Not Calm (dot com)

love thursday, a yoyo

What? You don't know about Love Thursday?

Willow really wanted to ride her scooter to school today.  I work from home on Thursdays, and so instead of going to day care, she sleeps in and plays with her dolls and animals for a spell before school.  I promised her that she could ride to school, but I got wrapped up in work stuff and by the time we were ready to go, school had already started. 

But, you know, I'd promised.  I wish I could say that I always keep my promises.  I don't.  Stuff happens and I often don't think things through before talking.  I buckled her into her car seat, telling her we were late, that the other kids were on the carpet already, singing the Good Morning Song.  That we'd scooter to school another day.  I think maybe I told her that last Thursday, too.  She sighed and shivered and crossed her little arms.  Want a jacket? I asked her.  She nodded.  When I came back with her sweater, I unbuckled her.  Hop out and get your helmet on, I told her, I will carry your backpack.

It was worth being a half hour late just to get to walk behind her for that half mile.  I swear her little feet were smiling as she rode the scooter down the sidewalk.  We got to school and she had a cute substitute teacher from Kentucky.  Willow! he read from her late slip, We just were talking about your beautiful name a few minutes ago.  I'm so glad you are here.

I snuck out the back door, stashed her scooter and helmet near the class, and walked back home.  It was a pretty, pretty day. 

I hopped on a quick call for work while I walked, and then I went to have lunch with the awesome woman behind this film:

And this website.

We sat in the restaurant and talked like old friends and I cannot *wait* to see her film.  Thea lives in Scotland, and it's funny that today was the first time we met, because we went to the same high school.  SG remembers hanging out with her when they both were at the same junior college (the one I was at, too, though I didn't meet either of them there).  We lived within a few miles of each other for years and years, but I was recently introduced to her via email by a guy in England who I was introduced to via email by my friend and former coworker, Kristy.   Sometimes the world taps you on the shoulder and reminds you that it's small. 

Later on near the end of the day, Nathan got out his yoyo.  SG picked it up and put the loop around his finger, winding the string like he'd done it before.  Sure enough, within seconds the yoyo was spinning at the end of the string near the floor until he flicked his wrist and brought it back up to his palm.  Nate watched him, mouth open in astonishment even though he was grinning.  SG did a few other tricks and then said that he hadn't picked up a yoyo since he was Nate's age.  I stood there watching, grinning myself, because yoyo tricks were making me fall more in love. 

Never saw moons knew the meaning of the sea

I watched SG get into his scuba gear on Saturday morning.  We were in a parking lot in Monterey, right at the end of Cannery Row.  He reminded me of an astronaut with his dry suit and tank, which isn't so far off the mark, really, since he was going to go float around in a place with no oxygen.

I sat in the sun on a beach chair on the grass, reading You Suck and listening to the ocean and the conversations around me while I waited for him to come back.  Finally I saw him, walking up the hill, carrying his fins.   The fact that he was walking up that hill to me, making me feel so very good and more than a little weak in the knees.

I've never dived. (dove? doven?)  My brother used to, but I never even thought about it because my inner ears are all wrong.  I can hear fine, but my Eustachian tubes are infant-sized and diving would probably hurt beyond belief since it's really hard for me to pressurize my ears. 

I did want to get into the water, though, so I went and changed into my bikini (yes, really) and came back to put on my wetsuit.  I started to whine because the suit felt funny around my knees, and as I zipped it up the front, SG started laughing (at me) and told me that it felt funny around my knees because I had it on backwards.  Mind you, we are at this point surrounded by a parking lot full of divers, at their cars to change or take a break or whatever.  Many of them are Serious About Diving, and SG is both a dive master and a rescue diver (um, sexy much?) so having a girlfriend who, even though she's worn it before, puts on her wetsuit backwards might be a little embarrassing.  If he really cared (and I don't think he did) he didn't let it show.  

He had fins for me, and booties; gloves, a mask, his snorkel, and a hood to keep my head warm.  He carried the boogie board down to the water for me, and we walked from the sand into the water, stopping when it was two or three feet deep to wobbily put fins on my feet.  I tried to walk on the ocean floor and nearly fell before I realized that I was still bracing for the cold, but I was plenty warm.  I relaxed and followed SG away from shore, hanging onto the board.  

I've always loved going to the beach, ever since the first time I saw the Pacific when I was ten and thought I was going to freeze to death.  So, it's kind of odd that not only have I never scuba dived, I've never gone snorkeling.  It took me a little bit to be okay with the mask on my face.  I'm claustrophobic.  I try to push through the things that scare me, but sometimes my body won't comply.  When I had the mask on, SG said, Okay, now try putting your face in the water.  So, I went to put my face in the water, but my head wouldn't move even though my brain was sending it the right signals, and I said, I can't. 

After a few minutes, and minus the snorkel in my mouth, I was able to put my face in.  It wasn't bad at all.  In fact, I could see a bunch of kelp, reaching up to the light and swaying back and forth as the water rushed past.  And it was pretty.  And that? was nothing, really, because once I got the hang of it, I hooked my arms over the end of the board and put my face in the water, holding my breath and looking down at a very small piece of this whole beautiful world.  From shore, the bay was a sparkly amazing dark blue, bluer than it usually looks.  But underwater I saw bright orange and yellows, iridescent shimmers like big dragonfly wings,  and the minuscule shining silver pinpoints on the kelp, looking for all the world like small stars in the sky.  There were starfish on rocks, and patterns in the sand that looked like pictures I've seen of the desert.  I think having a hood on and my ears under water made it even more separate feeling.  There really is nothing of the everyday world under the water, including the noise.

Every once in awhile I'd stop to look around till I saw SG, floating on his back and swimming like an otter.   Even with all that space between us, I could feel how content and relaxed he was.

I've watched all sorts of underwater documentaries on swank flat screen televisions; I've seen stunning underwater photos; I've stood for a long time in front of the open ocean tank and the jellyfish tank at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  Still, though, I was moved to tears by simple quiet beauty of the very few things I saw.  And I've never thought that divers were going to more trouble than it's worth or anything, but as I looked down into the water I started to get it.  I felt like an astronaut looking back at the earth from the moon, and I wasn't even down there, up close.  I saw not even enough to be called a fraction of what all there is to see, and it's not an understatement to say that it changed how I look at the rest of the world.    

I don't know if I'll ever be able to dive, and that's okay.  I'm definitely more in love with the ocean now, though, and with the man who is teaching me how to see it.

Happy spring

Stars when you shine you know how I feel

Hello.

I am having what I guess you'd call a midlife crisis, though I've been told that it's totally justified.  I'm not going to whine all the details out here, but I will say that my kids are fine, work is great, and my love life is awesome, but I'm still feeling really sad and lost and even lonely, in a way. 

My commute to work three days a week is this thing I embrace and dread.  It takes forfuckingevah to go those 35 miles, but I get to listen to whatever I want if there aren't any conference calls planned, and I do drive on what has to be the most beautiful freeway in the world.  I have my iPod full of This American Life and The Moth and The Sound of Young America, plus all my favorite music.  Today I was especially teary, so I put on Nina Simone and sang along, Theatrical Style, not caring that 9 out of 10 drivers thought I was a total dork, because I saw one other driver smile at me in the rearview mirror of his Caddy and start snapping to what must have been Sammy Davis, Jr. based on the beat he was keeping.  And I blasted Nirvana, and Elton John, and Sia, and sang along with all of them, loud and off key and with passion.  It was fun.  It's especially fun to be driving a minivan and have the dashboard buzzing because the music is cranked up way too high.

The person who expanded daylight saving time can stick it where the sun don't shine*

*another place where the sun don't shine would be my house at 7 a.m., when I'm trying to get my kids up for school and they're all STEP OFF, LADY, IT'S STILL NIGHTTIME!

(And that person?  George W. Bush.)

When I did finally get the girls to the van (Nate just walked to school earlier, totally disgusted that we were late again), it was covered in ice.  I took that as another in the long string of omens that we were not supposed to be out there yet.  But, haha, my neighbor (I am holding a grudge about something.  A totally warranted grudge.) was out there in the harsh conditions with her ice scraper, upping her visibility, while I just turned on the heater and defroster and windshield wipers because I don't have an ice scraper AND I WON.  She wasn't even back in her car when we drove away.  That was a sweet victory, and I decided to celebrate it again an hour later (at the real 8:13 a.m.) but by then I was on the freeway and I forgot because I am so damn tired from getting up too early.

