Rat blog

D selected the title for tonight's post. Because I am all but asleep, he thinks I should let Beatrice our rat blog tonight. I can simulate what should would say by pretending my fingers are four little rat paws running willy-nilly on the keyboard, but I'm afraid of actually letting her create her post because she just might either:

a) type a series of "hidden" Microsoft commands and lock up my keyboard and initiate a head-crash of my hard drives. (You'd be surprised how many customers think that the grinding and screaming of their hard drives is a virus), or

b) write Hamlet. And that would just be too humiliating for the monkeys.


I learned by chance (obsessively googling "Jean Reno") that UPS has put out a commercial that will air outside the U.S. staring old what's-his-face himself. You can watch it by going to the bottom of this page and clicking on the link to "Meeting of the Minds." Be sure to catch the last line.

That's it for today. I'll have to talk about the visit from Bulgaria tomorrow.

Date night

It's been a good day. A long day, but a good day. The mundane rundown follows. Some material-to-fall-asleep-by, if you don't have any long Michener novels to read.

Up early to start some household chores and get breakfast rolling before delivering food and then taking S to ballet, returning the empty food delivery boxes, and then meeting the writer's group to chat and write. D picked up S from dance and took R to riding lesson, where I met him and we did our parental tagteam handoff. He came back home and worked on the 400 gallon Fishtank that he is making for our 2 koi (Lao Tzu and Yosho. I came back after the riding lesson and did some yard work, then took R to a friend's house, bought plants for the garden, gardened more with S's help, washed the car, then fed S dinner. Then D and I took S to the Parent's Night Out babysitting service put on by the local gymnastics club. We went out for sushi and (this is so exciting!) went grocery shopping together. It may not sound fun to you, but after an Asahi and a glass of plum wine, we thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. Get it? Grocery shopping? Sliced bread? I bet you wish you'd been with us, now.

After we picked up S, we did more chores around the house - company is coming tomorrow - and then settled into a companionable computer-using session. He's photoshopping a beautiful shot he took of a local view (from Cardoza's ranch) and I've been surfing the web and, finally, blogging.

Population Growth

Julia is due to have her baby within a week (or so). She has blogged about people being surprised that the baby is officially due in a few days and yet she's still up and about. Imagine that! (They must not know her that well.)

I remember that with S (who was 2 weeks late and would have stayed longer if we hadn't made her come out and meet her fans), I was afraid to go outside after the due date only because my neighbors would express their impatience in accusatory tones. "Where is that baby?" they'd say, as though I were intentionally keeping her for myself. I worked until several days *after* my due date, and still felt fine. Yes, I seem to have the body type and high-pain-threshold that helps with childbearing. I'd have had a half-dozen children if it had been practical and if it weren't for my feelings that what we as American consume in the way of natural resources, energy, etc. makes it particularly crazy to have a huge population growth. Oh. And there is also the fact that D has strongly expressed that no, thank you, we do not need another child. He's only slightly less adamant about it than he is about us not getting a cat, but the chances for either are slim.

That's okay. The two children we have are so wonderful, we might as well quit while we're ahead.

Inspiration

I found these online and find them especially good for me right now:

You are not a human being in search of a spiritual experience. You are a spiritual being immersed in a human experience. - Teilhard de Chardin quotes

In everyone's life at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the human spirit. ~ Albert Schweitzer


Check out this site I found for a huge collection of inspirational biographies and quotes.

I've been feeling decidely flu-ish today; dizzy, headache, nausea. Blech. Left work a little early, rested, then went to a Dr. appointment for my "clicky" knees. Apparently (thankfully), nothing more than the tendons being swollen, the Dr. thinks. Some motrin and resting it (no running, but maybe elliptical training at the gym is ok) until the swelling is better, and I should be okay. I was so grateful that the Dr. understood that I needed to be able to run again as soon as was sensible.

Took S to ballet (a make-up class) and R to gymnastics, made dinner, did the bedtime routine with the girls, then got up just to blog. D is immersed in his latest PS2 game. We'll have to have a date night this weekend so we can catch up with each other's lives!

