Valentine's Day

It's Valentine's Day.
Two co-workers gave me little candy treats, which was nice. I passed them out to my family so the dinner table had *something* festive on it. It was the second night in a row that I'd made a real meal. Tonight was steak (for D), homemade pesto ("puts hair on your chest" variety), pasta, asparagus and hollandaise sauce. And wine for the grownups - a cheap Australian cab. Last night, I actually doubled my entire cooking repertoire by adding two new items: ratatouille, and polenta. (Thank you, Moosewood cookbook.) The family actually enjoyed it, although S would not touch the ratatouille, even though she likes all of the ingredients on their own, except the red bell pepper. Maybe next time.

The very best part of both of these meals was that D did the dishes afterwards. I am amazed by how willing I am to cook a good meal if I don't have to do the dishes too. I've explained this to D, and I think we've got a new understanding. Who knows - this time next year, I might be able to make six items!

I was a straight A, occasional B+, student until 8th grade when I took Home Economics and received my first and only C on my report card. As I remember, I just couldn't be bothered to care about sewing a perfectly straight line or making a burrito in the electric skillet just so. I figured good enough was fine in those areas, I guess. In the interest of full disclosure, I explained this to D before he married me. And fortunately, even though he was raised by a stay-at-home French woman in a pristine house with daily gourmet meals elegantly presented to him, he never criticizes me for my sub-sub-Martha abilities. Phew!

Non-sequitur: I went to the gym and ran for a bit on the treadmill after work, which was also nice.

In honor of the Hallmark-imposed holiday, D gave me flowers, and I gave him flowers, and we gave each other our undying love. Again. I know what you're thinking: you're thinking, "How boring. Twenty-two years together [we count the year we broke up], and they still are ga-ga over each other. Ho. Hum." It's a burden, but somebody's gotta do it.

Non-sequitur #2: Today I got rid of a little plastic pill case with the days of the week in raised print and abbreviated in Braille on 8 little sections. I know there are only 7 days of the week, but the pill case is rectangular, and the openings are symmetrical. The last one is labeled "8th day." What pill does one take on the 8th day, I wonder? I mean, the 8th day never comes, does it? Not if you're counting M-F. Or even if you repeat one day, what if your vacation lasts 9 days? Then what? You can see how completely impractical this case is and why I must get rid of it.

Actually, I must get rid of it because I got a replacement one that's larger before I went to Japan. I take several pills a day, and when you add in the girls' vitamins+fluoride, the little case didn't cut it anyway. And finally, it's yet one more thing that I would only have kept because it belonged to my maternal grandmother. But I have more important things to remember her by.

Here are the pills I take daily:
Glucosamine + chondroitin for my joints
Iron because I tend to get anemic otherwise, and for some inexplicable reason, iron works for me like fiber in my diet and my digestive system shuts down without it. Go figure.
Calcium to help prevent osteoporosis
Extra C to keep the immune system up
A multi-vitamin for anything I missed :)

Here is what I got rid of yesterday:
A white slip that never quite fit me right to begin with, and which I really don't need now that the gingham dress is gone too.

Here's an interesting fact:
I sat down thinking I had nothing to write and thinking the most I would do is say that I didn't feel like sharing anything and how I need alone time blahblah and don't get enough of it blahblahblah. But instead, actual sentences came out. Amen to that.

Nothing new to say

But here's something old. The thought's appealing, although I won't be following through on it. Today.


i will throw out all my papers

every bill letter poem story
invoice report card application form newspaper
clipping scrap of wrapping paper
card print record receipt notebook slip
post it note
and trash each new one that comes
read or unread
dear or free or worthless
i will let them go before i have even held them
and why not?
and what freedom
then
what freedom


- 10/00

OK

Today I took the girls to see Oklahoma at the Orpheum theater. We had balcony tickets and R sat with a friend from school & his mom, while S & I sat two rows up, about as high up in the theater you could go. It was a very good production. I know some musicals - I was in The Wizard of Oz in 7th grade, and The Sound of Music in 8th grade (I played Maria - it was the high point of my career), and then in college I was in West Side Story. But I'd never seen Oklahoma and didn't even know the story before today. R had asked me, "What's this going to be about, anyway?" and all I could say was that I thought there was a probably a boy-meets-girl element to it. There was. As well as a few other things that I'm hoping pretty much went over the girls' heads.

S did pretty well sitting still. She only whispered a few times, "Mommy-mommy? Mommymommymommy, when's it going to change? if too much time had elapsed between scene changes. After the show, she said she'd liked it, but she also said it was violent. Oops.

(You know, I was going to link the above word "Orpheum" to the theater site, and found instead photos of the urinals at the theater. And then, compelled by morbid curiosity, I spent I don't care to admit how long looking at the urinal.net site. Or at least, much of it. You want culture or worthwhile musings? Go to my friend's blogs - listed to the right. You want a site entirely devoted to pictures of urinals all around the world? Well, here ya go.)

On a more significant note, a couple of days ago, I got my latest copy of APJ, The American Poetry Journal, with a short poem of mine in it. I went to the web site to see if it had been updated, and I see that the editor mentioned my name there, too. D and I just had a short conversation about my poetry. I feel like it's been about five years since I wrote anything of worth. In all that time, I could have been working on honing my craft, maturing as a poet, pounding out the one thousand mediocre lines it might take for me to write one really good piece. So what does this whining mean? It means that I feel behind. And what am I going to do about it? Write. Now.

Poetry, meditation, sleep.
Tomorrow I work 6am-2pm.
Yesterday I got rid of a wooden giraffe mask. I don't remember who gave it to me.
Today I got rid of a blue gingham dress I haven't worn in years.

FRIIIIIDAY!

It's been a long week - for me, the kids & for D, who said he felt beaten into the ground by work every day this week. Ouch.

But the weekend has begun in fine, fine form with dinner out at a great sushi joint downtown while friends watched the girls in exchange for us having watched their son for 4 Wednesdays while they took parenting an evening parenting class. They'd also given us a gift certificate for the sushi restaurant. It doesn't get much better than that. I may never need to eat again. (Gee. I've never said that before.)

It's almost 10:30 and I'm off for my 30 minutes [note to self: do not fall asleep on the couch this time] meditative reading. Raw fish in my stomach while I read about Buddhism. That'll work.

Peace

I am sleepy, and I am so ready to be in bed and asleep that I almost resent "having" to write. But I chose to do this for a valid reason, and I will continue to do it. And not just for the sushi that L said she'd get me.

Quiet meditative time is a great thing to do at the end of the day. It brings such peace. I will one day soon start my day that way as well.

Today I got rid of a glass (or perhaps porcelain) figurine of a round-bellied robin. I don't know where it came from. I am not even going to go get it and describe it in more detail here. I'll get it off the shelf only to put it aside for the rummage sale the girls school holds in May.

I feel like I've started a very important journey. At last.

Ash Wednesday & Chinese New Year

What does it mean? The start of both Lent and the Year of the Chicken on the same day?

I usually give up something for Lent. In the past, it was often chocolate, or coffee. Last year, if I remember correctly, it was meat.

Besides the fact that I'm not Catholic, and in fact, I'm not even a practicing Presbyterian at the moment, I do think there's something wrong in just making the 40+ days before Easter an excuse to diet. I don't think I'm fooling God or myself there. It's a sacrifice, yes. But for the wrong reasons.

And I do think setting aside a special period of time in the year as sacred is a good thing. Maybe it's not just coincidence that the Lenten period is more than long enough to establish a habit. If I was able tp start writing daily - well, at least posting a sentence or two daily - after just 3 weeks of doing it, what else could I develop the habit to do?

Here's what I want to try, starting today:

1) 30 minutes of quiet time a day - either reading some spiritual teaching or book (Tolle, for example, or the new Charlotte Kasl that my birth father sent me) - or meditating, or a little of both. The trick here will be not falling asleep while I'm doing it.

2) Getting rid of one thing per day.

Today I got rid of my old, old, old blue sweat pants.

The quiet time starts right
about

now.

"placeholder" post

Just a note to say I'm here, all is well.
D got our two computers hooked up to a router which means not only do we have DSL, but we can both be online at the same time. I tell you what. Modern technology is sure cool. He was looking at pictures of Titan's moon on the Mac while I was watching a Dar Williams video online on the PC, and we were both giddy with excitement that all this was possible. Who'd've thunk it?

Spring cleaning

This afternoon & tonight the girls and I moved the futon out of S's room and moved it to the livingroom to give the princess more space in her royal chamber. She ended up with so much room, we moved Lemon's cage to her room from R's room, to make R's room roomier too. If I weren't so asleep (and I hadn't just written then accidentally closed the window on & deleted this post!), I'd make a Dr. Seuss story out of it.

The girls sorted things into bags of keep/toss/donate, but I still have to go through them to make sure I don't accidentally throw away a family heirloom or donate a rubber-band-and-clay sculpture-of-the-hour. Two downsides to having such creative children are (1) the amount of artistic media they use, some of which used to be handy household items before they were added to a collage, and (2) the quantity of artistic pieces they produce. I mean, it makes me think of Mrs. daVinci: "Lee-OH-nar-DOH! Will you please stop leaving little clay horses in the bread oven?!"

I also made some changes to the livingroom that seemed necessary after the move of the futon. We'll see how they look in the honest, unforgiving light of day. Not that I was being creative or anything. I leave that to the rest of the family.

Sure.

The big stuff behind me...

It sure feels good to be on the other side of both the Auction and the half marathon. The run went well - much better than last year at the same event, which was the first time I tried a half-marathon. The last 3 miles weren't torture, I didn't have to walk at all, and I have no blisters or sore marks from clothes rubbing, as I have had in the past. Buying new, appropriate clothing paid off, as did the training. I trimmed four or five minutes off of my time from previous halfs, but it felt like more somehow.

Because there were over 4,000 people running this race, I didn't even pass the Start line until a minute after the official start, so I think in the end, my pace was about 11.5 minutes per mile. This is slow - about 90% of the people there ran faster than that, and the finishing runners did about 5 minutes per mile. Heck, they could have run the race and then had a latte and gourmet breakfast, played a thoughtful game of chess and napped before I made it to the finish line. But the whole race, I told myself I was only running to run, not to beat anyone - not really to even beat my old time - and that my goal was to run strong. Phew! It's over, and it feels like I succeeded in what I set out to do.