After I got off the freeway, a police car passed me in the lane on my left.  And the license plate frame on his black and white cruiser said F O L S O M across the top.  And something else about Folsom at the bottom, so I flipped the iPod to Johnny Cash. 

Had to take Lex to the doctor this afternoon, because he was trying to get something out of a tree yesterday (awwww, I just remembered when he was little and said, "lasterday") and instead he got something in his eye.  We flushed it out last night with saline, but when he woke up today he was all, I am in no condition to go to school.  And, that was 100% true, but I sent him anyway.  His appointment was at 3:15, they saw him at 4, and by 4:15, the doctor had removed the little tree thing (it looked like a sesame seed husk, if they even have one) from the inside of his upper eyelid and had put some orange numbing stain stuff in his eye and we were checking it out with the UV bulb.  It was super creepy, to tell the truth, but thank maude he didn't get a scratched cornea.  I think he's fine; he came home and watched videos on Hulu for a looooong time.  To be fair, I should disclose that he also rode his bike and did homework.

After supper, the girls and one of their friends and I walked over to the store.  It's the store that we get to by taking a short cut.  The short cut goes behind the store, and there is some ventilation pipe thing that is way down low near the ground that the kids have been yelling into for the past seven years.  Today Sophie bent down, put her mouth up to the pipe, and yelled,  Have you seen [damnit, I forgot what she said] No!  You have NOT!  Because he's all in the ninteenth century these days! Ha ha ha, whoooooooo.  I had to laugh.  She's so weird.  I love that about her.

I better get to bed, because thanks to George W Bush, 5:30 comes way fucking early these days.  Whooooooo. 

The plum tree is blooming

Bright

We need the rain, so I haven't minded it showing up for most of the last little while even though it makes my commute to work nearly twice as long (time-wise) and ten times more stressful.  Yesterday was sunny, though, and when I was driving home, the sun was starting to set and it was shining through the right half of the windshield.  It felt so good and warm on my face.  I could feel the sunshine on my eyelashes; I swear it had weight to it. 

And, this is silly to admit, but I started thinking about the sun, and how it's actually a star, and since it was the only star in the sky I could see, I made a wish on it.  I think it will come true.  I hope so.

4 in the morning

A day late and a dollar short

That's me: just not-quite making it.  Sometimes I'm close, but like my dad always says, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.  You know those carnival fun houses, with the moving floors?  Those are my days lately; the things I think are solid are suddenly moving and I end up getting knocked on my ass.  I guess I can admire the fact that I get up and keep going, even when I'd like to hide under my bed and never come out, which is a fairly dire statement coming from someone so claustrophobic she has a mini panic attack just reaching under the bed for a stuffed animal or lego piece.   Maybe schools shouldn't give an E for Effort, because the real world sure as hell doesn't.  I could really use my E right now.  And, um, also a hug.  </whining>

We have (had) these two giant pine trees in the back yard, one in each corner.  The apartment building behind my house is two storeys tall, and both trees easily double its height.  They were much taller before the tree trimmers hacked them up a few years back.  One of the trees died all of a sudden, maybe a couple of months ago.  (The same one that the kids and I, when Willow was still a newborn, watched a massive raccoon climb up one morning and then nap all day on a wide limb while the crows freaked right out about their nests.)  The needles all went brown and it started to list toward the apartments.  Not too far from it was a yucca tree that died awhile ago and had holes all over it, which Nate says were from Carpenter Bees.   The woodpecker family that always nests in our yard loved that tree.  Another yucca tree, also looking a little sickly, was by the front gate, and it blocked the view of my bedroom window from the street, which was great as I tend to leave all the curtains open all the time.  I like to see out.

When the pine tree started dying, the tree trimmers came.  Dozens of them, leaving cards in my mailbox, knocking on the door and giving me fliers, approaching me as I left to take the kids to school.  The landlord finally hired someone to take all three trees out, and I'd tell the men who knocked on my door that the job was already assigned.  They'd hand me a card anyway, asking me to ask the landlord to call them so they could give him a better price. 

They showed up today, with trucks and a wood chipper and chain saws and rope.  They cut all the branches off the tree, carried them to the front yard, and then started with the trunk, sawing off huge chunks that shook the ground when they landed.  I worked from home today, and Willow was here this morning, watching out the window, fascinated.  It made me sad, though.  I don't think the tree was actually dead yet, and I felt bad for it, silly as that may sound.  Then I wondered if the other tree, still tall and green in its corner, would miss it.  I think the two of them must've been sharing that space for a long, long time.  Who's to say that trees don't have a mind of their own?  I mean, just like our dazzling intelligence is lost on, say, a lobster, it could be that we aren't yet to the point of our evolving where we can appreciate a tree's wisdom.  Or not.  Maybe people say "dumb as a stump" for a good reason.

They piled up the tree parts in my front yard, totally taking out my lavender plant (I REALLY hope it recovers) and squashing all the bulbs that came up but hadn't bloomed yet.  My yard is so ugly.  So, so SO ugly.  I'm pissy about the flowers. 

I'm sure the tree guys thought I was weird, out there with my camera, snapping photos of the thick section of trunk with three stumps of branches coming off it.  It's okay; I AM weird.   I just thought it was pretty, and sad.  It felt like looking at someone's bones. 

Tomorrow they'll be back to finish taking out the roots and to level the ground.  I'm thinking I'll put a yard in now.  Because of the pine trees, we've always had just dirt; it would be nice in the summertime to go out and lay on the grass and look up at the branches of the tree that is still there.  I could send the girls outside for their tea parties, and we could turn on the sprinkler and run through the water when it gets too hot.  Maybe we'll head over to Morgan Hill this spring, to the Grass Farm.   I'm allergic to Kentucky Bluegrass, but I never let pesky things like that stand in my way.

You'll know me by the dark circles under my eyes

It happened again this morning at 4.  I sat up in bed as soon as I heard it; a rapid fire sort of mini honking - maybe even cheerful  ::honkhonkhonkhonkhonkhonk::  followed by the atrocious honking car alarm.  I got out of bed, cursing, and went to the bulletin board by the front door to grab my keys off the hook.  They weren't there so I felt around in the dark for my purse ::HONKHONKHONKHONKHONK::  By the time I put my fingers on my keys, the alarm had stopped, so I got back in bed, back in my bed between the girls, and tried to sleep even though I knew that soon enough the alarm would go off again.

This happened at the crack of crack a week or so ago, too.  My house is not like most; the front door doesn't face the street, it faces the house next door to us.  To get to my driveway, I have to take a left out the door, head down the walkway, take another left and go through a gate to even really see my van.  Last time it happened, I went outside to the driveway, pushing the unlock button on the remote thing the whole way.  It was so loud, and as I turned the corner and saw my driveway, I saw that my van was all flashing and alive looking.  The alarm finally stopped, I made sure it was unlocked and went back inside.  I don't want to drag this story out, so I'll just say that I ended up going back out three or four more times.  The last time, though, it was my neighbor's car that was going off.  I walked back to my house, saw the front door I'd left openand wondered if someone was out there setting the alarms off on purpose.  You know, to lure people out of their houses so they could sneak in. 

It was a little scary.  And, actually, a pretty stupid idea.  But I was half asleep and it seemed reasonable at the time.

This morning, after I got back in bed and just as I was starting to have those disjointed thoughts that pop up before you fall asleep but when you're still lucid enough to realize that you are about to fall asleep, but then, if you think about it for a beat too long, totally awake again, the honking started.  Again.  This time I grabbed my robe and pulled it on as I went down the hall.  Like Miss Clavel - I ran fast and faster, got the keys and opened my front door to the rain. 

I was more cautious this time.  I shut the door behind me, and walked out into the cold rain.  This time it was the neighbor's car, not mine.   It went off a couple more times, but I stayed in bed and eventually fell back to sleep. 

Did I have a point?  I guess not.  I'm so tired, but I can't sleep.   There's a lot of room for improvement in my life right now. Especially tonight.   Instead of sleeping, I'm beating myself up and doing a really good job of it.  Thinking things like, All my life I've been fighting with this stupid low self esteem and when I finally, finally believe that I'm good enough, I'm hit with the fact that I am not.  It was stupid of me to think I was.  I know better.

