What Day is it?

It was Monday, but it was a holiday, but I worked, but D didn't go to his friend's house, but we both spent the afternoon working hard around the house, but we had dinner together and then a lovely family walk around the block afterwards. It's late for me to be going to bed, but I've already been asleep for half an hour. I'm writing now, but I'm still asleep.

Dang.
Modern living is complicated.

Cleaning house at midnight

Up from bed to blog and do chores. The girls were tucked into the big bed later than usual, D is at his friend's house until the wee hours, and tomorrow I work 6-2 (hard to say "no" to that holiday pay). My mother-in-law is coming for a visit tomorrow, so I guess I should at least do the dishes. Maybe just that, though - for all I feel compelled to do more, based on a series of less-than-charitable comments she's made in the past about the state of our house.

I often think bitterly that she may have run a pristine house and prepared fine, multi-course meals for dinner every night, but she did not work outside of the home, and her children never were allowed to be carefree, messy children - even once, from what I can tell. There's more, but that would be more of me being less-than-charitable, myself.

I still haven't sold the Escape, but I'm trying to be patient and hold out for whatever I can make selling to a private party rather than losing more selling it back to a dealership.

I did have an offer from someone in Las Vegas to take over my payments (which I'm sure would have continued from "I'd like to help take over your payments" to something like, "Please tell me your bank account number, debit card number and PIN, and I can help. And by the way, my uncle in Nigeria needs the account information, too.") And someone named Guido (I am not kidding) with an Italian hotmail account also is interested in the car, and would I please email him to make a date. Sorry, Guido. You'll need to give me more than a form email for me to believe you are a valid customer.

The good news: meeting the writer's group today, writing a little, and walking away knowing I'll write more. I have a self-imposed deadline of Tuesday to send out new poems to *somewhere* for publication.

A good sign

Tonight we went to the house of S's former preschool teacher for a birthday dinner. Other parents of former students were there, and some of the teacher's friends were there too. It was a pot luck. I got a babysitter last minute.

And I did not feel stressed about preparing the steak and catfish I made, or the fact that we arrived late, or the whole concept of a party. This is so unusual for me, it's worth noting. I mean, typically, I am in tears or near it while on my way to a party. I understand why that is, now, I think. But I never reached an "I can't do this" point with tonight's social occasion. And we had a very pleasant evening.

If I can keep this sort of perspective up, I think it'll help prevent me from dying of stress-related illness or disease before my time.

Another entry just under the wire

My husband understands my commitment to daily blogging so well, he woke me up from my "nap" on the couch to make sure I wrote before midnight. What a guy.

Last Wednesday marked the twenty-second anniversary of our first "date." We'd met only a few weeks (was it days?) before at a party, and he'd invited me to join him and a Small Rebel Force - uh, I mean, group of High School friends - for the opening of Return of the Jedi. He'd shown up at my house (in this movie-trip carpool) with a gift for me - a black t-shirt with the original Star Wars logo silkscreened in white on it. He had a matching shirt. He'd made them both himself. Oh. My. Goodness. We were such geeks.

For ten years after we met, we went to Science Fiction conventions at least once a year. The "con" we were guaranteed to attend was BayCon, which takes place every Memorial Day Weekend at the Red Lion Inn in San Jose. To this day, I have residual panic attacks around Memorial Day weekend because I feel like I'm missing something, like I'm really late in packing my suitcase full of costumes and science fiction paperbacks and Pop Tarts and Cokes. It's all so very sordid.

But hey! Time (and children) changes everything. I haven't even seen the new movie yet, and I don't know when I'll see it. I don't really have enough fabric to make any costumes in honor of any characters. I just wrote a long piece about what I miss and what I don't miss about cons, but I don't even feel strongly enough about that to include it in this blog post. And just because D. has already memorized the soundtrack to Revenge of the Sith doesn't mean he'll be pulling out the styrene to hand-craft a half-dollar sized Millennium Falcon. Again. Any time soon.


Happy Anniversary, hon.