It's also such a beautiful course. Really gorgeous, and mostly downhill: through Golden Gate park surrounded by redwoods and eucalyptus, past beautiful gardens, the Tea House, and even a field of bison (much to my surprise), and then about 2.5 miles along the Pacific Ocean, beyond the pump station and almost to the zoo, and another 2.5 miles back and finally up the only real hill of the course, which I pounded up and passed people on to have a strong finish. Last year, it rained the whole time. This year, it was so beautiful, I would have gone to the beach and still been warm. I tried to just enjoy my surroundings, and told myself that it was going like a walk through the park - only slightly faster and for a long time. Actually, with my pace, it is only slightly faster than a walk!

I made it to a very short BIC time at the cafe with Julia, then just hung out for the afternoon, resting a little on the couch with a sleepy S before going out to the pet store for everything from millet and vitamins for the bird, to a salt lick for Beatrice the rat and a toothbrush for Albion the dog.

Yummy dinner of Chinese food, more water (I've been drinking all day), and bedtime for the girls & me. I was too sleepy to stay up past 8, but once again, I got up only to blog. Now back to bed!

Pre race eve

Thanks to those of you who have wished me luck for tomorrows half-marathon jog, (including my birth dad in his wonderful letter which arrived today!). I'm a little late getting to bed, but I'll sleep well now that the school auction is finished (for me, anyway). I think it was a great success, and I'll describe it in greater detail tomorrow. I'm sure people are still bidding hundreds and hundreds of dollars on the great class art projects, like felted wall hangings and watercolor collages, and the quilt that R's class produced. Beautiful stuff, and a great way for the school to make money. I bid on and won a date for the girls with their respective teachers, and a romantic getaway in Point Arena including dinner out and a tour of a lighthouse. Now I'll just have to find a weekend when we can go and somewhere for the kids to stay.

One more glass of water to hydrate myself before the morning, and then to bed!

Friday night, sleepy

The thought is that tonight I will sleep as long & well as I can because tomorrow night, I'll be too nervous about Sunday morning to sleep, Sunday morning being the half marathon.

And yet again, I drag myself from the "big bed" where the girls & I have crashed, so that I can stagger to the keyboard, the drool still hardly dry on the side of my face, and sit down at the keyboard with only one eye open against it's harsh unfeeling white glare. And write.

Uh. Yeah. That'll do.

Salsa red

Salsa red is the color of my new car. After six months of putting my name on a list, I was able to pick up the Prius today. For the most part, I'm just selfishly excited about having this car. I mean, I feel so American about it, so consumer greedy, materialist, self-indulgent - like some of the guys at work who compulsively think about cars, talk about cars, look up pictures of cool new cars online, put pictures of cars on their desktops, know car stats like baseball stats - horsepower, fuel injection, liters, maximum speed. Bells and whistles. I'm very proud of myself for having a hybrid. And salsa red, at that. Who'd have thought?

On the other hand, though, I think of the expense of it all, and that it'll take me years and years to pay it off, and that until I sell the 2 year old Escape, I own two cars - something that I'd vowed I'd never do. I think about how what I've spent on this car would keep a respectably sized third-world village in food and clothing for a decade. I think about all the dangers of caring about a thing like this, about being so proud about what is after all just a possession.

And then I remember that this particular possession will get anywhere from fifty to sixty miles per gallon, and that it's a car (all we need) instead of a mini-SUV, which after two years, I can say we don't need. (I realize that my birth mom and her husband just got a new Escape and that they're as excited about it as I am about this Prius - but they'll really use four wheel drive. It's not wasted on them.) And I remember that this car has driver and front passenger seat-mounted side and front and rear side curtain airbags, Smart Key entry System (I only have to walk to the car & the key in my purse sends a signal and unlocks it), HID headlamps, integrated fog lamps, Vehicle Stability Control, and a battery with a 10-year, 100K mile warranty. And that at a stoplight, it goes silent as the gas engine completely shuts off. Zero emission. Yeah. And it's salsa red. How kewl is that?

The bad karma car salesman story goes like this:
I put my name on lists with two dealerships. This is a questionable practice to begin with, but when you're told it will be four to nine months for a car to arrive, you get experimental. At the second dealership, the one I ended up going with, I put my name on the list as a casual backup plan on the off-chance that they could get me the vehicle sooner. I spent a total of 2 minutes with each salesman at the most. Just enough time to give them my name and contact information. And that was it. I never saw them again for 6 months. I did, however, make calls to both of them around the beginning of December, asking if I might be able to push and get the car before the end of the year to take advantage of a $2000 tax credit. Salesman #1, north of here, was helpful, but very slow to respond to messages, slightly impatient and patronizing, and whenever I called for him, I was either put on hold for five minutes or more, or completely cut off by accident. The receptionist was chronically confused, and the rental department they had (I'd rented the Prius from there for a day to test it out in August) was so uneducated about the car that they nearly talked me out of it with their doubts and ignorance.

Salesman #2, south of home (between home & work, and where the sales tax is a quarter percent lower), was decidedly slicker and more experienced. He was very quick to respond to every one of my calls, and he offered me slightly different packages or colors in case I wanted to go that route to get a quicker car. It could have annoyed me, but in this case it impressed me - as did the phone staff there. They were courteous and helpful. They knew my salesman's schedule, and never disconnected me while transferring my call to his voicemail. Ironically, his salesmanship made me think of getting the top-of-the-line navigational package, which comes with a 6-CD player, a GPS, and bluetooth technology. I'd told him I'd take either the middle package I'd originally signed up for or this fancy version. Then I called Salesman #1 and told him that I'd consider the high-end package too, if it would get me the car sooner.

I also asked for pricing for the cars before they came in. Salesman #1 gave me a vague answer, even after he'd had time to look it up. Salesman #2 called me a day quicker with an exact amount for each package.

Both salesmen gave me a heads up that my car would be arriving about two weeks ago. Salesman #1 said it was the navigational package I'd requested, in salsa red. Salesman #2 said it was the middle package I'd originally ordered, in salsa red. I had a choice to make: whether to go with the snazzy car from the less helpful salesperson at the inept dealership where the tax is higher, or go with the good-enough-for-me car from the better salesman at the competent dealership where the tax is lower.

When D pointed out that you can get a GPS for not a lot of money, and then carry it with you outside of the car too, and when I realized that I don't really want any more excuses (like bluetooth) to spend time on the phone while in the car, and that I can only listen to one CD at a time, anyway, I knew that there was no point in spending $5G more for a car from the salesman who wouldn't even give me an exact price.

I realized this, but I didn't call the northern salesman. A day passed, then two. (Or was it three? I admit it could have been three.) Of course, he called me before I could call him. He said, "I have great news for you! Today's your day! Your car is here!" I'm sure he heard from my voice that something was wrong. I asked him what package it was, and he said, "The navigational. In salsa red. Just like you requested." When I explained that actually, I'd had my name on another list and had decided to go with them, I thought he was going to blow a fuse. I mean, he was pissed. And justifiably so. But still. He could tell I felt guilty about it all, and he played right off that. He gave me a lecture about how "not okay" it was for me to do what I'd done, and how "We really hate it when you--when people--do this kind of thing." I apologized several times, and explained that one of the reasons I didn't feel too bad about it is that THERE'S A SIX MONTH WAITING PERIOD FOR THESE CARS and they have a list of about a hundred people hungry to buy this vehicle. I said, "I'm sure you can sell this car right away to someone else." And he said, "That's not the point." And I agree. He was right. I accept responsibility for my poor judgement and any hurt it caused him. But still. His last shot to me was an angry, "Well. You'll never get a loaner car from us. But that's your choice."

And it is.

But blech. For hours after I spoke to him, I was sure something terrible would happen to me. First of all, I half-expected some sort of punishment from the universe for my bad behavior. And besides that, even though he couldn't do anything over the phone, his anger and bad energy was so strong, I expected it to chase me down where I was.

It was a good lesson for practicing forgiveness of my own mistakes and detachment from other people’s created drama.

Running at 9pm

...really wakes one up for the necessary hour or so left of the day. Even if it's a very short run (about 2.5 mi).

I see that Julia and Suzanne continue to write very interesting, thoughtful and well-written posts about their lives and life in general. Well. You won't get any of that malarkey here. Just short, snippy things about how I'm too tired to write. Pathetic, but at least (and it's a really good at least), I have no trouble writing every day. The habit has taken hold.

Will I write about bad karma with the car salesman tomorrow? I guess so. Because I can't do it now. Because I'm pretty sure my eyes are going to fall out of their sockets and get my keyboard all icky if I keep typing now. There's something about getting up before 5am every morning that makes after 10pm at night difficult.

But I'm hereby challenging myself to write the car salesman confession/story tomorrow. And Julia has already dared me to write about the dead pet story. So that will have to come, too.

Adrienne's comment to my post a couple of days ago reminds me of the iguana carcass in the freezer story, too, but I'll spare you the rest of those details.

And on that note, say "bonne nuit."

Blog. Sleep. In that order.

Anything I want to write right now feels too much like complaining. So I'm going to count my blessings instead.

Here are some:
a warm, safe, quiet home
a healthy family sleeping in their beds in the warm, safe, quiet home
a bed waiting for me to sleep in, too
a job to go back to tomorrow even though I could not drag myself there today

the moon, the stars, and the daffodils blooming in the adobe

With visions of Auction items swimming before me...

We have 27 Live Auction items, 95 Silent Auction items, a Raffle, and a "pull" where for $20 you can pick a felted heart from an olive tree: each felted heart contains an "item" worth at least $20. The alluring descriptions of most of these items (everything from hand-knit scarves to 7-day trips to Kauai) were mostly written by others. My job is the punch it up where necessary, check for grammatical errors, etc., and lay it all out to be printed.

