Poetry in Sebastopol

Thanks to Suzanne for the hot lead on an evening of poetry. The Western Sonoma County Historical Society hosted "a night of vintage and contemporary poetry" at the Veterans Building. In spite of the fact that Suzanne and I felt a little bit like outsiders crashing the gig (as non-society members), it was great to hear Terry Ehret (the county's poet laureate) read, and to learn more about a little volume of poetry that was published in 1933 - a compilation of about a hundred literary voices in the area. Some of the vintage poetry was full of the emotionally manipulative pathos and forced rhymes you might expect from the era, but some of it was not so syrupy and did really evoke a little something about the local geography and history.

One of the things I found interesting was Terry's mention of William Keith, a painter whose work she had studied while writing poetry for the Oakland Museum. He created very large paintings, but in the end, Terry was inspired to write by a much smaller sketch he'd done. Here's one of the poems she read tonight:


Landscape
Untitled
WILLIAM KEITH
oil painting on a cigar box lid


A landscape might show up anywhere,
say as black and green,
red brushstrokes
on the lid of a cigar box,

inside three small glass bottles,
the dark amber which could be the sky,

an old, hinged palette,

brushes of various widths
and their stiff white hair,

whatever is near, your face perhaps.

Come closer.
You will begin to see how deep the woods are,
how much of night is suggested.
Are you thinking about sleep?
It is easy to imagine.

The tools you might use to invent the world
are everywhere, close at hand.

Sunday at the Zoo with J-

S was treated to a trip to the Zoo with a friend today. I think she must have had a blast. She came back sunburned and tired, with a plush stuffed tiger under her arm.

My car did not sell over the weekend, and even though it's only been "on the market" for a little while, I'm already almost ready to park it somewhere with a "$10 or best offer" sign on it. I guess I could see what the dealership would pay me for it if I'm that desperate. Time to visit the Kelley Blue Book site again, check the loan payoff amount, and weigh patience against instant gratification of being rid the extra car.

Apart from that, it was a good weekend. I even managed to read a little, and laze in the sun a little, and nap. And go for a short run. Plus the usual chores, and a lot of whispering to save my voice, which seems to be mostly gone, although I feel fine.

But it is bedtime, since tomorrow's a "school day."

Kid chatter

Heard today on the court:

Tiffany, one of the little girls across the street whose uncle had died, told me that she was going to go to her grandmother's to pick out one or two of her late uncle's things that she can keep. She's eight years old. She already, she said, has his pocketknife, although she said she didn't use it. "And I had some of his pepperspray," she continued, "But my I had to give it to my dad," then added by way of explanation, "Because he needs some."

About half an hour later, the girl on the corner who's 11, was saying to the boy across the street who's 7, "Did you know that there was a world-famous chess player who had been imprisoned, and he was just released from detention, in Japan?"

All those words.
And the boy asked, "What's chess?"

How silly is this?

I want to sell my Escape this weekend, but of course to sell one's car, one needs a pink slip. So after a long time carefully searching the 2 or 3 places the pink slip might be, I'm guessing it's in the safe deposit box at the bank. Now, to open a safe deposit box, one needs a key. I'm very careful about where I keep our key. Usually. But after looking in the 2 places that it normally would be, I've searched high and low pretty much everywhere else, and it's nowhere to be found.

I think the only thing more frustrating than spending all night looking for something is spending all night looking for something and not finding it. It's also ironic, for a couple of reasons. One is that I have a reputation among friends and family as a "finder" - I can almost always point them to the place they've left or lost an item. It's a gift I'm grateful for and something for which I can't really take credit (because it is, after all, a gift). But I can never seem to track down my own things that I've lost. The other bit of irony is that the key is probably somewhere new that I put so it would be "safe." It's apparently very safe, wherever it is.

On the brighter side, I've gone through a lot of paperwork and have done a lot of cleaning up tonight! But I'm wiped out, and ready to call it a day.

Arrrgh!

This is frustrating! I'd just posted a lovely little late-night post, full of - if not profound wisdom and insight into the human condition - at least complete sentences and links and a touch of humor at the end. But now, alas! it is gone. That fickle web. Something must be up with Blogger's site. Unless this really is the END OF THE INTERNET that I mentioned to Josh earlier in the evening. Too late to recreate it tonight. Bon nuit.

A "stay home" day

S calls weekends "stay home" days, but today I had to take one of those mid-week. I was feeling cold-y yesterday, and much worse this morning. I can't believe how much this fifths disease thing has beaten down our immune systems around here. I woke up only to call in sick at 6am, and then didn't wake again until 11. That left me only a little time to do nothing more daunting than balance my checkbook (where DOES the money go???) and clean out my purse - not as easy as you might think! - before running to the bank to keep the mortgage check from bouncing, and then getting the kids at school. R had a playdate here with one of the wilder boys in her class, and then I took the girls to his house (he has a 5 year old sister) to play while I went to a dr appointment. The appointment had nothing (on the face of it) to do with my cold: it was something scheduled last month with the same therapist I'd seen a couple of times. Talking with her has been so helpful, coming as it does during this time of re-evaluation of who I am and what I want to do with my life. All these changes I'm going through are very early mid-life, pre-perimenopausal, I know. But I also don't want to belittle this step in my journey by slapping a cultural or hormonal label on it.