I didn't write that looking for a pat on the head.  I wrote it because I knew that writing it would make me read it and think, Whatever, drama queen.  Get over yourself.  I mean, when I'm thinking thoughts like that they have such power over me, but all typed out you can see how thin and weak that kind of thinking is.  Taking it out of my brain sucks the life out of it.  Mostly, anyway.   Nothing is really better, and I'm truly worried about some things that are scaring me very badly.  Real things, not some fictional masked car alarm setter offer.   But I feel better anyway.  Maybe I can sleep now.  It also would do me good to get back on the Grace In Small Things bandwagon. 

1.pretty cupcakes, even if I can only appreciate and not eat them
2.the best sister-in-law ever
3.wine
4.kid art. that one is an old favorite

and 5.my hair has grown a little and I don't suffer from full body cringe (as much) whenever I have to leave the house

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

Grace In Small Things: 8, 9, and also 10

    1. My hair fits in pigtails again.  It's looking a little silly with all the grey.  I'm choosing to not really care.

    2. The climbing little mini roses are starting to do their thing.

    3. Today we went to the dentist.  Soph had a little cavity, Willow needed her new molars sealed and her bottom baby teeth pulled.  I was too worried about it to tell her, and when we got there I pulled (heh) her dentist aside to find out what the game plan was.  He told me that he could pull her teeth without her even knowing, and said that if she was nervous about being there he could give her some nitrous oxide.  He did his thing, and she came out a little later on, chomping on some gauze and totally unaware that she was down a couple of teeth.

    4. The tooth fairy JUST came!  Awesome.

    5. My mom and stepdad were on a weekend getaway when they found this sign for me.  It's metal.  I was going to put it on the wall over my bed, but it's too small for the space.  Instead it lives on top of a bookshelf by the window.  It's kind of perfect there.

    6. It's been beautiful here the past couple of days.  Even the moon played along tonight and came up over the hills just a teeny crescent with a star (Venus?) right next to it. 

    7. All my wonky abnormal lab results are because of the medicine I have to take.  P W E W.

    8. I redid my blawg.  I'd still like to pare it down some. 

    9. There is a bunch of stuff in the back of the van that is waiting to be dropped off at the Goodwill Donation Station.  And?  More stuff in the house to put out there.

    10. I had to rip out my progress on a new knitting project I am working on.  I actually don't mind doing that.  It's humbling, and sort of fun to watch all the loops come undone.  I was only about six rows in, so it made sense to just start over. 

    11. Right now?  In my fridge?  Gluten free beer.  (sweet!)

    12. I worked in Willow's class today.  I got to help make one of the best art projects that the kids do all year.  They take a piece of white paper, glue some narrow strips of black paper to the short top and bottom sides, and then put about five or six drops of ink on the paper.  Real ink; the kind that will stain your clothes and not wash off your hands easily.  Then they take a drinking straw and blow on the wet ink so that it runs along the paper in little lines.  Those are tree branches.  Next they use the eraser side of a pencil to mold squares of tissue paper into cherry blossoms and then they glue those to the ends of the inky branches.  I was really wishing I had my camera with me. 

    13. Mini marshmallows taste ever so much better than I recall.  They are great with a glass of port, too.

    14.  Lex wants to cut his hair.  That is a GoodThing.

    15. I remembered to put the trash at the curb.  This means I won't have to run out to the street in my pajamas at the crack of crack with armfuls of garbage and recycling.

lantern

lantern
Originally uploaded by jenijen

ok - the picnic editing app in flickr is way way cool.

that is all

Hello, My Name is Loser

Seriously.  I am having a moment over here.  A moment defined by a kid saying, "I totally don't respect you," (he apologized (sincerely) later) and by LOSING half of the Girl Scout Cookie Order Form.  Only *I* did not lose it.  I put it on the bookshelf in the living room and Sophie took it down and *she* lost it.  But, still, if you ordered cookies from my kid there is a fifty percent chance you'll want to kick her ass in a couple of months.  Thank Maude she didn't collect money yet.  I'm betting that I will find the form later, and then I will just buy the stuff on it out of pocket and deliver it and collect the money.  So it will probably work out in the end.  Right?  (Why yes, YES you did order 10 boxes of Thin Mints, not 1.  Sure, we take checks. . . )

Other parts of the moment are all about me feeling like I am doing too much and none of it well.  The kids get to school daily, but rarely on time and hardly ever rested, fed, warm, or clean enough for my liking.  Homework is hit and miss.  My house looks like someone turned it upside down, gave it a good shake, and then put it down again.  Dinner tonight?  I am horrified to admit it was Annie's Mac and Cheese, apple slices, and Coconut Shrimp from TJ's.  Not a green thing to be seen.  I had chips and salsa and a glass of port, which isn't really any better.  If you need clean socks, they are in the hamper of clean stuff on top of the washer, not in any drawer.  Same goes for underwear (unless you are the one adult who lives here.  I do put my own away).  The yard looks so much like Sanford and Sons that I sing the theme song whenever I walk up to my front door.  (That link was close as I can get, because of copyright crap issues.)   

I don't sleep enough, there is a stack of laundry that is taller than me, my car needs servicing, and Lex really, really, REALLY needs a haircut.  I spend money I shouldn't, I work when I should be sleeping and do my banking while I'm in my little grey cube.  I have not told my daughter that she'll probably be getting TWO teeth pulled on Thursday. 

I had surgery two weeks ago, and I took a vicodin a couple of days ago because I was tired of listnening to the kids bitch and gripe, not because anything (except for my brain) hurt.  The sad thing is that I didn't even register it.  (So I should take two?  Or take it with booze?)

I vented to my 12 year old about stuff he shouldn't have to hear.  I told my five year old that I'd hold her if she would Just.Stop.Crying.  I recycled artwork that I swore I'd keep.  I borrowed money from my kid's savings account until I get paid on Friday.  I was kind of a bitch to my boyfriend (he is patient and kind and I was being a drama queen). 

I ignored my next door neighbor when she said hello (because I am not feeling forgiving toward her past horribleness) and I purposefully cut someone off on the freeway. 

Maybe I can blame all this negative energy on seeing The Wrestler.  Holy crap was that a downer.  It was really great, but one of those stories that makes you willing to claim your own problems as yours and move on, grateful to have them.     

oh! Can't forget Grace In Small Things (sorry, SueBob)

1. Too Much Candy (if this doesn't melt your heart, you are a robot)
2. Meatballs with Pretty Sauce (how cute is she? omg)
3. My Sophie, talking to herself under her breath: Warning!  Everybody must shake their butts at their bosses!
4. A stack of unread books on my bedside bookshelf.
5. Sandeman Reserve and a quiet house to drink it in.

Grace In Small Things: 6 of 365

1. Shark teeth. Willow hasn't lost any baby teeth, but two permanent teeth are mostly in. She thinks it's awesome.

2. Half-assed blogging in bed with iPhone.

3. Hot chocolate made with Ibarra.

4. An egret floating over the freeway on a draft. Not flapping its wings, the wind strong enough to keep it hovering in one place. It was getting dusk and the white feathers nearly glowed.

5. Finding out that there is a second work from home day being added to my week.

Grace In Small Things: 5 of 365

1. Gluten free cornbread recipe from a total Goddess.
2. A couple of hours before the sun went down, the clouds were all white, purple, and grey and there was a wintery pale blue sky behind them.  It was even more lovely after a few days of all grey and rain.
3. Really great breakfast cooked by a really great man.
4. Happy text messages from my kid.
5. Walking out the front door past the one electric guitar (in its case) and the two skateboards propped against the wall makes me happy.  I'm a cool mom.  Or my kids are cool.  Whatever.  There's coolness in the entryway.

Grace In Small Things

Grace In Small Things: 5 of 365

yarn 001, originally uploaded by Not Calm (dot com).

