Not Calm (dot com)

Now that all four kids have a DS, we might just make it

I got into bed early tonight, at something like 8:30.  The phone rang when I was not quite asleep, so I untangled myself from the girls (they like to fall asleep all wound around me) and saw on the caller ID that it was my dad.  It was funny, because I'd just been thinking as I was starting to fall asleep that I needed to send him something for his birthday, which was last week when I was all knocked out by this flu. 

Anyway, he was calling to be sure that Willow's gift came and to say hello.  We talked for an hour and a half.  The kids were asleep and the house was quiet.  He told me about making coffee in a lab (with lab grade equipment, and a physicist who had the whole thing down to a, well, a science, I guess) and about going to see War at CircusCircus in New York in the 1960's (but maybe it's this: Electric Circus).  We talked about New York, and Chicago, what a dipshit Alec Baldwin is and how funny this is, Pogo, surfing, sharks, opera, a newly discovered older cousin who looks like me (I look like no one else in my family.  Not even sorta.), a teeny bit of politics, Issac Asimov, an upcoming family reunion this summer, what SG stands for, friends of his who have passed away.  Other stuff, too. 

I've been homesick lately, but that's nothing new.  I'm an 8th generation Texan; that shit is hard wired, ya'll.  I was looking at the photos that Chris posted from their move, and this one kicked me right square in the stomach, even though I never lived in Austin.   I'm going to figure out if I can take a little time off this summer and go home for a visit.  I know I can't afford to fly, but maybe we can drive it.  It's 24 hours, door to door.  It'll be in August, which ought to cure me from needing to go back again anytime soon.  Heh.  I'm joking.  Of course it's not the place, it's my family that I miss.

   

And I really do miss them.

And, no, my family isn't a bunch of cows and cowbirds.  Heh.

But now I am Six, I'm as clever as clever

So I think I'll be six now forever and ever

Somebody hold me, my baby is six as of midnight.

I feel bad for her, because with the other kids there's a tradition of me telling them all about their birth as we go to sleep the night before their birthday.  I didn't do that with her this year, because we stayed up too late making 48 mini spice birthday muffins (taste like ass, first time Mark Bittman has let me down and that cookbook is so used that the pages are literally falling out) for her to take to her class and to her daycare, and she started snoring before we were even settled into bed.  But, last year, and other years before that, I did tell her about her birth and she was full of questions.  Like, WHY were there holes in my heart, and WHY did I have to stay in the hospital so long, and WHY did I have a feeding tube up my nose, and WHY did I get borned by surgery, and WHY was I born early?  And I tell her that she had a rough start, but that now she's big and strong and happy and fine.  But, she's definitely a little off about it still, feeling sensitive about it, and maybe sad.  Or, I could be projecting, because I know that six years later I'm still a little wobbly about it all myself. 

I was thinking earlier today of something that happened to me when I was her age.  I used to have a dog, Dizzy.  I named her after Dizzy Gillespie when I was five (or so) which means that my parents were doing something very right.  Anyway, Dizzy ran away one day and we never saw her again, but sometime between getting her and losing her, I got this little fuzzy dog figurine that looked just like her.  Remember those?  From the 70's?  They were kinda furry, but definitely breakable underneath.  Something between ceramic and porcelain.  So, I had this figurine that looked like Dizzy, and it was sort of my pet.  And one day, I told a neighbor girl that we should have a birthday party for Dizzy, and  asked her if she wanted to come over later and do that.  Now, in my mind, this was what kids call pretending, which was obvious, because I was planning a birthday party for ONE OF MY TOYS, but I guess that this girl was all about the literal because she showed up later in a party dress with a board game all wrapped up with a bow and a steaming, overly (I thought) pissed off mother who thought the misunderstanding was because I'd planned a birthday party for my dog and her kid said it was for me.  Hopefully she never found out it was for a toy dog. 

And, somehow, this was All My Fault, and the girl's mother had Spent Money buying this gift and it was a big old deal.  I don't think my mom was mad at me, but I do remember quite clearly thinking that there was no possible way I could get in trouble for the whole thing because I never said it was my birthday, and it's totally not my fault if other people aren't paying attention.   Geez.

I've always had an attitude, even back then.  

Anyway, Willow's party this year is going to be at the park by her dad's house and I opted to let him plan the whole thing.  Even the invitations.  I will show up (it's on her weekend with him) and I'll bring a cake and a camera, but I'm not doing the party.  I'm torn between feeling guilty and laughing my ass off with relief.  I mean, I've got four kids, the oldest is 12.  I have planned, plotted, and executed many a birthday party, pretty much by my lonesome, including one for a three year old that was a "Make Your Own Pizza" party that ended up costing me more than a week's worth of groceries.  (I didn't plan for it to; those damn toppings just added up quickly.)  And tonight she got her birthday dinner (steak, Annie's Mac and Cheese, broccolini, and chocolate store-bought birthday cake), and then we made 4 dozen mini muffins for her to take to her kindergarten class and to her before school daycare.  (They suck, so if anyone asks if I made them, I'm totally going to say, No, her dad did.  I can't eat gluten, how are they?  I figure if he can blog crap about me, I can attribute this crap to him.  Crap is crap, after all.)

