Stolen meme

I'm shamelessly grabbing this from Trey's blog. That's what he gets for commenting on mine.

Two Words:

1. Explain what ended your last relationship.
Ended? Ended?

2. When was the last time you shaved?
This morning

3. What were you doing this morning at 8 a.m.?
Calming customers

4. What were you doing 15 minutes ago?
Reading blogs

5. Are you any good at math?
Balanced checkbook

6. Your prom night?
Didn't go

7. Do you have any famous ancestors?
Mayflower passenger

8. Have you had to take a loan out for school?
Fortunately no

9. Do you know the words to the song on your myspace profile?
Resisting Myspace

10. Last thing received in the mail?
junk mail

11. How many different beverages have you had today?
Only three

12. Do you ever leave messages on people's answering machine?
Of course

13. Who did you lose your CONCERT virginity to?
John Denver

14. Do you draw your name in the sand when you go to the beach?
Prefer anonymity

15. What's the most painful dental procedure you've had?
Deep cleaning

16. What is out your back door?
Best intentions

17. Any plans for Friday night?
Dinner guests

18. Do you like what the ocean does to your hair?
Mostly, yes

19. Have you ever received one of those big tins of 3 different popcorns?
Sadly, yes

20. Have you ever been to a planetarium?
Mais ouis

21. Do you re-use towels after you shower?
Within reason

22. Some things you are excited about?
Sleeping tonight

23. What is your favorite flavor of JELLO?
Prefer dirt

24. Describe your keychain(s)?
Just essentials

25. Where do you keep your change?
Red wallet

26. When was the last time you spoke in front of a large group of people?
Church service

27. What kind of winter coat do you own?
Black pea

28. What was the weather like on your graduation day?
Apparently forgettable

29. Do you sleep with the door to your room open or closed?
Sleep? Sleep?

Still here

Just a post to say I'm here, and although I know better by now than to make promises I can't keep, I'm downright giddy because S's school days are an hour longer starting today. This means an hour of time alone at home 4 days a week (early release Thursday doesn't count). An hour I've never had before!

It will be tempting to sleep, or run, or buy groceries unencumbered by kids during that hour, but instead I plan to use it to write, and that includes blogging.

And there was much rejoicing.

Call me crazy

Today while R went for a long hike with friends at on a Pt. Reyes trail, and D went for his weekly gaming marathon at his friend's house, S and I spent some quality time at the fabric store.

We picked out a bright cheerful green cotton duck for new livingroom curtains. (Well, ok, it's lime, but that beats the drab, musty forest green velvet we've had there, and I need the change.)

We also -thanks to a sale and my second daughter's incredible mind-bending powers - bought the pattern and fabric for her to be a witch this Halloween. Keep in mind that I don't really, actually, sew. Much. Curtains I feel I can do. But the last time I tried to sew a whole Halloween costume was that turtle-thing we made for R when she was one. We were still hot-gluing as she toddled out the door. And all I really got out of the experience was a headache, lots of tears (mine), and, about five years later, a poem. Which, on balance, isn't that bad, but still.

S was so excited about the project that she insisted on carrying the fabric to the car and holding it all the way home. When we had just walked through the door, she said, "Mom? I'm just asking. Are you going to start on my costume now? I'm just asking."

"I'm just asking," is her new tactic for staving off a quick "no" to any number of unreasonable requests. It's the sweet dotted swiss ribbon she ties around her manipulative questions.

"Not tonight," I told her.

I'm just saying.

The end of a long week

When you work Sunday through Saturday, it's like some kind of blessing to live until the end of the week. I'm glad I've arrived.

Because hope springs eternal, this will be the post for Sept. 19th!

This will be the post for Sept. 18th!

Birthday shout out #4

How many Virgos are there in my life?
There can't be too many, apparently.

Today is Suzanne's birthday. And though from the sound of her blog post, it could hardly have been a worse day, I'm wishing her a happy year.

Or, as my grandmother always said, "And many happy returns of the day!"

Birthday shout out #3

Today was D's birthday. So much more to say about that - but it will have to wait.
Sorry about the tease...

What's not to love?

Friday and payday - whoo-hoo!

Birthday shout out #2

Today is Clare's birthday.
Clare is so cool. She is Super-mama, super friend, a true Christian in all the best senses of the word.
And even though she has the nerve to stay in another state and not move closer to where I live, I can forgive her that. Because she's so dang lovable, that's why. Happy Birthday Clare!

Birthday shout out #1

Jen's birthday today. Jen doesn't read blogs as a rule, and for a very good reason. She doesn't quite understand why one would read about what one's friends are doing when one can just have a conversation instead. I sometimes - especially when I'm over a week behind in writing little bits about little nothings - completely understand her point of view.

Happy birthday anyway, Jen!

Patch Tuesday

Those of us who do not use Windows products may not know about this. Even those of us who do use Windows may not be aware that the second Tuesday of any month is the day when Microsoft traditionally releases its security patches.

That would be today.

I didn't know about this fact, and I have a Windows machine at home, and help people with crashed PC drives all day long at work. (Those of you savvy sysadmin types who are reading this blog entry, please excuse my ignorance.)

And while any Wikipedia article is likely to have a bias based on who wrote it, I also found this quote interesting:

Some system administrators have also been known to call this day "Black Tuesday."

Those system administrators. Such kidders.

Of course, one thing leads to another on the internet. Did you know how many things the phrase "Black Tuesday" refers to? See the above Wikipedia entry for more details. Not the luckiest day of the week, apparently.

9/11/06, 5 years on

S wanted to know why I put the US flag up today, and why the neighbors were flying theirs. I wasn't sure what to tell her. I opted for a vague outline: five years ago, some people did some bad things that hurt a lot of other people way over on the other side of the country. I said we were remembering what happened, and thinking about the people who lost loved ones that day. I said it was a show of support.

Part of me wanted to say nothing at all about any of it, because it was so outside her experience, and I didn't want to scare her, or suggest that all was not well with the world. Besides, she was preoccupied by getting ready to go to a new gymnastics class with other people she didn't know. 9/11 was not on her mind.

At the same time, I wanted to stop everything, sit her down, and tell her how violence breeds violence, and that sometimes leaders whose office you respect can make decisions that you don't agree with.

But last night I had a dream about the rapture. S and I found ourselves floating, flying a little above ground while other things - crazy things, like fish and dolphins and ships and planes - fell from the sky. Some people were shooting heavenward, some were running in panic. I was trying to figure out what was happening, and what we should do - pray? find the rest of the family? try to stay? try to leave more quickly? - when I was awoken by S coming into our room out of the blue because she was scared and couldn't sleep.

"I'm sorry," I explained to her, knowing as I got up that my alarm was due to go off any minute anyway. "I had a dream and you were in it, so I bet that kept you from sleeping." At 3:40am, this made perfect sense to me.

"I dreamt we were flying," I told her, tucking her back in after a trip to the bathroom and the obligatory sip of water. What do we tell our children? What do we keep from them?

"We were flying," I said, "and it was really cool."

Sunday in the Park with friends

So, after we returned home from camping, we quickly cleaned up & went to celebrate our friend's 2 year birthday at a new local park. (Everybody say, "ELMO CAKE!!!")

After the party, some of us took a 2 hour nap. I might have been one of the guilty (but eventually well-rested parties).

The day was uneventful apart from that. There's something lovely about late-day puttering Sunday, especially if it wards off the pre-work week blues. It helps me to remember that intense productivity is not the only way to peace of mind.

Camping, finally

It was only one night, but we did manage to pack up all the gear and sleeping bags and more food than we'd normally need for a week - just in case - and take ourselves, said gear, and the tent to China Camp for a camping trip with other families from R's class.

We had a lovely time chatting with other parents & R's teacher while eating a gourmet potluck (including slices of mozzarella with home grown tomatoes and basil, fresh grilled vegetables, and roughy for some of the adults). The campfire skits presented by the 11 year olds (2 boys, 2 girls) were more alarming than entertaining - barnyard humor at it's pre-teen finest. (Now *they* would probably like Better Off Dead, even if they didn't grow up in the 80's.) But the kids had so. much. fun.

I love sleeping under the stars, and slept well - even, reportedly, no snoring! (which is pretty amazing, for me). In the morning, we packed up and came home for our next social engagement. But that's Sunday's post, which I have yet to post-write and pre-date....

Friday

This was Friday; nothing special to report, just preparing for the weekend camping trip and being so glad the work week, even though abbreviated by the holiday, was over.

D. and I, having independently been told by friends that we had to watch Better Off Dead, managed only 5 minutes of it before giving up, apparently immune to the same rip-roaring humor that had our friends laughing until they were crying or spitting out their drinks. It was lost on us, and you know? life is too short to watch a movie that does nothing for you.

