My Name is Mommy

Ordinary.

Nothing terribly spectacular today.  Quite an ordinary day.  Vi appears to be coming down with what I had.  Dean came home on the early side and we did our little dance in the kitchen, talking and cooking stir-fry.  I teased him enough as we chopped and measured that he grabbed me around the waist and pulled me protesting and laughing down the hall.  It has been a while since we have locked our bedroom door at 6pm in the middle of dinner preparations.  And of course, spontaneous always makes things better...Vi and Ave were tired since their schedules have been off but both were thrilled with stir-fry.

But a bit of a difficult day from the perspective of being a mommy.  Spoke with the kind folks at UCSF and the doctor there, upon reviewing Ave's bubble echo, wants to try and repair the defect in her heart.  I know this is a routine thing.  I know that we are at one of the best places to have this done.  I know our doctor in Oregon made sure that the top guy is handling Ave's case.  Usually, I am a woman of action- I want to fix things, I want to DO something, I need a plan... but this is different.  This has risks, one of which is so ugly I dare not even think it or utter it for fear of attracting the eyes of the evil gods.

I don't know why the latent risks of doing nothing seem so attractive, but there it is.  The woman of action drawn to dragging her feet.  Or maybe I am wanting to bury my head in the sand.

At least Ave's broken heart will be mended, eh?  How many of us can say that?

All I know is that this is one thing to which I will not be able to bear a bad outcome.

Inflation.

I went grocery shopping and the total came out to $250.  That never happens.  Usually, we're in for under $100... and real stock-up is like $125.  Granted, we buy most of our meat at Costco and all my expensive italian cheese there, too.  So we're talking milk, cereal, tons of fresh produce: grapes, oranges, apples, potatoes, carrots, onions, bananas, peas, broccoli, tomatoes, parsley, lettuce, spinach, tofu and odwalla grafefruit juce(ok, that's a bank buster) and eggplant(2 for a $1!!)... bought about $20 of meat- sausage for pastitisio.  Stocked up on some canned fruit but shopped the sale stuff- we like cottage cheese and peaches or fruit cocktail, bought legumes(yes, the kind you soak, egads!!).   Cereal is expensive.  I'm excited now to have a fully stocked kitchen and will be cookin up   a storm- pastitsio, some kind of vegetable soup, waldorf salad, stuffed chicken breast with a cous-cous salad on the side.  Think this weekend we'll throw some fat filet migon on the Weber and do it up good.

My birthday is Friday. I am old.  Sad.

We are moving the horses back to Rocking S Ranch  which has trail access.  I am very excited to take Foxy and Apollo out on a trail ride on my own right out of the place.  It should be fantastic.

Horrifically boring post, I know. 

OH!  Since it is my birthday, I have been getting presents- a marc jacobs Daisy(my favorite perfume) train case with perfume, a solid perfume daisy ring and shimmering body lotion.  Also got a fantastic ruched summer dress with a ruffled bottom from Norstrom's anniversary sale.  Also, a cute pair of Boutique sandals for $20! Woo!   Do love the whole bargain shopping thing, you know.

okay.  I'm done.

Mwah to everyone.  Have a fabulous week, loving this weather!

It was not a dark and stormy night.

The weekend was slow.  Sadly, not much got done.  I was feeling better but still am not 100%.

Saturday, Ave had a playdate  for much of the day and so Dean, Vi and I went and hung out with the horses. I know, horses... horses... horses...

Vi had a friend spend the night on Saturday night.  Dean and I spent alot of time just talking and hanging out over the weekend, which was nice.  And then, of course we went to see the horses again yesterday.  Tova, Vi's friend, came with and rode Shadow.

This is Vi trying to lead her friend around on Shadow.  It was a bit of a shady operation.  Tova spent quite a bit of time at the pasture gate.  Shadow was like, "Uh, let me outta here."

Cracker decided that Dean had something yummy in the wheelbarrow that we use for mucking.  Uh. Ew.

But for some reason he seemed convinced there were treats in there or something. 

Cracker is a young 'un- maybe two-ish and he's not spent too much time out at pasture so when he sees people come out there he's like, "Hey! Take me back in with you! I don't belong out here!"  I guess he thinks he's a people and not a horse or something.

One of the big change-ups was that since Tova was on Shadow, Vi actually threw the bareback pad on Apollo and rode him.

It was funny because he was actually really good with her but she reminded me no end of the time when she was "a little girl" and she fell off of him.  Finally, I think the girl is starting to understand that horses are big and it might hurt to fall down off them.

