Who needs to feel secure anyway?

I went to a trade show today with Hubby, he works in security. Not a security guard, although he did that for a brief time in college. He likes to play with locks and security systems. When I say ‘play with,’ I mean break. Actually, not break, he bypasses them, but you’d never know it. It’s a game to him. It’s all about defeating your security but not letting you know. Then letting you know and saying here’s how to stop someone better.

Strangely, people get paid to do this.

I used to tell him I wished he’d just be a bad guy and get it out of his system. He just looked at me and asked how I knew he wasn’t a hardened criminal. Because we wouldn’t have all this debt. He’s too good at all this crap. The local police used to use him regularly in their training exercises. It was frightening. Maybe more on that another time. Back to the trade show.

Usually he takes The Girl. She loves it. But she’s in school. He used to just pull her out for the day but she’s got a heavy week at school so it’s just not happening. Plus Homecoming tomorrow. And The Boy is strangely uninterested in getting a new set of lockpicks or whatever. He’s thirteen! Shouldn’t this be right up his alley? He’s pouting because I haven’t caved and bought him Grand Theft Auto Five. I’m making him practice his cello and earn it. Mean mommy! Anyway, so I got to go with Hubby. Yay?

Apparently I’ve learned more about this stuff over the past decade than I realized. In evidence was the nicest little keypad entry system I’ve ever seen. It was discreet and sleek. Small. Really small.

“So have you tested it against magnet attacks?” (You can easily bypass some of these with a simple magnet. See? I learned something.)

The rep paused only briefly before he answered. “Well this is more of a convenience product than a security device.”

Okay . . . then why have it lock at all? If I buy a keypad entry I’d expect it to (let me think) lock!

Nevermind. Move on to harass the next vendor.

Chipmunks, Mosquitoes, and Northern California

I promised a recap on suicidal chipmunks, so here we go.

I recall chipmunks fondly from camping in my childhood. They weren’t suicidal or adrenaline junkies then. Clearly something has changed. Specifically, something is going on in Northern California. My first tip was the mosquitoes.  Permit me to wander astray for a moment. I’ll come back to the chipmunks.

Mosquitoes aren’t complicated. They’re blood-sucking little monsters that I could deal with if they’d just not leave the itchy little calling-card behind. Want to suck my blood? Fine, just knock off the backwash. A real mosquito is a master. It flies in under the radar to land lightly on your skin. Stealth – the Air Force might have taken tips from these guys. (Granted there are novices that seem to want to neck or cuddle in your ear, but there are a few slow learners in every species. Maybe they were dropped as larvae. ) Once a real mosquito has landed, it gently inserts its delicate hypodermic proboscis into you - carefully, so you don’t feel a thing – and takes quick, silent sips. She knows not to overstay her welcome and makes a fast getaway before you get a chance to notice. (Again, I know there are some who can’t take a hint and need to be escorted off the premises, but they’re the minority.)

That’s how real mosquitoes work. I have no idea what’s going on in the redwoods. Those are not mosquitoes, they’re fun-sized vampires. Hear me out, I can prove it. First, “fun-size” has nothing to do with fun, it just means “small.” Ask any kid. Second, I just told you how a real mosquito operates; now let me tell you about the mosquitoes I met in Northern California.

The redwoods were impressive. There were a lot of really tall trees, ferns, and mosquitoes. I forgot to bring the insect repellant so I thought we were going to be an all-you-can-eat buffet on our little hike. No. As it turns out, these little critters don’t land lightly on your skin, they crash into you like a Kamikaze pilot. It’s difficult to overlook. They sit there for a moment, recovering from the botched landing no doubt, then set to work trying to drill for gold. Hypodermic? No, they use a broadsword, and they don’t insert it gently either.