In the moment

I've been trying to listen to my very busy mind this evening. It never shuts up. And there's a background anxiety about "ALL THE THINGS I HAVE TO DO" which explains why I feel compelled to fall asleep at 8pm instead of doing "ALL THE THINGS I HAVE TO DO."

Hmm. What is this "have to?" At first, I wrote here "Half of those things I don't really have to do, and most of them (all of them?) I have put upon myself. So silly."

But really, nearly all of those things I don't have to do, and all of them, I have either put on myself or allowed upon myself.

So I am trying to focus on just what is immediately in front of me, the task at hand, whatever it is. For some people - some of you reading these words, probably - this is old hat. Me, I still don't have it down.

But then do I add to my List of things I have to do "Let go of the things you have to do."? You see what I mean. My mind just goes blahblahblahblah all the livelong day.

I am letting go of anything but the task at hand as best I can until it is time to pick up the next thing. I am Martha trying to become Mary. But still, "try" is the wrong verb.

"But the Lord answered and said to her, 'Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.'"
(Luke 10:41-42, New American Standard version.)

What is the one needful thing? Everything, I think. Or Nothing. Or, really, just Now.

Draft

A draft of a poem I first made notes for in February. I'm not sure of the advantage of posting something that is probably not the finished item, but hey - it gives me something to put here besides "had tea with the Smiths" or a link to someone else's creative output. For what it's worth. And here's my KQED-type disclaimer: the views expressed by the speaker are not necessarily those of the writer.




Valentine’s Day

The first step is simple: you fold paper lengthwise.
Next, cut tedious half-hearts, ear-shaped along the edge.
Apply glue liberally. It may seep out from under
the layers of pink on white on red, or red on pink on white.
That’s alright. For easy distribution,
write no names on your valentines.

As though we could parcel out our love in equal measure,
by simple hand-delivery of the sloppy product
of an afternoon at the kitchen table.
As though you would not secretly pick
the prettiest one for the girl you love the most,
the messy one for the boy you barely knew,
the heart that turned out worst
for the child who mattered least,
at least to you.

This is the advantage to store-bought cards: they are equal
in their cookie cutter pop culture colored presentation,
indiscriminate in their insincerity. They are all the same
in ways that we are not
and could never be.

Remind me

Ironically, so much happened today, I'm not recording it. Instead, one of my favorites by Billy Collins:


Forgetfulness

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never
even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a
bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

--Billy Collins

www.bigsnap.com

S tries Jedi mind tricks

At the school rummage sale, there were four somewhat muddy, somewhat rusty bicycles going cheap. The bike we currently have for S. is really too small for her; she needs a taller one, even though she still uses training wheels.

So anyway, I was considering these almost-free bikes and called her over to look at them. They were all boys bikes, and two were probably no bigger than her bicycle, so there was not much point in considering those, but of course it was one of the smaller models that interested her most.

We had a brief chat about the pros and cons of the bikes in general, and I went back to staffing the money box, thinking that I shouldn't have shown her the choices and we were better off with something newer anyway.

About fifteen minutes later, a woman came to the front table and asked those of us working behind it, "Is it true that the bikes aren't for sale?"

"Oh no, they're for sale," the hostess assured her.

"Well, I just thought I'd ask you because someone said they're not for sale."

"Who told you that?"

"One of the girls here," the woman answered.

Call it mother's intuition. I saw S. playing with a large bird cage in the corner of the lawn. "Was it that little girl over there?" I asked, pointing to her.

"Yes, that's the one" the woman said.

Right.

(Imagine Obi Wan saying: "You don't need to see those bikes. Those bikes aren't for sale.")

I laughed. "Don't believe her!" I said. "She just said that because she wanted to get one of them. They're really for sale."

Ha ha. I laughed again. We all laughed. Those crazy kids.

It was less humorous a minute later when the woman's young son wheeled his purchase down the hill. S. happened to be looking up from playing at the moment that the boy walked by. Her head turned slowly to the left as she watched him go out the gate with his father to the parked cars. Then she frowned a little, and her head turned slowly all the way to the right as she leaned forward to peer past the battered tables and broken desks to the top of the hill and the pile of bikes for sale.

