Edgy Mama

We’re back from the beach–sun, sand, beer and too much red meat punctuated by sick children, family tension, and sunburn. Overall, a great trip!

Not to complain about adding on to my house, but…I’m going to complain about adding on to my house. We came back to no bathroom (supposed to be completely remodeled in our absence–ha!) and drywall dust covering everything. It even seeped into the kitchen drawers. Incredible. I was trying to find one room that hasn’t been impacted by the renovation–just one. It doesn’t exist. Even the screen porch is loaded with tools and wall plaster. My desk is covered with glass tiles, earth plaster samples, and marble soap shelves. Did I mention that there’s drywall dust everywhere?

Enough of that.

I missed being in touch here. Tell me what’s been happening?

Next weekend, you must all attend one of two events in Asheville: the Time for our Power Women’s Conference and/or the Ashevillage Building Convergence. More about both soon!

Happy Sunday!

I’m getting some heated comments over at Mountain Xpress over my belief that children, even those who live in a religious sect, shouldn’t be separated from their families unless there’s clear evidence of abuse. I totally understand Child Protective Services’ take on this issue–and yet, I’m a mother. Just try to take my kids away from me. As one of my girlfriends said last weekend, “Mess with my kids, and I might bite you on the neck.”

She said that because we were talking about what breed of dog we’d be–if we were dogs–and I described myself as a German Shepherd–disciplined, protective, but affectionate. The same girlfriend told me that there are on-line tests to determine what breed of dog you are (I should’ve known). I took three different tests and was identified with three different breeds: Border Collie, Labrador, and, yes, German Shepherd. The one similar characteristic of the three breeds is that they all need lots of exercise. That’s me for sure. Exercise is as much mental as physical health for moi.

My home construction has resumed, after a two and 1/2 day city-forced hiatus. At the moment, it’s all very dull stuff–lots of digging, spreading gravel, and roughing-out pipes. But we may be pouring concrete on Monday. I still have a child-like fascination with those huge concrete mixer trucks. A truck with a huge rotating barrel on the back must be one of the brilliant inventions of the 20th century. I can’t wait to photograph the big pour!

Unless you live in an underground bunker, you know that North Carolina held a primary yesterday. I canvassed some at one of the precincts for my friend, Holly Jones, who is running for Buncombe County Commissioner. She rocked the primary. Hurrah!

I also ended up at the HUGE Obama party at Asheville Brewing Company (see some of my photos here). Wow! I had no idea the local Obama contingent are so organized. And so much fun! I even had a Republican tell me that he might vote for Obama because all the man’s supporters are just so nice and non-aggressive. Wow.

I’m a bit given to hyperbolic hyperchondria, although it’s not often me I’m fearful for, but the kids. When my boy came home from school on Monday looking like he was suffering from adolescent acne (at 6 years old) I guessed it was impetigo from a bloody nostril wound he’s been picking at for days. It is impetigo (common childhood bacterial infection) but I’m convinced that, despite oral antibiotics and the liberal application of antibiotic ointments, it will soon morph into either flesh-eating bacteria or a blood infection. Mainly because I didn’t follow the Mommy rules and harangue him constantly about not picking at the scab on his nose. There’s a reason Moms tell kids not to pick at themselves. That reason is flesh-eating bacteria.

5n other news, the flu, she is a-raging. My boy’s best friend is suffering mightily from the virus, and now I’m petrified that not only will both my kids be downed by it, but it will be the new flu pandemic, resistant to anti-virals and genetically mutated so the shot can’t touch it (despite my not giving them shots this year, for the first time in years). See, if you break the Mommy rules, you pay.

So today I’m home with the boy, who feels fine incidentally. I’m carefully watching the healing sores on his face and awaiting the first sniffle. I’m not writing. Except here.

Mostly, I’m hoping someone, somewhere, is having a less paranoid, more productive day than I.