The reason I label them as “vampires” is because they avoided the few spots of dim sun like they might give themselves away (Sparkly mosquitoes? That’d be cool.) Also, because we know mosquitoes operate by stealth and these suckers (Ha!) are anything but stealthy. It implies they’re pretty full of themselves. That whole vampire-top-of-the-food-chain concept fits the bill. Vampires are fast, these little things were fast. Vampires are strong, and it takes a lot of strength to hack at someone with a broadsword the size of a hair. Oddly enough, they also only attacked one at a time, even though there were more then enough to swarm, overpower at least one of us (let’s say The Boy, he’s the lightest) and bring him to the ground by sheer overwhelming numbers. Vampires are traditionally solitary hunters. Are you starting to see a pattern here?

Now let’s put the bizarre not-really-mosquitoes aside and get back to the deranged chipmunks. I can’t say they weren’t chipmunks, I didn’t get close enough to any to inspect them. They looked like chipmunks. They were the right size, shape, color, and they ran like chipmunks. Chipmunks are usually smart enough to avoid wide open places where things like predatory birds can see them easily. Roads are a good example. Also, there are cars on roads and they go faster than chipmunks. Shocker, I know.

So, I’m driving through Idaho, no chipmunks. Washington, no chipmunks. Maybe a squirrel or two trying to cross before they get flattened, but squirrels are like that. Oregon, no chipmunks. Cross over into Northern California and it’s like someone called open season on them. Excuse me? Suddenly chipmunks are playing chicken with cars? When did this happen?

The really bizarre thing is that Hubby didn’t have chipmunks dashing out in front of the car when he was driving, just me. By all means, let’s get the chick with the slower reflexes and pit her against a thrill-seeking/suicidal chipmunk! Hubby hated it. Every time one of those little (explicative) would dash across the road in front of me, I’d squeal and brake and/or swerve. And by the time hubby opened his eyes from his nap, the bratty little rodent was gone. No evidence that I wasn’t just trying to keep him from catching a quick snooze.

It was a hundred times worse when we left the coast and headed inland to Redding and then Reno. Hubby finally gave up any illusions he had about a peaceful drive with me behind the wheel and took over. Then no more chipmunks. Seriously, not one.

Chipmunks hate me.

Happy Father's Day

Father's Day is coming, and that means another family event. Shoot me. Please? Not for Hubby and my kids, we've got that covered. Let me rephrase: I’ve got that covered. And no, there will be no tie nor macaroni art involved either. No offense for those who like that.

No, there was to be a family barbeque for everyone at the in-law’s place on Sunday. Yay! Wait! Everyone? Even the dreaded sisters-in law? Yes. Well, to get the cousins for The Girl and The Boy, I must deal with the sisters-in-law. If I must. Okay, we’re set.

No. The sisters-in-law planned everything then changed it. They can’t do it Sunday, so it has to be Saturday. We can’t do it Saturday, The Girl has a birthday party she’s planned to attend since school ended and The Boy has . . . something, I can’t recall what. Some mischief I’ve blocked for sanity reasons I’m sure. Both are in the afternoon. My morning and early afternoon is spoken for and can’t be moved.

They huffed. It reminded me of the wolf and the three little pigs and I very nearly told them so. I had a brief daydream about rewriting the story of the three little pigs as a young adult novel before my true calling as an erotic romance writer took over and it got very odd. I’ll refrain from going further on that. And I won’t write it. Promise.

Father’s Day is going to be a great deal more peaceful now. Father-in-law will spend Saturday with his daughters and some grandchildren and Sunday with us. Oddly, The Boy and The Girl are absolutely perfect for their grandparents. All the terror The Boy reins down on us at home, is somehow hidden away and he’s unrecognizable if the in-laws are around. I want to move in with them. He’s even nice to his sister. She, of course, waits until Grandma and Grandpa aren’t looking and gets even for all the hell he puts her through in the past week. Hubby gets to watch. Happy Father's Day. 

The Scientific Method

We had three birthdays in rapid succession giving us a thirteen-year-old boy, fifteen year old girl, and one year old cat. Now, you'd think the thirteen-year-old boy would concern me, but it’s the other two I'm writing about today. Hubby and I have many theories involving the idiot cat, which I’ll undoubtedly delve into at some point. We have all the usual concerns involving the girl too. One concern her interest in the scientific method.

