Preparing for an invasion

At the Wettschreck household, my husband Eric and I are preparing for an invasion. Not zombies or anything like that – we’re getting ready for the arrival of our 13-month-old granddaughter Layla. She is going to stay with us for a week while her parents take a belated honeymoon.

We’re very excited to have the little jelly bean come and stay with us, but it takes a bit of forethought on our parts, because we aren’t in working parent mode anymore. Preparing for this has been like planning a war strategy.

We’ve had to prepare the terrain, also known as baby-proofing the house a bit. That little girl can crawl like the wind and is taking steps also, which means all the stuff we toss in corners or leave on an end table needs picking up.

We’ve had to lay in supplies. Layla is a good eater, but some of her favorite foods are things I don’t always keep stocked. We like bananas, but tend to forget to eat them. We like Cheerios, but generally don’t eat breakfast during the week. I like kiwi, but Eric told me the other that to his knowledge, he has never eaten one. And since all the kids have moved out, milk goes bad faster than we use it. So, basically, I had to do a Layla-shop.

We’ve also had to handle equipment logistics. Her highchair needed dusting, crib sheets needed freshening and some of her toys are stashed in a closet.

I’ve also had to prepare the troops for this. Eric admitted the other day he’s a bit nervous about staying home with her for a couple of days while I’m at work. I reminded him that he is the father of three, but he says that’s different. That’s all the explanation I got, so feel free to be puzzled right along with me.

So, I’ll let you know how the visit goes. I’m really looking forward to having the little critter for a week. And to be honest, I’m looking forward to watching Eric watch her. I have a feeling it will be entertaining.

Catch me if you can?

Most people would find it disconcerting to wake up at 2 a.m. to the sound of “clink, clink,” a few dirty words and a man crawling around on the floor.

I just sat back and watched the show.

My husband and I recently returned from an ice fishing trip on Mille Lacs, renting a fish house from Appeldoorn’s Sunset Bay Resort. We spent three days in a 10 x 14 foot fish house and never got in an argument, so we must have managed to keep ourselves sufficiently entertained.

We caught some beautiful walleye, most of which had to be returned to the icy waters because they were outside the slot limits. Including the one that gulped our minnow at 2 a.m., causing the rattle wheel to go off and giving me a bit of cheap entertainment.

Clink, clink.

My husband flew out of his bunk and dove for the hole, never an easy task because first you have to figure out which one just hit. He groggily set the hook, then started to hand-over-hand the line up out of the hole. He had a pretty walleye at the top of the ice hole when it bit the line and tried to back up down the hole. Eric reached down to grab the fish, but when he hauled it in, it wiggled out of his hands and landed on the ice, trapped between the hole in the house and the hole in the house.

That was when the dirty words started. The fish was flopping around on top of the ice and Eric was flopping around on the floor of the fish house trying to reach it. He had pretty much shoved himself from the waist up through the house hole, so some of the swear words were mercifully muffled.

Instead of being the least bit helpful, I just snuggled deeper into my sleeping bag and tried to keep my giggles quiet. I figured if he heard me belly-laughing while he was battling nature, he might not appreciate it, thus breaking our no argument streak.

I didn’t tell him until the next day that I had watched the whole thing.

Getting away for a weekend of ice fishing might not be everyone’s idea of a good time, but it is something we enjoy doing together.

The house itself was warm, clean, comfortable and user friendly, with four fishing holes, four bunks, a table, chairs, a small cupboard and a small stove/oven combo. General Manager Paul Waldowski, who we have met several times before (he let me take over his kitchen once during a fall fishing trip) stopped by to visit, and his son Alex stopped by a couple times to check on us. When we had a small problem with holes icing over during a rather blustery storm, I let Paul know and someone was out there solving the problem within a short time and with a smile.

It was tough, as it always is, to come back to real life after a few days of camping out in the fish house, but at least I know there’s plenty of ice this year, so another trip is always around the corner, even if it’s just a day trip in the portable or a weekend in our permanent house out on Lake Shetek or Lime Lake.

Of course, after this week’s temperatures, a week of deep sea fishing in Acapulco sounds nice, too.

Don't waste that

Some news stories just beg to be made fun of, mostly because people are funny. And when you have a slightly warped mind like I do, you can snicker your way through reading certain criminal complaints or reports. What can I say? Funny bones are subjective.

This morning I read a story about a man soliciting at a transit center in Burnsville. Not buying or selling drugs, not trying to, uh, meet a nice girl. Not trying to gather spare change. No, this guy was hitting up people for pee.

Francis Wolo Doe (yep, his name is Frank Doe, possible brother of John?) had a bit of a problem and was hoping some kind Samaritan would help him solve it. He needed a drug-free urine sample for his probation officer, and apparently did not possess the ability to provide the drug-free part on his own. So he was asking passersby for a little help.

How, exactly, does one start that conversation?

“Excuse me, Sir? You don’t happen to have the urge to urinate, do you? I’ve got a bottle right here and can help you out with that. Just doing my part to keep the world a safer place for all bladders.”

Or does he just come straight out with it? Maybe in a public restroom?

“Hey, mister? Are you drug free? I could sure use a bit of help. After all, you probably weren’t planning on doing anything important with that.”

Or does he take a different tact?

“Yeah, I’m a collector.”