I love this picture because Apollo's ears look so perky and there is no doubt how cheerful Vi looks.  Apollo has that "I have no idea what is going on here" look about him- but at least it isn't the "I'm going to take off bucking" look.

I saddled up Power for Dean to take a spin and he seemed to enjoy riding him about. Power doesn't look terribly excited, does he? 

All our horsey friends got cookies and settled in for the night and all the kids fell mostly asleep on the way home.

Dean and I ended up sitting at the counter talking until after 2am.  Lots of difficult but good conversations and we are checking in alot this morning.  Sometimes he does understand that I can't be scheduled out two or three days to talk about something.  It is one of the drawbacks of being me, I need to deal with things as they arise.

Of course, this made it so Dean couldn't do work last night that he wanted/needed to do and so he left early this morning and I got the kids off to their appropriate places.

I'm feeling the itch to write.  I think a book may be coming on.  I don't know, it has been a long time since I devoted any amount of time to writing beyond the blog and my various classes.  I'm not even sure I know where to start.  I guess I need a good idea.

Down.

If I've been quiet it is because absolutely nothing has been going on this week.  I'm sick. 

Spent most of the past two days in bed, sleeping twelve hour stretches.  Nothing exciting or new to report except Ave has kept me entertained by singing Vacation by the Go Gos.  Vi has been giving me the royal treatment, making my bed, rubbing my back.  Kendyl has been a lifesaver, taking the girls in the time between day camp/preschool and when Dean gets home and feeding them.  Dean has been spectacular- keeping me company, telling me stories and hanging out with me, talking on the phone with me from work, even though I am the worst-most-miserable sick person ever.  It sucks being sick.  I've missed several days now of swimming, bike riding and horses.  Wah.

Don't look back. This is your life.

It was a horsey weekend.  Friday afternoon, I was highly motivated to get out to the ranch and get in some good quality time with Vi.  Okay, so she's been milking the story from the other day and been hounding Ave to death about the fact SHE has a cell phone and Ave doesn't... but did knock off a bit early on Friday, pick Vi up and just the two of us headed ranchward.  We had a great time taking care of the horses and Vi rode her boy, Shadow, around bareback in a halter.  She's getting good, that girl is.

Mr. Apollo is scrawny but I gave him the super-wormer.  I think that will help.  I think the pasture is really low and he needs to come in and get fed more but he's never been a particularly easy keeper.  His shoulder healed up nicely.  He'll have a scar but that's okay.  Scars remind us of where we've been.  I'm proud that Liz and I brought him through okay with our diligent veterinary skills.  We kinda rock like that.  No one can squeeze pus out of a wound like we can, ha!

I let Dean pick Ave up and then we met up at the Little Gym where we dropped the two of them off for the evening.  Dean and I spent the time talking.  It was not mushy, happy talking time, either-- but it was good and we came out the other side with alot more clarity as to where we both stand in this marriage.  Friday was a tough night, but then Saturday came around and things were looking better. 

And we did even more talking today and I think thigs are coming back around again.  I am starting to realize just how much deciding that you want something gets you closer to making it so.  There are some aspects of our relationship that will just never be easy but god, how great was it to be out at the ranch all afternoon on Saturday as a family.  So, sometimes you think certain things are so important but then you realize what you really value so much outweighs the other...

Saturday was a little bit lazy as we woke to bad weather and I had come down with some sore throat/congestion thing that was rather unpleasant.  But as the day wore on, I got itching to get out and see our boys and girl.  We got all our work done and then Vi rode. I gave her a leg up onto Shadow and then she said, "Mom! I forgot my helmet!"  Right on, she's a safety girl.

Ave got to ride when Vi was done and Dean even hopped up bareback and took a turn about.  I want to get him up and riding Foxy.  He could probably handle Apollo nowadays- Apollo is Mr. Chill now- but Foxy is his baby and I would love to see him on her regularly.

The girls have been watching Star Wars movies this weekend, so when we finally got home from the ranch last night after dark, they got to finish up one of those movies.  I can't believe my girls are into Star Wars.  It's kinda bizarre but Dean got them going on it and if it is something they can share, right on, more power to them.

I got up relatively early and left threatening messages on Liz's voicemail that she was going riding at the beach today, like it or not.  I can get mean so she was sufficiently scared enough to head down here and we were off for another beach riding adventure.  It was FANTASTIC.  The iPhone camera doesn't do well on the move.  Liz and I were last minute hangers on for the ride so Shawn brought us Gracie(for Liz) and Riva(for me) to ride.