The theme for the school's auction is "An Evening in Tuscany," inspired by the committee chair's recent visit there, not inspired (in spite of rumors to the contrary) by the Presbyterian Preschool's annual auction, "A Taste of Tuscany."

Yes, I was going to write the pet cemetery story tonight in my blog. But now my goal is to finish the 38+ page Auction catalog for final proofing and printing tomorrow instead.

A little more coffee, and I just might make it another 1.5 hours! :)

DSL enabled - beep-beep-zip-dang!

"Beep-beep-zip-dang!" is what the little boy in the Roadrunner cartoon says when he's saying he wants to grow up and be a roadrunner. If I remember correctly, his brother says he's going to grow up and be a "puh-sigh-ky-a-trist," and that his roadrunner wanna-be brother should see a "puh-sigh-ky-a-trist." Do you remember that one, too?

In any event, it's sure nice to see a screen load so quickly, especially when one is working on putting together a program for an auction & needs quick reference to things online from home.

My morning run went well enough (I made it home again), and Writer's Group was lovely as usual. I've been working on the Auction book off and on (mostly on) all day. S went to the beach with a friend this morning, and then I brought both girls back here for a playdate. I also brought R's friend Siobhan here for the afternoon.

The high point (or low point) of the day was the burial of the bird. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking this bird died how long ago? And it's taken us this long to take care of the funeral? But it's not as bad as you think. D dug a deep hole with the post-hole digger so the chances of accidentally finding him again (as a surprise) are slim to none. I'll skip the details, but basically, R's friend Siobhan put him in the hole, and R covered him in adobe, and that was that.

When I'd asked R if she was ready for the service, she'd said, "Yeah. I want to get this over with." But then she also said she was going to visit his grave every day. Siobhan said she'd made the same kind of pledge after her dog died, but then she was too busy and never followed through.

Life goes on.

Very soon, I will post the funny story about burying pets in the back yard. I know. You can't wait.

You're spared it tonight (and probably tomorrow night too) because the Auction program demands my attention. Besides, it's almost 10:30 now, and I do actually have to get up at 5 and go to work tomorrow.

A visit from Bulgaria

D's father's sister is here from Bulgaria. For 3 months.

We were all a little surprised to learn that she was going to be here that long, but it can't be all that easy to leave Bulgaria and come here to begin with, so it makes sense that she'd want to make it last. Her English has gotten better, so I think she won't be entirely adrift or bored for the three months like she was the last time she stayed long-term with D's dad.

We visited them today, after the running and ballet and horseback riding lesson.

We were very late getting there. I know her English has improved, because she said, "Hello. You are late," when we arrived.

We had wine (I had 3 glasses, which helped everything) a meal of chicken, mashed potatoes with pickles cut up in them, and a pork-and-rice-in-cabbage-leaf dish which the girls understandably didn't want to try. D's aunt is really very sweet and patient. She presented me with the third sweater she's knitted for me (a tad small, like the others have been), and she sat and smiled at us a lot while the girls & D wrestled on the couch and I took turns asking R & S to behave and asking D to stop instigating their antics.

We stupidly had not brought the kids anything to do, and they were bored and kept coming up and whispering in my ear that they wanted to go home. It only now occurs to me that TV might have been an option for any other family, but I hadn't even considered it. Hmm.

We all fell asleep on the way home. Uh, except the driver, of course.

Now D is tanked up on the coffee he had at his dad's. It was no more than 6 ounces, but he only drinks it about once a year, and I'll have to peel him off the ceiling when he finishes watching Les Anges de L'Apocalypse, the latest Jean Reno film I've bought from amazon.fr.

Tomorrow, I hope to do another long run and then work for probably 8 hours, somehow, on the Auction catalog for the kid's school. The auction's in a week. The half marathon is in 8 days. When it's all over, we're going to have a week or two of normalcy, and then we're going to Disneyland.

Change is constant

It's a time a change around here. We're going to switch to DSL in the next 24 hours, I'll be getting a new car within a week or so, and to push the excitement level right over the edge, I got my hair cut pretty short tonight. Hang on to your seats, folks!

It's Friday. Tomorrow will be a full, full day, and a great test for taking things as they come and being present for it all.

We're backing up the data on our mac & pc now in preparation for the switch to DSL. Yes, changing from dial up should have no affect on our Word docs or jpgs, but where I work, everything from to cat hair and best intentions can lead directly to a hard drive crash and *poof* bye-bye files.

See you all more quickly next time!

Must blog before power goes out

It's raining and there's even been some lightning, and I'm just tired enough to be paranoid, concerned that the power might go out before I can blog.

Not that there was anything terribly exciting to blog about from today.
Work (plenty of stuff getting stirred up as the "department" I'm in grows)
After school misc until R had gymnastics.
At gymnastics, I worked on editing my father-in-law's translation of his friend's Romanian memoir. I'll be seeing D's dad (and his sister, in town for 3 months from Bulgaria) on Saturday, so I need to have more translation done. It never rains.

Uh. Well, except now. Right.

(As I write this, more thunder.)

After gymnastics, we had a pleasant family evening. I worked on the school auction while the girls & D had dinner, then there was much general giggling and teasing before story and bed. For them. Nice to have stayed awake past the kids, to get a second wind. I feel optimistic. Maybe it's the low-carb toast and cream cheese I just had giving my blood sugar a kick up. Time to read my friends' blogs too, before 4:45 am gets any closer.

Asleep

I've roused myself from the big bed (having fallen asleep there with the girls after storytime) just to write this, but I am so asleep, and will go right back to bed now, while the cough is at bay. I stayed up a bit too late last night, and as a result, coughed until 2:30 am, even after taking syrup & the inhaler thingy and cough drops.

And just now fell asleep typing even this! :) So ttfn.

Sometimes you have to take a day

So I took the day off work. And it was good.

I slept little last night, and woke up feeling worse, again. So I called in sick - something I do about two or three times a year, at most. Usually, I drag myself in late or go in at my usual 6am and leave early. But today I just gave myself permission to take the whole day. I rested, and drank tea with honey, and used the inhaler once. I'll use it and more cough syrup again before bed, in just a few minutes.

There is something so fantastic about being home alone in my house. It's really, really good for me. I love my family, but I so need time alone in my home. I read more of Tolle's book, too. I'm almost finished with reading it but am already applying it more and more every day. It's very liberating.

Also, after a day of down time, I feel ready to face the challenges of the next few days - the usual work schedule, the last bit of pre-race training, and creating the auction catalog & descriptive cards for the silent auction before Tuesday.

Apologies to my fellow bloggers for my lack of comments on your blogs ; your entries have been fantastic! but my participation in everything was on hold for a little more than a day. Until tomorrow...

There's nothing wrong with me

It's been a good day. A humbling day, but a good day. Because look! I'm still around to write about it!

There's nothing like setting up a same-day doctor appointment and then getting there 20 minutes late. (What is wrong with me that I can never seem to unchain myself from the office in time?) Especially when the well-meaning HMO folks tell you when you get to the desk that you're 20 minutes late (as though you hadn't been counting the seconds all the way there) and that the doctor is only willing to see you after all because she's a saint.

It's also refreshing to learn that it only takes 10 minutes and a $30 copay to learn that there's basically nothing wrong with me.

I think I am a hypochondriac. I'm just a really bad hypochondriac. Here I'd gone to all sorts of trouble to make sure I didn't really have bronchitis or pneumonia or some strange everlasting hack-like-a-seal disease, and then I just plain blew it while the Dr. was talking to me.

Note to self: do not tell the physician examining you that although you have this cough that's really bothersome and may be fatal, you are also in training for a half-marathon, and actually, running really seems to clear up your lungs nicely.

The doctor gave me me a prescription for an inhaler that is apparently the best way to beat a hangs-on-forever post cold cough. And then she reminded me that in 9/03, I had the same type of thing and was given same prescription (I think I used the inhaler twice).

I'm pretty sure an internal memo has gone around the GP's at Kaiser with my medical record number on it. Or perhaps they've just flagged the computer records so that when I call, the advice nurse gets a message on the screen that says something like: "Worries too much about minor symptoms. Will want a same day appointment. Will be very late. Humor her, prescribe something, and move on to truly ill patients."

Later in the day, I got a parking ticket because I was 10 minutes late getting back to the parking meter. It seems I didn't learn my lesson about time well enough earlier. :)

On a brighter note, S lost her first tooth today! She was at the after school care facility, asking one of the nice staff members there to pull out her tooth. "Why don't you just pull it out yourself?" Theresa said. I think she was joking, but S just said, "Okay." And she just reached in and yanked it out. And then she spent the rest of the day saying, "I just yanked it out! I can't believe I just yanked it out!"

So it looks like the tooth fairy will be coming to our house tonight, leaving the obligatory money and answer to a letter, since R has had a lively correspondence going on for a while with the fairy, and now S finally gets a turn. (Have I blogged about this before? I think so, but am too sleepy to look it up!). I tell ya. I don't know how that tooth fairy does what s/he does.

The latest letter goes like this (she dictated it to her sister):

"Dear Princess Sleeping B,
Are you a girl or a boy? Have you met the Queen?
S.
P.S. May R have fary Dust?
By Sister R"

What's with the gender question? And who's the Queen? And what will the fairy say, I wonder?

Sun- *cough*cough* -day

I worked today – the first Sunday in probably a year that I’ve worked, but they need the extra staff now that the phone lines are busier, and the compensation is attractive. However, my cough was worse this morning while I was trying to talk to customers, and I wasn’t sure I was going to make it through the day. I would love to take a day off of work and sleep and drink tons of water and cough syrup and be done with this. Maybe Tuesday. But I also expect to need time off when my new car arrives in the next 2 weeks, and to work on the school’s auction catalog for the 5th. The next 14 days will be nothing but loaded. I’ll need to take the best care of myself I can, considering. At least D & the girls seem to be well and happy. S is about to lose her first tooth, which is itself an all-consuming event, especially if you’re five. Do you remember losing your first tooth? Where were you? Did you really lose it lose it, or have it to give to the tooth fairy? How much money did you get for it?

This survey brought to you by The Now-What-Shall-We-Post Committee. And the year is so young, too!

