My Name is Mommy

Fire! Fire!

So, not so long ago I was feeling stuck in a hair rut.  You know how that goes, right?  So, I dyed my hair back as close to my natural color as I could find.  I loved it so of course they discontinued it.  Enter "Dark Brown".  I dyed my hair with dark brown, semi-permanent color thinking maybe I'd try the darker, glossy look since I haven't done that in ages.

I rinsed out the dye, conditioned, dried- and voila!  BLACK hair.  It does not look natural on me.  I look like a still-30-something goth wannabe.  Scary.  So, I've been browsing the internet looking at ways to lighten it up without totally frying my hair by bleaching it.

I tried peroxide.  I usd to do that when I was a kid, spritz on some hydrogen oxide and then head out into the sun.  I got nice red highlights in my dark brown hair.  Nothing this time.  Not even the tiniest of lightening.  Then I came across someone who said to use lemon juice mixed with conditioner and a heft dose of cinnamon.  This, she claimed, woul lighten my hair 1-2 shades and give me some pretty red highlights.  Cool.

I whipped up the concotion, slathered my hair in it and wrapped it in a towel to wait.  (She claims she left hers on for like an hour and a half).

OMG.  About two seconds after the towel was on my head the burning started.  I thought, okay, its just chemicals relaxing, it'll chill in a minute.  No such luck.  After maybe 6 minutes my scalp was burning so badly I was imagining blisters and all my hair falling out(not that I'd mind, low maintenance and all).

I rinsed that crap out of my hair, and rinsed and rinsed and insed, then conditioned and rinsed again.

The result?  Maybe the slightest of lightening.  We'll see tomorrow when the sun is out.  Worth it?  Not on my life.  I will NEVER do that again.  I hiighly recommend avoiding the cinnamon and lemon juice concoction- or use with EXTREME prejudice.  

I'm staring to think this experimenting on my hair at home thing is OVER.  I'll be making my appointment at the salon, even if I do have to sit there for two or three hours. (I hate all the primpy stuff:hair, nails- becaus it takes so much TIME that I could be doing other fun stuff).

Whew. I think I got a little endorphin rush from the pain.  Still not worth it. :P

Step away from the Cinnamon!

 

 

Ice Skates.

I've been in building mode.  Honestly, I've loved this house as much as I've hated it.  When we moved in it looked like it hadn't been touched(except for the cheap renter's linoleum on the bathroom floor) since the 1960's?

But for me it is never about what it IS now, it is about what it CAN be.  Everywhere I looked, colors blossomed.  I pulled up a corner of the carpet to discover nearly pristine oak floors and over time, I've been going on manic binges of redoing rooms.  I rip up carpet, spend hours singing along to my iPod while on my hands and knees prying up carpet tack and staples.   I've spent hours scraping peeling paint off the walls and even more hour refinishing furniture and assembling and making furniture.  I kind of love that my dad taught me how to use a circular saw, the chop saw, a bigass nailgun, how to cut tile, how to solve problems.  Mostly it is the building of things I like- making things better, useful, colorful.  

Right now, the window is wide open and and the dark blue sheers are billowing out with the breeze, rippling like water.  Why do so many people want things to be beige and white?  I want my world full of color.  And even though it drives the girls crazy, I take my favorite pictures and blow them up to massive sizes(thank you Canon) on gallery canvases and I've been putting them up everywhere.

It isn't about me showing everyone how great and perfect my little family is... it's about capturing a moment, light and color, and someone I love.  Why would we not wallpaper our homes with what we love.  It makes no sense to me.

So, I have spent the past 24 hours with a small break for sleeping, cursing and sighing and other angsty things tryng to put together some pieces from Ikea to organize all my stuff.

I came across my pair of ice skates.  We go occasionally.  Dean and I used to take lessons together.  That was fun.  But looking at those white boots and sharp blades, I could close my eyes and remember skating on the pond in the village where I lived in Germany.  I remember at first, picking my way down to the ice, skeptical.  It was rough, bumpy and sometimes there were sticks and leaves or other detritus that had blown onto the ice from the shoreline.  I remember being stiff and scared that at any moment I would hit a bump or chink or rough patch in the ice and fly like a pancake across the ice.  And I did that a couple times.  One time I laid there on my back looking up at the sunny sky after a big wipe out and then suddenly I was surrounded by a huge group of little faces in red and blue and green and striped knit hats, kids with mittens and scarves.  The boys openly guffawed at me, some of the little girls giggled behind their hands until I started laughng, too. 

And then I wasn't scared anymore.  And that was the secret to it- to go, be light, be free.  We're so used to living by the regular laws of gravity.  Gravity doesn't make much sense in my life, though.

Like skating on that natural ice- which I then did every chance I got, its about being free, being light, flying.  Its a perspective about everything I love to do- horseback riding- galloping over the hills, flying over jumps, swimming- being tossed with no up or down by the ocean waves, diving off the board feeling like I'm sailing weightlessly for just a moment, singing- which is like nothing else for setting me free from the things that tie me down.  It sounds silly but, for me, its like I can get into the music and rise up above everything else.

So what am I afraid of?  What are you afraid of?  We just need to set ourselves free.  The laws of gravity do not apply here.

Aaron Sorkin

When I think of Aaron Sorkin, I think of "The West Wing".  Dean and I watched "The West Wing" the entire time it was on air.

Well, today I discovered "The Newsroom"- a series by HBO, also produced by Aaron Sorkin.  I don't think I've watched an episode yet where I haven't teared up.

Pre-menopause?  Maybe.  

Dean and I were talking and I think he hit the nail on the head.  "The West Wing" showed us the inner working of the government- in the way we'd like to see and believe government should be run.  Just the right mix of idealistic sentimentality without coming off totally naieve.

"The Newsroom", same thing.  It is a behind the scenes look at a news show anchored by Will McAvoy(played brilliantly by Jeff Daniels) who has a horrible reputation(abusing his staff, everyone bails, following when one of his underlings is given his own show) as an ass.  Enter MacKenzie McHale(played by Emily Mortimer) as McAvoy's new executive producer and a team of wonderlings and McAvoy's boss, Charlie Skinner(played by Sam Waterston- with much vim and vigor) who wants to REALLY report the news.  This equation adds up similarly to that of "The West Wing"- the inner workings of a newsroom, reporting REAL news with highly moral standards.  For me, this is the way I would like the news to be reported.  Jeff Daniels is the new Martin Sheen.  I love it.

Does art emulate life? Or, does life emulate art?  If television is considered part of the art of our age- I hope that the latter is true, in this case.  

Great show, great writing.  I'll be watching.

 

Dear Viola,

I remember 7th and 8th grade.  Yeah, they pretty much sucked.  I think they suck for everyone, though.

Maybe I am a sucky mom for trying to get you to read books I like and wear cute clothes.  I can't stand it when you live in you sweatpants and giant t-shirts because you have a beautiful body- not some cracked-out Kate Moss body but a beautiful, perfect body.  And yes, you have curves.  Of course I don't want you to be immodest but I want you to be proud of who you are- everything from winning your heat in Butterfly, being a level IV chorister in the San Francisco Girls Chorus to having a beautiful body, face, hair eyes, soul... all of it.  

I know that you think I know nothing- but I've been rotating here on this planet for more years than I would like to say and I don't know that I have met anyone quite like you.  Considering our vast age difference and my inherint uncool factor, when I think of you, I think of the song "I Won't Give Up".  Looking into your eyes I DO see the night skies- a million of them, and a beautiful sunrise- every one that has taken my breath away.

My only regret is that by nature's design I will not be here to see the culmination of what began in you.

Love,

Mom

Goodbye to clocks ticking.

I suppose I'm feeling a little introspective, mix that with a sprinkle of self-indulgencence and well... here we go.

It is between two and three in the morning.  My stomach is bothering me, which is nothing new, but my usual distractions aren't working tonight.

I've been addicted to "Orange is the New Black".   Yes, it is dirty, foul-mouthed and has graphic scenes of lesbian sex but it is funnier than hell and REAL and I love it because of that.  

I think most of society likes to sit in the bubble of work/family/home and all the problems out there... well, that's not them so who gives two nickels?

If we're on "spaceship earth" should we give more of a shit about each other?

Maybe we DESERVE to have an apocalypse, an extinction event- because most people don't care.  Seriously.  How many times have you flicked smeone off or leaned on your horn in traffic, shoved someone in the back of the ankles with your cart a the grocery store, walked by a sea of faces without every realizing the miracle in front of you?  I'm not getting self-righteous- I've done it all and worse.  I have a horrible temper.  But at some point it occured to me that I had no idea what kind of day the person next to me at the stop light or in front of me in the grocery store had- did they lose their job, did they find out they have some horrible disease, did they lose someone they loved, are they sad? Lonely? Angry?  So who am I to make someone's day worse?

My grandmother lived a simple life and yet I was always rapt with awe at the stories she told- from Depression times, to the War.  She bought me my first SLR(camera) and she always argued politics and philosophy with me.  At her funeral I read this:

To laugh often and love much; to win the respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children; to earn the approbation of honest citizens and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to give of one’s self; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exultation; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived—this is to have succeeded.

She planted the seeds in me of the two tenants of parenting I hold most dear- give your children enthusiasm and teach then to find joy in the small beauties of life, to realize it is all temporary and to jump in with both feet. (Is that three)

And here I am, not able to sleep at 2:30 in the morning and I hear the clock ticking.  I keep meaning to take it down but there is something about a ticking clock.

I want someone to read this at my funeral- not that I want a funeral- I want to be cremated and I don't know, sprinkled in the ocean?  We always had such good times at the ocean.  The ocean is so humbling and I have never felt more free and exhilarated than galloping my horse down the beach.  That is where I have really lived so that is where I want my body to go after I have died.

Anyway what I want read:

But, just for a moment now we're all together. Mama, just for a moment we're happy. Let's really look at one another!...I can't. I can't go on.It goes so fast. We don't have time to look at one another. I didn't realize. So all that was going on and we never noticed. Take me back -- up the hill -- to my grave. But first: Wait! One more look. Good-bye , Good-bye world. Good-bye, Grover's Corners....Mama and Papa. Good-bye to clocks ticking....and Mama's sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new ironed dresses and hot baths....and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth,you are too wonderful for anybody to realize you.

The clock ticks for us all and what a gift that is.  We're here for a blink. What will we be?  Self-centered, indulgent, or will we try to make that blink like a flash of lightning that changes the face of the earth forever?

I want to be like lightning.

Playlists.

I like making playlists.

I am one of those people who will find a 'favorite song' and put it on loop until I hate it.  But so it goes... I think it is because I like to sing along with my music which really pisses off the Starbucks customers around me, especially when I have both headphones over my ears and can't hear what I am singing.

Media is crazy.  So many books, so many songs, so man tv programs, so many movies... so many bad movies mased on good books.  It just isn't right.

I usually read a book or two a day.  And no I'm not exagerrating because I read 4 yesterday.  I don't feel like I'm rushing but for some reason people seem to think this is alot of books- especially considering that reading is not all I do.

Today I feel like making some new playlists. 

I was thinking about that line from Dead Poet's Society where Robin Williams says: 

We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.

So true, right?

I love that movie, still.  Yes, in that soft, naive, idealistic part of me that my hard shell calls traitorous, shakes her head and says :One must be more pragmatic".  Yet, it lives on.  That movie was where I first heard these line from Tennyson's Ulysses(I will include more for better context): 

Come, my friends,

'T is not too late to seek a newer world.

Push off, and sitting well in order smite

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

Of all the western stars, until I die.

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Not to yield.  That is who I want to be: unyielding.  But that which I am, I am.

And yes, it is so true that though much is taken, much abides.

I hope when I sail beyond the sunset that I will be remembered as having a heroic heart.

I hope when and if I am remembered, it is in a newer world.

I think I will make a playlist today- or as we once called them: mixed tapes- and again be the young girl who was so inspired by, who actually felt there was truth in those words- before my shell became so hard.

Bist du bei mir...

Bist Du Bei Mir was probably one of my favorite pieces of music that I learned back in high school.  My vocal coach said I was like a myna bird and she didn't usually let students butcher music in German. It is funny because in a way, that song led me to studying German in college and eventually going there, to live, outside of Nurnberg for a bit.  With everything going on lately I have been reflecting on the path my life has taken.  If you look up the translation of that song. it is quite moving.  I think what I like about it is that it captures the idea that BEING with someone is sometimes the greatest gift you can give them.  We live in a DOING world- I think sometimes we forget about just being and how amazing that is, in and of itself.

The Call came and this nonsense with my stomach continues.  I am going for another scope because the CBC they did at the same time came back with an outrageously high hematocrit which I have NEVER had, EVER.  I've had microcytic anemia since I was two, according to my pediatric records, and I'm lucky to even get in the ballpark of normal with iron infusions on a regular basis.  So, my doctor is worried  my test results might have been mixed up- and doesn't know if the biopsy results also got screwed up so... here we go round the merry go round again.  The good news is that the biopsy results showed carcinoma in situ in the mucosal layer of my stomach(they call it stage 0 and it is basically pre-cancerous but still not something to mess around with)- so I, or someone else, won the lottery as gastric cancer is almost never found this early and they feel I can avoid it turning into the icky metastatic kind with possible surgery and meds.  But since I am terribly paranoid, I want to make sure the results are real before going ahead with a treatment plan.

Anyhow, back to the life path stuff.  I used to feel that having a Job and punching the clock, wash rinse, repeat- was incredibly mundane and I would never live like that- I would live a BIG life.  Now I am thinking every life is BIG because every single one of us is a miracle.  I don't care if you believe in God or some other higher power or a random uiverse or if we are just brains in vats- but whatever it is, it is amazing.  It is amazing to have been here, to see what I have seen, done what I have done: everything from walking along the Seine at night to making chocolate chip pancakes.  All miraculous, every moment of it.

Even the pain.

I have known and loved people and lost them- for whatever reason(death maybe the least of which).  And maybe someday I will find them again, in this life or another.  But as much as it aches, every connection, every love, however brief- for me is amazing, even if it can't be held.  I like to think we are like those Aspen trees- we may not be next to one another, it may rain on one and the sun may shne on another at the same time but deep below is a gnarled miracle of connections that make them all one.  Some connections may be far, long reaching through the dark but still a part of one another.  I think those connections never die because every connection creates-like a seed blown on the wind or a slender root zig-zagging through the soil, we are built by our connections and go on to build others in a never-ending chain.

And such a blessing- yes, even the pain.  Sometimes joy and pain are so difficult to tell apart.  I check on my sleeping girls and they look so young as they sleep and my heart just wants to shatter with love for them.  I know, watching them, touching their hair, there is nothing out there better than this- no amount of fame, no great discovery, no heroic feat could even come close to this feeling.

 

A bit maudlin

So, hi! The doc that scoped me and biopsied my stomach and esophagus managed not to perforate either, causing me to bleed internally in a profuse manner eventually degenerating into DIC and dying.  So that's good, that, you know, I'm still alive.

My stomach has been grumpy and I'm exhausted and not sleeping at night.

The hardest part is waiting and not knowing.  I like to be the one with the PLAN.  I remember feeling like this when I had a lump in my breast while pregnant with Avery.  I went to the OB/GYN first where I got a frown as the doctor poked and prodded my breasts, and then "Oooo, that's not good".  Then silence.  Doctors of te world- when yu have a pregnant lady on your table with a lump that seemed to grow from the size of a raisin to an apricot over labor  day weekend- you don't say, "Oooo, that's not good." and then stop there.  

