Category Archives: Family Matters

My Ovlov

I love my Volvo. It’s a 1987, white, 740 model that’s been in my family since, well, 1987. You see, my parents bought the Ovlov when I was still in grade school. It was the first new car we had bought since moving to California from Texas. I learned to drive on that Volvo. It dropped me off at school and dances, took me shopping with mom, and to my boyfriend’s house during the summer. Since our other vehicle was a truck that only fit two, the Volvo was our main mode of transportation. When my parents decided it was time for a new car, they went back to the Volvo dealer last year and shipped the old Ovlov to me and Kevin.

Of course, I didn’t always love the Volvo. I attended a private school set in the affluent hills of Palos Verdes. My mom worked at the school so we got a break in tuition. I remember when my friends began to turn sixteen, driving became the rage. Everyone seemed to be getting these little red sports cars – CRX, Preludes, Integras. When I turned sixteen, I got to drive the Volvo. I think I was the only person who had to borrow the family car to go anywhere. Either that or bum a ride. It seemed everyone else had their own set of wheels. I didn’t really mind it back then. Since everyone had a car it was easy enough to find someone willing to pick me up. I was the ultimate passenger person.

I remember after Heather got her license, she came to pick me up for the first time. I think I was her first passenger. Before hopping into her car, my mom requested that Heather pass another driving test. Only this time, my mom was sitting in the front seat while Heather drove her around our block. I guess she didn’t run any stop signs because my mom let me take off with her. Heather was always really cool about picking me up to go places and she never minded swinging by my house.

But in high school, the Volvo just wasn’t cool. I always felt a little strange pulling up in my four-door squeaking family car. Everyone else would hop into their little new cars are race off while I was left behind. Lets just say 740 Volvos aren’t known for their rapid acceleration. On the flip side, I never got pulled over for speeding either and my mom felt very safe knowing if there was a crash, I was in the old safety box car.

But now, I have a new found respect for the Volvo. Now, I am the envy on my friends. The Volvo, with its leather seating and seat warmers, is a favorite. Four doors with plenty of head and leg room, we find ourselves preferring the old Volvo to my little Civic. Sure, it doesn’t go as fast but you don’t have to contort yourself to get in or out of it either. And Kevin, in particular, has fallen in love with the Volvo. He even has a special pair of sunglasses he keeps in the car because he thinks he looks cool wearing them and driving the Ovlov. And the compliments! People just love the old 740.

It’s been the perfect car so far but the other day, the heater fan stopped working. After our plumbing triumph, we are going to try and fix it ourselves this weekend. But this time, we have my dad’s cell phone number just in case we need advise from an expert.

I can’t imagine not having that car and sometimes, late at night on a long road trip, as I nod off to sleep in the passenger seat, I can almost see my dad driving next to me and my sister asleep in the back seat just like always.

Brother Chris is Here

Brother Chris rolled into town last night. He is just like Kevin only with a dash of rebel, a pinch of extra charm and a whole lot of trouble. He absolutely cracks me up and is the wild boy of the family. He went to the Culinary Institute here in Portland and is an incredible chef. But after a year or so in the kitchen, wander lust kicked in and he headed for Big Sky country. That’s right, he’s now a Montana man. During the winter, he works at a ski lodge, in the summer he’s employed at a dude ranch, and during the fall, he’s a bar tender. I asked if he knew all sorts of mixed drinks but he just laughed and told me everyone in Montana drinks beer. His job is to pop the tops and break up the brawls. What a character.

He’s in town with his dog, Daisy Duke. Artie, of course, immediately began harassing her. Poor thing. She had barely made it through the door when Artie when into his Big Bad Dog routine. Actually, Artie doesn’t know this but Daisy is the reason he was adopted. During the summers, Chris used to head up to Alaska for salmon fishing. He’d hop a boat and have an intense few weeks of non-stop hauling during which time we babysat Daisy. She was so sweet and gentle that when he came home and re-claimed her, there was an eerie silence that we just had to fill. Artie could be her brother they look so alike. Only Daisy is bigger looks like she’s part greyhound. Chris thinks she is a Catahoula mixed with some Great Dane or Dalmation. Artie is a little chunker and is probably Catahoula/pitbull or rottie. Stocky and tough next to Daisy’s lanky grace. Anyhow, they’ve been out rough housing in the back yard which is fun to watch via the WebCam.