Sometimes Saturday night feels like Sunday night

It’s after 10:30 and the girls are only now going to bed. The local gymnastics club for kids hosts a “Parents’ Night Out” once or twice a month, and this time we took advantage of it so we could go out to sushi with an old co-worker of D’s and his new bride. It was a nice dinner. They’re interesting and fun people, and even though it’s hard for me to force myself to be social, I know that it’s good for me to make the effort once in a while.

But boy, am I sleepy and ready for bed! I started the day before 7am with a long job (10 miles again, finally!), followed by getting S to dance class & R to riding lesson (accompanied by D’s sister, who is herself a rider). We had a relaxing afternoon, just hanging out, and then Aunt H left and R decided she wanted to re-arrange her room, which took the rest of the afternoon. D & S napped. I wish I had!

Tomorrow, even though it’s Sunday, I’m working 7am-3pm. Not really looking forward to it, but the pay is good. The cough I have is persistent. Running doesn’t seem to make it any worse – in fact, it may help it – but I know I need more sleep. Bonne nuit.

Undeferring the funny story

R's 4th grade teacher told me during our parent/teacher conference that on Tuesday (the day after the MLK holiday and the day after Lime's death), her whole class, which is normally very active anyway, was so hyper that it was like having a roomful of monkeys on speed. Well, actually, she just said it was like having a room full of hyperactive kids, but I don't think that paints the picture as well.

Anyway, the children were so out of control that toward the end of the day, the teacher stopped everything and everyone, and went to the chalkboard and wrote something like this:

"Dear Miss Jane,

Today during class, many people were rude, silly and disrespectful."

The children were each to get out a piece of paper and complete the letter. Lest you think she was totally off her rocker, they have been working on letter writing lately.

During the conference, she said she wanted to show me R's letter. I braced myself, but since she was already laughing about it, I wasn't too worried. Anyway, it went like this:

"Dear Miss Jane,

Today during class, many people were rude, silly and disrespectful.

I'm sorry if I was one of them, but you should know that I have been going though a lot lately, such as a recent pet death.

R--"

Saved by Sleepiness

Beloved audience,

You are hereby spared yet another how-my-kids-are-so-cute story because I am too sleepy to blog it. You'll get it tomorrow. Learn to live with the nail-biting suspense, already.

Here's what I did today, for the what-I-did-today record:
work
parent/teacher conference (insert funny story here)
get the kids from their Thurs afterschool care
home for snack for them and late lunch for me
gymnastics for R
to a sandwich shop for a highly nutritious dinner (This is the very closest we ever get to fast food, and it's when I'm glad the kids will take veggies on their sandwiches)
35 minute run at the gym for me, kids happily in childcare there. (I'm so glad they love doing that, still.)
bedtime routine

I fell asleep in the big bed with the girls after reading another dramatic entry of The Dark is Rising and only woke up at 10:30 and thought, "Oh no! I haven't blogged yet!"and then crankily accused D of taking advantage of the "alone" time in a quiet house instead of coming to check on me/us. He now has instructions to save me from myself if I fall asleep prematurely again. Sheesh. What? Does he think I need rest, or something?

The truth is, I do sometimes have a moment of anxiety wondering if one of these nights I'll fall asleep early and not wake up until after midnight - without having blogged! Yikes!

I mean, it's become that important to me to do this every day.

Back to bed now. Bed. That big flat horizontal piece of furniture that I love so much.
Bed is my friend.

Writer's group : good

Another horribly insanely busy day at work (the other person who shares some of my job duties is out all week in Costa Rica - the nerve!), but the afternoon was peaceful at home with the girls after a conference with S's Kindergarten teacher. I found out when the conference was winding down that I'd confused my dates and was supposed to be meeting with the 4th grade teacher instead, but it worked itself out eventually. This seems to be my week for making mistakes. Think of all the lessons I'm learning! How exciting!

Writer's Group tonight : excerpts from the gals' highly entertaining novels, and a little from the uncomfortable short story I'm writing, as well as the usual deeply satisfying gabbing about all topics under the sun. Worth staying up late for.

I haven't been able to shake the cold I've had for a couple of weeks, though. Hmm...could it be the lack of a full night's sleep, or the not having taken a day of work? I wish I could just sleep all day and drink tons of good stuff (not necessarily vodka) and get over it.

The next few weeks will be challenging: getting geared up for the charter school's auction (I'll be writing all the "copy" for marketing both silent and live auction items) and training for the 1/2 marathon. The auction is the 5th and the race the 6th. Not the best timing. Also potentially I'll be getting a new car in the next 2-4 weeks. I feel like I need my strength to be there, and these wimpy little coughs I have all day are not inspiring confidence.

But really, all is well, and all shall be well, and the niggling little stuff doesn't matter a whit.

Life's lessons

I'm afraid the patient didn't make it, which was no less depressing for being half-expected.

I wasn't here in the morning to tell the girls the news- I'd been at work over an hour by the time they got up, but I called to check in and they seemed okay about it.

I got a voicemail message from my cell phone from R around 11 or so, though. When I called back, I learned that she'd been in the office twice so far, feeling blue. They'd finally had her speak with the school's educational director, who might qualify as the best "counselor" there right now. But this director (very Waldorf trained and up until now respected by me) not only commiserated with R, she also told her that animals that have been paired with other animals generally do not do well when left alone, and we should consider getting another bird to keep the remaining one company. That's right, for those of you like Lisa who are surprised or even outraged to hear this, I'll say it again: this woman in a position of authority suggested that we should replace our dead pet, and soon.

Weigh against this the idea that it's better to give kids a chance to experience loss a little, and that I don't want them to think it's that easy: a pet dies, you get a new one. Besides, just on the off-chance that it was a birdie virus that killed Lime, Lemon (the widow/er) could also be sick. How irresponsible would it be for us to get a new bird just in time for Lemon to infect it and then drop to the bottom of the cage him/herself? And what if Lemon doesn't like the new bird? And - more to the point, I think - this is not a decision that a teacher or school administrator should be making, right?

So we had an impromptu family meeting in the two minutes that we were all home this evening (before I dashed off to a meeting for the school auction), and we've decided to wait and see: observe Lemon, take it slow. I think the indecision is hard on the kids, though, and I think we'll end up replacing the bird. But on our terms, not the kids' "Can we go to the pet store right now" terms and not based on someone else's, "The survivor will be sad and lonely otherwise," suggestion.

On a completely different note, can I just say that sometimes, for all the great pay and the wonderful service we provide and other incredible perks - sometimes, work is just not worth it. If I'd had any more brutal an afternoon, I would have had to sit in my car and bawl before I even left the company's parking lot. As it was, I was over an hour late picking up my (mourning, grieving, needing-mommy) kids, and I had 3 phone calls from work before I made it 10 miles from the office. Blech. There's more, but I'm pretty much over it. D had to hear me "download" the ickiness. I only had a little left. I'm better now. Thanks for listening.

Vigil

While I write this, one of my daughter's two parakeets is sitting on the bottom of the cage, breathing in a way that is just wrong for a bird. I've got the cage in a warm, darkened, quiet room, and at this point, we simply need to wait and see if he's going to make it through the night.

At first, he'd been in his food dish, and R had thought maybe he was really a she (since we've never been too sure about this with either parakeet) and maybe she was laying eggs, at which point the girls did a great gleeful happy dance all over the livingroom, squealing and crying, "Babies! Babies!"

After I'd taken one look at him, though, I'd warned the kids that the bird might not be nesting. S/he might, I said, be very sick. (I mean, this parakeet looked for all the world like Job after he turned his face to the wall. And I'm sure the squeals of joy a few minutes before hadn't helped.)

With my diagnosis, the girls were so distraught that they could hardly think. I made them get into their pj's and the five-year old said, "Mommy, but what if Lime dies tonight?. We'll have to dig a hole and put him in a graveyard. Why are you so happy?"

"I'm not happy," I said, "I'm very worried too."

"Then why are you talking in a loud voice?" she asked.

So I lowered my voice to an anxious whisper to match theirs and said, "I'm sorry. I hope Lime doesn't die. But you still have to get into your jammies."

I'm that kind of mom.

R asked to call a friend and ended up leaving a very rambling, distraught message on their machine before I realized she wasn't actually talking to anyone.

Later, S said, "It's just that I love Lime and I'm very feeling very protecting of him. Because he's such a little animal."

And R added, "And I feel the worst out of everyone, because I practically raised him from an egg, and I'm his mama."

We talked a little about how hard it is that birds don't show they're sick until they're very sick. I called around and spoke to a few vet answering services, and finally consulted with an emergency vet clinic in Berkeley. The doctor there passed along the message that there's not much more we can do than what we're doing. It doesn't seem to be a female bird with egg binding (a stuck egg, which of course can kill her), but I'd only done a superficial exam, and I didn't want to disturb Lime any more than necessary anyway.

I can hear the girls in the other room now, working at the kitchen table: S is drawing pictures, R is finishing a book report on poster board. There's also the sound of suckling baby polar bears, which would be very unnerving if I didn't know what it was.

The girls sound cheerful again, but the last I'd checked, R had started to draw a tombstone on a piece of paper. It had writing on it: "Lime P----, a good bird who was nice, 2001-2005."

"Honey!" I'd said, "He's not dead yet. Don't do that."

"I know," she'd answered, "but this is handy, just in case...you know."

What a strange combination of drama and practicality she is.

Hmm.

The Best Laid Plans

Somewhere between 6pm and 8pm, the drive I had to completely clean up and organize the house curled up in a corner and fell asleep. I could start blogging in the early morning, say before I leave for work, but it's unlikely that I'll have many inspiring thoughts at 5am. Unlikely, but possible. Maybe I'll try that tomorrow.

Today went like this: I ran from 7:55-9:23 (8 miles, 11 minute mile pace), showered, dressed, and went to the the cafe to write (well, to talk and write a little anyway) with the writer's group gals. Later, D dropped off the kids at the cafe & I took the elder to a friend's house for an all afternoon playdate & the younger to the mall with me to return some things and buy a few more things: photo boxes and a scrap book for myself using a gift card from my sister, and for the girls, long-requested but somewhat frightening little stuffed polar bears that wine and whimper, suck very noisily from a bottle, and on top of all that have the audacity to snore.

