Straight from the Chiquita's mouth

This is not my story, but the Chica gave me permission to blog it. Because people, it begs to be blogged.

The Chica's daughter, the Chiquitta, had her first loose tooth. She's been wiggling it and wiggling it, and yearning for it come out so that the Tooth Fairy will come. The Boy, being an old hat toothwise (he's on his fourth loose one), has been assuring her that she will indeed clean up. The Chica and Mr. Chica have bought a darling sparkly Tooth Box, and all is prepared for the Big Day.

Yesterday, during school, it happened. In the middle of her first grade classroom, the Chiquita pulled on the tooth--and it popped out! Aaaaand...she dropped it! Oh no! She fell to her knees searching for it, and found...

a rock.

When Mr. Chica picked her up from school, she proudly held out a small, tooth-sized, tooth-shaped piece of quartz, which (declares the Chica) looked nevertheless nothing at all like a tooth, and said, "Look! My tooth fell out, and here it is!"

Says the Chica: "He looked deep into her eyes and realized that she had absolutely, beyond a doubt, convinced herself that this was her tooth. So. He said, 'That's great, honey!' And he brought her home, and we both oohed and aahed over the rock, and put it in her Tooth Box, and the Tooth Fairy came and took it and left her a dollar and three Pegasus Ponies to guard her Tooth Box in the future. And now the rock is wrapped up and hidden in my dresser, and I will treasure it always, and one day tell her the story of her very first rock."

Tell me why

Why, why do I watch movies that I know are going to be depressing, even if they're also going to be good? Why, for example, watch "Requiem for a Dream" when I could just hire someone to come pull out my brain by way of my left ear, then squinch it all around and shove it back in through my navel? I mean, great movie, but probably not so good for the psyche at the moment.

To jump on the freaky-ass dream wagon that's been making the rounds, last night I dreamt that James Dobson was actually this psycho pervert and I was trying to expose him, which actually put me in danger of being assassinated. Could I be feeling the need to become more politically active and stand up against all the nasty crap I see happening in this country? Hmmm.

Every, every minute

My next-door neighbor passed away Saturday. It wasn't unexpected, but it seems surreal and sad. The last time I was at Dr. Zen's, she told me, "You know, everything falls into place if we can grasp how short our lives truly are, how little time we have on this earth." And she's right, it really does. Sometimes it hits me at the oddest moments, like in the line at Starbucks or driving down a street at night. All these spirits, burning, flaring up, flickering out, on and on.

Proclamation

The scene: The kitchen, just after dinner. The Girl, who turned up her nose at dinner, wants dessert.

PK: Well, you may have yogurt or a smoothie.
G: Mmmmm ... dat snot uh nopshun. Puddin!

Curse you, curse you Comcast

I could gripe a bit about how my router and cable modem suddenly decided to put an end to their relationship, but what good would it do us? When it's over, it's over.

Needless to say, I spent the entire weekend without Internet access, and what do you know? Wow, did I get a lot done around the house. Coincidence, surely.

Turns out, I can't affectionately call the Girl "my little nugget". I tried, and she immediately began denying that she was a chicken. Yes, I shop almost exclusively at Whole Paycheck or Vitamin Chalet or the organic section at Safeway, yet my child immediately connects the words "chicken" and "nugget". Irony, y'all, it's all about the irony.

How I learned to stop worrying and love the Bug

Am I the only one who is unreasonably intimidated not by other mothers, necessarily, but by the thought that other mothers are judging me and finding me lacking? I know I've mentioned this before, but it just gets weirder and weirder. Help me out with your pseudo-psychological theories and win a prize. Okay, well, that's a lie. Win nothing, but do it anyway.

Despite having (probably typical) moments of guilt over my less-bright parenting moments, I generally do believe that I'm doing the best job that I can with the kids, and that I'm not doing anything horribly wrong. Not so you'd pass out from horror if you witnessed my parenting in action, you know? And I'm not particularly shy about meeting people, or insecure, or in need of validation--I have good friends, both near and far, and I don't feel the need for everyone to like me or to be the most popular or anything like that. And despite the Boy's behavioral challenges, I think he's a sweet kid. I don't think he comes across as a little monster or anything--he says please and thank you, he often shows kindness, he feeds his cat, he plays with Legos, you know.

So why do I feel the laser beam of Mommy Drive Bys just waiting to fire upon me? Why do I imagine that other mothers are thinking all sorts of nasty thoughts about me and planning ways to avoid me? What is my problem?? Sheesh.

And on a totally different and less self-absorbed note (thank heavens), the Boy's first grade teacher KICKS ASS. This is the teacher that he was switched to at the last minute, sending me into one of my infamous Complete Bitch Breakdowns, but oh, has it ever turned out to be wonderful. Do you know what she did on Friday? He found a cricket in the classroom, and he wanted to keep it, so she helped him catch it and poke holes in a plastic bag so he could take it home. Now, I have always had the icks over crickets, but this was just such a cool thing for his teacher to do, and he was so excited--you should've seen him!--that I was immediately and completely cured. Thirty-seven years of cricket hating, poof!

We looked up crickets on the Internet and built his new pet, Cookie, a nice little cricket home in a jar turned on its side. We put in some sand, rocks to hide under, a nice little twisty stick, a damp sponge, and some bits of bread and apple. I closed the opening with some fine green netting I had lying around (it had been a ribbon on a gift) and screwed on the jar ring. Things to know about crickets:

• Only the males make noise.
• Cookie wasn't a male.
• Cookie was, however, smart enough to figure out how to chew through the netting.

Good thing about that New Love For Crickets I've got goin' on.

Intellectual savant? Idiot savoir?

I have this impression of myself, that I'm pretty much scattered and clueless and obtuse. So why, then, do I get so freaking impatient when people just don't get it? Isn't that sort of the pot calling the kettle black? And there's no particular "it" here, either; just ... so many things.

You can tell it was meeting day, can't you?

I know what I want to say

Are this president and administration to blame for a natural disaster? For the rise of terrorism? For the state of unrest in the world? For global warming? Of course not. These are all problems that are either out of a person or government's control or that have been boiling up for years. Certainly, the appalling poverty and underlying violence in New Orleans that is contributing to so many of the problems now took longer than 6 years to reach these epic proportions. But here's what this administration and so-called commander-in-chief ARE responsible for: Dealing with the problems they inherit in a reasonable and intelligent manner, even if doing so is fucking difficult.

Does anyone remember the Carter administration's reaction to the energy crisis of the 70s?
Does anyone remember Clinton refusing to play the endless budget-extension game?
Does anyone remember presidents who spent their time in office working their asses off to create a stronger national infrastructure? Who tried to promote world peace instead of world war?

I am so angry and sickened by the wasteful, stupid, selfish, arrogant attitude of this president and this administration. Refusing to encourage conservation during times of crisis, and instead encouraging reckless waste and spending to "keep the economy growing". Bullshit. Bullshit!! It's a nice rosy piece of wool that these people keep trying to pull over our eyes. When are we going to notice we're suffocating? How can I even be surprised at the greed and obscenity that keep pouring forth, at the ineptitude and decadence, when we've given over the soul of this country to a leadership that ran and won on an agenda of hate and intolerance? I'm sickened. Just sickened.

2008 is too far away. I want this bastard impeached. NOW.

Nothing

I just feel like a heel blah blah blahing about nothing when so many people are suffering down South, so I won't.

What's more

So I'm talking to Trisha today, and I'm telling her about how yesterday the Girl and I and our neighbor picked up the Boy and Neighbor's girl at the bus stop, and walked home, and hung out for a while eating popsicles, and suddenly, out of nowhere, the Boy ran up to me and said, "I want to tongue-kiss Neighbor Girl." A statement which I handled with sophistocated calm. NO. A statement which sent my brain back about 500 years, the result being a freaked-out ramble that included something about ONLY MARRIED GROWNUPS KISSING LIKE THAT! (Uh, yeah. I know. I know!) I also seem to recall putting the kabosh on any type of lip contact with any female face that wasn't related to him. Sigh.

Me: I mean, I sort of went a little crazy, but come on! TONGUE KISSING? Okay, so I'm not squeemish about nudity or body parts or anything, but I do draw the line. Like, when he and the Girl took a bath and she tried to grab his penis. That is just NOT okay.
Trisha (in the trademark totally-calm-yet-wry Trisha voice): Ohhhhhh, no. We are not Flowers in the Attic.

In a nutshell

You've all been so kind with the comments. Which is maybe why I feel the need to write a post about how you've been hoodwinked and I'm really a shitfest of a mother? And yet, I'm not quite ready with that; I can't quite bear to put it down on virtual paper, so instead, I'll just tell you about how the first week of first grade was wonderful. About how the Boy insisted on riding the bus, and how his little face in the window looked like my life flashing before my eyes. About how exhausted and happy he was after his first day. About how his little sister can't quite believe me when I tell her we can leave the preschool without him because he isn't there. About how they've begun to pour the foundation for the new house, which as it turns out is just steps away from the most gorgeous little bike trail. About how I'll be working from home more starting next week, driving less, walking more, and feeling all down with my badass eco-self.

Oh, and by the way. If you get all crazy with the family tree and post a note on some geneology forum, looking for your long-lost ancestors, and then one night, months and months later, you get a reply from some distant cousin, and you've been drinking a little Chardonay and watching "Fearless" and getting all choked up at the end and get a little giddy with love for all mankind and the family of man and blah blah blah--do not, I repeat, do NOT shoot off an email (from your regular account, no less) thanking said distant cousin and admitting kinship until you've looked at said cousin's home page. Because said cousin might be some total gun-toting, narrow-minded, scary-ass wingnut. Yee-haw.