And, of course, this weekend in the big wedding. Kev’s dad is getting remarried on Saturday and the relatives are beginning to slowly trickle in. Should be a nice party and, as always, the best part will be seeing all the aunts, uncles, and cousins. Got Kevin a “shark skin” suit and he thinks he is the stuff. Actually, he does look pretty good but I don’t tell him that for fear of totally swelling his head. He’s worried I’m going to hold him back. As if.

Oh yes, this reminds of a story. (Sorry Kev but I’ve got to get this one off my chest.) When my parents last visited, they dumped a bunch of my stuff from highschool in the basement. I was looking through old photos and letters one night with Kevin. When we got to my old Prom picture, Kevin remarked with surprise…”Wow, you used to be a hottie!”

Now, one thing this whole marriage deal has taught me is patience. I’ve learned that 99.9% of our fights are really just mis-communications that can be avoided by not getting offended by off-hand remarks. I find that if I give Kevin a chance to explain/back peddle, quite a bit of heartache can be avoided.

“What do you mean I used to be a hottie?” I calmly replied, giving him a change to dig his way out of the gapping hole he had dropped into.

“I never knew you could look this good,” he began sinking further into the pit of no return, “too bad I didn’t know you in high school.” He then wandered off oblivious to fact that I was mentally debating the merits of burying a body six feet under vs four feet. Of course, this is the same man who comes home, looks at me, and asks, “Where you wearing that outfit this morning?” Kevin’s level of observation is pretty low – as far as I can tell his ability to differentiate ends at clothed v. naked. Anything more subtle than that is lost on him. So I consoled myself with the knowledge that at least I was once a hottie. Even if my husband doesn’t think I am anymore. Sniff.

The Pooka Life

It’s still slow here and since I’ll be gone this weekend, I’ll leave you all with an extra post to help get you through the weekend.

I’m the world’s biggest snoop. If I every tire of my current career, I’m going to become a private investigator because I just love spying on people. I’m not sure where I developed this habit but I just can’t stop myself.

I love walking Artie right now. It’s cold out but not rainy yet and beginning to get dark earlier. If I take him out around 8pm, I find most people have their lights on and curtains open. It’s dark enough outside that I have a nicely lit stage to peer into as I stroll by. And I simply love doing it. I like to see what people are doing, how they decorate their house, what’s on their wall. And then I try to figure out what type of people they are. It fascinates me and I can spend well over an hour strolling around with my dog playing peeping tom.

The same holds true with my friends. Never, never, never, leave me alone in your house. I’m simply too dangerous. Forgot your jacket? I’m more than willing to pop by your house and pick it up. Of course, I’ll have to rifle through your refrigerator while I’m there. Need someone to water your plants while you’re out of town? I’m your gal so long as you don’t mind me snooping through your medicine cabinet. I’ve actually developed a quick snoop technique that’s quite amazing. I can rifle through a pile of papers in the time it takes you to pop into the kitchen and refill my glass.

Normally, my labors are all for naught as most of my friends are normal people with normal lives but I always maintain the hope of some day hitting the jack pot and finding strange photos or old love journals stashed away somewhere. I think I may plant notes around my own house just in case I have a guest with my own fetish.

Actually, now that I think about it, I remember playing this game with my sister. We’d leave a trail of cryptic notes throughout the house. You’d start with note 1 that would say something like “Now you’ve started the game and the trail isn’t to hot but you can pick up your next clue if you look in the pot.” Then you’d go into the kitchen and look through all the pots until you found the next clue. We loved this game. It would take one person a good hour or so to come up with all the riddles and hiding placed but we’d amuse ourselves for hours.

Man, don’t even get me started on all the crazy games we played as kids. I think I’d be a much more normal person if I was allowed to watch more TV. Maybe then I wouldn’t have to work so hard trying to suppress my desire to steam open the mail that is mis-delivered to my house. At lease I have my dog to help purge my system but someday I’ll be McLaughlin, P.I. You just wait and see. (Obviously, I have read one too many Janet Evanovich novels and need professional help.)

The Pooka Life

When I started this blog, I had two concerns.

Would anyone read it?