Instead, we watched Reign of Fire, a Road Warrior-Dragon Slayer hybrid that, especially compared to Better Off Dead, completely did it for me. I must confess that I really do dig post-apocalyptic survivalist movies. I think they appeal to both my fatalistic inclinations and my admiration for determination in the face of adversity. Besides, Christian Bale follows in the tradition of Richard Burton, Sir Anthony Hopkins, and Ioan Gruffudd of being Welsh born. Cymru Am Byth!

Pick your vice

You know, there are days when a full-time working, dieting, already neurotic writer wannabe mom can feel so completely defeated by it all (and in particular by her seven year old) that she starts to pine for the elegant, if unacceptable, coping mechanism from her teenage years.

I mean, I know it's been a hard afternoon when I'm wondering why it was that I promised God and my best friends when I was 18 that I wouldn't cut myself again. What was I thinking? Obviously, I wasn't figuring that life could get this hard. Chunk of coal into diamond. Heart attack waiting to happen. I ignore the oh-so-tempting idea of release, and transference, and external-manifestation-of-internal pain, that a small cut might bring. It's not like I ever did it a lot back then, and it sure ain't gonna happen again now.

A good sit-down meal with the kids, one bottle of hard apple cider, and a try at "Oh What a Beautiful Morning" on the fiddle, and I now can see that there's nothing all that wrong, really. Blame the struggle on the full moon. Blame it on my less-than-5-hours-a-night sleep habit. Or my daughter not having enough lunch before gymnastics. Blame it on whatever, but don't blame hormones (because I always refuse to do that, and besides, it wouldn't apply right now anyway...).

A good friend recently suggested that although I no longer cut myself, since I do still have the impulse rise up from time to time (I liken it to an addiction, an alcoholic still occasionally craving a drink), it might be important to figure out what it is that gets me to that feeling, so I can address that. Ok. Good point. (Because, you know, I'm not self-reflective enough.)

Me, me. It's all about me. Unless it's about you and you're being about me.

Is that the song that the universe sings, from mitochondria to red giant? Or is the universe singing "You. All. Us. One." ?


Damn. That was a good bottle of cider.

Check, check, check

up before 4am: check
make kids' lunches: check
get to work: check
work: check
home to tidy: check
pick up S from school: check
home visit from S's teacher (the girls' teachers from this charter school come to the homes of each student. I think it's to better understand the environment the child is coming from, to better understand the child, and how they learn, etc. I like the policy, myself. It especially makes sense because these teachers follow their kids from grade to grade for 4 years - so this woman will have S from 1st through 4th grade!) Anyway: check
got R from school: check
fun playdate with friends: check
make dinner: check
go to class meeting while D and girls go to another class meeting: check
come home for online writers group: check
blog: check
sleep:
sleep:
sleep:

hmmm. - seems I have some unfinished business to which I must attend

Check, please!

A day late, a blogpost short

If I keep back-dating these posts, I'll very soon reach the "what's the point?" point.

But I have enough of a stubborn streak (no, wait. I think it's pride) that I won't give up my latest "post-every-day-for-a-year" plan that easily.

The day was run-of-the-mill middle-age, middle-class routine: work, picking up the girls at school, dropping off someone else's kid who missed the bus to daycare, a trip to the library, a quick workout at the gym, home to make dinner, bedtime for the kids, a quick trip to the store to look (in vain) for just the right shade of new curtains, back home for a half hour of Friends viewing with D, collapse into bed before writing.

But the long list of what-I-did's doesn't tell the full story; the dark silver and shadow of the oak trees that grow next to the gym parking lot, the sweet matter-of-fact pre-grownup conversations between the kids in the backseat, or the trademark teasing banter at the dinner table, the light of the moon trying to pry its way through the temporary curtains and reach the bed. That's what it doesn't tell...

Home Depot Must Love Us

We spent a mess of money on new doors, new blinds for the new bedroom, wood for planter boxes and shoji screens, and wasp spray tonight.

If we feel overwhelmed by the bill for the upgrades, or by the work that we (read: D.) will have to do to make the home improvements, I suppose we can always apply the wasp spray to ourselves....

Sunday review

Okay, here's a bloggy snapshot of a typical weekend day in review...of no interest to anyone but me, really, but still in keeping with my desire to post an entry for every day that I'm forty. (Which is a pretty arbitrary but nonetheless adequate excuse for reintroducing the discipline of writing daily...)

The day went something like this:

*slept in (ah! how nice)
*went for a much-needed jog (had dreamed I was running, a sure sign that 4 days without it is too many)
*went to the grocery store (alone! another luxury!)
*D left for his weekly gaming session
*had friends over for a playdate (for both the girls and me)
*took R to a slumber party while my friend watched the little girls
*the friends left, & because S had been so crabby & whiny all day,
*I forced her to have a "rest time" which started with us finishing The Wide Window & ended in a 2+ hour nap (for both of us)*woke from nap, went shopping for new curtains (no luck),
*had dinner out at Applebee's (just right)
*then bedtime routine, and more sleep (ah! how nice)

And there's one more weekend day to go, with the chance of even more sleep. I love sleep. I love three day weekends.

Miss Malapropism

Judging by some of her latest word replacements, I think we may need to get S's hearing tested, even though it's her sister who's had chronic hearing problems over the years.

The other night at dinner, D. was eating spanakopita, and S. asked him if it was good. She wasn't having any, herself, because she doesn't like "Spanish coconut."

Today when I went to pick her up from a playdate, her friend marched into the room with a toy medical kit and warned me, "Your daughter is really sick." S. staggered in behind her and leaned against a table for support "Yes," she agreed in a dramatically weak voice. "I have Charlotte Fever."

(Whew, I think now. That's serious, but at least it's not Emily Disease or Branwell Complex.)

During the playdate, our youngest must have also been explaining the (misleadingly alarming) heritage of our dog. Albion's mother was an amazingly regal half-wolf dog owned by Kate. His father, as far as anyone knows, was a pitbull mix from the neighborhood. Our dog is therefore part this, part that, and not necessarily the kind of mix that you advertise to parents whose children are playing at your house, even though the reality is that he's 95% dopey noodlebrain, completely harmless, and wonderful with kids.

But S. apparently was sharing Albion's lineage with her friend today, because the friend's mother said (with a suppressed smile), "So. Your daughter tells me that your dog is part wolf and part pimple."

After we had a good laugh, I said, "Sure, he is." And sue me, but I just could not resist adding, "We call him the pussy pup."

Three days!

A three day weekend is especially sweet after one has had a one day weekend, as I just did.

The plan for tomorrow is for us to remove the single pane window in our bedroom and replace it with a double-pane window that his sister gave us - something like three years ago.

Actually, the plan is for D. to remove the window and for me to provide moral support and supervision of our kids and any other friends that are here. I never, ever, thought the word "playdate" would become so central to my existence. Does this mean that our girls will have full social calendars for the rest of their lives?

How does that happen?

I mean, genetically, do two introverts combined always breed only extroverts, like two negatives making a positive? How could a loner plus a loner equal children who already have more friends in elementary school than their parents have had, combined, in forty years? Go figure. Or maybe it's the fact that D. and I are Virgos, while our children are a loving Libra and a partying Leo, respectively. (btw, check out Suzanne's site for more horoscope musings and a suspiciously flattering birthday photo of yours truly with the Writers Group gals.)

Must go. My vanity is showing. And the weekend has begun!

Lost in the Now. Or just lost.

So I completely missed, as in forgot until many hours after the fact, two appointments within two days: an online writing session, and a hearing test for R. These are appointments that I was fully conscious of 24 hours before they were to take place. I'd talked to people about them, I'd envisioned myself there. Maybe I envisioned myself too well, and crossed them off some mental checklist as done.

But where I once would have spent a long time (longer than it's taking to compose this blog entry, email my writer friends and reschedule with the Dr. office) agonizing over why I'd been so stupid or forgetful, today I'm pretty much leaving it at this: Oops.

What I did with my time instead of these appointments was to post a blog entry and watch an episode of Friends with D. last night, and supervise the only slightly controlled mayhem of three eleven year olds (R. and the two most...um... energetic boys in her class) and S today. They literally chased each other around the house screaming, they did their homework, they had snack, and we walked to a nearby park with Albion the dog and explored the creek. The boys were fascinated by some elaborate graffiti under an overpass as the creek, wishing for a few drops of paint in the very empty spray cans they found ("But it's art!" they protested in futile earnestness when I called them away). The girls looked for frogs. The dog was in heaven, padding around in the shallow water and smelling a gazillion green and growing dog-detectable smells.

For dinner later, S. and I made pizza from scratch (Trader Joe's did provide the dough). The boys were delivered to their respective mothers. I crashed when the girls did (D. had to go back to work tonight), and have only gotten up to write this entry.

You know, the entry where I say that I so easily let it go that I'd missed those appointments, but where I nonetheless find it so important to write about what I did instead.

