The Season of Preparation

It's raining, but there have been recent days of spring-like warmth and sun, and that coupled with circumstance--new President, upcoming surgery, deadlines for High School--has pushed our household toward the work that comes with, and brings, hope.

We've eschewed the local public high schools for R. in favor of two private high schools, and the related applications, essays, paperwork and financial aid applications have taken time, as have interviews and visits and the SSAT test one of the schools required. We'll have to prepare our taxes within the next week to meet a deadline for "individualized tuition" for the schools, because we simply cannot afford either otherwise. Fortunately, we've been told both schools are helpful in this area.

We've also tackled various projects at home. One of these projects is the ever-popular “We’re going to clean our rooms!” game my daughters enjoy in which they pull everything out of closets or off shelves and put the gazillion resulting toys, socks, hair-bands, pens, scraps of paper, gum wrappers, beeswax sculptures, rollerblades, homework assignments, Legos, Barbie shoes, scissors, Polly Pockets and books in huge piles on the living-room or bedroom floors, thereby illustrating the dictum that is the sister to “it’s always calmest before a storm”: “it’s always messiest before a mess.”

But after several weeks of to-be-sorted piles in every corner, and a trip to the hospice thrift store with a carload of donations, things feel a bit cleaner. Costumes that had been put in the attic have been used for J's recent birthday party and then put up in the new garage storage area. Christmas things have been put away, finally, and also in new lighter boxes--rather than the historically interesting but very heavy WWII medical chest we've always used. D. has started, and finished, a new walkway in the front courtyard. Progress.

On an unrelated note, I’m seeing dogs everywhere I go. Lots of people walking dogs in the teasing sunshine, dogs in cars with tongues lolling and tails wagging, dogs in the laps of patrons sitting in coffee house patio. The girls and I have started asking about another dog, thinking about taking the plunge into being a dog-owning family again. The one year anniversary of Albion’s death is approaching, and as sometimes happens, I was aware of it subconsciously before I realized why I had suddenly started to think of him and miss him. But D. is nowhere near ready to open himself up to the potential heartache of loving another pet as much as he loved Alby, only to lose it to its shorter allotment of years. So we'll stick to the current more-than-sufficient menagerie of 2 big outdoor hutched rabbits, two noisy indoor caged parakeets, a spoiled rat who spends her afternoons on R's shoulder (or in her shirtsleeve, nose poked out), and the 400-gallon fish tank. The corey catfish have been laying eggs, and D. devised a way to save them from the two giant greedy koi (who are not pescavores but like eggs). And now we have a couple dozen of the tiny things in a nursery, getting bigger every day. Maybe Spring is not that far away after all.

New Year, New Post

Rather than the contrived and apologetic back-dating that would mean I had a fake entry to show for January 1st, I'm writing the second day into the month to wish one and all a Joyful, Healthy, Prosperous New Year.

This year I will write more poems.
I will spend less money.
I will take more time to be alone and contemplative because it feeds me.
This year I will donate a kidney to a friend. And recover. And celebrate his recovery.
I will laugh more and fret less.
I will be grateful for every gift, large and small, understood and mysterious.
This is a year of change, but all of it
good.


For those who did not receive a Holiday card from us (yet), here's a link to the picture we sent out this year. It's a change from tradition because D and I are actually pictured, and the girls look rather silly. I've been calling it "goofy but happy" and it's from our trip to Vancouver Island in June. This is from the ferry ride back to the mainland.

And by the way K & B and Tom, if you're reading this... I believe you have moved (not together, but separately) so here's a public appeal (although I know an email to each would have sufficed): I need addresses from you guys so I can send a card your way. Please and thank you.

Blessings and warmest wishes to all. Here's to 2009!!!







Wind-blown self-portraiture at its best.

Mary Oliver

I went and saw Mary Oliver read tonight. And. Well.

Wow. For more detail regarding my reaction, see the Practical Poet Blog.

Among other things, she read from a memoir she's written about Molly Malone Cook, with whom she lived for many years. She said that Cook taught her to observe the world differently. She read, "..attention without feeling, I began to learn, is only a report."



Note to Self: You got that?

Thanksgiving weekend, belatedly posted

Four days away from the usual routine is such a blessing.