At least he wasn’t trying to overpower people and steal the urine, which could have earned him the title of Public Enemy Number One.

When police, alerted by someone who had been approached for a urine donation, arrived at the transit center, they located Doe. Inside his backpack, they found Aleve, a pain killer called Meloxicam, one Tramadol tablet and a glass pipe with cocaine traces.

I understand that addiction isn’t funny. I get that someone being asked for their pee would have been disconcerted, creeped out and very possible frightened. Any request for bodily fluids that didn’t come from a medical professional would be weird.

Still, when you think of what possible scenarios could have developed from this situation, it makes you want to giggle so hard you’ll pee your pants.

What a waste!

Ladies, unite against evil!

Ladies all over the world, or at least around here, it is time to unite in protest. We have had enough!

Enough of what, you ask? It is time to raise our voices together against whatever evil idiots are designing our clothes, that’s what.

Why is it such a bad thing to have jeans that reach our waist instead of sitting halfway down our hips? Who got to decide that looks nice? I’m tired of constantly tugging at my jeans like a little kid wearing an older sibling’s hand-me-downs. I’m tired of crouching to pick something up, only to realize parts of my backside I prefer to keep private are now hanging out in the breeze. Plumber butt is not attractive, no matter how tiny you are. That tummy pooch that hangs over the top of the mid-riff jeans? Yes, it is noticeable. And because the pants are strung across our bodies at mid-belly, we feel as if we’re being cut in half whenever we sit down.

Personally, I object. But just try to find normal clothing. I dare you.

While we’re at it, let’s give someone a stern talking to about skinny jeans. Trust me, little size zero, they don’t look as good as you think they do, because they hug your thighs so tight you look like your ankles flare and your legs were built at an awkward angle. Basically, the opposite of bowlegged. And for those who aren’t a size zero but have convinced themselves skinny jeans look ok, I have a news flash for you – they don’t. Don’t even get me started about men in skinny jeans. Ugh.

Now let’s mention the shirts that stop right around our navels. I don’t want my belly peeking out at the world, especially not in January. If our pants stop well below our waist and our shirts stop well above our waist, our bellies are bare. Fine when frolicking on the beach in a swim suit, but not so much when we’re attending a business meeting or giving a presentation to a group of students or standing in front of a judge or… well, you get the idea. Most of us trying to dress for grown-up occasions spend a significant amount of time tugging our shirts down and pants up, which is not an attractive habit.

The bottom of the shirt ends before they should, but for some reason, clothing designers have decided we all have the arms of orangutans, hanging down to our knees.

I consulted fellow clothing-irritated co-worker Sonja Langseth, who said she’s tired of shirts that have such small and tight arm holes. Sonja is buff. She works out. I’m not, and I don’t. Yet we have the same complaint. Are all women supposed to have toothpick arms? Both muscles and jelly arms need space, yet manufacturers make tiny little pinholes for arms, then we spend all day trying to keep the circulation in our limbs functioning.

Another clothing complaint Sonja brought up is white shirts that are so thin you have to wear nine layers to hide your undergarments. She also objects to crop jackets, which are virtually useless.

Who exactly are the designers making clothes for, anyway? Some weird alien creatures? We have waists, we have bellies, we have arms in proportion to our bodies. Can’t anyone make clothes that are comfortable and attractive?

So it is time for all women to bond together, make a plan and possibly find all of these ignorant designers and beat them up in the parking lot of their fancy designer condos.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, ladies.

Short cut versus shortcut

It is truly amazing what a person will do to try to save a bit of time or effort. There have been some great inventions dreamed up in the interest of saving time and energy, so you can’t knock it, but sometimes a great amount of effort can be put forth to save time, just for the person to find that the effort wasn’t worth the effort.

I’m a prime example, in that I’ve been trying to grow my hair out long enough to put it up in barrettes or a pony tail. I have a ways to go, and I seriously wonder if I’ll make it. My hair is making me crazy. I haven’t had it cut for almost five months and I’m ready to grab the buzzer and mow it all off.

For years, the older I get, the shorter I wear my hair. It’s easier to deal with quickly on hectic mornings, faster drying, and it makes the gray not quite as noticeable.

But lately, my husband and daughter have both told me I should grow it out a bit. Eric says women are supposed to have long hair – a bit of nonsense I just roll my eyes at when he says it. I’ve had longer hair in the past. When I went into labor with my youngest child, I actually took the time to make big, fat braids in the front lengths and tack them behind my head so I wouldn’t have hair in my face the whole time I was trying to deliver a baby. I looked like a big Swedish whale.

It got shorter in increments – an inch here, an inch there – until one day I came home from the salon and my husband looked at me with a slightly sad face because it was so short. Yes, his mother always wore her hair halfway down her back when he was growing up and she literally cut it all off on our wedding day.

But now I have decided I want longer hair again. I want to pull it back or tuck it up into a hat or throw it in a pony. That will be fine once I get a bit of length going on. It’s the getting there that’s making me nuts. My bangs are always in my eyes. I have to use a ton of hairspray to keep it in place, which I hate. Crunchy hair bugs me. Especially because I tend to push strands of hair behind my ears, which can look odd if it was all glued into a different place to start with.

I want it longer mainly so I can put it up in a hurry. But why not just keep it shorter, which means it is technically already up?

Oh, it is indeed a conundrum.