After shopping, we picked up R, and the two girls and I worked off a payment plan for them to cover half of the expense and ill-mannered bears. Then we had a healthy dinner, followed by cleaning of bird and rat cages, bath, vitamins and teeth-brushing (the girls, not the pets). They're waiting for their nightly installment of The Dark is Rising (the girls, not the pets), so I have to stop writing now.

And just posting this has awoken my tidy-and-organize drive, and I might just be able to plow through Mt. Clean Laundry enough to find my bedroom floor once I took the children and Snowy Sleeping Beauty and Sagwa (the bears) in bed.

Cold and sleepy

Since it was Titan-cold today, I didn't get any gardening done. I did run while R had her riding lesson, which warmed me up a lot. And then took a two-hour nap this afternoon, while S & D napped too and R read. I love Saturday afternoon naps. I don't mind Sunday afternoon naps, either, and if I didn't work, I'd nap Monday through Friday too. When I was young, I read once about a study that had been done showing that people tend to have better dreams when they sleep during the day than when the sleep at night. I've liked afternoon naps ever since.

Hmmm. There's something I could say about how I made up stories at night to put myself to sleep when I was little. There's something I could say about night battles in my dreams, about lucid dreaming. But not this late, and not when I'm this tired. My judgment is blurred. Maybe tomorrow, when writing with the gals at the coffee shop, if I need a break from working on my "pawn shop" story. We'll see.

It's always nice to make it to Friday

By Friday, the bribery I've used all week to get me out of bed and to work can itself take a rest. This weekend will be the first one in ages where there won't be rain. Things haven't dried up enough for us to want to dig in the adobe again, but at least I could work on finding the backyard under all the weeds if I wanted to. Tomorrow, S starts her new ballet (although Thurs. was a preview "makeup" class), and R has riding lessons. Sunday I'll have BIC time. And somewhere in there, I'll get a couple more runs in. Today, it was 6 miles on the treadmill, some of which was "pick-ups" where I pushed myself until I was breathing hard. It turns out that breathing hard at the end of a longer run now means 8 miles per hour where it once meant 6.5. Still slow by many runners' standards, but I'm happy with the change. The head cold I've had honestly seems to be clearing up, although I could still try to get a spot on radio or in disreputable phone work with my voice.

Clare says she's made this page her home page! Wow, am I honored. And it gives me even more incentive to write. I wish I had something more interesting to say than "had tea with Mr & Mrs. J" but really that's what this blog often gets down to. So sue me. It's a journal, folks. :)

Here's the philosophical thought I had before I sat down to write, though. I'd fallen asleep on the couch with the girls - all of us in a big snoring pile of arms and legs and blanket - while D was on the phone with his best friend (a nightly occurrence), and when I got up to put the girls to bed, I was feeling (for the moment) unlovely and unloved.

I recognized the feeling and let it go and am now fine - especially easy once I remembered all of the many blessings in my life, including the love of family and friends. But that low moment also led to an epiphany ("I just had an apostrophe!" as Smee would say. )

Those of us walking the earth who feel unlovely and unloved are capable of great harm to ourselves and others. We have nothing to lose. We feel we are justified in striking out. This is old news - thousands of books and plays and true life crime stories and statistics have been born of this very well-known concept. I just understood it more clearly tonight than I have before. Does this mean that one angry unloved person who has hurt other people can always be won back by the love of one other person? Always? No, I think not. I think that violence and self-righteous self-loathing have their own addictive qualities that are hard to fight. Is love as addictive? If one is addicted to it, is it really love? No, I think not. But how else to explain the majority of us moths searching for a light to fly into? For Plato, it was the Forms looking for the Ideal, if I remember correctly. For others, it's something else. Something to do with God or the Universe. Obviously, it's time to read more. Not just Tolle, but also from some of the scores of philosophy books I still have from college. I was just a few credits shy of being a Philosophy Major, after all. I'm a moth trying to read the map on my wings.

A scribble before bath & bed

That's about all I'm good for, now. A quick note to keep up the posting habit. (Notice how I didn't say "dare.")

I've been going to bed earlier, getting to work on time (or close to it), and leaving work on time. All good habits, but it means that crazy thought I had of running at the gym from 8-9:30 went out the window.

Tomorrow, says Scarlet.

My voice sounds wretched but I feel fine, so in spite of several co-workers insisting I should be home sick (or at least take advantage of my voice & fake it & stay home sick), I don't expect to miss work and I hope to run at least 2 of the next 3 days.

R is just fine. So is S. And D. And I'm sure all the other letters of the alphabet are doing fine too, in their funky-fonted way.

Say good night, Gracie.

And even that worked itself out pretty well

So in spite of any lingering concerns I might have had, the fearsome engineer was perfectly reasonable about yesterday's mistake, and the day at work went well. Busy, as usual, but fine. For which I am horribly grateful.

I did have to leave an hour early (again) to get R from school. Whatever low-grade bug she has, it doesn't come with any symptoms other than a headache and slight stomach ache and no energy. She was apparently depressed all day at school yesterday, too. But she napped this afternoon and rested all evening, and I hope to have all the girls in the house in bed by 8 tonight - thus the earlier than usual post.

Signed up S (aka Isadora Duncan) for ballet again - her request, even though she's not yet six and she said she'd start to dance again when she's six. I'm glad she's not waiting. She so obviously loves dance, and takes it so seriously when she does dance for us, it seems like a good idea to let her pursue it this way. This time, she'll be with the local studio that puts on the Nutcracker, so in theory, she could perform in it in a year and a half. (They must be 6 and must have danced for a year at the studio). We'll see how it goes. If it starts to kill her love to dance, we'll probably stop again.

But there's a fine line I've discussed with other parents before - when do you push, to teach your child discipline and that they can't just quit things in life, and give them the chance to get beyond resistance or plateaus into a place of greater competence and confidence - and when do you back off, simplify and let them let it go?

All is Well

How lovely to come home (at 10:45pm!) to the supportive comments from my friends. It means a lot, especially considering the day, which was challenging but rewarding. As far as our guests from Japan are concerned, I believe it was a successful day. We picked them up at noon as expected, drove them back to the office under scrubbed-clean blue skies dotted only here and there with puffy white clouds, had our tour and our meeting, and answered all of the questions they had prepared for us. Then we went back to the city and to Mac World, answering more questions on the way and telling them more about our approach to tradeshows and how we market our company. We toured the show, H-san realized he had left his business cards at our office but I was able to contact someone else coming to the city in time to have him meet us at the restaurant with the business cards (phew!). Dinner was probably the best series of gourmet courses I have ever had in my life, and I may ask the restaurant to fax me their menu so I can post all the incredible foods I ate, because I'm sure I'll never see that type of meal again and I want to document the occasion.

The only real glitch in the day, which I've pretty much already let go of so I can sleep a full night in peace and get on with my life, is that during our tour the VP of Sales and I (both of whom should have known better) committed a major faux-pas and brought our honored guests into one engineering area without adequate (and, as I learned, previously requested) forewarning for the engineers. This resulted in the person in the company with the one of the worst tempers becoming livid, and unloading what I know was only a fraction of his fury at me in a quick aside while the tour was completing. I sit next to this guy every day. In some ways, he's my boss. Tomorrow morning, I'll no doubt hear the rest of his incensed lecture about how completely terrible what we did was. I mean, he was pissed. And he's a big, angry guy in general. And why was he pissed? Besides the stupidity and disrespect of us not warning him - when really, really, we knew better, I admit it - he's sure that our guests were only there to see what they could about our technical process to steal it. That's his take on it. Mine is not quite so paranoid or racist. Besides which, I'm convinced they couldn't have seen anything from the 20 seconds they were partially in the room that would have told them anything of importance. But it'll be a long time before I hear the end of it, and a long time before the sore spot that was created today heals, if it ever does.

But as for me? I don't care. I just don't. I really am not concerned about what happened. I'm only hoping I can maintain the correct respect and contriteness while keeping detached and while not letting on that I really don't give a fig about his anger and that I refuse to take up the anxiety and negative *stuff* that he'll be wanting to perpetuate for who-knows-how-long. That's his deal. It's not mine.

Sigh.

I mean, come on. Lighten up, buddy. We don't have that kind of time. Move on.

Curve balls

Sometimes life throws you curve balls, and it's hard to remember that there's a reason for them just as much as - mabye more than - the clockwork smooth days with which we are sometimes blessed.

I had an appointment today at 2, and so made every effort to leave work at 1:30, only to be waylaid by several last-second emergencies, including one that shot the appointment to bits, anyway: a call from the school to say that R wasn't feeling well. After about 30 minutes of poorly-controlled frustration while I tried (in vain) to cancel my appointment by phone, I remembered to take a breath and know that in the big scheme of things, it didn't matter. Maybe I was really meant to leave work at 1:30 to get R all along, and the appointment's timing was just put in place (a month ago) to allow me that opening. I think that's how life works.

Anyway, we had a quiet afternoon and evening at home. There's a fire going in the wood burning stove, S. is in the bath, and R. is working on a book report. D. is at his weekly gaming session, and the rain is coming down outside with great mocking drops because I had my car detailed today in preparation for driving H-san and his assistant around tomorrow from the city to the office to the show.

If I stop writing now and focus on the bedtime routine, we might all be asleep before 9. Hooray!

Clare's Epiphany parable and notes from today

Check out Clare's story of Fafnir. She calls it a parable, but I enjoyed it as a story too.

It's been a good day. Slept in until 7:30, felt better but still didn't run. Had a nice morning with the girls, then took R & her friend to her friend's house to play, and took myself to the Box to write. It's always so nice spending time with the gals and talking about such a wide variety of things, and then writing. The three of us sit in the back room of the coffee shop, each with our white Macs, and write. I came to an important point in my short story. I think I know how things might fit together, but still I know it will be a hard story to write because the subject matter is serious and there's not any room for what R would call "comical relief."

