You're tired of hearing about the watch, I know...but the saga continues.

Last Friday, as a "before-we-go-to-Iowa" errand, I had the battery replaced. Imagine my delight: a pretty watch THAT KEPT TIME. I marveled at my good fortune, until the next day after my morning shower. The inside of my watch's face was foggy, beaded with untimely perspiration. I jammed my wrist under Miles' nose on a whimper, and he looked upon the devastation with nonchalance. "Oh, yeah...I forgot to warn you that when they change the battery, the water seal is broken." Calmly, he handed my wrist back to me with a look that undeniably said, "Now put that somewhere safe before you hurt somebody."

As the day wore on, the condensation evaporated and I momentarily forgot of my woes. It wasn't like I was receiving sympathy for them anyway, so what's the use?

But things never resolve themselves simply in my world. I began noticing that the moisture appeared when I would leave the dry-cool of an air conditioned building and enter the hot-humid of the Midwest in August. The day before yesterday, a week after the above-mentioned battery changing, I returned to Dakota Watch Co. and asked the same gentleman who changed my battery to check the water seal on my watch. He did a double-maybe-triple take when I presented the watch for him. He recognized either me, the watch, or the combination of the two, and nodded in recognition. I explained my plight with ease, camouflaging the anxiety brimming just beneath the surface, and he set to sealing the watch case. He handed it back to me a short while later indicating that he had sealed everything, but that it is common for a watch to be finicky about the moisture saturation in air. Grateful for the work that he did, my eyes twinkled, and I asked, "How much do I owe you?"

He smiled an understanding smile and said, "Free of charge." As we walked away, Miles and I spoke of the scary R-word: replacement. I am understandably upset:



Yesterday morning we hit 10 jewelry counters. Jewelry counters are not friendly experiences when you know just what you want. "No, I really don't want your help deciding on something, I'll know it when I see it." "Yes, I realize that those are on sale...and if you hadn't already told me 5 times, the big red sign might have tipped me off." "Oh, these are new?—That's nice...too bad that they're hideous."

Finally, Miles and I adopted a ruse. I would boldly walk to the glass-encased watch display while a vulture caught my scent. Meanwhile, Miles would stand behind me, gazing over my shoulder and looking observant. The vulture delivered its spiel. I blurt, seemingly unrehearsed, "You see, I've been looking for a two-toned or gold bracelet watch with a braided herringbone band. The watch that I am looking to replace [with an exact replica] is very dainty, and looks more like a bracelet than a watch." The vulture points to something gaudy and matching only one of my qualifiers...that's right, it's either gold or two-toned. My convincing fake-laugh rolls as I remain uncommitted, saying, "My birthday is next week, and I am just pointing out gift-possibilities for him [thumb points to Miles over my shoulder] to consider." This seems to be commonplace procedure, and the vulture laughs knowingly before flying toward fresh blood.

JC Penny was our final stop. I peered into the lit glass case as a woman with her hair piled high atop her head began to fire her round of ammunition. The glass case circled about the entire perimeter of the jewelry counter. Forgetting protocol in my so-far disappointment with the excursion, Miles answered the woman for me as she spoke in rapid and heavy Middle-Eastern-accented tones. "You want look a watch?" "For You? Her?" "Watches on sale, look!"

Miles answered benignly, "Just looking." "Yes, for her, but we're just looking for now, thanks." "Oh yeah? Okay, thanks...but really, we're just looking." I surveyed their entire selection, and do you know that the rabid saleswoman followed me all the way around the jewelry counter, waiting for her next opportunity to pounce? Finally, seeing a watch that was most-of-the-way wonderful, except for the yucky mother-of-pearl face, I gave in and asked to stroke its willowy body. She looked condescending, according to Miles, as she reached for the indicated watch.

"Solid gold. 16 diamonds. On sale today for....$920." Miles said she was waiting for my jaw to drop. He said she had a smug smile about her lips. I wouldn't know any of this because I wasn't looking at her, I was studying the watch. The band was a lovely weight, not quite herringbone or braided...but malleable. Unfortunately, I just couldn't get over the face...the mother-of-pearl was just not my style. Too much glitter with all of those rocks too. I handed it back to her after a thorough examination, and she looked crestfallen at my lack of response at the price, even more so at my anti-enthusiasm over its façade. We exited the store and Miles applauded my stony expression.

"What stony expression?" I questioned.

"She was trying to get a reaction out of you with that watch..."

I shrugged. "I just really didn't like the mother-of-pearl—"

"NINE HUNDRED AND TWENTY DOLLARS!"

"Oh, that. Well, the mother-of-pearl was gaudy." I felt the duality of his relief and unease...relief that I did not like the watch, unease that had I liked it.....well, we won't go there.

