Hark! The Mayor is Calling!

That's right. On Friday, the Mayor of Our Fair City called and asked me to reconsider the Chamber job. Said to at least get through the interviews and, if I still wanted to say no, of course I could.

Apparently, there was a meeting about it while I was at a sustainable agriculture conference in Western City. Can you believe all the fuss about little 'ol me?

Actually, it's not just me. It's also about the potential to merge two part-time jobs--one of which I hold--into one good full-time job. The Mayor mentioned $35,000 per year. I'll go for more, and much built-in flexibility. That is an absolute must.

I'm still torn about it. I need time to grow a big garden, take care of all the animals and the boys, shop, cook, all that stuff. And the shop is starting to do very well! Kevin is here on Saturdays now and gets a big crowd (relative to the other days of the week). Who knew there were so many monument browsers? So we'd have to hire someone--I'm thinking a newly-retired person (Mom? Dave?)

But, on the good side, $35,000 (or more) when you have no mortgage (yet) means a lot of money to sock towards credit card bills. If the shop keeps on kicking and I can put most of my paycheck towards the evil ones, we should be able to pay everything off in a year-and-a-half or so, and not be taking money out of the shop to pay for them. Two years to cover the student loan, too. I would say that I'll stick it out at least until we're out of debt, but then I'd be out the tourism job, and I really like the tourism job. So I hope 1. we can work out favorable terms (including health insurance or more $ and no insurance), 2. I get the job, and 3. I like it and can live up to expectations.

And I won't lie and say that it's not flattering that the Mayor called and asked me to put my hat back in the ring. It is flattering.

I've got to finish my ppt. for New York--taking off tomorrow morning. Yes, I'm gone three days for a 1-hour presentation. And I'm doing the exact same thing next weekend, in another school in Western NY. Isn't that nuts?

It's Easter. I'm working. It's still pretty cold outside.

And...that's a wrap.

Or, it should be, because I don't have much to say. It's been a low-key weekend. Stevie has beaten me at Monopoly twice in two days, the little punk! When I ask for a re-match, he says no because "it's getting too easy". Mm hmm.

I'd say the weekend was "peaceful" if I didn't have a presentation looming, and have to come into the shop on a Sunday afternoon to prepare for it. One hour to sell a book mostly based on its superior technology, and none of its technology components are available. I'm diving into old presentations, creating one huge mishmash of ppt. slides, trying to decide which to keep, which (mostly duplicates) to delete, and which still need creating. And then wondering if I should scrap this tired old outline and start fresh. We all want to see new, cool, truly interesting ppt. presentations, and are rarely rewarded. That's because it takes a shitload of time to create them. It doesn't look as if I'll be doing the rewarding, either, but my laid-back persona and ability to connect on the fly might make up for it. Mm hmm.

This is what's coming up:

Today
Finish basic outline of presentation so I can polish it before I fly to NY next Sunday for the Monday presentation. Good possibility that I'll see Niagara Falls this time! Fly back Tuesday.

Also, finish a 1-page article about agritourism and the Regional Cuisines Project for a very small town's newsletter. I was asked to write it by the editor of the Hometown Daily News. Editing is the problem here--how can I shut up when there is so much happening?

Tomorrow
Get ready for 3 days in Kansas City this week at the SARE Conference--a national sustainable agriculture extravaganza featuring sessions on agritourism, bridging the gap between poverty and fresh, local food, bridging the gap between farmers and townies, all that stuff. Near and dear to my heart, and also to my tourism job. This place has so much potential for sustainable agritourism ventures. When I think of this place in 10 years, I see an unlikely-but-real green mecca, the kind of place bicyclists come to to buy smoothies made with local, organic black raspberries. I'm excited about this conference, but I need to get all my ducks in a row at the office and the shop before I go, because I'll only have two days at home before three days in NY.

Then, when I'm back from NY next Tuesday, I've got four days home before ANOTHER trip to NY for another presentation on the same book.