I hung out with S after writing, just had cuddle on the couch and book reading time, then we folded laundry together. Which was actually fun, too. I ran for an hour, and felt even better after the run, well enough that I really think I've beat out this cold thing in record time. Part-way through my jog, I met up with a couple from church. They're a very devout, very involved husband and wife whose son is in seminary, being sponsored by the church. And they wanted to make sure I was all right, and offer support and help in case I needed it. I assured them that just because I was away from church and questioning the basic principles of Christianity, I didn't feel outside of God's grace. They took it well.

Someone's Singing, My Lord...

The meeting at school went pretty well. We narrowed down our areas of focus from 100+ written statements of what would make our school outstanding to 6 things: finding a permanent "home" that would include a working farm that would inform the curriculum; funding issues; values that are clearly articulated internally and externally; top-notch teachers and staff that are well-educated, well-trained and happy; and having a community of parents, teachers and students working together with common goals. I'm not sure why I'm writing all this here. It probably couldn't matter less to everyone except the people at the school. But this blog seems to have become a way for me to process stuff, too. So maybe that explains it.

Anyway, at what other public school meeting would you start the session by singing, and close the session by standing in a circle, holding hands, singing. In a round. It wasn't Kumbaya, but it was close. And at what other school meeting would someone say in the middle of the day, "I want everyone in the room to take three deep breaths and feel their heart energy," and get away with it? And would someone else say, at the close of the session, "Everybody look out the window!" because there was a rainbow. And everybody did get up and walk over and look out the window and exclaim over the rainbow. And half of us thought it was an omen that all would be well with the school. Yeah. Scary, huh? I know. But it’s my kind of place.

And better yet, I didn't commit to anything beyond today's work.

And even better than that, I think I've beat this cold thing enough so that I can run in the morning and then go to the Box for BIC writing session.

Got to go now. R. has a friend staying overnight and I need to read another few pages of The Dark is Rising to them. It's my autographed copy from when I met Susan Cooper at a conference (Children's' Literature of New England) in 1992. Which reminds me of a coincidence - I just got my CLNE mailer for this year's conference, and I see that Neil Gaiman may be there, schedule permitting. I'd never heard of him until Kate sent him one of my poems, once. And now I hear about him all the time. What a world. Makes me want to hold hands with someone and sing in a round.

So much for that plan

Go figure. It took me longer to wrap up my blog entry and get off the internet than I'd thought it would, and by the time I did, I was so chilled that I had to have a quick hot bath. I went to bed at my usual post 10:30 time. Got up around 5:15, got to work about 15 minutes late.

Today I've been fighting off messages from my body that I'm coming down with something. I won't have it, I tell you! Must! resist! I did hold myself back from going to the gym to run today. Yeah. Right. That was difficult.

And then tonight from 6:30 until after 9pm, I was at a planning "retreat" at the girls' charter school, working with about 35 other parents on our Vision for the next 3 years. Tomorrow this "retreat" continues from 9-4 (what a way to spend a Saturday!), and I think we'll move from phase one to phase two. Phase one started with the singing of a round - I kid you not - this is a Waldorf-inspired school, after all - to small group discussions and writing down "Challenges" and "Opportunities" with environmentally-friendly crayons (because the markers were too stinky for everyone) on those massive post-it's on steroids that they now make. We put the lists on the walls and compared notes. I was inspired, I must admit.

Phase two, however, will, I suspect, be Action Plans and probably Committee Formation. I am practicing saying, "No."

"No. No. No."

Yes, I support the school - hence this weekend craziness. Yes, I'll do my part. But heck, I work full time and am also trying to write and keep house and raise kids and have a healthy marriage and train for a marathon-before-I'm-forty and learn Japanese and find a cure for cancer (schedule permitting). I can't do it all, can I? Everyone say it with me, now.

"No."

Going to bed early. Really. Because I'm fighting off this bug. The one I won't get. That one.

Less than perfect is okay

It's only 9:15 and I may go to bed right after posting this blog - and get more than 6 hours of sleep! I know - it's so boring to just sleep when I could be finding the cure for cancer or at least folding the mountain of clean laundry. But as D pointed out, when I'm chatting with him at the dinner table, and I blink, and my eyes sort of stay rolled up in my skull, it's a hint that I need to get to bed at a decent hour.

Tuesday, representatives from one of our Japanese "partner" companies will be here, and I'll be picking them up at their hotel, bringing them to the office for a meeting and brief tour, then taking them to MacWorld, and then out to dinner. Fortunately, the VP of Sales and the CEO will be joining me for most of these activities, so I don't have to entertain them alone or be the best sales exec. on the planet. I just need to dress well, have a really clean car, show up, drive carefully, pay attention, and relax.

And this is where I publicly remind myself that if I don't buy a new (inexpensive yet tasteful and well-fitted) business suit, it's OKAY. And if I don't review the Japanese I knew plus learn more, it's OKAY. And my weight is all right, and can't be changed too much in 4 days anyway. And I don'thave to call the local Toyota dealerships and insist they somehow come up with my new car a few weeks early just so I have something nice to drive these guys around in.

I am so neurotic. And tired. Neurotic and tired - a bad combination. Going to bed should eliminate at least one of those things.

Expletive expose

Lately, S. has taken to saying, “Darn-it!”when you tell her “No.” (As in, No, you can’t have two desserts, No, you can’t stay up until 9pm, No, you can’t wear a tank-top in the rain in December. That kind of thing.) I’ve been suggesting milder words, words that won’t annoy the other Kindergartener’s parents when their little one’s pick them up from my kid. I feel “drat” might work, or “gosh” or “golly” or maybe even, “dang-it.” Of course, this is coming from someone who – much to the distress of a coworker – just yesterday said, “That’s swell!” about some good news. And meant it.

So I was surprised when the other day S., in a fit of mock-5-year-old anger, said “Jesus Christ!” Now that I write this, I wonder why I was surprised, since one of D’s most common exclamations of frustration is “Jesus H. Tap-Dancing Christ on a Biscuit!”
And here I thought our daughters never listen to us…

I very carefully explained to S. that some people, myself included, really do not like to hear God’s or Jesus’ names used as swear words. I said, “If you want to say ‘Jesus Christ,’ say it when you’re praying. Not when you’re mad. Don’t use it that way. That’s not okay.”

Later that day, she was upset about something else, and – I am not making this up – she said, “Jesus Christ!” paused, and glancing at me out of the corner of her eye, added, “Amen.”

Will Write For Sushi

So I see that Ethel (aka Vivian Vixen aka Luscious Lola aka Ava, She Who Ties Knots in Cherry Stems With Her Tongue)has said she'll take me out for sushi for every day that I blog this calendar year. How nice! Thanks Ethel. But really, sushi once a year for a year of blogging will be fine. We are talking about the Julian calendar, right? Not some other calendar like the 400+ day Roman calendar?

Tonight is a Writer's Group Meeting, for which I am inadequately prepared. I'm making a habit of this. One more habit to lose, although as Mark Twain allegedly said, "Habit is habit and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time."

I just checked and the results are not yet in for the poetry contest I entered last year, so it's too soon to say I didn't win or place. Maybe I can finish and submit something else. That way, I'm always waiting for news.

And yet, also not waiting. Trying to live in the moment. Now.

And then there were titles

I've decided to add titles to my blog. I may change the look in other ways, as well in the coming week.

My co-worker (let's call her Ethel) said she liked seeing me blog more regularly again, and I announced that I was going to blog daily. "How long do you think that'll last?" she asked, the impudent thing. "All year," I told her defiantly.

Man, does Ethel know the best way to find that button and push. Her one question may be even more effective than Clare's dare, if that's possible.

Look out people, I'm here to stay.

The Growing Blog

For those of you who haven't already seen it, this article about the growth of blogs in 2004 is interesting. In particular, I hope to learn more about RSS or XLM aggregators, which is something Julia tried to explain to me even though I couldn't, at the time, wrap my head around it.

The Challenge

I have been issued a challenge to blog daily. Well, you're on, Clare! This being day two of the new I-will-write-daily year, I'm feeling up to the task.

The BIC (butt-in-chair) writing time at the Applebox today with Julia helped me feel more writerly, as did the blogging I started up again last week. It also helps that I got my running in today. There's a real connection between me exercising and feeling good about myself and being creative.

After the run and writing session, I took the girls to Borders where they blew only some of the gift card money they got from "grandpere" on lots of books and a couple of CDs. I was pleased that we got out of there with no DVDs, since they're not currently watching any movies at all. One of the things I could (in theory) blog about is this no-media for the kids lifestyle we've adopted: why we're doing it, what it means, how it works on a daily basis.

Tonight we played The Simpson's Clue, which my brother and his family had brought over on Monday. (It was conveniently on sale at Borders, so we got our own copy). Fun, and it'll be even more fun when S. can read. I'm hoping we can do more goofy family things like that in the months to come - even when it's not raining!

All for now. Feeling the energy being drained right out of me, which must mean bed time. Work will be challenging tomorrow, anyway - the first day back after a vacation is the day when everyone realizes the servers have crashed, which keeps us very busy.

New Year's Day

It's New Year's Day. And although I am trying to learn to live in the moment and not the past or future, it's very hard today not to reflect on what I did and did not accomplish or experience last year, and what I hope to do and be in the 12 months ahead.

Here is where I am, now: in a somewhat cluttered "office" at home, writing. The girls are in the kitchen making up stories about giants and sculpting villages for dragons out of clay, and D. is building the kind of aesthetically pleasing million-degree scorching hot fire in our wood-burning stove that only an Eagle Scout can build.

My feet are cold, because I like the lovely idea we've adopted of not wearing shoes in the house, but as much as I exercise regularly, my feet represent a large surface area to warm and my circulation sometimes doesn't manage. But other than that, I'm fine.

How could I not be? I've had 12 hours of sleep and there's nothing pressing that I have to do today. And most importantly, I'm surrounded by a healthy, happy family in a dry home with food in the pantry and all those other countless blessings that are forgotten - until we see so many people in the world suddenly left with nothing. I can't help but remember that this is not a happy new year for millions of the people on this planet. It sobers me, and just like a death in the family can do, it strengthens my resolve to live a meaningful life and not take for granted the many kinds of wealth I've been given, but instead share them, spread them out, connect, and make a difference.

