped up the car seat and apologized to her – told her we had to go home. She was devastated, crushed! I explained to her I would be an irresponsible mom if I had a sick kid around other kids. She said she wasn’t sick – she was fine. In her defense, she’s done this at least 3 times before in the car. She gets worked up or excited and pukes. Also – she was perfectly fine leading up to that moment. No slowness, cough, sneezing, fever, loss of sleep, loss of appetite – nothing. So I shoved the mess into a bag and walked over to the Trick-or-Treat parade that we were almost early to, but were not late to. I’m always late. Everything was fine, Tawbs was great, she even had a Trick-or-Treat shirt on (under her Cinderella dress that she was no longer wearing). She was so happy. Everyone was cute. The mother in front of me was shaming businesses for handing out allergen candy – everything was great! And then Tawbs wasn’t great. She just looked at me and I knew. I grabbed her and I turned to push her to the curb – just puke in the curb, not on the sidewalk in the middle of this parade – but there wasn’t a parade because we were walking by, walking through the outdoor seating of a restaurant! “Excuse me! Excuse me!! Excuse me!” I said semi-frantically, as I pushed our way through and got us to the road – we made it to the road! And she puked. We didn’t ruin a restaurant. I rubbed her back. A mom with a stroller gave me baby wipes. I cleaned up Catawba-Lynn and then cleaned up the street. I looked at Catawba, “We have to go home.” I said. She said, “Sorry” and nodded her head. “No, no, no!” I said, giving her a big hug, “We tried, but we need to go home.” And she was fine on the car ride home and after her bath she had all of her energy and appetite. I washed her costume and everything was fine.
Since she was fine, the next day we went to Fort Washington State Park. The three of us and Sessrumnir explored the bird observation tower, which is what the park is known for. It was a little shorter than what I expected, but oh well. It was cool. We spent most of our time walking along the Wissahickon Trail. We came upon a party happening in one area and some picnic tables next to a bathroom in another area, so we stopped there to eat a lunch. Afterwards, we went back the way we came, taking note of a scavenger hunt of sorts along the trail.
I found it quite impressive the amount of cooking I was capable of completing in October. I made 8 batches of avocado banana muffins, pumpkin stew twice, and golden squash soup 4 times! Those are all labor intensive!
October 30th! Our 8th wedding anniversary! Bronze is the traditional gift. I like giving the traditional gift with a weird spin on it – like last year was wool, so I gave him the game Agricola – a tabletop game with sheep in it. I didn’t have anything this year. I had ideas. But I didn’t do anything. The year had been a little crazy. I told Lucas I would have something. It would be late – but still good. However, for our anniversary, we woke up at midnight two nights in a row to watch The International for DotA 2. DotA 2 is a free to play, 5 vs 5, destroy the other team’s towers, with a prize pool over several million dollars. It is exciting to watch. Our team didn’t win. Actually, our team started as number one and then got knocked out right away. My brackets were such a mess! I think Catawba had better brackets then I did. Two of Luke’s co-workers, Scott and Carl, did better then us as well. It was still fun to watch, just wished it didn’t have to happen at midnight! I had also made Lucas a book to track The International. We were tracking pretty well, but the midnight start times got hard, so we didn’t record everything like we wanted to.
And then Halloween. Tawbs hadn’t an issue since she puked in the street during the kiddie parade, so Trick-or-Treating was happening. We do quite an event for handing out our treats. I have Halloween decorations up all October, but I put up extra on Halloween. We hand out drinks – soda, drink boxes, or flavored water to the kids and wine for the adults. We have music playing and our Easy-Up set up to stand under if necessary. Then we have our Halloween ducks set up for the pluck-a-duck game and/or we have a large spinning wheel, so kids can get extra prizes depending on what number they land on – the winning prize is $1. I have fun with it, Luke likes it and Tawbs cannot wait for our handout party. Luke and I trade off taking her Trick-or-Treating on Halloween night. It is not like Wisconsin, how the municipalities decide what day and time to do Trick-or-Treating. It happens on Halloween night everywhere. It rained, but we still had 30-40 people visit our house. Tawbs got a ton of candy! Lucas said there was a house of hobby botanists that didn’t care what Tawbs took, and she ended up taking the Happy Halloween sign, and they just laughed. A special treat though, Justine brought the boys over to see our setup, play the games and Trick-or-Treat at our house. That was awesome. And next door gave them Pokémon cards as their handout treat!
Half A Human 