Next I was kicked along next door to have an ultrasound where a grim looking ultrasound tech also said, "Hmm, that doesn't look right."  Then I was told to schedule a biopsy with a surgeon.  It took 4 weeks to get in to see her because I decided it was worth an extra week or two to make sure I was going to see the surgeon that al the other "OOoo"-ing and "Hhmmm-ing" doctors would go to if they had breast cancer.  It took three days for the pathology to come back as inconclusive but the surgeon felt nervous about it so said we should just go ahead ad do the lumpectomy.  I did a little research before hand and told her to make sure to take it with margins(take extra all the way around so if it hasn't spread yet it won't come back because ideally you'd get everything if you took out the lump and a bunch of tissue around it. 

Remember the part about being pregnant with Avery?  Well, I didn't want cause any risk to her so the doctor did the surgery without putting me under anesthesia.  So, I was laughing and telling cow jokes as I heard and smelled my flesh sizzling and popping away.  I remember her hesitating for a moment and I paused the banter with the assisting nurse and PA. I remember saying something like, "Scoop the whole damn thing out if you have to, I'd rather conserve my life than my breast."I could feel the blood running down my side but it didn't hurt at all.  And then she started digging around in my armpit which actually hurt enough to make me want to drop a few f-bombs but I was the one that was gung ho about making sure we knew what we were dealing with and if that lump was some kind of big C, I wanted to know if it was in my lymph nodes. Then, she stitched me up and sent me home to wait for the pathology.  It turned out to be a benign tumor.  I was still glad to have that sucker out of there even if it did look like one side of my boob had been bombed, and collapsed.

This time, it is the same deal.  I know the doc saw some pretty pissed of looking places in my stomach and esophagus and he said he kind of went overkill on doing the biopsies so there were alot of samples, I guess.  And having studied microbiology, I know what it looks like at the other end.  I remember getting looking at a slide with some pretty messed up stuff on it- leukemia.  And really all I had to relate to was a test tube with a number, a name I didn't recognize, a birthdate and a barcode.  I handed it off to be confirmed by my betters but it struck me that there was someone out there who was going to get The Call and The Call would totally turn their world upside down.

So, now I am waiting for The Call.  I hate waiting.  And this is the opposite of that anticipation before Christmas, this is the sweating, weeping, choking-the-life out of me kind of anticipation.  Not to mention we've had some miscommunications about tests and what might be going on down in that gastric universe of mine.

But I tell you, if I get The Call ad there is even a lttle maybe, the tiniest hesitation, the beginning of a 'let's-wait-and-see' or a breath of not-quite-sure - I'm high-tailing it straight up to UCSF for a  second opinion.  I'll probably just have every non-essential organ taken out after all this, prophylaxis.  Eh, who needs a stomach anyway.  Hack out my pancreas and a ew yards of intestine and get that damn uterus while you're in there.  That little obsessive part of my brain that cannot be distracted from my impending doom, the other shoe dropping, so to speak, is having a conversation with itself: "Can you get toe cancer? Maybe I should chop off my toes?" Yeah, think I'm going to shut that door for now before I start my own You Tube channel on home amputation- DIY!!  You can save an arm and a leg that way!! Ha.

Hmm.  I wonder if this will be the secret to losing that last 10 lbs?  How much do you think a liver weighs?

Just please note: hiatal hernia=BAD.

Frickin' bleeding ulcer.  Who gets one of those anyway?  The bitch of it all is that I don't smoke, I don't drink(well, maybe once every couple of years these days), I have really dropped off on the caffeine, I take medication to suppress acid production and pop antacids like tic tacs- so, why the ulcer?  Do you think I could sue the IRS for giving me a bleeding ulcer?  (And lets not forget the couple other non-bleeding ulcers).

Please note: hiatal hernia + IRS=really bad.

I know, too, that if death and taxes are the only guarantees, the IRS is going to get their taxes before they kill me.

Meh.  Did I mention I hate waiting?

Oh, and btw, I am kind of pissed off that my hair is still black.  The box showed a dark, auburn brown(and I swear I used it before) which is really close to my natural color.  Now picture me being all pale and anemic with shocking black hair and fuschia lipstick on since that is all the rage.  The damn eighties are NOT a decade that should be relived. NO, No, No. NO!!  Maybe I should do my hair in for good- hey, I might be on chemo soon anyway- I could get a PERM!!  Then I'd be freaking joyful when my hair fell out.  See, you just have to set yourself up for success.

Tempus valedicendi!  I going to go watch True Blood while the kids are at school. Hehehe.

Mwah! XOXO I love you all!  I love the whole world even if it is entirely unrequited.

Traffic

Today was the first day in a while that I was actually vertical for a significant period of time.  I'll get to that.  Warning: totally random pictures ahead (may be repeats).

 

Ave ascending to the first place platform at a meet.

I did have to drive Ave to gymnastics where she spends a good amount of time doing things I have a really hard time watching her do.  The beam scares me but now that she's doing crazy stuff on the uneven parallel bars and has become the major power tumbler in her group which means round-offs into back hand springs, front handsprings, aerials, front and back tucks.. honestly the standing tucks scare me the most cause she can do them from a standstill.

 

Then, she's telling me she has fat thighs(she doesn't have an ounce of fat on her and honestly, I've never seen a six-pack on a girl like she has).  Yes, it is all very scary contemplating paralysis and torn ligaments, death... and she's 10.  But it is her passion and I could make her quit but I think I'd have to sell my horse, then, or face being a total hypocrite.

But Traffic.  Driving.  I was stuck in traffic(and the place is literally ten minutes from our house) and lots of funny things happen in the car(aside from farting).  For one, I didn't have the iPod- I dyed my hair what was supposed to be dark brown but turn BLACK so it hasn't been washed per directions in 3 days.  Maybe it will be dark brown when I wash it, who knows.  Anyway, this song came on the radio and I recently had become addicted to Megan Hilty's(of Smash and Broadway's Wicked etc.) "Safe and Sound" which turns out to be a TAYLOR SWIFT cover.  Guilty pleasure, I thought.  Then this song came on the radio and Avery was singing along in her beautiful voice and I asked her what it was- TAYLOR SWIFT.  OMG.  I'm turning 40 and listening to Taylor Swift songs.  What is wrong with me?

Anyhow, no traffic 'til the drive home after dropping her off.  There was a big line up just getting on the freeway and I couldn't use the carpool lane. Anyhow, funny things happen.  I looked out the window and just as an Ed Sheenan(who I really like and have alot of his music) song came on the radio, I noticed the breeze picking up and right there on the freeway onramp I had one of those golden moments.  The grass has gotten really tall and is all yellow but the way it was blowing, in the wind- and the music- it was so beautiful.  I could have sat there forever in that lane watching the wind blow this tall, yellow grass.

And then I looked over at the grey brick wall(I think it is a sound barrier but runs all allong our corridor of the freeway) as I was creeping up the freeway and some weed probably(cause they spray and kill it, I think) had creeped up, kind of like ivy(heck, maybe it was some kind of ivy).  Anyhow, I saw this ivy-looking-probably-weed growing up the wall in several places in the rough shape of a tree.  It was so freaking beautiful.  And then there was a place it had totally taken over and reminded me of something I'd have seen in England, in Cambridge or even 'the wall' at the boarding school I attended in highschool.  Then, I was flipping through radio stations and a favorite classical piece came on and I was getting off the freeway.  

I live in a little suburban islet of a neighborhood where we probably have the worst kept yard, house, everything. (I'm kind of all or nothing and health issues have been keeping me down not like that is an excuse *really*).  But as I drifted through the neighborhood to this piece of music I used to *try* to play on my violin- I saw someone's patch of brilliant red-pink geraniums, and then somesone's carefully planted rainbow of pansys and other annuals I can't remember offhand.  Then I drove by a tree that was waving in the wind and almost a maroon-purplish color.  

It just struck me so hard, especially pulling in the driveway and  seeing the roses Dean planted as a gift for me a while back(he's not a gardner despite the whole Japanese stereotype- probably one of his least favorite things to do.  Anyhow these roses have been struggling a bit with the weather, weeds, lack of attention and  yet there were a few absolutely perfect blooms pushing their way through... beauty is EVERYWHERE.  Real beauty.  And precious moments that make up for all the crap(literally-but I'll get to that).  It is everywhere and no, this is not an epiphany- it just really struck me today.  Rilke was right when he wrote "If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches.."

The getting to it part is: I am going in after having two bad blood tests with cancer markers.  Worst case scenario (imho) average prognosis 14 months.  Best case scenario: I drank all that sodim laxitive stuff to feel like crap for a few days.  I'll go into it when I know more.

I got a Mary Oliver tattoo done this weekend at Inkies which is like walking into a chi-chi spa run by a bunch of guys that if you go with stereotypes, look like a bunch of tatted-up parolees.  The guy that did mine did his bachelor's in fine arts Santa Clara and I am def. going back- even if it is just for touch-ups.  Anyhow the tattoo says: "Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness.  It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift."  Profound for me because that has happened to me, too.

 

Viola graduating 6th grade last year. Time flies, catch the moments as they come!

Viola(and Avery) also got their chorus evaluations- Vi's was pretty much perfect, I'd say the equivalent of A+, A+,A-.  And has she worked for it.  This is only her first semester in the San Francisco Girls Chorus, so I was nervous because she is singing with girls who started in pre-chorus when they were 5 or 6 and she just came in as a level III(out of IV) after auditioning and apparently blowing their socks off.  It was her last chance and I think she wanted it but didn't think she was good enough while Avery practically came out of the womb singing and has been in Chorus almost 3 years now and will finally(maybe?hopefully?) get promoted to level IV.  With that evaluation, Vi could get promoted but it is not uncommon for some girls to stay in a level for 2 years.

 

Funny things happen.  Gifts appear where we might never expect them- driving in hot, stinky traffic- weeds and dead grass...a song that takes one back to childhood... a blue sky, a grey sky, stars at night.

Live on, my friends.  Every day is a miracle.  

I know I've been a terrible blogger but for those of you who check in occasionally(I love you all!), I will update when I get my results which could be as soon as tomorrow or more likely Friday or next week.  And for my blogger friends, keep on blogging-it is like a rope that keeps me from sinking when I can go and laugh at your jokes and see pics of your family doing things I can't do right now.  And thank you for being there, even occasionally, over the years-it's my whole other world.  The waiting is the worst.  I can deal, really, I can- but not knowing is the freaking worst.

To end on a funny note- I was going to have this biopsy last week but my crit is too low so they rescheduled in case, you know, something goes wrong-'til tomorrow.  Of course, they didn't call me for the reschedule until I had lapped up my special sodium laxitive.  Hey, if I can't get a good work out right now cause of my low crit and everything else, at least the toilet can.  :)

 

This is our Jack Russel, Mellie, who likes to climb ladders.

 

Is it safe yet?

Okay, I'm coming out of hiding.  I think the temporary lockdown has gotten the girls off the scent.  We'll see!

Just needed to do a little blogging.  I've been pretty consumed between my writing and my reviewing(I've been reading a book or three a day).  I had a treatment- I won't go into details- for this hereditary thing that causes me to be constantly fighting to keep my red blood cell count up.  I've even started tracking my hematocrit at home, how much does that rock?  It means not quite so many blood draws.  Anyhow- treatment- made me seriously ill, like almost dead ill.  I literally painted the bathroom with projectile vomit.  I know, what do I do, come back and blog and overshare as always.  Like people wanna hear about puke.  Anyhow, I'm not just being the lazy housewife hanging out eating ice cream out of the container. No, that was me BEFORE I got so sick.  Anyhow, I survived with minimal kidney and liver damage and I guess my liver rocks.  My hematologist/oncologist says it's my high fiber diet that kept me from being 6 feet under.  I do eat alot of fiber.  When you have to take- er, gobble iron supplements and then alternate with calcium supplements, you gotta get yer fiber or you are gonna be one, sad, constipated mother.

Anyhow, the silver lining to all this down time has been getting to read a ton of books.  Now, I read alot of YA(young adult) fiction beause I like to screen it before my kids read it and I sort of have a knack for reviewing in that category AND I like that there is usually a little romance but there are no throbbing members and no bodice-busting-brestage described over and over again in every cliched way possible.  So yeah, I get my little romance fix there. 

Also, reading YA books keeps me away from books like Wave that I recently did read and review- it was about a woman that lost her mother, father, husband and two sons while vacationing in Sri Lanka when the tsunami hit.  Can you imagine losing that much in one fell swoop?  Unfortunately, I can, so I spent the four hours it took for me to read it sobbing and blowing my nose and then my sinuses got all backed up and I'm immunosupressed right now so I I had to use nose spray so I didn't end up with a sinus infection and I HATE nose spray.

Good book, though.  Feeling sorry for yourself, go read that- it'll give you a big kick in the ass if you have even a pinky finger's worth of empathy.

I've been trying to photograph the girls lately but they are such a pain about it.  I guess I have had a camera in their faces their whole lives, so...

Anyhow, I will insert some of those photos.  Been getting back into photography and still writing manically.  Book should be on shelves soon.  Publishing under a different name to protect the guilty(mostly me) and the innocent(mostly everyone else).  Have a really awesome multi-media project oming up over the next year or so which I will hopefully be able to link to here, especiall if it becomes syndicated.  Life is not boring even if I'm on the computer all the time.  Writing is like living another life in another world, you know?

Things are good.  So very good.

It's true, the past couple years have been rough- lots of change and loss- losing friends and family, changes with working and health issues... just living HERE.  But I'm still here.  WE'RE still here, and that counts for more than I can express with words.

(The girls pics: Vi, Ave, Ave, Vi in case you couldn't tell :)  )

Avery's 10th Birthday

Avery turned 10 on the 18th.  

I can't sleep.  My stomach is killing me and I have been having sweats and chills for days- having to change the bed linens.

Happily we had a 'down' weekend(punctuated by me throwing up all over the bathroom etc.) and celebrated with just our immediate family tonight.  I will say she had a pretty sweet weekend- gymnastics one evening, a sleepover with one of her gymnastics teammates, mini golf and lazer tag.

I still remember vividly when they held her up, screaming, over me after having a c-section and I couldn't believe she was mine.  She was so perfect, beautiful- she also didn't have a huge head of dark hair like Vi did so I thought in my drugged, low-blood-pressure state that there was some sort of mix-up.

I remember two student nurses(I had, between passing out from low blood pressure, managed to consent to having like 20 nursing students observe the c-section) came with me to recovery and thanked me profusely because they said it was the first birth either of them had ever seen and the would never forget it.  I think about that, sometimes, because it is one of those things you never really do forget- the first time you see life, any kind of life come into the world.

10 years ago, I held Avery in my arms and she was a blank slate.  And these have been the best ten years of my life watching that slate being written on.  That is too small an analogy, I think- maybe more like watching a magnificient book being carefully written.

What I feel right now is gratitude- and a little sadness, nostalgia.  It is going by far too fast- 10 years come and gone gone just like that, in the blink of an eye.

She grows more amazing by the day, as she grows into herself.  

Sometimes I wonder why some of us lead smaller lives than others.  I always thought people who punched the clock at the same job, lived in the same hous, raised their kids, went to soccer practice and waited in pick-up lines at school were mediocre.

I've come to understand that I can get as many degrees as I want, work at a job where I fly around the country, write a bestseller, write a song- compose a symphony, run for President.  But no matter what else I do in my life, these girls, they are my magna opera.

No matter what else I have done in my life, it all led to this- whichever numerous tracks I could have gone down that disappeared as I fell in love with and married Dean, had Viola, then Avery.  This is the greatest thing I have done and these three people are the ones who have given me the most joy in life.

The clock keeps ticking.  This is my life now.  I don't know what I gave up for it but those nebulous sacrafices- I would make them again and again.  10 years come and gone but so much joy- and that is a gift that can never be taken from me.

Live on.