But after the dr appointment, and after the stay at home, I feel so much better. Still, I'm sipping fizzy vitamin C drink as a write this, and tomorrow will undoubtedly come earlier than I want it to. Here's a poem that's 5 years old, written when R was S's age. I only tweaked a word or two while posting it here.



What Makes Creation Messy

We plant seeds in a riot of potting soil and peat pots.
My 5-year-old rips into packets, spills geneses:
snapdragon and cantaloupe, corn and beans.
Seeds for lavender and poppy, small as pill bug scat.

She bores holes with her pinky, thumb curving in the air,
I poke the earth with silent commands. To this one: germinate,
to that one: sprout. Grow and astound us, be bountiful, be green.
She writes the future with a laundry marker around the out-
side of the pots: CarrOt. PEPPEr. PumPkIN. BEaN.
CorN. PoPPy. CorN. BeaN.

Her fingers slip and leave hieroglyphs on the table, her hand.
They look like nicks, like the lines misused pruning shears make
on a slender apple tree branch.

The ecstasy of beginning behind us, now we'll mind the heat,
drip water to tempt the question-mark curves of green into straightening.
They're ours now, tiny things to tend or neglect at will.
She'll learn how apt seedlings are to shrivel if left alone.

Still in packets, the others are kept safe from either fate:
they await their turn to thrive or die
until the next time we give creation a go.

A Post A Day

gives you quantity but not necessarily quality. I mean, really. What was I thinking saying I'd blog every day? I obviously wasn't thinking of times like this, when the kids are tucked into bed and I want nothing more than to crawl between the sheets myself and put another day's worth of didn't-do-it's to rest.

I was thinking the habit of journaling daily would do me good. And maybe it has, somehow. It's given my consistency while other things that had been habitual in my life shift and drop away. But have I written elsewhere or otherwise, even knowing I'll be seeing my writer's group Thursday? Uh... no. Not really. Not yet.

Here's something from Gerard Manley Hopkins. I think I first read it in High School. Those of you who did not have Mr. Skinner for English may not know it as well:


Spring and Fall: To a Young Child

MARGARET, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie.
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

Close to midnight

The girls and I went to bed early and I only am up to blog and see if the Tooth Fairy came.

I am (still) feeling a huge lack of time and space needed to do some serious meditating and soul searching. I think this feeling was heightened by the weekend away from home. Even though it included a long drive, it's hard to focus on the Meaning of Life while you're dodging semi's on the Grapevine.

Another poem in honor of National Poetry Month. And no, it's not mine. My throat is hurting - is it my body's way of ensuring that I take a day off work, have time and space to think and to write? Protestant Work Ethic vs. Suppressed Existential Crisis. Who will win?!



Caps
People should be open on top like a cup.
A piece of bread should be able to sop
some of us up. We should be milk-like
or like wine. We should not have to be
trying to get our caps off all the time.
The storybook boy attempts the simple gesture
of baring his head for his emperor,
but another hat has appeared.
This happens over and over.
Who does not share his despair of simplicity,
of acting clearly and with dignity?
And what pleasure can we find in the caps,
brightly feathered and infinitely various,
that pile up so high they bury us?

-- Kay Ryan

Home

Only a short entry, here, to say that we have safely arrived home after the long drive. We couldn't resist a little more swimming time this morning, and so didn't start the trip north until after noon. And then it was the frustrating stop-and-go of the megapolis L.A., and once we were north of that madness, the reward of spills of wildflowers on the sharp desert hills. Then the monotony of everything south and north of Buttonwillow, a dicey pit stop or two, and finally, darkness, the girls asleep, and two torrential downpours between Merced and Berkeley. Made it home awake but only for about five minutes more. Always nice to return.

Hemet for a Day

S and I arrived at Grandma's just before noon. Last night, we stayed in a smoking room (all that was left) at the Best Western in Lebec. We lazed around this afternoon, then went for a swim when Aunt J brought R over (she stayed at her house last night. It was amazing swimming in a huge pool in beautiful weather, and then lounging in a huge hot tub, looking up to see snow-covered mountains in the not-so-distant distance. My mom lives in a great little place, here.

In the early evening, I couldn't keep from napping a little while the girls played under Grandma's supervision. Then we had a simple dinner - pizza for the girls, an omelet for me. And now I'm going to round them up and get them to bed because they're going to have a hard time adjusting to getting up at what will feel like an hour earlier than school on Monday, and I figure we might as well start the earlier bedtime today. Besides, I have an ulterior motive. I'm still sleepy, and I know that an 8+ hour drive will require some energy.