Linux convert

So about two weeks ago, I installed Linux (the Ubuntu version) on the secondary ide drive in my PC. This was toward the tail-end of a online Unix class I took to re-acquaint myself with vi editor and other the pleasures of line commands. I know. I'm a geek. But it's all relative. I'm only a geek compared to some. On a daily basis, I am surrounded by people who have more geekiness in their left pinky than I shall ever embody.

I've always preferred DOS over Windows. But Linux has DOS trumped.

I'm only in the earliest stages of playing with Ubuntu and have not yet fine tuned it, but so far, so good. Thanks anyway, Mr. Gates, but I think I've found something better for the non-Mac machine in our house. In honor of my latest toy, I've got a link to Ubuntu on the sidebar. Any other takers?

Pirate for Congress

Some of you may have already seen this out there, but my coworkers have been all abuzz lately about James Hill's run for Congress in Iowa. This is a candidate who is willing to expose his personal history and private convictions (or lack thereof) to public scrutiny. He's apparently someone who is so fed up by the corruption of politicians, he includes choice phrases in his site like, "Every day I fight the urge to drink, debauch women out of wed-lock and beat people on the street. One urge I do not have is to sell myself to the highest bidder."

He may offend many, but his honesty and ability to stand tall and say, "ARRRRR!" just in time for the upcoming Talk Like a Pirate Day have won the admiration of others.

And speaking of the admiration of others (not coy, I), I was blessed this evening by the inspirational and inspired gifts and really, really good chocolate from my colleagues Julia & Suzanne. I call it a writer's group. And it is that. But it's so much more as well! Thanks for spoiling me, gals.

For Nothing

As my sister says, I've reached the big "four nothing," or 40.
And you know, what? That's okay.

I've had more than one forty-plus friend tell me about the liberation that can come with reaching a milestone birthday like this - where you find that in spite of your keenest aspirations and best intentions, you haven't, after all, conquered the world or found a cure for cancer or written the Great American Novel by the time you were forty. And so the pressure is off now.

Whew.
Thank goodness for that.

It's been a splendid day. Just enough people acknowledged my birthday to make me feel special (which I love) without feeling like the Center of Attention (which I abhor).



Here's a shot for posterity, taken in Las Vegas at the end of last month, while at a tech conference for work. Dinner out at Nobu sushi. Yum.




Had sushi again tonight, followed by the obligatory birthday chocolate. The girls are in bed, and I'm ready to settle down to watch an episode of Friends with D. - we've come to the sitcom only now, via DVDs, having never had TV while it ran. And it's just plain silly fun for us, a good way to close out the day.

Onward with the journey...

The Gift

So, I realize that every day is a gift, but today feels like a real pre-birthday whiz-bang package all tied up with a big bow and a card with my name in fancy calligraphy.

I took the day off work even though I have pretty much NO personal time left because it's the girls' first day of school. R. is now in 6th grade, S. is in 1st. D. took the requisite First Day of School photo, which I will post as soon as I can borrow his camera to upload the shot.

And although I could have gone back to work for a few hours, I'm taking the entire day off instead. To do whatever, including (in no particular order):
jettison more paperwork
write (case in point)
go to the gym
garden
send my sister her late birthday present
balance my checkbook, pay the bills, fold the laundry, mow the lawn...

I know what some of you are thinking. Some of you are thinking that today should be about doing whatever I want, not about doing chores. Others of you already know that those "chores" are just what I do want to do.

I remember as a child that my friends would call me to come over and play whenever their mothers told them to clean their rooms. It was because they knew that I really liked organizing other people's stuff, turning chaos into cosmos, a disaster into some form of order. (And dear Suzy Woodward, wherever you are, I still remember that 4-year old Nilla Wafer we found in your Uncle Wiggly tree stump display.)

I'm not one to scrub the toilet daily. I'm not great about dusting and vacuuming. But I like things tidy, and although some mess is "good" for me, a lesson that the little things don't matter but relationships with people do - so have the guests over even if the house isn't clean, anyway - too much mess crosses the line into being just plain bad for my psyche.

So I'm going to pretend I'm visiting my friend's house, and that I have no weird (and unnecessary) attachments to the piles of papers everywhere, the travel guides from my grandmother's trips to Alaska and Greece in the '70s, the receipts from Christmas purchases ten years ago, the multiple drafts of the same short story. I'm going to have the recycle bin and a shredder and a good cup of coffee and I'm going to have some FUN, blast it all!

I'm also going to write down the goals I have before I reach the age of 40. I have until Monday to reach them, so I'll make them realistic.

Scratch off "marathon" but add "say no to babysitting someone else's child once a week for free for the third year in a row."

Omit "get a book of poetry published" but add "compile the manuscript and see where the holes are, and write one more poem to fill one of those holes."

Nevermind "weigh 150 pounds." Stick to "continue to eat healthily and exercise regularly, and be happy with the slow road to fit."

Instead of "finish remodel of bedroom" I'm putting down "find the bedroom floor."

I'm replacing "dig out adobe for path through front landscaping" with "water the vegetable garden."

Bird by bird, as Anne Lamott would say.

Meme thang

Ok, so I found this because I read Julie who discovered it through Josh.
If you'd like to see mine, it's here. Please feel free to contribute. I'll reciprocate.

R. is off at camp in the sierras until Saturday. We've received 2 postcards: one to the dog: "Bark Bark! I [heart] you all" and one to her sister, on the top of which she gives me instructions to have S. read: "I love you so much! Love, love R."

I guess we can see where parents rate in the whole ranking of correspondence. But I'm so glad to hear from her. I checked carefully, too, and there was no "I hate camp and you are cruel heartless parents for sending me here and you must come get me right now or consider the entirety of my childhood one long Oprah special in the making" anywhere to be found on the pre-stamped, pre-addressed card.

I've said it before. The world is rife with small mercies.

Gratuitous Celebrity Obsession Post

Some of you may already know this, but Jean Reno just re-married. And it wasn't to me.

Dang.

What was he thinking?

I mean, HELLO?
Pick me! Pick me!

Ahem.

Don't get me wrong.

If Jean Reno really showed up at my door and proposed to me on bended knee I'd refuse his offer, even if he had a diamond ring for me.

Because I don't like diamonds.

And. Okay, yes. And because I've already got someone better than he'll ever be. And I wouldn't trade my current, only, forever husband for ANYONE else.

But still. I wouldn't have minded the chance to turn down the proposal.

Let's see if I remember how this works...

So, I think the idea is that I get over the "it has to be perfect" or "it will take too long" whine and dawdle shuffle, and move straight to the "put your fingers to the keyboard and post a blog entry" sashay.

Like, before yet another month makes an appearance, already.

It's been hard to blog. It's been hard to do a lot of things, although I manage them well enough that I'm not sure I need to officially complain.

Except that I feel like I'm off my game, frankly. As though I just can't think straight.

I wonder if it's possible that I'm in some sort of perpetual fog because the death of a close family member does that to you. I'm hoping that's the case. I've certainly heard now from a number of people that the inability to concentrate, and general confusion, are very common symptoms of grief. And it's not like I'm talking about London pea-soup fog, or tule fog, exactly. Sometimes it's only a wispy haze. But I definitely feel impaired. More than usual, that is.

I think.

In fact, what's tricky about this fogginess is that I'm not at all sure that it isn't the way I've always been. Maybe I've been cloudy-brained for a long, long time, and I'm actually only clear enough now to recognize it. Maybe this is me better than I've been because I actually now recognize how bad off I am. Sound confusing? It is to me, too.

So I'm giving myself whatever time it takes, hoping (because I am by nature an optimist, in spite of being paranoid at the same time) that I will pull out of this into the clear sunlight and be able to count to ten again without stopping at six to wonder what I came into the kitchen to get.

And speaking of paranoid - thanks to Julia for the compliment. Tonight after our writers group meeting, when we couldn't set the alarm at first because of a fault with an unknown area in the building, I'd offered to scout out the dark, secluded warehouse section of the place in case someone had propped open a door or something - since we had, after all, seen cars drive through the otherwise empty parking lot earlier, and people could have been casing the joint. I had even suggested I could take of my boots so I would be in my socks, and better able to run if necessary. And Julia, bless her, said to me, "I like the way you think of everything."

That's just about the nicest way to call someone paranoid that I can imagine.

The rough outline of the last month (or at least the highlights):

S. turned 7 on Friday. The same day, my oldest brother turned 47, and D's father turned 76. And that's only 3/5ths of the Leos in our immediate family. Much royalty.

S. had a roller skating party. I never knew I had it in me to disco dance to The YMCA while skating.

I was in Las Vegas last week. My first real non-slots gambling experience. Perhaps worth a blog entry, but perhaps not as worthy to write about as my Road Warrior post-apocalyptic fantasies about what would happen to Vegas if the power failed.

I wrote a new poem. Or at least the first few drafts. (Not related to Vegas. Or the YMCA.)