Swim Team

We've been so caught up in Chorus and Gymnastics lately that swim team seems like forever ago.  I was going through some video that I uploaded to Vimeo and found one of Vi just killing it at a meet in 50 Fly. It was actually an OFF day for her but she still did well in her age group.  She is in lane 4 which is the third lane away from the camera.

Vi- 50 Fly, 11-12 Girls from Amy Yasuda on Vimeo.

Vi has a really nice butterfly kick which has served her well on her take-offs and turns in both Free and Fly.  I'm a little jealous- fly has never been my stroke.

Vi is auditioning for chorus on January 5th.  We're still not sure if she wants to go with chorus or with the Youth Conservatory through ACT.  For me it is simply a matter of: do I want to drive an hour each way to SF? or Do I want to drive an hour each way to Berkeley?  I figure since Ave is already doign SF Girls Chorus, having Vi do it also makes sense.  She's come an amazingly long way for someone who didn't think she could sing a year and a half ago.  Audrey Howitt is an amazing voice teacher and she has managed to pull the absolute best out of Viola.  She is also a recommended voice instructor for the Girls Chorus.  If you want to learn how to sing or have a child that does, I can only give her my highest recommendation.  She has made a major difference in Vi's life.

Anyhow, watching these videos makes me look forward to the spring again and spending our Saturdays at meets.  I'm not sure how Avery is going to strike a balance with gymnastics and swim team but I'm thinking the gymnastics sure aren't going to hurt her swimming, especially with how strong she's gotten in her upper body.

Time for a shower.  I spent the afternoon resealing the roof with liquid asphalt crap that doesn't seem to want to come off of anything.  Fun stuff.  No, really.  :)

Marvin K. Mooney

The time has come, the time is now...

So, Viola stumbled across my blog finally.  The kids have now become internet savvy enough to search and find My Name Is Mommy so looks like I'll be taking down my shingle, so to speak.  I haven't been regularly and faithfully blogging for quite a while now.  Between Facebook and digital photo books and all the other media out there, I've been recording the ebb and tide of life in many places.

While much of this blog is drivel about my daily life and really not all that interesting, I did blog through some very difficult changes in my life.  I hope someday that my girls can read it all and find out all the wonderful, sweet, silly and amazing things I witnessed during the years of their childhood.  I hope they will also some day read things about me and understand me better as a person and at least have something to take to their respective psychiatrists to explain why they need therapy. :)  They are still too young, however, to appreciate or understand much of the content and so...

Sorry to say, the Duggar Debate will have to continue elsewhere- though I appreciate the fact that lively comments continue to come in, even 7 years after my original post.

I will continue to blog but must do it behind closed doors.  My dear blog friends out there(you know who you are!)- please e-mail me for access if you'd like to continue to get the sporadic updates here.  I will leave this here for a few days and will then be turning the lock for good.

So many times I have considered doing this and now, it just feels right.  I'm very busy with reading and writing.  I am, apparently, having a book published soon- and in the meantime am doing proofreading and editing work for publishers and authors so that others, too, may throw in their story to the lot.

It is with much love and happiness that I look back on all that has been recorded here- it has been more than ten years now since I first started blogging during my pregnancy with Avery.  This has always been a place where I could express my joys, grief, angst and reflect with humor on the ups and downs of family life.  It will, of course, be a bit different- making it private... but I don't know that I ever really strayed too far from my purpose and I think this among other venues will continue to serve toward that purpose.  I will, of course, continue to look forward to reading my friends' updates. :) 

Marvin K. Mooney will you please go now!!

Happy. Just happy.

What a gorgeous day!  It was hard to get up this morning.  The insomnia is killing me.  Not sure what it is about but I've tried *everything*- except the scary hypnotic drugs the doctor wants to prescribe.  We have enough night terrors and sleepwalking around here between me and the girls- we don't need me going into some drug-induced psychosis at 4am.  I know certain drugs are lifesavers for some people but on me: terrifying.  The only thing that seems effective for me is to exercise until I am about to drop..

Anyhow, rolled out of bed, staggered down the hall and turned on the heat.  Crawled back in bed for ten more minutes.  Got up and took my vitamins.  Crawled back in bed for ten minutes.  Finally managed to throw on my breeches, a shirt and a hoodie.  By the time I hit the freeway, the sun was sparkling and I was singing along with my iPod.

I love a bright, crisp day and flying down the freeway listening to good music.

The ranch was a mudhole.  Foxy was surprisingly clean despite all the mud.  (I use the term 'clean' very loosely here- as in not filthy dirty.)  The kids have been singing and listening to Fun alot- Some Nights is currently burned on my brain so that is what Foxy got serenaded with this morning.  Thank gawd it's not "Call Me, Maybe" on permanent loop in my brain anymore.  Those annoying pop hooks should be illegal.

Foxy was awesome.  She had LOTS of energy.  She is usually on the low side of 5 on the temperment scale.  She spend about ten minutes throwing bucks when I first let her out.  It's good- it reminds me of the first rule of horsemanship: never forget that there isn't ANY HORSE that can't get you off their back if they want.  Heh.  Sometimes I take Foxy for granted after so many years of dealing with Mr.-Apollo-buck-and-bolt.  She does surprise me sometimes with how fast she can move her massiveness.

Taking into consideration that the arena is a giant mudslide with all the rain we've had and the clay... I couldn't really give Foxy a decent turn-out.  She can't really get up to speed in the covered arena- too small.  We had a good ride- though my stomach muscles doth protest too much.  It was a little challenging with her being pretty high, but at least I got a good workout.

NO CHORUS TONIGHT! YEA!! Ave is in rehearsals for the Christmas Sing-Along at Davies with the SF Girls Chorus so we're going to rehearsals on Tuesday, Weds ad Thurs..  It's nice to have a Friday back, even if it is only until after Christmas.

Vi is going to audition for the Chorus on January 5th.  Not sure if it is the right fit for her but she's really come a long way with her music and she wants to give it a go.

I am reviewing a series of YA paranormal books right now and I've been flying through them with having insomnia and all.  They are *hilarious* and I am not entirely sure if the author is just really clever with a wry wit or if they are just way over the top.  Vi's been reading them and she tells me they are only funny when I read them aloud to her so maybe it is just how I am reading them.  Anyway- I've found myself laughing hysterically to the point where Dean has come in to the bedroom to make sure I'm not having a seizure or whatever.

 

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Ave had her championship meet for gymnastics last weekend and she did very well.  I think she took 3rd overall on floor where she did some new tumblings passes: round-off-back-handspring-back-handspring, front tuck, aerial, etc..  She is turning out to be a really strong tumbler- she freaks me out by doing a big string of back handsprings through the park where I am pretty sure she's going to break her neck.  Her floor routine is fun, though- her music is the theme song from Mission Impossible.

Ave did well on the uneven bars and her vault, as well.  Beam is still a little scary for her.  She was landing her cartwheels just fine on the beam and then one day she slipped doing a huge split-leap and fell and it scared the crap out of her.  Still, she's been doing back walk-overs and cartwheels on beam and landing them fine but she psychs hersef out during competition.  That's okay by me.  I'd rather have her be conservative and NOT break her neck.

Vi has a dance tonight. Urgh.  How in the world do I have a 7th grader?  

Yeah. Don't answer that.

 

Editing Life.

I've been spending hours and hours going over photos I've taken this year.  I've started getting pretty good about putting my digital photos from various events into books so that we have our digital equivalent of photo albums.

As I go through the photos I find pictures of the sky at dusk, flowers from our yard, a branch hanging low it is so loaded down with apricots.  As I look at these, I can recall what I was trying to capture- feel a piece of that moment when the whole world seems revealed where beauty, love, adoration, connection are my true and only purpose.  I look through a series of photos of Viola, blowing the seeds from a dandelion stem.  I snapped dozens of photos of the girls and Dean being silly and laughing.  There is even my attempt to get a shot of the birds nest with two eggs in it that was nestled high up in one of our plum trees.

It seems impossible to delete any of these photos- even the blurred and tilting ones taken by my burgeoning photo assistant, Avery.  Photos are like threads- leading back to moments and emotions that will never come again, not in quite the same way.  How does one cut those threads?

And yet, in some part of me I think that as beautiful as memories are, they are past.  I cannot stay there and every moment I trade in looking back is one I've lost in feeling and being here now.  Even now, dark and quiet, but if I listen closely over the clack of my keyboard I can hear the clock ticking, the smallest of sighs from one of the girls sleeping, a plane passing overhead, the night blanketing us all into subduction.  Then in my mind,s eye, I fly up over the house, look down at our house, our block, our neighborhood, our city and realize I am awake in a sea of people, neighbors, friends, family and I am surrounded by dreams.  My heart beats like a metrnome while Avery, in my bed, breathes a gentle melody in time.  The clock keeps ticking.  It is difficult to decide what to leave behind.

Equestrian Challenge

I'm headed out to see our horses tomorrow as I've been down sick since Friday- the kind of sick where you feel all weak and wobbly when you try to walk and have to stop every few minutes and hold up the wall on the way to puking your guts out in the bathroom.  Gotta love Thanksgiving-induced stomach viruses or flu or whatever it is.

Anyhow, I am stymied.  Foxy is pretty amazing and is very calm, trusting and honest once she gets her kicks out during turnout.  3 foot fence with flowers in front of it that she's never seen before?  No problem.  Picking up the correct lead off a jump? Awesome.  Falling in on her shoulder?  My fault, working on that.  Hangliders and paragliders with their chutes snapping in the wind near the trail? Not a second glance.

Clippers?  Better have full body armor on.  Erica says try sedation or running the clippers nearby without touchng her to desensitize her.  Good lord, all the time I've patiently tried to get her used to the buzzing and vibration? No freakin' go.  She seriously needs a trace clip.  She does some of the most interesting things I've ever had a horse do- instead of reaching down with her head to scratch her legs or shoo an errant fly away, she crosses er front legs, lifts one off the ground and rubs it up and down the other leg.  Every horse I've ever had or worked with, when they lie down, they roll onto their sides, put their heads down.  She lays down like a dog- both legs tucked in with her chest on the ground then tucks her muzzle down against the front part of her chest.  This means, even with a blanket, she collects dirt and shavings and probably poo and mud and whatever under her where the girth goes and it is a beyotch to clean, even when she is getting regular baths (which she doesn't get as many of in the winter because it is pretty chilly out there in the hills with the wind).  (She doesn't *always* lay like that- she does like to lay out in the round pen in the sun on her side and sometimes she will roll over, almost on her back and stay that way for alot longer than most horses- they usually do this when they roll so they can scratch their back and coat it with dirt and dust which I think is an attempt to keep pests away). 

Really need to clip her.  Poor thing cannot stay clean!!

Maybe she thinks she is a dog.  I'm going to start doing some clicker training with her.  She loves to play with things and is very curious- when I was bending over picking her hooves one day she reached down and pulled a dust rag I had hanging out of my back pocket and took off with it as soon as I put her hoof down.  She's also taken off with the farrier's tools, heh.  Gotta give my girl some constructive activities, she's a tad too clever for her own good. :)

Public Service Announcement: Sink Cleaning

File under: Reason #249 Not To Clean Your Bathroom Sink

...after you pull out the basketball-sized, pet&child&possibly-adult-eating hairball, you may realize that you pushed an even larger hairball further down the pipe causing every form of absolute nastiness to back up and explode all over the place where you brush your teeth and wash your face.

You have been warned.

This too shall pass.

It finally feels as though winter has arrived.  Thanksgiving was wonderful- my girls helped me cook and my parents were here from Seattle.  It was a small group this year but it felt like family with my Dad riding my bike with Avery down to the park, watching old movies with my Mom, listening to Dean and my Dad discussing sports scores...  Viola spent alot of time hanging out with her little group of friends- scootering down to the park, hanging out in front of our house on the swing and tree bed that she made(with help from Dean and I, of course).

Avery is at that little-princess-eager-to-please stage, which my parents adore.  I felt so much pride and love for Viola, though, who is not afraid to say what she thinks and has an opinion on so many things.  I love that she can go two blocks down to the park or scooter over to her friend's house on her own and she continues to surprise and impress me with her trustworthiness and ever-increasing maturity.  In some ways, this year has finally helped me see the returns on living in this neighborhood.  While I hold nothing against my fellow residents and have a couple of acquaintances and one really good friend here, it has long been apparent to me that these are not my people.  I was with my people when I was tromping all over Eastern Europe with what I could carry, I am with my people in my classes at Harvard where many of my fellow students, teaching fellows and professors are ever seeking the means to improve life for everyone- not just Americans who think poverty is not having a big screen t.v. or a nice car, I am with my people when I am covered with sweat and dirt, riding my horse where I can see all the way to the horizon.  I often feel desperately out of place among the moms and nannies at the park who sit and gossip on their iPhones, giving their kids dirty looks when they interrupt them for something.  My home is a haven, of sorts, where there is much laughing and snuggling, teasing and wrestling and always, always learning.  But I am not at home, even though this house is my home.

It has been hard to stay here all these years.  A great part of me knows and understands why I have chosen this life and that is for Dean, for Viola, for Avery, that they might have safety and security.  Another part of me wonders if I am doing an even greater disservice to them by staying here.  Don't misunderstand, I would NEVER leave my girls- not for anything, even my life.  I do wonder, sometimes, though, what would think, learn, become if I lived the life I want with them?

It's funny.  When I was a girl, horses were never far from my mind.  I decorated my room with horses- I collected Breyer horses, read books on horses.  I looked forward to every ride and even just being at the barn, mucking stalls or getting lost in my head while I cleaned tack.  I was so grateful when I found out that each of my babies were girls and I spun imaginative dreams where they would embrace the horses with my same passion.  I should have known better!!  Half(or more) of what makes anything alluring is not having a free, full-access pass.  Thus, I often ride alone.  The girls enjoy the horses, enjoy horse camp- but it isn't something they would scorch the face of the Earth to get.  They have their own passions and I have tried to be understanding and nurture those passions as much as possible.

It makes me wary, however, that Dean and the girls might not find travelling the world, staying in hostels, backpacking and hiking, taking trains at 2am, nearly so appealing as I do.  And now I see Viola blossoming as her world expands.  I see her laughing and happy and above all, enthusiastic.  I never have to prod her from her bed in the morning and I know from how she offers to help me around the house without prompting and being patient with her little sister and getting straight A's at school- well, I know she is happy.  We've had many years of strife, where she struggled with teachers she thought were idiotic and a social hierarchy at school for which she had absolutely no regard.  I'm not saying that she should have felt, thought, said or acted differently- I've always emphasized that it is one of the most important lessons in life to learn to make your outside line up with who you are on the inside- but she did pay a price, being who she is left her alone.  Now she is no longer alone as her world at Jr. High is much larger than it was at Elementary school and she has finally found some people who love and accept her for HER.  That is such a gift.  I wish I'd had her fortitude in not compromising who I am at various points in my life.  Even now, I feel like I am- but I am a wife and a mother, too, and in some ways that means letting go of some of what I used to be to make room for those identities which I would never trade.

So, I am contemplating... pensive.  I am trying to figure out ways to be who I am and also the wife and mother I WANT to be.  No easy task.  I'm off book with this one- I have no script to follow because my mother chose to sacrifice herself for us and never lets us forget it.  I never want my children to see me feeling bitter or regretful and I think I could become that if I threw in the towel and just tried to conform to the mould. I have to find some way to fit the puzzle together so that I can give what I want to give but still be me.

For now, I have been thinking of Thanksgiving and what I am thankful for... it is not the house or my car or even my beloved music and book collections- I'm really just thankful that I have been able to know and love the people in my life(and animals, too!).  Somehow I know that we will not live here, in the suburbs in California, forever- but for now, it must be where I am meant to be.