I've been dared to post a poem of my own here. I will. And I'll make it a new one. But it won't be today, I'm afraid, as I don't have the time and space to write anything but this at the moment. But maybe the long drive home will give me something, if the girls sleep. There's only so many times you can sing every song from every Dar Williams CD, after all.

National Poetry Month is here again

Last night there was a poetry reading in the city: S.W. Merwin and Adrienne Rich. I couldn't make it, but to honor the event, here's a poem by Merwin and the beginning of one by Rich (with a link to the full poem). I'll be on the road all afternoon and probably until midnight, on my way south again with one daughter to pick up the other at Grandma's. This means the time to post is now!


Term

At the last minute a word is waiting
not heard that way before and not to be
repeated or ever be remembered
one that always had been a household word
used in speaking of the ordinary
everyday recurrences of living
not newly chosen or long considered
or a matter for comment afterward
who would ever have thought it was the one
saying itself from the beginning through
all its uses and circumstances to
utter at last that meaning of its own
for which it had long been the only word
though it seems now that any word would do

W.S. Merwin


Stepping Backward
 
Good-by to you whom I shall see tomorrow,
Next year and when I'm fifty; still good-by.
This is the leave we never really take.
If you were dead or gone to live in China
The event might draw your stature in my mind.
I should be forced to look upon you whole
The way we look upon the things we lose.
We see each other daily and in segments;
Parting might make us meet anew, entire.

... (Adrienne Rich. Read the rest of the poem here.)

Changes

I feel like I'm sloughing off more and more unwanted things in my life: guilt, an unhealthy sense of obligation, certain religious beliefs, old clothes, sleepless nights, low self esteem, relationships that are harmful. That's a lot, and yet, I feel an almost urgent sense that it's not enough, that I need to purge more of the *stuff* that's held me down and held me back for decades.

I want to get to a space that's even clearer of this emotional detritus. I want to throw out the internal and external clutter and live life for a time as though it were a walk through an open meadow - leaving the noisy city, leaving the looming buildings, on the path toward the hills. Always the hills: the oak, the promise of enough stars and moon to walk by night if needed. Through the meadow, to the hills.

Body Image Stuff

Uh, okay. The kind and encouraging comments to my post yesterday were a good reminder that I (still) seem to have an inaccurate sense of how I look. I appreciate the compliments. I just have to at the same time hush up the rationalizing (unhealthy) part of my mind that says I get compliments because either people are just nice that way, or because they don't have an accurate sense themselves of *other* people's body image. It gets so tangled up, doesn't it?

Anyway, the bottom line (whether or not it's an aging sagging bottom on me or anyone else) is that exercise does much for my self-esteem and general emotional state, and it encourages me to eat more healthy food - always a challenge after the Easter Bunny has visited. And I am SO glad to be exercising again, now that my knee is better. Spent a good long stretch of time on the treadmill today. Feel much, much better. I will stop making self-degrading comments on this blog, and will stop thinking them too, as much as I am able, more and more as time goes on.

Experiment results

Now that Lent is over, I'm looking at how well I stuck to my 30 minutes of meditation, getting rid of one thing per day & (later) sleeping 8 hours a night.

Not terribly well.

However. I did meditate more than I had been, and I devoted at least *some* of every day to contemplative thought or spiritual reading. The habit has been started, and it's more natural to think of meditation as a part of everyday life. I did get rid of tons of stuff. Because I put aside so much for the charter school rummage sale (clothes, books, etc.), it probably averaged out to more than 40 things a day. But it was not one thing a day. I also, unfortunately, gave up running. Not something I expected to do. But a good test, all the same. I've learned that although my goal is to become more and more fit and to lose all the excess fat I'm carrying around, I now know that I can go 3 weeks without really running or even walking briskly and it doesn't mean that 3 years of slow and gradual work is completely gone. It shouldn't take much to get back on track physically. But the lack of running has affected my emotional state. If I don't run tomorrow, even a little, I'll go insane.

The sleeping 8 hours a night, which I only stopped doing 3 nights ago, was helpful. I feel it especially now that I've had too little for 3 nights. I'll try to make 7 consecutive hours my minimum requirement. I wish the same sometime soon to those of you nursing newborns all night or lying awake working on wedding details, or those of you who just plain suffer from insomnia.

Whispers of poetry nipping at my heels in the last 24 hours. Maybe something will come of it soon.

The shipment has arrived

R. has safely made it flying as a "UM" (unaccompanied minor) to down south. She apparently told my sister that everyone on the plane had been screaming during the flight except for her. This was because the flight was bumped by a lot of wind. My sister thinks there were small children screaming on the flight but that was probably all.

Before R. left, she and S. and I stopped off at an airport restroom just prior to checking in at the gate for the mandatory pre-flight potty break. We'd already heard several rounds of standard announcements over the airport PA system: "Due to heightened security measures, please keep all baggage and personal belonging with you at all times...Please report any suspicious behavior immediately to airport personnel..." Etc.