D and I are remodeling our bedroom to look like a traditional Japanese room - complete with a new closet with custom shelves behind hand-made (D-made) shoji screens, a platform bed, tatami mats, and lots of space and light, sans clutter. It's full of clutter mid-process, of course, which is hard to live with, but it'll be a slice of Japan in Northern California when we're done.

Sound true?

So Josh tagged me to write 8 THINGS about myself, but it's easier to paste this little quiz engine response than to actually put thought and energy into prose. So the 8 THINGS will have to wait, and here's this for now. It might be a *little* tiny bit true, I suppose. Maybe.

Your Birthdate: August 28

You have a Type A personality so big it makes other Type A's shrink away in shame. You never shy away from adversity - and you love to tackle impossible problems. Failure is not an option for you, and more than a few people are put off by your ego. You tend to be controlling, and you hate leaving anything up to chance. Your strength: Your bold approach to life Your weakness: You don't accept help Your power color: Bronze Your power symbol: Pyramid Your power month: October

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

The only thing is, it appears that this quiz spits out the same blurb for whatever DAY of the month you enter, regardless of the month. A little disappointing. It's not the all-seeing Oracle I thought it was. (But it does confirm the fact that I don't really like leaving things up to chance...)

The Quick Recap

Consider this a post card scribbled on a bus between stops in a journey.

I've had a lot of proud-mama time lately. The girls have between them performed a gymnastics show, a school play, a ballet recital, and a horse show - and they did beautifully in all of them.

They're out of school for the summer, and are wrapping up their first two weeks of swim lessons.

I'm training a bit for another half marathon, which means I spend more of the week jogging & sweating.

I still write when I'm able (or am compelled by Writer's Group deadlines) to do so, and have a poem coming out in the next issue of The American Poetry Journal.

Tomorrow, my husband's sister is getting married. The girls are flower girls in the wedding. Tonight is the rehearsal dinner followed by a luau, complete with Polynesian dancers. The girls haven't even tried on the dresses that someone my sister-in-law knows has made for them, so if the fitting doesn't go well, there will be some night-before-the-wedding sewing, I'm afraid.

The day after the wedding, family from out of state (and out of country - an aunt and cousin from Montreal) will come to the house for a party. Is the house ready? No. Is the yard weeded? No. Has the menu been drawn up? Not really. Do I care? Well, I'm trying not to.

Also on my mind is that the party is on Sunday, and Monday I'm to be in Hemet to meet my oldest brother and sister to sort through Mom's things. I'm taking D's big truck down so I can bring back some furniture and boxes. My other brother, in Colorado, has a container that will be delivered to Mom's house for the few things he wants of what she'd left to him. The distribution of belongings has been very kind & gentle & civil. I just wish my siblings' schedules had enabled us to time it better, considering the frenzy of the next 3 days!

Yes, I'm Still Here

For what it's worth, I've thought about blogging.

That's all for now.

More later today.

Honest.

Mom

This is the post I didn't want to write, as though putting it off kept at bay the reality that has, in spite of it all, been sinking in.

I offer sincere apologies to anyone who is only now learning this news. My mom, Allison Fadeley Blauer, passed away April 23rd. An online obit can be found through Legacy.com's service for either the Denver Post or the Post Enterprise. (Search for last name Blauer.)

This is the first of what will be a forever of Mother's Days without Mom. A white carnation Mother's Day. And it's not just Mother's Day that will remind me of the loss of my mother and friend. It's those other days, those other moments, that I expect will sideswipe me with grief. I have tons of great memories of my mom to call up, but the tricky part, the part that will pang, will be all the future memories that I won't share with her.



There is plenty of writing that has already come out of this death. It's personal, it's my way of working through these early stages of mourning. It's not fit for public consumption.

But I couldn't put off updating my blog any longer. This is the first step of me moving away from the point of demarcation her death brings and into this next phase of my life.


So here's to the woman who raised me and my three siblings with a love that we're only now starting to fathom. To someone who was able to laugh even when times were extraordinarily hard. Mom was quiet and humble to a fault, and the one characteristic that those who knew her unanimously recall is that she was a "nice person" (which is, as my brother pointed out, a terribly undervalued virtue these days). She showed me what loving unconditionally means. She showed me the strength of finding humor in adversity. She spoiled my kids rotten. And I will miss her, every day, for a long, long time.


















Nothing was more important to Mom than her children.






She held each of us when we were small, and her death has brought us together as adults and held us again, in the space left by her leaving. We spent last weekend celebrating her life at her home with family, friends and neighbors. On Sunday, we gave her ashes to the Pacific Ocean according to her will. Her handwriting in the will shows that her first thought was to have her remains scattered "in the Colorado Mts" but she had scratched this out and modified it to read a Southern California beach. We dropped daises and roses in the waves. We saw sea lions sunning themselves on a buoy. A single dolphin splashed like a messenger in and out of the water as the boat returned to the harbor.







It was the first time the four of us children have been together for more than a day in nearly thirty years. Whatever differences we might have, we're united in this love, this loss.

Easter Eve

The single parent Easter bunny is hitting the hay.

After 4 hours in the car, and several more hours at the nursing home interrupted only by a very long walk in the neighborhood & dinner out (where they had to continue to behave), then grocery shopping and dying eggs after 9:30 pm, I think the girls were asleep ten seconds after their heads hit their pillows.

I'm going to follow suit.

Haven't worked on novel in days, owe emails to everyone & haven't even gone to look at my email account since yesterday mid-day. But I'm going to Scarlett O'Hara it, and leave it for tomorrow. Until then....

South for the holiday

The girls and I will leave shortly for Southern California, and as I don't expect to have internet access between now and tomorrow, I am posting something now.

SOMETHING.

There's been DRAMA! at work and DRAMA! at the girls' school. It will be nice to get away and spend time with family, and with the familial drama to which I have become accustomed.

In case you were wondering

"ACHTUNG!

Setdownthis may actually be a spider-human hybrid

Username:

From Go-Quiz.com


Thanks to Kate for the link to the above fun. I know a few Spidy fans who might appreciate the random results. And please note that the link on the sidebar to Kate's blog has been updated, and that I've added a link to Chris, Deneene & Wilder's blog. I am fortunate enough to know some truly amazing people who are living truly authentic lives. And although I am just not someone who has the habit (yet?) of spending much time in the blogosphere, let alone much time online (or even on the computer) once I'm home, I've got links to blogs that are great reads.

Enjoy!

And L, you're right. The importance of sushi for last year's work outweighs future sushi anyday.

Happy soggy April

April is National Poetry Month.

I'm thinking I should find a few words to rhyme with "deluge."
There's no end of the rain in sight.

National Poetry Month. Hmm. We mark days so that everyone will recognize them. But I think it's a little ironic that we should take something we honor, or something that looms large in our minds, and go to great lengths to have it officially recognized. I mean, If you have to remind people to remember it, how great can it be? I understand that we don't want future generations to forget what we know. I understand this personally, even. For example, we have daguerreotypes of relatives on my mother's father's side of the family whom I may never identify. They were surely important to someone while they lived, and probably for a generation or more after they lived. And they each have a story to tell. But it's lost because we did not honor or commemorate it. But I'm not suggesting we should have a National Day or Month to recognize my great-great-grand relatives.

Actually, this late at night, I'm not sure *what* I'm suggesting.

But a truly EVIL coworker double-dog dared me to blog daily for a year for another sushi dinner. This is not the same coworker who dared me into doing the same in 2005.

Will I give in to the pressure....?

It may be like child birth. Nature allows you to forget the agony so that you'll be SUCKERED into pushing another incongruously large, screaming animal out of your pain-wracked body. The hurt fades (for some mothers, anyway) and you find yourself ordering another round of the hair of the dog that bit you.

So I'm not exactly picking up the gauntlet (see, Julie, you're not the only person to mix metaphors with wild abandon) - but I am looking at it.

See the gauntlet.
"Pick me up!" say the gauntlet.
"I dare you!" says the gauntlet.
"I double dog dare you!" says the gauntlet.

I nudge the gauntlet with my toe.



Did I mention that my coworker was EVIL?

More progress

I returned yesterday morning from spending three full days with Mom. I got her moved from the hospital to a rehab center, aka a "skilled nursing facility" or "SNiF," a name which I personally think should be abandoned, as it's only one letter away from Snuf.

The nursing home is good, though, and the staff for the most part very good. In particular, the physical therapists are excellent. Within two days, mom went from being completely unable to assist us in transferring her from a wheelchair to the passenger seat of my rental car, to being able to walk about twenty feet with a walker - from her room to the dining room where I'd been waiting while she had her PT. After two weeks of inactivity, and weeks before that of declining health and lousy nutrition (she says only jello and orange slices tasted good), she is getting her strength back. The staff seems to know just how to encourage her to work, and just when to back off, when to allow for her weakness or the wound pain.