Her head whipped back toward the boy again, and you could practically hear a "click."

Her face changed: her eyes narrowed, her mouth tightened into an angry frown. She glared across the lawn at me. I had just taken the woman's money for the purchase, and S. knew it. The look she shot me would have slain me on the spot if it weren't for the fact that her Jedi Powers haven't yet reached their full awesome potential.

The other parents staffing the sale table saw the look too. They gave a collective sharp intake of breath.

"Maybe I'd better go talk to her," I said.

"Maybe you'd better," they all quickly agreed.

So I approached S., who appeared to be above speaking to the likes of me. After all, I was the person who had foiled her anti-sales tactics and allowed the bike she wanted to get away.

"We could think about getting you a new pink and purple bike," I started.

"I don't want a new pink and purple bike," she said, indignant.

"Well, uh..." I floundered.

Fortunately, she helped me out.

"What I want is a new Spiderman bike."

"Oh," I heard myself say. "We can get you a new Spiderman bike."

I also think I said something like, "We don't need to see his identification," and "These aren't the droids we're looking for."

Doomed, I tell you.
My husband and I, and anyone who ever dates my daughter.
Doomed.

Post rummage sale, pre-migraine

Must sleep now before head explodes. As Homer Simpson might say, "Stoopid headache!"

The school rummage sale was huge, and it was a success - but I wouldn't call it a huge success.

I spent hours and hours schlepping stuff around afterwards in the cleanup effort. Even with today's half off everything and then final hour of "a dollar a bag," we ended up with 3 truckloads and two vanloads full of stuff. And then some. About a dozen boxes of clothes and boxes of kitchenware, toys, stuffed animals, the usual one lonely Nordic track.

Assuming my head does not explode, tomorrow I will tell the story of daughter number two's efforts to control the sale's inventory.

A silly link

Just this today. Very silly, but fun.

Enjoy!

Marathon Day

Well, alrighty. The banana nut loaves have just been put in the oven. That sounds like a cryptic top-secret code phrase, doesn't it? I mean, especially this late at night, when one has been up for about, give or take, three years.

"The banana nut breads loaves are in the oven."
"Roger that. We have confirmation of a Bake Sale at oh-seven-hundred, sir."
"Over. I want a positive read on the Kids Sleeping before we commence with Blog exercise."
"Affirmative, sir."

*Sigh*. I don't write that kind of thing as well as Kate Bachus, but this late at night, my judgment is screwy enough that I try, anyway.


Before the baking of the loaves, there was the trip to the grocery store at 10:30pm for vanilla extract. And let me just say that if we all thought gasoline prices were bad, we should take a look at how truly impoverished we would be if our tanks required vanilla extract to run. Even the cashier did a sharp intake of breath when she rang up the bottle. Very nice.

Before the vanilla extract trip, there was the performance of Coppelia that S's dance school put on. I think she's about 10 years from being able to dance in a show like that. See this link for the story, if you'd like. It's a little twisted, but they did an innocent-enough production.

Before the dance show was gymnastics, before/during that, two trips to the Rummage Sale site to help set up, a quick trip home, a trip to Hospice to drop of a check from the Human Race, picking up the girls from school and a playdate, and a full and busy day at work. For the first time I can remember in a long time, I had no real "meal" at all today - just snacks grabbed here and there, mostly junky stuff.

I am not complaining. I am recording. I'd like to just write: "had a busy day," but if I ever look back and read this blog entry years from now, I'll be thinking, "What? Busy doing what? Where are the details? Where is the reflection and writerly focus? What really happened? Was there vanilla extract involved?"

Thus I am forced to expand the basic "busy day" plot.

Did I forget to Post today?

I sometimes think I will just plum forget to write here some day this year, but after the .34 seconds of panic wears off, I realize that it isn't likely. It's more likely that I'll write two sleepy posts in a fog of bloggines than that my brain would allow me to reach midnight without having done this at all.

Here's what I'm not writing about tonight
Star Wars
Three people I know who have birthdays today
The genocide in Rwanda

As has happened so often before, I'm literally falling asleep at the keyboard and couldn't even do the first of these topics justice right now.