1. New yarn.  Yum. 
2. SG bought me a new black hoodie.  And the hood?  Lined with fake fur.   Awesome.
3. Another SG - he is right this very minute making us gluten free fried chicken (with quinoa flakes) and smashed potatoes and green beans.
4. Edna Valley Chardonnay
5. Tickets to see The Wrestler

Grace In Small Things

Grace In Small Things: 4 of 365

1. Jolie Holland's music.
2. A red-tailed hawk sitting on a streetlight in the rain, looking down over the highway.
3. A quiet, rainy morning.
4. I was almost to work when I saw an older woman in a motorized scooter trying to cross the street at the crosswalk.  She had bright decorations all over her scooter, and a giant rainbow colored paneled umbrella to keep her dry in the rain, but her scooter quit working when she was about a quarter of the way across the street.  I was a few cars back in the stack of two lanes of cars waiting for her to cross.  One of the guys at the head of the line jumped out of his truck and ran over to her, smiled at her and helped her all the way across the four lanes of waiting cars and up to the sidewalk.  He made sure that she was going again before coming back to his truck, and everyone on the street just waited for him.  It was so NICE. 
5. Remembering that I made this video ages ago (it takes a little bit to buffer, because I put way too many photos in it)
6. Having five things that made me happy before lunchtime (and there are actually way more than five)

Grace In Small Things

Grace In Small Things: 3 of 365

1. A book loan from my lovely coworker.
2. Jenny coming to my house last night with presents and her awesome self for a sleepover featuring rum and coke and late-night tacos and candy, and lots of laughing while the kids slept. 
3. A visit from Yvonne, which means I got to laugh until it hurt. 
4. A text message that said, "Baby, yuz hotter n doughnut grease."
5. Getting into bed early when every bit of me is tired. 

Grace In Small Things

Grace In Small Things: 2 of 365

1. Coffee in my red coffee cup.
2. Mailed my LAST federal tax payment (for 2007 taxes).
3. New issue of The Sun in my mailbox.
4. Turning on NPR this morning and hearing about what President Obama is up to (but, again, not a Small Thing).
5. Unexpectedly working from home today.

Grace In Small Things

Grace In Small Things: 1 of 365

1. Awesome lunch of leftover dinner made for me by my guy.
2. Found my missing favorite hair pin.
3. Sunshine.  Lots and lots of sunshine.
4. Puppies!
5. Listening to the inauguration on NPR while I drove to work, and honking and cheering along with other drivers on the freeway as Obama was sworn in (actually, that is a Big Thing, not a Small One).

I'm participating in Schmutzie's Grace In Small Things exercise, and hopefully I will find a minute or two every day to list some of all the many things I'm grateful for.

A swift kick in the pants

It's after midnight and I'm getting the kids' new printer set up (finally) so I can type and print and then glue to a posterboard the narrative for a kinda storyboard thing Nate is working on.  Usually, my kids do their own projects, and it shows, but it SHOULD and someday when their fine motor skills improve and their stuff looks better they'll feel great about their progress.

Anyway.

I'm reminded of times when I was a kid, doing that hunt-and-peck typing (and, most likely, long and drawn out sighing), and getting on my mom's last nerve (she was a legal secretary and could type several thousand words a minute).  When she just Could. Not. Stand. It. anymore, she'd beg me to give her the paper so she could just type it for me already and get it done with.  Or maybe I just begged her to do it for me.  It's a little cloudy.

This is reminding me of that, a little bit.  Only in this case, the only reason Nate didn't do his own typing is because I didn't get the printer set up in time.  I gave it a try, but the only cable that came with it wasn't really an ethernet cable, it was more of a phone jack cable thing and that just didn't work when plugged into the wireless router.  And, because I'm a dork, I DID know that the printer had no cables with it.  I knew that back in December before it even arrived from my dad as a Christmas gift for the kids.  Don't worry, Dad, I said, I will pick up a cable.

Yeah.

I hate it when my own kids say Don't worry, because I know that it means that I should.  And now I see that they get that from me.  Awesome!

And so I called SG to gripe and whine and he was all, Baby, I've got an ethernet cable and I've got a USB cord.  Want me to bring them over?  And even though I knew he'd been at work all day, and then gone to two night classes after that, I said YES.  YES I WANT CABLES.  BRING THEM OVER, KTHXBYE. 

So he came over around 11, bringing me not only the cord and the cable, but also an ice cold bottle of Patron because he could tell over the phone that I was a wee bit stressed.  And then, he said I was pretty, even though I was wearing my red flannel cowboy pajama bottoms and a blue tshirt and had been up since 5:30.  So even though right now life can be hard, really I'm spoiled and lucky.  Now if I can just get this damn printer software to load, I might get a tiny bit of sleep before I have to go to work.

Therapy

I like retail therapy.  Wendy is SO awesome.   

I also like reading blogs so well written that I forget I'm just taking a five minute mental break from work and, whoops, that was more like ten minutes, but I feel better and will go be productive now. 

YAY! Therapy.

So I was gonna quit blogging . . .

but isn't that a little cliche these days?  (No offense to any retired bloggers intended)

Jenny talked me down, which actually wasn't too hard, but even if I had made up my mind to be done, I am sure she'd have been successful because, seriously, have you ever talked to her?  She's funny and can talk you into anything she wants to.  It's her superpower. 

I don't really want to stop blogging.  It's been part of my life for over six and a half years now, and besides all the stuff I've recorded that I'd never remember otherwise, my blog has led to my job and some of my most cherished friendships.  It's been around longer than my youngest child, it started before and outlasted my second marriage, and let me be included in an anthology that you can totally order off of Amazon. 

But honestly, it's gotten a little bit weird.  Even writing this post is like pulling teeth because a) blogging about my attitude toward blogging? Not exactly interesting.  In fact, VERY self-indulgent and booooring, and, b) um. shit.  I forgot while I was rewriting the last two and the following three paragraphs (now deleted). 

So, I won't quit, because I don't think I can.  I don't really want to.  But I am feeling a little odd and awkward here.  I guess because my life is very much changed since July of 2002, but with just a couple of clicks it's all right there.  Like almost every blogger, the things that make it into posts are not always pointing toward reality, even if they are word-by-word true.  I chose to not write much at all about my divorce; and now that the kids are getting older, lots of their stories are off limits.  And, while I'd be perfectly happy to put up post after post about how I totally scored (big time) in the love department with SG, my feet are on the ground enough to know that the only person willing to put up with listening to me go on (and on and on and on) about how happy I am is Jenny, and really I am sure she puts the phone on mute and watches something funny on YouTube while I gush.  At least I hope she does. 

(Damn.  This is the part where I backspaced so much my delete key got welded to my finger.)

I should be sleeping, and I'm halfway through my third beer.  What am I trying to say here?  I don't even have a clue.  I'm restless and impatient and unsettled right now.  I'm having a hard time getting back into the demanding rythym of work and school.   I really miss yoga.  But underneath it all I am happy and content like I never have been before.  Which I know makes no sense, but there it is. 

Post 1,111 is the long one

I was littler than the other kids when I was ten, but I was wiry strong and stubbornly determined to do the things I put my mind to.  I didn't ever tell anyone how fearful I was; how I'd spend hours every night, awake under the covers having a hard time breathing because I was scared.  Of a tree falling on my house.  A brick being thrown through the window.  My parents dying.  Something unimaginable under my bed.  Ghosts.  Car accidents.  A plane crashing into my house.  My teeth falling out.  Aliens.  The devil.  And, probably the one that took me the longest to get over: someone looking in my window, just the top of their head and their evil eyes visible down in the corner by the windowsill. 

My own kids get a vague sense of worry about something in the night and they're suddenly there, clinging to me and whispering I'm scared, I'm scared.  But I never thought to ask for help.  Really, never, like as in it didn't occur to me to do that. 

I look back and see that I was a weird little kid. 

Once, right before we moved to California when I was ten, I was with a bunch of other kids riding my bike in the field behind the apartments where we lived.  For forever that field had been empty.  I had soccer games there, or practices anyway.  I buried my goldfish in a white cardboard jewelry box right up against the fence line.  The shallow ditch of a creek that cut through the field was where I'd seen a dead animal up close for the first time; a deer that the other kids dared me to poke with a stick.  Her skin was dried out and papery and the stick made a hollow scratching sound against the side of her belly.  That kept me up at night for a long time, not because I was scared so much as I was just sad over how beautiful the deer must've been and how sickening the kids were acting toward it.  But this day, this weekend before I left to move away, we were there checking out the early stages of the construction of a retirement home.  The first thing to change the field was a road, and I remember looking from the edge of the grass at the soft grey curves of pavement, the color of rainclouds, and how silly it seemed to not just make the road straight when there wasn't anything to get to or go around on it.  No buildings, no trees.

