May 14, 2008 @ 18:55

Today I listened to NPR all day at my desk.  This week I have been glued to tv and radio every day.  I do not devote a large amount of my time to the news on a regular basis.  One day a week is usually all I can manage.  Every day?  No, it is too sad.  Too frightening.  But in light of the last weeks’ events, I thought that I owed it my full attention.  I am in horror.  I am so sad for all the families that are suffering right now.  And so angry for all of them that are suffering at the hands of men, beyond what nature has already done.  I could not do justice with words so I will not try.  I will only say that I felt brittle and vulnerable at the end of this day.  As I pulled into the driveway with Puppy in the backseat, I turned off the engine but we stayed so that I could listen to one last news story’s conclusion.  Puppy climbed into my lap and I wept for the families that have lost their children.  I decided to plant the flowers and herbs that I bought in all the containers on my back patio.  Try to turn off my brain for a bit.  Bear helped me move the planters into a new arrangement.  We planted sweet potato vine, ivy, flowers that I do not know the name of.  Basil, thyme, dill, peppers, tomatoes, and more that I’ve already forgotten.  As I prepared to pack the tools away I turned and found Puppy with the pruning shears, standing beside a pot that until just moments before had held a very pretty little evergreen that over the past year I had pruned into the beginnings of a spiral.  Here’s Bear holding it up for you to see. 

This is the pot after Puppy “helped” . . . 

A sad little stump.  I was stunned.  And then crushed.  For just minute, I plunked down into one of the Adirondack chairs and I cried again.  I was just overcome by one of those feelings of why do I keep trying.  As a single parent, I get those.  That kind of creeping exhaustion that’s fueled by unrealistic expectations in myself.  Last week my boss told me I had to learn how to ask for help.  I just don’t know how.  And when I have struggled out a way and have asked in the past haven’t gotten it.  It’s a simple bone deep tired that comes from being the only grown up in charge.  And then as I was sitting there thinking all of this, I got immediately angry at myself for being angry at him when really, what do I have to be angry about?  I have nothing to be angry about in my back yard.  How stupid to cry over this shrub!  My family is safe and whole.  My job is secure.  I can go this weekend and buy a new tree and put it in that pot.  Others in China cannot put their lives back together ever again.  And in Myanmar, there are people who are dying because of a government that won’t allow aid workers in.  No there are no problems here in my backyard.  Just another silly American who very often forgets how good she has it.  Surrounded by a world full of real problems.   Stupid stupid stupid . . . 

May 14, 2008 @ 06:59

I’ve discovered something that mother’s around the country have searched for time and time again.  A simple, effective, seemingly miraculous way to . . . 

Convince a Teenage BOY! to Clean. His. Bathroom. 

Music swells, cherubs sing, planets align and gold dubloons rain from the sky.  Yes, it’s that fantastic.  I know I talk about Bear frequently in terms of perfection.  And don’t get me wrong, oh, yes, he damn near is.  But he is, also, very thirteen.  His ability to stand in the middle of the living room and not see the dirty socks under the coffee table is mind blowing.  He does not think to announce that he’s out of clean underwear until five minutes before we need to walk out the door on a weekday morning.  His tennie shoes have a swamp like smell that I fear.  Not just dislike, I mean fear . . .  No.  Really . . .  This is why his bedroom is the masterbedroom of the house with its own private bath.  Because when I bought the house, I had just begun seeing in his eight year old self, some of the things to come.  And I decided I’d rather the teenager he was about to be did not share his bathroom with guests.  I’m nice like that.  I know.  You’re welcome.  I credit much of my entertaining success to this decision. 

So, you want to know how I did it, don’t you?  Well, I can only take credit for chosing the channel.  The miracle came from Kim and Aggie . . . 

I was watching an episode of How Clean is Your House (not for the squeamish) on BBC America last week.  I confess this has become one of my quilty pleasures, obsessions really.  Reminiscent of a past obsession with Fear Factor.  Not my finest year, but whatever . . .  Bear walked through the living room and asked what I was watching.  And that’s when it happened.  He thought it was hilarious!  He’s got my sense of humor.  And it’s just gross enough to appeal to the boy, just scary enough to wake him up to the true issue at hand.  The result?  He’s watching the show on his own now (it airs during the hour between his arrival home and mine).  And Monday . . .  he cleaned his bathroom.  Go ahead . . .  I’ll give you a minute to recover . . . 