What a wonderful world it would be

Tomorrow, the Boy starts first grade. Today was an exciting day for him: We went to the school's open house, took in his supplies, and met his teacher. She's wonderful, and has a brother who experienced some of the challenges the Boy faces. She wasn't actually the teacher we'd been told he'd be placed with, which freaked me right out at first, but now I'm thrilled. Chalk one up for divine intervention.

He's having a difficult time getting to bed lately, and tonight especially. So I cuddled with him and sang him some songs. "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", which the Chica got him hooked on one night when she babysat; "Danny Boy", which I've sung to him since he was a baby, swinging him back and forth in his carrier; "Michelle", which I sing to his sister all the time.

"Mama," he blurted out. "Mama. I don't want to grow up. Why do I have to grow up?"

I told him that everyone grows up, but that lots of people choose to stay kids in their hearts.

"But I want to stay a little kid always, until I'm a hundred and five," he said, near tears. "Honey," I whispered, "you won't need to worry about growing up for quite a while. You've got a long time still to be a little kid."

I think we both knew I was lying.

"And," I added, "no matter what, you'll always be my kid."

He hugged me tight. "And you'll always be my mama," he choked out.

"Yes, honey. I'll always be your mama. And you'll always, always be my baby."

And then I sang him the song I used to sing before he was born, while I walked, while I sat, while I worried about my marriage, while he zoomed around inside me like some misplaced comet. I still don't know much, but I know that I love him, that Boy of mine, and that even through all the hard parts, he loves me, too.

The Cutest Gap Ever

The Boy finally lost that loose top front tooth. And how, you ask? Apple? Doorknob? Au contraire, mes amis.

It was his sister's foot.

This tooth has been loose all summer, but Friday, when I went to pick the kids up from daycare, I saw that it was now hanging on by a thread. I mean, it was like a broken shutter--the thing was all crooked and half fallen out, but the Boy would not hear of us pulling it out. Rats! We got a chewy candy from the next class, but it did nothing but push the tooth to a crazy 90-degree angle. He was staying for the school's "late night", and he'd be eating pizza, so I was sure that would do the trick. Nope. Fortunately, we had an attack of Cute Sister Saturday morning. The Girl was just so darned cute that I declared I was going to have to eat her up.

"Me, too!" shouted the Boy, grabbing her foot. "Give me some meat!" And with that, he play-chomped her toes, and voila. He was so thrilled, he spent the whole day hugging the Girl and calling her his hero. And what a day it was, because just after the Losing of the Tooth we headed out to the town's annual Festival, where we ate brats and snowcones and played cheap carnival games and bought a few trinkets and completely failed to get change. The result being that the Tooth Fairy left a whopping $5 for that tooth. I told the Boy it must have been worth so much more because he'd been doing a better job of brushing. Yeesh.

All went well until the Girl began waking up ever 1/2 hour. A few hours of this and I was getting cranky, but then she turned the tables on me by barfing. Oh, poor little bean! So we were up and down the rest of the night. By about 10:00 this morning she was feeling better, but I collapsed face-down on the bed. The Boy jumped up beside me.

"Mama," he offered, "would you like a massage?"

I'm delirious, I thought. But what the heck. And what do you know? The kid's a natural! He's a little back-rubbing machine! We struck a deal: I pay him a dollar/week for a daily 5-minute massage. Yes, it's slave wages, but come on people, why else did I go through labor? I said, "Now all we need is for your sister to start doing hair, and you kids have paid your dues as far as Mommy's concerned!" And the Boy said, with a slight roll of the eyes, "Mom. I can do your hair, too."

Even Darth Vader loved his mommy, folks.

To the One Who Has Disappeared

I don't know if you will ever read this, but I have no other way to say it.

I just want you to know that you are in my thoughts and prayers, and I hope you find your peace. You often expressed worry about hurting others, and I want you to know that even if I never hear of you or from you again, your presence has definitely not hurt me. Quite the opposite. I feel great sorrow for the pain you've been through and are going through now, yes, but you don't cause that pain. It is my hope that it will become more bearable for you, and that there will be great joy in your life to balance it. Namaste.
xo
PK

I sound like coffee

The humor test, found via APL.

The Wit
(61% dark, 23% spontaneous, 10% vulgar)
your humor style:
CLEAN COMPLEX DARK

You like things edgy, subtle, and smart. I guess that means you're probably an intellectual, but don't take that to mean pretentious. You realize 'dumb' can be witty--after all isn't that the Simpsons' philosophy?--but rudeness for its own sake, 'gross-out' humor and most other things found in a fraternity leave you totally flat.

I guess you just have a more cerebral approach than most. You have the perfect mindset for a joke writer or staff writer.

Your sense of humor takes the most thought to appreciate, but it's also the best, in my opinion.

You probably loved the Office.

PEOPLE LIKE YOU: Jon Stewart - Woody Allen - Ricky Gervais

All aboard the Zen Train

So I told Dr. Zen that I get frustrated with myself because I know the person I want to be, and somehow I just keep on not being her. I said, "I truly, truly do believe in abundance and things working out for the good and in breathing and peace and all that jazz, but then when it comes down to it I always opt for the easy way out, the fast joke to cover up or the freak out drama queen act that gets all the attention. I annoy the hell out of myself. I want to be that person that just deals with things that come, knowing that it's all going to be what it is and that all will be well in the end so I can be at peace instead of having to be the center of attention." And she said one of the nicest things ever. She said, "But that's the person I see. You're closer to being who you want to be than you realize."

So let's see how I can do with this zen thing. Those niggling little worries that pull at my brain? Money, house, health of those I love, work, worry...I'm not listening to them. Just for tonight, at the very least. Listen to that! It's so quiet...

Dung Bombs for everyone!

Harry Potter Personality Quiz by Pirate Monkeys Inc.

Just the FACs, maam

Can I tell you how happy I am that I am one of those people who doesn't mow my lawn often enough? I've been meaning to mow it for, oh, several weeks now, but first it was really hot, then it was really rainy, then it was nearly the Boy's backyard birthday party and shouldn't I just wait until the day before so it would be nice and fresh? So I did, and guess what? I started the mower--this high-power industrial crazy mower that the Ex bought--and not a foot away, baby rabbits went zooming every which way. Little furry baby bunnies, oh my god! So I mowed around the nest in a big circle, then retrieved them all and deposited them back in their little bed, then called the Humane Society to make sure that I hadn't ruined their chances of survival by touching them. Too many Disney movies as a kid? Maybe. Maybe.

And then our next-door neighbors, who just sold their house and I have to say it's one of the only things making this move more bearable to me, that many of my neighbors are moving on, because people, I have LOVED my neighbors, anyway, these neighbors were out front and they always give the kids popsicles, so we were standing out front talking, and my neighbor, B, mentioned that she had a big bucket of frozen margaritas, but they were a bit too strong, and what luck, I happen to have a pitcher of limeade. Imagine. And then another neighbor (also moving) stopped by with her girl who is about the Boy's age, and we've spent the past 2 hours sitting around on the driveway, drinking slushy margaritas and watching the kids run around with their limeade and popsicles, taking peeks at the bunnies and riding their scooters and eating chocolate on the sly and my god, my god, I love my life.

And now I'm inside cooking corn, and thanking you all for being part of it, too. Too many slushy margaritas? Maybe, maybe. But I think it's just me.

Choose wisely, young Jedi

We're still in the middle of birthday madness, but I will leave you (briefly) with this quote:
"I asked and asked and asked for an Aniken Skywalker/Darth Vader Color Changing Lightsaber, and Mama kept saying 'Maybe, maybe, we'll talk it over,' and you DID and now I HAVE the Aniken Skywalker/Darth Vader Color Changing Lightsaber, and I am the happiest boy in the WHOLE WORLD!!!! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!!"
Oy.

What do you think?

So, I'm ditching that annoying book list over there, the one I can never access and change. Not that I don't love me some books, but really. I need EASE OF USE, thank you very much. I can barely manage to load the dishwasher, let's get real.

So. What should I replace it with? I'm thinking, I could use it to post links to cool things other people say, cause I like cool things other people say. Or, I could just make a text list of stuff I'm reading and so forth, although I must ask myself, does anyone care? I won't put up pictures, I'm too much of a paranoid freak. So, if all 3 of you who actually read this thing have any opinion about this, now is the time to tell me, here or by email. Maybe by email, because I am sooo lonely and email-deprived. And also because I need something to distract me from all the pre-party house cleaning I need to be doing. I think I will post before and after shots of the house so you can see how I'm really not jesting when I say, "Dear God, my house: the horror, the horror." And also so you can see that I actually can throw a good shindig when motivated to do so. But then again, maybe I won't. Oh, the anticipation, try not to drool on yourselves.

Today is the last day of being 5 for the Boy. Sigh. My little man is growing up so fast. Last night I put the Girl's hair in rags, like my mom used to do, and this morning she spent ages in front of her little mirror: "My curly! Curly, curly hair!" She was quite taken with herself.

Tired

I have this post brewing but tonight I am just tired. The Boy's had a few rough weeks, and we don't know if it's the strep, the antibiotics, the season, the weather, the fact that he's going through a rough sleep cycle, the moon, the stars, the radio waves from the planet Zircon, or what. But it's rough right now. Tonight he had a 1/2-hour meltdown over Legos, poor kid. I maintained my zen-like calm, so yay me! But now I'm worn out. Which sounds really effing weak. So many of you have so much more than this to deal with and do it with such grace.

Speaking of grace, if you haven't been reading POW lately, go visit. Amy said one of the most brilliant things the other day, about "people who feel exactly the same way you do, even if they would handle a situation differently than you do." Her writing is increasingly eloquent and plus she has those two little babies with those squeezable cheeks! Go, go on.

Silver Lining

It was raining today. All day. It's been raining since Tuesday, in fact. I wanted to cut the grass: No go. Had to cancel the Boy's swim lessons--twice. Bothersome sinus pain. Dreary. Etc.