As S. dried her hands, R. confided quietly to me, "I don't know - I'd call S. wanting clean hands pretty suspicious behavior."

Easter Night

It was a low-key holiday. We didn't have guests over, because we're trying to make sure R is completely over her flu thing so she can go down to Grandma's a few days later than originally scheduled. D and S went up north to Grandmere's for a late lunch, so R and I lazed about the house, which was lovely.

Because D was home Friday afternoon with us, and because I've done very little running around, it has felt like a long weekend. It also helps that I haven't been to work since Wednesday. I'm really kind of dreading going back tomorrow, mostly because I feel some ridiculous sense of guilt for having not been there for two days - but I'm telling myself that it'll be all right. And it will.

We've started working on the front yard again. Or at least, we had started, right up until it the rain returned. More reason to post photos, maybe. The before, during and after shots. D is re-enthused about the project, and so am I. When we're finished, we should have a very unique and beautifully landscaped area in front of our house, and a gorgeous courtyard where we can relax, even if it's raining.

Easter Eve

There are dozens of men gathered in the street in front of our house. They've been there for hours, talking non-stop and chain smoking. The street is littered with cigarette butts and there are trucks parked all along our cul-de-sac and out into the next street.

Technically, the men belong to the house across the street and one down, which is occupied by a woman whom I have seen perhaps 3 times in the last 2 years and her three daughters, who are between the ages of 7 and 13. The girls we see often, playing in front of their garage or riding bikes out into our street without looking and without being looked after. When the girls were younger, this unsupervised behavior bothered me a great deal. I used to be angry at their parents for their blatant neglect. Now, my anger has settled into a mild irritation, tempered by curiosity about what their mother does all day, sequestered in the house 24/7. Is she mentally or physically ill? Is she agoraphobic? Or a drug addict, unable to function normally because she is a slave to one addiction or another? Or is she somehow forced to stay home by the girls' father? The father is an angry-looking man of Middle Eastern decent who now and then pulls up in a big shiny black truck, gets out, smokes a cigarette, and squares his shoulders before going into the house with all the enthusiasm of a death row inmate.

But what about the men, you're wondering. Why are there dozens of men outside their house, and our house, and several other houses around us?

As two of the strangers took the time to tell me (apologizing for the crowd), there has been a death in the family. It seems that the girls' uncle dropped dead of a heart attack yesterday while working. He was 40. Ten days earlier, the dead mans' mother's sister had buried her 35 year old son, also dead from a heart attack. There will be an autopsy and then a service on Wednesday for the uncle. I haven't been able to piece together whether it was the girls' mother's brother or their father's brother, but since I don't think the father really lives here, I suspect it was the mother's brother. People are flying in from "down south" to meet up here and talk and talk and smoke and talk. As one man explained, "He had a lot of buddies."

I was washing my car and the Escape (so I could take photos of it to sell it)when the men came over to speak to me. It felt strange, washing a car and playing with my five-year-old while all these men got together to try to make sense of someone dying so young. I was grateful to be well enough to do what I was doing, but the men lounging on our fence and leaning up against their cars a few yards away were a constant reminder that you never can tell. As the second man said to me, "You can be hiding in your house, sitting in your chair guarding yourself with a gun, but when it's your time, it's your time."

"Yeah," I said. It was food for thought while I rinsed the soap off my car. You may not always be able to control how or when you die, but you certainly have some say in how well, and with what dignity, you live.

Tag-team plague

We left for the field trip with D sick and S not feeling too hot either, and when we arrived back this afternoon, R immediately succumbed to whatever new development she'd been fighting off, and I'm apparently not too far behind her. Thank God she didn't have a 100 degree fever and all the glorious aches and chills that go with it while we slept on wooden floors at the fort.

So where I would have been posting lively, entertaining stories about night watch and firing the cannon, instead I can only post this brief "we're back and all is (kinda) well," entry, and then lie down and wait for the fever and queasiness to pass. We've postponed the flight to Grandma's rather than have her and Aunt J experience Typhoid-Mary-On-Spring-Break.

You know, I like to think that if terrorists attacked us using biological weapons, or if the next version of the Spanish Flu hit, somehow my family and I would be just fine. We're strong. We'd fight it off, or not get it at all. We'd be spared. We would be among the statistics of the survivors. But when we're sick like this (and have been sick off and on for a while, now), I realize that my "it won't happen to me" logic is what keeps data recovery companies in business. Really, you never can tell. Gotta watch out for that hubris. Consider me humbled. Nauseous, and humbled.

Ha! Fooled you.

You thought maybe I'd forget that I wouldn't be home tonight to blog and that I'd miss a day? Well, ha!