I love rainy days in California.

I love days like today.  Got up and left for the ranch at 8 and thought maybe it was going to rain.  I arrived to blue skies and took my very hot and high horse down to the big arena to gallop around and blow off some steam before I rode her.  Had an absolutely wonderful lesson with Erica.  The sky started turning a little grey, the wind was whipping up and I wasn't quite sure I was going to get Foxy past the hay that they had just covered with the Horse-Eating-Big-Blue-Tarp (what is it with blue tarps?)  About 15 circles around me and several verses of an Italian love song later, we made it back up to the barns.  I know many equestriennes frown upon high or hot horses, but I have to say, I like a little spirit.  I mean, not the run-away-with-me-and-buck-me-off spirit, but I like a little challenge.  Miss Foxy is all grown up now.  She's an Irish Draught Sport Horse- so she is considered a warmblood and she is pretty darn big- getting run over by her is probably kind of like getting run over by an economy sized car.

We finished up just as a little rain started to fall.  I did some errands and drove home in the cozy car singing along to my recent playlist.  There is something comforting to me about being in my little car with the heat blasting and the windshield wipers swishing back and forth.  Then I couldn't resist taking a little twirl or two with my eyes closed and the rain pelting my face on the way into the house.

It reminds me of home, of Washington's perpetual winters and grey skies.  The nice thing about days like this in California is that it isn't like this every day.  Someday, I want to live in a place where there really are 4 seasons.  I want falls where I can walk and kick burnished leaves that are ankle deep in places.  I want winters where I could go skate on a pond, build snowmen and make snow angels.  I want springs where tulips bloom and I can smell the loamy scent of the earth waking up again.  I want sweltering summers where I can swim in the ocean and lie in the hot sand, picking out fluffy white clouds that look like animals.  Maybe someday.  And maybe Foxy will be there with me and we will canter in the surf and meander in the hills, there would be lush fields for our arena and we'd go on moonlight rides in the snow.

Does a paradise like that even exist anymore?  Maybe when we move to Switzerland there will be enough time to travel around and find such a place.  In the meantime, California will have to do.  I've never seen it snow here, not anywhere too close.

 

Nightmares.

I don't really categorize a dream as a nightmare unless it literally wakes me from my sleep.   Had one of those a few minutes ago.  Woke in a cold sweat with my heart racing.  If I was my grandma, I'd go make me a hot tea and pour a l'il somethin' somethin' in it.  Instead, I will have a self-guided therapy session on my blog.

*collective groan*  Okay, I'll just hit the sauce.

No.  Just kidding.  I don't even drink anymore.  I used to think people said and did funny shit when they were drunk- now for some reason it just happens all the time regardless of intoxication.

Like look, right here: so I've been reading all these books on herbal medicine and how to make tinctures, extractions, etc..  Look for me soon to be featured on "Preppers", ripping up my back deck to make planter boxes for my end-of-the-world-medicinal-garden.  See, funny, right?  We are totally ready for the zombie apocalypse.  We're going to grab our go-bags and head for the ranch.  We will not be staying here where most of my neighbors are like "huh?" when I ask them if they have a wrench taped to their gas line next to the valve.  Don't get me wrong, I haven't dug a bunker under the house and we don't run drills to see how fast we can duct tapeall our windows shut- but if The Big One (earthquake) hits or the zombies come, I'm high-tailing it AWAY from the suburbs.  We could survive there and the horses could be helpful.  Heck, we could live year-round on ground squirrel there- NOT that I'm planning to.  

Anyhow, I have stockpiled seeds to grow medicinal herbs and am going to start growing them now and using them,  And no, I'm not going to kill anyone.  As much as I've gathered, herbal remedies can and do work- and are used in parts of what many would call the less civilized areas of the world.  It does require a different mindset to use herbs effectively, however.  Taking 2 doses a day seems to be way more convenient than taking 20 or 30 drops of a tincture every hour or two.  

Anyway, I hate waking up realy early like this after having one of those twisted-sheet-cold-sweat-nightmares.

Oh, good, here comes Kitteh for some snuggles.  Kitteh always makes me feel better- maybe because she is proof I am not the only living being awake this early (or how early it was when I woke up).

Hey! It is daylight savings! Awesome!

Better than drugs...no, seriously.

I woke up early this morning- way to freakin' early, like I'm-on-East-Coast-time early.  Anyone who knows me, knows how much I love to sleep.

The one good thing about getting up really early?  There is no temptation to go back to bed or laze around after getting the kids off to school. So, I put on my breeches, dropped Viola off at school, then sang my head off with my iPod as I watched the morning sky awaken as I drove to the ranch.

The horses were still eating their morning hay and it was just cold enough that their breath looked like steam as they wuffled to me as I walked by.  Foxy was high as a kite (and rather disconcerted that I took her away from her last few handfuls of alfalfa).  She rolled, bucked and kicked up her heels in the small arena where the footing is quite soft and deep.

I never quite respect how huge she is until I am reminded when she lays down and rolls like some sort of massive dog.  I rinsed her off as she is a muddy mudcake from the big rain we had the other day and then I tacked her up.  Took her down to the big arena and lunged her in her tack in the big round pen down there and then off we went.

It is really a whole different sort of thing, riding Foxy.  She doesn't know alot.  She is very smart and figures things out quickly but she makes me realize how much less work it is to ride a properly finished horse.  Today we worked on our turns.  Really basic, right?  Nope.  Not so much, especially when you want the turn to come from the front end and not the back end.  So she is learning and I am re-learning.

Today, though, some things really felt like they were finally coming together.  Today I felt like we were more of a team than we have been.  It didn't hurt that my trainer said, "I couldn't have done it better myself".  And she has known me long enough and we have enough mutual respect that she knows I know when I'm doing well and doesn't talk down to me by giving me high fives when I ride like shit.

A good ride... well, for me, there are few things that are better.  The drive to the ranch this morning was beautiful with red streaking across the sky and little pockets of fog- but when I left, I felt like the world was technicolor versus black and white.  There is not one damn thing I can think of except maybe my kids that makes me feel more alive, more in awe, more appreciative than a good ride.  I know lots of people won't get that but it isn't something you can bottle or buy.  I think it has something to do with showing up, again and again, putting in the time and the work, for these amazing moments of synergy with another creature.

Definately better than drugs.

Happy Halloween 2012 (the morning after)

Ugh! I'm tired!  Yesterday was a LONG Halloween.  Got up bright and early to take Viola to the urgent care for her asthma.  Got new nebulizer supplies in the form of three different prescriptions.  Yay!  Now we get to fight about her having nebulizer treatments every day!

Avery had chorus so I sat in the very chilly Starbucks somewhere up there by Berkeley.  Drove an hour each way in relatively congested traffic what with the sprinkle of rain that seems to bring out the dumb driver in we Californians. (Wow.  I think that is one of the first times I've thought of myself as a Californian rather than a Seattlite.)  I love it when one lane is blocked by a 5 car fender bender where everyone stays in the middle of traffic and ensuing lookie-loos rather than getting over to the shoulder.

Rolled up at 7pm at which point Vi had already taken off with a few of her seventh grade friends.  Dean, Avery and I made lightning quick costume changes that were worthy of a Broadway show.

Ave decided to go as a princess this year.  She wanted to be a zombie but I convinced her that she'd rather come home and eat candy rather than spending an hour scrubbing off make-up and corn syrup based fake blood.  I went as Little Red Riding Hood and Dean was my Big Bad Wolf(which is hilariously from a couple perspectives- I am hardly little, especially in 4 inch red patent leather platform heels and secondarily, Dean had about the least scary wolf costume I've ever seen).

 

Vi went in a rennaissance masquerade dress but managed to lose her face mask somewhere along the way which kinda made the costume BUT everyone had a great time.  We had a huge group of parents and all wandered about the neighborhood with our sugar-tweaked-out kids and I'd say it was pretty decent for a Wednesday night Halloween.  I just wish I'd gotten pictures BEFORE the rain that started just as we were turning down our block, while Avery was all still glittery and wearing her elbow length gloves.  But what can you do...

 

All in all, everyone had fun which is what it's all about... although Dean would no doubt disagree with me and claim CANDY is what it's all about.

 

Can't wait for next year... already have some good ideas.  I want to get as much dressing up for Halloween in as possible before the girls get all 'this is stupid', blah, blah, blah...

 

I know it won't last forever but it sure is good times right now.  Gota take the good times where you can find them, right?  I'm thinking we should dress Foxy up as a Unicorn next year and take her with us.  I bet she woud think it was pretty cool!  Or we could spray her black and I could be the headless horsewoman.  Come to think of it, trying to take Foxy trick-or-treating could potentially end up with me losing my head... 

 

Now, time to get ready for Thanksgiving!  Seems like just yesterday we were buying turkies that weighed more than the kids did...

It's 3am. A plea to the YA writers of the world.

Why does everything really important hit me at akward hours?

Lately, I've been stepping more and more outside of myself and going 'wow' about this whole motherhood thing.  I mean it is really great that we are chemically, hormonally programmed to have certain reactions regarding our children-  I get that.  It seems to fall in line with the whole survival of the fit thing.  I just didn't think I could wake up(me, who sleeps like a dead log) because I recognize the pattern of my child's footsteps running quietly but frantically from room to room as she is embroiled in a night terror.  

So things like that make me realize that motherhood reaches deep, like morning glory roots, twisting and turning and wrapping itself around the entirety of me until I know by the slight sound of padding feet that something is about to erupt.

I've bee reading like crazy the past few days, trying to find some decent YA books to review and every cat and dog with a keyboard appears to have written a YA romance involving vampires or witches or faeries or all of the above or some other made up thing.

And then I read a book that was just a romance.  It was simple and sweet and the main characters didn't have to fight demons or suppress their true nature or want to suck each others blood or eat each other's hearts out or anything.

I find myself asking where the mystery of the human heart has gone?  And I will say this, down 'Twilight' haters, down: this whole movement is not of Stephanie Meyers creation.  Girls loved those books not because of the prospect of eternity- girls loved those books, as far as I can tell, because they took sex out of the whole love equation which is really hard to do these days.  And doesn't every young girl who falls in love think the object of her affection is perfect and gorgeous and...  If you look at the current Adult Bestsellers and the whole 50 Shades phenomenon, most people who read them will think they are ALL about the sex.  But if you really pay attention, the real love story is what draws readers and it IS NOT about the sex at all, it is in spite of it.

Anyhow, from one book reviewer to the entire book writing population, the heart is a mystery- it doesn't need extraneous bs to fancy it up.  Love is maybe the most write-worthy experience there is.  Love may even be why we exist, despite the flotsam and jetsam that get in our way, despite what our televisions tell us, despite our desire to buy more, build bigger.  It is, perhaps, the greatest work and consequence of our life, to have loved others, to have connected to them.

We don't need vampires and werewolves and fairies and witches for that. (Picture = me saying PLEASE!)

Done well, writing about the paranormal is interesting or fun for the reader.  A good fantasy world is a fabulous escape and a good place for adventure, but for those of us who have to review your work- writers: please do it well.  And don't forget that at the heart of things, well, the heart is good enough.  Fads will come and go, empires will rise and fall and as long as we people are around, some of us will be trying to capture the ineffable qualities of what it is to love another, vampires and werewolves or not.

Kitteh and friends

Kitteh is SUPPOSED to be a house cat.  Good luck keeping her inside, though.  Last night she brought some friends in with her and one of them hopped out onto the white coverlet on my bed. EWWWWW GROSS! Kitteh had a flea!

Kitteh gets regular flea treatments so I don't know what the heck is up but this incident led to poor kitteh getting twice over with the flea comb which reveals some dirt but not find any more of those blood-sucking parasites.  It could have been an anomaly but I gave her another flea treatment and am going to switch up the brands of flea treatment we use in case the fleas around here are becoming resistant.

Kitteh is not allowed to have friends in the house.  Yeah.  And no leaving dead things in front of the door anymore, Kitteh.  We know what a good hunter you are.  Well, I'd make one exception, you could go after that Mocking Bird that wakes me up at 4am imitating various car alarms and an iPhone ringtone.

 

Poor Kitteh, Naming Pets, Wanderlust and Tattoos

Poor Kitteh.  Who calls their cat Kitteh?

When Dean and I got Missy, being, oh, 19, I wanted to name Missy "Inky" (Missy was our all-black cat).  Dean proceeded to call her Missy after his nethack cat character.  Eventually, I was on the losing side of his war of attrition.

Kitteh's official name is Alexis which was immediate shortened to Ally since Alexis turned out to be one scrappy cat who takes down dogs passing by the front of our house.  I don't mean she raises her back, hisses and poofs out her tail- I mean she lies in wait in the rose bushes and terrifies old ladies walking their little yap dogs and I had to save her from herself one day when a guy walked by with a pitbull that also made me call the kids up onto the porch. 

I think poor Kitteh believes she is a dog.  That's what you get when you adopt a cute little kitten at the same time you adopt a cute little Jack Russel.

I want to get another tattoo.  I've got itchy feet, wanderlust if you will, but I'm pretty firmly cemented in my shoes right now- not sure Dean would go for me taking the girls to trek up to Machu Picho on my own and traipse around South America for some vague amount of time(or Asia or Africa or wherever).  Makes me want to get a new tattoo or my eyebrow pierced or something.  I'm way too lazy to rearrange all the furniture, so...  looking for a good latin phrase.

Right now, the only time I feel truly free and unfettered is when I'm on my horse.  The thing is, I think I am learning in my exceedingly old and wisened age, I could go to the ends of the earth and I'd still not be able to get away from what I'm always running from:  myself.

Kitteh and her shopping addiction.

So, Kitteh has been getting on my computer lately and ordering stuff.  Bad kitteh!  She especially likes to take advantage of "gift with purchase offers'.  I think she might be getting a little jealous of all the free stuff I've been getting from Amazon.

Today, UPS dropped a box off on our porch from Nordstrom.  I opened it eagerly thinking, "ooo, someone got me a present" or "ooo, maybe those shirts I bought for Viola finally came.

Instead I find, rather puzzlingly, a pair of Spanx(for those who don't know what Spanx are, they are a line of shapewear- they do make great pantyhose and leggings that almost never run-  but to get back on point, essentially the word 'GIRDLE' comes to mind).  Is this a hint from Kitteh that I've been hitting the carbs a little too often of late?

Then I find this:  Lancome's current gift-with-purchase program at Nordstrom.  

This arrived with Lancome's "Captivating Eyes" set, an 'Exclusive Defining & Brightening Eye Collection'. It IS pretty nifty: an eyeshadow/liner palette with brown, soft pink and sparkling shades of taupe and a darker greyish-brown for lining/defining; Aquatique eyes shadow base to avoid those pesky eye crease lines; mascara base; Bi-Facil eye make-up remover(which does work FABULOUSLY), two application brushes, a Black Ebony Kohl eyeliner pencil and a full tube of Definicils mascara(okay, maybe it isn't Chanel but it's pretty good).

I know Kitteh has been hanging out by the computer alot but I thought it was just her Nyan cat obsession on YouTube.

Way too far Kitteh.

Another gift with purchase was included in the package alongside a BareMinerals Perfect Mauve lip kit, a tube of "Read My Lips" lipstick in 'Classified' and a Kevyn Au Coin lip pencil in "Minimal".

I think as a consequence she'll get off with a warning this time.  I, however, WILL be confiscating her contraband. Hmph.

Do cats even have lips?  I don't know, I'm kinda a softy, maybe I'll let her have the Kohl eyeliner since she's been plaintively meowing at pictures of cats from ancient Egypt lately.

Kitteh!  Moderation Kitteh!  No more onliine shopping, now get outta my computer chair kitteh!