From 10 to 10:30 each morning, the Boy's summer class goes to the playground on their side of the building. They shoot baskets, zoom around on bikes, splash in the water tubs, sit at the picnic tables, and above all, play tag and Red Rover and Simon Says on the swath of grass at one end of the playground. They line up against the fence in the shade of the tree that stands outside the gate, and wait for their names to be called or for their next chance to charge across the lawn. Today, at 10:15, a 16-year old girl, driving way too fast, jumped the curb and ran her car through the fence, right up onto the grass where the kids roll around and tackle each other.

They were all inside. It was raining.

And another thing

For all the money I've got to fork over to the damned imaging center for the pleasure of having them stick a cold metal wand up my yoni, I could buy something that I might actually enjoy having up there. Can't they make the damned things vibrate or something? Anything? I mean really.

I really want to tell you I'm sorry

McGonagall (that's the kitten's name, and not even a pseudonym! I risk all!) keeps trying to catch the mouse pointer on the screen. For some reason, I find this entertaining. Next stop, collectible tea cozies.

No, actually, I could never collect anything knick-knacky, and here's why. My first job. Seventh grade. I was the duster at the House of Enal Yor, or as I fondly think of it now, the House of Anal Yore. I spent HOURS after school, dusting the tea pots, the German green glasses, the little resin figurines of the hippie boy and girl with the big eyes and the low riders, the music boxes, the porcelain bells, the jewelry drawers, the snow globes... To this day, I can't hear the theme from "Summer Lovers" without getting the urge to dust something. Hold me, noooowww...

Brrr. I'm scaring myself.

Things in My Head

• Why did I let the Boy's strep culture turn into such a torture session? Why do I feel as though I'm continually failing him? Please please please please don't let me fail him.


• I want to start running again. I would feel so much better with regular exercise.


• Yay! School supplies! God, I love school supplies. Lunch boxes! I love lunch boxes.


• I will kill anyone who hurts my children. I mean it.


• I am not doing enough to stem the tide of pain and suffering in the world.


• My god. Could my kids be any sweeter or cuter or more damned adorable? I think not.


• Bush. Effing effing Bush!!!!!


• Why can't I focus on my work? Focus, focus, where art thou focus?


• Oh dear lord. Birthday party in 2 weeks. Here. In this house. This house that is a Pit of Despair!!! Must! Clean! Pit! Of! Despair!!!


• Dangling participles, damn them, damn them.


• Are my ovaries falling out?


• The Ex is suspiciously happy. That's good. I am happy that he's happy. So why does it make me worry that he's happy? God, I need more therapy.


• Accounts! Must balance accounts!


• I am incredibly fortunate. I am incredibly fortunate. I am incredibly fortunate.

Voila with the humiliation

So. Back in the days when I was married w/out children, we lived in a nice 3-story apartment complex, on the second floor. Below us lived a very nice older woman, Minerva, who was pretty hard of hearing; we didn't see too much of her but had let her know to tell us if she needed anything and had occasionally helped her move things in or out of her place and so forth.

And again, so. One day, this couple moves into the apartment above us. The guy is a big guy--tall and thick. We rarely see him. But we hear him. OH YES. We hear him. With his girlfriend. At 2:00 a.m. I have absolutely nothing against hot monkey sex, you understand, except when it's coming through the ceiling directly above my head at 2:00 in the god-forsaken morning. And this, people, was not just hot monkey sex, it was like hot monkey sex if one of the monkeys is actually a rhino and the other one is practicing for a career in the opera. This was back in the days when I worked two jobs and only got 5 hours of sleep a night. I really liked my sleep.

After one particularly...wakeful...night listening to the Monkey Sex Duet, the (not yet) Ex and I woke up (not so) bright and early, and I--knowing that the Rhino and Carmen the Operatic Monkey couldn't have gone to bed more than a few hours earlier--said to my husband, "I will have my revenge." So I grabbed a broom and began jumping up and down on the bed, slamming the broom into the ceiling and squealing in what I hoped was a completely ear-splitting manner.

Bam! Bam! Bam! OOOOOHHHH GAAAAWWWWWWDDDDD YEEEEEESS! Do it! Dooooo it nooooowwwww! (And so forth, and so on.)

After about 5 minutes of this, I hopped down off the bed, threw on some clothes, and skipped into the kitchen to make some coffee. Nothing makes me so happy in the morning as a little justified vengeance, you know? And I didn't worry about dear Minerva below us, because like I said, she was pretty deaf and I was sure she wouldn't have been disturbed by my gymnastics.

But as I opened the living room curtains, I saw several fire engines and an ambulance parked below. Oh no! I thought, something's happened to Minerva! I ran downstairs and up to the paramedics, explaining who I was and asking whether our downstairs neighbor was all right. The nice man assured me that she was fine, she'd basically had a panic attack and called 911, but she was fine. Relieved, I went back upstairs. It wasn't until I was explaining what had happened to my husband that I realized....I'd just simulated hot monkey sex right on top of a room full of paramedics. And then introduced myself to them.

DITTO!

OMG. I was going to write something about embarassing moments but then a damned wasp stung me and now I can think only of how much my leg is friggin' KILLING ME! Argh, I hate wasps! Tomorrow, then. Aye-ai-ai....

Shit!

I've decided we all have Tourrette's. That's all I'm saying. And yes, I know that the majority of people with Tourrette's don't yell out swear words. I know this because WE ALL HAVE IT HERE! You think I'm kidding, but I'm not.

Cats: Getting along splendidly. I'd forgotten what idiots kittens are.
Boy: The Boy is getting over strep, which always throws him (behavior-wise) into the pit of despair. Oy. So it's been...challenging. I miss him when he is like this...I wind up spending so much energy on staying calm and putting out his emotional fires, that at the end of the day I realize how little time I had to just be with him, the sweet him that's in there somewhere underneath all this strep- or medicine-induced shittiness. Sigh.
Girl: Quote of the day--"No matter." She actually told me, "No matter." She's 2 going on 70, seemingly.
Ex: Has some weird mystery pain and is getting tested for Hepatitis. Holy mother.

Whew!

Careful what you wish for

Jungian archetypes: valid theory or total bull hooey? Discuss. (If you've been paying attention you already know where I stand on this one.)

*************
Ten years ago my neighborhood and the ones surrounding me were just empty fields. And on what was then the edge of town and is now about a 1/2 mile from my house, was an old gas station, disused for years, with a little house next to it. A few years ago, it got a new resident: Psychic May. She was there for a year or so, then left for a while, then I noticed that her palmistry sign was back in all its pink neon glory. I drive by Psychic May nearly every day, and I almost always wonder: Who is she, this Psychic May? Why did she leave? And did she know she'd be back?

*************
Go over to Urban Muse and read about this complete miscarriage of justice. WTF?

*************
The Boy badly wants to live in a palace. I explained the necessity of being royalty. He is not happy. "I guess you'll just have to find some princess to hook up with," I shrugged. (Hey, it's over 100 degrees, my brain is curdling, don't expect a lot out of me.) "What!?" he cried, "I just walk up to some princess and ask her to marry me?!" Uh, yeah. Pretty much. Good luck with that.

Guilty as charged, Miss Trisha

"If, as you live your life, you find yourself mentally composing blog entries about it, post this exact same sentence in your weblog."

Touched by His Noodly Appendage!

Okay, I'm totally stealing this link from Mrs. Kennedy, who stole it from someone else, but hey. Haven't we decided that this is what the Internet is for? Larceny, pure and simple.

My main question is, if I start worshipping the Flying Spaghetti Monster, will I be forbidden to follow a low-carb diet? Cause, score one more for the FSM, I'm thinking.

Psycho Kitty, indeed

Hey, did you ever hear the one about the single mom with two kids and a 12-year old Marshmallow Cat and a house that sorely needed Spring Cleaning even though it was halfway through summer and a million things to do for work and moving and cleaning and children and sanity and so on and so forth, but what she started thinking, for some unknown insane reason, was "Hey! What we really need is a kitten!" And then she thought, "What, am I unknowingly insane? For the dear Lord's sake, woman, you are 37 years old and know better by now than to avoid thinking about everything you need to do and everything you are afraid to do and everything you have already done by finding another creature to come into your house!" And then she went and did it anyway?

Yeah. Well, now you have.

The Women

An old friend with whom I've reconnected over the past year told me last week that she's finally come to realize that her family are not the people with whom she's joined by blood, but those with whom she's joined by love. Sometimes, for some of us, those lines cross. But it's a strange country, this thing we call family, and its borders are ever shifting. And who lives there? There are men in my family, certainly, many of them greatly beloved, some of whom I would die for, but tonight I am thinking of the women.

of my mother, who loves me despite our differences, who never asked me to hang back to keep her from her own demons, who might not understand but does her best to accept

of the Chica, my sister in every other way that matters, from whom I've learned so much and from whom I can't imagine being separated

of my daughter, who is so like me and yet so unlike, who hasn't yet learned to hold back her desire or fierceness

of my grandmother, who no longer walks with me on the earth but who still whispers to me in my heart

of my aged cousin, who opened the world up before me like a field of flowers and taught me to love each one, even those that have thorns

of the mothers of my mothers, whose faces flash past me out of brown photographs, crumbling letters, lists of names, dusty gravestones, the eyes of my children

of the myriad women who move past and around and through my life, who stay for a moment or years, who teach me and learn from me and laugh with me and mourn with me, whether I've never even seen their faces or could recall their features from memory, the friends, the soulmates, the writers, the poets, the artists, the students, the teachers, the mothers

of the Bitch, and the Wolf, and Lady of the Lake, and the Fire Walker, and Girl in the Woods, of all the threads in the weave

of the earth, of the moon

I am blessed to live within these borders. I am fortunate in my family.