Early post

It's strange to be writing before 8pm, but I really feel like it's after midnight because I've had about 5 hours sleep 2 or 3 nights in a row. I'll be doing my contemplative reading/meditation/trying-not-to-fall-asleep time next, so best to blog now.

Yesterday, I finished reading The Radioactive Boy Scout. Living with an Eagle Scout who himself as a teenager had a fascination with less-than-safe chemical reactions, and who is to this day quite the scientific autodidact,I found the book fascinating.

The Amazon reviewers all talk about it being a quick read. That may explain why I finished it! In my old age and with my current lifestyle, I have become quite a slow and sporadic reader. Gone are the days when I could bury myself in a good book for hours on end. I seem to have passed that torch on to R., and D. never dropped his version of the same flame.

For her part, S. is just starting to pretend to read along with me and guess at what words are based on the letters she knows and on context, but because she attends a Waldorf-inspired school, she'll have another full year of Kindergarten before she officially starts to learn to read. I'm sure by then, she and I will be reading at home. I wonder if she'll be the bookworm the rest of us are (or in my case, were). If so, I envision really truly lovely evenings in the livingroom where we're all curled up with our respective good books. That, my friends, is my idea of quality family time as much as a pile-on-the-big-bed tickle session is. Better than Disneyland, better than all going to the movies together, better than Christmas.

St. David's Day!

So it's St. David's Day, which most of the few of you who read this blog already knew. I seem to be celebrating the occasion by writing. After weeks of being afraid to read my Yahoo poetry list emails because it might mean I'd get inspired, write something, and reconnect with my old poet friends (and who has the time or energy for that), I actually read some poetry list email, got inspired, wrote something, and sent it out to said friends. What is my world coming too? I'm actually feeling creative. And after 10pm too!

Here's what Dancing Bear had written:


Deer Flowers as Love Poems


Through the forest of Redwoods
the deer have stilted their way
down ravines and gullies, back
to this second place of life

they call their own for half
a year. They feast on our
well-watered lilies, our princess
flowers, our chinese lanterns

and roses. And we wait
happy in the knowledge
that what is tended to by us will
bring these delicate creatures

closer to us. Their wide eyes
carry all the fear we keep so
hidden within ourselves, they
are the caution we caution

against. They trust no one
but themselves, not even our flowers
which are only there so long
as we make an effort of them



And here's what I wrote, just this moment off the press. (Much darker than I feel, but apparently something I needed to say):



There is Nothing Soft About a Deer

Her body is hard lean bone, sheathed
in muscle, little else. The only
excess that takes hold in a deer
are the ticks that mine her blood.
A deer's eyes are liquid but don't
be fooled; they are shallow pools,
easily fathomed.
And if you are able to touch a deer -
say one by the side of a road, at rest
eternally; or in a park
display of the local fauna -
if you caress her stilled flank
with hope for softness blooming
like a rose in your chest,
you will find instead that the fur
is a short
sharp disappointment.

Current

Before I even sit down to write, I know that all I want is to let the tide of warm bed, warm bed, warm bed sweep me back out to wherever it is that we go when we sleep.

The girls and I snuggled up and read a few pages of Susan Cooper in the California King, and then all drifted off together, breathing off-beat, competing, deep sleep breaths. In my case, dreaming of missed deadlines between the snooze alarms until finally I rose to blog. Monday night blogs are often made of such stuff and nonsense.

The 100,000 mile club

The latest thing I'm getting rid of is a 12" x 12" official (but cheesy) document with my father's name on it saying he's a member of United Air Lines 100,000 MILE CLUB. "In appreciation of your valuable contribution to air transport progress." It's signed by Edward E. Carlson, the President of United, and my guess is that it dates back to the mid seventies. Dad traveled a lot then. I remember being bemused when, just before my 10th birthday, my mother uncharacteristically spoke up in protest of one of his business trips. She claimed that he'd missed 8 of my first 10 birthdays. I hadn't noticed. I don't remember caring. Ouch.

I've kept the mile club certificate for about two years (since I unearthed it among other paperwork), planning on sending it to my dad for his amusement. But it's an awkward shape, and while I didn't want to fold it, I also obviously never went to the trouble of buying an envelope that it would fit in or rolling it to send to my dad. With my new understanding of Dad (my mom and sister and I reviewed the facts a bit more last weekend), I'm thinking it's best for everyone involved if I just throw it out. I doubt he remembers it exists, anyway, and I cannot conceive of any good coming of sending it to him now.

