so my sister came into town which is more of a soul searching -what the fuck- expedition than a visit. most of the time i wonder how we can be related. the other part of the time is spent wondering what planet her brain is on because it's not here.
she's soooo weird. and i'm not talking about weird like -15 yr olds think their parents are weird- weird. i'm talking about all out -what the hell is she thinking- weird.
so she came into town. i got the band booked at a local place in akron so that she could come see us play. i couldn't tell if she was texting or trying to take pictures for the most part. she kinda liked it i guess because after we were finished, she told me that i should go on american idol. (as a sidenote, i dislike american idol and would in all honesty not make it past the first round... and that's just not me being self-depricating or anything, i'm just not cut out for super pop music marketed en masse.) then she bought an excessive amount of really good beers, as it was going to be only us two, and went back to my house to chain smoke on my back porch and call chip with updates.
and yes, if you were wondering, she is still with chip; the 40-something yr old abusive jerk who calls her malleable, who threw her cell phone/wallet/purse out the window of a moving car, who punched her windshield out, who strangled her while drunk one night.... eh, you get the idea. so she's still with him, not living with him, just still "in love" although i'm not sure how it can be love if it's based on her lying to him and him being jealous of everything that she does. she says he's changed, but anyone who has ever seen a lifetime movie knows that he hasn't... but then again, that's coming from the network where everyone's "first time" ends in teenage pregnancy. but on the other hand, statistically speaking if he has a history of violence, then he is extremely more likely to do it again. but then again, if you think that everyone who has been violent will continue to be violent cannot believe in the court system or any sort of reform and while i may be a cynic, i'd like to think that people are not inherently evil or anything.
so i guess here's these two polarities. on the one hand, she's headstrong and says she's in love and she very well could be if love also comes in the form of pathological lying and manipulative jealousy. so maybe i'm just being stupid and i should be happy for her that she's found someone that she wants to buy a house with and marry and make babies with. *shudder* ick blah ick.
on the other hand, that's my sister and i know she's malleable and he should just stay the fuck away from her and go live his life somewhere else where he can't hurt her.
and it's funny but the topic of conversation rested quite a bit on illegal immigration, which i of course do not agree with her staunch stance on deporting everyone, along with the topic of babies. now, admittedly, that's not something that i think about often. i think that babies kinda remind me of overripe melons with squishy skulls that have an odd odor about them even when they have not soiled themselves. they are kinda cool, i guess, but it's never been anything that i'm crazy about. they are just kinda there.
but... my sister really wants one.
ick.
i repeat ick.
so i don't know. i think after a couple really good beers, i referred her to a sperm bank where she can pick what traits she would like to mate herself up with to create a good kid. amazingly enough she wasn't really offended by that, in fact, i don't think that she caught my cynicism at all because she kept right on plowing through with -baby-baby-buy-a-house-and-get-married-and-more-babies talk. it was really weird. she talked about this perfect life almost down to the color of her walls and the two kids and the backyard and all that, but then it seemed like as a sidenote she would insert chip in there. it's like, tomorrow i'm going to go to the store and buy milk and eggs and then get my nails done and then go to the gym and then go home and go to bed and i'm really happy about it all... and i'm going to do it with chip. i think in english, that's the passive noun where if the sentence started out with the name of the person, that would be more active. e.g. chip and i are going to the store to buy milk etc.
now, i thought about this and that could mean a few things. for one, maybe she's trying to convince me that this life will make her happy and she's just trying to slip the douchebag in there like i'm not going to notice. kinda like a list of things that are in the fridge that you could eat for dinner "honey, i have steak or baked beans or pork chops or worm castings and rotten cabbage" to which the reply would be "sounds great".
... and yes, i did just compare chip to worm castings and rotten cabbage.
another reason for the blah blah blah, oh and with chip sentence structure could be that she just wants this perfect life that she's been dreaming about forever and ever and she's got it all planned out and the best candidate for right now is that guy over there that she keeps sleeping with because she can't find anyone better.
i don't know. as the night progressed she called up chip and said that we were going to bed right then when she knew we weren't and then her fake confession that she has a problem with lying and she doesn't know why.
duh.
if you are dating a boy that hates when you talk to other boys and gets mad at you when you do, are you really going to tell him who you talk to?
i just don't understand how you can really build a relationship on being excited about watching two nights of american idol together on your flat screen.
le sigh, so that's my sister and this is my frustration. sometimes i think that if i can just put it down on paper, these calculations would jump out at me and tell me how to proceed or that there is some sort of pattern that i could take and dodge for the next time or something. but alas, here i am thinking -on one hand - but on the other hand- with little if no resolve. i do know that it bothers me and i'm in the same position that i'm always in; if i say too much, she retreats and doesn't talk, but if i say nothing then will i lose her completely?
damned if i do, damned if i don't.