Much more significantly, she says she actually can imagine getting well now. To me, this is the most optimistic sign. She admitted that even when we'd visited her in February, she hadn't cared about anything. And while in the hospital, she'd felt so bad (and foggy from the drugs), that she had no real will to pull through.

We had some really good talks and lots of laughs while I was there, and Mom emphatically labeled it "such a nice visit."

There's still no saying how well things will continue to go, and I think everyone is "guardedly optimistic." She will always have congestive heart failure (35% functionality, the chart said), and fairly advanced kidney disease (IV), and right now, her wound is deep enough that it's like an anatomy lesson in itself (a whole chunk of muscle is just plain gone, and let me tell you, tendons are really white). But her spirits are so improved, and the time we've spent together was so good (for her, too - not just for me), that I feel like every day she's still around is a bright gift, instead of a roller coaster ride in the dark.

An update on Mom

Thanks to all of you who have offered support and get well wishes for my mother. She was in ICU for a few days last week because of an "incident" with her heart, then she was moved to a telemetry room where they could monitor her to see if she needed to have a defibrillator installed. In the meantime, though, she is not a candidate for surgery of any kind. Her blood pressure has occasionally been very low (80/33, for example), they've given her another 2 pints of blood, and her leg wound is no better (although it's also no worse, thank goodness). They're running more tests (biopsy on the leg, just in case, and the dreaded colonoscopy), and are trying to get her healthier in order to transfer her to a rehab center nursing home, and then later, to do a skin graft. I'm sure she's sick of being in the hospital, but her spirits are better, and her sense of humor is as healthy as ever. I fly down to see her early Thursday morning.

In the last week or so, I've had the great good fortune of a few heart-to-hearts with other women who are going through, or have just gone through, similar health crises with parents. We've talked about the importance of spending time with mom, of communicating with her as often as I can when I can't actually be there in person. We've discussed me talking to the kids about grandma's illness - and about mortality in general. These are obvious things, but I need to hear them. This is a moment in my life when I most need to be *present* but instead find myself using my standard defense mechanism against stress - distraction, distance, and denial. I'm detached, but not in any spiritually healthy way. This self-analysis is a prime example of my MO. Don't be fooled by it. I'm less a writer turning to the craft for comfort than I am a bundle of unfelt, unprocessed emotions. Hiding fluently behind prose.

I mean, I'm nearly 3 years divested from any spiritual system, feeling the need to talk to mom about the possibility of her death, but not knowing what I believe anymore. I wish she were willing to talk about it - about either death or faith. I don't know her current thoughts on either. I plan on broaching the subject when I see her, but for now, we're not missing an opportunity to tell each other how much we love each other. I know that she thinks I'm a wonderful daughter. She knows that I think she's the best mom and grandmother in the world, and the kindest person I have ever met, and that all sorts of people in my life are sharing their love and concern for her. For now, that will have to do, and for now, that's enough.

Unexpected travels

I spent last weekend in southern California, visiting my mother in the hospital. She's still there, and will probably be there for a few more days, but I am back home and going through the usual routines, while I wait to hear how she's doing. It's the waiting, 500 miles away, that is most difficult.

Mom has so many things going on with her, there's no short or simple way to explain why she's in the hospital. Her heart works at about 33%, but that's been the case for 7 years since her bypass surgery. Her kidney function is around 26%, but that's been true for about 2 years. As long as she stayed active - which she did, walking and swimming daily - and as long as she watched her diet, she was fine. A little slow-moving, but trim and happy and for the most part, really fine. What has brought her low is very minor surgery she had at the end of December for a squamous cell on her lower leg which has become a horrible, enormous wound that is excruciatingly painful. I'm told it looks and acts just like a diabetic ulcer (which may well never heal), with the exception that she can feel it, while a diabetic person might not. So she stopped being able to get around, and she was on pain meds that didn't exactly work, and she was too intimated by the pain to care for the wound correctly to begin with, and she had no appetite and didn't eat, and lost 10 pounds that she could ill afford to lose. Then she had another infection they had to locate, and blood loss they had to figure out, and the morphine they put her on for the pain and the 2 pints of blood they gave her helped, but not enough, etc. etc.

Her nurses have been excellent, as have most of the team of doctors (cardiology, nephrologist, wound care specialist, hospital drs). Yesterday, she was transferred to ICU for the first time because she had a cardiac "incident" - either a heart attack, or a response to all the meds she's been on, but she seems better in ICU than she did before. (She has been allowed to eat again, and snuck an "illegal" cell phone call to me from her bed.)

I'm glad I went to visit her, and I hope to go again soon, possibly with R., who really wants to see her. But it's a day-by-day, hour-by-hour wait, now, to see what happens next. This is hard for me, and harder for my sister, who, as primary care giver living near my mom has had to put her life, and the new career she's trying to start, on the back burner while she spends as much of her day as she can with Mom or making arrangements for what happens once she's out of the hospital.

As always, there is so much more to say here, so much more to write (which has always been my best tool for "processing" things), but limited time in which to compose.

So that's all the news, for now.

Dydd Dewi Sant

It is St. David's Day. St. David, the patron saint of Wales. I don't care much one way or another about saints (apart from the fact that we are all saints), but I do care about Wales.

The novel progresses slowly, all too often shoved aside while life gets big and hairy.

I've had about 50 minutes of sleep in the last 41 hours - a 10 minute nap at work this morning, a 40 minute nap this afternoon. I feel like I'm in an altered state, but one not entirely unwelcome. This is what drama queens and crisis junkies crave - the tilting priorities, the teeter-tottering significances, and emotional kaleidoscope. In a sense, you are left with nothing mattering because you really might actually already be dead. Everything is surreal in this way. In another sense, things have never mattered so much, or been so clear. And you want to remember this.
It's probably the exhaustion that makes you drop the baggage and just BE. It would be a great trick to master after a full night's sleep. Come to think of it.

The catalog for the girls' school auction is finished and was printed this afternoon. In case you were wondering why I pulled an all-nighter.

For the first time in seven years, I did not celebrate St. David's day by bringing pastries to work and forcing Welsh words on my colleagues.

My mother's surgery wound is now an ulcer that may take 2 years to heal.
My sister is fried from taking care of her.
My oldest brother is worried that this could turn into hospital bills that he can't afford to help pay for.

I think I will make a business card that states that I am a writer.
I think it will be square.

Vacation approacheth

The girls and I will head out of town in just over a week, with D. to follow later. Off to see family in Southern California and then go to the Magic Kingdom. (Really, what's the most magic about it is that I won't have to plan and cook a meal or answer a phone for 3 days.)

I did survive the half marathon Sunday, and in fact trimmed more minutes off my time. I can now officially run 13.1 miles in under 11 minutes per mile. A personal accomplishment, and best not compared with the runners who do the same distance at twice the speed. However, on the bright side, if I take 5 minutes off my time each of these runs, I figure, by the time I'm 80 or so, I'll be crossing the finish line before I cross the start line.

I have decided that I most likely will NOT try to run a marathon before I'm 40. Or ever. I think the half marathon distance is just about right for me.

What does that mean? That means time spent not training but hanging out with family and friends. Time spent in the garden. Time spent writing. Right? Write.

Culture

You know, it has taken me 5 days to write this tiny post, primarily because I want to give it a longer stretch of time and more depth, more detail. This is something I've seen other bloggers struggle with - one's desire to do something justice coming up hard against one's time constraints - resulting in no post at all rather than a partial or sketchy post.

But since web log silence is not something I want any longer, I'll just give you what I've got.





Last Sunday we had a spontaneous adventure - a trip to the deYoung Museum to see the Hatshepsut Exhibition. We brought one of R's riding buddies to make it more fun for all of us.

After having run 10 miles in the morning (my last long run before Sunday's Half), the walking from parking to the museum, and then all over the museum, and then back to the car, I felt like I'd had my exercise for the week. But the girls were real troopers, and I was gratified to see that S (who just officially turned six-and-a-half) really wanted to know all about all of the Egyptian artifacts.

The older girls' experience with museums had been fairly limited to hands-on childrens' museums like the Exploratorium, so they were a little frustrated by the lack of touchable, experimental exhibits. After we'd been there about 90 minutes and had left the Hatshepsut rooms, R's friend said to me, "You know, I didn't know there's be so much art here."

I pointed out it was, after all, an art museum, which she agreed explained the emphasis.

It was an educational experience, anyway. The older girls, examining the museum's map, insisted that we go to the African rooms. When we got there, and they saw the scores of dark wood carvings with, in many cases, prominent or exaggerated anatomy, there were cries of, "Oh! Don't look at that, S!" and "Don't look at that either!" until they beat a hasty and disillusioned retreat out of the area with hands to the sides of their eyes to avoid any other surprises. I would have happily strolled through slowly with them, reading about the art and discussing it, but they wouldn't hear of it. I explained that people in different parts of the world express themselves artistically in ways that are new to us, and that some other cultures just feel differently about the human body than people in our culture do. I pointed out that different doesn't mean bad - just different. They said they understood all that, and I think they did. But they were still clearly embarrassed as only pre-teen girls can be. Since they had been so hot to see the African art to begin with, I asked them what they thought the rooms would be like, and they admitted they'd been hoping for something that looked like Africa. I think they were expecting to step into a stage setting. Or maybe they were hoping the second floor of the deYoung had a Savannah tucked away in it.