Insomnia freakin' sucks!

Just as I'm about to rant, Better Than Ezra comes up on my playlist asking:

What would you do? What would you say? If everyone you loved came back for just one day? How would it feel if every dream came real... And all the scars you have fade away for just one day?
Imagine all the times that you could take back?  What would you have done differently?  Thoughts in your head that you never said?  A heart that you broke and left for dead?  If all the pain you had could be released...How life flies by...

I can't answer that completely, but there are a few things...

C.C.- I would hold your hand and tell you how sorry I was for not being there when you left.  I would show you pictures and introduce you to Viola and Avery and tell you that THIS is your legacy.  I would tell you how much I love you, how many little things about you I miss- how many things make me think of you every day.  I'd thank you for nurturing my imagination, for taking me camping and making me weed the garden.  I'd thank you for buying me my first real camera.  I'd ask you to tell me your stories again.  I'd fall asleep one last time to the sound of your voice.  I'd tell you that I can't count the number of times you saved me in so very many ways, how many times you helped me find myself when I was lost and could not be found.  I'd thank you for giving me a sense of adventure.  I'd tell you as many times as I could how much I love you.

M.C.- I would hug you and tell you how much it meant to me when you gave me 50 cents to buy a new goldfish when the one I won at the fair died, because you didn't want to see me cry.  I would tell you how much I wish I had known you better, longer.  I would make you cornbread and ask you a million questions while we ate it with butter and honey.  I'd watch you paint or carve something out of wood.  I would thank you for the rocking horse and the rocking chair- and the painting I'd discover only years later in the attic but knew that it was mine.   I'd tell you how your going changed who I am forever, that because of you, I know how important it is to say that you love someone when one of you goes out the door.  I'd tell you that you taught me early about the fragility of our mortality.  I'd tell you about your daughter who still cherishes a letter you wrote her and would trade 5 years for 5 more minutes with you to tell you how much she loved you. I would tell you about your wife who kept you alive all 21 years she survived you.  I would tell you how much you were loved and still are 30 years after you left us.

T.K.- I would whisper that I know there are things worse than death and I understand that now and I would tell you that there was a time when you were the sun in my solar system and to not feel badly for what came.  I would not be the same if things had gone differently.  I'd tell you I loved you and still do but I have missed you so much over the years.  I'd tell you how sorry I am for things that I wished for and thank you for all the early adventures that marked me indelibly.                                                                                                                                                          J.S.- You were my best friend when I needed it more than anything and I am forever grateful.  I would tell you I am sorry that our paths did not lead us down closer roads.

M.L.- I would tell you how you made the best gingersnaps ever and you taught me one of the most important lessons about life without even knowing it.  I would set right the things that were misunderstood.  I would tell you that I loved you and know you loved me back, that I know now love can look so very many different ways.  I would tell you all the gifts you have unknowingly given me and thank you for them.  

M.P.- I'd say I forgive you but sometimes things just aren't meant to go back to how they were.

M.L.- We'd ride horses and we'd see each other in one another and there would be no need to say anything.  I would tell you that "Yes, I knew you loved me."  I would apologize for not understanding you earlier.  I would tell you I was proud of what you contributed to who I am.  I would tell you I am sorry I was not there when I should have been.

M.L.- I'd tell you that you made me feel loved and for that I am infinitely grateful.  I would thank you for teaching me about generosity.  I wish I had known you better.

T.S.- I'd tell you that I wish life had been easier on you.  I'd tell you that even if your faith has sustained you and you believe God would never give you more than you can shoulder that I was there to hold you up even if you never needed it.

E.H.- I'd tell you how much I really loved you.  I didn't tell you that enough.  I'd tell you that I've never fallen asleep holding someone's hand and woken the next morning still holding it since you. 

B.B.- I'd tell you that I loved you, that I was too scared and silly to tell you that truth at the time.

B.- I'd tell you that I'm not happy how things ended but that I truly loved you, that I still do.  I'd tell you that I wouldn't be who I am without you- that you showed me the sunlight.  I'd tell you I have no regrets and loving you is never something that I will look back on with regret.  I'd tell you my love is a gift I gave freely, still give, with no expectation of return.  I'd telll you the time our paths crossed is like a shooting star in the night sky of my life.

S.- I'd tell you if I kew our time was so short I would have loved you harder, if that was even possible.

D.Y.- I'd tell you it will all work out.  That it was all meant to be.  I'd tell you that you'd give me the best and greatest gift of my life.  I'd tell a younger you that our love would be forged in fire, cooled in water.  I'd thank you for being my best and longest friend, before everything else.  I'd tell your younger self that you were right.  I'd tell you now that you will always have  a home in my heart.  I'd tell you that wherever we are together is home to me.  I'd thank you for my freedom and the comfort and wisdom you left with me.  I'd tell you that I will be here always.

T.R.- I would tell you I'd have fought harder to hold onto our friendship.  I'd thank you for making the unbearable survivable.

E.P.- I would tell you, "Thank You, Sen Sei".  You are my yoda.

S.

Maybe some of you will see these words go out into the ether.  Maybe those that have gone on to whatever lies beyond will be called back for just a moment by my thoughts of them.  

In some ways this life makes it difficult for me to imagine a hell, some ways a heaven.  And then I realize that it is so very much about perspective.  Now simply is what it is.  

Love, after all, is the only message.

It seems sacriligious somehow to quote my favorite poet after Better Than Ezra but here is what seems and apropos quotation by Rainer Maria Rilke:

For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.

And so the new year begins..

For all the moms out there, the beginning of the school year marks a different sort of New Year- and this one doesn't involve toasting with champagne or watching fireworks.

It is back to juggling activities, family time, a job maybe or school, of bedimes and lunch packing and numerous obligations.

For me, it is a very bittersweet time.  I do enjoy getting a little "me time" in but I also miss my rugrats.  With Vi starting jr. high this year, I have become hyperaware of of the ticking of the clock.  How is it she was in preschool just a moment ago and now she has friends over and shuts her door.  I hear her playing music and is getting a little to close to having a whole life of which I am not a party.

It emphasizes to me, even moreso, the cultivation of relationships and activities for myself- especially with Dean.  The girls won't be around forever and regardless of how tight I hold on, the more I see that while I will always be their motheir, it will, at some point, be from a distance.  I don't want to be 50 and suddenly have no 'me'.  This is especially important because I want my girls to be strong and independent and I don't want to be one of 'those' moms... as much as I understand from whence they come.

So, still writing- more on that when I have things a little more solidified.

I'm also thinking of other hoobbies an interests to cultivate.  I may start with my front yard which has looked like hell since, oh, forever.

I'm reading more, trying to have more late night, philisophical conversations with Dean, wich is a big reason, I think, why we chose one another.  It is one thing to be with someone who roots you on or doesn't care if you have a girl's night out- it is another to be with someone who makes you a better person by constantly challenging you and making you think.

And then there are the horses.  Found a good home for Cosette so now it is down to Foxy and Shadow.  I am thinking of picking up a few lessons here and there to teach.  Foxy has turned out to be my dream horse- she'll go western, english, on trail by herself and she has a heart of gold.  I just worry I am going to screw her up some how- but positive thoughts, right?

Here is to another school year, another touchstone.  And I would really like to come out of raising the kids as someone- as me.

Burying our dead.

I heard on some talk show- probably Oprah, oh so many years ago when we had regular cable and I occasionally TiVo-ed Oprah- Dr. Phil counseling some mothers who had lost their children.  I want to say it was the show about the woman who left her 9-year-old son(or something like that) in her car while she ran into a convenience store to buy something to drink.  Some car jacker jumped in her car and she tried to get her son out of the backseat.  He got caught in the seatbelt and was dragged to death.

I don't know, one human being to any other, how any mother could survive that- trying to save your child then, because of your efforts, watch your child dragged to death as someone sped off in your car.

The punishment far, far, far outweighs the crime of leaving your child in a running car to run into a store to get a drink.  How could you possibly forsee that outcome and moreso, how could you not live every moment of the rest of of your not not asking yourself, "What if?"

The answer to that question is that we only die one day and to put all of our focus on that day somehow dishonors or fails to give credit to all the other days that we LIVED.  

So, when I die... throw a party, because, my dears, I have lived WELL.  I have LIVED.  I have LOVED.  I have seen the world, travelled to far places, met oh-so-very interesting people, had good friends- yes, some for a reason, some for a season but a few very special ones for what I know will be a lifetime.

If you are not sure about how much I have lived... let me tell you, I rode Foxy on a trail ride the other day past hang gliders, road traffic, kids running through gravel, past a rattlesnake and we only had one spook that didn't even come close to unseating me.

Last night I cantered Foxy and jumped her over a few two foot jumps and it was about as close to flying as I've ever been(and not off her).  Most young horses need alot of reassurance when they first start jumping, not Foxy.  She is the bravest horse I've ever ridden.  She is an old soul.  You can see it in her eye.  Yet she is curious, interested in everything and willing to do anything.

Anyhow, this smooshy, gooshy post was inspired by the fact that our hamster Spot went to the big  grain field in heaven the other night. (That is Spot on top of the pile of hamster babies.)  

I held him in my hands until he stopped breathing and then we put him back in his castle for one more night before his funeral.  He was born here- one of Lilian's babies, spent his whole life with us and died here.  

 

We called him "The King of the Keep" because he had a little plastic castle that he made his nest inside and we would lure him out with peanuts(still in their shell) and he would drag them back inside.  He lived the longest of any of Lilian's babies and was, by far, the most beloved of them.  With his personality and ineffable verve, I have no doubt that animals have spirits or souls and I wish his a good journey on from this place and hope that his time with us was all good.  We tried to make it so.

We love you Spot and cannot wait to see you again on the other side, wherever that might be.  Good travels, our little king.

BTW- these are all baby pictures of Spot but he lived over two years and we have many more photos and memories but these are among my favorite of him.  It is amazing and wonderful both to watch someone come into this world and to leave it.

Sometimes life is just SO F-ing GOOD!

The plums are back.  This year there was a finch nest in one of the trees but it has been abandoned- think a predatory bird probably got the two eggs. :(

Set scene: I am lying here in a tank top(it's pretty long) and my boyshorts, on my 'princess' bed(my collection of a billion pillows and cushy comforters), the window-thrown wide open about three feet away, curtains pulled back, golden last bit of sun streaming in and the wind just breezing over me.  I've got my awesome Philips 'The Stretch' headphones on listening to my "Living My Life" mix- current song Good Life by OneRepublic and the Katherine McPhee version of "Brighter Than the Sun" from SMASH!.

I'm in one of those moods where I want to just blast my music, put on sunglasses and dance in my underwear on the bed.  (I actually broke a bed doing this, so please don't try at home unless you want a new bed).

The weekend was a bit rough- there was a memorial for Dean's uncle on Saturday afternoon/evening up in Grass Valley.  Ave wasn't feeling well so I stayed with her because six hours in a car with a sick kid is just miserable.  I spent a considerable amount of time trying to verify some tax crap.  The California Franchise Tax Board has made me understand others in our society who might be labelled psychopathic.  Dealing with this agency could definately cause psycopathy in many individuals.  

Avery left for Girl Scout Camp and she was incredibly excited for her week away from home.

I had a friend who ended our friendship this weekend.  That's okay.  

I've learned that the people who really matter stay through thick and thin.  I've learned that a good friend is one who makes you a better person, makes you want to be a better person, not less of one.  They call you on your shit and you do the same but it comes from a place of loving and understanding.  Mostly, I am sad about losing a connection with someone and yet one door never closes without another opening.  On Sunday, a very dear friend dropped in and we laughed and cried a little (she even brought me Starbucks!).  All the loss we've suffered over the years- hers(which is for her to tell) and mine- losing the mother I knew to a brain tumor when I was 13 years old(she lived but was never the same, which I feel guilty for even thinking or saying this but it is almost worse in some ways), Dean's dad's accident that left him paralyzed from the chest down, watching family that we love lose people they love... It has been a rought year for that.  Yet, somehow that loss is like the golden key. It turns the lock to true joy, to finding silver linings, to keep putting one foot in front of the other until the sun comes out again, even if for only a glimpse, it is somehow our proof that life goes on.  And there are people out there that I know who will wake or sleep under the same sky tonight that would come if I needed them.  There is a lesson here, too, though, that this life is, in so many ways, an individual journey.

People come and go.  When I got the phone call that my grandmother had died, I felt as if my heart had shattered into a million pieces.  It still makes me cry to think of her, to think of all the things I would say to her if I had another day with her or even 5 more minutes with her.  It is almost indescribable, palpable, that feeling in your chest of your heart breaking.  I've been so lucky to find that it is not only pain that breaks us, our hearts are meant to change I think.  I felt it again when I held Viola, and then Avery for the first time, when Dean and I said "I do" under the big tree in our backyard at our house in Seattle.  There are just some people- Anne Shirley might call them kindred spirits- who remind me that there are so many ways for a heart to break and be put back together again.  

There is some Cosmic balance to this universe, though, no matter what anyone else believes.  I believe.  God?  Something else?  But each day is a miracle.  When Viola was born I would put her to sleep for her too brief nap at night and whisper to God, "If you are there, and you hear me- just give me one more day with her."  But I'm greedy now and I wish it would never end.

But it all ends.  Everything is temporary.  So, I take back what I said.  Turn your music up.  Dance on your bed in your undies. Break your bed.  It's just a bed.  Celebrate the miracle of another day, of breezes fluttering at the curtains, the smell of night-blooming-jasmine in the air, the sun setting in a glory that we get to witness daily yet rarely appreciate, a sky full of stars and a heart beating in your chest that will break like glass(sometimes violently and quickly, sometimes slowly and quietly) but mend again, maybe changed- I hope for you- many times in your life.

We all think we're something.

What are you?

I will begin by telling you what I am not.  

I am not a schoolteacher.  I am not patient and kind except with animals and children and people I like.  Huh.  I'm not very patient with myself, I wonder what that means?

I am not an excellent mother.  I have not devoted my entire life to my family.  I have hidden in beds and books and music.  I have pursued my passions which extend far beyond merely nurturing my children and feeding my husband and doing everyone's laundry.

I have not believed effortlessly in beliefs that others promote to me.

I have lain on the damp grass beneath the stars wondering what more could there possibly be than the infinity stretched before me and not doubted that I am too small to comprehend the vastness of time and space in the universe.

I am not dedicated to a pedagogy or a theology or a doctrine.  I am not a liar by nature but maybe a bit of hypocrite by time and learning.

I am not a mindless follower of propaganda that is shouted at me from the television and the radio and the magazines and the newspaper that I will be happy if I have MORE (a nicer car, the perfect dress, the latest in lipstick shades and high heels, a bigger house, a better neighborhood, more, more, more).

Who am I?

If anything, I want to be less, have less.

I like to fall asleep with the rush of the wind impulsively brushing at my face and hair.

I am a night owl and have always been inspired and enchanted in the dark.  The light of day tends to reveal the drab and disappointing truth of the world.  If I were a flower, I would only bloom at night.

I am a dreamer and a believer in true love.  I do not believe it is just enough to love your children and be present, that is just an excuse for failing to find wonder in life that we can only find for such a short time.

I think someday I will ride a horse away into the desert from the Great Pyramids.  I am someone who wants to sit by the Nile and take pictures along the Amazon.

I am a rider of horses, sometimes if only in my dreams. Not only that, I am a knower of their secrets, secrets that take time and patience and trust and love to know. I have been lucky and blessed.  

I am a mother.

Someday I will be a writer and a poet.  

I am a traveller of the world, sometimes by plane, sometimes by foot, sometimes by train, and sometimes only in my mind.

I am a listener because I think that children and the world and the universe are constantly whispering truths to us that we so seldomly really hear.

