Reconnaissance

re·con·nais·sance (ri kän′ə səns, -zəns) noun an exploratory survey or examination, as in seeking out information about enemy positions or installations

I'm not sure if yesterday will go down in history as one my most yellow bellied moments or if I can take credit for my resourcefulness in the midst of crises. One thing I do know is that I shouldn't stand by the phone waiting for CSI to call asking me to guest star as their newest P.I.

So the story goes as follows. After my very gracious husband agreed to allow us to get rid of the monstrous mugo pines that have taken over our back island, I got the brilliant idea that instead of paying someone to come and remove them, I would find someone to pay me to remove them. i.e. I put an add on Craigslist announcing I would sell these mugo pines cheaply if someone would be willing to dig them out themselves. Within 6 hrs I had my buyer in hand and was pretty proud of myself for such an ingenious idea.

May 11, 2010 3:08 pm Home of Noelle Lewis - Ben calls me and tells me the buyer is not coming at 5:30 anymore, he is coming at 3:30 due to a conflict schedule, so I would need to be the one to supervise this project and collect the cash. Being the yellow bellied fool that I am, I told Ben I was too scared to deal with this man and asked if I could pretend I wasn't home. Instead of rolling his eyes (well I don't think he did) he graciously agreed knowing how timid I can be and called back our buyer to have him leave the money in the mailbox.

May 11, 2010 3:28pm Home of Noelle Lewis - The man is pulling up the road in a red truck, I hurry around the home, close the blinds, and turn off all the lights. I see him get out of the truck and his accomplice staying in the truck. I rush to the nursery (top floor right corner room) to spy while he starts to remove the mugo of his choice. After awhile he is joined by another man. This gets boring and I call Ben to discuss my spy out.

May 11, 2010 3:42pm Home of Noelle Lewis- I get suspicious of these two men, wondering how we can be sure we can trust them to pay. Instead of doing the common sense thing and going outside to show them I'm home and I'm here to collect my cash, I decide to write down their licence plate number. Hey, it can't hurt, right?

May 11, 2010 3:51pm Home of Noelle Lewis- The men carry the pine to their truck (this is still being observed while I am crouched on the floor, pulling down one slot of the blind so I have just enough room to squeeze my eye and observe what is now taking place). The men start the truck's engine and pull out of the driveway. WAIT!! I didn't see them pay. Then the thought came to mind, maybe while the first man was digging out the pine, and the second man remained in the truck, possibly he went to the mailbox to deliver the cash.

May 11, 2010 3:54pm Driveway of Noelle Lewis- I run out the front door as I see the truck vanishing out of sight and rush to the mailbox to collect my cash. I open the mailbox, no cash. I open my neighbor's (maybe they weren't crooks after all, just number challenged and left it in her mailbox). No cash in there either.

May 11, 2010 3:57pm Home of Noelle Lewis- I saunter back inside, begrudgingly pick up the phone and call Ben to report we have been the victims of a cruel Craig's List crime. I reassure him that I have their licence plate number and we should call him up, demand the money, or let him know we have him tracked. Ben reassures me that he probably just forgot to pay and will be back. I tell him I don't share his optimism but agree to wait at least an hour before calling him.

May 11, 2010 4:12pm Driveway of Noelle Lewis- I wander back out to the mailbox thinking that perhaps the money was in the very back and I just missed it. I look again and still no money. I turn around start towards the house when I hear a vehicle coming towards the home. Sure enough, a red truck. The man gets out, hands me twenty dollars, I'm speechless and all I can say is, Hi I'm Ben's wife. He smiles turns around and leaves. So much for the dull life of a housewife. I say my life is pretty interesting...or at least I make it that way.

Fish Makes Me Cry

This post is in honor of my good friend Kristen who was my encouragement for trying something new. Fish. I didn't eat fish growing up and now I want very little to do with the creatures. However, Ben and I have been trying to eat a lot more health consciously and so I decided to try to swallow some addition Omega-3 fatty acids in the form of fish.

The bottom line...I cried during the entire time I ate our fish. It wasn't a full out cry, not a sob, not a weep, nor a wail. It was more of a sniffle, but this only compounded the problem because the crying made my nose run, and my nose running made me sniffle and then the fish aroma was only more intensified as I took these additional breaths. Which brought us to the point in the night when Ben asked, "Are you even allowed to be eating fish while pregnant? Isn't that one of the forbidden foods?" And the sniffle became a sob as I contemplated this statement, figuring I just did something so injurious to our unborn babe by eating fish, that the baby would be permanently damaged. I'm really hoping I can use my pregnancy hormones as the cop out on why fish would make me cry, or at least why it would create such melodramatic thoughts in my mind. Understanding the mind of a pregnant lady is not always easy, but neither is eating fish.

So here we are with the big question of what to do now. But I decided--I'm not going to claim defeat --a slipperly, slimly, squirmy little creature will not get the best of me. However, I am wondering, next week when I attempt round 2 of mastering the art of fish culinary, if anyone has some clothespins I can borrow for my nose.

Note: With a little reassuring help from google, I did learn that tilapia is on the list of low mercury fish and can be eaten twice weekly.