Three Names MEME

You can thank Julia for this "meme."

THREE NAMES YOU GO BY:
Rebecca
Becky
Mommy-mommy-mommy-mommy

THREE SCREEN NAMES YOU HAVE HAD:
RowanEmrys
rpatrascu
RoTN

THREE THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:
quick wit
comedic timing
ability to learn languages

THREE THINGS YOU HATE ABOUT YOURSELF:
As Julia suggested, "hate" is pretty harsh, but here goes:
My tendency to talk instead of listening
My tendency to speak before thinking
Horrible time management

THREE THINGS YOU WISH YOU HAD RIGHT NOW:
enough money to make a real difference with tsunami relief
more time
a slender figure

THREE PARTS OF YOUR HERITAGE:
what I get from my adopted family
what I get from my biological family
what I get from my historical, cultural inheritance

THREE THINGS THAT SCARE YOU:
the thought that I've so little to show for my life
the idea of my daughters being hurt or scared
that George Bush is our President

THREE OF YOUR EVERYDAY ESSENTIALS:
coffee
food
connecting with my immediate family

THREE THINGS YOU ARE WEARING RIGHT NOW:
my wedding ring
the clothes I put on at 5am
contact lenses

THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE SONGS/ARTISTS AT PRESENT:
Dar Williams
Counting Crows
Dave Matthews

THREE NEW THINGS YOU WANT TO TRY IN THE NEXT 12 MONTHS:
another half marathon
sleeping more than 6 hours a night during the workweek
writing DAILY

THREE THINGS YOU NEED IN A RELATIONSHIP:
honesty
respect
love

TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE:
I believe in God
It's pouring down rain here as I write this
One of the above statements is a lie

THREE PHYSICAL THINGS ABOUT THE OPPOSITE SEX (or same) THAT APPEAL TO YOU:
intelligent eyes
a warm smile
posture that shows a guy is comfortable with who he is

THREE THINGS YOU JUST CAN'T DO:
bat my eyelashes
chin ups
waltz (but I can polka in a hoop skirt!)

THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE HOBBIES:
jogging
reading
writing

THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO REALLY BADLY RIGHT NOW:
take a hot bath
sleep about 15 hours
watch the new Jean Reno movies I just got from amazon.fr

THREE CAREERS YOU'RE CONSIDERING:
poet
data recovery advisor (current occupation)
childbirth educator

THREE PLACES YOU WANT TO GO ON VACATION:
Wales (as usual)
Antarctica
British Columbia

THREE KIDS NAMES
Myfanwy
Telemachus
Francis

THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO BEFORE YOU DIE:
see my great-grandchildren
publish an acclaimed (or at least respected) book of poetry
organize my papers

THREE PEOPLE WHO HAVE TO TAKE THIS QUIZ (and post the results)... NOW!
Suzanne
Clare
Kate

Extended Stay

Due to the bad weather (flooding, roads being closed, people trying to dodge raindrops while they drive their SUVs), Mom is staying with us another couple of days. I’m glad, too. We’ve had a very pleasant visit. Yesterday while R. did a class project at a classmate’s house, Mom & S & I went out to brunch at a great little place downtown. Then I took her to the Toyota dealership to check out the Prius, since I’m hoping to get one in the next couple of months. They had a model available, but the wrong color & with leather seats, so I didn’t bite.

Then it was a quick trip to the Dr. for mom to get a few more antibiotics for a sinus infection that she’s fighting off. We followed that with a trip to rent a car for her for a couple of days, and finally dinner out at steakhouse (I had chicken) where we filled up on appetizers and hardly had room for any dinner!

Back home only long enough to work on my annual jigsaw puzzle a bit more, then off to the gym to run. Thus ends my week off work. And thus begins my back-to-work, back-to-posting routines.

The Long Christmas

I've had an extended Christmas this year. Mom got into town Thursday, we shopped on the way home from the airport, and then Friday I was out with the rest of the town's procrastinators getting the last few things, as well as groceries. Friday night we went way up north to a wine country town to be treated to a very fancy restaurant dinner by D's mom and stepdad, and then we went back to their place to open presents and have some Buche de Noel. D. and my mom won the bet that it would be a late night.

I stayed up until 2am Christmas eve wrapping & cleaning & prepping a little for the next day's cooking, and then was up at around 7am Christmas morning reminding the girls to be excited about Christmas quietly so that Grandma could sleep in a little.

My sister and her new boyfriend got here not long after 8am. They'd been staying in the city at the home of one of my sister's many friends. We had brunch: popovers, bacon, turkey sausage, fruit, coffee, scrambled eggs (with or without feta), and champagne. D's dad came and then his sister arrived not long after that. D's mom played a common card and called and kept him on the phone for about an hour just as his dad and sister were arriving - and yes, it was because she knew that they would be there. That's just how it is.

Everyone got along famously here, however, and spent the morning catching up or getting to know one another and opening presents and exclaiming over them. I stayed in the kitchen - first making brunch, then cleaning up after it, then making dinner. So I'm a little fuzzy on who gave my kids which fantastic presents. I've already started the motherly interrogation process with them. "And what did Aunt T. give you, honey? Sweetie, who gave you the a-bomb kit? And where did this shark egg come from?" That kind of thing. But fortunately, they're very clear on what's what on this score.

Although we didn't have our Writer's meeting Thursday due to S's cold and my over-committed, non-writing self bowing out, I've felt a growing desire to get back to blogging and finishing stories and doing writerly things. The New Year helps. It may be an artificial starting point - just a date, after all - but it's a convenient time to re-commit to being more who I am , really, and less who I think other people think I should probably be.

It helped to have Suzanne asking where my blogs had gone, and Julia doing the same & also encouraging me to WRITE. And then last night, when we were at Clare's house, having her say that she looks at my blog when she first gets online was also a great motivator. I so appreciate the support.

Today, my brother and his family may again stop by. But I'll have to write about that later, because I've already stolen as much time from the girls and mom as I can get away with. I hear the natives getting very restless in the other room....

Returning from beyond

....climbing...back...up...from the edge of the world. You thought I'd slipped off for good, didn't you?

Well, ha! Fooled you! I'm here. Just after 3 weeks of not blogging - does that mean I've developed the habit of not blogging? I'd rather call it a serious lapse than a change of lifestyle. Sound okay? Okay.

So what have I been doing with myself? What do I have to show for this incommunicado-ness?

Work has been especially demanding, meaning no time for any kind of break or lull to toss off a blog post. So good, but damn busy, on the work front.

The kids had lots of December school and after school stuff. 2 days a week, we take one of R's classmates for the afternoon. Another classmate comes every other Wednesday. Tuesday, R has had "acting camp," a project completely started and managed by another classmate of hers. He'd written a script for a play production of A Series of Unfortunate Events (and this is before the film was released, mind you), and R and other classmates were practicing for 2 hrs every Tuesday. It's that kind of class, I tell you. Thursdays, R. has gymnastics now. S. has gymnastics Fridays, then R. has riding lessons Saturdays which take up from 10:30am to 1pm. (Have I mentioned this before. Sorry if I'm repeating myself, but this is the sort of babbling journaling that I do for my own later reference. Here is where my life is at right now, e.g.)

I have written little. I have jogged about 4 times a week, and when each run takes anywhere from 45 minutes to 90 minutes, I think this has wiped out what little free time I'd had. I feel like I've been too busy making sure the dishes get washed and the kids' lunches get made and my half-marathon training happens to just sit my butt down and write. Another argument for the writer's group BIC (butt-in-chair) meetings.

Another thing that I think has somehow wiped me out and kept me from writing, ironically, is a new insight that came last week when I went to visit the counselor whom R. had seen 3 times for ADD issues.

This was the first time I'd seen a therapist since I was a post-breakup suicidal twenty year old. And even then, I think I only saw someone three times. I'm just too stingy to spend money talking to someone about myself when I already have the bad habit of doing it far too much for free. If that makes sense. Anyway, that last therapist's last comment to me 18 years ago had been, "You know, someday, you're going to want to talk to someone about your father." I remember at the time, I'd thought something like, "That's weird! I wonder why she thought that? All I ever talked about was me and my ex boyfriend and stuff. I didn't even talk about my dad!"

Uh. Hem. You can see what an insightful twenty year old I was.

Anyway, darned if after my dad's call the other night and his "Actually, I was dead," letter, I didn't find myself thinking, "I want to talk to someone about my father."

Those of you who don't care about digging this deep into my brain and emotions, feel free to stop reading this blog and enjoy something else instead. Like How to Build an Igloo or Hello Kitty Horoscopes or something. And because I know my birth mom and birth dad read this blog (hi guys!), this is the part of the entry where I tell you that I still think you did the RIGHT thing by putting me up for adoption and that I do not want you to feel ANY remorse or concern or whatever. IT'S OH-KAY. Okay? Got it? Really got it? Good. Thanks. No, really.

Anyway, after a chat with this very nice, very competent therapist (let's call her Dr. X), I've learned the following things:

**Warning. Angst-ridden self-absorption follows. Warning.**

1) My father (and by this, I mean my adoptive father, of course) falls neatly into the DSM-IV definition for Antisocial Personality Disorder. As Dr. X gently pointed out, "Your father is a sociopath." I demurred a little, until she read to me from the DSM-IV and I said, "Oh, yeah. That's him."

2) I've survived this remarkably well. She said she was fascinated by how it was that I got out of my childhood so healthy. I told her I suspected genetics had a lot to do with it. The birth relatives I've met are all strong, strong people. Phew. Thank God for that! And I also give God credit for helping me. I may have mixed feelings about who Jesus was right now, but I'm very clear on God.

3) My very handy ability to be detached when it comes to my dad's illness is no reason for me to think that it's not really affecting me at some level. Case in point: I cried in the office. When Dr. X said, "Maybe you've never let yourself cry about this," and I said, "Cry about what? I'm fine. I don't think I really need to cry about it. Much. And besides, even if I did, I wouldn't know how to cry about it. I wouldn't know how to make a catharsis happen." (Besides, I thought, I'm kinda busy...)