I am an ice skater of life, because I realize that life can turn in an instant, a shift of balance, the edge of a blade, the tip of a spike, a moment free from gravity and everything has changed- your direction is no longer your direction.

I am a child who ran naked on the beach, picking up poocha shells.  I have played with baby sea lions and swam with penguins and mantarays and sharks.  I have watched ants in an ever progressing line, on some preprogrammed, unknowable mission, march, one after another... much as we do.

I have cried and bled, I have been broken.  I have lain in the dirt, shaking with anger and pain, only to get up again. I have flown, I have been elated, I have known joy.

I have seen the albatross in unfailing faith launch itself from the edge of a cliff so I am someone who knows that whatever it is, it is possible.

In my dreams I have ridden horses over impossibly high fences through deep rivers and thigh high grass under a red and blue and gold sky and I have known freedom.  I am free.  Somewhere in my soul.  

I am someone who wants to live big and die big.  I am not afraid of the pain of either, but tethered by convention and by love. Love is the largest pair of wings and the heaviest of shackles. Love.

I have known love.  I know love.

I am.  For now, I am.  And someday, like everyone else I will be food for worms and fertilizer for the grass and water for the trees but maybe there will be a small speck of light in the sky, seen only from a lonely hill on the darkest of nights that will be the star the burns within me.

But for now, I am.

 

Nostalgia.

When I was a kid my dad always got the Reader's Digest.  He is one of the smartest men I know and he never went to college but reads National Geographic cover-to-cover every month, books, the Reader's Digest, the morning paper, etc. and honestly, I think he is a genius.

Anyhow, I read quite a bit from the Reader's Digest as a child.  Sometimes there wasn't much else to read and I could devour normal books in mere hours- I think the Count of Monte Cristo took me maybe 2 1/2 days to read.  Anyhow, it wouldn't have been my first choice of reading material as 3rd grade girls are not the Reader's Digest's intended demographic.  I came to love the vocabulary challenges and the quotation pages.  There was a quotation about nostalgia- it'll come back to me when I wake from a dream at 3am but I can't seem to find it in the filing system of my brain right now.  But it was something like: Nostalgia is knowing that was has been, can never be again.

Those words want to make my heart burst.  Maybe I'm being melodramatic but it is true- once we've lived a moment it is scribed indelibly in our book of days.  Some very smart people(dumb ones, too) say that nostalgia is silly, worthless, a longing for something we never had, missing a place we've never been.

But now we have technology and so here is a little piece of nostalgia I found, doing some spring cleaning on my computer.  I was playing around with some video software and practicing with various audio tracks so forgive the poor quality.  Sometimes, sometimes, all we have in the future are pictures, and those become our past.  I hope my girls will remember this as part of their past.  I know I will.

 

 

The allegory of the loom.

I fall in love everyday.  There is something, someone every day that is new and lovely and amazing, loveable somehow.  Today, I am in love with my daughter's metallic pink fingernails with sparkles that I so meticulously painted, my other daughter's beautiful oragami card for an injured classmate, the white orchid with petals that literally sparkle on our bathroom windowsill that Dean gave me for Mother's day and has been the only orchid I've ever kept alive this long.  

The things we love, well, they take tending, they take care, they take notice, they take time.

I just feel like it's not fair.  I've loved things, loved people, animals, hell, even the weather on a particular day and it is all so fleeting.  Even these beautiful, dark-eyed, dark-haired exotic creatures that are my children- it has gone by so quickly.  It reminds me of a book our teacher read to us in school called "Eric" by Doris Lund.  Ms. Lund's son died of cancer.  I recall, even now, all these years later, a part where she mentions what a miracle his life and death were but how much he would take with him, behind his brow, in death that neither she nor anyone else would know.

Sometimes it feels too much, like I cannot possibly contain all the love, cannot possibly tell them, or Dean how much I've loved the moments.  It seems unfair that I can love so many people ad things this much.  It seems unfair that love can come and change me so and then go and sometimes I have no idea of the deep and beautiful color their thread has added to the tapestry of my life.  It seems unfair that love has to be so limited in some cases, that we are not allowed to acknowledge certain threads, even if they still are there, running among the others, however quietly blending now, but there nonetheless.

I don't think I'm different.  I think we keep loving what we have loved.  I can still revel in the memory of smelling my daughter's hair, just a week old, nestled in my arms- that love is as bright a thread as  any other.  I can remember the love behind my words as Dean and I were married, me in my barefeet, under an ageless tree in our backyard.  But what of other loves?  And the dark threads?  Are we just supposed to pretend we don't see them, do they simply become part of a senseless background- the textile version of sfumato, distant, unclear, misty and grey.  I know they cannot be cut out without the rest of it all unravelling.

I don't care what some people might say.  I still see those deep blue threads, the golden ones that glint and sparkle in the sunlight.  And is it fate/God/the universe weaving our threads together?  Or just us, master artists of the tapestry of our lives?  Or is it just random?  I like to think it is a combined effort, that some threads are the warp that was always there, always meant to be there- even if it changes color or texture.  Then we supply the weft- sometimes the shuttle flies and sometimes it slows.  Threads break, mistakes are made.  Ultimately, I think what I want is to both be happy and make those I care for happy.  It is difficult when you care for the world but maybe that is the nature of my warp.

That reminds me of the persian mistake mythology- that those who made the meticulous creations we loosely call 'persian rugs' purposefully make a mistake, an acknowledgement of humility and deference, that no one is perfect but Allah.  I don't need to intentionally add mistakes to my tapestry.  They are there, regardless.  Some, I've tried to go back and undo.  Others, I only realize with the perspective of time that what I thought was a mistake added to my tapestry, even if it wasn't what I had planned.

I admire those who have the skill to weave or knit or sew or write or whatever, having the patience to go back and find dropped stitches or cut the thread knowing it means starting from behind again.  Some people dedicate their entire life to a single hobby or two, perfecting it, grasping for more and more perfection over the years.

I suppose I can relate to that through the horses- but really, the training and riding, it is just an excuse to love.  Don't get me wrong, sometimes I still dream I am competeing in an event, flying over jumps, my heart pounding and hoping for those moments when my horse and I become one, indivisable being.  Those moments are about relationships.  Thinking of that makes me sad, though, too.  I think we should have moments like that with each other, with other human beings and there seem to be so few in my life right now.

I was IM'ing my friend Aileen who used to take care of Viola when she was going to school here in the US (she is originally from Eastern Germany where she only ever saw green oranges at the store, from Cuba, until after the fall of the Berlin Wall).  She was a college student, a few years younger than myself.  We've kept in touch over the years, here and there.  I helped her with an applicatioon to a program in Amsterdam? I think it was, I got a card from her with pictures of her surrounded by small African children from the orphanage where she was volunteering.  Now she is a wife and a mother and we keep up on facebook- how amazing is that?  People can complain about how technology has isolated us, but it has also opened the world to us in so many ways. (It is all about balance, my friends, after all Dr. Suess said it best "...and remember that Life's a Great Balancing Act."  Balance, my friends).  (And since this is all for you, my girls, balance is so important.  It is why I always told you to take the F if you really felt like you didn't want to do something, because time is far too short and there is much for you to do.)

Aileen is now living in Namibia and I jokingly suggested that they might need a horse trainer since they have a massive farm and tourist business they run.  She must have been part of my weft, as I know our threads were meant to cross.  Can I really pack my family up and move to Namibia?  Will Dean really have the courage to pursue a position with his company in Switzerland?  It makes me wonder what is part of my warp, what will happen, regardless of the colors or speed of my shuttle?  How will the rest of my days be colored by the weft of my choices?

My Perfect Day.

Today was one of those days that comes upon you somewhat unassumingly but by the time you get into bed, if you are lucky, you realize you've just had one of your perfect days.

I slwpt in after staying up terribly late reading a terribly good novel.  I got to have that half-awake-half-asleep cozy time with just Dean in the bed since Ave was spending the night at a friends.  I like having snuggle time with her, too, I just like the languid quality of being able to get up when I want and not because "You need to see this" or "Can you help me..."  Again, none of which I would change but makes slow mornings all the more delicious.

Spent most of the day at the ranch.  So, the kids fought in the car... it was good natured for the most part.  We blasted "Brighter Than The Sun" and sang away.  At the ranch, the kids got out Shadow who was totally full of himself and barging all over the place.  It was nice to see him so happy and ready to go.  Our farrier has given us a totally new horse.

I'm still getting Cosette used to the place.  Today I took her to the washrack and gave her a bath.  Of course, then I turned her out and rolled, rolled, rolled.  But I'm glad she felt good to roll.  We groomed Shadow and Cosette and while Dean and Viola rode Cosette in the upper arena, I went down and gave Avery a lesson on Shadow.  It made me realize how much I miss being a horseback riding instructor.

After Shadow and Cosette were groomed again and put away and fed and given clean shavings and yada..yada..  I went in with Foxy and gave her a brief grooming.  Its almost impossible since she is shedding her winter coat.  She is a hairy polar bear.  I got a new bridle with a nice, new herm sprenger bit on it- super light snaffle with a french link.  Got her saddled up in my dressage gear and headed down to the big arena.

She's huge, but she is a big mover and as soon as I get some muscle on her she's going to be gorgeous.  I'll let the pictures do the talking:

 

 

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Oyster Nightmare

OMG!  This night has been crazy.  Dean and the girls ate a bunch of oysters out of a jar he bought at an asian market.  If I'd known I would have stopped it.  Turns out the oysters were RAW, in a jar with no preservatives or anything.  Dean thought it would be fine, cause, you know, people eat raw oysters. 

Ave ate half of one, Vi ate two and Dean had a bunch.  Anyhow, I made both the girls drink a huge glass of water, stick their fingers down their throats and vomit. Rinse. Repeat.  It was a barf-fest.  Barfatorium.  They were both troopers about it.

I majored in microbiology so I know that you can get Vibrio or even Noro from raw oysters and just what we need are a couple of kids going to the hospital with sepsis from eating a vibrio-laced oyster. 

Gave them an absolute ton of water after and then had them take fiber and probiotics.  Hopefully, this will clear their system and if they end up with food poisoning, maybe it won't be as bad.  Vibrio is a bad bug, though, and those who get sick from it... well, there's a 40% mortality.  That is HIGH.

Please say a little prayer for us that they won't get infected.  Dean also got the treatment, but he's got the stomach of steel.  Our kids do not, however.

I am so glad I can't even eat shellfish.

Don't eat raw oysters!  They can kill you!  Soaking them in lime juice or hot sauce will not kill the bacteria they might contain(seriously, some people think that is the case)

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Going Post-al

Alright, I have about 15 minutes scheduled in here to update the old blog.  Hi blog.  I don't know how long it has been since I've written you last, but I miss you.  Good things have been happening.

Foxy is starting to get a little attention and the farrier finally took drastic measures and got Shadow's feet done really, really well.  If you live is the East Bay and need a FANTASTIC farrier, give Nathan Mott a call- you can probably find his info on Bay Area Equestrian.  He is very gentle and kind and literally saved Shadow's life as we thought we were going to have to put him down.  Now, he's been given a reprieve and it's not like we didn't try before- so kudos to Nate for his tenacity with our old guy.  I know it is another mouth to feed but he is such an awesome horse, especially for little kids, it was eating me from the inside out to think of having to put him down.  Cosette is putting on weight and getting sassy and she's looking pretty happy these days, too.

I've still been busy with doctors appointments and getting my blood drawn regularly and infusions but it is becoming routine and that's just the way it goes.  That's all I'm going to say on that right now.

I've been reviewing a ton of books which I love and I'm doing a little freelance editing and copy writing.

I'm doing yoga.  Viola is going to start going with me.  It's the hot kind and 90 minutes long so I'm also drinking like 2 gallons of water a day.

The girls are all signed up for camps this summer.  Ave is off to San Francisco Girls Chorus camp for 10 days plus a week at Girl Scout camp.  Vi is going to the Gillie's program at Girl Scout camp again this year where they hike out to their campsite and have to build their own tree beds and shelters.  We have one gracing the front of our house these days where the kids like to hang out and read(It's kind of like a hammock only Vi made it from some pieces of wood, a bunch of sisal rope and a slew of special knots she learned at scout camp.  Vi's going to do an intensive program at ACT's Youth Conservatory in SF this summer and she is excited for that.

Both girls are singing their hearts out.  Vi is taking private lessons with one of the SFGC private instructors(Audrey is AMAZING)- Viola can hit the highest notes and they sound pure and ethereal with quite a bit of power behind them.  My hopes of her turning out to be an amazing coloratura soprano might just happen.  Ave is up for promotion but she may do another year as a second level in the SF Girls Chorus as she is still pretty young.  She has learned so much and we are coming up on the final concert of the year at the performance center at the Mormon Temple and then she'll be out for the summer(except for camp).  She has a performance for the outreach program this week.  

AND swim team has started.  We're sticking with the Barracudas- even though we live in Glenmoor, we love the coaches at Mission Valley Swim Team and the team came in second at championships last year- Ave got ribbons for her freestyle and butterfly(Vi was still recovery from scootering down the side of a mountain and wiping out and having to have a bunch of stitches across her kneecap).  Swim team is a huge commitment but the girls love it.

Ave's doing gymnastics and it just so happens that she's actually good at it and has been progressing rapidly.  She's doing 2 90 minute classes a week and I think we're going to have a coach work with her privately over the summer.  On one day she goes straight from swim team to gymnastics, the other straight from chorus to gymnastics.  But it is all her.  I haven't encouraged it because I don't like how dangerous gymnastics can be but secretly, I'm rooting for her because this might just be her sport.  She's amazing, doing cartwheels on the high beam, working on her handsprings and crazy press handstands.  She's just this little ball of muscle now.

Finally, cause this is all I have time for today... I dyed my hair back as close to my natural color as I could get it.  I'm over the whole highlight thing.  They might look great on other people but it isn't worth it to me to waste three hours of my day and god knows how much money to get highlights only to have roots that make me insane a few weeks later.  See, hair, when you get to be too high maintenance, you get the smack down.  So, it may be dull and boring but I'm back to brown and so it goes.  Do have to say, I loved the Feria product I used.  It covered my hair really evenly even thought the bottom was really blond from all the highlighting.  Oh yeah, and I'm going to let it grow out.  I figure with getting older and all, this might be my last shot at having hair that is actually longer than shoulder-length...

Who knew?

I'm looking at a rack of shelves across from where I am sitting typing this and I see so clearly how the shelves are made to fit in the grooves that have been etched to hold them.

Dean told me a story.  He swims at Master's every morning at our pool.  I should but I'm too lazy.  No, really, I've gotten lazy.  He was talking to a woman there the other day who witnessed a drowning at Half Moon Bay.  We go to the beach there all the time.  We go all up and down the coast in the area to wade and swim and explore.  

This woman, the day she was there, an 11 year old girl got swept off the shore- knocked down by a wave and pulled out by the force of the water.  We joke about the undertow but if you've never been knocked down, not sure which way is up, feeling like the whole ocean is trying to suck you out and drag you down... Well, I am always on my kids about turning their back to the ocean, wading out too far, not paying attention...

Anyhow, in this story this girl's mother went after her.  She got pulled into a rip current (some people call it a rip or a rip tide- but it isn't really a tide).  From my lifeguarding days, when Dean said that, I had a feeling how the story was going to end- even a real athlete, even a mother pumped up on adrenaline trying to save her child, well, getting caught by a rip is a good way of getting killed- especially if you don't know what to do.  The daughter was rescued by helicopter.  The mother died.  The woman telling my husband this at the pool is apparently a strong swimmer and she had a hand on the woman's wrist but she had already gone unconscious and couldn't quite get her without getting in trouble herself.  And that is the crux of it- most people drown trying to help other people which is a bummer.  I hope my kids get the whole, 'respect the ocean' lesson out of that.

