The Day The Girl Went Beserk

So they say that it's good to be able to laugh at yourself.  Here we go!

Sometimes living here is frustrating.  Imagine that someone told you that you are not allowed to leave your neighborhood except for once a week for two hours, and when you did go out on your two-hour-once-a-week outing, you had to wear a janitor jumpsuit. 

Or imagine that your grocery store only had milk during the hours of 11am to 5pm, and any other time it's all sold out, and you can't go to the store while your husband is at work because the shopping carts can't hold children.  Also, a recent alleged mad cow scare means there is no meat available.  Also, there is a flour shortage so there is no bread.  (But bafflingly, there is plenty of flour in the baking aisle.)  No milk, no meat, no bread.  Makes it kind of hard to feed a family of five, huh?

Or imagine that your yard is community property, and anyone meandering by can throw trash or junk there.  There are only hundreds (yes, hundreds) of maintenance and groundskeeping workers also wandering all over camp, but even though they have been charged with keeping the community property clean, they only come by to dig up what few plants you have been babying in your yard.

Or imagine that moms you see around your community have Filipino nannies who keep their children.  The nannies ride in the car with the moms and kids (being driven by a driver), and when they get to preschool, the mom sits in the car while the nanny and the children get out, and the nanny takes the kids to the door, hugs them, and sees them inside.  Or better, imagine that a mom is watching her kids act out at the pool.  They splash and hit other kids, they scream and run.  The mom does nothing.  She just watches as her children are the terror of the pool.  Eventually, a nanny appears with another of the family children, presumably from the bathroom.  The mom yells at the nanny; she screams at her for letting the children misbehave. 

After nearly a year of this, you just might go crazy.  Or at least get a little frustrated.  

Today, Her Royal Highness got frustrated.  Really frustrated.  We were coming back from the mail center and I saw that the big pieces of scrap metal someone had thrown in our side yard which had been there for a week or more were STILL THERE, even though the place is CRAWLING with groundskeepers.  It made me mad.  I AM TIRED OF LIVING IN A LANDFILL.  So I got out of the car, very calmly walked over to the junk, and energetically threw it out into the middle of the street.

It looks like pieces of a stop sign that somebody left in our yard.

Ha HA!  Cars can't go over this!   Someone will have to pick it up now!  This is not my trash!  Get it out of my yard!

I still didn't feel all the way better.  I needed something bigger to take my frustrations out on.  So I went to the garage and got a hatchet.
...

...

(pause for effect)
...

...

Are you wondering what I did with the hatchet? :)   This is making a good story!   Well, it's not as bad as you think.  I went and got a hatchet...and I chopped down a tree.

With a hatchet.  Well, we don't have saw over here, and plus, when you are mad you want to hit something, not saw something. 

Unfortunately for the drama of the story, it was a small tree, and it was already dead.  I would love to tell you that I felled a giant sequoia with a hatchet, but that would have taken so long that I would still be chopping, and plus, giant sequoias don't grow over here.  The tallest tree I've seen is about 20 feet tall.  (But I was frustrated enough to fell a giant sequoia.  Or at least a date palm!  Well, maybe a small date palm.  OK, maybe just a frangipani tree.  A small one.  A small, already dead one.  Oh wait.  That's what I did.)

Mike had the foresight to know that one day I would look back at this and laugh, and that that day was not very far in the future...so he took pictures.  He even told me, "This is going to make a good blog post."  Thanks for thinking of me, honey.  Nothing like being photographed while you are really stressed out!  Ha!  (Better watch out, honey.  I am the one holding the hatchet.)

The wall is right there, so it's hard to get a good swing.

Half down!  Now for the other half.

On the outside, I was really cheerful about the whole thing.  Everett was watching.  It was ostensibly a fun and dramatic chore that we had been meaning to do.

 After the kids went to bed, I dragged it out to the street, near the junk metal.

Ta da!  I got some of the stump dug out after this, but Mike had to finish it off.  Those roots were deep.

Well, turns out this was a good way to get a little energy out.  I took out that dead tree in our yard, I cleaned up the side yard, and the place looks much better.  But next time, when I grab the hatchet, I am also going to remember to grab some work gloves!  Ouch! 

After some reflection, I think I am frustrated because the holidays are coming up and it's tough to miss out on being home.  I am worn out with all the stupidities of living here.  And I really want to hold my tiny new baby nephew, who won't be so tiny anymore by the time we finally get to see him.

I guess it's just another of the ups and downs of Our Arabian Adventure. Nowhere to go now but up!


(Yes, the title of this post is a play on the Ray Stevens classic.  See the real thing here.  Hallelujah!)

P.S.  I miss squirrels!