Could I make it interesting?
As I have started typing down my thoughts, I find I worry less and less if anyone else sees this. I mean, I have no way of knowing who’s accessing this site. This is the joy and the curse of the Internet. I could have hundreds of thousands of people whose only reason for getting out of bed in the morning is the knowledge that there’ll be a new entry here. Or, it could be the only person looking at this is my mom. (Hi mommy!)

But since I have a very strange mind that I have been told is like a bad neighborhood which one should not walk through alone at night, I began to worry. What if I posted something negative about someone and, some how, they found this site and read it? Then I thought, nah, I’m just being paranoid. There are a gazillion sites out there. What are odds that the one person I don’t want to read this WILL read it? But the thought lingered in my mind.

So I started this blog and, unbeknownst to anyone else, I also started another blog. A secret blog.

Pooka Thoughts was my Dr. Jekyll, the tales of the good life, suitable to be read by small children, domestic animals and my mom. (Hi mommy!) But the other blog, that was my Mr. Hyde. There I let loose and named names. I called it like I felt and with no regard to who would every read it since it was hidden behind the sheer number of weblogs out there. I figured the odds of anyone I knew actually finding that journal were worse than me winning money at Vegas. With odds like that, I felt invincible.

So I was surfing around the ‘net today trying to learn more about this whole weblog thing and I come across this article about how to make a good web journal. The information seemed pretty innocuous. Don’t have lots of pictures that drag down the load time, use a spell checker, don’t posts thoughts that start “I have nothing to post” and, here’s the kicker, don’t post anything you don’t want the world to know. Whoa there Nelly! What was that all about? So I stop skimming and actually read that paragraph. The author said that no matter what you think, if there is someone out there you don’t want to read your thoughts, rest assured, they will find them. If you are putting something on a website, it will be read and it will be found. If you want to write intimate or private thoughts, do it in a journal. Don’t put it on a public access site.

Now this scared me. I quickly popped over to Hyde and began to read. I counting the number of people I didn’t want to read Hyde and when I ran out of fingers, I realized I could be in trouble. I mean, here I am venting about my boss and co-works, complaining about acquaintances and uncovering feelings I thought long dead. If any of this got out, I would never live it down.

So I did the only sensible thing. I deleted it. That’s right, no back up copy was kept, no print outs made. I decided a public forum for private thoughts was a very very bad idea. I have decided to write them in my journal which can be hidden safely in my house. Perhaps this journal would be more interesting or read by more people but I’ll never know and that’s fine by me.

Which reminds me to post about my addiction to snooping. But my stomach is rumbling so maybe, if things stay slow here, I’ll get to that after lunch.

(Bye Mommy! Thanks for reading!)

Bed Sneak

I have to stop drinking tea before I go to bed. It seems like a good idea to curl up with a pot of warm tea and a book or a bad made for tv movie but my poor bladder just can’t make it through the night. This wouldn’t be that big of a deal except in my crazy house.

So I’m lying in bed and it’s 4am. I’ve been having dreams where I’m trying to find a restroom but not having any luck. – – Random side note, I’m constantly amazed how your brain can take present environments and put them seamlessly into your dreams. My brain can meld buzzing alarms, radios, lawn mowers, even trash collectors into my dreams which allows me to sleep through just about anything. Ask Kevin, he can attest to this one.- – So after a few minutes of dreaming about restrooms, I decided to put my bladder out of its misery and opened my eyes.

First thing I saw was Artie. He was sitting right next to me. He’s a big dog so when he sits next to the bed, he’s eye to eye to anyone lying on the bed. Now I found this to be a little weird. I mean, why is my dog watching me at 4am??? (He was also smacking his lips but I think he was trying to get rid of his morning breath which, believe me, is pretty horrendous.) But I was pretty groggy and didn’t give it much thought. I rolled out of bed and headed for the nearest bathroom.

In my house, the master bedroom is a converted attic that takes up the entire top floor. It’s a pretty big room but there isn’t a bathroom up there. You have to go down the stairs to the main floor to find the nearest toilet. We plan on someday adding a bath upstairs but it’s pretty low on the to-do list.