Meanwhile...
The chicks are getting too big for their box-plex, and are creating a tremendous amount of dust, most of which settles on our kitchen table. No doubt our lungs are filling with chicken fecal matter, and it's time to get the little darlings outside. There are nine of them and we were searching for names. I'm sure my fellow LOTR geeks can figure it out.

And...there are dozens of seedlings growing in the south-facing doors of our "craft area", and those will need to be dealt with, too. Sure, I need to re-pot. But what I really need to do is dig out some garden beds!

The work is adding up. Luckily, the business is rolling in at the shop. One day, no business, the next day-BAM! We've sold something nearly every day for the last two weeks. Kevin is suddenly busier than his "organization" "system" can keep up with. But I'm not complaining!

Back to my ppt.

My Hilarious Kid

Stevie was out of school yesterday and went to work with me. As I work in city hall, there are big posters on the door saying "NO FIREARMS!" I told Stevie that I hoped he left his guns back in the car. He said, "The only guns I have are these." and then "cocked" his arm--"ch ch--BLAM!"

A long time ago, someone at the work lunch table told us about a tattoo this guy had that said "this way to the gun show" and had arrows pointing at his biceps. I told Stevie about that. Months and months and months ago. And, when the opportunity presented itself, he made the joke. Is my pride showing?

We went downstairs and I told my co-worker that I hoped she didn't mind Stevie bringing his guns. He jumped into her doorway and showed off his guns. It was hilarious.

Then, later, I counted up my hours worked and absentmindedly said "I'm gonna have a big fat paycheck this time around."

Stevie took this little comment and amused himself for about 5 minutes. First by saying "Gonna have a big fat paycheck" in all different kinds of Southern accents (we've been watching "Cars" over and over, and the kids love "Mater"--played by Larry the Cable Guy). So it morphed into "Buh-ig Fayet Payee-check" in high notes and low. Then he started saying it in his "entertaining a baby" voice (that's what he called it): "Who's going to have a big fat paycheck? YOU are! You're going to have a big fat paycheck. Yes you are!", his voice going up and down the register.

And then the whopper. He turned on his best Uruk-hai voice and said "Looks like big fat paychecks are BACK on the menu, boys!"

I giggled and giggled. We raised him right.

We have a nice Saturday planned.

Kevin brought home some bleach and a big box. The bleach was for the bathroom drain, which remained clogged even after I tried all my hippie baking soda/boiling water type cures and finished off his parent's bleach. The new bleach worked, sorta, but it took the plunger (the one for the toilet! Blech!) to get it 90% cured.

The big box, swiped from a local furniture store, is for our chickens. Our rapidly growing chickens. They've just about outgrown the first box and, without a coop prepared or a chicken tractor made, will have to hang out in their 2-box duplex in our dining room until they're fully feathered and the weather is consistently pleasant.

We have 9 chickens that we got from the local farmer store. There are 5 Barred Rocks, the black and white striped that we had before, and 4 Brown Leghorns, lovely birds all colors of brown and taupe. We'll get a combo of brown and white eggs. They eat chick starter, which looks remarkably like Grape Nuts, but they really like cornbread. Soon, they'll like ticks and worms and Japanese beetles, which I will pluck off whatever plant they're devouring and throw to the chickens who eat them like popcorn.

This afternoon, after a fairly lazy, mixed-up morning that combined decorative pillow sewing with biopics of FDR and the 43rd viewing of "Cars" (which is really funny) and legos and cuddles and perusal of a middle school textbook for another Hill gig, Kevin and I dropped the kids off at the old folks home and went to Columbia for an adventure.

First, we headed to the granite countertop place to pick through many cubic feet of granite countertop scraps. We loaded the good-sized pieces of pretty granite onto the truck. Kevin will turn these into name plates for desktops, plaques, pet markers, whatever. To get the good pieces, we have to unstack and carefully restack many other pieces on top of palates, carefully fitting odd-shaped pieces ranging from too heavy for one person to lift comfortably to barely more than shards. They were wet and dirty, and it was a cold, misty day, and we were there for 2 hours. But we headed home with at least 8 layers of approximately 2" thick granite that loaded the truck down so perilously that the suspension was totally gone and I was sure we'd blow a tire on the way home. (We made it, no problem.)