And I mean put the little rugs in the washing machine, scrubbed the toilet and shower and sink.  All his laundry in the proper basket.  No curiously scented towels in the floor.  No suspicious lumps shoved under the bed or otherwise half-measure cleaning techniques.  The boy even asked me where the salt was kept so he could give the hinges on the toilet lid an organic scrub.  God love you Kim and Aggie.  You’ve answered a mother’s prayer. 

May 12, 2008 @ 17:15

Miles:  4

Hours of other Fitness Pursuits:  15 (what?!) 

Pounds Lost:  6

Can you hear that?  It’s the sound of my happy dance.  My mother’s day was spent working.  Working hard.  We hosted a double concert event with original artists from the 50s and 60s, Doo Wop.  I was on point all day.  A good long day of hard work.  Including one mad dash to the airport with Jenn to rescue one group’s lost baggage just in time for them to go on stage.  With three whole minutes to spare.  Resulting in getting a hug from one of the original Shirelles.  Nice.  Got to sit in the hall during rehearsals and hear Charlie Thomas’ Drifters. Very nice.  They’re my favorites of the groups we had.  Great songs, great voices, great fun.  Got to hear countless people tell stories of why they loved these groups and their songs.  That was the best part of the day by far.  Even though it’s not the music of my youth, it was the music of Grease and Happy Days and those are very much a part of my youth.  I’d been to Baton Rouge last year and seen a show.  It surprised me that I knew almost every song by heart.  Even teared up a couple of times thinking of my Aunt and Uncle.  My grandparents.  The older couples dancing in the aisles, holding hands, singing all the songs.  If that doesn’t move you, you might need to check yourself, you might be broken.  Of course you can stop the teary moment short if you just think about what it’s gonna be like for us in about 30 years.  Holding hands, remembering back to our own good old days, seeing a line up of 80s originals in concert.  That’s gonna be some funny stuff right there.  Funny and tragic probably, if Rock of Love is any kind of a glimpse ahead.  Heh . . .  There we’ll be, grown up dos teased up as tall as we can get ‘em, bandanas tied around whatever we can still manage to tie them around, singing Home Sweet Home.  Hey, Miss Weight Loss, we’ll sing Europe’s Carrie for you.  Even if you are too young to remember it first hand.  Or maybe we’ll be sporting fauxhawks and sad white folk dancing to Take on Me and Sister Europe in the aisles.  Ha ha!  I’m actually looking forward to that.  Does anybody know, are the Psychadelic Furs still around?  Anyhoo, back to yesterday . . .  I must have climbed at least 100 flights of stairs running between caterers and sound techs and everything else.  The theater where we held the event was built in 1936 I was told.  Very believable by the twists and turns you have to maneuver to get from one level to another, backstage to front of the house, reception hall to music hall.  As many times as I’ve been there, I never fail to get turned around at least once.  This made my shoe decision for the day a major mistake.  When the doc says no heels, he means it.  But I had such fun in between all the running around watching the people come and go.  It was, simply, a very happy day.  Followed by another one today.  I’ll let you know tomorrow if I manage a hat-trick. 

P.S.  I did not completely ignore my Mom, btw.  She headed across the state line for the casinos for the holiday.  Love you MOM! 

May 11, 2008 @ 21:18

I’m thankful that I am a mom today.  And that my kids are awesome.  That is all.  Oh and also that my blog decided to be up today instead of down.  Oh and one more thing, that my 13 hour day working on Mother’s Day is done.  And that Bear is an incredible big brother.  Who made a whopping huge amount of money babysitting today.  And for the text messages throughout the day from my girls telling me Happy Mother’s Day.  And for my bed being right there and I’m about to fall in it . . . 

Happy Mother’s Day from Us! 

Nonnie’s right . . .  why don’t I ever smile in pictures?  I really don’t know why. 