In half an hour, we'll be at the elementary school grounds, in costume, with 15 other children and 10 other adults in costume. You gotta love that ratio of parents to kids. It may be the only thing that'll keep us from going crazy. Sure, there is such a thing as too many chiefs, but I knowing the lively bunch of 4th graders we're taking with us, I think it's better this way.

I'll report back on the trip tomorrow. До свидания! (Dosvidanya!)

Signing out -"Pavel"

For the record...

I was in bed and asleep more than two hours ago, and I got up to blog and to do a few more things to prepare for tomorrow's trip. I'll get up early, finish the last of the packing, and we'll be ready to go. Looks like I won't have to drive the new car since they already have so many drivers, and that suits me just fine.

Next item in the social calendar, please...

So I survived another business tour/lunch/meeting with representatives from a Japanese company. I'm learning a lot and am gaining confidence by observing the more experienced sales execs in the company and the company owners, but I still don't feel like a natural, and I don't think I'll ever be the CEO of a corporation.

Now it's all about gearing up for the 4th grade historical reenactment field trip to Fort Ross. We leave the day after tomorrow, come back the following day, and in less than 24 hours after we get back, R will be on a plane (her first time flying without a family member) on her way to Grandma's for Spring Break.

And in the middle of it all, as much as I hate to complain, my joints are so stiff and sore that I can hardly go up or down stairs or do a shoulder check while driving. According to the CDC web site, joint pain in the knees and hands is a common symptom for adults who get Slapped Cheek Disease (aka Fifths Disease). Yes, that's right. It's not just for kids anymore. I noticed the tell-tale rashes the other day, and now I'm showing the rest of the symptoms. I'm just grateful to have an explanation for it. I mean, when you wake up in the morning and your elbows hurt, you want it to be something like a passing virus instead of, say, a brain tumor or an alien setting up shop in your vital organs.

It's officially Spring but the end of the rain is nowhere sight. The 4th graders will likely get a big dose of what-it-was-like for the Russians, Creoles, Alaskans and Kashaya Pomo Indians who lived at or near the Fort in the early 19th century. No space heaters or hot running water for them. And even if there was vodka to keep the original inhabitants toasty, our kids will have to settle for hot chocolate while they're on night watch. Or, more likely, lukewarm chocolate with a shot of rain water for added flavor.

More visits from Japan

Tomorrow a 3-person contingent of American and Japanese businessmen will be visiting work, and I'll join them for the tour, lunch out at the golf course restaurant, and a meeting to discuss working together. I wish I hadn't forgotten so much of the Japanese I'd learned - but at least I've bought gifts that I can wrap up for them, and at least one of my suits fits me without looking too dowdy.

I can't wait to start running again. Last night I dreamt that I was running a half marathon, and when I reached the 13 mile mark, I just kept going. I decided I felt so good, I might as well try for a full marathon. I reached 20 miles and still felt great, then found out or remembered that there was no finish line for a marathon distance. And so I turned around and headed back, believing it was better to have an official way to mark what I had done, a recorded time, and to enjoy the recognition of the crowd, than to have run far and well alone and have no public way to measure what I'd accomplished. As I write this, I realize how telling it sounds.

I think of myself as a loner daring to be different (see previous self-confessed geek posts). And yet, I am bound by a sense of doing things decently and in order, following the Presbyterian tradition. Does my dream mean that I am afraid to go it alone in life, even when I have the strength, potentially, to do so? Or does it mean that I recognize that no man is an island and that I am after all a part of society, of a larger organism? Probably the former, although there wasn't so much a sense of fear in my dream as there was a light sprinkling of both anxiety and dread.

I must remember how strong I felt leaving the official race course behind and finding my own trail.

And I must remember how to say, "Nice to meet you," in Japanese.

Palm Sunday, nowhere near Jerusalem

I've reached another not-going-to-church milestone: Palm Sunday, and the kids were not there parading around the congregation at First Presbyterian, and I was not contemplating Jesus coming to Jerusalem. Not until I saw the calendar - checking to see when my 2 weeks of 8-hours-a-night dare is up - and I noticed the label for today. "Palm Sunday / Vernal Equinox."

I took a "Which Religion is Right for You" quiz yesterday - not to find any real answers, just out of curiosity. I took it twice, tweaking my answers to be a little less middle-of-the-road for a few questions the second time, and it only strengthened the results. Apparently, I am by my nature or by my current beliefs, anyway, most attuned with the teachings of Buddhism. Interesting.

I realize that yesterday's post was just skipping across the surface of things like a light stone. I have so much more I could say, but I've been stopping myself for fear of offending or worrying some of my (very limited) audience. Which is again me putting social norms or politeness ahead of what I need to do for my own spiritual health. I really process things through the act of writing, whether it's indirectly with metaphor and poetry, or in a rambling philosophical journal entry like some of these blog posts have been. When I don't express the truths I'm reaching for and finding, I don't fully understand them or make them my own.

More to come on this, I'm sure. I now have 2 minutes to be in bed & asleep & still get the full night's rest that I've committed myself to. Bon nuit!