Beat it good

Now, I wonder. Where is all this motivation when I need to be cleaning my floors or doing laundry? I could be doing laundry now, but am I? No, I'm answering emails and blurbing up more of this stupid stuff that keeps zooming around my brain. Why, egads, why???

Shrug. Oh well.

So my car. A few of you have been...erm...lucky enough?...to have seen my car. It isn't such a bad car, really, except for one thing. It's slowly turning into a beater. It's sort of like when the family dog starts to get a bit aged, but you still love him, and then he starts peeing on the carpet and getting the mange. And yeah, you still love him, but damn that dog!

So, first, there's the inner door handle that the Boy broke. Not too bad, all things said and done--no one really sees it and I don't want him opening his door anyway. But I think it started the downhill slide. The kids started putting their bank stickers on the windows. The front corner has a ding that knocked out the light. Which means I'm not comfortable taking it through a car wash.

I think the time has come to finally bite the bullet and take it into the shop. Maybe then it'll quit peeing on the rug.

Most peculiar, Mama

I just want you to know that I had brilliant, brilliant posts running through my head all damned day long. And then I actually found the time to sit down and write, and--POOF! Gone, daddy, gone. Oh well.

I haven't really said anything about London. It's upsetting, obviously, and tragic, and awful. And for me, having lived there during the Gulf War and the IRA bombing of Victoria Station, very ... I don't know. Strange, in a way I can't describe. I remember being late to get to Clapham Junction, and then getting there and it being just a mass of people and no train and then hearing what had happened, and trying to get all the way across London by bus. Planting the bomb on that bus, that, I think, was especially horrible. The friends I have there are safe, thankfully, but I'm just so saddened by violence, and by the diatribes against the villainous "them". I can't help but believe that all this "us" and "them" is what puts us all in the middle of this shit in the first place. It's easy to demonize a faceless enemy, a "them" that has no heart. And once people start losing those they love, it becomes harder and harder to break out of the cycle of revenge. All I can do is find kindnesses to put out into the world, I think, and breathe, do tonglen, pray, love as much as I can, try not to live in anger. Try to see people, and not shadows. In some small way, maybe that will help. I don't know.

Bah.

Why, oh why, does 303 keep calling my cell phone? Who or WHAT the hell is 303? 303. It isn't even a real phone number. And if I answer, there's no one there. So why? WHY? It's TORMENTING me.

I bet it's Tom Cruise. Bastard.

Hosta? Who's hosta?

I'm obsessed with shrubs and trees and chair rails and all the projects I'll be working on in another 6 months. Of course that gives me plenty of distractions from the projects I should be working on now. Funny how that works, eh?

Head like a planet

Happy 4th, everyone. I have to admit that I like the idea of a holiday that celebrates our country's liberation from a lousy administration. Ahem.

Well, here are words I never thought I'd write, but here goes: The reunion was So. Much. Fun. Seriously. I went to the 10th and it was just like what Muse pictured...everyone trying to prove they were no longer the same as in high school or that they were exactly the same as in high school. But this one was just a bunch of people who had, for the most part, figured out a thing or two--enough to know that they hadn't figured out much of anything, really--and just thought it was kind of cool to see people who knew them when they were kids. I talked with people I used to hang out with in junior high, people I'd never said more than two words to in high school, the guy who once tried to beat me up in 3rd grade...and everyone was nice. Everyone was happy. Everyone was actually pretty wonderful, even the people I knew had nothing in common with me. It was as though everyone had given up those chips on their shoulders. And the folks who weren't ready to that--well, I guess they chose not to waste their time on the thing. It was the most relaxed, enjoyable social gathering I've been to in years. Totally surreal, because let me tell you--I hated high school. I mean, I was unbelievably shy and totally neurotic. And I'm certainly not at my best now...or maybe I am. Hmm.

And the Chica and I drove out together with the Chiclette, who was, as usual, a riot. We picked up a copy of the Weekly World News on the way back for entertainment and I'll tell ya. I admire a rag that doesn't even try to hide the fact that it is total BS. "Noah's Second Ark Found" by "Dr. Adam N. Deeve". Ohhhh, that wacky World News. I did some work for my Mom around the house, and we sat around and paged through old "Better Homes & Gardens" for ideas for the new house. It was a great weekend, and I hope things were just as lovely for all of you. And thank you all, btw, for the kind words, as always.

The (Wo)man Behind the Curtain

Oh, hey! Hi! Hiii...yeah! Yes, I know I said I would be posting a nice long post any...uh...any day now. I did say that, didn't I? Sure. Sure I did. And I meant it. Yep, I sure did. Mmhmm.

Um...yeah. So. Hi!

Wow. I have so neglected you, Blog.

The thing is, the thing is that there have been so many things thinging along out this way. And if I've already told you about them, well, go grab a cup of chai or something because I'm going to be a lame ass and say them all over again. Like your old Gram who keeps forgetting that she already told you the story about how her sister ate the chicken crap that she found out on the front porch back when they were kids, because she thought it was peanut butter.

That example would be much less disturbing if I hadn't had an old Gram who ate chicken crap as a kid because she thought it was peanut butter. But I digress.

So. I put a contract down on the new house, and I went through that whole crazy Design Center thing where you have to pick out tile and carpet and knobs. (I told you I'd talk about knobs. But actually I didn't get knobs, because dear God, do you know what a ripoff knobs are? Holy cow.) So all that's moving forward and I have about 7 months to pack up my house and sell it to the Ex and find someone to buy my Mom's place and rent the Ex's place and okay I'm freaking myself out now. Next.

My neighbor, my great neighbor who makes the kickass Skippies, gave us a piano. A beautiful antique full-sized upright piano. Gave it. To us. For free. Just because she "knew we'd appreciate it." Have I mentioned how friggin fortunate I am to have such lovely people in my life? So now I'm taking piano lessons because people, I have wanted a piano for 35 YEARS. I can't stop looking at the thing. The kids can't keep their hands off it. The cat can't keep away from it. That piano's getting more action than I've seen in years.

The kids and I took the cat to the vet today to get his vaccinations, long overdue (I know, I know. He doesn't go outside, at least. The last time he got out he got in a fight with something and ended up dislocating his jaw and sprouting some sort of abscess and having to wear one of those stupid cone things and oh, did I mention? This happened 2 days before I went into labor with the Girl and cost like $400. Yeah. He doesn't go outside.)

I don't know why I'm telling you about the cat. See? This is what happens when you don't get any nookie and spend all your time fondling the neighbor's piano.

What else? Uh...oh! The Boy! The Boy, my dear lord, you have no idea. That kid is blossoming. He's already gotten his orange belt in Tae Kwon Do, he's learned to read, he's learned to ride his bike without training wheels, and he's this close to being able to swim. All this since Memorial Day. In general, his moods are stable, his meltdowns less frequent and less severe. Although he keeps cutting out my heart with utterances like this one at breakfast: "When I grow up, I'm going to be a builder. And a papa. And I'll always stay married and never get divorced, because I don't ever want my little boy to feel the way I feel." Ohhhhhhkay, and oh, could you pass the marmalade and the razor blades so I can put out my eyes now? Oh, my aching heart.

And did I mention? I'm heading out of town tomorrow for my 20th high school reunion. There's so much I could say about that but I will save it for your birthday.

So that about covers...hello? Ummm...you, uh, have a little drool there in the corner of your mouth. Mmmhmm. Oh, of course not. No, I didn't think you were asleep. Hey, did I ever tell you about the time my Gram...oh. Right. Peanut butter.

Well hey there, Horatio

If this isn't the coolest thing I've read in forever, I don't know what is:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4116778.stm

Also, that stupid All Consuming list is totally jacked. So I'll just say this: Go and buy "The Historian". I pretty much never buy books unless I've already fallen in love with them or have read other works by the author and trust him or her. This one I bought sight-unseen. And I have no regrets. I keep telling myself I'm going to put it aside until autumn, because the atmosphere will be so much more appropriate, but I can't do it. I'm totally hooked.

Do I look like St. Effing Francis? (Thanks Krup)

What is it? Is it the love for all creation that I radiate? Was it that "I love wildlife" post I wrote a while back? Do I send out an "I watched too much Disney as a child and can't make myself kill things" vibe? Cause whatever it is needs to STOP. NOW.

I opened the garage door this afternoon and something ran across the floor. So I went in search of it. Ha. Right. I actually screamed and shoved my Mom back inside the house cause what the effing ef WAS THAT THING THAT JUST RAN UNDER THE CAR???? Then Whatever It Was starting making some sort of noise. I was pretty sure it wasn't one of the rabbits because it moved too fast. And it didn't sound like a rabbit. So I did what any sane person would do and called my next-door neighbor on the cell phone and asked her to come over and stand in my driveway and see if she could see it under the car while I cowered on the hood.

She brought her teenage son and her dog and we all sort of tiptoed around the cars--nothing. Then I opened the car hoods and dropped them--and Whatever It Was ran out from under the cars and into the pile of junk at the side of the garage and yesIknowIknowmygarageisawreckdon'tbugme. Then there was banging on boxes with rakes and standing on ice chests and so on and so forth and then the thing started keening again and do you know what it turned out to be?

A prairie dog.

I do not live on the bloody prairie, people. Now, in theory, I like those little critters just fine and I always feel sort of bad for them in an "I read Watership Down too many times as an adolescent" sort of way, and they're actually very smart and have a complex social structure etc, etc, but they carry the PLAGUE. Remember the plague?? The Black Death?? Shit. And the thing did...all over the bloody garage. Argh.

I think it's gone now. We left the doors open and hopefully it has returned to nature, but I'm telling you. Did it have to pick a closet hypochondriac's house? Party at Snow White's. Bring your own bleach.