May 06, 2008 @ 06:31

So I’ve been fairly quietly trying to work my way back up on the track.  It’s been slow slow slow going.  Trixie can tell you how slow with how often I avoid her invites to the track.  It’s not you, Sugar, it’s me.  (Hey!  Look!  The first time ever I said that and really meant it!)  And crapper on it all, even though my efforts have been pitiful at best, my left foot began to hurt!  Hurt!  What the hell?  I haven’t been putting in enough effort for it to blinkin’ hurt!  What am I supposed to do now?  So as I resisted the urge to google it (no sense adding drama to injury, eh?)  I skipped a whole week to try and rest it.  And guess what?  Gained four pounds.  And guess what else?  It still hurt.  Stupid foot.  I never like that foot anyway.  It never cooperated with sexy girlie shoes.  And now here it is, trying to doom me to a life of sensible shoes and lard ass?  Well, I refuse.  About this time last year when I was running a nice respectable beginner’s 3 to 5 miles 3 to 5 times a week I had begun to have some minor pain in my heel.  But now this was a step up in pain, an additional location and with such minimal effort being applied that I decided to go to the doctor.  The foot doctor.  As I waited I looked around the waiting room that was filled with a combination of athletes and old folks.  I felt particularly out of place.  I am neither of those.  This did not raise my spirits.  So I read my latest issue of Runner’s World with the cover carefully hidden feeling like a fraud.  I went back when my name was called, told the nurse what hurt, and waited for the doctor.  And then I told the doctor what hurt.  And then they X-rayed the foot.  And then after that, I had the best conversation I have had with a doctor since my pregnancy.  Turns out he’s a runner.  And a nice one.  And turns out that I’ve got a bone spur, plantar faciitis, and a pinched nerve.  All very small things.  And nothing that I can use as another excuse.  I just have to wear insoles at all times.  Even if I get up in the middle of the night to go pee.  No bare feet, ever.  Yeah, weird, I thought so, too.  But, do you believe that after just four days of following this new rule, and working at a booth at our city festival and standing up on concrete straight through three of those days, it already feels better.  I felt so good actually that this morning on the way to work I stopped and bought a new journal.  To mark down my mileage and time.  I think that the long weekend working outside, on my feet, lifting things and doing basic physical labor woke me up a bit to how down I’ve been.  I felt better this morning than I had in months.  And I was really good at the city festival avoiding most of the fair food.  In three days I broke down and had one fresh lemonade, so sweet you could feel the sugar granuals (oh. so. good.), one corn dog (not really worth it), and one order of fried green tomatoes.  Which I did not finish.  Which I totally would have.  But something happened to them.  It’s too sad to tell . . .  So, fresh start number eleventy thousand and one . . . 

Oh, and best part?  I’ve totally just got justification for a new pair of running shoes.  Even though they might need replacing before they see any real running, I still say Thanks Doc! 

May 05, 2008 @ 22:29

I am thankful this week that Dano can fix anything.  Even things that he didn’t break.  And as a result, only two weeks are missing, instead of a year’s worth.  And for the fact that Dano and Miss Weight Loss are charming dinner guests and fun on road trips and great Scrabble and coffee partners.  Happy happy . . . 

May 02, 2008 @ 20:24

I’d make changes that were good for me, like eating more fiber, not swearing so much in traffic, and not buying that very tragic dress that I wore to Diane’s wedding.  I would not flush half a month’s worth of posts into oblivion.  Did you notice bethecake did go back in time?  Suddenly it’s mid-April again.  Stupid people make my head hurt . . .  Cancel an account means cancel AN account, not all the accounts . . . 

Hope I didn’t say anything profound in the last couple of weeks that I’d want to read to my grandchildren someday . . .  ppppppppppppphhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhlllllllllllllllltttt.  Oh, I do make me laugh some days . . . 

April 20, 2008 @ 09:37

What’s the fastest way out of a pity party?  Lunch with Miss Weight Loss and her hubby, followed by a surprised visit from Mom.  On a very different note, my brother is now back in Iraq.  My mother and I talked about this on her visit.  The way I feel about him is probably more maternal than sisterly.  I am fifteen years older than this boy.  He’s a man now, true, but I keep seeing him with a little boy’s haircut and sneaky grin.  He’s much more than that now.  The young man who has joked about mortar fire and rockets and how funny the people in units who aren’t used to it are when it’s incoming.  Who casually says how great the new armor on the trucks is since they are always shooting at them and trying to blow them up.  His unit has been sent to Basrah.  And he has said that he is worried.  Not to me or Mom, to the man who experienced two tours in Vietnam, his father.  Someone who will understand.  When he has only three months left there.  I am angry and scared for him.  He’s not either of those things.  So I am grateful for his strength.  And I am praying hard for all of them. 

