Monthly Archives: June 2010

I am a pirate, not a ninja.  This is a phrase that comes up a lot in my house.  Toby is truly a ninja; he sneaks up on me all the time and scares the pants off of me.  And he SO wishes these were literal pants-off situations.  He’d be intentionally startling me all the time.  Unfortunately, the only thing that actually happens to my pants is that I might wet them a little.  Not quite as fun.

I’ve come to accept that I am entirely incapable of being quiet, especially in the middle of the night.  One of the many lovely effects of fibromyalgia is that it causes rigor mortis to set in if my body is inactive for more than oh, five seconds.   So when I get up to pee in the middle of the night (which happens WITHOUT FAIL because I try to internally drown myself on a daily basis by drinking too much water) there is a lot of involuntary whimpering for the first few steps and my joints sound like popcorn. 

Once I get moving, I trip on things and swear.  I run into closed doors and swear.   I knock things off of cabinets and swear.  I trip on the same thing on the way back and swear louder.  Then I fall into bed, violently wrestle with the covers and stare intently at Toby, waiting for him to acknowledge that he’s awake because I KNOW he can’t sleep through my nightly battle with inanimate objects.  When he barely opens one eye just enough for me to see he’s rolling it, I cover one of my eyes with my hand and shout “ARRRRR MATEY!  SHIVER ME TIMBERS!!!” 

People, this is what Toby has to live with on a daily basis.

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Toby and I agree on two big things (we might agree on a couple other items, but I can’t think of what they are at the moment):  we both get to chase our Big Dream, and we both want someone home with Roper as he grows up.  Toby’s Big Dream is to build a log home on the property and mine was to quit engineering to become a full-time writer.  DOING and DONE.  Sort of.

Luckily, my Big Dream dovetails nicely with having someone at home full-time with Roper.    I am incredibly grateful that I have this opportunity.  Most days.  Even though Roper is the BEST BABY ON THE PLANET, my “working from home” has become a euphemism for “unproductive dithering.”   This is what I remember about yesterday, minus a lot of the mundane tasks of being a mom and trying to run a business:

6:30  Jump out of bed and commence the Modified Stationary Panic (MSP).  My mind is immediately overloaded by how many things I need to accomplish.  Head downstairs to my newly re-located office (the kitchen table – my former office was converted into a foul-smelling nursery) and review my calendar.   Resume MSP.

6:45  Start coffee machine and get Roper’s meals prepped for the day.  Realize I’m running dangerously low on baby food.  Start carrots cooking on the stove.

6:50  Run numbers for different life insurance policies.  Send Toby an email with the numbers, my preference of plans and a stern declaration that he’s NOT ALLOWED TO DIE.  EVER.  OR I WILL KILL HIM A SECOND TIME.

7:00  Reduce email inbox from 67 emails to 18 emails.  TADOW!  Respond to three evites saying something along the lines of “We’re a maybe….depends on the house building fiasco”

8:00  Facilitate a fight about medical bills between our health insurance and the hospital 

9:00  Call Peter to schedule an interview for an article I’m writing for The Good Life magazine.   Have a hard time hearing him over Roper’s shrieking.  Don’t have the heart to tell him that the The Loudness will probably accompany me to the interview. 

9:15  Make a list of interview questions about Penny-farthings.  Get distracted by internet info about this crazy hobby. 

9:30  Send out a reminder email to a couple of writing buddies about our meeting tomorrow.  Hope and pray that they will cancel.  Just in case, I start working on a piece I can read aloud to them for critique.

10:00  Andy calls to postpone our phone discussion by an hour.  Woohoo – a surprise hour!  Yes, this is an hour I already had, but it somehow feels like a gift.  Don’t try to figure me out, people.

10:03  Corral Roper and a bunch of toys in the bathroom with me.  Jump in shower.

10:04  Realize Roper is playing in the toilet.  Fervently hope I flushed it.

10:05  Realize I need to lock the cabinet with the cleaning supplies.  Or throw them away since I never use them.  Hope the caps are on tight.

10:06  Make a deliberate effort to NOT investigate what made that horrible crashing noise.

10:07  Make a mental note to schedule a vasectomy for Toby.  Make a mental note to get a real job, OUTSIDE of the home.