My public service message here: as with any emergency(someone choking, something's on fire, someone's bleeding, someone's drowning)- alert the professionals first and then don't do anything to make it worse if you can. And as far as the ocean goes- if you do ever happen to get caught in the rip, don't fight it, don't panic- keep your head above water.  If you can, swim parallel to shore.

But that story got me thinking about a woman on the shore with her 11 year old daughter.  And everyone wonders why I stay back and take pictures when we go to the ocean(even if I wasn't anemic nd freezing all the time anyway). Ha.  Someone has to be there to call for help.  Oh, I mean, I would probably do the exact same thing that mother did and just hope I got lucky.  I guess if I had to choose a way to go out.. after the horses, it'd probably be the ocean.  Statistics say car accident, cancer or heart disease.  If I get cancer or heart disease, you'll probably find me at the ocean alot.  Riding the horses at the ocean.  You know, they can actually swim pretty well.  I'm not sure how far they can swim, though- I've only put it to test across a river or two.

I was talking to my friend Joannie the other day and trying to explain to her how different my life has been from what I thought it would be but how it is a good thing in ways.  One of those is like those shelves I was talking about earlier.

I remember being about twelve years old and sitting out on the roof of our house in Kennydale, watching the sun set over Lake Washington.  The wind was just right, the temperature was just right and I can still feel the grittiness of the shingles under my palms and that brilliant red-orange color flooding the whole sky as the sun dipped down behind the hills across the lake.  There were a few minutes there where I could just see it all- I felt like I could understand the world, my purpose, life, the point, GOD, THE UNIVERSE. I could see The Big Picture and it was Okay.  Everything slipped into this groove, that groove that... it's just being there.  BEING THERE.  For those few moments I was just there.

And I guess, even though my life has not been what I thought it would be- I've been taught things about life and love and meaning by people from which I never thought I had anything to learn.  Those moments come more often when you are ready for them, open to them.  They come more often when you are not distracted so much by the small stuff that you miss the real stuff, which might happen to be small stuff, too.  I mean, a sunset, right?  A shelf, fitting in a groove?  The sun sets every day and that is what a shelf is and does.  But then I think maybe there will come a day where the sun will not set.  I think a day will come where I will not be here to see the sun set.  

This is it.  Who knew?

 

 

A new project: find the beauty

I've decided to do something for myself.  And hopefully, someday, when my girls are old enough to read this.. for them, as well.

I've been feeling restless and malcontent staying at home, living the suburban life, ferrying the kids around, yada yada.  I've been reading a great deal lately and am, for the time being, inspired to be aware, be deliberate.  I love photography- looking at it, experiencing it, working at it... I'm going to try to take 5 pictures a day to show, primarily, how beautiful my life is and secondarily, to challenge myself to find and define and capture that beauty (think plastic bag a la American Beauty). 

I haven't been paying as close attention as I should be lately.  I think this will help.

Guilty Pleasure: Movies & Books

So, my definition of a guilty pleasure is something like a book I'd hide away if one of my colleagues sat down next to me on a plane- or being caught embarrassed at a movie showing.

Since I've made a little niche job for myself reviewing and editing books, I've been focusing on the Young Adult segment because I have a precocious(as far as reading goes) 13-year-old and want to be able to nay or yay her choices in books.  Scary thing is... romance is almost always a major component in YA fiction- lots of coming of age stuff.  I am ADDICTED.  And I love it when I find a good one.

Confession: Read the Hunger Games trilogy in 3 days and then took the girls to the midnight showing the night before/early-early morning the Thursday that The Hunger Games was released.  Theboht had to read the bok first. Mother bragging rights invoked: I couldn't beliee how quicly Avery read that  book and is now on the third in the series.  I love that at leat one of my kids takes after my bookworm gene.

But back to Guilty Pleasures...

Yeah.  And you know what else?  I watch Glee! Ha!  And I watch the Vampire Diaries! Double ha! mostly because they have an extremely attractive cast and I love bad-boy-vampire Damon, played by Ian Somerhalder.  My shame comes in here when I realize all those fansites out there are being read by and posted to by teenaged girls.  Ugh.  Maybe I am a pedophile?  I mean, I'm probably old enough to have birthed most of the characters on the shows I like.

I blame it on going to an all-girls boarding school and not getting to experience the full high school experience(for better or worse I dunno but sounds logical to me).

Grey's Anatomy has jumped the shark as far as I'm concerned. I know there are faithful viewers out there but it has so turned into General Hospital.  The only time I watch it is when I need something to distract me from puking my guts out after an iron infusion.

House has completely gone to the dogs.  I think they must have lost their medical advisor because the 'team' keeps brainstorming all the same ideas over and over.  I cannot even begin to remember how many episodes where they suspect x disease or y disorder.  Same sh*t different episode.  Anyhow... bored...

Finally, probably my worst guilty pleasure?

Glitter eyeshadow.  Oh, and high heels, of course.  At least when I was working in an office I had an excuse. *sigh*

Someday I will wear sexy shoes again instead of my Privo's or slip on Reports that go with my 'Mommy Wear'.

Sad.  I do try to take my favorite shoes for a spin  when we go to Davie's or down to see a Broadway show in LA, etc. 

No, this week, instead of spending $500 on shoes(not that I probably would) I spent it on our refrigerator.  Yes, the nice man from GE came out and repaired our fridge for ONLY $500.  

Yehaa, fridge grama is over and it was a good opportunity to purge. I'm a condiment collector, or so my husband always bitches at me about that but.. but... yeah.

Glad to have you back ya ol' fickle fridge of mine.  If they couldn't fix it, I was totally going to just through it on our-still-to-be-landscaped ptches of dirt out in the front yard and just leave it there.  Whee hoo would that cause a stink with the homeowner's association.  Gotta love it.

Another guilty pleasure: being willfully oppositional to the homeowner's society.  Just sayin'.

Don't worry, I'll say ten Hail Marys and get myself right with the lord. Peace out.

 

Wonderland was truly wonderful!

Every year Viola's elementary school puts on a full musical production. They are amazingly professional and all the kids work incredibly hard.  It all happens through teachers and parents and kids volunteering to do everything from painting sets to painting faces to holding choir practice and multiple rehearsals.  This year, they did one called Wonderland based on 'Through the Looking Glass'.  Viola played the part of the Red Queen and she was just fabulous.  I know I shouldn't brag but I was swamped by people telling me how wonderful she was.  And she was.  She was entertaining, she was bold, she was funny- mostly, she was just Sassy with a capital S!  I'm just so impressed with how much she has accomplished this year already and this was the cherry on top.

We found her voice this year.  We never thought she was much of a singer or even interested in singing but started to see we needed to do something with her in that area if she was going to pursue the acting that she loves.  Turns out that she has this big, beautiful, HIGH voice and she just needed the right person to pull it out of her.  Now she is working on material from The Sound of Music and the like with one of the voice instructors that teaches alot of the girls from SF Girls Chorus(Audrey is really extraordinary).

She took an acting workshop at ACT in the city and got an excellent review from her teacher, especially on her final piece which was humorous and, again, SaSSy.  She loves to make people laugh and doing that through theater and drama is such an amazing thing for her.  

Anyhow, her very biased mother felt like she totally stole the show!

One of my contributions to the play this year, and in several years past was to be the photographer.  I feel lucky to have been allowed to capture a little piece of the magic that these kids (and teachers and lots of helpful parents) made.  Slide show coming soon, but for now a quick peek- through the looking glass... *wink*

 

 

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Sometimes it is difficult to believe that I have been blessed to be the mother of such an amazing and vibrant daughter.  All I can think right now is that it is going by far too quickly for my taste and I want to savor every fabulous moment.

 

 

Enthusiasm.

I like the quotation by Bruce Barton: "If you can give your child only one gift, let it be enthusiasm."  That's it.  It's like parenting 101, 102 and 103 summed up in one sentence.

The tricky part is teaching them to find their enthusiasm in places they least expect it.

When I'm dead and gone, I hope that Vi and Ave will tell stories about Dean and I and our enthusiasm, our enthusiasm as a family.  I hope they look back and say "Jeez, our front yard always looked like shit but man, we had fun, didn't we?"

I want them to remember that we made music together.  That we would sing off-key and laugh hysterically like Dean and I did this afternoon while the girls were at school.  

When people get engaged, they worry about the diamond-  is it big enough?  is it pure enough? is it better than so-and-so's? will I ever be able to pay it off?

Diamonds are beautiful and sparkly and nice.  I have a nice little diamond wedding ring.

The true gems, though, tumbled down around us like raindrops and in so many colors.  

So, Laugh.  Be silly.  Sing off-key.  Dance.  Live your life with enthusiasm.  That's where you'll find joy.  And that's what I want for my girls.  I want them to be who they are, even if it means being off key sometimes or lots of time.  

Call me silly but if you aren't going to make the most of it, why bother at all?  

And we so easily fail to notice the sparking gems all around us, our ruby slippers, our sapphire-covered path, the iridescence that covers us all like diamond dust- simply because we are alive.

Loss and so on.

"It's the little things that count."

How many bazillion times have I heard that?  How many times have I heard that applied from dieting to gift-giving to living?  Well I am here to attest to the fact that I experience how much the small things count almost every day.  They are the things tht keep me going, keep me drawing breath when I think of the grand futility of us, of the human race, this mess we've made on our planet, of where we are headed.

But if it all so futile, then why is there so much joy and so much pain?  Another argument for the journey and not the destination.

Teddy died this morning.  Our little teddy bear hamster who was notorious for running so long and fast on his wheel that it would start to squeak and one of us would have to get up in the middle of the night to put a drop of vegetable oil on it with a paintbrush stolen from the kids art supplies. ( "No, honey, I have no idea why your watercolor painting turned out like that." *cough* *ahem*)  It wasn't too bad this time because we knew it was coming.  Teddy died of old age.  We thought he was really in dire straights aroound Vi's birthday and I was smacking my head against the wall because that's all you need to have happen on your kid's birthday is for one of the beloved family pets to die.  So, I covered his cage with a towel- not completely but enough to protect him from any drafts and put his cage on a heating pad.  He stopped fussing so uch with his nest and bedding and would just curl up cosy and happy in a little hollow in his warm bedding where he mostly stayed except to come out and eat the occasional treats and drink his water.  I woul often stop and offer him water so he woudn't have to get up.  We left him alone for the most part because even though hamsters are cute and fuzzy, they are not the most partial to be held and snuggled unless you did that alot with them.

I did that alot with Maddie, so it only seemed fitting that she died snuggled up in my hands, against my chest as I dozed off after a long vigil.  Maddy was hard for me because there was just something about her- she would always come out to greet me, liked to hang with me, liked listening to my boring epidemiology lectures with me.  And she did not go easy into that good night, no she didn't.

Teddy, though, it was clear he was ready so we just made him as comfortable as possible.  When I found him, his eyes were closed, so I don't think he even saw it coming.  I hope it was not painful for him.

You might think me silly for being sad over a hamster or two, especially when the world is filled with atrocities.

We love who and what we love, though.  I think we are better for it.  Having pets is a blessing because it teaches us about unconditional love.  For some people, I think it teaches them how to love, period.  And the loss... well... we all inevitably learn about loss but I guess the moral of the whole story is that love always outweighs the loss.  Almost always.

Living a life without regrets is an awesome idea- I think certainly one to shoot for- but we all become hypocites at some point in our live as we change our minds and grow in different directions than our younger selves.  Do I regret loving? No.  Do I regret loving these delicate little creatures who live such short lives?  The pain of it makes me want to but somehow I know that my pain makes Teddy's life or whomever, whatever else, more.  I believe that all living things have intrinsic value unto themselves- unrelated to the uses and acknowledgement of The Great Humn Being (detect my sarcasm here, pls).  

But when I loved Teddy, when the girls loved him, when Dean would wrinkle up his nose and make that affectionate little chucking noise when a hamster was thrust in his face by one of our kids, Teddy became more than just Teddy-unto-himself.  He had a family.  He had a family who cared for him- not always perfectly, but well.  And he had a family that loved him, not always well, but perfectly.  And that means something, at least to me.  And maybe somewhere in his little rodent brain, it meant something to him, too.

I'll tell you one thing.  Death sucks.  

And so now, Teddy's body rests.  I'm okay with that.  Part of what makes life so interesting and meaningful is that it doesn't, isn't meant to, last forever.  And I like to think a little piece of my soul broke off and he took it with him, maybe packed safely in one of his cheek pouches as he headed into the great beyond where our other beloved ones await. 

That circle of life stuff is total crock of BS.  It doesn't come round like a circle but stretches into eternity- a chain of love that holds us all together, however tenuously, bound by hope.

I like to sleep like Kitteh.

I don't know what is up with Kitteh, but man, she can sleep through anything.  She will not be the one waking us all up to save us from the fire.  She'll wait until the last second and stroll out the front door as the smoke billows out above her, plop down on the front mat and start licking herself.  She'll have that pissed off, "What is this shit?" look on her face as a fireman tries to drag a hose in through said front door.  Yeah.  I can see it all now.

Okay, so lets just hope the house doesn't burn down.

I'm helping with the Brownie Meeting today.  Yay!  If you thought there were office politics- go join a scout troop, then you'll really see the claws come out.

Hunger Games tomorrow night at 12:01!!!  We'll be there to see it!  Both the girls have read the books now.  I still can't believe how glued Avery was to them cosidering she's only in 3rd grade.  Yeah, yeah, I know, she's probably scarred for life but it actually led to some really good conversations on dystopic societies and how governments control their people by force, by propoganda, with fear and lies.  We talked alot about television and what *appears* to be important (having a big house, nicer cars, every electronic gizmo on the market and how the shows we watch and commercials we see reinforce those ideas over and over) versus what is really important.  I'm not telling her what to think is important, but to just consider the question and think about what is really important to her. 

I'm excited to see the movie though!  I love that we have this little tradition in our family to go to the midnight, opening show at our theater when something we've been looking forward to is coming out.  We did it with most of the Harry Potter movies, the Twilight movies(not that they're so great but it is a good carrot to get the girls to read), a couple others I can't remember right now...  Anyhow, so yes, we're keeping out kids out until two am on a school night.  Whip me, beat me, but it'll be great, even if the next day will SUCK.

OK- half hour to Brownie time, must go get ready.  I slept in like Kitteh this morning so... yeah.  It's just been so cold and the electric blankie is so warm... mmm...

(One of the few pictures of Kitteh NOT sleeping).

 

Awe.

No matter if the entire world is going into the crapper, no matter... well, anything.  I still get to marvel at this moment snuggled up on my bed with Avery and Kitteh.  Avery looks so young and vulnerable as she sleeps, hair slightly damp against her forehead from earlier, before she threw the covers off.  Kitteh just looks lazy and hedonistic, but I love that she makes those little noises in her sleep like she is dreming of birds outside the window.

Tonight does not feel alone, rather quiet, muffled instead- like the streets after a good snow.  I can hear the train in the distance.  Tonight, even this house feels alive, creaking and ticking clocks and the fountain burbling.

I love how she reaches out unconsciously to hold my hand or grab my arm in her sleep.  Her fingernails still seem so tiny.  That was something I noticed right after she was born were her tiny hands and feet.  She seemed so breakable then but in some ways she seems even more breakable now.  Sometimes I still cannot resist the urge to smell the top of her head like I did when she was a baby.  She doesn't smell the same now- I can smell the scent of her shampoo, and the the smell of outside and sunlight.

Ask me now if I believe in miracles.  In a word:

Yes, they live.

