I used to be able to write messages with numbers on a beeper.

How uncool am I now? I just had to look to Google to interpret a text from a mother of three.

Spring is in the Air

Spring is in the air.
The snow is melting.
There was a spider in my bathroom.
I did not need a scarf today.
I followed a rat down the sidewalk on the way home from pilates.
Can't wait for this guy to come back.....


Had lots of these last year. They crawl on the walls and ceiling too. Eww.

Mokey Pood on My Bed

So last night we were all having our after work play time. I was catching up on missed tv shows on the computer and the girls were wrestling on my bed. All of a sudden I heard a squeak. Not the dooking squeak but the "ouch" squeak. I gave my usual response of yelling, "Girls!" That's usually sufficient enough to break up the wrestling into a run and chase.

But this time I heard nothing. No more squeaks, no running, nobody jumping down from the bed. Just like if you have children, you know a sudden silence means something sinister is going on. So I pause Modern Family, and go into my room.

I immediately see two ferrets and a pile of poo on my quilt. Fawn is in her usual nonchalant stance. She looks at me as I enter then saunters toward the poop, sniffs it, and returns a look to me. I'm pretty sure if I were in fact dealing with kids, Fawn would be the tattle tail. She always seems to be around mayhem with this look of "Look Mom, look what she did. I didn't do it, but she did."

Poor Mokey is sadly in her usual stance - when she has done something wrong, or more broadly, when she is terrified. Mokey is frozen like a deer in headlights. This stance tells me she did it (I figured anyway) and that she knows its a bad thing. I don't know what Mokey experienced before she came here, but I know it was bad. Sometimes I wonder to what extreme due to her behavior and the fact that her fears are still so strong after a whole abuse free year here at Disney a la Ferret.

Anyway, she's in complete statue mode. I check to see how bad by using one finger to touch the top of her head. She doesn't move, doesn't flinch, its as if this action isn't taking place. I move the nosy Fawn onto the floor and say to Mokey a few words in my deep serious voice. Yes, I still disciplined her. I liked that she looked at me and listened while I told her no pooping on mommy's bed. She wasn't afraid of me while I disciplined her. This shows how far we've come!

In the past she would have hid under the couch for hours and I would have had to pretend to be asleep in the other room before she'd ever show herself again. Then I'd have to catch her and she'd bit me -those good horribly painful break-the-skin bites. Anyway, after a few words I put her on the floor and began cleaning up my comforter. The ferrets hovered around on the floor. After all was cleaned up, Mokey came right up to my feet for attention. Now we're getting to some normalcy. You can do bad things, I will discipline you, and then it goes back to everybody loves each other. And most importantly, nobody gets hurt here. I tell Mokey that all the time.

She still has a few episodes now and then. Just this past month it happened two times, that I moved while she was playing which caught her off guard and she was scrambling under the couch and refusing to come out.

Baby steps....Baby steps

Snowstorm 2011

Otherwise known as "a storm of epic proportions" and a "thundersnow."

My street

This storm brought with it the usual school closings, power outages, and loss of cable and internet. Some of the more interesting characteristics is that we have -so far- reached number 3 on the Chicago's Biggest Snowstorm list with 20inches. We still have about 1 hour of heavy snowfall left.

Snow drifts cover the Church steps

The best part has been that I've experienced my first thundersnow! It was amazing. At first I thought it was the L or a truck rumbling, but it was a thundersnow! About an hour later lightening was added.

Lakeshore drive suddenly became overwhelmed with snow, and two accidents which brought full traffic to a complete standstill. It took up to 7 hours for security to evacuate everyone out of the cars on mopeds. The footage looks like that -was it a Steven King movie - where most everyone died and a few people were walking around and all the cars were just sitting there in the streets. This happened at about 4:30. It started snowing at 2:00. That's how fast the snow came down. Everyone started scrambling home once it hit. I was walking home at 3:00 being pelted in the eyes by 50mile an hour snow pellets and occasionally being blown off course. Take a look at this car outside my apartment.


Last night I heard the sound of a stuck car trying to move through the snow. I had to get up and peek. I figured someone was trying to pull out of a parking spot that had been plowed in. Nope, this idiot was just trying to drive down my unplowed side street. He was stuck, rocking back and forth, in the middle of the road. (Not the car in the photo, that's parked.)

Another fun snow fact is that the snow drifts have actually reached up to 7feet! I ventured outside a little bit ago. I had to see it, and preferably before later tonight when it may reach as low as 30below with the windchill. Now we are comfortably in the teens. Although there was still pelting going on and I'm no fan of being pelted in the face whether its snow, rain, or dirt kicked up by the wind, so it was a short venture. I started by venturing out the back door.


My two bottom steps were covered. When I stepped off onto the sidewalk, I sunk all the way down to my thigh! My knee high boots fell a little short of the job.

You can't even see my boot down there.

I hiked through my building ally out to the street ally.

This is the street ally. You can see that the snow comes halfway up some garages.


I walked up against the apartment buildings on the side of another huge drift, just short of my waist to the main road that had been plowed. I snapped some shots, took some videos, and reached my limit for adventure and headed back. I went in the front door this time, choosing to pass on wading through another snow drift.

This is what was once my sidewalk.