10:08  Give up, get out of shower half-rinsed and half-shaved.  Notice that the bathroom is totally flooded because Roper kept opening the shower curtain while I was in there.  Throw Toby’s towel onto the newly formed lake and leave bathroom with child in tow

10:09  Change and feed The Loudness.  Read him a story so fast I sound like I’m one of the Chipmunks.  Put  him down for a nap.  Hope his stupid tooth comes in while he’s sleeping

10:35  Work on my piece for the writing group

10:57  Weird smell.  Remember the carrots on the stove?  Neither did I.

11:00  Talk with Andy about creating a Facebook page for WenatcheeOutdoors.org 

11:03  Turn the baby monitor OFF so Andy can’t hear the howling over the phone

11:45  Finish up the phone call.  Shovel food in my face for 20 minutes while looking at other business pages on Facebook.  Am blown away again by the pervasiveness of it all.

12:00  Wonder where the 31 new emails came from and if I can just delete them all without reading or responding to them.

12:01  Back to writing.  Daydream a little about the writing cabin I’m going to build on our property.  Property….crap!   Make a note to send out an email about a work party at the property for July 4^th.

12:02  Back to writing.

12:45  Turn the baby monitor back on and hear howling.  Wonder if he’s been howling the whole time….

12:47  Receive email that I was mistaken and that my writing group is meeting NEXT week.   YES!   Another week of procrastination!  Now I can concentrate on paid work…

12:48   Rescue Roper from himself (still no tooth)  Strap him in his car seat, facing the wall and give him his bottle.  This is the only way I can keep him STILL and FOCUSED.

12:50  Pack up for our field trip to Smallwood’s.

It’s that last line of the schedule that really matters.  We spent the afternoon at Smallwood’s Harvest with two of Roper’s little girlfriends and three of my girlfriends.   Sure, I only got about two hours of work done in the first six hours of my day, but I got to spend the ENTIRE afternoon focused only on Roper.   As focused as I get, at any rate.  I don’t want to talk about the two (TWO!) biting incidents at the petting zoo.  That was a mean-spirited goose who was using my distraction to his advantage.  I have no excuse for the biting goat incident.  I’m just glad we weren’t at an alligator farm.

If you liked this post (or any posts on this blog), you can share it through email, Facebook, Twitter or any other venue on the dang ol’ internet.  You would earn my undying gratitude, as I am continually trying to grow this site.   Comments are always welcome.  Thanks for visiting!

I can say with absolute certainty that the Anniversary Quatro celebration in Winthrop was a huge success.  I’m not going to go into ALL details about the whole trip but the gist of it was a) Chewuch Inn was absolutely charming and NOT someone’s house with a random spare bedroom b) Buck Mountain bike loop was phenomenally gorgeous and c) I love being married to Toby and am looking forward to many decades of anniversaries.

Now that we got all of that sentimental crap out of the way let’s get to the REAL stuff.   Yes, it’s true.  I threw a massive hissy fit on Friday afternoon before we left for Winthrop.   Fridays are not my best day and Toby usually ends up buried in a bunch of I’m tired of being a single mom,  I can’t do this alone, I wish I could just LEAVE every day and not come back until 8:30 at night, and If I hear the word PROPERTY one more time I will punch a hole in the wall and then spray paint my initials on the cougar pelt above the couch.  

Classy, I know.  I might as well pee in the corner.  And this is after I’ve spent the week telling Toby that it’s OK to go up to the property (punch!) after work and that I am doing just FINE here.   The martyr thing works for about four days and then I lose it and start looking for the spray paint.   People, do not send me emails about what a wuss I’m being.  I know my child is the best baby IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD.   But guess what, he still needs fed and entertained and bathed and dressed and he sticks his fingers in his own poop and then tries to touch my face. 

Did I mention I’m trying to work from home?  FUTILE.  That should be the name of my company.

So I had a little fit and then I got over it and we hit the open road.   I was a little hesitant about our B&B in Winthrop for several reasons but it turned out brilliantly.  You know what happens when you mix cheap wine and a Wild West themed room?  PHOTO SHOOT!  People, we made a horse out of a huge stack of pillows, threw a real saddle on it, donned the cowboy hats and a lasso and BAM, say hello to Wyatt Earp and Annie Oakley. 