There were tall piles of dirt around the field, black and brown and rocky piles on the grass.  It smelled good.  It was springtime and not so hot yet.  I was trying to ride my bike to the top of one of the dirt mounds with of course no thought as to what I'd do at the top.  Just be there, I suppose.  But I wasn't more than halfway up, pedaling furiously, before I started to slide back down.  It was steep and the dirt wasn't as compacted as it looked, so as I pedaled my tires forward faster and faster, I slid backward helplessly, unhurt but hyperventilating and badly shaken. 

It was such a terrible sensation that I went home and got into bed to cry.

I still have dreams like that.  Usually I am in a car driving up a hill when suddenly I'm sliding backward, down the hill, panicked and as not-in-control as it's possible to be.  I wake up from those sweaty, my heart pounding, feeling sick. 

I think in pictures a lot.  Or scenes is maybe a better way to put it.  When I feel helpless I don't necessarily have this inner dialogue that says, Wow, this sucks.  I feel helpless.  Bummer.  Instead, I get a flash of myself dogpaddling in the middle of the ocean with no land in sight.  I was trying to figure out what to write about here not too long ago, and the image that came to mind was of me trying to run track in ice skates.  That was picture-think for Huh, I'd really like to write about this stuff, but the way I want to do it doesn't really fit the space, all things considered. 

It's maybe a little hard to explain. 

Tonight I was really missing SG.  He was here last night for dinner, and he stayed afterward to skate with the boys and then watch a movie with me after all the kids were in bed.  Today he came back after a motorcycle ride to take the boys to the skate park.  The girls and I tagged along.  We went to In-N-Out Burger first (dude, protien burger has lettuce instead of a bun which makes it gluten free enough for SG and me) and then to the park.  The boys haven't done more than skate the sidewalk and driveway, so they tenatively watched the other kids flying around and skating up ramps, trying it out gently themselves.  I'm sure they were worried about looking like the novices they are, so I was feeling all the more proud of their efforts.  I'm going to take them back tomorrow.  It's free, and I can drop them off there, which makes me laugh because OMG! RIGHT ON! FREE SKATEPARK BABYSITTING! 

The park closed up at 5, and SG took Nate out to get him a new deck (they won't let ripsticks in the park, so Nate and Lex had to share Lex's) while the girls and I went to the hardware store to get paint.  Willow has been begging me for a desk, and today I finally figured out a side-out-rotate furniture move that has my desk being bumped to the boys' room and Nate's unfinished wood desk, which used to be my little sister's, going to Willow.  But first, it needed to be cleaned up and painted.  Willow wasn't crazy about the desk, and she cried a little because she wanted a new desk, so I told her she could pick the paint colors.  We came home with yellow, blue, green, the palest pink they had, and purple. 

We all met back here, and that was when I got that feeling; that pedaling uphill and sliding backward feeling.  My house is seriously trashed, which is embarassing enough, but even moreso when SG is here.  I know he understands and doesn't judge me, but I also know mothers who keep their houses clean and nice and orderly (somehow) and since his place is always clean and no one would ever be terrified to eat something from his kitchen (ahem), I feel like a huge loser about it.  I'm finally on a lower dose of prednisone, but over the past few days I've noticed that it's made my face really round and puffy, I've put on about five pounds, I am insanely irritable, I am starving all the time, and I can't sleep (like NOW, just for example).  Willow was understandably excited, and kept asking WHEN? WILL WE PAINT? THE DESK? and I just wanted to sit next to SG on the couch for a minute, because Monday is the return of work for both of us and night school for him (he's working on his MBA at a local, private, ReallyGoodCollege) and I'm not going to get to see a whole lot of him for the next, oh, seven or eight months.  And the boys were begging him to come out and skate, and Sophie was griping about her DS game, and it was getting late and I had no clue what to do for supper, and I'd realized that the HUGE project Nate has due in January had been forgotten for the entire break, which is bad, bad, BAD of me.  And so there I was, in my own living room but really in this field in Texas, killing myself trying to get up this damn hill and watching the top move away from me and the ground come up to smack me.  You know?

Finally (after kissing me and telling me what a hard job I have) SG went on home to study and maybe stare silently at a wall for an hour to get over the afternoon (another picture-think: sometimes after a long day with my kids, I feel, in every sense, that I've been operating a jackhammer all.day.long.).  I left the boys home alone to be picked up for their sleepover, and took the girls to Whole Foods where I stupidly spent probably 3/4 of the next two week's grocery budget on tonight and tomorrow's dinner ingredients, plus three boxes of mac and cheese, two boxes of popcsicles, a big bag of animal crackers and 18 chocolate milks for the kids' school lunches, a gallon of milk, two avocados, and two six packs of gluten free beer.  I had that feeling again at the register, because spending so much was really, really, stupid of me.  True, we do have to eat, but much as I love Whole Foods, the prices kill me dead. 

Personally I have never been happier than I am now, but my single mom budget only really works in theory.  I mean, on paper, it looks like I've got enough to pay bills, feed my kids, and fill up my gas tank (barely), but the reality is that I'm always coming up well short of even each month and I've been depending on help to make it.  Probably not the sort of thing to be fessing up to, but there it is.  Somehow cutting back on my yoga membership and not replacing my eye and face cream and sunblock as they run out isn't quite filling the gap left by one less salary and the addition of a day care bill.  I was too embarassed to tell my dad that the hundred bucks he put in my Christmas card went toward children's motrin, a tank of gas, and a cash visit to the grocery store, but at the same time, that was really and truly what I needed. 

Eventually the girls and I came home and they had salad and rice and chicken for supper and then we busted out the paint.  I've got a tiled entryway, so we just set up our stuff there and started painting.  The top of the desk is blue, the legs are yellow, the front is purple and the sides are pale pink.  The drawer is green, with a yellow knob.  Tomorrow we will paint different colored "sun with line designs on it," per Willow's orders, and when it's dry we'll snausage it into her room somehow.  I've promised to drop the boys off at the skate park, and then I need to get posterboard and put some photos Nate took onto a memory card and go get them printed so he can do something toward this project tomorrow night.  I still need more groceries so I can pack lunches for Monday, and we need to find and clean out the backpacks that haven't been touched since the Friday that started winter break.  I'm not sure that everyone has clean socks and underwear, so I'll need to do some laundry.  I should get a grip on my work email before Monday morning smacks me in the head.  I need to balance my checkbook to see if there is anything left to get me through till the next payday, write a couple of thank you notes, and vacuum the goldfish crackers and whateverelse out of the carpet.  Pedal.  Pedal.  Pedal.  I love New Year's Day, and the new year in general, but right now I'm looking at it like it's one big pile of dirt.  I guess I need to get off the bike and just crawl on up to the top. (sorry for that shitty metaphorish thing there)  I know I can do it, and honestly now that I've completly vented about it all, I do feel much better.  In picture-think: it's like that feeling you have when you barf your guts out after feeling sick to your stomach all day long.  Still kinda bad, but better!

Phi Beta Calm

A noise I couldn't figure out woke me up this morning.  It wasn't exactly a clicking sound, but it was rhythmic: tick tick tick tick tick  It sounded like the furnace going wonky, maybe, so I got up to check.  Partway down the hall I realized that it was Nate playing drums on Rockband. 

I looked around the living room:

• candy and candy wrappers - everywhere
• kid who slept in and was still wearing yesterday's clothes shredding his drum solo
• television, DVD, and Wii remotes strewn about, some open and missing batteries
• iPods, headphones, and a tool box on the ottoman
• empty wrapping paper tubes, broken from swordfighting

and the kitchen:

• empty glass coke bottles (Mexican Coke yummmm)
• squeezed lime halves
• empty glasses that held rum and coke the night before
• Cup 'O Noodles wrappings in the trash
• more candy and candy wrappers

The clock read 9:38 a.m., and Nate and I were the only ones up.  He said good morning to me, and reminded me that after SG gets back from his motorcycle ride, they are going to the skate park.  I stood there, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, and realized that winter break is almost over and our frat house ways are going to have to come to an end.  

Christmas this year was awesome.  It was quieter than it has been in years past, but definitely all the better for it.  Soph was stoked about the chocolate coins in her stocking:

SG came over at the end of the day, around 9, and we bundled up and went outside to ride skateboards and new bikes until 11.  I don't want to get all sappy, but it was nice because it was joyful.  It felt like Christmas is supposed to but never seems to anymore. 