Our Thanksgiving was simple. I cooked for an army even though it was just the four of us and D's mother. On the menu (as usual, from Bon Appétit for November 1994 unless otherwise noted):

Turkey with maple herb butter
Broccoli casserole (family recipe)
Bacon and buttermilk mashed potatoes (R. helped with this one)
Brown sugar-glazed sweet potatoes with spices, almond slivers and mini marshmallows
Popovers (another family recipe)
Cranberry sauce with raspberry vinegar
Glazed pearl onions with raisins and almonds
stuffing
pecan & pumpkin pie, vanilla bean ice cream

I've gotten full just writing about this meal!



Grandmère & the girls at the table.

Lightly touching down

About a month ago, I felt like there was a larger than usual number of issues hanging in the air above me all the time. They were a mix of serious and trivial Unknowns, and even though I knew that they would all be resolved eventually, it was stressful waiting for those resolutions. I'm a control freak, right? And these were all things I really couldn't control. I listed some to a co-worker at the time:

Where will R. going to be going to High School next year?
Who will be our next President?
Will I or won't I be donating a kidney in the next few months?
If not, will it be becuase I'm actually borderline or pre-diabetic?
When will I really be starting my new job at the office?
What will my new hours be, and how will they affect the 6-family school carpool?
How will S. be cast in the Nutcracker?
When will D. finish the under-construction awning in the back yard?
Is the rat's tumor operable?

Like I said, some of that is pretty trivial, but I'm still so grateful that most of these things have, in fact, resolved themselves in the best possible way.

The rat's tumor was removed for a reasonable charge and she's doing great. We probably extended her life by 6-12 months with the operation, and I can't say enough good things about the compassionate, reasonably-priced vet who did the job.

The Presidential issue worked out as I was hoping and praying it would, and we probably won't be moving to Canada in the near future. :)

S. will be playing a Mouse and an Angel in the Nutcracker - and she'll even have a 20-second solo as the angel who delivers Clara's crown to the Sugar Plum Fairy.

The awning was completed in record time, and it's absolutely beautiful, especially with the white LEDs adorning it. I'll have to put in a picture (writing with my Writers Group pals a cafe at the moment, so it'll have to wait...)

I have started in my new position in Customer Service at work, and my hours have shifted enough to allow me to sleep a little more every night but not so much that I had to change the carpool.

I am not pre-diabetic, and the kidney donation is still a go, pending a couple more tests. (See Nephronotes for more).

R. has visited a couple of High Schools and has 2 more to visit, but she's very excited about the local Waldorf school in particular, and it happens to be the place that I had felt would be her best fit, too.

Is that it? I think that's it.

All those heavy things hanging above my head, lightly touching down.


How many of the heavy burdens that we let fall from our shoulders become stumbling blocks, and how many are transformed into firm stepping stones that we use to move ahead?

Satire. Or not.

I'm so close to the target demographic for this, it's almost not funny. If you know what I mean. Eh.

Heaven help me

I've created a Facebook account.
I guess I've finally started to catch up with the social networking 21st century.
I don't even know how to direct you to my site or what becoming a friend entails, but I'm sure I'll get up to speed.

You know, in my copious free time.

In the meantime, my friends can become my friends in a whole new way.

Um. Wait.

That didn't sound right.

But you know what I mean.

One Month Later. Here's where I've been

So check out this new blog for a little update for you all:

www.nephro-notes.blogspot.com

If I've seen silent it's because life has been busy, with this added element that may come as a surprise to some of you.

It's all good, though, and I hope you'll be able to offer support as I travel down this new road.

The girls are doing great with their schooling and various activities, both blooming a little more every day, but sufficiently silly and geeky to assure me that they are, in fact, our children.

D's shoulder (he has a small tear in his cuff) is actually better, and the PT and Glucosamine may have made a difference.

Work is going well too. I've had a great time working more directly with the rest of the inbound sales staff. And although I miss being in the same room as the recovery engineers, and although I'm really looking forward to transitioning to Customer Service November 1st, I've learned a lot from the very professional, very hard-working bunch on the third floor.

I am in the middle of the annual weight-loss competition at work. Down to about as low as I've ever been as an adult, with a few more pounds to go. I get to the gym as often as possible, and write more and more. But mostly for the benefit of that other blog (SEE ABOVE).