And then there was the Sleeping In, the Eating a Breakfast I Didn’t Make and the Reading Quietly on the Porch.  Bliss, bliss and more bliss.

It was a blast to mountain bike with Toby after not doing so for a year and a half.   He definitely gets an award for patience because the first many miles (I think at least 17 miles of the 14 mile loop…) were uphill.  I am completely out of shape and was in my easiest gear pedaling wildly with just my right leg because my left knee is a total bitch.    And P.S., my body happens to be bigger than my bike clothes these days so my shirt and shorts no longer meet in the middle.   And not in the pre-pregnancy, sexy way.  I have the weirdest tan line now.

Anyway, it was awesome to escape for the weekend without Roper and to have the chance to hit the trail with Toby again.  Those parents who haven’t spent a night away from their kids in four years?  They are either saints or they are just avoiding spending time alone with their spouse.  Personally, I have NEVER been accused of being a saint and I will scale mountains to spend a weekend alone with my spouse…if only to see him ride a horse made of pillows while lassoing the bedside lamp.

If you liked this post (or any posts on this blog), you can share it through email, Facebook, Twitter or any other venue on the dang ol’ internet.  You would earn my undying gratitude, as I am continually trying to grow this site.   Comments are always welcome.  Thanks for visiting!

ME:  It’s fun being married to you.

TOBY:  Yeah, why’s that?

ME:   Because you’re a complete nutter!

TOBY:  What do you mean?  (rummaging through the dishwasher he grabs a bowl and spoon for his breakfast.  With a victorious grin he holds them up for me to see)

ME:  Hate to burst your bubble, but those are CLEAN.

TOBY:  (looking crestfallen)  You ran the dishwasher?!  You know I like to eat off of dirty dishes.

ME:  My point, exactly.

My husband likes to eat with the same bowl and spoon throughout the week.  Not a special bowl and spoon — any will do, as long as it’s not clean.  The dishwasher, in his opinion, is for storing dirty dishes for later use.  Even after four years of marriage he is still a little disdainful when I actually (gasp!) run the dishwasher.    His reaction would be the same if I started throwing the dishes in the trash after one use, because it’s PRACTICALLY THE SAME THING, MOLLY. 

One of these days I’ll tell you how he decides when an item of clothing qualifies as “dirty”….

If you liked this post (or any posts on this blog), you can share it through email, Facebook, Twitter or any other venue on the dang ol’ internet.  You would earn my undying gratitude, as I am continually trying to grow this site.   Comments are always welcome.  Thanks for visiting!

Has it really been four years?  It feels like only four minutes.  UNDER WATER.  

This marriage thing has been one wild ride that I will keep buying tickets for over and over and over again.  Kind of like that one time I refused to get off the Zipper at the Puyallup fair.   Seriously, there isn’t a carnie out there that could pry my hands off the safety bar of this thing while I grin like a fool and maybe wet my pants a little.   In the meantime, Toby is wedged against the side of the cage with his eyes shut tight wishing he had taken some Dramamine…

To celebrate our anniversary this year we’re heading to Winthrop Friday evening, staying at a B&B and riding a long mountain bike loop on Saturday.   Toby and I met mountain biking and I used our mountain bike adventures to stalk him and eventually wear him down until he was all fine WOMAN, I will marry you.  But only if I can wear camo at the wedding.   So, three out of four of our anniversaries have involved a mountain biking component.  

Our first year, when we were still living in North Bend, we drove over to Cashmere to ride Devil’s Gulch.   Because what doesn’t celebrate and exemplify marriage like twelve miles of tortuous uphill riding for that over-too-fast, grinning-ear-to-ear downhill section?!    Our second year, we bought ourselves some mountain biking gear online and went out to dinner.  Last year, I don’t even want to talk about because I was pregnant and cranky and having a nine month No Good Very Bad Day. 

So we’re back to biking and a B&B this year and let me tell you, if our accommodations turn out to be anything like that first year, I’m never going to hear the end of it.   Toby and I are notoriously cheap (unless it involves sporting equipment) so I was stoked that I found the CUTEST bed and breakfast for a ridiculously low price.  It was in Peshastin instead of Leavenworth (our first choice), but did I mention the CUTENESS and the CHEAPNESS of it all?   Apparently, B&B owners can take pictures of ANY place and post them on their website regardless of whether or not the subject of the picture is actually the place for which you’re making a reservation.