Note to self:
blog early and blog often, and actually write something, for goodness' sake.

Mixed bag

What a day. There were small upheavals and long meetings at work, and the afternoon plans were set aside for a last-minute playdate at our house. I baked a pumpkin pie for the school's Farmer's Market and for probably the first time in my life, did not burn the crust. It's after 10 and now a loaf of banana bread is baking - also for the market.

After the girls and I had dinner, I took them with me to give blood (mine). Finally my levels were high enough for me to donate. R read a book on the Blood Bank's big van, and S told the folks that she wanted to be a nurse when she grows up, and she watched the whole process with real interest and not the slightest bit of squeamishness. Afterwards, one of the phlebotomists gave her gloves and a small bit of bandage for her to practice being a nurse with her stuffed animals. She now has a makeshift clinic in her bedroom. When I tucked her into bed, she said, "Mommy, be very careful of the Tiger. He has Lobo Fever, and that's very dangerous to humans." I assured her I'd be extra careful.

It looks like there are some changes coming at work, and I just gave blood, and in 3 weeks I'm going to a poetry workshop. The last thing I need now is to come down with Lobo Fever - especially if this is a 5 year old nurse's casual way of referring to Lobo Disease.

Here's the scoop on Lobo Disease, from webmd.com. The medical name for the disease is Paracoccidioidomycosis. Say that three times fast.

"Paracoccidioidomycosis (PCM) is a chronic infectious tropical disease caused by the fungus Paracoccidioides brasiliensis. The initial infection usually occurs in the lungs, but may also spread to the skin, mucous membranes, and other parts of the body. Specialized cells that line the walls of blood and lymphatic vessels and dispose of cellular waste (reticuloendothelial system) may also be affected by Paracoccidioidomycosis. If left untreated, life-threatening complications can occur. Most cases of this disease occur in South and Central America."

Yep. Not on my list of "Diseases I'd Like To Have."

It is, admittedly, a pretty short list anyway.

But still.

Educating the Federal Judge

So the story goes like this; when R. was about 6 1/2 months old, and I was back at work (but pumping milk 3 times a day at work so she would have that in her bottle), I was summoned for Jury Duty at the Federal Court in San Francisco.

It was for a racial discrimination suit that had been brought against the utility giant PG & E. I didn't try to get out of serving. However, just as I was realizing that I had pretty much been selected for the jury, I asked to have a word with the Clerk of the Court. The Clerk was a smartly dressed petite woman who obviously knew her stuff and had the respect of everyone in the room, including the judge (who was imposing in his own right). I mentioned to the clerk that I did have this, uh, situation, where I was expressing milk for my baby. And I asked how often breaks might happen, and whether there was a fridge where I could store the, uh, expressed milk.

So she went back to this U.S. District Court Judge and spoke to him at great length in hushed tones. There were whispers back and forth, and then the judge called the attorneys to him, and he requested that I join this little sidebar party they were having.

Please note that I was not feeling heroic at this moment. I was in a grand old courtroom with rows of prospective jurors staring at me, and the judge and lawyers and clerk in a serious legal-person huddle around me. I was feeling decidedly embarrassed. But here's what happened. The judge, a black gentleman who was probably closer to 70 than 60, asked that I explain to him just what my concerns were. So I did. It took some time, because he had never (I am not making this up) heard of such a thing as pumping breastmilk and saving it to give to the baby later. It was, apparently, outside of his realm of experience.

Once he did understand, however, he decided that there was no reason I couldn't serve on the jury. He said he would just make sure we had frequent enough (and long enough) breaks for me to do what I needed to do.

And that's how it played out. On any given day, after an hour or two of testimony, His Honor would say something like, "And I believe we will adjourn...?" with a careful look in my direction. My job would be to slyly signal with a raised eyebrow or slight nod or shake my head (depending on how I was holding up) and he would then finish his sentence with either, "...now for a half hour" or, "..in an hour and a half," etc.