4) Saying to Dr. X, "I guess I'll stop in the restroom to blow my nose," doesn't mean that I won't find myself in said restroom choking down sobs and feeling suddenly like I could cry for two hours straight and not be done.

So there you have it.

Plus I've been making Christmas cookies. And, you know, mailing out cards and dragging the kids around shopping. That kind of thing.

(Dr. X suggested I might want to see her one more time. I guess I will.)

Thanksgiving report

Yeah, so I haven't posted in ages. Which is not to say that I haven't been writing, at least.
Much has happened, most significantly the birth of Lillian Monroe!
Congratulations to the family!

Thanksgiving was the tradition two-meal affair for us. Thursday we went to D's dad's new place, about an hour away. D's sister joined us. I brought homemade popovers, broccoli casserole and stuffing, and a store-bought pie. It was a nice afternoon & evening. Before I collapsed into bed that night, I double-checked my ambitious recipes to see what needed to be prepared in advance for the next day's feast. As a result, I was up until about 1:40am making herb maple butter and the beginning of pumpkin soup.

The next day, I got up early and started the cooking/cleaning thing. By 11, the turkey had been in the oven for 2 hours, and I had made half of the dishes for the day. My oldest brother and his wife and two boys (14 & 11 yrs old) came over for the first time in many years. They'd been staying at her brother's place in the Wine Country with his family. Around 1, D's mother and her husband arrived. Around that same time, I was called by my work to give a quote to someone at at a big production studio who had lost about 100GB of data.

Here's what I made for Friday: popovers, broccoli casserole, pumpkin soup, turkey with maple herb butter, stuffing, mashed potatoes with buttermilk, bacon bits & chives, sweet potatoes with brown sugar, almonds and marshmallows, green beans with walnuts and walnut oil, and pecan pie. I did not make the pie crust. If you've ever seen a pie crust made by me, you'd understand why.

Here's what happened with the work quote: we could save their data, but to do it as quickly as they needed would run tens of thousands of dollars, and was outside the budget for this particular project.

It's quite an interesting experience going straight from navigating the four cousins who are wrestling in the hallway, to explaining to an update So. Cal. producer why our service will cost 40K to do ASAP, to chopping yams and offering drinks to the adult guests. If I'd gotten mixed up with what I was doing, it could have been really ugly.

A letter from Dad

I got a letter on Sunday from my father. You don’t normally receive mail on Sundays, unless it’s been mis-addressed and a neighbor has had to bring it to you, as was the case here. Dad says his call to me two weeks ago had been from the ER. He says (and this is where I remind readers that unfortunately you cannot believe anything he says) that he’d had a stroke and his doctor told him he’d flat-lined for four minutes and was dead. Before the call, that is.

Dad’s an atheist, and he made a point to say there were no bright lights, no relatives waiting for him. “Dead is dead,” he writes. Then he says he checked himself out of the hospital and went home. Okay. Right.

When I relayed this story to my mother, she said – uncharacteristically for her - that it was no surprise that no one was waiting to meet him on the other side.

So I’m writing a new short story about my father. I started it before I got the letter. The letter just gives me that much more incentive. I’m inspired by a combination of subject matter I know and find interesting, and the thought that maybe this will be therapeutic for me.

On a different front, a couple of days ago, I had an interesting conversation with my five year old after I picked her up from daycare. It went something like this (with an acknowledgement to Kate, whose dialogs with her son are so nicely recorded in her blog).

“Mom, who did you vote for?”

“For President?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, hon, I voted for Kerry this time.”

“Oh. Well. I just want President Bush to make some castles. Because there are ZERO castles in the world.”

“In America, or in the world?”

“In the world.”

“Hmm. Yeah, I wonder why he hasn’t made any castles.”

“I don’t know, but I need a castle for when I grow up because I’m going to live in a castle, and only poor people can come visit me there. And I’ll give them some of my gold.”

“How much gold will you give them?”

“Well, for one person, I’ll give six gold pieces. And then for another person, I’ll give six gold pieces, and for another person, I’ll give him six gold pieces.”

“So you’ll give everyone six gold pieces?”

“Yeah. Unless if they already have some money, then I’ll only give them one.”

“How many gold pieces will you have?”

“Oh, about five thousand.”

“That’s pretty good.”

“Yeah.”


I think about how we all just want someone to build us a castle to live in. I think about how my dad has been telling me his whole life all about the castle that is being built for him.

A phone call from Dad

My father called me around 10:15 Saturday night. We spoke for about half an hour. It was the longest conversation we’ve had since two years ago, when I went out to visit relatives in Colorado and saw him for about 45 minutes. It was really good to talk to him.

He said he was calling to tell me that he loved me. I waited with some anxiety for the next sentence, but it wasn’t anything about suicide or my grandmother (his mother) dying – the only reasons I could think of for him to call with such a message.

He said that he’d sold the property where he’d had his pawnshop and they were going to tear it down and make a dialysis center there. He said he wanted to call all his kids just to let them know that he loved them and he wasn’t sure what had gone wrong with his life and everything but that he’d sold the property and were going to use it to make a dialysis center. And they’d sold the property. And they were going to tear down the building and make a dialysis center.

Did I mention that he was four sheets to the wind?

After we spoke, I typed furiously on a keyboard at great length about the conversation and about my feelings for my father. The next night, I wrote more about it. In fact, I’m thinking that this is as good a spark as any for me to work on that collection of stories (or even – dare I say it? – a novel) I’d been toying with doing about Dad.

It’s funny that I should get this call now, only a couple of weeks after my birth father had sent me an email checking in to see how I was doing. What a contrast between the two men. My birth father, whom I first met two years ago, is very humble and careful about his relationship with me. He’s never done anything to harm me, and yet he almost acts like he doesn’t deserve to get to close to me. (“Pshaw!” I say to that.)

My father, on the other hand, has done an amazing amount of damage to the health and well being of the people around him, and yet the closest he comes to remorse is a whiny self-pitying litany of drunken excuses.

Hmm. That sounded a little harsh, didn’t it? Yes, it did. And I’m probably the person in my family who was least hurt by him.

I know that alcoholism has a lot to do with Dad’s inability to face reality. In fact, one of the many interesting parts of our conversation Saturday night was when I suggested that he shouldn’t call my sister until he was actually sober, and he said, “You may be right. But I don’t have a problem with alcohol.”

And I said, “Dad, you are the epitome of an alcoholic. I can’t remember the last time I saw you when you hadn’t been drinking.”

Damn, that felt good. He’s been drinking my whole life and that was the first time I’d confronted him about it.

He denied that he drank I pointed out that denial was all part of the disease, too, but I don’t think he heard me.

He said, “I don’t drink. I’m on medication.”

“That’s probably a good thing,” I said.

He said, “Well, I just wanted to call and tell you that I love you."

"I love you too, Dad, " I said. Because of course, in spite of everything else, I do.

"Well, okay," he said. "And I just wanted to let you know that they sold the building you saw when you came out, and they’re going to tear it down and build a dialysis center there.”

“So I hear.” I told him.

It's November

Okay, so it's been November, but I have a time management / denial issue, which is another blog entry unto itself.

November means NaNoWriMo month, when tens of thousands of insane...uh, I mean motivated...people aspire to, and in many cases actually successfully write, a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.

As they say on their web site, "It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly. Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down."

For the second year in a row, my neighbor will be participating and I will probablynot be participating.

That's to say that it's one of those things I'd like to do (sort of) and think I should do (sort of) but in all reality, I believe the world is better served by me concentrating on living in the moment and working on things like poetry, short stories, my grandmother's oral history and feeding my family.

Maybe next year.

Or maybe this year.

But probably not until next year. At the soonest.

Could you do this? Would you?

Tomorrow I'll figure out what psychic void I'm trying to fill with Halloween Candy. And I'll talk about the Candy Fairy.

But for now, I have this goal of > 6 hrs of sleep a night, and my pillow calls.

Voted

I voted. Did you?

My 10 year old asked me yesterday whom I was going to vote for. I was reminded of a satirical comment I heard on the radio last week. I think it's actually a bumper sticker, and that it goes something like: "John Kerry: He'll Do."

We talked about how it's important to respect the President, and that he'd been faced with some very difficult circumstances. I told her that I didn't agree with his choices, but that he'd done the best he could.

She said, "The best he could? Are you kidding me?"

As liberal as her school is, only one kid in her 4th grade class admitted that his parent were going to vote for President Bush. Everyone else has had nothing but severe criticism of him - criticism that I'm sure they'd overheard from their parents.

My first political memory was when Nixon resigned. I was a little younger than R. My father made sure I watched the broadcast. Otherwise, my first political memory would have been the Iran hostage crisis, many years later.

I'm amazed that my kids are aware of who the President is, and who's running against him today.

My five year old expresses her political awareness a little more subtly, though.

What exactly was she was trying to convey by making two yellow jelly beans stand up on the table (one in each hand), and saying, "This is Bush." (holding up the right one briefly) and "This is Mrs. Bush" (hold up the left one briefly), and then making them "walk" up to either side of an Applebee's plastic cup, followed by a sly giggle. Hmmmmm....very profound, I'm sure.

Where There's Smoke

One brief observation about Japan before bed:

* Many people smoke. I mean, sure, more people smoke there than smoke in my little cul-de-sac of the world, but even compared to the average amount of smokers in, say, Europe, these days (200 million plus), I'd say more people smoke per capita in Japan than outside of it. (And a quick Google search backed me up.)

Some restaurants have little "No Smoking" sections, but since they're not really divided in any way (except by a few feet of distance) from the rest of the nicotine-breathing diners, this really means, "Slightly Less Smoking." Did D. & I care? Not really. We were so happy to be there, on vacation, away from it all and (after the business part of the trip) alone together, I think we could have lost a finger and would have said, "Oh well, who cares?! We're in Japan!"

Except, on second thought, that's not entirely true - as a missing finger is a sign that you're with the Yukuza.

Although there's apparently a way to work around that, too.

What a world we live in.