It's past my bedtime. 

Valentine's flowers from SG and the kids.  I'm a lucky, lucky girl.

Vi-co-diiiin, better than Gin

And I know the vicodin has indeed kicked in, because it took me four tries to spell fueled.  *edited to add - I'd explain if I knew?*

So, I feel like the biggest dumbass in the history of the world because I didn't get a flu shot and LOOK WHAT HAPPENED TO ME LAST YEAR!  Almost exactly a year ago.  Damn.  No excuse.

This time, though, besides the cough, head-splitting pain, sore throat, 103.7 fever, and body aches, I got a nasty ear infection.   So, now, instead of just plain old fever blogging, I have upped the ante and am bringing the dry-mouthed, wobbly, vicodin and (slight) fever blogging.  If I can stay up for two more hours and outlast the vicodin I took when I walked in the door from the doctor's office (totally not happening) I am going to down some cough syrup with codeine (because, people - Broken ear drum + Shitty cough = Hell).

But, I don't remember if codeine makes me barf? 

School is out this week (*slams head against wall* because, at this point I won't feel it anyway) and so the kids are up, way late, watching Spiderman.  Or Spiderman Two.  Something.  I hear lots of shit blowing up.  I do NOT hear screetching kids.  This is the only criteria at the moment.  Plus, since school is out, they don't have to get up and out the door at the usual time, so, yeah, "bedtime."  Whatever.  You know that thing about not waking a sleeping baby?  Yeah, it is a good rule of thumb to apply to any age if you are a single mom who is too sick to deal with reality.  Not that they are sleeping, but interpreted to mean that I'm not going to change a single thing about their current environment which has them quietly talking about how they would handle that stuff if they were Spidey.  I think they are also sneaking sparling cider in the "fancy glasses."  Yay!  Memories to last a life time for them.  Peace for me.  Win win win.  And, also?  Win. 

I'm lucky.  My mom came over after work to feed and watch the kids so I could go to the doctor.  Then she stayed later so I could go to the grocery store because I've been sick for so long the kids were reduced to making sandwiches out of stale graham crackers, walnut oil, and ten year old dried thyme.  (One of them will either market that shit at a swank restaurant someday, or make it a high point in their tell-all How My Mom's Blog Ruined My Life expose/memoir and will totally milk it on the talk show circuit:  I still cannot smell thyme without feeling exposed, they will say with a dramatic chest heaving sob looking straight into the camera.  Is there anything that people don't know about my childhood?  She was a MONSTER!)  Also, I had to get toilet paper.  Because we ran out.  Which? DUDE?  What mother ever runs out of toilet paper?  Me.  That's who.  That's why there are paper towels, kleenex, and plumbers. 

My mom was actually here watching the kids the other day, too, when I went in to the doctor only to be told that this shit was viral (and I was all feverish and my brain instantly went YOUTUBE!).  And, for lots of the weekend, SG took care of me, fed the kids, got groceries, let me rest while dealing with rainy-day, slightly crazed, irritated, big time stinky farting, somewhat feral, definitely unbathed for too long, children.  And he was like, Baby, I'm just going to start putting booze in that coffee I make you every morning.  This is HARD.  Okay, he didn't really say that, but he does really make me espresso in the morning.  In a stovetop pot.  Because he is awesome.  And he did say that part about it being hard.   Right before he got a fever, and sore throat and cough, and the chills and missed two days of work and studying and HolyShit a night class because he was too sick to get out of bed.  And I feel really, really bad, because I didn't see how sick I was gonna get coming.   But I should have, if only I read my own blog.

Hi.  Apparently vicodin makes me wired.   Good to know.  My ear still hurts, and I'm not sleepy.  I'm off to hit up the codeine syrup.

night

Flu-1, Jen-0

When I left the house today, I looked at my camera (it's on the mini bookshelf next to my bed, which isn't where it goes, but I left it there last time I was uploading photos because I am lazy forgetful) and thought about switching bags so I could bring it with me.  I didn't do it, though, so of course there were things I wanted to photograph.  An old, green jump rope coiled on the blacktop at the kids' school, the wooden handles with their green faded and peeling paint, very faint daisies still showing. 1 The boys' bathroom door open, a nasty looking crowbar wedged where a harmless rubber door stopper should be. 2 They wouldn't do that in a jr high or high school, right? 