Why keep it? Why have something that reminds me of my father's chronic distancing from his family and his responsibilities if I really don't care? Does the presence of this funky dated thing he'd been given make up for his absence from my childhood? Or just serve to suggest to me on some level that I should be outraged, even though I'm not?

My sister said we'd been victims of negligence. I'd said, "Thank God for that." Again, ouch. But there it is.

I've also gotten rid of more clothes and some books and whatever optimism coffee had given me during the day and 2 glasses of wine had given me during dinner. But this last thing, the optimism, is quite likely to return of its own accord after some shut eye and/or after D and I actually sit down in the livingroom with no computer and no video games going and spend time together talking - a rare occurrence, these days.

The BIC time spent with the gals from the writer's group this morning did me no end of good, too. Their encouragement, sympathy and suggestions all were very much appreciated. I think a very creative country is on the horizon. I just have to slogging through the cold, lonely Derth of Enthusiasm to get there.

What is this?

It's sometimes hard for me to tell what is depression, what is discouragement, and what is just plain sleepiness. I wind down after 8pm, and by 10pm I'm done. I'm sure I've said this before. Yes, it could be that my days normally start at 4:45am. But last night, I had a (fairly) full night's sleep, and today I did nothing more taxing than run the children around to dance & riding & do some housekeeping, and I feel so unable to think or do anything right now. And for me, stress and depression often lead to the desire to sleep. So it's hard to know what is what.

Nothing more to write now. I'm trying to honor this - this what? fallow? - time rather than beat myself up about it.

Home again, home again

Soooo... although it is technically Saturday early morning in California, if I were in Hawaii, it would not yet be midnight Friday night. And I have not yet gone to bed, so I'm back-dating this blog to show Friday.

We just got home. If I'd had internet access from Hwy. 5, I would have blogged there.

After helping S put her tooth under the pillow - she lost at breakfast in the Howard Johnson hotel room in Anaheim - I am blogging. I have not yet gotten in my pj's, haven't said hello to the rat & bird, haven't moved my bags to the bedroom (or even seen the bedroom), although D & I did unload the car. It is our custom to do so after every trip, no matter how exhausted we are. It's a carry-over from training he got from his father.

The ride north was uneventful but long.

It is, as always, very good to come home.

Hotel rooms

Here's a confession for you:

Hotel rooms will always remind me of Science Fiction Conventions.

Why?
Because for 10 years in a row, I only saw hotel rooms at Science Fiction Conventions, or "Cons," as we geeks and recovering geeks and relapsed geeks call them.

If I weren't so falling-asleep-at-the-keyboard exhausted, I'd write more. Note to self: write about conventions and hotel rooms sometime.

Tomorrow morning we'll experience just a little more Disney and consumerism, and that should do it for about two years, I think.

Signing off...

Day 3 of the Magic Kingdom

The girls are sitting on one of the hotel room's Queen beds, drawing pictures of one another and chatting cheerfully. D is dozing in a chair. I was sure that I would be too tired to post anything, and tonight might be the first night this year that I really resented the concept of writing daily in this blog.

But then I read my friends' blog entries (Julia, Suzanne, Clare), and I am re-inspired to stick to the plan and be a writer. They inspire me with their lives, their work, their spirits.

When I think about writing a poem, I think about observations I've made about the world around me. I think about writing about something simple and straightforward that actually means something so much more. Life's truths in a simple thing I've noticed at Disneyland, for example.

I wish I could post a real example of the example. But today, as yesterday and the day before, I was too busy living to write about living. I also must say that the company I keep makes a difference. If I were at Disneyland with Julia, Suzanne, or Clare, for example, I feel that we could sit at a table anywhere in the park and I could scrawl something clever or meaningful on a napkin and they would not only understand, they would support me. And I could share what I wrote later, and they'd get it. Not just the thought, but get the poem, too. An audience is very helpful for an artist.

I'm going to get offline and work on a poem now.