Date night

While the girls were at the Parents' Night Out function, D and I went out for sushi, shopped at Trader Joe's together, watched a couple of episodes of The Simpsons, then picked up the girls. Maybe not everyone's idea of a nice evening together, but we also talked, uninterrupted, and giggled when only two sips into our drinks I couldn't say "Frank Lloyd Wright" correctly.


Earlier today, S and I had this theological dialog, started with a comment she made completely out of the blue.

S: Mommy, Jesus didn't make the world. God made the world.

Me: God did make the world. Do you think Jesus is also part of God?

S: Yes.

Me: And what about us? Are we also part of God?

S: Yeah. Everyone's part of God. We're in God's head.

Me: [excited by the concept] Are we? Like, we're God's thoughts? Or we exist in the mind of God?

S: Well, our house is really one of those little bumps in God's mouth.

Me: Oh. Like the little bumps on the top of your tongue?

S: Yeah. And Kira's house [next door] is the bump next to us.

Me: Oh. And the whole world fits in God's head?

S: Yeah. And the whales fit too. Now that God is grown up.

Me: [taking advantage of the prophet] And who were God's mommy and daddy?

S: Huh. Let me think about that. Uh.... Moses. And...Mary. Mary and Moses.

She then launched into, "Mary and Moses sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage."

Dining room table theology with a five year old.

Rainy Friday

Just as I was worrying that the new plants in the garden had gone a day too long without being watered, here came the rain again.

So you see, things do have a way of working themselves out.

Today the girls and I bought a new parakeet. And a new cage, and mineral block, and water bottle, and grit, and grit bowl...the animal itself is always just a fraction of the cost, and the cost, the financial cost, is just a fraction of what we pay out with our hearts when we become responsible for these other lives, isn't it?

She is blue, and her name is Houdini. Now, to my 10 year old daughter, Houdini was a marvelous escape artist, the namesake of a friend's late parakeet and of the hamster in Lynn Reid Banks, I, Houdini. But to me, and perhaps to other people of my generation and the one before it, Houdini will always be Tony Curtis in the 1953 film version of the man's life. I'll have to add it to my Netflicks account and see what I think of it as an adult.

On the way home from gymnastics tonight, I caught the middle of a Fresh Air interview with Karen Armstrong, and even though S said, "Pleeeeease turn this off, Mommy. This is so bo-ring," for once I didn't reward her for remembering to ask politely (if somewhat desperately) but instead hushed her violently and said that even if she whined and cried, I was going to listen to it. I would just turn it up louder than she could be. Does this mean that I love NPR more than my own children? Wait a minute. What kind of question is that? I'm striking it from the record.

I do remember being bored STIFF by my maternal grandmother's insistence that whatever else we were doing came to a grinding stop for the MacNeil/Lehrer Hour. But I knew that she still loved me. She just, for those 60 minutes, needed me to be very, very quiet.

Back to the Karen Armstrong interview, though. I find myself fascinated by religious scholars, many of whom are themselves seekers as well. And besides, she has an accent. I'm a sucker for an accent. I have mentioned that, haven't I?


Going to bed now (again - I'd been there for an hour before I got up to blog). Sleeping in tomorrow - hooray for the weekend!

The funny things kids say

So when I took R to the Dr. to get her the official notice that she had been seen and had Slapped Cheek Disease and not some other plague that would infect the school, the Dr. agreed that she had a classic case.

"Yes, yes, you have very red cheeks," he said to R. "And I see this rash here on your legs."

"I call it a 'lacey rash,'" R said.

"What, have you been reading the textbook?" he asked her.

"Well, no, I heard my parents talking about it," she explained. Then she added, "But once I did read the textbook, all about bloody noses. And back problems."

The Dr (who was not our regular physician but was very nice) said he thought we didn't really need him. He also suggested that R give a lecture on Slapped Cheek Disease some time, because she knew her stuff.

Then tonight after dinner, R said something about scurvy (it's a Spelling Word. Of course.), and D said, "You don't even know what scurvy is." Without missing a beat, R said, "Yes I do. It's a disease you get if you haven't eaten enough Vitamin C and your arms turn black and your legs turn black and your body swells up and you float away."

All D had left to say (after we'd stopped laughing) was, "Well okay.
But you forgot the part about your teeth falling out."


All for now...I'm being summoned for a quick round of the PowerPuff Girls board game before bed.

Resorting to poetry again

I don't know what else to say, right now. I'm sleeping 8 hours a night. I'm spending time in quiet reading of spiritual books and/or quiet thought during the day, although not the 30 minutes straight I'd want. But I do try for it. Daily. And so I am physically rested but still mentally stressed, mostly because the to-do list isn't getting to-done. Josh was right in his comment on my previous post, I guess. It's the great trade off. But my full-night's-sleep experiment isn't quite done yet!