We also made the mistake of starting to enter the photography exhibits, which were even more explicit than the African rooms had been, and weren't going to fly with my underage companions.

The girls were happier to see the 18th and 19th century paintings and portraits - especially because the rooms were more brightly lit. And of course, they really liked the little original Remington bucking bronco statue, although they had comments on the lack of realism (!) in the horse's build and pose.

Jeez. Everyone's a critic.

Well, hello again

I've been told by more than one person (thanks, both of you), that I've thrown off their morning routine in some way because I haven't been blogging. Flattery will get you everywhere.

The latest news from my life is not that riveting, but here it is for what it's worth.

I'm training for the Kaiser Half marathon in San Francisco, which means 3-5 mile runs during the week with interval training when I can, and about 6 miles Saturday and 8-10 miles Sunday. Why? Why, you ask? Because, I tell you. Because I really like food.

The girls are doing their thing in school. Parent teacher conferences were last week, and it's astonishing to learn that both kids, as different as they are in many ways, are described almost identically in terms of behavior by their teachers. Bright, but too talkative. Engaged and focused, but ONLY in what interests them. Thank goodness they're so sweet and lovable in general - I think it offsets the time the teachers have to spend getting them to stay on task. Honestly, I don't know where they get their susceptibility for distractio

Anyway. Where was I? Ah, yes.

D. has been working long days and will probably do so for a while, as the new employee in their 3 man shop spent too many days sick (here, the word "sick" means skiing in Tahoe until you look like a raccoon).

My mom is very, very slowly recovering from having surgery on her leg for a spot of skin cancer. My sister has been taking her to doctor's appointments and buying her groceries and generally trying to help her take care of herself so she can heal. I'd love to be there to help, but it's 500 miles away. I said to J., "I wish I lived closer," and she said wryly, "So do I."

The rain stopped long enough for us to remember that there's a sun out there after all, but today it is back. What a tease.

The novel is still being written.

Ahem. Let me rephrase that.

I am still writing the novel.

Where it took me 1 month to write 8 chapters, it may take me 8 months to write the last 2 chapters. But I still enjoy spending time with my characters, which is a relief.

There's more to say, but perhaps it's just as well that I'm out of time to say it right now. It gives me something for the next blog entry for those of you who have apparently become addicted to my compelling prose and amazing insights.

And speaking of intention...

At the end of the year, a coworker (you know who you are) mentioned that he appreciated some of my thoughts on living intentionally. I appreciate the comment. More than once, I thought about what was driving me to post blog entries in 2005. It looks like my motivation neatly sprang from most of the seven deadly sins.

There was rising to the challenge of the dare. (Pride)
And the promise of sushi (Gluttony)
There were the several positive comments I got (Vanity)
And my keen awareness of fellow bloggers' witty posts and the tons of positive comments they received (Envy)
I wanted the same kind of praise at the end of the day (Greed)

The only two that I didn't really cover were:
Sloth - although a number of posts were late in being written and bare-bones, and Lust.

That last one is pretty clearly absent. Try as I might, I just can't factor Lust into my raisons de posting last year. I mean, no one promised me any kind of pleasures of the body--and no, sushi doesn't count in this case--in exchange for my quotidian musings. It wasn't a case of "share your 2 bits every day and I'll share mine." Er. So to speak.

But I think that's just as well. I think the internet in general and the Blogosphere in particular has that one covered more than sufficiently without help from me.

But what about the seven deadly virtues? you ask. Did they play into the work at all? Let's see:
Faith. Well, it did take faith to believe the year would pass & I'd survive.
Hope. And I did hope that the habit of blogging daily helped me as a writer.
Charity. Hmm. My daily posts were free. Does that count?
Fortitude Okay, yes. There was some of this stuff involved. A lot, actually.
Justice Don't think so.
Temperance With the exception of the Evil Twin / Goth episode, I think, yes.
Prudence Not much of this, I'd say. Not much thoughtful, careful wisdom and consideration. Maybe that's what this year can be about.

Yeah. I'd say It's quality, not quantity, this year. While I redirect energy into poetry and finishing the novel & working on another draft of it, I expect I'll be writing just as much or more than I did in 2005. It just won't all be here.

A soggy New Year

So the North Bay is much in the news the last couple of days because of flooding. We've been fine, although we've seen some street closures near us, and the waters came close to reaching the front door of D's work three miles away.

We spent the afternoon at the restored Victorian home of D's mother & her husband, and then tonight after tucking the children in bed, have been up late watching The Thin Man movies. D's Christmas gift to me was the whole boxed DVD set - so much fun! (And so much alcohol consumed on screen!)

Tomorrow the girls are back in school but I have the day off - a rare event, indeed. I hope to make good use of the time, which might mean just sleeping for four hours while they're in class. Hey, wouldn't you?

The End. Or is it the Beginning?

My humble thanks are extended to those of you who encouraged (or dared) me to blog daily in 2005.

I'd thought about writing a post that was the Year in Review, a sort of summary of the high points. And I even came up with a few, including a couple half marathons, the work D did on the front yard & the new fences he put in the back yard, watching R's skill as a horsewoman develop, seeing S on stage after the Nutcracker, traveling to New York and Orlando, writing 50,000 words of a novel in a month, and blogging daily.

But in listing some things, I exclude others. And my feeling right now is that the year is over & there is no point in dwelling in the past.

So I thought about recording my hopes for 2006: more poetry published, a better (closer to final) draft of the novel written, a couple more half-marathons run, more time spent in quiet solitude.

But what's more important is the here and now.

It's 7 minutes to midnight. Time to wake up the girls (as I promised I would) and celebrate, briefly, this transition from arbitrary end to arbitrary beginning - which is really, after all, a celebration of being here, now.

Penultimate Post of the Year

The rain is coming down, and has been off and on for days, and will continue to do so for the weekend. It's perfect for pulling out a jigsaw puzzle, and lounging around in front of the toasty fire with a cup of something hot to drink.

We had new friends over for dinner, and their girls and our girls had a grand old time running around and being silly and putting on a little dance show to princess music. It was all fun and games right up until their oldest and our youngest bonked heads. (R thinks this would be an appropriate place in my post to insert a sad face).

Insert sad face here.

They were fine after ice and sympathy was applied, although I think their daughter has the imprint of one of S's teeth on her forehead.


Tomorrow, as the last post of the year, I hope to writing something more than "had tea with the Jones'." Maybe I'll include a description of the crumpets.

For now, I just wish everyone a safe and relaxing New Year's weekend.

Shuffle off...

One of the coolest gifts I received for Christmas was an iPod shuffle.

"Good stuff, Maynard!" (How many of you remember that reference? Yeah, that's right. It's from the '70's. When I still had TV.)

I've loaded a grand total of 1 CD to the iPod so far, thanks to that whole issue I have with needing to sleep at least a little each night. So now I can listen to Cry, Cry, Cry but that's it. Ah, well. It's a start.

Off to jog. Or nap. Or possibly both. Now, that would be a spiffy yet completely counterproductive form of multi-tasking, wouldn't it? REM while you RUN! Race the breeze while catching Z's! Clearly, the sleep deprivation thing is taking its toll once again.

How many halves make a whole?

After too many days of too many sweets, I'm officially starting to train up for the San Francisco Half Marathon that takes place on Superbowl Sunday. Only 5.5 weeks to go - yikes!

This Week

My favorite week of the year, I think: between Christmas and New Year's, a of limbo or maybe even redemption, where you have been blessed with gifts, the holiday craziness is over and there's the anticipation of a fresh start just ahead. Resolutions are being made but have yet to be cemented into place let alone broken.

This is the week of jigsaw puzzles and cleaning up the wrapping paper and - this year, anyway - hanging down in front of a warm fire while the rain pelts the outside world. Our living room is a showcase for the four elements, I realized today: earth (an enormous ficus), air (hard to get away from that one), fire in the wood burning stove, and the 400 gallon fish tank. It's a good place to hang.

Offerings

On 12/22, I challenged my fellow poets on a yahoo group I belong to to post a new seasonal poem. I said I'd get one together & post it within two days. Here's what I wrote Christmas Eve, while the kids and D watched "A Child's Christmas in Wales." It's a family tradition to watch that film, and I hated missing it, but even this rough, rough draft of the poem was worth it, just for the spell that I felt while figuring it out, and the satisfaction of having written something new.