Friday, May 11, 2007
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
may 2nd
So it's the second of may already, sheesh. I'm waking up slowly today. The coffee maker is groaning and hissing at me and the window beside me is leaking in just a bit of morning air. I have that just showered clean feeling, which isn't going to last long as I have to go to work in the greenhouse today and by the end of the day, I'm usually covered head to toe in 3 different types of potting soil and I've watered my feet more than I have the plants. I'm a terribly clumsey person and I'm extatic that all I've dropped so far have been hearty plants that just kinda bounce and I just sweep up a little dirt.
Collage night on Monday was fun. I like getting out a ton of magazines and strewing them all over the floor while drinking wine. Bethani brought her new friend Nick and he has really interesting stories about working with deaf kids and camping, which was nice for Jason as meeting interesting people who actually do stuff around here is rare. Norm came along too and I guess he is getting along with his girlfriend and feeling better about himself. He sent out the demo to a couple of places, which was cool, and he's excited about the new ducks that I got him for his mom for her birthday. It's going to be funny to see what he constructs for a duck house as he is not very construction savvy. Maybe his dad will lend him a hand.
Also, last friday Jason and I took a trip up to Amish country to pick up 30 turkeys. He kinda scared me as on the way there, it sounded like he was getting nervous and didn't want to do it. It was all my idea and I've been talking about it forever and I was really excited to meet a guy who was close that would sell me birds for 4.50 each instead of having them shipped from a hatchery for 7.50 each plus shipping. So I ordered thirty and the trek up there was a real pain in the ass. He was going to meet us in mount hope to deliver Norm's ducks and the 30 heritage breed turkeys. He got a flat and couldn't meet us up on Friday, so we drove around Amish country staring at the scenery. I agreed to trek back up there Saturday before work (I had a training meeting at 8:30am) and I was hoping that Jason would go with me, which he did, however sleepy eyed he might have been.
The birds are beautiful already and they look like very smart, quiet birds. While I was at work that day, Jason did some research on heritage breed turkeys and found that they are under this international blanket preservation group called slow foods. Nearly 90% of all the birds sold in America are Broad Breasted, which is a hybrid turkey that cannot fly or mate naturally and has terrible health problems associated with rapid growth. Most storebought turkeys are constantly fed antibiotics as a preventative measure to try to keep as many turkeys alive in as small of space they can, thereby maximizing products. The downfall to the factory farmed turkey is that their extra white meat and large breasts have little if any taste, and that's not even mentioning the quality of life for the bird. The good thing about heritage breeds is that they are naturally pretty disease resistant to the North American climate and are very agile and hearty birds. The bad thing about heritage breeds is that they are slow growers and it is hard to turn a dime or even cover your losses unless people are willing to forego the 59cent per pound freezer turkeys for the 4.50 per pound price of a heritage breed.
The crazy thing about all of this is that turkeys raised on pastures or "grass fed" turkeys go for a lot higher. Jason printed out something from a website that a grass fed heritage breed turkey similar to the one that we raised and ate last year (our dearly departed Doug) would have sold at a price of $143.87. Dang.
So after all of this research and learning about the Narragannsett turkeys that I bought (they are gorgeous full grown) Jason was really excited as well.
Now the funny trick to all this is that I never told my parents about this endeavor. Dad says no more birds and mom said that Doug broke her heart. I say I found a place that will kill them for $5 per bird so I don't have to and we've got the room and I've got the time and we all have certainly got the market. So Jason printed out some price sheets from what other people were selling their turkeys for, some were just broad breasted grass fed turkeys going for about a hundred dollars and some printouts were just talking about the slow foods movement. He highlighted the prices and put the $143.87 one on the top and while I was up at my parents house, I just happened to leave it on a counter in the breakfast room. We had the turkeys in grandma's basement for a few days and no one knew it. Jason kept saying that no one has ever been that close to 30 turkeys and not known it before. But then during Sunday night dinner with grandpa, dad brought up my meat birds that are grazing out in the field and how much more he would pay for those birds and that's when I happened to bring up how much our dear old Doug would have cost us. My whole family started chattering, my mom kept saying that Doug was delicious, the best turkey she's ever eaten and I put the articles on the table. My dad started leafing through them and musing about one thing or another, not really picking up on the fact that I already had 30 of them peeping in grandma's basement and even stoic grandpa seemed impressed by the birds while repulsed at what dumb people will spend their money on these days.... but of course, that's coming from a "millionaire" who eats meat out of a can.