Love Riva, she rides alot like Apollo.  I forget that not every horse likes or does well on contact and Liz was like "loosen up your reins!" and as soon as I did she stopped thinking we were going to take off racing and we got along much better.  I could never ride Apollo on the buckle like that at the beach, we'd be long gone, galloping off into the sunset.

Liz and I tried to take pics with our ponies, reminders of yet another ride under our belts...  This first attempt caught Liz expressing her disregard for the camera.

Now this is more like it.  Liz and her race horse, Gracie.  At the beach.  Now don't try to tell me that Lizzie wouldn't make a fine, fine game show hostess.  It was funny today because the ocean air was making Liz's hair curl up into these little Shirley-Temple-Ringlets around her face, she's so cute.  I love you, girl.

And of course, Riva and I had to get in on the action.  I was far more enthused than Riva was.  Here I am coaching her on how to smile for the camera and she's like, come ON already!

But we had a moment, there was some love there.  She remembered who let her race, full out down the beach and kick all the other horse's asses.  That was pretty fantastic.  Our first run, I held her back to stay next to Miram who was on Abbie and is not terribly secure with top speed just yet- so I held Riva to a nice canter and hung with Miram.  For our second run, I let her out, slowly at first but then we hit top speed and she overtook all the horses in front.  I imagine she thought we were headed for the winner's circle after.  She was so smooth out there, though, once I let her all the way out.

And of course, Liz goes crazee with the iPhone camera... wooo!

And finally, our obligatory self-portrait- two horse chicks and another satisfying Sunday ride. 

We had a long(hate that traffic) drive home, but as always we cracked open the chick talk and solved all the problems of the universe.  We decided that you can't get everything from one person and it is ridiculous and unfulfilling to expect to.  We decided girlfriends rock because they know what you need, that men are way simple and we're not sure why we try to make it so complicated, and we had a good, long last laugh because some people think they are sooo smart, but turns out they aren't. Hee hee. 

Liz gave me a little reality check on my whole marital situation and we decided that if our situations change we're going to move in together- not that my door isn't always open as it is right now to Liz or any other friend that needed a place.  It's good to have friends and it is good to have choices and it is good to realize you have so much more than you thought you did.  Just when I was starting to feel a little desperate, I am reminded of how rich I am in love, in friends, in support and simply in the ability to appreciate what I have right now in this moment.  It is an amazing thing really.  And girl, I wouldn't trade you for all the guys in the world.  Needed that Sunday ride and needed to spend some time with you- thanks for a great day.

A little mixup.

You know how someone makes a bad mistake and you're a little sympathetic, maybe even empathetic, but sure as hell glad YOU didn't make that mistake?

Sympathy and empathy were well beyond my grasp when Dean called today to say that when he dropped Vi off this morning her summer camp group HAD ALREADY LEFT FOR A FIELD TRIP WITHOUT HER.

Okay, so that's bad.  Imagine your eight-year-old daughter who dressed up special and has been looking forward to said field trip and then imagine her realizing that they had already left without her.

But here is what is worse: now imagine her turning around and running back to where her Papa dropped her off, rather than signing her in as he is supposed to, TO FIND HIM ALREADY GONE. She waited on the playground at the school until 5pm when her summer camp group returned.  She said she took a nap in the shade on the field and ate her lunch.  At one point, one of her friends came to play at the playground and they played together but then her friend's parent left without calling either me or Dean.

WHAT?!?!

I about had a stroke.  In fact my heart is pounding just writing this.  I want to break something.  If Dean was here I think I would have to throw something heavy and glass at him.  Of course, most of the day, I was three blocks away, working.  I thought Viola made her field trip.  IAs I mentioned, I was out of the house before 7am today for a breakfast meeting with my VP.  If only I had known!  I could have been there in two minutes.

Ugh.  When I think what could have happened... and okay, no, I know it didn't but... it could have.

Anyhow, my eight-year-old has joined the ranks of small children with cell phones.  Never say never, especially when you can't trust your husband to safely drop your child off at her summer day camp.

Trying to stay calm.  I sent Dean to go feed the horses because I don't think I can face him right now.  I mean, I think I better have a couple glasses of wine or get medicated here real quick or I'm going to end up in jail.

File this under "not good times".

I don't know what to do with myself.

I'm pulling data.  This is the boring part of putting together a fabulous multimedia presentation to wow! my clients. So, while I'm waiting for the data to "come on down!"...