Then we went to Lowe's and used the last little bit on our gift card to pick up seed trays and seed starter and a soil pH kit and various garden tools (including a post-hole digger. Blech!) so that I can further trash the feng shui in my house by clogging up all the south-facing windows with little seeds. As if the chicken duplex wasn't enough!

Yes, I got my seeds the other day! Very exciting. All heirlooms, all from a local-as-possible mom-and-pop-and-God operation. These seeds have history. And I got WAY too many. I spent an entire evening pouring through gardening books (organic, naturally) trying to figure out what needs to be started inside and when and which seeds are friends and which are enemies and, most importantly, how long the seeds are viable because I got WAY too many.

If I want to grow most of our food, I gotta start somewhere.

Which is a big reason why I withdrew my application for the Chamber of Commerce job. I already have a surprisingly absorbing part-time job, I don't need another with its full set of headaches. Then I'd be working full-time again, for about a third of the pay of my last full-time job and none of the benefits! Besides, I want to be able to concentrate on the business. It's picking up a little! Thank goodness for spring.

Then we went to eat some Mexican food. I had enchiladas and a coconut-pineapple margarita. Kevin had a chimi and a Corona. We both had plenty of wet dust and dirt on our work clothes. It's good to not care.

And, just now, we unloaded all of that granite. I have a bit of an exertion headache. The last task, completed just seconds ago, was lugging a large pallet full of granite up the small incline and into the shop. Kevin pulled, I used a heavy steel post and levered--quickly--so we didn't lose momentum and so I didn't have to jump off the 4-foot high concrete pad in order to avoid a pallet with about a ton of granite rolling off onto my fragile body. There are probably times that Kevin fantasizes about having a gorgeous little wife that he can hoist onto his shoulders at concerts and feel all large around, but this was not one of those times. I am a good wife for a monument builder to have.

It's 8:30 and time to fetch the kids. What will I do with the rest of this amazing evening? Aren't you just dying to know!

I never got to say goodbye....

Lulu's Life Lesson #5:

Never sell your vinyl records.

And if you do, catalog them first, so you can remember what you're missing, especially when you read "Listen to This!", a book wherein famous musicians recommend their favorite music, and you read Jerry Harrison's (of Talking Heads and Modern Lovers fame) list and realize how in sync you are with him and that two of his favorite records, Velvet Underground's "White Light/White Heat" and Can's "Ege Bamyasi", the latter of which was given to you by your first real (and unrequited) love who is now dead, are your favorites, too, and you only had them...

...on vinyl.

Now, Used Kids has them. Sure, you got $2,000 for your collection. But is it really enough?

You don't know, do you. And you get actual aching feelings that you've cheated yourself out of the experience of sitting on the floor with your teenage sons, the turntable reeling, teaching them about the music that helped shape your very self, on a format that the digital age largely rejected, and with those fabulous, big covers that were part of the whole...THING, man.

And, since there was no list, and no chance to pilfer a few treasures before the record store man came because you were on a stupid work trip, you find out what you're missing in little, painful, bits.

Seriously, it might be your only real regret in a life without regrets. The Butthole Surfers (I lost all of those that fateful day) say, "It's better to regret something you have done, than to regret something you haven't done." This might be the one exception.

I know Kevin, I know--I'm being a baby. Time to load up that iPod.

Crestmead House

This home, a 16-room antebellum mansion in Pilot Grove, burned to the ground Monday night. No one was home at the time, but it's still a tragic loss of a piece of this county's history and a horrible personal loss for the family who has owned it since 1903. Gone are the family's antiques, photographs, and the original purchase documents. Gone is the type of home that only the super-wealthy can afford to build now (but usually don't); the type filled with massive newel posts and woodwork from big trees and stories of Confederate soldiers hiding out in the flues.

It was a plantation, complete with slave quarters, so some might say that it finally got its due. But the Cooper County Historical Society might fight you on that one, and I would, too. Missouri has lost an original, and no trip to Target can replace what was lost.