Now most adults may be thinking “What kind of mother are you to discourage that kind of academic exploration?” And many parents out there are nodding knowingly and thinking “Yeah, got it, no more needs to be said.” I’ll say it anyway.

They say you can't put frogs in boiling water because they'll hop out. You have to put them in cold water and slowly bring it to a boil. I am not going to tell you how I know this isn't true. Anyway, The Girl started with this premise, put the cat in my bathroom sink with an open drain, and Cat snuggled in. So far, this is pretty normal. The Girl turned on the faucet: a nice, alluring, playful drip. The result is a happy cat. Bat, bat, bat at the drip, lick paw, bat.

Now the ‘science’ begins. The Girl closed the drain. Cat continued to bat at the drip, bat, bat. The sink began to fill. Lick paw, bat, bat. Cat’s fur was starting to get wet, not just her paw now. Bat, bat, bat, lick. Hmm . . . Lick paw, her paw's dry. Hmm . . . Cat's confused. The sink's filling, The Girl’s laughing. Bat, bat, bat, lick, still wet.

Cat shifts in her sink and everything becomes clear to her. You might say it 'sinks in.' She stares at the sink now almost half-full of water, something that wasn't there when she climbed in. Like most self respecting cats, she decided it was time to leave. That sounds simpler than it was. The funny thing about a cat jumping out of a sink with wet paws - it's slippery.

The end result of The Girl’s experiment? Hubby will be the one Cat will blame, for no reason other than he lives here.

The HOA War begins

The foxes and The HOA are competing for being the neighborhood evil. Actually, the really bad thing is, given the chance, I would love to have a pet fox. Just a little irony there. Hubby loves it. Hubby’s having his own little problem with The HOA. He used to have a war with the mailman at the old house. I have no idea how it started, but it was ongoing for nearly fifteen years.

Hubby has an internet business, so he works at home. He’s almost always home during the day and our weather here is almost always sunny. Mail to the house shouldn’t be a problem, but we couldn’t have packages sent to the house because the mailman would actually hold packages for a rainy day and then leave them on our doorstep in the rain. He wouldn’t ring the bell, he’d just leave it in the rain. Hubby was home, there was no point to this. He was just being petty.

There’s no house there now, so the war is over. However, Hubby has an HOA to play with now. Yay? Our neighbors were over a few months ago. (I’ll call them Mr. & Mrs. Patience and you really have no idea how well it suits them. They have three girls and a boy between the ages of twelve and seventeen? Cringe.) Their oldest daughter had a party the week before and they wanted to know if we were bothered by it. Bothered? Actually, we didn’t notice. 

There’s a rule about no parking on the street overnight, it’s in the HOA binder. Sure, well, define ‘overnight.’ Apparently it’s past midnight. Mr. Patience received a notice from The HOA citing the regulation and a picture of the cars in front of his house with a time/date stamp on it.

So . . . someone from The HOA drives around at midnight looking for infractions and taking pictures? Really? Can I have that job and how much does it pay? Benefits?

Two things happened at that moment. I got a sudden urge to reread 1984, and Hubby developed a twitching need to bait them. Kill me. Then a couple months ago Hubby got very excited about a package he received, going on and on in Y-chromosome-ese about some online trade. With a grin, he opened it proudly and showed me a 1970s coin-fed parking meter that he wants to sink in concrete in our grass parking strip. 

I’m sorry, did you not read that correctly? My husband of twenty years wants to install a coin fed parking meter in front of our house to tick off The HOA. Naturally, I questioned him. Something along the lines of “Wha-?” Usually I’m more coherent, but words failed me. He explained he examined the HOA regulations, both binders, and can’t find anything specifically against it. The city says we just have to be sure to have a notice on it that it’s non-functional, for decorative use only, or some other indicator that it’s not official in any way. That’s all? Great!

What about taste?

Hubby’s still trying to argue the parking meter is art. The Boy suggested painting it purple, and I almost went for that for the sheer lunacy of it. For now, it sits in the front hall (not a win) and waits until its fate is determined. I’ve budged a little, I’ll allow it in the backyard. I think that’s reasonable.