I had educated a Federal Judge regarding the realities of being a working woman in today's world who is, at the same time, trying to do right by her baby. In retrospect, I was pretty proud of myself, and that took a little of the edge off of the embarrassment.

The trial lasted more than two weeks. I think we would have ruled in favor of the corporation (the man's case was weak, and every witness for him damned him further), but then, at the beginning of the third week, the corporation settled.

Add to the length of this jury service the distance (40 miles from my home), and the fact that the trial - at the SF Federal Building - started the day before the Oklahoma City bombing. You can imagine the shift in security from the first day to the second.

It was a tense time for all sorts of reasons. But I survived it, and I feel like I personally paved the way in that particular judge's court for any other breastfeeding moms silly enough to report for service instead of opting out as I'm sure (now) I could have done. Live and learn.

Or not

Okay, so the court story will have to wait. I don't mean to be a liar. But I saved blogging until so late in the day that I just don't have it in me to record a story here, or even talk about today's jury duty selection process.

I will record that I wasn't selected, and given the type of trial and expected length of the trial, that's okay with me. In general, though, I never try to get out of serving, and I wouldn't have tried to get out of serving today if it had come down to that. Most of us are asked to do nothing more than pay taxes as citizens of this country; the government requires so little of us, I feel it's important to do this much, and vote, and pay those taxes. I have that much trust in the systems that we have in place. They're not perfect, but they're better than most alternatives.

Although I will also say that I know plenty of people who feel they're sacrificing enough just sticking it out and staying in the U.S. while an administration they find either incompetent or sinister (or both) makes decisions they find abhorrent. And I understand that point of view, too.

2 hours of writing

So I had, theoretically, 2 hours of writing time today at the cafe downtown with Suzanne. And we did actually write, after the usual catch-up time and then me also running all sorts of current worries and inanities in my life by Suzanne, who always has a sympathetic ear and words of wisdom. We did miss the other third of our writer's group, Julia. Next time, Super Mama!

I worked on a poem, and I wrote about my writing, which strikes me as incestuous, somehow. But it did help, and I could have spent even more time writing, so those are good things.

Tomorrow, I report for Jury Duty - always an interesting experience. At least this time, unlike last time I was on a jury, I don't have a baby at home.

I will write the story of how I educated a Federal Court Judge about expressing milk tomorrow. You have been warned.

A little pigment, a whole new world

Our livingroom is in the process of being transformed. It was all so easy! I suggested we needed new paint. D agreed. I went to OSH early this morning and brought home a couple of quarts to try out. Neither color was right (in fact, one was very not right), but after I'd run around handling the Food for Families delivery and transportation for ballet class and riding lessons, all four of us went together to the hardware store & D & I picked the colors that would be right.

And voila!

With D doing 98% of the work (because my "liquid impaired" problem applies to paint too), the room has suddenly gone from drab and dirty off-off-white to a rich "roasted asparagus" rolled over "tea green" on one wall and vellum on another, with a nice pale neutral color replacing the sickly salmon that had been on the beams in the room.

Actually, "we" have a lot more to do with the velum and beams, but the green is done. It looks better than it sounds, and the gold-framed prints we'd had on the wall are great against the deeper color.

I am so grateful to have a husband who is willing and able to do this. And I'm glad I'm strong-willed (let's not say "stubborn") and comfortable enough here to insist that we make the change.

I lived in 11 houses the first 15 years of my life, and then in another 3 rental apartments before I was 20. This could have taught me to adapt quickly, to develop the skill of making a place my own in no time at all. I know someone who unpacks her suitcase to put clothes in the drawers in a hotel room even if staying there only one night. She learned from a life of travel that impermanence doesn't mean one can't be civilized.

But instead of teaching me to set up camp under even the worst circumstances, moving so much had the more predictable effect of causing me to avoid investing much emotion or self into the room or building around me. Why bother? Why concentrate on making a place perfect when whatever one did was going to last such a brief period of time? Or when, as a renter, I didn't have permission to paint the walls or nail holes in them for pictures anyway?