One of my old favorites:



On Having Misidentified a Wild Flower


A thrush, because I'd been wrong,
Burst rightly into song
In a world not vague, not lonely,
Not governed by me only.


-Richard Wilbur

Late blog

You know it's a good sign on the sleep front when posting after 8:30 is "late."

What I haven't written about yet:

Taking care of other people's kids from 3-8pm Friday

Going to the redwoods Sunday, and how beautiful it was.

R getting two baby teeth pulled yesterday.

R getting sent home from school today for having slapped cheek disease - although for some reason, S, with the same symptoms and the same disease last week (and with the school knowing about it) was allowed to stay at school. Grrrr. This is me, frustrated. There. I'm over it. Thanks for listening.

The Dr appointment for R this afternoon.

Donald calling from the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and how D and I are both suckers for someone with an accent...

Time's up!

Must write earlier tomorrow.

Ah, how we sacrifice quality for the sake of daily dare-driven drivel!

The big challenge - going to bed ontime Monday!

Monday nights are D's night out, and so I'm facing getting to bed ontime & getting the girls to bed ontime without a backup, apart from the lights out in all the house so you'd better be in bed! plan.

I work for a company that depends on people either not having a backup or having a backup blow up in their faces. It's what keeps us busy. In my personal life, how often have I not allowed myself the luxury of a backup? Ha! In fact, I've caught myself just now calling it a "luxury" instead of a necessity. Hmmm.

WELCOME TO THE WORLD BABY ISAAC!! Julia's brought her second son into the world - congratulations to her, to Josh and to Eli!!! No new updates to her blog as of right now...uh, she may be a geek, but she's been a little busy... But I'm sure there will be updates there soon. Or check out Joshua's Journals for news.

R has just asked me whether she can have an online journal. Hey! Why not? I'll let you know when it comes into existence.

Sunny Sunday

I wish I could have been home gardening all weekend, but after being gone yesterday, today spent a good chunk of the day taking S to a birthday party in the redwoods (40 minutes from home), and then later, going with D and the girls to get replacement cell phones (30 minutes from home). It was all good stuff, though, and I did manage to get the rest of the vegetables that we'd bought into the ground in between trips.

Am anxiously awaiting news of Julia's baby's arrival. Good luck and lots of blessings, kids!

My children are snuggled up to sleep in the big bed, and I too must go to sleep within about 5 minutes to get my eight hours, so good night all!

lost in Blogworld

I've just spent half an hour reading various beautiful, wonderfully written blogs from all over the world, and am feeling both inspired and inadequate about mine, now. I started at http://lostintransit.org/ and went from there. Really. You could get so lost doing this kind of link-to-a-link thing.

I think the next thing I want to learn to do is post photos.

Writing more interesting, thought-provoking entries would also be nice, but hey, right now I'm just pleased that I've kept up the daily blogging so far this year. You gotta start somewhere. The daily meditative time and getting rid of things proceeds apace.

It was a long Saturday - spent taking the girls from one engagement to another, but all lovely & I got caught up in some errands too. I just wrote out the play-by-play sentence, but it was boring even to me (and it's my life), so I deleted it again.

After over a week of no real exercise and taking ibuprofin to help my knee recover, I'm going to hit the elliptical trainer tomorrow morning. I'm looking forward to running again so much I can practically taste it. But I'm going to go slow rather than end up with an injury that really keeps me away from jogging for longer than 10-14 days.

Up late

But I've tried 3 times to write and post this blog entry only to have it blow away each time because I'm using an unusual browser ver. Grrrr.

At any rate, because I can sleep in until after 5am tomorrow, I'm allowed to stay up this late, or even later, and still get my 8 hrs sleep. Hooray!

I'd like to create links to my friend's blogs, but that keeps overwriting everything I write. So look to the border links to Kate, Julia, Clare & Suzanne's blogs. Worth the read, every one!

Sleep and Force Fields

The best thing about having made up my mind that I'd try for a "full" night's sleep, and about having subsequently been DARED to follow through for two weeks by the gravid goddess, Julia, is that now I can feel empowered (okay...maybe "justified" is a better word) to do something that, really, I love to do anyway.

As a child, I was often happy to go to bed so I could play out adventures in my head, imagining new Robin Hood or King Arthur stories where I was the kid sister/gypsy/peasant girl that everyone accepted/loved/protected/admired. This was pre-Star Wars, but for science fiction stories, I had Star Trek material and, later, the John Christopher books such as The White Mountains series. For fantasy reference, there were the Susan Cooper, Lloyd Alexander and C.S. Lewis volumes.

Yes, I am a geek. It's already been established.

But I'm not alone!

Two nights ago at dinner, our 5-year-old demonstrated that she's reached another rung in the Geek-in-Training ladder. She had already finished her dinner, but R, D and I were still eating, and we were having a mundane but involved conversation about something while S happily scribbled away, working hard on what looked like a rainbow Pegasus. (Although it could also have been a tall dog with a big golden growth on its back, perhaps inspired by Alby's recent tick episode. It's hard to say.)