 

Truth be told. Time to be bold. Life is short whether you're young or old.

 

I did the photo shoot for Vi's school play on Wednesday.  I started packing equipment on Tuesday night(that I had tested and cleaned over the weekend).  At noon on Tuesday, started loading up supplies- a ladder, like 5 extension cords, my portable lights, my massive camera bag, two tripods, the light stands, the portable backdrop stands(just in case), bed sheets(just in case).  Dean took the totally full Suburban over to the school while I showered. I drove over, we switched keys, I entered the gym/theater and hello, chaos.

 

Set everything up and spent the next several hours trying to get all the shots the directors wanted: from groups with as many as 18 squirrley kids to 1- then not to mention the entire cast and backstage crew photo.  Much of this was shot on my tippy toes at the edge of the stage or balanced between my ladder and the stage or from the ladder- yes, yes, some people would just use a wider angle lens but I'm a little bit of a perfectionist.  It was both better and worse than shooting a wedding but it was... exhilarating.  I love it when I get in that groove where I am completely in the moment- no worries about what's coming up, no regrets, just the NOW of it all.  

 

People used to think it was funny that when I shot weddings I would cry.  Okay, maybe not at every wedding... but how lucky was I to be a part of so many celebrations, capturing the beginning of a new life together.  Yeah, pshaw.  So stupid and sentimental of me.

 

Getting back to the NOW thing.  I'd like to live in that spot more.

This pic is my fave from Avery's b-day weekend.  I feel like we should try to wallpaper our lives with moments like this- from beginning to end.

I am more and more convinced I want to get back full on into the photography gig.  I learned alot the first time around- DON'T taking on too many clients, charge enough for my time, even if I love it enough I'd probably do it for free (shhh)- I'm just not good with the business-y part of running a business.  But there is a thread that runs through all the things I love in my life- they are things that, even if fleeting, put me in the NOW.  The horses are all about the now.  The kids are all about the now.  Photography, singing, music, dancing, writing, running, swimming... all things that just happen now.  

 

I mean, maybe you can try to explain or try to write about twirling across a floor in your blue satin dress with your favorite pair of heels on, and how alive you feel, and to be caught in someone's arms and how in love you feel- but it isn't the same.  You can try to explain how it feels to have your heart pounding in your chest and music in your head as you slide into that groove at around 3 miles where you feel like you could run forever, to the end of the earth and keep on going.  You can try to explain how it feels to have a 1400 pound animal beneath you, the wind whipping in your face and hair, that so-exciting-its-almost-terrifying sense of anticipation as your horse's hooves beat out the rhythm and then you are flying, together, in perfect unison, fluid, over a jump and the joy when you land, knowing it was perfect, and you understand why your horse throws that little buck, even if it is considered 'bad' behavior.  

But why try? Why try to explain when there is so little time and so much to do in it?  We should be dedicating every moment to joy, to exhaltation, just to being alive. Well, that's what I would like to do, at least. (Then again, I'm probably crazy in the most literal sense of the word) 

I guess people think if we only ever lived in the moment we wouldn't really get anywhere. But each moment bleeds into the next, pulls a little of the previous one into it until we look back at this seamless trail of moments that have brought us to THIS moment.  

I like to think we need to be present at least some of the time- not always calculating for tomorrow or next week or next year or regretting the past... because it all goes by far too fast.  In the blink of an eye I went from being 7 years old and making snow angels to being a wife, mother, having a career, watching my girls grow up as if the fast forward button were pushed.  If only I could push pause.

 And even if we had... forever... it still matters, the Now, still matters because this is what we are, we are what we are here and now- even if it took an accumulation of experiences to reach this point.  It still matters.  We matter NOW and that is brilliant and a gift but also sad because, in this society at least, we are just never good enough right NOW.  

I love the above picture of Avery that her level 1 director and (pro photographer), Joe Fanvu, took of her at SFGC camp last summer.  Kids know how to live in the moment.  Most of them, I think.

 

We're alive, we're feeling- maybe more for some or less, maybe we see, maybe we hear, maybe we love, maybe we are loved- all to varying degrees.  How many people pass on that?  Pass on this moment, because we do not know how to be still and we do not know how to be content?  We do not know how to allow ourselves to enter the current- not to just be swept along but to swim.  Because that current is like life, it takes us where we're meant to go if we just... let go.  Yet we fight so hard to be what we're not, to be where we're not.  Maybe we don't even really know how to be alive, not really, and certainly not all the time.

 

 

Right now that line from Dr. Suess' "Oh, The Places You'll Go" is on my mind: "So be sure where you step.  Step with care and great tact and remember that Life's a Great Balancing Act." And, "Today is your day!  Your mountain is waiting.  So... get on your way!"  That Dr. Suess was a wise man.  I know most people think he was all about rhyming and silly illustrations and "Oh, the Places You'll Go!" is just the world's best graduation gift or whatever.  But that book, with all the rhymes and silly drawings, is probably one of the best self-help, guide-to-life books I've ever read.  It's just the truth.  The waiting place?   Brilliant. And who hasn't been there?  'Cause if you haven't, you will end up there one day and then you will understand, too.  And when you go along with what's happening, you really do start happening, too.  Truth, my dears.  Maybe the best quotation from that book is:

 

"You'll be famous as famous can be, with the whole world watching you win on TV.

Except when they don't.  Because, sometimes, they won't.

I'm afraid the some times you'll play lonely games too.

Games you can't win 'cause you'll play against you."

Truth.  And here I thought Dr. Suess was all about green ham and striped hats and some guy named Marvin K. Mooney.

Wow.  I am meandering here.  But this is me, ruminating on life.  The girls both just had their birthdays.  I'm hoping to get a post up for each of them, soon.  I did have hard bound books made for each of them with photos and quotations.  Screw that scapbooking crap.  No offense to any scrapbookers out there.  I'm just one of those people who WISHES she could document the lives of our family in cute, thematic scrapbooks but just never gets around to it.  I did sew Vi's costume for the play, so I'm not totally the worst mother on the planet, almost, but not totally.

Damn, I sound like such a total can of spray cheeze.  I guess better that than to sound like nothing at all, to be empty.  

A thought:  All this accmulation, all this 'keeping up with the Joneses' is like Laura's glass menagerie in Tennessee William's play- oh, we might want it, it might sparkle just so and we might take pride in it and yet it is nothing, so easily destroyed, smashed to useless, painful shards.  But it is difficult to get away from the things. They have, after all, defined us, so like Tom who trys to leave his broken past behind him is 'more faithful' than he intended to be.  Tom says in his soliloquy at the end that he does whatever he can do to 'blow out Laura's candles', to forget, even for a moment.  I think so many of us are like Tom, wishing to at least forget what we can't change.  So convenient that our society provides so many outlets for doing such- from iPads to shopping malls to decorating, remodelling, painting, fixing... whatever to occupy that space and make everything look fine, even great!, from the outside.   If you are out there, if you've stayed with me this long(I know this attempt-to-be-a-blog is like one of Dantes levels of hell)- it's okay to blow out your candles, but if you are going to do it- do it for real.  Let it go.  Tommorow is a new day.  It always is.

 

 

"We could never have loved the earth so well if we had no childhood in it."

                                                                                            -George Eliot

It's going to be a good day.

Today I went in to Avery's class and took photos of all the kids, one at a time.  Editing them tonight and taking them to school tomorrow so they can be used for making a very-special-valentine.

After school, helped herd the brownie troop over to a local facility for people with alzheimer's and dementia.  The girls sang, passed out Valentines they made and read a couple of books to the crowd.  They circulated and talked to the people there.  I think it was a little intimidating for them but they did a great job.  Ave led a rousing rendition of the National Anthem.  Some of the other scouts joined in and then dropped out as the high notes exceeded their range but it was pretty good altogether.

Been helping the girls make valentines for their classmates with the cricut and the cuttlebug.  Worth every penny, I say. 

Now, I just put on a pair of pajama pants I sewed for myself.  I had my most absolute favorite pj bottoms from Victria's Secret and actually went through two sets.  This last set I wore til they were threadbare and had a massive tear over my left buttcheek but none of the other pj bottoms have quite matched up in a pattern that I like.  So, I cut up those pjs and took some flannel I had picked ut in a pattern I liked and sort of sewed a pair on the fly using the cut up pjs as a pattern. 

I am wearing my new pj bottoms as I write this.  There is something very satisfying about sewing an article of clothing that is comfy and I know will be worn regularly.  The kids even liked them and they are the first to criticize my wardrobe, so yeah.

Going to do some reading and writing now and admire the stencil I made over the hallway mirror that says "Be Your Own Kind of Beautiful"- totally one of my favorite quotations right now.

Excited for tomorrow?  How can one not be excited for a whole day set aside to celebrate the one thing I think life is really all about- love?   

I don't know why I failed to see it before but THERE is the answer to my favorite question: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

The answer is the same answer to every question, every problem, the solution to every meaningful equation.  LOVE.  Thankfully, it comes in every shape and size and colors and depths and places and... there are just so many options for love.  I never want to lose sight of that.  Someone once said there could be love in doing dishes or laundry.  I believe that now- love doesn't have to be grandiose or even announced- sometimes it is most precious when it is not. (But secretly, I will say I prefer love in some of its more exhilarating forms, like watching my kids scream and run as they play in the waves at the beach or hearing it in the cantering hoofbeats beneath me or squeezing someone's hand while squealing on a rollercoaster ride).  I think part of growing up, becoming more mature is being able to see love in its small spaces, in its mundane forms, and still appreciate the miracle of it.

Hello Saturday morning!

The birds are twittering with great veracity outside.  They tend to start in around 4am.  Sometimes they drive me nuts, especially when it is a mockingbird that has learned to imitate car alarms and iPhone rings, sometimes it is comforting.  Maybe nobody remembers that scene in The Accidental Tourist where Macon talks about the night and how at times one could feel they were the sole living person but something about that stuck to me.  While I am not prone the intense, crying-piteously-for-myself bouts of loneliness, I have been struck by the notion of loneliness- mostly in the way of feeling that people just don't get me.  That notion that feels like a heavy sigh that I am just different from other people and the sometimes wistful sigh that I could just be elated to watch Dancing with the Stars and punch the clock of my time on this earth.

And that's okay because really, I don't need people to get me.  I get me most of the time and that is what counts.  The hard part is when you begin to feel like life is a boxing match and you are always bobbing and weaving, ducking and moving, dancing faster and faster- trying not to let it hit you like a wet sheet or a truck or the concrete water after jumping off a bridge- that we are always alone, no matter what, and the ultimate lesson is to figure out, not how to connect with others or love others, but how all that comes together, falls into place, when you connect with yourself, when you are accountable and when you can look yourself in the eyes in the mirror or in the dark of the night and still love yourself.

The birds, though.  Why do they always sing?  Maybe they just know that is what they are here for.  I am beginning to understand what I am here for but I have been avoiding it because I know that fulfilling my purpose will not be easy.  I'm procrastinating because I feel like I must be a baby turtle trying to make it across the highway, pulled by some force I don't understand, unknowing entirely but compelled anyway.

As I lighten my load, both literally and figuratively- letting go of books and boxes, of things, letting go of the past, letting go of parts of me that serve only to hold me down and back, the pull is so strong it hurts.  I wonder if I will sing, be like the birds, doing only what I know to do because that is what I become, what I AM.

No, don't call in the folks with the white coats.  You can't fix what isn't broken.  And while sometimes it is hard being me, that is just what I am and like the river that always runs back to it's bed, no matter how anyone tries to change me, I'm still just going to be me.

"Men are that they might know joy..."  The birds understand, why is it so hard for us people?

Even Kitteh understands- lolling on my electric blanket, warm and loved.  We all are just who we are and I am grateful for that if nothing else.

So the birds, yep, they can be comforting.  I'm not alone.  But I am.  

Here wanes my philosophical meanderings.  It is a new day and I'm still here.

Hormones.

Can I just get these flipping ovaries removed or whatever it is that is making me feel like I'm going to cry over Hallmark commercials every 5 seconds?  Is it that time of the month?  Is it my meds?  How the hell should I know?  But it sucks.

Dean... yes, DEAN, who rarely does anything without prompting and massive amounts of motivation(besides code, that is) unless it is something really fun like taking over my soccer practices or deciding to teach all the kids in the neighborhood to play basketball (PRECISELY one of the reasons I love him so much)- has set us up to take a ballroom dancing class tonight.  WTF?  Of all the things... but okay- I have this beautiful, full-skirted blue satin dress I've been dying to wear somewhere-totally 40's style and a cute and comfortable pair of t-strap pumps. But...

I don't know, it feels off to me.  And I think it is because I am crazy not myself between my meds and hormones and for going so many days straight with little to no sleep so I could give Ave nebulizer treatments throughout the night and... well... I don't know.

For once, I really feel like a stick in the mud.  Like seriously.  This is so not me.  I am still in my pajamas, though at least I'm wearing my silk ones. Don't worry, no small children were forced into hand-burning labor for this silk, so get off my ass.

See?  Hormones.  I'm telling you.

Do you ever wonder?

Our brick-and-mortar Barnes and Noble closed first.  Then a few months later the nearby Borders closed, as well.  As much as I, personally, have been trying to unload my boxes and boxes and boxes of hardcover, softcover and everything inbetween books- it is simply because I recognized that while I do not anchor myself to my environment with Hummel figurines, basket collections or 14 sets of le creuset cookware, I do anchor myself with books.  I'm not going anywhere with the *literal* several tons of books in my house/garage/attic, at least not anywhere FAST.  Some people weigh themselves down with commitments or churches or credit card payments, or even more literally with food or beverage or drug of choice- so many of us have become a slave to our things.  My thing is books.  I'm afraid to get rid of books I've read and cherihed, some many times over.  I don't want to part with the stack of books I purchased because they looked so appealing to read at the time and then I never got around to them.  And, of course, when the pandemic-zombie-apocalypse thing comes and none of our electronics work anymore, I hate to think of being stuck without a good read!?!?  (As if the looters are all going to head straight to the library and book sections of Target and Costco)  Anyhow, I have been culling the herd- part of which already lives in the attic and I don't even know what's up there anymore.  But all this is a rambling aside.

Back to my main point: the nearest real bookstore(as in not Christian, not of some other religious ilk) is the Half Price books that is 5 miles from here and has a relatively sarse number of NEW inventory.  I can get books from Costco and Target, of course, but only bestsellers and there is a pretty narrow demographic their book buyers target.  According to Google Maps, the nearest Borders is nowhere- as in all stores permanently closed- a quick web search reveals that Borders has been bought up by Barnes and Noble.  The closest Barnes and Noble to us is now a 30 minute drive and who knows if that is accurate- they might have shuttered their windows by now.

I was sad when all the little mom&pop bookshops closed as the Borders and B&Ns moved in with their shiny, department store allure.  My luck is just such that the Barnes and Noble in El Cerrito is still open, so I can go and enjoy the bookstore experience while Avery is at rehearsal.

But do you ever wonder if we're going to wake up one morning to find that our entire government has been outsourced to Amazon.com and Amazon's front page will have a note from Jeff Bezos offering cheaper health insurance to Amazon Prime members or something?

The Vernacular

Language has always fascinated me.  I loved listening to my siblings who were a generation after mine growing up and the words they and others used.

Some people call it slang.  I think it is about owning who we are, generationally speaking or otherwise.  It is how we recognize others like ourselves.

In so many ways our language define us: are we educated? are we native speakers of the dominant language?  Did we grow up in one part of the country or another?  Urban or rural?

Right now, I've been hearing alot of things described as 'epic'- "we talked, it was epic, and now it is over".  I like it.  I like the idea of people adopting the use of epic as a way to describe things.

Life should be epic, always.

Life is epic.