Other things, too, but I wouldn't have been able to photograph them anyway.  A grandmother sitting at the bus stop with a toddler on her lap, laughing and bouncing him on her lap, like she was playing, but really she was rubbing his shoulders and back because the wind was cold today and he wasn't very bundled up. 3 A young woman in front of a house, walking her fluffy little white dog, bending over to scoop the dog up so that an older woman using a walker could scratch behind its ears and coo at it. 4

I am weakly imitating unphotographable.  In the sincerest form of flattery way, not the plagarist way. 

I'm sick.  Ear ache (prolly will spend part of Valentine's Day at the urgent care getting some drugz), sore throat, cough, fever that is making me loopy.  It's cold and rainy, which is fine, but I really just want to go to bed and I can't quite yet.  Today at lunch, SG made us homemade chicken Pho, which meant we could have all the hot sauce, limes and tamari we wanted, but none of those nasty ass scallions we both hate.  Plus, we had shredded carrots.  It was good.  Really, really good. 5

brought to you by Grace In Small Things (DUDE! click that link and watch the Trader Joe's song.  SG and I were reunited at TJ's, so it will always be my very most favorite grocery store.)

SweetHeart

Tuesday night we made Valentines.

I'm feeling nostalgic for the time when the kids were littler and I was with them all the time.  This year the boys didn't really want to make Valentines with us, which is fine, but I swear as Nate sat at the computer playing a game while I cut out 32 construction paper hearts for him to sign, I could squint and see him as he was just a few years ago.  My boys are still sweet to me (except when they aren't; and then they really, really aren't) but to be honest, it's hard on my ego now that they are older and can actually refuse an offered hug.  I didn't always want to be the center of their worlds, obviously, but how can I not miss when I was?

Anyway, Happy Valentine's Day

Grace In Small Things: 14 of 365

1. Rum and coke.  With lime.
2. A webstore full of  pretty things.
3. My youngest sister started a blog. 
4. I got to go to lunch with Kristy. 
5. This song came up on my iPod while I was driving home

Grace In Small Things: 13 of 365

1. Sophie has a fever, and I was able to work from home today with zero drama.
2. My hair has grown back about 1/1,000,000 of an inch.  Baby steps.
3. SG made an Etsy account so he could order me some of  these as a Valentine's Day gifty from the kids.  Because he loves me and knows that I am not loving my new hair.  
4. Last night Lex unloaded the dishwasher and did the dinner dishes.  Without me asking him to.  ::blink::   ::blinkblink::
5. Tonight I'll help the kids make their Valentine's cards.

Grace In Small Things: 12 of 365

from the weekend

 

1. Life gave me lemons.  I have a Meyer lemon tree in my own (rented) backyard, and it's full of ripe lemons.
2. The ornamental plum tree has a bunch of buds.  It usually flowers right around Willow's birthday, maybe a week or two after.
3. Truffles.  Pictured: margarita filled; single malt Scotch filled; dark chocolate, caramel, and sea salt.  Not pictured: Patron filled.  Oh, yeah.
4. Found a shiny, heads-up penny in the wet grass today.
5. I started making a felt garland for my little nephew or niece who is due to arrive in about two months.  *I. am. so. SO. excited* B A B Y !  (I made one of these for the girls' room awhile back.) 
6. Saw Nate and Soph in their school play twice.  They worked really hard, and it showed.
7. Had lunch with my mom on Saturday AND on Sunday. 
8. We went to an antique fair in a part of San Jose that has a bunch of Eichlers.  (Love.Want.)  Near where we parked I saw this big stamp in the sidewalk.  
9. At the antique fair my mom bought me a very sweet vintage apron. It's green and purple, with little pansies on the front.  It even has a pocket.  

I don't have a photo of it, but on Saturday night SG cooked me supper and took me to see an incredible classical guitarist named Marcin Dylla.  I've taken piano lessons, and guitar; I also took choir in seventh grade.  People who can make music like that just floor me.  I'm so in awe.

And, finally, I have to be very happy and grateful that my hair grows faster than average.  Really, really happy.

Grace In Small Things: 11 of 365

1. Plans for lemonade, made with simple syrup (and probably booze)
2. Discovering that the Trader Joe's gluten free pancake and waffle mix makes bitchen waffles.
3. A quiet house.  For at least another twenty minutes.
4. Plans with my mom for this weekend (even though I'm a rotten daughter and not only didn't get her a birthday gift for her birthday yesterday, but am TAKING money from her to help with expenses that I just can't seem to manage).
5. If, hypothetically, you *just* finished paying off your 2007 income taxes and then went ahead and figured out the 2008 taxes and discovered that someone (not you, but someone you must pay taxes with - you know - in this example) didn't really bother with the whole "withholding" thing, guess what?  The government takes payments!  I have to be grateful for that part; it's seriously all that is keeping my head from exploding.  

Grace In Small Things - check it out