Offerings

This dark and tangled time of year calls
for the quick low flight of a swallow,
sweeping over the yellowed grass, over the briny
frost and mud. It calls for a swift thing racing
its long shadow along the earth, each wing-beat
a whisper that defies the dusk; a small body, warm
as a bullet in spite of the coming night. A song.

And I wish my heart were a swift thing, sweeping
godspeed below it in the frozen fields. I wish it were
heedless in its mission of the edges of the world;
reckless and singing through the cold air. I would be
abundant with alms, a benefactor to the chilled hills.
I would be the wind that wakes crocuses
and paper whites from the snow.

But no.
I am slow.
Plodding and carapaced. A creature of the sea.
I pick the longest night of winter to emerge on dry land.
I drag myself through the sand, handicapped
by the element of earth. I dig a simple chamber
for the evidence of what can't be called love,
and leave my offerings lightly covered.
This one act takes all I have.

And when it is done, I turn and haul
myself away again, crawl from the shore,
don't look behind me, nor wonder
if my gifts will thrive or fail.
Instead, I abandon them almost at once,
in exchange for nothing more
than the slow, slow pulse
of the deep and thoughtless sea.

RBP, c12/24/2005

Ho, ho, *yawn*

Christmas has come and gone in a fog of cooking and discovering what was in all those odd-shaped packages under the tree. The meal was good, although served four hours after the guests had arrived. I was in the kitchen the whole time, with just the right amount of company and chit-chat with my in-laws while prepping the food.

We ate at 3pm, but I am so full I don't expect to need to eat until tomorrow's feast. Between now and then, there's cleaning and prepping and a writer's group meeting (Boxing Day at the Apple Box) and cooking, and somewhere in there, I hope, a quick jog to make up for all the cookies and fudge I had today!

Julia Childs, look out!

So even though I am a poor cook with a VERY limited repertoire, for some reason, I really enjoy making fancy Thanksgiving and Christmas meals. Tomorrow, I'll be serving:

Prime rib
Yorkshire pudding
Green beans with walnuts and walnut oil
Potato and celery root gratin with fontina cheese
Glazed pearl onions with raisins and almonds
[D's mom will provide a Yule log from a French bakery.]

On Boxing Day, we're having:
Apricot-glazed turkey with roasted onion and shallot gravy
Herb Stuffing
Broccoli and cheese casserole
Green beans with walnuts and walnut oil (a fresh batch)
Pickled baby carrots with mustard seeds, honey and dill
[D's sister will bring mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie.]

I also have some nice loaves of wheat and nut bread for each meal.
Thank goodness for the November, 1994 issue of Bon Appetit, is all I can say.

Now to wrap the last of the presents!

Merry Christmas Eve to all.

World enough and time

One of the main things I learned from Nanowrimo is that one has time. It's focus and a sense of priorities that really makes the difference.

This is the thought that is simmering in the back of my mind while I start to look at what I want 2006 to look like. One of the scientists in "What the Bleep Do We Know!?" said that when he wakes up, he decides how he's going to make his day. And then he makes his day.

A lot of the spirituality and philosophy that appeals to me most has this intentionality in common. Living scattered with a completely unfocused mind has done me little good so far. I'm trying to pull together the nano-seconds of intentionality I experience until they happen more and more frequently. I admire those of you who are already doing this. You set a good example for me. Thanks.

How far down the rabbit hole do you want to go?

Have you seen "What the Bleep Do We Know!?"

If you have not, you must.
Really. I insist.

When I grow up, I want to study quantum theory. Full-time.

No. Strike that part about growing up; I want to study it starting now.
(But I'm going to keep my day job. It comes in handy.)

Happy Winter Solstice

A few of the families from R's 5th grade class met with her teacher in a candle-lit room tonight to celebrate solstice. The children, being children, were wound up by the rain and excitement of the holiday and candlelight. They ran around and jumped up and down and giggled and shouted, and so in spite of the fact that I so wanted to soak into shadowy silence and just breathe, I found myself in the familiar role of trying to Referee Chaos.

It wasn't until much later, after they were in bed, that a caught my breath. But I'm still looking forward to four days off work!



Here's a poem by one of my favorite authors, Susan Cooper, that I read once we'd finally had our potluck and started telling stories sharing Solstice thoughts:


The Shortest Day

And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us - listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!

The sound of me not hand-writing those cards...

That's what the little two-note, back and forth, windshield-wiper beat and humm of the printer heads is.

Thanks to D for making it possible for us to have somewhat personalized messages while I retain the small scrap of my sanity that is left after seven hours (give or take) of simultaneously wrapping and boxing and parenting. Not that I wrapped or boxed any children. That I remember.

Did I say I wouldn't do this again? Last year, did I say that? I just checked my blog posts from last December and no, I didn't officially announce to the world that I would not wait until the last minute to wrap and send things out. But I can say it now. About next year. This year, it's sadly, pathetically, too late to make any such declarations.

"Toujours en retard," that's me.

Placeholder post

until I can write more...!

Once more into the breach!

Still trying to finish the shopping, although I'm liking Clare's advice about keeping it simple better every passing hour.

At least this year, I managed to make some of gifts I'm giving - painted ceramics that the girls & I had a lot of fun doing.

Now it's wrap & ship & get the cards out & take a breath before the visitations begin over the weekend!

Proselytizing by the Best Sellers

The girls hung out at Gymnastics for yet another Parents' Night Out (this time of the year, aka "Dump Your Kids and Shop Night").

I had already gone to a couple of large stores and was at my third for the night, Borders, when my dazed consumer stupor was interrupted by a tall well-groomed man, perfectly disguised as a Christmas shopper, who suddenly started to shout to everyone in the store, "Well, he knows if you've been bad or good! Yes, he does! But who is it who knows? It's not Santa Claus! It's our one and only Lord and Savior, who came to redeem and save the world. What are you doing here? You're buying more and more things for people who already have all that they need. We live in a country that has more storage buildings than it does housing for the poor, and there are people who are cold and hungry, and people who are dying of AIDS, and hookers, but you'd rather forget about them and be good consumers instead!"

There was a more, but by then, store security was already escorting him out.

For someone calling out a sermon in a bookstore, he was pretty lucid. And I stood there, just after he had gone quiet, holding a basket in one hand and a calendar in another, and I thought about his message.

I deliver food to poor families. I donate clothing to Hospice and money to a half-dozen other organizations, including The Heifer Project. I try to treat everyone who begs from me on the street with the respect that one human deserves from another. I give them food when I can, water when I can, money when I can be fairly sure that it won't go to drugs or alcohol. But if I took what I spend on Christmas each year and instead donated it directly to people who could use it, wouldn't that be better than contributing to the excess of the fortunate?

Those who are more cynical might think that the bald truth is that I'm too tired or lazy to finish my Christmas shopping, and I'm getting creative with my excuses for getting out of it.

But really, it's something to think on, isn't it? I mean, you never hear about Jesus dashing around the marketplace trying to find the right sandals for Thomas Didymus, or the perfect belt for Bartholomew for Hanukkah. That just isn't what it's all about.

But being mindful of what it is all about - that's the challenge.
It shouldn't take a man with a message in Borders to remind one of priorities, but if it does, it does. And here and now, still thinking about that man, I remember where the word for "angel" comes from: it's from the Greek word "angelos," which means "messenger."

Still recovering...

So two of my coworkers whose birthdays are in late December had an "Evil Twin" birthday party where you come as your own bad self - with a full costume, a prop, or just an attitude.

I don't like to go to parties, in general.
Especially ones where there's the potential that people will really be, you know, partying.

But an excuse to dress in a costume and go to an event as a character is a whole other story. Must be a carryover from the Science Fiction Convention Days. I must be somehow pining for the evenings when I would be applying nail polish in a panic while sewing up the last few stitches and looking for my other suede boot.

My choices, as I saw it, were some kind of dominatrix librarian, or a tragic poet, or (what I landed on), something rather Goth.

As in: fishnets, 4" vinyl black heels, a black velvet skirt, and a black corset. I also dyed my hair black, put on black nail polish and jewelry that consisted of black beads and crosses, and I added a length of long black hair (as an extension). Add the makeup, and I had the desired look. I have to wait for Monday's blackmail photos to make it to me so I can post one here.

I had a lot of fun at the party. There was wonderful live music and singing, and I had great conversations with folks and surprised one or two people with my costume. D had agreed to come with me (in no costume, since he is his own evil twin), so I could have a drink if I chose to.

I did choose to. I had a couple of vodka and cranberries.

I've learned some interesting things about alcohol:

1. It is unwise to make a vodka and cranberry with 4 ounces of vodka and a splash of cranberry juice for color.

2. It is equally unwise to drink said drinks on an empty stomach.

3. Within an hour

4. One is not given warnings when one has had too much. I didn't know this was true. I honestly didn't know, having never (I SWEAR) gone to a party where I had more than one small drink, that one can go from feeling really really great (if a little unsteady and blurry around the edges) to wishing one could just die, because six feet underground would be a better place to be.