Are purple-rose slingback peep-toe platform pumps in patent leather from VS over the top?

I don't know.

What will I wear them with?  All black?

Speaking of black.  I definately need a new black bra.  Chocolate doesn't just chew up underwear, he likes all kinds of lingerie.

I'm hungry but I'm too lazy to go get myself some food and since we've/I've been gone a bit lately, the cupboards are bare.  It's looking like spaghetti for dinner if I don't get my butt out to the grocery store.

Oh, I just got an e-mail that my bike is ready! Hurray!

Now that is good news.  I think after we go feed the horses tonight, a bike ride will be on the list of things to do.

And even if it is a bit of a slow afternoon, how could it not be a fabulous day?  It's a bit hot and muggy out there.  I'm feeling a bit of that disconcerted, unsettled weirdness that occasionally comes over me and I'm not entirely sure why...

After all, I'm home and all will be right with the world again shortly: the girls and I will go see the horses, we'll go to the park and maybe ride bikes, go swimming, and then later I'll read to Vi, snuggle Ave till she's asleep and yes, ahhh, it is always good to come home.

Back to it.

Dean was right on time picking me up- literally pulled up to the curb just as I came out wheeling my bag behind me.  Yes, got to sleep in my own bed last night even if only briefly- I had a breakfast meeting this morning and had to be out of the house before anyone was even awake. 

All that and life just goes right on.  It's a hot day today but I feel like soup, so I may run out and grab some for lunch here pretty soon.  Currently I am trying not to eat all the laffy taffy I brought back for the kids myself.   Mmmm.  Strawberry.

Hmmm.  Now what?

Just like the old days.

When I first started with my company, we had our annual meeting at our corporate headquarters which is in a big, urban center.  I was... 28 back then?  We partied pretty hard a couple of those nights.  Someone in our group almost ended up on the state's sex offender list for indecent exposure, if that tells you a little about how the evenings went.

I'm old(er) now.  You'd think I'd be wiser.  I wore black(BLACK black) and broke in a brand new pair of stilettos last night(with gold heels- woo hoo!).  I swore I was going to quote Scottie on the blog because he said something spectacular but now I can't even remember what it was.  I swore it was brilliant.

I'm just up getting some ibuprofen in my system since I have to get up and be packed this morning if I have any hopes of getting on a plane tonight. It was that kind of night.

Going to go sleep it off some more.

City of angels and ghosts.

Here I am.  Alone in my hotel room.  So, fine, it is a Marriot and a renovated one with comfy beds and I have a piece of cherry pie sitting next to me.

I haven't been to LA proper in a while, not since the fall.  There are ghosts here now. 

It is funny to think that a place that used to be about business and the beach or occasionally a stop on the way to Disneyland could be changed for me as it has been.

I felt it as my plane flew in over the bright lights.  It is funny how places become imbued with the essence of the people you spent time there with, or events that occured there.  And memory is a funny thing.  You can think something is gone, locked away in the past, but then the mind is a funny, fickle thing that can- with the whiff of lilacs carried on the breeze put you right back on the street you grew up on, walking home one day close to the beginning of summer... second grade... anticipation... 

I wish that I could explain it- not for you, for me even.  Something changed in me when I was here last.  It was like the walls of my life came down and I realized it was all only a set and I was just a character playing my part.  Since then, I have been tearing at everything, testing, prodding, poking all of it around me to see what is real and what is not.  What will last and what will not?

If there are ghosts here, there are angels, too.  When I came back from that trip, I thought my life as I knew it was over.  Not immediately maybe, but there was an eventuality hanging in the air.  And no, you can't unknow something.  And once you know it, if you don't do something about it then, well, you become one of the scared, one of the sheep that would rather bleat piteously with the herd in the valley than find the green grass on a higher slope.  People always say there is no greener grass.  Bullshit.  The grass gets greener when we water it.  What they mean is, if you go to greener pastures and then don't water them, they'll go to shit, too.  Grass can die and not come back, though- no matter how much water you pour on it.  But angels, I was speaking of angels.  Because knowing is a gift.  Knowing is a gift, even if it means we have to do hard things. 

So, I thought I would get off the plane and feel... I don't know, that spark of "yes, let's go now".  Instead, I felt unsettled, ghosts and angels and memories... and the future ahead, unknown.  Still unknown. 

This one thought, still true and obvious but needing to be said again and again- this one wild and precious life is short, what am I doing with mine?