The next day we went to Granny's to meet up with and introduce SG to all the local family, plus my brother and his wife and their not-born-yet baby, visiting from Portland.  That was pretty great as well; it was sunny so I sat outside most of the day watching the kids (and SG) skate and run around.  Soph brought her giant tray of makeup that she got at her dad's house, and the girls' older cousin put makeup on them.  It came out much better than the makeover Soph gave me.  (Contrary to what Sophie thinks, I cannot pull off the blue eye shadow, unless by "pull off" you mean "look like MiMi from the Drew Carey show.")

I had a lovely and very much appreciated weekend with my guy while the kids all went to their dads' houses.  

This is going to be a good year.  We started it off right by eating our black-eyed peas for good luck and toasting each other with mismatched fancy glasses full of apple cider (champagne for Willow and Sophie, margarita for Nate, red wine for Lex and a mini mason jar for me).

Happy New Year.  Here's to love, warmth, happiness, and laughter, and to always having enough of them in our lives to make the hard stuff more bearable.

Christmas Eve

soph.baker, originally uploaded by Not Calm (dot com).

Merry Sickmas

It's probably bad to wake up Christmas Eve morning and have the first words that pop into my head be curse words, but the vague sore throat I felt coming on last night has settled right in and though I'm about to go finish making coffee in the French press, I am not sure I will be able to drink it because things are that bad.

Part of the cursing (the first of the f-words that started the string, in fact) was because I woke up at 6 on a day that was wide open for sleeping in till sometime totally crazy.  Like, maybe even 7:15.  Now that I'm up, though, it's alright.  I'm on the couch with no lights on in the house except for the tree.  I promised the kids I'd put colored lights up in the living room this year, but I didn't.  They wanted them on the outside of the house as well, which I really should have done since we live in a duplex and our neighbor put lights up on his half of the house just to make me look like an asshole. 

There is an impressive wind kicking up out there every few minutes.  It's still too dark to see much out the window, but the sky is just lighter than nighttime enough for me to see the silhouettes of the giant pine trees in the back yard rocking back and forth.  Maybe this will be the day that the dead palm tree (also quite tall) will fall on the house.  Then, maybe the kids and I could go live in a hotel (with room service and maids!) until they fix things up a little.  The property manager knows about the tree.  Last time I talked to him I brought it up and he SIGHED and said he knew and I asked him if it might maybe fall on the house and he was sorta not inspired to take any action. 

Coffee update: coffee is a go!  I don't know if I'll be able to eat much today, but so long as I can have my coffee in the morning and some booze at bedtime, Christmas will be merry! 

And, speaking of -- this is going to be my first Christmas without my kids.  Not totally without them, but I won't be with them on Christmas morning.  There is a part of me that keeps telling me (it's crowded in there) that if I were a good mother, I'd be moping about this.  Maybe even inconsolable.  But the reality is that I am totally looking forward to the plan, which is for all children to be out of my house by 5 p.m., wrapping and cleaning up and artful display of gifts to be completed by 8 or 9 (unless that bike is a bitch to put together), and then tacos and booze and coke with SG at his clean and warm house.  Also, he has never seen Elf, so I am making him watch it with me.  Christmas morning = coffee, bacon, and gluten free donuts with my man, which will make me happier than, well, than a kid on Christmas.  Then I will get back home in time to greet my babies in the early afternoon, and hope that they are not too strung out on sugar and CPGs (consumer packaged goods) to appreciate the gifts and celebration here. 

It's easy to hate Christmas.  Or, at the very least dread it.  It's one of those things that you work so hard and so long at, and stress so much over, that the actual day rarely lives up to the pressure built up beneath it.  And with kids who are overstimulated the chances of a smiling and tear-free holiday are slim.   But I have made myself a deal, and that deal is that I will ignore any Christmas freakouts and pretend that all is calm (and bright).  Maybe it will throw the small fry for enough of a loop to snap them out of it, should they have a downward spiral.  Or maybe things will go off without a hitch.  Whatever.  I will have fun either way, even if I am sick.  Even if Sophie tries to strangle me because Santa didn't bring her a cell phone, and he brought her brother one, that motherfucker. 

Merry Christmas!

Tree

tree08, originally uploaded by Not Calm (dot com).

One of my favorite memories is laying on the floor under the Christmas tree with my brother when the rest of the house was dark -- either early in the morning or before bedtime. (Or after, sometimes, if we were sneaking around.) We'd just look up, watch the lights blink and change the branch shadows on the ceiling. I still do that now by myself.

If it's just me doing it, it's probably not a tradition, exactly, but I think of it that way.

Your favorite holiday traditions? I'm looking for ways to make Christmas feel like Christmas. It hasn't for a long time, and I'm not sure if it's because I'm parenting it or if I'm older or if I'm so busy I don't have time to notice it until it's a week away. Eek.

Go ask Alice (and listen to what she tells you)

It's a long story (a boring one, otherwise, I'd be making use of it), but because of the way the hours got filled up this week, I was standing in my kitchen beating egg whites for Nate's birthday cake at 5:52 a.m. 

I make a fabulous chocolate layer cake from scratch that involves melting an expensive chocolate bar in a double boiler, a pound of butter between the cake batter and the frosting, and excessive swearing as I try and cut circles of parchment that will fit in the bottom of the cake pans.  (I know it's not that hard to do.  Apparently skipping kindergarten has come back to bite me in the ass.)

Even so, this year Nathan asked for the 1-2-3-4 Cake from Fanny at ChezPanisse; a kids' cookbook put together by Alice Water's daughter, Fanny.  It's a really simple recipe (butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, milk, baking powder, cake flour, salt) and we've made it so many times that the book will open to that page if you lay it down on the table.

This morning after I made some coffee, I started the cake batter.  I wasn't totally paying attention to what I was doing, because I'm finding that my brain is constantly busy crunching the list of things I need to get done before Christmas into the available hours I have.  It's not a good fit, and as the days go by I am getting more and more creative about when and how I will get stuff done.  I know I can pull it off, even if I don't know how yet. 

So I got the batter started and while I didn't use cake flour (I am leaving a trail of corners in my wake.  Get it?  Cutting corners?  Yeah.  Nevermind.) I DID at least sift the flour.  But, as I gently stirred in the flour and the milk, I realized that I sifted the flour after I measured out three cups, rather than sifting, measuring and then adding, which probably increases the volume of the flour by at least some, if not a whole lot.  And the batter looked not battery enough.  So, I grabbed the milk and put in just a little more.  As I did that, I had a moment where I recalled doing this exact thing before.  Not deja vu, but an actual memory of screwing up the cake batter.  I think it was in October for Lex's birthday, and I had to leave the house to pick up the kids.  The cake was still totally liquid after cooking for ten minutes over the time it says in the cookbook (that's happening right at this moment, too) and so I just shut off the oven and left it there.

When I came back, it was perfectly done. 

This morning, when I put the batter into the pans and into the oven, I looked at it and thought that it looked way too much like biscuit dough to make 1-2-3-4 Cake.  I thought that there was not enough liquid, even though I'd added milk.  But maybe sifting doesn't really make the measuring of the flour that much different, because right now I've got a couple of cake tins of not biscuity cake, but of soggy cake.  I really need to get in the shower (I'm like an hour behind schedule at this point) but the cake's not close to being done.  I'm turning off the oven, moving the jiggly wetcakes to the bottom rack, crossing my fingers, and already wondering how to fit in a trip to a bakery today.

Glutentalk

It's been about two years since I started stopping with the gluten.  Not quite two years, though; one of my favorite things about being in Barcelona in February 2007 was the pan con tomate (bread with tomatoes) and espresso I had for breakfast a few times at this little outdoor cafe near where I stayed.

I honestly don't even remember why I thought to start avoiding it, but I do remember that less than a week into my sad and pitiful breadless state, I felt way, way better.  Of course, it's not just bread that has gluten, but that was the hardest for me to give up.  Worse than cake, or cupcakes, onion rings, pancakes, flour tortillas, or pie, and maybe just a scootch more than real beer, I miss bread.  I miss baking it and smelling it cook, and I miss eating it hot out of my own oven.  Pass the butter (which I also don't eat anymore, much). 

So.  When I figured out that I felt better without gluten, the first thing I did was make a grilled cheese sandwich to see what happened.  What happened was a nasty headache, one that involved my entire head and felt suspiciously like the kind of hangover you get from cheap, hard booze; I was crabby; my fingers and face were swollen, especially my eyes; I was tired.  I just generally felt like shit.  So, I waited a little bit, making buttered toast for the kids' breakfast and cussing instead of popping bites of crust into my mouth.  And then, I did it again (with buttered toast) and had the same rotten symptoms. 