Anyway, the 3 of us "older" members of the family were all having this amiable discussion about the weather, or school or something, and suddenly S announces with great enthusiasm to no one in particular,

"MY HORSE'S WINGS HAVE A FORCE FIELD AROUND THEM!!"

I laughed so suddenly and so hard that I actually spit tiny projectile pieces of turkey loaf at my husband across the table.

I mean, you know that earnest pencil-protector nerd gusto, the kind that usually comes out of High School Astronomy Club Members or Ant Farm aficionados?

Uh. Well.

Anyway, you know the nasal importance that you hear when someone says something like, "Well, it's a well-known fact that Thorium -233 has a half-life of approximately 22 minutes..."?

S had that kind of intense conviction in her FORCE FIELD statement. And that kind of socially challenged timing.

We all laughed, but you could tell that we all, each of us, was actually very proud of S for putting a force field around her horse's wings. We approved.

The conversation moved to force fields and how COOL they are.

I think D in particular wished he had a personal force field that would deflect turkey-loaf-particles, for example.

Day 1 of sleeping 8 hours at night

You'll notice that it's only a little after 8pm that I'm posting this. This is not me back-dating the time.

My evening chores are finished. Check.
I've gotten rid of TONS of stuff today. Check.
My 30 minutes of meditation/reflection is done. Check.

Just need to read a Golly Sisters book to the girls, and it's bedtime.

It feels like a holiday, somehow.

Here's a poem by Terry Ehret, the Poet Laureate of Sonoma county:


Thirst


This year I've felt the push of antlers
thrusting out of my head.
I've leaned my head many times toward the grass, stretching
my neck to drink. This year
I've awoken from the catacombs of sleep,
my cheeks wet with spring water,
my heart beating like a river
sprung from rock.



Kind of a nice follow-up to the other deer poems, I think.

Did I mention that S has Slapped-Cheek Disease? It's not as bad as it sounds. She's really fine, but boy are her cheeks red!

Sleepiness

I just took the Daytime Sleepiness Test at the Sleep Foundation's site. According to the standard Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS), I should be seen by an expert. The site says if your score is over 10, you should "consider discussing these results with your physician or other health care provider." My score was 15.

So what does this mean? This means I either have a sleep disorder, or I am chronically sleep deprived.

Don't everyone fall over backwards, now.

Although I do (as far as I can tell) spend a huge percentage of the night dreaming, and therefore probably am in a less deep sleep than I should be, I think the real problem is the 5-6 hours of sleep I get from Sunday-Thursday night.

What does this mean?

Well, it means that to find out whether the problem is too little sleep or something else like sleep apnea (which I do have something of a history with), I'm going to rule out the former by seriously trying to get 8hrs a night. This, sadly, means going to bed at 8:30 and being asleep before 9pm. The kids may end up tucking me in! But it will be interesting to see how much more awake & alert it makes me!

Those pesky bugs

When I was a kid, while most little girls of my generation were dreaming of being nurses or teachers or moms or veterinarians (the most daring cross-gender role imaged at the time), I wanted to be an entomologist. It might have helped that my Dad's nick-name for me was "Bug" because of my "spots" (freckles) but also, I liked Daddy Longlegs and beetles and butterflies and snails, and I had a real thing for ants. I still do, actually. I mean, I was a card carrying member of the Uncle Milton Ant Farm Club. I could go on ad infANTitm (get it? ha!) about Formicidae and why they're so COOL.

Also, I'm fortunate enough to be usually left alone by fleas, and often left alone by mosquitoes (must be the garlic). But for some reason, ticks love me. Go figure. I can't tell you how many times I've picked up ticks when camping or hiking or running around in the hills as a kid in Southern California. No Lyme disease, thank God, but plenty of ticks.

Tonight R found a swollen tick the size of Nebraska in our dog, Albion, and so after the girls were tucked into bed, I double-checked my methodology online and discarded the family's traditional Campophenic (we don't have any anyway) and hot needle in exchange for a pair of tweezers and a serious chat with the tick. "Look," I told the tick, "You've taken more than your fair share of this dog's blood. There's no point being greedy. I mean, any more and he'll become anemic. Also, you glutton, there is such a thing as too much. Time to come out. All of you. This means your head, too - don't try to fool me into thinking I don't need all the pieces, here. That's it, back out. Let go. The free lunch is over."

It took friggin' 10 minutes, while the dog lay there like an angel. Probably too weak from blood loss to protest.

I got the whole thing. And because I'm still an entomologist at heart, and am married to the same kind of geek, I kept the tick to show D when he gets home later tonight. I am not trying to gross anyone into going into labor (Julia); just stating the facts, here, ma'am.

And now I have to go outside and rescue the new plants that haven't quite made it into the garden from the slugs and pillbugs and other creatures who are even now making their slow progress toward the tender little leaves....

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