The end of August is my favorite time of year, to be certain. It marks the days of the Virgo, and while astrology is not something that I personally follow, I cannot deny that many have come to me to ask if my birthday falls between August 23rd and September 22nd. I'm told that I "just scream, 'Virgo!'" Reading documentation, I am not so sure that this is all that complimentary...nor is it comforting that Miles nods knowingly as I read aloud:

Mercury, planet of the intellect, rules Virgo, giving Virgos an analytical approach to life. That communication is important to Virgos is aptly demonstrated by the fact that so many of them are very talkative, despite their natural shyness. This, coupled with their wide vocabulary and intelligence, often loses their companions' interest. They love books, magazines, and writing. With a critical eye for organization and detail and their constant search for perfection, Virgos have an irresistible urge to improve everything and everyone, whether they need it or not. While Virgos are unassuming and non-egotistic, they can sometimes be gossipy, nosy, and nagging. They may appear to be passive-aggressive.

Last night, Debbie returned from the grocery store with apples...lots and lots of apples...and pie crusts. Someone's birthday is arriving in mere days, she told me. Someone who likes apple pie. Someone who likes her Aunt Debbie's apple pie best of all. (I think it MIGHT be for me! Shhhh!)

So, in retrospect, I might just be a companion-less perfectionist talking to myself in an empty room...but at least I still get pie, and that really isn't such a rotten trade-off!

We are planning, if Mom feels good enough when the time comes, a week-long vacation in Boulder Junction, Wisconsin...one of the bazillion towns comprising "Up North", or "Up Nort", if you will. We are renting a cabin on Middle Gresham Lake, as we did for a week every summer when I was a youngster. It has been a dream of my brother's to go back there one more time as a family, so we will try.



It is quiet and simple there, and the world blurs out around you. A week without distractions, a week without communication with the outside world...a glorious time was always to be had. This time, it is different, though. This time, we have Miles.

I spent most of the morning delving into Sprint coverage areas, Alltel coverage areas, and regional Wi-Fi Hotspots. I hit gold with but one, a cyber cafe in Minocqua called The Caffeinated Internet. Their website is none too impressive, but that's coming from a jaded ex-graphics artist, so take me with a grain of salt.

"Are there phones in the cabins?" Miles asked on the verge of desperation. I shook my head, beginning to say that there are pay phones and you can always use the resort's "office" phone, but I didn't get the chance. "Outlets?—are there outlets so I can at least PLUG IN a computer!?"

"Yes," I snorted. "Though, I can't guarantee that they're grounded, so you ought to bring a converter." By the look on his face, you'd think that I asked him to relieve himself in a bucket rather than a toilet for a week.

Oh, wait! [insert fake boisterous laugh] That's what his mother wanted me to do during a proposed laid-back getaway (that we never took). She found my prissy bathroom standards altogether ridiculous and once asked me once on a laugh, "Well what do you think they were doing before they had bathrooms!?"

A half-heartbeat later I replied, "Inventing bathrooms."

I propose a cabin with running water, and he acts like I've stolen his favorite game identity. "You can stay home," I keep telling him, an idea which he emphatically rejects...and it is during these times, when Miles is fussy, more "hold me now" than "holier than thou" when I wonder how the heck he survived ten years as a Boy Scout.

They must have camped out in only the remotest of 5-star hotels, and roasted marshmallows upon perfumed 4-wick pillar candles in the lobby. I laugh at the imagery this calls, and he glances over, poised to ask me to check the Sprint coverage area once more.

The clothing industry is not catering to my needs.

Is there a self-conscious moment in everybody's life when they're sitting on an examination table, and a doctor looks at old x-rays, then looks at you...and asks, "What happened?" [Horror-struck Laura-face. ] Huh? What's wrong with me? "You should have been about 5'10"," the white coated man with the foot sticking out of his mouth continued. In hindsight, I can see that my young habit with the Mountain Dew wasn't spectacularly brilliant. "Oh, I see now, you had some childhood illnesses." Well he didn't say that specifically, specifically he went into specifics, but you really don't want to read the diaries of a young girl's GI Tract, now do you?

In essence, my growth was stunted, a fact I had not realized until I was 20 years old. For those of you who've met me in person, you might wonder, "How could you not have guessed!?" Well, I don't come from particularly tall stock. My parents' ancestors were skyscrapers, but the generations that have come since have adopted a more diminutive set of genes. Standing at 5-nothing on a good day, I accepted my height.

In middle school, my best friend, holding her hand up to mine, declared, "You have big hands for a little person!" Also, my grandmother never fails to mention the size of my apparently gigantic feet when she sees them. I was used to feeling like a freak of nature by that point, mainly from the aforementioned GI Tract and the constant discomfiture, so the implications didn't really penetrate.



I can tell you with certainty that knowing I was meant to be taller has done nothing to salve the wound. If anything, I have taken to walking around with an indignant attitude and snarling, "Oh yeah! Well I should have been kissing 6'!" whenever a Wal-Mart greeter offers me a sticker, or an Olive Garden hostess asks if I would like crayons. Oh well, in 30 years when I am dancing in my mid-50's and looking about 12 years old, I bet I'll appreciate it then. Grandpa Miles can get the senior discount, and young Laura can sneak in with the children's.

Worst of all, is finding a pair of pants. I buy them in petite, short, Munchkin, and, as Amy likened, Oompa Loompa lengths...and yet, they are too long. Yesterday, I hemmed 3 such pairs of blue jeans. With the residual denim, I fashioned a 3-piece suit for Miles, a pair of stockings for Mom, and a bow for the cat. At least others can benefit, I suppose.