This cycle repeated for over a year before I really, truly believed that I had to stay the hell away from any and all gluten in the food chain.  I wanted it to be all in my head.  Badly.

And now, I'm pretty much mostly okay with this gluten free lifestyle.  It certainly doesn't hurt any that my very own handsome SG is also gluten free.  And?  He is a kickass cook who also likes to cook for me.  So, really, it's getting more okay as time goes by.

Still, though, I wonder if it's all in my head sometimes.  Or I did, that is, until now.  Yesterday my mom came and met me at work and took me up to San Francisco to visit a doctor.**  We left around lunchtime, so we stopped in at Whole Paycheck on the way up for a little lunch and a visit to the best gluten free shopping I've seen so far in the Bay Area.  (Laura! They have THE DONUTS.  Also? Hamburger buns!  SG and I are so totally grilling burgers this weekend.)  We got our lunch and sat down to eat.  I had turkey soup with wild rice, and as I was eating my mom said, Oh, can you do okay with barley?  And I looked at my soup and realized that I was totally not paying attention to what was in it.  Maybe this is the wild rice?  I said, sort of willing it to be the case.  I finished the soup and totally forgot about it.  We went to the doctor, and then I came home and grabbed my yoga gear and went to a Bikram class for the first time in forever.  (Dude.  It's HOT in there, but I miss it, bad.)

Around bedtime, I got hit over the head with a truly nasty and ferocious headache.  Weird, I thought, Why does my head feel exactly like it did the morning after that one time in high school when I drank the 7-11 Big Gulp cup full of rum after I caught my stupid boyfriend cheating on me with that skanky girl?  And why the hell am I so, so tired? 

I woke up this morning with the same headache, with my eyes swollen nearly shut, and with a general bad mood (which is still here).  And then I remembered the barley.  Or, as I lovingly am thinking of it at this very moment, the motherfucking barley.

I am guessing that this serves as something close to a blind experiment.  I didn't spend yesterday afternoon worrying that I'd had gluten and then get sick afterwards.  I ate it; I forgot about it; I got symptoms AND still didn't make the connection right away.  So I guess that now I am more convinced that this gluten intolerance is not limited to my brain.  That's strangely comforting.  I'd hate to think that I've been not having crossiants all this time for nothing.

** I had to see a specialist, and since the topic was sort of a big deal (a fairly major, and totally lifechanging surgery) my mom came along to help me listen and to ask questions.  Long story short; I am sick, but not THAT sick, and the surgeon told me that while I am actually the perfect candidate for the surgery, he was going to give me a pass.  At least for a few more years.

She knits, she fails

The yarn was so, so, pretty. 

It looked and felt like it was practically straight off the sheep, and as I knit I found little flecks of straw. (!) It sort of made me want to run away and be a sheep farmer in Wales, except I think that may possibly be the one way I could make things harder on myself right now.  But, you know, it was sort of idyllic, or something, to find the straw still in there.

 

Sadly, the hat that I made from the pretty, pretty yarn is almost the ugliest thing in the entire world.  If it were just a teensy bit uglier, then maybe it would sort of rock.  But, no.  It's just really, really, B A D.

 

The girls love it.  They call it the Clown Hair Hat and are locked in a ferocious battle over who gets to wear it to school first.  The loser is going to throw such a fit that I will have to let them duke it out only after I have opened my second beer tonight.

Now maybe (probably not) but maybe you are looking at the photo and thinking, Oh, well, it's not THAT bad.  Ugly, yeah, but you know, you could still wear it.  Maybe.

To that I say:

Wow.  Maybe I should unravel it and make a long, skinny scarf? 

And she stood to fly away

It's December, which, a) shocks me greatly, and, b) has me listening to The Decemberists.  I must not be the only one doing that; Last FM says they are all sorts of popular right now.

From last weekend:

We sat at a little table for two near the window. White lights wrapped up in the trees on the sidewalk outside made little bright dots on our wine glasses.  We held hands, and talked.  I kept sneaking looks at his gorgeous face, his blue eyes and thick dark eyelashes.  And, oh. my. good. lord. those shoulders. 

I'm still amazed by the incredible luck that let it be me sitting in this wooden chair across the table from him.  We first met nearly seventeen years ago, at our friends' wedding.  He remembers it; I try to, but I have an awful memory.  We never dated, but we used to see each other pretty often because while he was in school he worked in the produce department at the grocery store where I shopped when the boys were babies.  When I ran into him at the end of this summer, it had been eight years since I'd last seen him.  There I was at Trader Joe's after a long, 100 degree day on the soccer field.  I was wearing the ugliest dress I own, and I had, just moments before, totally grossed myself out when I reached up over my head to grab some salsa.  Seriously.  I almost passed out.  And then I was by the apples and pears and I looked up and saw him walking past.

I stopped him and we talked.  

He'd just spent the day on his motorcycle, riding on the coast.  He was single.  I tried not to blush.

I gave him my card and an awkward hug goodbye so he hopefully wouldn't notice how awful I smelled.

And then I waited for him to call me.

And, just like he said he would, he did.

After dinner on Saturday, we went to see the San Jose Symphonic Choir perform Handel's Messiah.  (not the singalong)  We walked up the steps to the cathedral just as the ushers were talking about closing the doors, sweeping right in to a spot in the back of the church.

I put my arm around him, leaned my head on his shoulder, closed my eyes for a minute.  I opened them to see an old man a couple of rows ahead, barely moving his head with the music in that way that only musicians do.  Have you ever noticed how a musician's body responds to music with almost imperceptible ripples, with fingers that subconsciously tap out keys and chords?   Every once in awhile, his hand would move up to his eyes to wipe away tears.  I was thinking about my dad, and how much i miss him because of distance and time and things that have happened the past year or so.  Far across the church was a man in the front row, leaning forward, his face near the violins, and he looked so much like my father that it was easy to let my eyes unfocus and just see my dad there, listening.

I only cried a little.  It was because the music was so, so beautiful.  Because I miss my dad.  Because I'm so silly-happy in love.  Because I'm way more hopeful than I ever expected to be ever again.  I am so lucky.

I had no idea his middle name was Schlomo

I was turning left, halfway through the crosswalk right by the kids' school, when I noticed that a woman was just inches from my driver's side view mirror.  I recognized her, and recognized that I very nearly killed her.  I opened my window and yelled over the sound of my blood in my ears, tears stinging my eyes and choking me, I'm so sorry.  My widows are all foggy and I didn't see you.  I'm so, so sorry.

And she was okay, and I was okay, but of course we were both shaken up as we silently tallied the list of What Ifs.  I'm not really sure what happened:  if I just didn't look; if she was in my blind spot; if I looked but didn't see because the kids were squabbling or I was preoccupied.  The windows were steamy, and that is probably what happened, but it worries me still that I wasn't paying better attention.

That happens to me a lot.  Not usually while I'm driving, luckily, but just in general.  I feel like I'm often looking up in a panic at some near-miss of a situation, knowing that I fucked up but totally clueless about what it was, exactly, I did.  Or didn't do.  It's like I'm not sure what things to watch, and the things that I don't keep in check circle back on me.  Mainly I have this sense that I am letting people down.  Only no one will really come out and say it, because, you know, I'm going through a hard time right now, and so I'm left feeling that I've been too self-absorbed, or not grateful enough, or too much of a doormat, or maybe just a bad friend, but I'm not sure, really.  Maybe it's all just in my head.  I know that my very own special breed of low self-esteem sometimes flipflops into an assumption that if something is wrong it MUST be my fault.  Which is perhaps about as self-absorbed and egotistical as one human can be. 

What can I say?  I do try.

I'll be better off in a few weeks when I'm not on such a high dose of prednisone.  (It challenges my coping abilities, to put it mildly.)  In the meantime I will weigh my words more carefully, I will watch where I'm going, and I will let myself believe in things that astonish me instead of waiting for that feeling of emptiness where there just was something amazing I was holding on to. 