A few days later, dad said that he has a mind to let a bunch of turkeys run around grandpa's place out in the country and mom was cackling with her friends about how delicious Doug was some more. Jason just gave me a high five and grinned at our cleaverness.
In any case, I've got thirty turkeys in my grandma's basement and I just made them an outdoor enclosure, so they are getting out and seeing the sun today.
Ok, time to get to my feeding rounds. In other news, everything else is going quite well.
Collage night on Monday was fun. I like getting out a ton of magazines and strewing them all over the floor while drinking wine. Bethani brought her new friend Nick and he has really interesting stories about working with deaf kids and camping, which was nice for Jason as meeting interesting people who actually do stuff around here is rare. Norm came along too and I guess he is getting along with his girlfriend and feeling better about himself. He sent out the demo to a couple of places, which was cool, and he's excited about the new ducks that I got him for his mom for her birthday. It's going to be funny to see what he constructs for a duck house as he is not very construction savvy. Maybe his dad will lend him a hand.
Also, last friday Jason and I took a trip up to Amish country to pick up 30 turkeys. He kinda scared me as on the way there, it sounded like he was getting nervous and didn't want to do it. It was all my idea and I've been talking about it forever and I was really excited to meet a guy who was close that would sell me birds for 4.50 each instead of having them shipped from a hatchery for 7.50 each plus shipping. So I ordered thirty and the trek up there was a real pain in the ass. He was going to meet us in mount hope to deliver Norm's ducks and the 30 heritage breed turkeys. He got a flat and couldn't meet us up on Friday, so we drove around Amish country staring at the scenery. I agreed to trek back up there Saturday before work (I had a training meeting at 8:30am) and I was hoping that Jason would go with me, which he did, however sleepy eyed he might have been.
The birds are beautiful already and they look like very smart, quiet birds. While I was at work that day, Jason did some research on heritage breed turkeys and found that they are under this international blanket preservation group called slow foods. Nearly 90% of all the birds sold in America are Broad Breasted, which is a hybrid turkey that cannot fly or mate naturally and has terrible health problems associated with rapid growth. Most storebought turkeys are constantly fed antibiotics as a preventative measure to try to keep as many turkeys alive in as small of space they can, thereby maximizing products. The downfall to the factory farmed turkey is that their extra white meat and large breasts have little if any taste, and that's not even mentioning the quality of life for the bird. The good thing about heritage breeds is that they are naturally pretty disease resistant to the North American climate and are very agile and hearty birds. The bad thing about heritage breeds is that they are slow growers and it is hard to turn a dime or even cover your losses unless people are willing to forego the 59cent per pound freezer turkeys for the 4.50 per pound price of a heritage breed.
The crazy thing about all of this is that turkeys raised on pastures or "grass fed" turkeys go for a lot higher. Jason printed out something from a website that a grass fed heritage breed turkey similar to the one that we raised and ate last year (our dearly departed Doug) would have sold at a price of $143.87. Dang.
So after all of this research and learning about the Narragannsett turkeys that I bought (they are gorgeous full grown) Jason was really excited as well.
Now the funny trick to all this is that I never told my parents about this endeavor. Dad says no more birds and mom said that Doug broke her heart. I say I found a place that will kill them for $5 per bird so I don't have to and we've got the room and I've got the time and we all have certainly got the market. So Jason printed out some price sheets from what other people were selling their turkeys for, some were just broad breasted grass fed turkeys going for about a hundred dollars and some printouts were just talking about the slow foods movement. He highlighted the prices and put the $143.87 one on the top and while I was up at my parents house, I just happened to leave it on a counter in the breakfast room. We had the turkeys in grandma's basement for a few days and no one knew it. Jason kept saying that no one has ever been that close to 30 turkeys and not known it before. But then during Sunday night dinner with grandpa, dad brought up my meat birds that are grazing out in the field and how much more he would pay for those birds and that's when I happened to bring up how much our dear old Doug would have cost us. My whole family started chattering, my mom kept saying that Doug was delicious, the best turkey she's ever eaten and I put the articles on the table. My dad started leafing through them and musing about one thing or another, not really picking up on the fact that I already had 30 of them peeping in grandma's basement and even stoic grandpa seemed impressed by the birds while repulsed at what dumb people will spend their money on these days.... but of course, that's coming from a "millionaire" who eats meat out of a can.
A few days later, dad said that he has a mind to let a bunch of turkeys run around grandpa's place out in the country and mom was cackling with her friends about how delicious Doug was some more. Jason just gave me a high five and grinned at our cleaverness.
In any case, I've got thirty turkeys in my grandma's basement and I just made them an outdoor enclosure, so they are getting out and seeing the sun today.
Ok, time to get to my feeding rounds. In other news, everything else is going quite well.
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