Yes, $208 later, the “l” key still seems to be imbued with evil magic powers. And I’ve been working furiously the past two days. I do have some lovely and funny photos to share, but I don’t have time to upload them. And tomorrow I’ll be further wrangling with computer techs and continuing to send e-mails that don’t contain the letter “l.” Without even trying, I have typed “l” thirteen times in this paragraph. And every time I touch the key, my computer screen jumps and flashes and the toolbar either vanishes or reappears.

Anyone have anything mildly more interesting going on in your life? Please?

According to the lovely Joshilyn Jackson, Friday was “Take your Dog to Work” day. As the Bisc often sleeps at my feet as I work, or chews on my feet if he’s feeling frisky, TYDTW day didn’t seem to apply to me. I did decide, however, to take our dog out to dinner with us Friday night.

Asheville touts itself as a dog friendly town, and in my ignorance, I assumed the large outside patio at Mellow Mushroom would be particularly canine receptive. But no. No dogs are allowed, and, according to the apologetic hostess, if you tie your dog on the outside rail, on the sidewalk, next to the table where you are eating, he’s considered an “unattended animal” and both you and the restaurant will be ticketed by the big, bad police.

So we walked over to Asheville Brewing Company, who have a “we love pooches on our patio policy.” There we got fabulous za (the Sheer Delight is, well, a delight), excellent beer brewed on the premises, and our pup, who happily chewed on pizza crusts at my feet.

I remember when there was only one Mellow Mushroom–the first, in Midtown Atlanta, which was a bit of a dicey area in the late 70s and early 80s. But they had good hippie za and served pitchers of beer to underaged kids. Like me. All the servers were perpetually stoned.

The possibly apocryphal story behind the restaurant was that it was started by a couple of dropouts from nearby Georgia Tech who were soon joined by a University of Georgia dropout who came up with the now prescient “all natural” angle.

Now, the restaurant has something like 28 locations in five states. I guess it’s a grand success story. I was thrilled when it came to Ashvegas. They still have the psychedelic menus, funky decor, and happy mushroom mascot. But they’ve lost something. They’re practically mainstream now. The servers are still funky, but clean. In every way. I’m sure they card folks relentlessly. And they prohibit pups from their perky patio.

I always assume that the 800 of you who visit my blog daily who are not close friends and family are probably people living in Saudi Arabia or Hungary who come for the cute pet shots and the occasional skimpily dressed chicka photo that Ash throws up.

But it seems that lots of people I kind of, sort of know, or people who know people I know in Asheville, or random people who I don’t think know about my weblogging, are reading the bloggie.

Recently, I discovered that my newish and primary editor is lurking (Hi K!). I met my former editor through blogging, so I knew he was reading, but I was a bit surprised to find out that my current very pretty editor was reading about my procrastination habits, occasional freelance frustrations, and relationships with other editors! Luckily, I don’t gossip about work, because as a freelancer, I’m always on the knife’s edge of “we are already paying a salary to someone who can do what you’re doing but just doesn’t have time.” She’s cool, though, my editor is. And I’m sure she reads for the silly kid stories, and NOT to check on whether or not I’m blogging instead of writing biz profiles for her. Right?

Another random lurker was outed recently by E-spouse. He talks to, ummmm, well, everyone. He was walking the boy to school with Biscuit and stopped to chat with a new neighbor of ours. Supposedly, she did a double take when she saw the Bisc and said, “I know that puppy. Is your wife a blogger?” Turns out she’s been reading the bloggie for like a year and a half and came over from Ashvegas’ place. Ironically, I’ve photographed her daughter twice in the past two months for shoots for the newspaper. Damn, this is a small town.

Some of you long-time readers might remember a couple of local lurkers who teased me into guessing their identities (one–JA–for months–I couldn’t figure out who the hell he was).

So, here’s your chance, lurkers. Leave a comment or a tease. Say hi. Come OUT! Just for one day. It’ll be fun!

• My camera lenses are at the camera repair shop. It seems that both have broken parts, one from droppage, the other from god knows what. I guess I need to be gentler with the high-tech equipment I’m lugging around.