Now, I believe there are two types of night people. Those who will turn on the light when they have to get up in the middle of the night and those who prefer to stumble around in the dark. I fall into the latter category. I’d rather keep the lights off and bang my shins than suffer the bright harsh light. This means, in my sleepy state, I took the stairs down to the bathroom very slowly. By the time I had gotten down the stairs, tinkled, and groped my way back to bed, it was too late. All I could think of was that line from Simon & Garfunkles’ CECLIA… I got up to wash my face, when I come back to bed someone’s taken my place…

Yup, you guessed it. Artie was sprawled out right on my side of the bed. As I said, he’s a very big dog and there simply isn’t enough room for myself, Kevin, the cats and the dog. I tried to wedge myself pack in and subtly schooch him off but he wasn’t falling for it. Since he clocks in around 90 lbs, when he wants to stay put there isn’t much you can do.

After my futile struggle to regain my spot, I did the only thing I could. I stumbled back down the stairs and slept in the guest room. Blitz joined me – she’s the only one who really loves me. Kevin didn’t start looking for me until 7:20am. What can I say, Artie is a great snuggler – obviously I wasn’t missed.

So learn from my mistakes. If you wake up in the middle of the night and find your dog watching you, whatever you do, don’t get out of bed.

The Pooka Life

Went with the boots today. Kevin walked by as I was slipping into them and said – “ah, the ubiquitous black boots, every woman should have a pair.” Huh? Is that my Kevin? Usually his comments range from “what’s for dinner” to “would it be ok if I went and played on the computer”. Since when did he develop a fashion vocabulary? Upon further questioning, I learned that he has been reading my fashion magazines. What a goof.

I’ve also got him hooked on Sex and the City. We don’t have HBO but I found out that you can rent the old season at the local video store. So I picked one up thinking I could watch it while Kevin played computer. Only, he ended up watching one episode with me and got hooked. He went out and rented the whole season and we watched something like 20 episodes in a week. It was crazy! Kevin’s favorite is Miranda which surprised me. I think she’s my favorite as well. I loved the episode where she bought an apartment by herself and ended up overfeeding her cat for zany reasons. But I’m digressing here….

Kevin is a very simple and sweet person. He is the quintessential engineer – very smart but sort of off in his own world. Our old friend Shanda said that if Kevin where an animal, he’d be a manatee. Kevin wanted to be something a little more exciting but I think manatee is a pretty good match. They are considered gentle giants of the sea – you never hear about anyone getting attacked by raging manatees. This animal naming has sort of stuck and every now and then someone sends us a manatee postcard or stuffed animal much to Kevin’s dismay.

But the thing I wanted to blog about most regarding Kevin is the fact that yesterday he saved a dog’s life. Now, I think if you save an animal’s life, you get some sort of extra bonus points that you can cash in later. He was out walking Artie last night and they went past the park. It was dark but Kevin could see a bunch of dogs running around. It was looking like a wild pack so Kev decided just to keep on walking but one big dog saw Artie and started running across the park. Now, normally, this would be no big deal except Kevin and Artie were walking across the street from the park. As the dog came up to the street, Kevin realized two things. 1) The dog was going to run across the street and 2) there was a car coming very fast down the street. So he did the only thing he could, he jumped into the street and started waiving his hands yelling – “Look out! Stop! Look out!” The must have freaked out the driver to have a person jump in front of his car because he slowed down and was able to see and stop the car in time. Kevin says there was about 1 foot between the car and the dog.

The owner comes running out of the park and Kevin goes ballistic. He starts yelling at the guy – “DO YOU WANT TO KILL YOUR DOG??? DO YOU??? KEEP HIM ON A LEASH!!!” I guess I should explain by saying a few weeks ago this exact same scenario played out only the results were much worse. Kevin & Artie on one side of the street, dog off leash on the other, dog runs across street only this time Kevin couldn’t stop the car. He heard a squeal of tire, a thud, and yelp of the dog as the car hit it. It traumatized him horribly. So when it happened again last night, Kevin lost his cool on the owner. The sad part is, the guy didn’t seem that upset by the whole thing which only made Kevin angrier.

I know we tend to treat our dogs like they are little people but they aren’t. If they see a cat or another dog or even a squirrel they will run. They don’t understand cars or roads. To them, it’s just a chase and there is nothing you can do except yell and watch. For this reason Artie *never* goes outside unless he is on leash. It’s our responsibility to take care of him and we take that very seriously. If we want to let him run, we either take him somewhere fenced in or off into the wilds where there are no cars to jeopardize him. Have you ever seen a mother or father with a kid near a road? They have a protective death grip on the child, constantly aware that at any moment their kid could try and dart across the street. In my book, the same is true with your dog.