Disneyland, day 2

This was the first full day at the Park, and it really wasn't a *full* full day, because I slept a little late, and therefore did a morning run a little late, and got the girls to the park a little while after it opened. D was still in the hotel bed until after that time, but I'd expected that and so wasn't really bothered by it.

The weather has not been cooperative. In fact, it's been dumping buckets off and on, which means fewer people in the lines, but it also means we're having to dress in layers to stay dry (and therefore warm), and that we must peel ourselves out of the ponchos and down coats and raincoats we're wearing to find ourselves again at the end of the day. We also played out that routine in the middle of the afternoon, because we'd had too few layers and were wet and chilled, and I'd taken the girls back to the hotel for a hot bath and dry clothes.

We've ridden plenty of rides. We've spent too much money on the food, even considering the fact that we're trying to eat food we have in the hotel room and healthy snacks I've brought to the park with me. We also have seen a show - a live production of Snow White, and the girls had some quality time with Mickey and Minnie when there wasn't a huge line. We've walked a lot, we've window shopped a little.

We've done most of the park without Mark and D, but we did meet up a couple of times and spent the last hour and a half at the park together, too. Tomorrow, D plans to get up early with us so we have a decent start at rides etc. before the crowds gather. I just hope it's not raining so hard tomorrow.

The girls are finally asleep, after a late dinner (which itself was after a nap in the hotel room). D is dozing in a chair, and I now plan to read, then hit the hay myself. We have not turned on the TV once. Hooray!

Greetings from Anaheim

Yes, Anaheim. Exhausted child capital of the Western United States.

The girls and I made it to the hotel, and an hour or so later, to Disneyland. In the space of three drizzly hours, we went on six rides (with a break for hot chocolate and fritters in New Orleans square), met D and Mark, and stopped for a bite of pizza in Tomorrowland, and then we girls made our slow way back to the hotel: R carrying D's leftover pizza, and me carrying a passed out, bootless, S.

D and Mark stayed to close out the park (any minute now, they'll probaby start back to the hotel too.)

S was bootless because some time after we left the pizza joint (where she had fallen asleep in my lap), her pink rain boots had slipped off her feet. I didn't even notice this it until I was out of the park. I had turned around and we were making our slow way back, retracing our steps. And then I reached D by cell and found out he had the boots. That was a relief.

I have mixed feelings about the experiences the next few days will hold, but I'm also fascinated by the concept of trying to stay fully conscious of the present, of each moment, while in the midst of the commercial hype experience of the magic Kingdom, land of children melting down and parents bickering. In a sense, this is the perfect place to focus on nothing more than what is happening moment by moment. But it's also a place of many distractions and countless emotional triggers and manipulations. Observing and experiencing, while staying conscious of what's really important (which is none of this stuff) - now that'll be a neat trick.

I'd best sign off before I get any more incoherently philosophical, I suppose. Thank goodness for the hotel's high speed internet access so that I can continue my daily whatever-this-is.

Massage Day

I had my second-ever massage today, again at my sister's house, again with the Greek-God-gorgeous masseur who uses Lomi Lomi technique. This massage was not unlike the one I had in August. I might have been slightly more relaxed, however, and this time, and the masseur and I chatted easily about energy work and being present and forgiveness and other Important topics.
Before the massage, I had run (5 miles) and after the massage, the girls and Aunt J and Mom and I went out to a late lunch. We ordered far too much food and took home tons, then didn't have dinner. It's now bedtime for the girls, and for Mom and me, too. We're beat! We'll be here tomorrow until around noon, then head to Disneyland for the afternoon/evening. D and his buddy will be driving down tomorrow and will meet us in Anaheim whenever they get there. With the promised free high-speed internet access in the hotel room, I hope to be able to blog more, and more thoughtfully, during the week.

After the massage, I felt especially freed up and closer to poetry than I'd been in a while. If I can continue that momentum, I'll have new work by the end of the week. Time and mood and discipline and inspiration are all critical elements for me. And by time, of course, I mean time alone. That should be an interesting thing to try to attain in Disneyland!