Some people have been seen out on skis, gliding down the plowed streets. About 60,000 people are without power, and many without cable or internet (like my brother and sister-in-law who are working from Starbucks.). Luckily I am sitting in my well heated apartment, lights on, television informing, and typing away on my blog, and enjoying the day off :)

Oh, yeah, visibility. At one point this morning, visibility at Midway airport was .o6 miles or one sixteenth of a mile. That's what we call a white-out!

Another interesting snow issue we've encountered is that there is too much snow to plow out of the way, aside from it just blowing back onto the roads and still falling, they may have to bring in melters to melt it down to make more room. Who knew they had melters for situations like this?

Reports coming in from the western suburbs say that the sky has cleared to a point where the sun can be seen. Repeat, the sun has been spotted in the suburbs. This storm has an end. It appears we will hold the #3 spot for Chicago's Biggest Snowstorms.

Ahh, the memories

Fawn the Flying Ferret

So I come home today to find it is the day Comcast went digital. My tv is the first thing I go to when I come home -yes even before the ferrets get let out. I think the tv announces my presents to them. Anyway, my tv says something along the lines of "If you can see this message, your tv has not been prepared for Comcast's awesome digitalness. Call 1-888-some-thing." Now I had the DTA or Digital Transport Adapter, but hadn't hooked it up. I couldn't figure out why I needed it since I have a brand new HD tv. Why did I have to buy that if I need converters-oh, well, I guess transmitters, anyway? Well, my brother insisted I shouldn't need anything either, so I said I'd wait and see what happened. Looking back that was not the best choice I've ever made, considering I start to get the shakes within minutes of being home and not having the tv on. Has nothing to do with watching it or not. It must be on at all times if I am awake!

So I set to work hooking it up, trying to remain calm as invisible psychologically induced spiders are crawling up my back and I'm beginning to twitch slightly. All is hooked up and for the final step I must call a Comcast machine to activate me. I do this and now I have one channel. My one channel is in analog and its the Chicago Works station. This type of programing does not calm the psychotic creepy crawlies. Meanwhile my brother, who I can only assume is trying to defuse the situation, is sending me comically inspired texts. My family jokes during times of crisis. It helps me when I'm sad. Not when I'm mad!

So where does a flying ferret come into all of this? I have to call Comcast again - who is experiencing a high volume of calls - Really? Not surprising. Anyway, the lady is talking me through some vital steps. Fawn starts biting my ankles. I keep moving away, lifting up victim legs intermittently. I sit on the ottoman, lifting legs, pushing Fawn away, all while trying to focus and follow instructions. Now I'm trying to do the thing where you aim the remote at the tv and wait for the flashing light and then press a series of numbers. Fawn will have no more of being ignored! She climbs up on top of her toy trunk and jumps! Through the air and lands clinging to my hand - with remote! She doesn't fall. I have to remove her. Once in a life time - America's Funniest Home Videos, right? Wrong. She continues to do this leap through the air, land clinging to my hand several more times.

I never got the remote programmed. Now I use two remotes for different jobs aimed at different devices. Great! The one thing Fawn goes feral for is the remote. Now I need to keep two of them away from her. Welcome to the future where everything is more complicated, more expensive, breaks sooner, and provides poorer quality. Oh, and the program still doesn't fill my screen! Its all still square! Can I return this tv and declare shenanigans?

I'm Still a VIRGO!

Whew!

Its Just a Game

When I was a kid you could say pretty much anything except bad words. These bad words consisted only of cuss words. We could run around teasingly calling each other retards, or tards for short. And everyone loved the midgets on Wizard of Oz. The worst, most embarrassing thing a kid could do when I was little was to yell out in the grocery store or bank, "Hey Mommy, that lady is fat!"

Now kids are expected to not only omit the cuss words, but all the bad words, which now include every word that can possibly be offensive to any group of people anywhere on the planet. Yes, tard is definitely out. Thanks to pollitically correct cartoons, kids as young as two are aware of physical differences, familiar with the look of wheel chairs, and aware that disabilities are just one more thing that makes a person special.

When I was little I played a card game called Old Maid. Sure, kids still play that today, but a different version. However, the original version is still sold. I played this card game with a group of kids and a fellow nanny friend in a coffee shop a while ago. In case you have forgotten, this deck on politically incorrect Old Maid includes the lovable characters of Midget Man - and to equally represent the sexes - Midget Lady, there's Fat Lady - the one you're not supposed to yell out about while in line at the bank - and to make her feel worse, there's Thin Man. Not to be forgotten are the Animal Rummy characters of Sassy Squirrel and his friend Gay Dog.

If this doesn't sound bad to you, try naming them to a two year old as he brings each card to you and asks you, "What's this?" You - "Oh Honey, that's a Fat Lady and a Midget Man." Even a small child knows not to call someone fat. And you don't want the other patrons in the coffee house to overhear you explaining what midget means to the newest generation. This word has also joined the new list of bad words along with retard and fat. "What's a gay dog?" That's a question better left to an episode of South Park.

My favorite old beloved childhood story changed to a politically correct version is Larry The Cable Guy's version of "Little Red Riding Hood." Watch it here /www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0PZ31SF7rY The video continues on after the story, I don't know why, with some alphabet burping, which I am not a fan of.