Scaredy Cat

Although I live far away from my parents, and I miss them dearly as they are two of my favorite people ever, I honestly don't feel that far away from them. We talk a lot on the phone, and we even write snail mail letters to each other, and they just feel close. Would I like it if they lived closer? Definitely. But I think that, in my family, with our generations-old migratory history, being far away from loved ones is something that has become programmed in. My parents had to move far away from their loved ones. And my great grandparents had to move far away from their loved ones. Thusly, (yes I said THUSLY), we know how to deal. We have strategies to keep ourselves close to each other.

One of the strategies we have is that we have long conversations on the phone a couple of times a week, but then we have these short, abbreviated calls almost daily. Oh, I just had to tell you that Aunt so-and-so called and she wants you to call her. Hey, just calling because I am making a batch of pumpkin curry and I can't remember how many tablespoons of mustard seeds to put in. Stuff like that.

Because my parents are...my parents, they often have bits of information to give me. Books to read, movies to check out, articles to peruse. They also don't have a computer so sometimes they ask me to do things like order them the latest Ikea catalog or something. I often have to grab a pen to write down whatever citation they are giving me so that I remember. This morning, I found a piece of paper that said the following, thanks to my parents. And I quote:

AprilAir Automatic humidifier- order hose for model #700 online
Martha Stewart gardening article March 09 issue
Fareed Zakaria "The American Encounter"
Nordic Boy's mom's address
The Mayor of Casterbridge
Crate and Barrel gift card
Couch photo
A-Rod's Juice

A-Rod's JUICE?? What the hell did my parents tell me that caused me to write down the words "A-Rod's Juice"????

This disturbs me to no end.

In other news, Nordic Boy has started, whenever he can't hear me say something, to cup his hand behind his ear and say "Dolly Pardon?" I think this is hilarious, even after the nine jillionth time. It's things like that that make me realize that it's a good thing we found each other because no one else would put up with crap like this.

Lastly, my body has decided, without my consent, that I am to be awake from 3am to 5am every morning. It all started last week when Nordic Boy was on a business trip (does that sound like I am blaming him? That's maybe because I TOTALLY AM). When he is gone, I can sometimes convince myself that someone is going to creep into my house in the middle of the night to hack me to death with a ginsu. This has less to do with the fact that if someone were to do such a thing I think that Nordic Boy would save me (I mean, he would try, I'm sure, but we are equal parts badass on this type of thing) and more to do with the fact that him being gone causes me to have really weird dreams (again, totally blaming him!) which then turn into knifal fears. I don't ever really think about this kind of stuff when I am wide awake and thinking clearly. Mostly I think about it when I wake up in the middle of the night, and he's not there, and I am all groggy and out of it. It doesn't help that our yard is full of oversized trees that already think that it's autumn out there while the rest of Seattle sits squarely in summer. My trees think it is November, and have started to shed leaves like crazy. These leaves, when walked on, sound loud and crunchy. Our neighborhood also has its fair share of cats. When a cat tromps through our back yard early in the morning, it can sound like a knife-wielding maniac in a hockey mask creeping up to the window. And yes, I can hear the hockey mask. So last week, when Nordic Boy was gone, I woke up after a bad dream and convinced myself that dismemberment was imminent. I got up out of bed and walked around in one of those half-asleep stupors, listening to some cat who was purposefully scaring the doodoo out of me just for the hell of it. It was probably even wearing a hockey mask. I remember I went into my kitchen and looked out my window. I swear to you, the sky looked this weird shade of orangey-brown. I am 5% certain that I didn't dream that color. I remember looking at it in the sort of confusion that Raymond Cappomaggi had in Moonstruck. Then I went back to bed. Ever since then, I wake up at 3am. Not 2:59, not 3:01. Exactly 3am. And I listen for a cat in a hockey mask to walk through my leaves with some sort of serrated blade with my name all over it.

Wow, that was a freaky image. Almost as scary as A-Rod Juice.

Dolly Pardon?