While You're At It, Here.. Take My Soul

Hi there.

I know, it's been a while.

It's been such a while that I don't even know where to begin.

So, I'll start with the obvious and end with the calamitous.


First -

I was in Florida.

Let me say it again just so I might be able to spirit myself away for one brief, sunny, capri-wearing moment.

I was in Florida.


Sigh.


So, it wasn't like a real vacation because my husband and I were helping as chaperones (Oh! How funny is that?!) for the high school marching band. But, it also coincided with Pennsylvania's last dip into single digit temperatures so Yay! for us. Also, our particular group of kids was awesome and gave us no trouble whatsoever so I suppose it is as close to a vacation in Florida as we are going to come for, oh, another TWENTY TO THIRTY YEARS!

Ahem.

This whole going to Florida thing. This whole Disney thing. It seems so...dreamlike. It was all very amazing in every sense of the word.

Every. Sense.

Like, I mean "good" amazing and "bad" amazing.

The good amazing is everything you would think and more. It is probably the cleanest place - including the emergency room at the local hospital - that I have ever been. And the lengths to which they go to make the imaginable real is really something to behold. I have never seen so much formed concrete in my life.

I guess that last line won't exactly make it into the Disney tourism literature.

As for the bad amazing... Well, there's the whole "lengths to which they go" thing. And it's cleaner than my local hospital emergency room. Which isn't necessarily a bad reflection on Disney.

No, really the worst of it was probably the excess.

And the strollers.

I have to say that I am very proud of hubby and myself in that we made it all the way to the second day before we found each other irksome.

Forgive us. It was overwhelming.

At some point on day two we had the conversation that goes like this:
Me: What would you like to do?
Hubby: It doesn't matter. What do you want to do?
Me: It doesn't matter. You pick.
Hubby: No, you pick.
Me: No, really. It. Doesn't. Matter. You pick.
Hubby: I. Already. Told. You. I. Don't. Care. YOU PICK.

And so on. Until...
Me: Can't you Just. Pick. Something?
Hubby: I told you. I. Don't. Care. How about this - I want to do whatever will make you happy right now.

And that, friends, is when I told him...

Me: You want to make me happy? You Want To Make Me Happy? OK. This will make me happy. Stop saying "What do you think Walt Disney would think if he saw what this whole park turned into? Do you think he'd be happy about it?" OK? Stop saying that. And stop pointing out the excess. Excess food. Excess spending. Excess EVERYTHING! Stop that. Stop being such a downer for the next two and a half days and Just Be A HAPPY LITTLE CONSUMER!!! OK?!!! THEN WHEN WE GO HOME, WE CAN GO BACK TO BEING OUR NORMAL BITTER SELVES!! THAT'S WHAT WOULD MAKE ME HAPPY!!!!!

Hubby: Ok.

And merrily on we went.

I think that little exchange took place somewhere in the middle of Epcot. Or maybe it was MGM. I don't know.

So, Disney. There it is. Amazing. Magical. Not bitter. No bitter allowed.


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Second-

So, goats.

Yeah.

We're getting more.

Yeah.

More goats.

Two, as a matter of fact. Two bucks. Boys. Males. Gigolos, basically.

We are getting one boer goat and one angora goat so's we can breed all the girls this fall.

Without getting too much into the whole goat thing - because I will give you updates complete with photos when we get them - I just want to replay another little conversation between me and my better half.

The first thing you need to know about angora goats is that one of the big things you breed for is color. Or colors. The other thing you need to know about angoras is that breeding for color is only slightly more complicated than trying to genetically breed humans that will not only like performance art but will actually financially support the little local theatre that features it.

There are not only genes and chromosomes. There are allels, loci, genotypes, phenotupes (which may or may not reveal the underlying genotype), homozygous, heterozygous, dominant, recessive, epistasis, hypostatic, epistatic,agouti, eumelanin, pheomelanin and white spotting. These are all the things one must try to coordinate to maybe get the color goat one wants out of a breeding. And even then, it's not a sure bet.

So, here I am, merrily shopping around the internet for a goat, emailing breeders and what not. After checking out a lot of places, I kind of had my heart settled on this one particular farm. We were emailing back and forth, exchanging information about our goats, when she informed me that the person we bought our goats from has recessive color goats where as she has dominant color and, were I to use one of her bucks, we would actually lose color.

No, they wouldn't be see through. They would be white.

So, at breakfast I relayed this to my hubby. Bear in mind that I was mainly the one doing the background reading on this and it was the first time he was even hearing it...

Me: I got an email from the one farm that I wanted to buy the goat from and, as it turns out, we probably shouldn't buy hers because we have recessive and she has dominant.
Hubby: And...?
Me: And, we shouldn't breed dominant and recessive.
Hubby: You shouldn't breed dominant and regressive?
Me: Recessive.
Hubby: What happens if you breed a dominant and regressive? What do you get, an obsessive compulsive?
Me: No, you get white.
Hubby: White.
Me: Yes, white.
Hubby: And how do you get color?
Me: Well, you have to breed dominant to dominant or regressive...recessive to recessive.
Hubby: What if you breed compulsive to obsessive?
Me: I don't know. Neurotic?
Hubby: So what do we want?
Me: I guesse we want an obsessive and a progressive.

And so on it went...

So, yeah, goats. I will be on the computer for many, many hours trying to concoct a goat cocktail that will hopefully yield success.


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Third-

This is the one the title of the post referrs to.

As some of you may know, our first born will be graduating high shcool this June.

Oh happy days! Oh joyous time of youth! Out in the world! Out on his own!



Out $90,000.

Roughly.

Because Financial Aid?


GAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!



I think that is all I can write about this at this time as I now have to call my doctor for some anxiety medication.



See you soon!