Weak kneed, happily

I think it was the first day of second grade when the after-school daycare bus didn't show up to get me from school like it was supposed to.  I sort of remember walking home that afternoon, back through the pathway of alleys between fenced in backyards that I'd walked that morning.  I didn't have a key to the apartment, so I went and asked the manager to let me in.  I dragged a chair (the same ones are in my kitchen now) to the wall in the kitchen where the phone was, and dialed my mom's work number.

She ended up calling the daycare, asking them how my first day was going.  Oh, she's great!  They said.  Super groovy.  No worries.  Or whatever 1977 slang was for It's all good.  Really?  My mother said, Would you mind just putting her on the phone for a second?

I've always been an independent kind of girl, but I think that story really cemented my reputation.

So, last night SG stopped by for a little bit to help me with some excel stuff and say hey to the kids.  When he left, I walked him out so I could tell him goodbye.  We stood there near his car, standing in the street a little bit since he was parked at the curb.  He'd just opened the back door to put some things inside, so he had his back to the car and I had my back to the street.  We were talking quietly, his head was bent down toward me, his arms around me, and a car came down the street, fast.  He looked at it and pulled me closer to him all at once.  Nothing about his movements were sudden; I very likely could have missed the whole thing if I'd been in the middle of telling him a story or something.  But I noticed.  And then he said something about how the cars go too fast down my street, but all I could think of was how very nice it felt to have him want take care of me like that.  I know it sounds like a small thing, but he pulled me closer because he wants to be sure I'm okay.  And for me, right now, that is huge.  It feels really, really nice.  

Hang on tight

My whole life is a blur at the moment, and I feel like I'm more than a few steps behind it all trying to grab ahold.  Like running after a train might feel, I guess.

I've been pretty sick with this stupid autoimmune thing I have, and my doctor put me back on prednisone.  I hate taking it for a million reasons, but right now I've exhausted all my other non-surgical options.  The one sort of good thing is that it makes me really hyper and manic.  You should SEE my to-do list.  I think I'll open my seasonal gift-making sweatshop of one later tonight.  Am feeling driven to rearrange my closet while simultaneously writing a novel and planning the next month's worth of meals.  

Thanksgiving is kind of blowing my mind by suddenly being a week away.  I'm surprised how thankful I am feeling this year.  I mean, for someone who bitches and gripes all the time, I'm really so grateful that when I stop to think about it I get all teary.  I took next Wednesday off work so that I can bake pies with my small fry.  Maybe I'll even get a grip on that speeding train.  

I love November anyway

I'm learning that there is no such thing (at least for me) as an amicable divorce.  I'm getting it with both barrels (from both exes) today, and the only thing I feel like writing at the moment would be a long, all-caps, profanity dominated rant.  I'll leave acting like an asshole to the assholes.  After all, I'm too busy working and taking care of my kids to waste energy on crap.  I'm going to go home, open a gluten-free beer, make a kickass supper for my kids, help Soph with a big school project due tomorrow, bake sugar cookies, and beg SG to help me with a spreadsheet.  (First, though, I totally need to quit crying at my desk.)

It's always sunny

It's such a different life I have every other weekend when the kids are away. I think I get a little culture shock moving between the two very different worlds I live in.

Sometimes I feel like I must be a bad mother for not missing the kids more when they aren't with me. It's different than during the week when I miss them so much. These weekends are so good.

Accidental heart

I took all these today, but I don't feel like I have much to write about.  There are the yellow leaves and fall light, nothing I've ever been able to photograph.  The old rusty rail of the train track that separates the parking lot from the soccer field.  An accidental heart on the ground.  A heart I made from acorns because I was missing SG. 

I was scolded, vigorously scolded, today by an older woman one car ahead of me at a stoplight.  I'd called SG as I walked out of the medical office and into the startlingly beautiful day, and I wasn't thinking as I started my car and drove out of the parking lot, filling him in on my visit.  She saw me, talking and not using my headset.  She delivered a disgusted look to me via her rear view mirror, and then wagged her finger at me and said words I couldn't make out, but could well enough imagine.  She was so very angry with me.  And I laughed at her for making such a stink, even though, really, she was right and I should have been using my headset. 

I've just begun Steve Martin's book, Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life.  I've been a little under the weather, and I'm hoping to kick back and read this weekend.  Maybe for one or two whole hours.  It's the sort of last weekend of soccer, except for Lex's tournaments the next two weekends.  I know the kids loved it, and I did too, but I'm ready to welcome back my Saturdays. 

Carmelized onion & butternut squash soup

I might just have to resurrect my food blog.  I made this up as I went tonight, and it's goooooood.

    Ingredients:

• 2 or 3 small butternut squashes (squashi?)
• brown sugar
• an onion
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• parsley
• stock
• maple syrup (The real stuff, or else skip it.  I am a food snob.  Everyone should be.)

    Method:

• I roasted the butternut squash (sprinkled with brown sugar) the night before.  To roast the squash, cut them in half, lengthwise and scoop out the seeds and gick.  Put face up on a baking sheet (with the brown sugar, or with butter or olive oil or whatever you like) and cook at 400 for about an hour.  After the squash is cool, peel off the skin and set aside.  If you are adverse to scrubbing stuff off your baking pans, line the pan with foil.  Or parchment paper. 
• Coarsely chop the onion & cook in the olive oil until carmelized, something like 20 minutes
• Add the butternut squash, and smush it up with the onion and keep cooking it until it's browned enough for you
• Add 4 to 6 cups of stock (I had 2 squashes, and used 4 cups and like how the consistency ended up)
• Add the parsley.  I use little frozen cubes of chopped parsley, but you can use fresh chopped, of course.  I wouldn't use dried.  It's a food snob thing.
• Let this all cook and simmer for awhile.  Twenty minutes or so.  Then blend it with a hand blender, or you can do it in small batches in the blender.  I use a hand blender, though, because I would probably burn the crap out of myself trying to do it in a blender. 
• Add about 3 tablespoons of maple syrup, salt if you need it, pepper, hot sauce maybe

The end result is very oniony, but in that good, smoky-sweet carmelized onion way.  I might make this to bring on Thanksgiving.  And, I am sure that it would be most excellent with some nice crispy chopped bacon on top.

And when the subway dimmed, a stranger lit my way

Every winter (since 1991) I listen to The Innocence Mission. They are just the right amount of sad and happy for these short grey days. Enjoy ~

Pretty birds all in a row

This morning I took the girls to my friend's house so they could spend the day there while I was at work, this being Veteran's Day.  She runs a day care from her house, and so the girls got to help her wrangle what looked to me to be something like fifty seven babies.   We were sitting under an overpass, waiting for the light to change, when Sophie turned to Willow and said, What did YOU have for dinner last night?  Willow said, Raviolis, root beer, and ice cream.  What did YOU have?  I looked in the rear view mirror and saw Sophie look at Willow, Steak and fries, she said, with this vaguely threatening, level delivery.  And I sat there, mildly panicked from being parked underneath an overpass** and thought that it was sort of a sad thing that my girls were comparing the dinners they'd each had at their (different) dad's houses the night before.  

I realized that I was halfway expecting my usual inner dialogue of criticism and insults to begin, but I just wasn't motivated to put myself down.  The girls went from having a sort of a showdown over which dad had the best dinner to being silly and laughing at something I can't remember now.  Then the light changed, and we passed by two telephone lines running over a creek, and the girls both pointed and exclaimed over the long, long rows of birds perched on the wires.  Did you see that? they kept asking each other.  I wish I had my camera, Sophie said, I'd take a picture!  And just as I was noticing how nice it was that I could listen to them talk about their not-perfect life and not beat myself up over it, I also heard them laughing and I realized that they're still happy kids, despite the way things are. 

I think that what kept me from beating myself up wasn't only the fact that my kids are actually okay (because, believe me, if you are prone to the self-hate, you don't really need a reason) but it's got a whole lot to do with this new life I am making.  I work hard.  I'm doing everything I can, as well as I can.  I'm happy.  I'm suddenly able to cut myself some slack and appreciate what I accomplish every day.  Now I just need to be sure that I don't kick myself too hard for not being more gentle with myself sooner.  Heh.

**I'm not sure what that phobia of mine is called (I HATE tunnels and being under overpasses), but while I was doing a half-assed job of looking for the name, I found the following:

Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia - fear of the number 666
Nomophobia - fear of being out of mobile phone contact
Paraskavedekatriaphobia - fear of Friday the 13th
Chemophobia -  prejudice against artificial substances in favour of 'natural' substances