I'm Having Home Depot's Baby

There's a whole heckofalotta lovey goodness floatin' around these days. Yes, I know I have been forsaking y'all while I roam the aisles of Home Depot--rolling around in the carpet display, fondling cooktops, rubbing up against new refrigerators with LOCKS ON THE WATER DISPENSERS thankyouJesus. But it doesn't mean I don't love you, baby. Really. I think about you all the time.

Actually, this week what I've been thinking about all the time is how I am NOT getting any NOOKIE. A lot of cap-locks here, I know. Perhaps a bit of sugar mania from sucking down a late-night Dr. Pepper after hitting Target with my madre and buying more pajamas for my children. How many pajamas do they need, you ask? My house is like the Bermuda Triangle of sleepwear. But I digress. Nookie. Me. Not getting any. That nice little Lexapro sex-drive-dive side effect seems to be wearing off. Which would be, you know, good in most circumstances but is sort of shitty here in Single Motherhood Central. More trips to Home Depot for me, I guess. Let's see how many hormonal urges I can sublimate into architectural design! Wheeee.

Is this too much information? Next week, I'll talk about knobs.

Yes!

They said YES!
Whoa.
Uh...whoa. It's a good thing I'll have 7 months to pack...

Movement

Things are afoot out this way. Where do I begin?

I think--I hope--that later this week I'll be signing a contract to begin building a new house. A new Home. I won't be able to say this for certain until I talk with the Money People this week, but I've found a place about a 1/2 mile from here, and it feels right. The Ex has agreed to buy this house, the house we once owned together. He's already put a lot of work into it, designed the landscape, put in the sprinkler system himself, had the garage and basement finished to his specifications. He's been searching for a house for the past year, but everything comes up short. Too much money, or not the right design, or something. A few weeks ago, he said, "I wish I could find a house like this one." So I said to him, "Why not this one? Buy it from me."

And me? Why would I want to move? The new place will cost me the same as this one does, but it will have two advantages: So far, it looks as though the neighborhood it's in will stay zoned to the Boy's current school, preventing the dreaded Changing of Schools. And, the layout will allow me to section off part of the house as an apartment for my mother.

How do I tell you about my mother and me? We are so different and yet so alike. We give each other shit constantly, but I have never for one hour doubted that my mother loves me or supports me. Even when we disagree, we respect each other. And one of the primary concerns in my life over the past several years has been her financial well-being. She lives about 7 hours away, and financially, she's not in such great shape. Combining our living spaces will allow her to retire in a few years (she's 70), something she won't otherwise be able to do. This town offers many more opportunities for activity, work, and community than the place she lives. She misses the kids and me.

It's so strange. For so much of my life, I fought tooth and nail not to end up like my mother. I loved her fiercely, but I saw her misery and I didn't want it. A single, older mother (she was only 32 when she had me, but in the '60s, that was quite old for a first-time mother), she made poor choices when it came to men. She and I lived with my grandparents until she remarried when I was 8. She didn't know how to stand up for herself, she didn't particularly like herself, and she was so sad. I hated her sadness. It enraged me. Now I find myself a single mother in my late 30s, fighting that same sadness. But the thought of being in that extended family again is somehow comforting, even while being a bit frightening. I loved living in the same home with my grandmother. I loved feeling a part of something larger. I hope my children will feel the same. Our family hasn't turned out at all as I'd hoped it would, but it still has love at its center, and I hope that will be enough, especially for the Boy. I do love him so.

Nope. Nada.

I know you're wondering, now that I'm all New With Less Depression!, why the heck am I not writing anything of interest?

Um...got me. Send in likely excuses and I'll throw one out there.

On a good note, the VBS has shmoffee and the small children have yet to defeat, er, tire me out. But tomorrow we do nature rubbings. Hey...shut up. You! Over there, I see you sniggering. Watch it.

But I was wrong

Okay, this really IS it...it's just that I stumbled across the most beautiful Thoreau quote:

"The fate of the moon will disappoint all expectations."

Isn't that magnificent?

That melon threatens us all!

Somebody posted this link in a comment on Catherine's journal this week: Grocery Store WarsJoin the Organic Rebellion.

Between the two, I think my evening is now complete. Thank you, and good night.

Short and stout

I have a new teapot! A buttercup yellow, 8-cup teapot! I am ridiculously excited about it. It's raining like crazy, the kids are at their dad's, I am going to work out and watch "Twister" (shut up) and then I am gonna drink tea like a mad woman while reading a new book. Ooooooooh I'm so in heaven. What could POSSIBLY be better than this?

Okay, what will I actually have the chance to DO tonight that could possibly be better than this? Right. Nothing. That's what I was saying.

Oh, the humanity...

Hey guys! Guess what! Guess what I'm doing next week!
I'm teaching Vacation Bible School! Bwaahaahaahaaaaaaaa!
Heeee....
What? Hey, I'm righteous, dammit! Plus, there's gonna be snacks.
Don't worry, it's the Methodists. We're already mostly subversive anyhow. Mooostly.

I've always kinda liked Brooke Shields...

...and not just because we have the same eyebrows.

From MSN, regarding Tom Cruise's jackass advice that women with postpartum depression just need to take some vitamins (or join his religion):

Shields didn't take kindly to the megastar's One-a-Day advice. "Tom Cruise's comments are irresponsible and dangerous," she said last week (via the London Times). "Tom should stick to saving the world from aliens and let women who are experiencing postpartum depression decide what treatment options are best for them."

Ah, Brooke. You go, girl.

Nobody can say I'm slow on the uptake. Oh, wait...

You'd think that if I bought a cantelope, and then I unloaded the groceries from the trunk, and then the next morning the car smelled really funky, and it sounded as if something was rolling around in the trunk, even though the trunk contains nothing round...well, you'd think it might occur to me sometime within that 24 hours that the cantelope was still in there.

Yeah. You'd think, wouldn't you?

It's kinda catchy

Sing it with me...

Leaving town and need to pack
(shit oh shit oh shit)
But instead I had a snack
(shit oh shit oh shit)
Gotta vacuum here
Gotta pay bills there
Here a chore, there a chore
Everywhere a chore chore
Plus I need to work tonight...
(Shit. Oh shit. Oh shit.)

I'll be away until Tuesday, in the wilds of no-Internet-access Land. Cold turkey and whatnot. I'll probably get the shakes but I'll try to make up for it with ice cream. Don't cry for me, Blog-entina.
xo
-PK

The Queen is dead. Long live the Queen.

For those of you who thought the Girl was insulting bugs, she was actually being naughty to the blog. Yes, usually I would tell her not to say "Stupid Head," but she sort of caught me off guard.

Now, she's become so enamored of hearing herself insult the Internet, that she keeps begging to play with the blog. And since we were on the subject of freaky dreams, I thought you'd enjoy a preview of the future Queen's subconcious. The Girl's dream, as told to me at 2:30 this morning (translation following) :

"My at da zoo, and my sittin wit da lion, and my cryin and cryin. My did cry cause my did want Papa! Any my did cry and den my did watch da show, and da bunny did play da whistle and da birdy did play da gi-tar, and den Papa did come and put da car on da bunny. An my was sad. And da train did go up an down an up an down an it did go so, so, so slow!!"

O-kay, then. Who's bringing the birthday cake?

Well, I didn't say it...

But I'm sure she didn't mean you...

Is it just me, or are high school girls kicking ass?

After being totally proud of that high school senior who walked across the stage at graduation despite being told she couldn't because of her pregnancy, now I feel the same way about this girl, for not really caring. These girls are gonna be fine. Good for them.

Dream on

Okay, I know somebody linked to the John Cusack dream a while back, but I'm really sorry, I can't remember which of you it was. But SFTR links today to somebody who links to somebody else who links to this. I love it. Cause have I mentioned? I am the Queen of Freaky Dreams.

I love EVerybody

I must be full of endorphins from pruning all the flipping shrubs in my yard. Or maybe it's the heat--90 degrees today!--but I'm just all full of good will and shit.

So hi! Hi everybody! Thanks for stopping by. Thanks for commenting or emailing or whatever it is you do when you're here. I mean, unless you're doing something freaky out there where I can't see you. Although I'm generally okay with freaky, so I guess that would be okay too.

You know it to be true

Yesterday was the Boy's Tae Kwan Do lesson. Did I even come close to spelling that right? Anyway, the Ex--being Martial Arts Man--comes and picks up the Boy and takes him to these lessons. The Ex usually arrives as I'm prying the Boy away from some project or other and coaxing him into his uniform. Yesterday, I somehow convinced him to start getting ready a bit early so that he'd actually be dressed when his father arrived, instead of hopping around in his underwear like usual.

The front door was open and I was getting the Boy dressed in the living room so that I could see through the storm door. "Come on, bud," I said, "let's finish getting you ready before Papa gets here."

"Papa IS here!" the Boy blurted out. "He is?" I asked, craning my neck to look through the door to the driveway. "Did you hear his car?"

The Boy looked up at me from under his eyebrows. "No," he said, seriously, "I felt a disturbance in the Force."

Three

Okay, Profgrrrrl tagged me. I'll play.