• Biscuit is loving life with the Jones family, except for the puppy crate. He’ll eventually calm down after being put in it, but only after 10, 20, sometimes 30 minutes of crying. Everyone told me that he’d get used to it, even like it, after three or four nights. It’s been six.

• Rocky had to go to the vet with us yesterday for the puppy’s first round of shots. Looks like he got his fat self stuck somewhere and ripped a hole in his back trying to get unstuck. He’s also gained two pounds. Sumo cat weighed in at over 22 lbs. I got the “you don’t want to deal with a diabetic cat” lecture while the vet handed me kitty Oxycontin and antibiotics. Then he looked at me, my five-year-old wrapped around one leg, a bleeding obese cat in my arms, a puppy nipping at my ankles, and my eight-year-old going emo because “her baby” had to have a shot. The vet said, “Well, you do have your hands full, so just do what you can with Rocky.”

I was going to write about how I spent most of yesterday on my screen porch. I was supposed to be writing, and I did write, a little bit, but mostly I watched three humongous crows take turns landing on the gutter on the corner of the roof. After watching carefully, I realized that they were eating something that must have died in my gutter. Ugh! I’m glad they were eating whatever was dead and in the gutter so my porch office didn’t smell like roadkill, but do you know what a ten-pound crow landing on a tin roof sounds like? It sounds like a huge beastie scratching with mega-sharp nails on the hinges of your closet in the middle of the night. It is not a sound conducive to writing. Particularly when it causes your cats to mewl and jump around instead of sleeping peacefully next to your feet like good writers’ cats should.

But that’s not what I’m going to write about. I’m going to write about my lens despair.

Today, I spent no time on the porch office because I was running around conducting interviews and taking photos for my “real” job. I’ve loved the challenge of adding photojournalism to my creative mix these past months, but I must admit, here, that really, I have no idea how my fancy digital camera works. Luckily, I have a good eye and a helpful handbook and lots of experience with film cameras.

For my birthday, I got a super-cool zoom lens that rocked DILOA and which, despite its weight and the fact that it is so long and heavy hanging down my front that I finally understand what it must feel like to be a man, the lens has suddenly and inexplicibably fritzed out. My camera just stopped reading its settings, making it null and void. A few days ago, I took the super-cool lens to the camera shop. The wizened and black-toothed guy there, who has dealt with millions of camera disfunctions, said he’d never seen anything quite like it. “Send it back to Nikon,” he said. I smiled and slipped him my dentist’s phone number.

I have yet to send the lens back because Nikon’s on-line packing instructions are way too complex for someone who thinks birthday gifts are best wrapped in paper towels and Ziplock baggies.

Then, today, I conducted a fairly difficult interview with a very interesting man, who is originally from a country far, far away. Despite the fact that he’s lived in the US for years, I could barely understand him. I could get the jist, but I wasn’t getting good details or quotes, which are the slab foundation on which my articles are built. So after asking him to repeat his answers 17 times, I decided it was time to take photos. I followed him into the industrial kitchen of his restaurant, pulled my camera out, which I had just been using an hour before at my daughter’s school, and the fricking regular lens decided not to communicate with my camera!

I was already feeling inept from the interview, but as I clicked through all the camera settings, turned the damn thing on and off, I started to feel really ridiculous. Then when I took the lens off to see if jamming it back on would help, I DROPPED it. On the tile floor. Thank you, photographer friend, who told me to put UV filters on all my lens. The filter bent and cracked, but the lens itself seemed fine. Although it still refused to talk to the camera.

Luckily, I had Ash’s zoom with me, which he’d kindly lent me while he’s out of town, or I would have been screwed, as I had scheduled back to back interview/photo shoots. Of course, with the zoom, I had to stand like 1/2 a mile away from my subjects, not ideal in a crowded kitchen or in the smallish home where I shot later. Arggggh! Between my camera, the lack of RAM on my hard drive, and the weird-ass e-mail delays I’ve been experiencing, I’m wondering if the Luddites had the right idea. I think my ancient electric Smith-Corona is still in Mom’s basement.