I hope to spend November writing furiously, too. While the family prepares for Winter, and Nutcracker, and the holidays. They have Christmas decorations in all the stores, and I'm pretty sure it's for Christmas 2009, because it's too late for the 2008 marketing, the way the world works these days.

And let me also say this, even though not all my readers may feel the same way. (And if you don't agree, call me. We'll talk about it.) Go Obama!!!

ARRRR!

It be talk like a pirate day, mateys!

What I'd Rather

When I wake up, all sorts of doors open in my head, and the day's concerns and duties, things I must do or remember, stride in and all start talking at once, vying for attention. It's like a bad party scene where no one is listening to one another, and everyone has had just enough to drink to make them loud and selfish. I grit my teeth and marshal whatever order I can, and give myself a pep talk in the din.

But what I want is this: to wake to peaceful stillness, silent and rested, and walk alone out well-washed French doors into a morning just blooming into color out of the gray of dawn. I want to walk down a path through hills with the birds making their declarations of existence, and the sky high and open.

I want the particles of my body to be loosely held together by whatever joyful contract they originally made with one another, instead of being bound tightly in corporeal mass by the glue of stress and will.

Still here

Still alive.
And well, too.
Just not blogging these days.

But I thought I'd break radio silence with this tiny note.
A (re)start.

Confession

Forgive me reader, for I have committed the sin of hubris.

I thought I could write daily.

Well, I thought I could write daily and do a lot of other things daily too.

But every morning, I launch myself out of bed (after multiple bargaining sessions with the snooze alarm - my earliest waking moments are measured by 7-minute intervals), throw myself into the day, and am hurtled from one thing to another until I give up sometime around 10:30 (give or take) and surrender to the reality that I can't do it all.

And this in spite of my capacity to believe, over and over again, that if only I marshaled myself better, I could accomplish what I've set out to do.

Well, drat.

Today my goal is to be gentle with myself. I think my mother's somewhere telling me to slow down and take it easy. Yeah. Like I've ever listened to that advice.

Returning late

Another full day of conference, and then home just before midnight after an uneventful flight.

Before I left Phoenix, I had dinner with my half-sister M. and her family at a somewhat questionable restaurant near the airport. It was so good to see them and catch up, even if it was only for a short time. (Thanks for the visit and ride to the airport, M!)

It was, as it always is, so nice to come home.

Geekiness and Buffets

The last few days at the developer's conference have been a combination of lots of new information - I now know even more painfully how little I know and how many new, exciting things I *could* be doing, if I only I had the time to learn the steps better - and these thrice-daily buffets where I could, theoretically, eat plate after plate of food. I limit myself to one plate per meal, but I don't pass on dessert either.

Sunday 7/13/08

Immersed in FileMaker Developer Conference stuff all day, feeling a little flu-like in the evening. But nothing an early night in the nice JW Marriott Desert Ridge hotel room won't cure.

Kids home, Mom away

This morning I drove out west past pastures and redwoods and tiny towns to pick up S from her Presbyterian camp. She didn't seem any taller or dirtier than she'd been when I dropped her off, but after a few hours at the pool, this girl tans like nobody's business, and her skin was a consistent shade darker than I remembered (the consistency is how I knew it wasn't dirt). She had a good time, she said, but she was definitely saddened by the fact that I was going to be leaving almost as soon as we got home, and wouldn't be back for a few days.

D took me to the airporter on his way to pick up R and her friend from their designated Girl Scout Camp bus stop a couple of hours south. Apparently, S babbled the whole drive down. And the whole drive back.

I got to the airport hours before my flight was to leave, but I didn't mind. I've probably mentioned this before, but I love to hang out at airports and people watch. I think I like the idea of seeing a concrete representation of something that's true at a metaphysical level. We're all on journeys. We're going away. We're coming home. We're leaving old for new, or vice versa. And we're not alone.

Everyone seems to be represented - old, young, all races and religions and social classes. I know there are some who can't afford to fly, some who are afraid to fly, some who are too ill or otherwise unable to fly, and some who just plain have nowhere they want or need to go via plane.

But enough of us pass through airports at one point or another that it feels like I'm seeing a cross-section of the world. And each of us brings to the gate our own story of our own journey, like some kind of internal carry-on item that we couldn't check if we wanted to.