3 names you go by (that won't give away my identity):
The first syllable of my name
Chica
Mama

3 screennames you've had:
Lanya
Psycho Kitty
SBFH

3 physical things you like about yourself:
Eyes
Collarbone
Feet

3 physical things you dislike about yourself:
The weight I'm carrying right now
The changes in my skin during the past several years
Being nearsighted

3 parts of your heritage:
Irish
English
French

3 things you are wearing right now:
Tunic
Slippers
Jeans

3 favorite bands / musical artists:
Sting
Puccini
Annie Lenox

3 favorite songs:
Moondance
Mad About You
Ave Maria

3 things you want in a relationship:
Love
Trust
Respect

3 physical things about the preferred sex that appeals to you:
Eyes
Hands
Mind

3 of your favorite hobbies:
Reading
Blogging
Walking

3 things you want to do really badly right now:
Lose weight
Quit hearing my children wandering around when they're supposed to be ASLEEP
Get over the Ex

3 things that scare you:
Something happening to my loved ones
The current US administration
Sharks

3 of your everyday essentials:
Water
Medication (Lord, I'm old)
Coffee

3 careers you have considered or are considering:
Actress
Teacher
Writer

3 places you want to go on vacation:
Palm Island, Grenadines
Ireland
Italy

3 kids' names you like:
Liam
Dagne
Jack

3 things you want to do before you die:
Hang glide
See my kids grow up healthy and happy
Have a positive effect on the world

3 ways you are stereotypically a boy: (uh...I'm just taking a shot in the dark here. Are these guy things? I guess I don't get guys enough to know what "guy things" would be right off hand)
I'm difficult to offend
I think South Park is funny
I like whiskey

3 ways you are stereotypically a chick:
Shoes
Sappy movies
Chocolate

3 celeb crushes:
Hugh Jackman
Ralph Fiennes
Angelina Jolie

3 people to play next:
Sarahlynn
Trisha
Krupskaya

Blog virgin no more

That sounds so confessional.

I finally met another blog person. Profgrrrrl and I met for dinner, and I must say that the pink hair rocks. And yes, she is as completely smart and lovely and interesting in real life as in blog life. Plus she made a penis joke that almost made me choke on my edamame, so what's not to like there?

Now THAT's love...I think

The Boy and the Girl are sitting at the table, waiting for breakfast. They've already rearranged all the place settings so that they can sit right next to each other.

B: GG, I really do love you.
Me: [Awwwww.]
G: Yeah. [pause] My tooted!
B: EEEEWWWWWW!

Dry bones

It's funny how the sun breaks through the clouds and you suddenly notice it and think, Wow. When did it get so foggy out here?

I've been depressed before, but damned if the bastard didn't sneak up on me again. When it happened in my 20s, it was all bad poetry and messy love affairs and lots of cigarettes and a different country. This time around, it's been a slow, creeping paralysis. It isn't that I've been particularly sad, mind you. Oh, I've had moments of sad, but it hasn't been that. It's been more a lack of connection. A disconnection. No focus, no interest in focusing. No buffer between the stress and the breaking point. Little ailments that won't go away. Tired, tired, unceasingly tired. And showering has seemed increasingly over-rated.

Only 2 weeks after going back to Dr. Zen, starting on the Lexapro, and also getting back a diagnosis of slight hypothyroidism (is that even a word?) and starting meds for that, I think I see the sun peaking out from behind those clouds. Maybe I didn't notice them because I was looking for storm clouds, dark thunderheads, when I should have been looking out for a low and spreading haze. Regardless, I think things are looking up.

There are also some exciting developments on the Boy front, which I'll get into soon. And I have some crow to eat regarding the Boy's teacher. I will also tell you about my thrilling visceral massage! Or maybe not. And in any case, it will have to wait, because I have an appointment to go to bed. No, that is nowhere near as promising as it sounds. Dr. Zen has given me homework--Mobility Tracking. Oh, that wacky Dr. Zen, making me work for the Happy.

Holy cow

I've been such a bad blogger this week. Everything's going well, really, but these drugs are knocking me off my ass. I actually did a face plant on my bed the other night and woke up 3 hours later with a little drool on the pillow. (Aren't you glad to know that? Prospective boyfriends, sign up below.) And the Ex was on a business trip, and the Girl has decided that sleep is for the birds, and that Her Majesty will only sleep past 2 a.m. if moved to my bed. And I am so lacking the will power to stop her. I'm amused by the doctors' efforts to "regulate my sleep". They obviously are forgetting that I live with small children. Ho ho. There was a funny post in there somewhere at about 3 a.m. Thursday, in which both kids and the cat wound up trying to sleep on top of me simultaneously, but it eludes me now. I'm not at the top of my game at 3 a.m.

Go tell it

So tonight I'm reading the Boy bedtime stories ("The Magic Treehouse" again) and he says, "Mom, how come something scary always happens to Jack and Annie? In every book, something scary happens. Why is that?" So I explain the idea of having a beginning of a story, and then having something important or exciting or scary happen, and then having the story wind down and everyone goes home. "It's sort of like a mountain," I tell him, drawing the shape in the air, "and the important or exciting or scary part is the top of the mountain. It's called the...um...the..." And then I pause and try to think of the word "climax" because for heaven's sake, I know the freakin' word , I'm just a little addled. But before I can say it, the Boy interjects: "The Mountain of Good and Bad." "Yes," I say. "It's called the climax, but that's exactly what it is. I think I like that better."

Lexapro Adventures, Day 2

Well, I'll say this for it: It sure does make the body of Christ stick to the roof of your mouth.

Or, How To Be A Hypocrite

Me to Ex: Medication is a perfectly valid component of therapy.
Me to Dr. Zen: Oh, I don't know as I need any medication.

Me to Ex: You quit taking it because it's making you fat? Fat is a small price to pay for mental stability, I think.
Me to Dr. Bod: If this stuff makes me fat, forget it.

Me to Chica: It's so frustrating when they can't see that their strategies aren't working!
Me to Ex: I simply cannot believe that my approach is not working here.

Hmmm.

Dr. Bod: So what's going on?
Me: Well, I can't really get to sleep, except then I can't wake up, and I don't seem to be able to quit gaining weight. Except I don't really eat. But I can't seem to get my ass in gear to exercise. But I can't really get anything done. I feel like I'm in college, you know, sort of perpetually hungover and with no real sense of purpose or the ability to operate in the world. At all. Mostly. And I cry a lot.
Dr. Bod: Mmm hmm.
Me: So I'm thinking it's my liver.
Dr. Bod: Mmmmmm hm.
Me: Or IsupposeImightbealittledepressed.
Dr. Bod: MMM HMMMM.
Me: But I'm seeing Dr. Zen this afternoon.
Dr. Bod: Good.
Me: And I suppose I could discuss the possibilities with her blah blah blah.
Dr. Bod: Yeeees. Tell her I'll be here until 4.

Me: So I suppose I might be a little depressed and I suppose I've been feeling this way for oh, about 2 years and especially the last two months and I keep crying over, like, paper cups and I have no motivation and all that but I'm not really sure it's all that big of a deal. But I suppose we should discuss whether medication might be in order. Boohoohoo.
Dr. Zen: Sleeping problems?
Me: Uhhhh...yeah.
Dr. Zen: Appetite?
Me: Uhhhh...no.
Dr. Zen: Ability to focus?
Me: Huh?
Me: Boohoohoo.
Dr. Zen: Sex drive?
Me: Boohoohoohahaha. That would be a disadvantage considering that I have no where to drive to.
Dr. Zen: So. You're using humor to control the conversation so you don't have to think about being depressed. Does that seem incongruous?
Me: Nope, not really. That's pretty much modus operandi for me. Nothing incongruous about that. I'm sorry, I don't think I'm getting the question.
Dr. Zen: Mmmm hmmm.

Many doctors hummed many hums. I like to bring the arts and sciences together.

As good as it gets??

All that goody-goodying and all I get is purgatory? Screw you guys, I'm going home.

The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to Purgatory!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Extreme
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Moderate
Level 2 (Lustful)	High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Moderate
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Moderate
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very Low
Level 7 (Violent)	Low
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Moderate
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

Take the Dante's" Inferno Test

Pie from HELL

All right, Smartie Professors--and any other brainiacs out there--I am BEGGING you. Leave your Friday Shuffles long enough to figure out this damned pie thingie. It is driving Trisha, Amy, and me STARK RAVING MAD. And I'd venture to say we're all close enough to already being there that pushing us over the edge is just not a good plan. I cannot get past 16 bites. I've tried going around the edge with the radius of the bite. I've tried working in lines. Triangles. Squares. Concentric circles. I NEVER LIKED F***** GEOMETRY!! FIIIIIIX IIIIIT!

Ahem. Thank you.

Nothing green

And then it snowed.

If you've ever lived where snow falls, you know why I love that Yeats poem. Or you know a little of it. People talk about the wild blue yonder and the endless sky, but if you want endless, you have to stand out in the open and look up into white infinity. If it snows at night, and you're near a city, you can look out into the dark and watch the sky stretch out pale before you, lit from beneath. There's something...still...about it that I can't really put into words.

I'm always glad when the days start warming up and the trees burst into life again, but this year I felt a little twinge of sadness about moving ahead into the hot months ahead. I don't know why. Of course, every year we get a late snow that (at best) buries the grass or (at worst) presses down the trees, crippling them and sending everyone out in the middle of the night in a panic, with brooms and shovels and rakes, to shake off the branches before they snap. So I shouldn't have been surprised last night when the fat rain drops turned to a drizzle, and then to downy flakes. I stood at the picture window that looks out of the dining room, into the backyard and onto my poor purple (and now icy) lilacs. The flakes were huge...The size of silver dollars. I was feeling somewhat annoyed by this fickle climate, as I leaned my forehead against the pane, but then I tilted my gaze up into the sky.

It was like being inside a snow globe--the cold glass against my temple, the huge flakes pouring down, nearly on top of me, out of an endless expanse of white. It was incredible. And I thought, Wow. Sometimes when things seem really shitty, all you really need to do is look up.

Just asking

Anyone have anything to say about Lexapro?

Lilacs

Sunday found me on my knees in the sprouting grass, finally givin' some lovin' to my long-suffering and oft-neglected yard. The yard was always the Ex's territory, you see; I was the Inside, he was the Outside. That statement is more apt than I can say.