April 18, 2008 @ 19:08

I am very sad tonight, for a number of disconnected reasons.  First, due to circumstances beyond my control, I am not at this moment, loaded into my little car and zipping down a two lane highway, due South, straight towards my Nonnie.  And several other people that I love very very much.  All this week I have been near to giddiness getting ready to go.  But cake requests got complicated and I am a reliable sort of girl.   

Then, during an otherwise ordinary phone call today, a stranger let something slip.  It had the effect of a key slipping into a lock and swinging open a door.  All these clues that I had gathered together in one corner of my mind fell together.  Suddenly I knew something about someone.  Someone that I love and admire and respect.  Someone that is fairly new to my life and that I had hoped was on the way to becoming a close friend.  But as it turns out, they are keeping a secret.  Living a secret actually.  And now that I know it, I am also aware of other things that make me sad.  The saddness of someone feeling that need, to hide their life away.  I understand that sometimes people choose to live their lives in a very private manner solely because it’s their preference, their comfort.  I respect that.  And I hope that is the reason for this.  But I’m also aware now, that we will not ever get to be the close friends that I would have hoped we could be.  There will always be that distance between us, not because we just hadn’t finished crossing it yet, but because they want it that way.  So, I am now missing someone that, as it turns out, I didn’t really know. 

And then this afternoon in yoga class, one of the poses included laying your hand across your throat.  Your are lying on your back, soft and still, vulnerable.  As I placed my hand across my throat, I was instantly struck by how soft my skin was, the strength of my pulse thudding beneath it.  And of how long it had been since anyone had touched me outside of my children.  I’m not about to go into any long lament about sex.  That’s not specifically what I mean.  That is part of it.  But I mean the sort of thing that you miss when you are not in a relationship and that is far far more than just sex.  The hand on your leg in the car.  The brushing past one another in the hall.  Eye contact and shared thoughts.  That sychronized dance that a couple can reach in the kitchen.  Preparing an old favorite dish, each person knowing their part, never having to say scoot over, because they know.  Bringing someone a glass of iced tea because they’ve been working on the yard for the past hour and you know they’re just about to turn the mower off and settle onto the back steps.  Settling onto the steps beside them and loving the smell of sweat and fresh cut grass and familiarity.  That’s what I’m missing most today.  Having a familiar.  Someone that really really knows me.  And likes me.  And loves me for the entire person that I am.  I know that my children love me, absolutely.  But they don’t really know me, do they?  They only know Mommy.  I will never forget the day that my father told me how he had known my mother back in the days when she’d sit in a dark room full of incense, listening to the Beatles and saying things like ” . . . wow . . .”   It was that same sort of feeling I had earlier today, a door swinging open, seeing someone that I thought I knew in an entirely different light.  I realized that my mother had been a million things before me that I never knew.  Shortly after, I learned that she had been a state champion basketball player.  She used to lay outside after dark and stare up at stars.  She wanted to major in Art, but makes her living in accounting instead.  Practical.  I didn’t know my mother before she became practical.  When I get a glimpse of the other side of her, the girl who used to look up at the stars, those are some of our best days together.  And here I am now, myself, being the practical one.  And with no one in my life who knows the girl  who sometimes, just wants to go outside and look up at the stars.  Someone who would go with me, and who would remember to bring the bottle of wine.  And who would know that I really am truthfully afraid of the dark and would not tease me about it.  That would make me less sad tonight. 

April 17, 2008 @ 14:49

I had to go to the doctor today.  But I spent my morning baking.  Four cake requests for Saturday.  One Praline, one Ubercake, one fresh strawberries and cream, and one Belly cake for a baby shower.  When I came back home, I was surprised to discover that I had baked so much that not just my house, but my entire back yard smells like cake.  Very nice.  Either that, or there’s a hole punched in the side of my kitchen that I haven’t noticed . . .