Back in Hemet

Well, it was a good test of the new car, driving 500 miles in pouring rain. We were in the car from 6pm-midnight and again 8am-1:30, stopping only for meals and pitstops at exotic places. I'm trying to just fit in a quick post while we're getting a simple dinner together here at Mom's, and so I can't tell the off-road adventures of finding a bathroom in the middle of Nowhere, California in the pouring rain. But I will write it, when I don't have family members in the next room wondering where in the world I am!

Nice to be here, safe and sound, and to have had a long nap in the afternoon, too, while Mom and Aunt J watched the kids. They were in the next room, playing loudly, and still I slept like the dead on the couch. I must have needed it. :)

on the road soon...

I thought I'd better blog now, while I'm on my way out the door at work. I actually stopped work 30 minutes ago, in theory - but of course, it's taken me longer than that to leave.

I probably won't have a chance to blog until tomorrow night once I'm at my mom's. Until then!

Pre trip thoughts

I don't have any. Ha!

Actually, I'm just trying to keep from experiencing either the pre-trip, I'm-not-ready! panic and the pre-trip exhausted-but-still-awake daze. Making a list of things to do has helped.

I'll feel much better once I've confirmed hotel reservations for tomorrow night. That way, I know that I won't need to make the drive from here to Hemet in one straight shot, so if we start out later than 4pm (which we will), it won't be 2am before we stop to sleep.

Two days ago, I got rid of an aboriginal wall hanging I've had down for years but haven't had on the wall for years. Yesterday, it was a woolen seat belt thingy that I've never really used. Today, it was old dresses and costumes that are musty and ridiculous to keep. Not to worry - the good stuff will be donated and is not just being trashed. (That robin, for example, will go to a good home, Suzanne.)

Software troubleshooting

Last night a colleague made changes to the database that we use all day at work, and as a result, there were a number of confused users and a number of broken things that needed mending this morning. The changes were very helpful and a long time coming, but I spent nearly all my day (when I wasn't training the newest hire) trying to trouble-shoot the problems, document them, alert users, and then help the colleague fix the problems.

My last job was all about fixing problems and troubleshooting software, and I really miss those tasks. If I could have a positionthat was more analytical (but still had all the lovely perks of my current job), I'd take it. I think it's the critic in me and the detective in me and the co-dependent "make everything better" in me all combined.

Countdown to vacation: two days, and I'm now focusing on doing all the laundry so we have plenty of choices to use when packing light for the trip. The other things: like running, selling my car, organizing all my belongings, and cleaning the whole house, are already fading on my list of to-do's.

A long day, nearly over

If I ignore the mountain of clean laundry in my bedroom one more day, I can go to bed now. I ran around a little bit like the proverbial headless chicken today, but everything worked out in the end. I'm still here, aren't I?

The day went something like this:
Worked 8 hours, made a quick stop at home for things I needed for the afternoon, got S at daycare, got R and her classmate Jacqui at school, took the 3 of them to Whole Foods for a snack, took Jacqui to her dentist appointment., left her there (her mother would be there to pick her up after the appointment), ran R to her riding lessons, started to go to Kaiser to pick up R's vitamin+fluoride prescription, came to my senses a mile down the road, went back to the lesson, hung out in the car with S while it rained a bitterly cold rain, tried to write on my laptop while she tried to distract me, helped R get the horse cleaned up after her lesson, dashed home, met the babysitter (Jacqui's older sister) and her mom waiting at my house, ran a bath for R & put dinner an organic cheese pizza in the oven & broccoli in the microwave to steam, printed my writer group colleague's new pages, made a CD of my bit of revision (but didn't have time to review or print), went to writer's group meeting, came back, took sleeping S and sleepy R in the car with me to drive the babysitter home, came back & got the girls (now both sleeping) tucked into bed, did the dishes, read more of my new book If the Buddha Got Stuck (thanks Tom), cleaned up a few things in the dining room and kitchen, blogged.

Will be back at work in less than 7 hours, training a new hire for the day on top of my usual daily duties.

The good news here is that while all the above is a lot, taken one moment at a time, it's not a big deal. (Of course, the other good news is that this kind of day is now very much the exception rather than the norm.) Also, part of the reason this week is so cramped is that next week, I'll be on vacation in southern California. Vacation. For a week. Vaaaaay-caaaaay-shun.

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.