We arrived at the address in some random neighborhood, and it’s clearly just someone’s house with an extra bedroom.   A darling older couple greeted us and showed us to our room and Sweet Fancy Moses, the RAINBOWS.  Every square inch of the room was painted in pink and purple rainbows.  Not to mention the 731 figurines of windmills and little Dutch boys, and every last piece of furniture being white wicker.   It was, in a word, awesome.   And by awesome, I mean freaking scary.

We wanted to go to Leavenworth for dinner so we showered the mountain biking muck off of us…in the bathroom we SHARED with the older couple that owns the joint, who  have one of those toilet seat riser thingies that I swear are solely for keeping older gentlemen’s saggy junk out of the toilet bowl.   As we headed out the door, the woman wanted to know exactly what time we would be back so she wouldn’t worry.  People, on the way back from dinner I was an absolute nervous wreck because we were a couple of minutes later than we’d specified and I was all that woman is going to call the cops on us!  We’re breaking curfew!

Not to worry, they were dead asleep.   I know this because our room shared a wall with theirs and I could hear the SNORING.  It was as if we were sharing a bed with the delightful couple.  And then I almost wet the bed because I was too afraid to go to the bathroom because what if the old man gets up at the same time and I run into him in the hallway and he’s not wearing a robe?!  I did not need that image burned into my brain.

So I’m hoping that I did a better job picking accommodations this year.  Except that I specifically chose the “Corral” room, which was described as “stepping back into the Wild West.”   And I looked at the address on Google Maps and it’s clearly someone’s house.     Here we go again…

If you liked this post (or any posts on this blog), you can share it through email, Facebook, Twitter or any other venue on the dang ol’ internet.  You would earn my undying gratitude, as I am continually trying to grow this site.   Comments are always welcome.  Thanks for visiting!

Proof that my White Trash Garden is actually growing something!  For now.  The mesclun, cilantro and dill are all producing nicely (and they are DEE-LISH!)  Unfortunately, I will be holding a funeral this afternoon for two of the youngest members of my garden — the spearmint and Roper’s snapdragon.   I figured I better snap a picture of the tomato before it commits suicide.

I’ve been asked about the name of this blog.  Why “Molly Flew the Coop”?  For those of you who haven’t known me since the days of big hair, pegged jeans and penny loafers, my maiden name is Cooper.  I was Molly Cooper for the first 32 years of my life.   Although my bank card read “Jolly Cooper” for a while, which was kind of awesome.   

So I’ve been “Coop” for the majority of my life.   I’m still Coop to a lot of people and I LOVE it.  So much so, that it was really hard for me to give up my last name when I got married.   In fact, my first choice of names for my son was Cooper.  Toby’s first choice was Angus. You can read about that little naming dilemma here, but my main beef (I apologize, I couldn’t help myself) that I failed to mention in the article is that Angus is one letter away from anus.  Who names their kid something that close to “butthole”?  Unacceptable.

I swear there’s a point somewhere in this post. 

After 8.5 years of sitting in a cube designing parts for semiconductor test equipment and semi-trucks, I realized I needed to escape.  Fly the coop if you will.   So I switched careers to become a freelance writer and grabbed the domain mollyflewthecoop.com for my website.   You get it?  Do ya?  Huh?  It includes the image of escape while still holding on to some tie to the name Coop.  THE CLEVERNESS IS BLOWING YOUR MIND RIGHT NOW.  

I failed miserably at keeping the website up-to-date with my latest articles and whatnot so it has since been stripped of any useful information.  My plan is to move this blog over to mollyflewthecoop.com eventually.  Unfortunately, I’m what you might (absolutely) call technologically challenged.  My cousin Beth was going to help me last weekend but we were distracted by beer, seven kids in the pool trying to drown each other and my husband walking by with two chainsaws.  P.S. NOT A GOOD SIGN.

Anyway, that’s how it all came about.  Fascinating isn’t it?   I’m surprised no one’s begged me for the rights to write an authorized biography.

If you liked this post (or any posts on this blog), you can share it through email, Facebook, Twitter or any other venue on the dang ol’ internet.  You would earn my undying gratitude, as I am continually trying to grow this site.   Comments are always welcome.  Thanks for visiting!