I won't go into details (unless you pay me or need me to scare your pre-teen child), but suffice it to say we left the party none to soon, and I owe my husband a debt I hope I'm never in a position to have to repay, and I won't be drinking alcohol for a very long time. Say thirty or forty years.

I realize that this particular lesson is one that most people learn, if they must learn it at all, when they are in High School or college. How I got to be nearly forty before I learned it is just the result of having underdeveloped social skills, I guess. But if this is a new level of party-going sophistication, I'm going back to my asocial ways. And I DO NOT understand how people can drink to excess, experience anything near what I experienced, and do it again. But I know they do.

I distinctly remember thinking that childbirth, my benchmark of emotionally and physically challenging experiences, was a friggin' cake walk next to my post-party night. I mean, really. A cake walk.

Tell me: has this kind of thing ever happened to you? If it hasn't yet, take my advice: ignorance is bliss.

Brrr!

I spoke to my brother A. in Denver tonight (because it's my sister-in-law's birthday today), and he told me how cold it's been there.

And I thought we had it bad with the temps dipping down into the 30s. We Californians don't understand REAL cold. I think if I lived somewhere where it dropped into the sub-zero temps (like Denver. Or Boston, for example, Kate, right?) I'd just stay inside. In bed. With lots of quilts over me and a bedwarmer at my feet and lots of hot tea and good books. If that took all winter, so be it.

Kachina, Kachina

R is studying the Pueblo Indians, and made this to go with her report:



It loses something in the photo, so you have to trust me - it's enough to make her parents proud of her hard work.









The Artist
Pismo, after Thanksgiving
(Uncle B had spiked her hair)

Quantity vs Quality

If you've seen I Heart Huckabees, you may remember the riff about "quantity" and "quality."

And even though the discipline of blogging daily (which has admittedly fallen apart a lot of late) has been good for me, I'm looking forward to a time where I'm not compelled to write short relatively meaningless things for raw fish.

I'm looking forward to some DEPTH, man. Something with more thought behind it than "had tea with the smiths."

Still not quite the Gory Details, actually

So I've weighed out feeling SHAME for not providing the details I said I would and the NEED to sleep, and guess which won?

I will say that dinner was in a private dining room on the 4th floor of the Farallon restaurant in San Francisco. I just tried to find pics online and couldn't, but let me assure you that the paintings on the wall made me feel like I was in Jules Verne while he was on an acid trip. I will find and post a photo.

And my colleagues were really very well behaved. It was a moderately loud, moderately rowdy crowd - what you might expect from your average company party. Everyone stayed dressed, even.

The Gory Details

Actually, I'm sorry/pleased to report that the company holiday party was really quite tame this year - at least from our point of view.

I will provide more details, however - real or fabricated, in my next post.

Sorry about the tease, but this entry is already late and duty calls...

Decadence

Off to the company holiday party. I really like the company I work for; my coworkers are lively, interesting people. They work hard, and they play hard. Very hard. Company parties provide a history lesson. It's my annual reminder that there was a reason that Rome fell.

But I'm sure we'll manage to have a bit of quieter fun anyway. Will report back in more detail tomorrow, although I may have to hold back a bit, since some colleagues have this url and actually use it.

Step One: Present Flowers to the Principals

Just a quick note to qualify the daily post, and to say that S has completed the first step toward performing in the local Nutcracker - that of tiptoeing onstage at the curtain call, standing in first position and presenting flowers to a principal dancer, then tiptoeing off the stage.

In her case, she presented red roses to the dancer who played the Sugar Plum Fairy, who also happened to be S's "mentor" when the ballet school had a "mentor day" a few months ago.

Next year, she expects to graduate to performing, which represents a significant commitment of time and work, but would be worth it. There may well be a Gingerbread Boy costume with her name on it!

A sense of humor will save you

Ever have one of those moments - or days - when you or your loved ones are just on the brink of a horrific ugly meltdown, and someone says something funny that lightens up the whole situation and dispells the tension?

That happened several times today. One minute, I was sure there was going to be bloodshed, or at the very least raised voices and a scuffle - between R & S, or R and me, or S and me, or the rest of creation and me - and then, one tap-dancing comedic moment later, all was right with the world.

Thank God for the Intervention of Humor, is all I have to say.

Another day in the life

Work (with associated drama and juggling), home, lunch for S, a trip downtown to pick up a surprise Christmas present for R (a ceramic horse her sister painted for her), pick up R from school, to the library, to the gym, stop to get dinner on the way home, dinner, to the local university theater for a rehearsal for S for the Nutcracker (she's not dancing, but she's presenting flowers to the Sugar Plum Fairy at the curtain call), then back home for the bedtime routine, three phone calls re: coordinating Christmas, make cookie dough for a fund raiser tomorrow, and then, somehow, because I stupidly still have energy, watch a movie. While folding laundry.

Boor-ring. I know. But reality. And as such, I guess there's no harm in documenting it.

See what I mean?

You see what I mean about time being funny? How it contracts, hiccups, stretches? It's all relative. As they say.

Time is a funny thing

For example, it may feel like a WHOLE DAY has passed within which you did not blog, and yet, somehow, it HASN'T.

The quietest weekend in December

...at least, that's what I suspect this last weekend will be. The next 10 days, anyway, are looking to be mighty busy. I'm glad that I'm only plugging away at finishing my novel, now, and have a little breathing space within which to take on all the other challenges that present themselves daily.

You may note that I've added Michael's blog to my links. I think he's actually had mine listed on his page for a while, so the reciprocity is belated. (Thanks to Michael for the NaNo kudos and interest in actually reading the novel when it's ready for critiquing.) Check out the count-down on his home page, and the gorgeous photographic work he does. Makes me wish I could get married again just to have him photograph the event. Hmmm...maybe in ten more years, when D & I celebrate our 25th...?

I'm trying to get to bed before 10pm and I do actually want to work for a few more minutes on the novel, so that's all for now, folks.

The things that start with one loose rock

like avalanches,
or your husband taking apart the fireplace:
Howard Carter excavating the livingroom,
finding the dust and concrete trash
that the men who made this place stashed
there, forty-one years ago.

And you know he will put it all back together,
the rocks and bricks and mortar.
And he'll make it even better
with intake fan and register,
so the wood-burning stove will have lungs
to breath out its domestic fire.

But while the bricks and rocks lay
on the carpet, wait to be put back in place,
you think of the one loose rock
that led to this, and the loose rocks that have led
to avalanches, to falling cathedrals and towers,
to tumbling unstoppable ruin.

Look out, Terry

Something marvelous happened to me last week which, in the flurry of novel writing, I was unable to record, but have been thinking about ever since.

I was giving a quote for data recovery--something I do, as I've mentioned, several times at day, five days a week. And the potential customer on the phone was a man who has spent a couple of decades working in Television, whose cousin is an Executive Producer in Hollywood (of the Ellen DeGeneres Show, at the moment). I say this just to explain that he and his family are deeply involved in Show Business.

We'd had a good chat about the service my company offers, and about his situation. And even though he wasn't sure that the data he'd lost warranted the expense of professional recovery, toward the end of the conversation, he said something that stopped me dead.

He said, "You know, you remind me of that woman...she's on WHYY...um..."

"Terry Gross??!!!" I asked.

Ok. Maybe not "asked." I kind of yelled.

And he quickly backed off--afraid, it turns out, that he might have offended me somehow.

"Yes," he said timidly. "From Fresh Air..."

"Terry Gross??!!!" I asked again. "You think I sound like Terry Gross?!"

When I assured him that this was a good thing, a really good thing, the best thing that had happened to me all week, he clarified: "Not so much your voice, but just your style of speaking and asking questions."

He'd found me out.

I mean, I'm a Fresh Air fan. I listen to the show whenever I can catch it. My writer group friends and I dream about being on that show. And the funny thing is, about a week or two ago, I'd realized - on my own, very suddenly in the middle of a giving a quote - that I sounded an awful like the interviewer I so admire. Inadvertently, I'd started to question callers like she questions guests. But I'd figured my secret was safe with me.

And this man, in turn, was astounded that someone on the West Coast, at random, would have ever heard of Terry Gross. It's a small world. And a world in which, apparently, we can emulate our heroes. Even if we end up being transparent while we do it.

I just have to be a little careful. I don't want to find myself finishing all my data recovery phone quotes with, "Well, I want to thank you so much for talking with me today."

Paying off the sleep debt

So I did get myself to work yesterday, but only stayed an hour because it was pretty clear that four-hours of sleep a night that many nights in a row (with no prospect of sleep again until 7pm) had finally taken its toll.

I went home.
I slept nearly 6 hours straight. (Ah! how nice!)
And am still ready to sleep more.

But that's what weekends are for, right? zzzzzzz....

Thanks again to all for your fantastic support of my writerly pursuits.