So, does anyone have any knowledge or experience with digital lens despair? And Ash, could you stay out of town for a few days longer?

…because I’m engaged in an ongoing war with a horde of pantry flies.

Yes, I’ve cleaned out the pantry. TWICE. I’ve thrown out all the old pasta and cereal and tortilla chips. I’ve put all the flour and corn meal in the refrigerator. I’ve filled like eight pantry fly traps with dead flies. My pantry reeks of female pantry fly pheromone.

My latest theory is that they’re hatching and procreating in the dry cat food. And I don’t have space in my small, enviro-efficient fridge for 15 pounds of cat food. And since Rocky eats five pounds a week, and I refuse to shop for cat food more than once a month, I guess I’ll have to live with the damn flies.

From a positive perspective, they provide extra exercise for the kids, who chase them manically around the house, crushing them between their small hands. Good for hand-eye coordination too.

And pantry flies don’t bite, like bedbugs, which are supposedly making a comeback since we stopped spritzing the world with DDT. The pantry flies just flutter around and leave dusty black spots on the wall when I mash them there. And they provide extra protein right? Since my kids have chosen not to eat meat, extra protein, even in the form of hatching pantry flies, is good.

Back to the war. Maybe if I smoosh enough flies on the wall, it’ll look artistic. Like I painted it that way.

One of the downsides of being a freelancer is getting screwed by people who hire you and then, for some reason, usually having to do with an inability to part with their money, screw you over.
About two weeks ago, I got a call from a guy I’d met a couple of times. He was organizing a family concert at one of the local clubs. He gave me this sob story about how his photographer was going to shoot the concert for free in exchange for the publicity, but she had just told him she couldn’t make it. So I checked my calendar, told him I was free, and gave him my terms.

He was pretty slick and tried to talk me into shooting the concert for free. I was confused by this, because the publicity including the other chick’s business was already out, so I had nothing to gain. Plus, I have enough work, really, and I wasn’t going to clear a Saturday and give this guy five hours of professional work for nothing. So I told him I’d charge him my non-profit rate, which was pretty sweet of me, because as far as I can tell, the concert is a money-making venture for him.

He said, “You’re booked.” I said, “Great. Let me get your phone number and e-mail address. I’ll e-mail you the week before the concert just so you have my terms down clearly.”

He agreed and hung up. Two days ago, I e-mailed him, reiterating the plan and my terms.

I’m easy to work with. I’m professional. I’m on-time. I do what I say I’m going to do, and I do it well. I’m not bragging. That’s just who I am.

I didn’t hear back from the guy, but I assumed that was because he was busy with last minute details before the concert.

So I spent this morning running around, cleaning my camera equipment, charging batteries, uploading random photos, dealing with the kidlings, etc. I even took a shower. Then I drove to the venue.

At the front door, there were three humans dressed in animal costumes. I don’t really like humans in giant bear and bird costumes, but I immediately started shooting. With my Nikon. Then the guy walks out, wearing a pair of turtle slippers.

“Great shoes,” I said, aiming my lens at them.

“Wait,” he said. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

“What?” I said.

“Uhhh, just a minute. Let me get Deborah.”

Typical a**. Instead of taking responsibility for the situation, he puts it off on his girlfriend. She comes out and explains that she “tried” to call me. Trying to call me means that she left a message on E-spouse’s cell phone yesterday afternoon because they lost my card. I have no clue how she even got his cellie number, but he rarely uses it unless he’s on the road. She claims she called the newspaper as well. Which is weird, because if she’d mentioned I was a freelancer, there are at least four editors there who have my phone number or e-mail addy. Ever heard of Google, babe?

The guy said he didn’t get my e-mail. Most likely what happened is the chick who had agreed to shoot the concert for free told him at the last minute that she was back on. Yeah, it’s all about money, isn’t it? And if you only have a verbal agreement with a freelancer, feel free to screw ‘em. Then the guy offered me a fricking T-shirt. No thank you.