The yard was the Ex's pride and joy. Last year, the first summer after our split, I will admit to being a bit--shall we say, passive aggressive?--about the yard. As in, Screw you, Yard! To hell with you, Yard! Granted, I had a lot of other things going on, AND I generally have a Black Thumb, so making the yard my last priority perhaps wasn't as much of a statement as it seems. But in any case, the poor jilted yard needs a tender hand this year. The yard, to put it in the parlance of our times, needs a good boinking.

So, there I was, pruning the ornamental grasses, maneuvering the oversized mower and trimmer (damned men and their need for large machinery), putting on gardening gloves and pulling up the grasses from around the edging. The lilac in the front yard especially needed some attention; shooters were already making their attack on the surrounding areas, errant grass surrounded the shrub, and the old leaves that I spitefully refused to rake up last fall had been blown into drifts around and behind it. As I clipped and raked and dug endlessly, I suddenly though of my grandmother, the Master Gardener. My grandmom's garden was always beautiful. She never put me to work in the flower beds (she was way too smart for that; I had an unholy love of snap dragons and would never have been able to resist mauling them). Instead, she gave me the odious task of weeding the front steps. We lived in Florida, and our front steps were red brick. Tiny green creeping vines sprouted from between the bricks in a sort of never-ending cycle, and all summer long, it was my job to destroy them. As a kid, I hated that job. Strangers have lived in my grandmother's house for 25 years now; my grandmother's been dead for 15. I'd give anything to sit on those steps and rub my fingers raw pulling up those damned weeds.

So there I was, digging up the grass from around the lilacs. I love lilacs. This state is full of them--overgrown, wild, unstoppable. After we moved here, away from my grandmother, away from growing things, we lived in a rundown house out in the middle of the dry, dry countryside. I missed the moss, the orange trees, the snap dragons. We couldn't even grow grass. My mother tried and tried, but she kept turning up rocks. No matter how many she dug up, the ground was always full of them. The lilacs were the only wild things that didn't care--the lilacs and the irises, and these are still two of my favorite flowers. So last Sunday, in my head, I'd be thinking, Dear God, will this freaking grass never END? and then I'd shift and get a face full of lilacs, and suddenly I wouldn't mind that I'd been pulling this grass for hours, years, centuries. The grass, the lilacs, and the endless spring.

But we won't quit our day jobs

So I tried to add text to the audioblogs, but I finally gave up. Swiped the idea from Profgrrrrl, of course. (PG, how did you add text? It kept deleting the audioblog graphic when I tried to do it.)

Yes, they get their musical talents from me. No, I won't subject you to that.

Her, too

I think I'll keep him

Fill in the blanks

Some great post about working in the yard and lilacs and childhood and light and the moon and the Circle of Life--it was all right here, I tell you!

But it's sort of stuck, and my ass, it enlargeth. I need to get some exercise before it gets any later and I talk myself out of it. So...you've got your preview. It'll show up, eventually.

You know what you don't want to hear? You don't want to hear the Massage Lady say, "There are three places I can work on that I have to tell you, cause excruciating pain. The other two, I have to put on gloves." Because what follows will be sounds of Not Happiness, and they will be coming from you. Dang, though, that Massage Lady knows her stuff. After the Not Happiness part comes the Thank You Jesus I Am Healed part, where your hip actually moves and stuff! Which means you will go back to the Massage Lady, even though the last thing she did was tell you where the Number 1 Excruciatingly Painful Place is..."just so you have some time to get ready." Mommy.

She Falters To Rise

She Falters To Rise

You all are reading this, right? I know you are reading this.

Whoa, some-body teeeell me...

And if anyone knows what *that* is from, you will also know how humiliatingly easily it popped right into my head. Yowza.

Which seems to be the word of the day for me. Yoowwzaa.

So I hear from Orange and Jessica that Ayelet Waldman was on Oprah having to defend herself about the husband/children thing? Somebody tell me how that went. I sort of skimmed over to the ol' Oprah site and took a gander at the comment board, and h0-ly mackerel! Or better yet--yowza. Them was some scary commenting ladies, I tell ya. I don't think I can even describe it. Yeesh. The point being that I don't watch TV but I have this silly blogging habit and what good is it to me if you all don't catch me up on the interesting stuff I miss by being Ms. Crunchy Organic No TV Dansko Girl. (And I wish I could explain how it is that this description is absolutely accurate and totally INaccurate all at the same time. I am a Conundrum Unto Myself, people!)

Folks sure do seem to get testy with Ayelet. I don't know her or anything, but I feel a bit bad for her. When I was reading her blog, there were a few things I disagreed with her about. In particular, she dissed one of my favorite people, and I was all upset, but that person had the balls to contact her directly--how rare is that?--and Waldman admitted she'd been wrong and apologized. Which also takes some guts, IMHO. In any case, she struck me as a fairly thoughtful, even sensitive, person who felt very passionately about things, and who tended to downplay or even sort of deride her actions or her kids or the things she cared about--not because she didn't care about them, but because of that thing where you can't admit how much you adore something or are proud of something or good at something because you'll jinx yourself. Maybe it's the price of being "known", that you say something you do is self-absorbed--because you're sort of chiding yourself--or you blow off steam, or make a hasty judgment, or you reveal something that has you wondering, and everyone thinks you've just hurled an insult into the general crowd, like some verbal Molotov cocktail. And really, you're just...talking out loud.

But what do I know. Like I said, all conjecture. And she undoubtedly knew that all these things were going to be out in the public eye, so I'm likely just projecting (oh, that would be new). Still, if people took everything I said as my rock-solid opinion and then got all bent out of shape over it, or if I couldn't say what I was thinking or feeling...oy. What a nightmare. I contradict myself and say snarky shit because I'm unhappy and then agonize over it and get all uptight over things I know nothing about and have to admit later that I'm a dolt and say what I truly, passionately believe or feel myself and THANK YOU GOD no one cares or thinks I'm aiming some judgement at them. Yowza.

I'm Irish and I have a guilt complex. So sue me.

Second, the melodramatic one:

The Cold Heaven

SUDDENLY I saw the cold and rook-delighting Heaven
That seemed as though ice burned and was but the more ice,
And thereupon imagination and heart were driven
So wild that every casual thought of that and this
Vanished, and left but memories, that should be out of season
With the hot blood of youth, of love crossed long ago;
And I took all the blame out of all sense and reason,
Until I cried and trembled and rocked to and fro,
Riddled with light. Ah! when the ghost begins to quicken,
Confusion of the death-bed over, is it sent
Out naked on the roads, as the books say, and stricken
By the injustice of the skies for punishment?

-W.B. Yeats

And oh yeah...

Because the month is halfway over and what kind of a lame-ass poetry lover am I? First, the well-known one:

Late Fragment

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

-Raymond Carver

So many therapists, so little time

I swear to you that there was a moment last week, sitting on the pediatric psychiatrist's couch, when I literally had an image flash into my mind, and here's what it was: Remember those old Looney Toons, where someone is starving, and someone else is talking, blabbing away, blah blah blah, and to the starving character the blabber suddenly turns into a walking lamb chop? That's what I felt like. I had this flash, from the perspective of the doctor, me sitting there, blah blah blah, and suddenly I was a giant ice cream cone labeled "Case Study". I started giggling right then. Of course, I'd been crying about 2 minutes before that. Oh yeah. Triple scoop.

So okay! Let's get all these therapists labeled for future blogging bonanzas of fun. We'll call the Boy's psychologist Dr. Tall, cause wow, she's tall. And stunning. Wow. He's gonna look back on therapy and ask himself, Why didn't I keep up with that until I was at least 16? Then we've got the psychiatrist, and I really like him, but he actually brought up the Oedipal Complex, which caused me to snort in derision. (Aside from the Ex: "Hey, better to be blind in Heaven." We scare our therapists.) So let's call him Dr. Rex. And then there's my therapist. Yes! It's the Third Annual SBFH Return To Therapy Event. We'll call her Dr. Zen, because she once mentioned that she'd just gotten back from a Buddhist psychotherapy retreat, which was when I knew she was the mental-health professional for me. We'll call the Ex's doctors Drs. Ex cause I'm running out of brain cells to keep track of all these friggin' doctors.

And I went in for a neuromuscular massage tonight, and damn! That hurts. In a good way. I hope.

I had a sudden wish this morning that I could grow dreadlocks. But I can't.

Shh. The words "early-onset bipolar" have been bantered. Dr. Tall prefers "possible mood disorder". Drs. Ex are trying to determine whether the Ex is truly bipolar and if so, how effective can talk therapy be? What's the lowest level of meds he can take to positive effect? Lithium did zilch for him. Dr. Rex wants to hold off on all meds until we have a chance to see how Little Oed does with the behavioral and cognitive therapy. I had a nice Crow Pie over the Boy's teacher, remember the one that drove me crazy (ha ha)? I decided I needed to adjust my attitude about her, and lo! she turns out to be quite caring and helpful. We've got a 504 plan in place for him for next year. We're looking into group therapy for social skills. He's started Tae Kwan Do and I've never heard so much yes-maaming. The Girl is peeing on the potty (only after we realized that she was doing it at school because they give her M&Ms. As soon as we mentioned that TREATS might be involved, we can't get her OFF the potty). I finally realized that spending every waking moment on the verge of tears is probably not a Good Thing, so I'm making my annual pilgrimage to Dr. Zen. Poor Dr. Zen; she can't get rid of me to save her soul. I am Perpetual.

Miss me?

Saints

I found this through Dr. B. It just leaves me speechless. Yes, of course I agree. Of course.

Well...it's protein, and it's natural...

On the way to the library park today, the Boy stopped, looked down, picked up something so miniscule as to be invisible to my eye, and said,

"Did I mention that I can eat ants?"

And then he ate it.

Of course I was three steps ahead of him with one eye on his sister, who was chomping at the bit to get to the slides. My reaction was something along the lines of "Uh huh...[glance]... that's inter...[double-take]...uh. WHAT?"