Date Night #2

I went to the gym this afternoon - after a nap in my car in the gym parking lot! - and then did a little more cleaning of the girls' rooms. And laundry. You would think that without the kids around I'd do something more exotic - like, I don't know, blast 80's music and drink a dessert wine in the afternoon. But cleaning without anyone else in the house is sheer bliss for me. What can I say?

We didn't make it out to a movie two nights ago, but last night, D & I went out & saw Get Smart, which was a bit of a treat for us primarily because we'd both grown up watching the show, and both like the actors. We're probably the target audience for the film. We also went out to dinner at D's new favorite burger restaurant afterwards. It was good food, but I'm really better off not eating so late.

D and I love spending time just talking. We have every reason to believe that we'll still be friends and still enjoy hanging out together after the nest is empty. Especially if we keep the conversation going between then and now.

Tonight, we went out for sushi. We sat at the bar and chatted with the sushi chef - something we never do with the kids - and just relaxed. Rented a couple of movies and watched one of them. Tomorrow I pick up S and then D picks up R while I'm off on a business trip. I'm still preparing to pack, which means doing all the laundry I can. It's bizarre, but familiar, behavior. I don't know when I'll move beyond the stage of recognizing it to the point of changing it. Hmmm.

Workaholic wannabee

It's apparently a good thing that I am forced to leave the office more or less "on time" every day to pick up kids, because apparently otherwise I'd habitually work 50 hour weeks.

There was a quarterly meeting for my current department today that kept me there until 2, and I didn't really leave until 2:30, but I didn't mind at all. So much of my life feels like I'm playing catch-up that putting in a little extra effort or time somewhere helps me feel closer to successful. As much as I enjoy the process more than the results in most of what I do, it's horrible to know that there is so much unfinished business. Especially hard for a Virgo. :)

At home, I got to work on house cleaning and cleaning the girls' rooms in particular. After all, I did warn them I'd be doing so, and I got their permission for me to get rid of things that they really truly don't use. I was surprised how quickly they agreed - especially R, as a teenager who is starting to guard her privacy - but I think they understand as well as I do that they have just too much stuff, and it gets in the way, makes it hard for them to find things, and probably clutters their inner life in some way as much as it trips them up in their outer life.

I didn't get far, and that's probably because of the weird ADHD way I have of cleaning. It's If You Give a Mouse a Cookie re-titled If You Give a Mom a Room to Clean. On my way to putting one thing away I'd see something else that needed to be done, which would take me to another room, and a third thing that could be moved, and a fourth task that was begging to be completed. It was pathetic. In the end I got more things done or half-done than not done, but nothing completed. Which makes me grateful that I have another day and a bit more before the kids are back and I leave for the next business trip.

Camper number two away

After work, and a frantic bout of labeling items with our 8-character last name and packing them up, I got S. to camp. We missed the official check-in time by "that much" but it only took a couple of minutes to do a "late-reg" check-in at the office. The camp is nestled in the redwoods, but even with that aromatic green shadiness, it was very hot when I dropped her off, and I anticipate three really hot days for her.

There was a little added excitement in the flurry of packing and leaving - S had a tooth come out (with her helpful yanking), and even though I encouraged her to leave it at home so the tooth fairy could pick it up under her pillow in her room, S decided to take it with her at the last possible second. This necessitated a quick dash into the house for a dollar coin and a fast scrub with brass polish to get the tarnish off - because the Tooth Fairy always leaves a shiny coin.

I left the campsite hoping the delivery instructions and the hidden coin would make it to the right counselor without S any the wiser, and I drove home a "free" woman with no one but myself and my husband to answer to. I love my kids. But I also love time to myself. This may be only the first of an increasing number of events that will mean both kids are away from the house, and maybe it's good preparation for the day when they're more gone than home. But I don't have to worry about being at loose ends or wondering what to do with myself when that day does come.

Check!

Checking off my list for the week:

Survive another day of temperatures over 100.

Swim at local public pool with S (more mommy-daughter time)

Read at poetry reading at bookstore 15 miles south of home as part of Traveling Poetry Show. (I always feel like a circus act when I hear that title.)

Delegate camp packing to S and D while at said reading.

Blog. How self-referential. Blogging about blogging about blogging. Reminds me of what you see if you angle a couple of mirrors just right - endless self. This is like digital narcissism, I guess.