It has taken living here for nearly 3 times longer than I've lived in any other single home for me to start to feel safely settled in. But, as I'm discovering about so many things, better late than never.

One Thing Leads to Another

You know how these home improvement projects work. A few years ago, our guest bathroom was gutted from joist to roof (literally) and entirely remodeled because D's mom had given us the gift of a low-flow toilet.

And now that we have moved the old fish tank away from the livingroom wall in preparation for putting the new fish tank in its place, it seems that this is the opportunity we've been waiting for to repaint. Yup. You can only hold yourself back from brightening things up for so long, and apparently, 11 and a half-years is our personal limit.

So last night, even though I said I was going to bed, D. and I ended up staring at the empty corner where the old tank had been, and we realized the Golden Opportunity to turn an already complex and time-consuming project into a Neverending Project From Hell was stretched out before us like a box of upturned carpet tacks at a barefoot belly-dancing party.

And because we are such careful, plan-ahead Virgo types, we figured it would be a good idea to just sort of dash up to Home Depot tonight, after work and gymnastics and dinner, to grab a few gallons of a yet-to-be-decided-upon color and dang-it-all, start that project NOW so that we could finish it tomorrow and have it dry enough Sunday to move the new tank into the room.

The new tank, still in our garage, has 410 gallons of water in it. It has passed the pressure test. Tomorrow, we drain the thing into the neighbor's pool, a plan that was okay'd by the wife five minutes after being nixed by the husband. The upside is that the water doesn't go to waste. The downside is that the husband may end up blaming us for creating friction in any otherwise apparently functional marriage. We are such homewreckers.

Of course, there are minor glitches in every plan. For example, it wasn't until we were all walking out the door to go to Home Depot that we realized that it was 8:40 and the place closes at 9:00 on a Friday and it takes 30 minutes to get there. Math may not be my forte, but even I could see this was problematic.

And, yeah, D still has to make his custom dolly to move the 400 pounds (when empty) tank, and we need to mud part of the wall that was flaky. That kind of thing.

I assure you that it's only the wall that's flaky, not us. Oh, no. We're on it. We're sharp as the proverbial carpet tack.



Here are the fishies that started it all. The Coke can is for size comparison only but the perspective doesn't do the critters justice in spite of that: Lao Tsu, the big fish, is 17" long.

Shutting down, sir

S took a nap on the middle of the floor in the middle of a noisy livingroom today, at the house where she and R spend their Thursdays from 12:30-3:30. I was only half-joking when I asked the hostess, a great woman whom I admire very much & whose son is in R's class, if I could lie down next to sleeping S and take a nap myself.

You know, therapy is great, but it takes a lot out of you. I went to bed at 7:30 and am only up to fulfill this commitment. The rest, like the dishes and the mountain of clean laundry and spending time talking to D about his day and my day, reading that good book, watching that good film - all of that can wait.

I'm giving myself permission to check out and sleep a little extra tonight.
Not sick, just tired and withdrawn, and ok with that.

How are you?

Nothing to say

Nope. Nothing at all. Or, well, not really anything. Pretty much nil with just little suggestions of maybe a bit of a possibility of something that may (or may not) materialize.

Hmmmm.

Still not a lot to add to the above.
Except...

No. Not even that, I guess.




Last night I was pondering why I don't write more and I came up with the very certain (and possibly completely fabricated) realization that it's because I'm afraid I'd end up not sleeping, ignoring my family, & resenting my paying job and any other similarly trivial distractions. And those feelings would be in direct conflict with my equally strong obligation to order, structure, and the lifestyle to which my family and I have become accustomed (ie., one with a roof over our heads).

Shoot. You can see my dilemma, right?

I reckon the next step is to find a creative solution. Like, for example, I could stop thinking in such extreme terms, maybe. I mean, what's to say I can't set up 1 hour writing time 2 nights during the week and another 2 hour chunk guaranteed on Sundays? And what's to say I can't start to wean myself off of the artificial should-do's a bit more?

It apparently is a slow process. I've had this conversation in my head, with friends, and on the internet before now. Kinda like Groundhog Day, huh, D?