Two men sitting under the llibrary overhang nearly busted a rib cracking up. "The real trick," called one to the Boy, "is to eat 'em while they're still alive. Then they're all wiggly going down." The other one was just shaking his head at me and chortling. "Nah," the Boy called back, "it's easier when they're dead."

He caught up to me--not too difficult seeing as how I was still standing there, mid-step, completely flabbergasted. "Tastes like tea and malt," he commented, before heading off with his sister to the swings.

I was willing to chalk it up to a one-time experiment, except I caught him doing it at another park later. "I'm hungry, I need a snack!" he told me. "Well, it's time to go home," I said, "We'll get another snack there." "No, I need one now." "Sorry, buddy, but your sister and you ate all the snacks we brought." "No problem," he declared brightly, "I know where I can find lots of snacks!" And then he climbed up some rocks and started eating more ants. WTF??

In the car on the way home, I explained the finer points of Why We Don't Eat Ants Unless We're Traveling In Exotic Locales. "When Papa was in China he drank snake blood," the Boy observed. Spoken like a true Frenchman, I must say. "Well," I said, "eating ants is definitely adventurous, I'll give you that. Maybe when you grow up, you'll be a photographer and you'll roam the world taking pictures for National Geographic. Or maybe you'll be a writer, and you'll travel far and wide, writing the stories of many lands. Or maybe you'll be an amazing chef, and make all sorts of exotic dishes." "Ant pie," he mused. "I will make pie, and fill it with ants."

Bon Appetit, my sweet boy.

The reason I refuse to count calories

Kim's written an incredible post about a truly scary subject that's pretty important to me. Go read.

Ah, but it's that 25% that gets y'all every time...

via S&C:

Your Linguistic Profile:

60% General American English

25% Dixie

5% Midwestern

5% Upper Midwestern

5% Yankee

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

As we are

So here we are, nearly at the end of a very long week, and I don't know what to say to you. Come on, I keep thinking, you have to say something, you have some explaining to do, especially after all the kindness everyone's shown. I mean, really. Some of the things people have written in this last week have brought me to tears, just out of sheer gratitude. Plus maybe that little nervous breakdown I had. But mostly gratitude.

But then it all gets so tiring and messy and I realize that all that really matters, I think, is this:

I will never give up faith that all will be well. I will never give up believing that my child--that all of us, all the ones I love--will find peace. I will always, always love him and I will always be there for him, and I believe that he will be well, that all will be well.

So help me, I should've been a pioneer woman. Except I would've been a really whiney pioneer woman, and all that hand-washing the laundry? Not so much.

So it boils down to this: Last week, for no apparent reason, the Boy suddenly refused to take his medication. Any more. At all. Going off antidepressants cold turkey is not a good thing, and there were Scenes and Incidents. There were tears and thrown objects and kicked doors and smacked walls, and that was just me. There was frightening behavior, there were many calls to many doctors. In the end, no one was hurt, and everyone was hurt. And in the end, I was reminded, again, that the only thing I really have any control over in the world is what I choose to make of my reality. See above.

Maybe it's irrational that I believe in a benevolent God, or the power of love, or the inevitable good. But it's also irrational, in this world, to believe that the sun will keep on showing up every morning. Hell, I believe in plenty of rational things, science and good chocolate and knee boots and all that. But I also believe that, as a wise woman once told me, what we believe eventually consumes us. And here are the things I choose to consume me: love, and peace, and health, and joy, and forgiveness, and faith. And good chocolate.

Thank you, everyone who wrote or commented and who sent good and loving thoughts our way. You are all so incredibly kind and I am so blessed to have so much positive energy coming our way. We're going to be fine, here, and we thank you. Thank you.

[Oh, and by the way, so no one worries unnecessarily--we have a new plan, therapy-wise; the pediatric psychologist has decided to keep the Boy off meds for the time being; and the Ex really came through in this one. And hey! I had a discussion about Freud and I didn't even crack up! Okay, I did, but...well, you know Freud and me.]

Sister Dagger of Enlightened Compassion thanks you

Ah, dear friends, thank you all so much for having our back. I'm still not quite ready to go into it, but things are better, and your continued prayers/good thoughts mean so much to me. And don't fret--nothing so bad has happened that it could kill off my sense of humor. So that's good.

My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Sister Dagger of Enlightened Compassion.

Get yours.

Small favors

If you're the praying type, I'd appreciate it if you'd send one up for the Boy. If you aren't, I'll take whatever you've got. Thanks.

Paranoid

Every now and then, the Chica sends me my horoscope. Today, she emails me the following:

Scorpio:
You may be called upon to solve something of a social mystery. In short: who were those people? Later on, they'll figure prominently again.

Says the Chica: "Hey, Yeah...who were those people?"

I just checked site meter, and for some reason, 10 times as many people as usual stopped by today. Which is nice and all, don't get me wrong, but...hey. Yeah. Who were those people?

To make it up to you...

Because I've been so negligent, and because I missed you all so...I thought I'd start a meme. And by the way, I finally gave in and looked up the definition and history of the term "meme", because that's how geeky I am. Yes, I'm back and I'm geeky. Or, as the Boy might say, "full of jolly goodness". Take your pick.

If this thing isn't as original as I think it is, forgive me. I've been busy not showering. If you don't have a blog, feel free to post your answers in the comments. And if you answer and aren't on my blogroll, please tell me or email me or something so I can see your version, 'cause I'm damned nosy that way. And for the dear Lord's sake, somebody else do this thing or I'm going to feel like a total idiot.

If you had to pick five fictional literary characters who would best embody you (in some aspect, either now or in the past), who would you choose?
Meg Murray
Jane Eyre
Christina Parsons
Mrs. Richard F. Schiller
Tess d'Urberville

Which five books (any genre) have had the greatest influence on you?
Catch 22
The Lord of the Rings
Traveling Mercies
The Neverending Story
The Heart of Darkness

What is your favorite commonly censored book?
The Wizard of Oz

If you would ever burn a book (God forbid), which book would it be? Why?
Watt, by Samuel Beckett.
I am one of those people who think like I read. Try having your brain start thinking like this for a week straight. You'd hate it, too. The horror.

Are you a monogamous reader, or do you like to read around?
Book slut. Always an orgy. No less than 5 books at a time.

Last one, and be honest: Do you skip ahead to the ending?
Skiperdoo.

Writing this, I realized that a lot of these books are ones I read as an adolescent or college student--they affected me so strongly because they introduced me to different ideas of how the world worked, perhaps. I find this interesting--and worrisome--because that's the age group that is the target of so much censorship (a vile activity if ever there was one, IMHO). Also, it looks like I'm stuck in a time warp.

I Fall to Pieces

So. After spending Friday afternoon, most of Saturday morning, and all of Sunday afternoon and evening in tears, it occurred to me that I might not be handling things so well as I’d thought. (No one has ever accused me of being slow on the uptake! Oh, wait. Yes, actually, yes they have.) Please understand: I know that in the grand scheme of things, I have it damned good. I am so fortunate. I guess my heart just loses its perspective now and again.

On Monday, I walked into the Chica’s office and said, “I think I might be a little, you know, depressed.” And she looked at me and said, “Well, DUH!” No, she didn’t really. But she probably wanted to. What she said was, “Oh, sweetie. I think maybe you are.” (A goddess among women, I’m telling you. If I walked into my office 15 times a day just to sigh and stare at myself balefully, I’d have ditched myself as a friend a long time ago. I don’t deserver her.) So I’ve taken most of the week off from work, and I’ve sat around a lot, and gone to the Acupuncturist, and read, and meditated, and prayed, and watched The Incredibles three times, and cleaned the parts of the house that needed it the most, and done laundry, and bought a Purple Blanket that makes me almost forget my lust for the Yellow Blanket, and slept and slept and slept, and made bread, and eaten bread, and had lunch with friends, and played with my kids, and moved furniture, and sorted paperwork, and gone for days without showering because if I’m going to be in a funk, dammit, I’m going to do it RIGHT.

Today, I woke up, and I felt pretty good. I felt as though I was happy to be here. I felt like I could probably manage my life again, in small doses. So, that’s my mental-health break, in a nutshell, and I want to thank you all for dropping by to see me (and aren’t you glad you didn’t do it in person, because did I mention? I went days without showering!) and for sending me your kind wishes and happy thoughts. You are all wonderful, and again, I am fortunate. I live a life filled with fortune. Sometimes it just takes a few days of sleep and bread and isolation to remind me.

Now, having said all that, this is one of the email messages that greeted me upon my return to work today:

From: Facilities Manager
Just as a precaution, I have called police to look
at the 4 bags that appear to contain dog food in the northeast area of our
parking lot. I looked at them, they appear to be harmless, but until the police
check them, please stay clear of that area.
With the discovery of bombs in a
couple different [city where I work] locations, best to be safe.

Not helping, people. Not. Helping. But actually, it just made me laugh, so I guess I’m back, if you know what I mean.

This sort of reminds me of the job I had about 10 years ago (before I had children, as will be obvious in a minute). For a while, we worked in a building that was near the county jail. Our offices were on the top floor, a preschool was on the bottom floor, and there was a picnic area on the roof. My friend Kim and I frequently worked overnight, pulling together project deliverables; daylight would find us drinking strong coffee out on the roof. On one such occasion, as we both stared glassy-eyed toward the sun rising over the prison, I said, “You realize I’m just waiting to be taken hostage during a jail break. I already have my escape route mapped out.” “Yeah,” she nodded, sipping her coffee, “I’ve thought about that. But I figure they’ll go for the kids first.” “Oh!” I exclaimed brightly, “I hadn’t thought of that! Then its all good.”

Yes, indeedy. It’s all good.