leavin' on a jet plane...

tomorrow morning at an ungodly hour the boybarians and i are heading east on a big ol' jet airliner...

the goddess mother is due to give birth in about a week so off we go and won't be back till the new year...

i will have limited access to y'all and will check in when i can...

for now, wish us luck!...well, actually i'd send that luck to our fellow passengers...whoa boy...

i am a bit concerned about the frisking at the security checkpoint...and before my morning coffee!...and about the fact that i am checking luggage that contains a hand held breast pump...unmarked in a plastic baggie...god only knows what kind of chaos that could bring...

in the meantime, be good while i'm gone and i'll drop you a line from beautiful christmasy new england...

x.

boys...

i have started giving the boybarians separate baths...

just for more of a one on one time with me while i wash their hair and chat with them a bit, and to give them more time to themselves...

so i decided tonight to really teach the duke about penile self care as he is not circumcised...previously, i had just done cursory checks every very once in awhile during diaper changes and later during bathing...

i get wingman occupied so i can talk to the duke privately and seriously about his penis, the difference between being circumcised and not, and show him how to pull back the foreskin and check the head himself...

well, true to form wingman did not cooperate...

what he did was sit outside the door and sing at the top of his lungs...

it was the starbuck's commercial...

"roy...roy, roy, roy...roy, roy, roy...roy a man, doughin' (goin') to wort (work)..."

over and over and over...and over again...

meanwhile, i have my "this is important yet you should know that you can ask anything and above all be comfortable" voice on...i'm explaining the whole deal...i'm getting to the part where i'm talking about pulling the foreskin back, feeling as though i may have to very gingerly talk him through it, perhaps showing him how i have done it while he's previously been too young or too distracted to notice...meanwhile, hoping he's okay with it and it doesn't make him too uncomfortable or nervous about doing it......just as i'm getting to the heart of the matter he says matter of factly

"yeah...i know...i do this all the time..see"

and then i get a visual...

oh...well...okay...good work, then...carry on, lad...be in the kitchen if you need me...

before leaving i did give the chat (more quickly than i had planned) about checking and cleaning, and then left it at that...

i leave the bathroom and trip over wingman who's at the door and has since stopped singing...

"what you ah do-een ah his pee pee?...you ah neet (need) to tet (check) it?...you ah neet to tet mine too?...i ah not want you ah to tet mine...my ah pee pee is seeping (sleeping)...see"

and then he pulls down his pants...

and then i hear from the bathtub

"mama! mama! come here!...you gotta see how big my penis is!"

boys...boys, boys, boys...boys, boys, boys...

x.

don't worry, i haven't forgotten about you...

this week is crazy busy trying to get school crammed in a short week due to thanksgiving...which occurs two days in a row for our family...

that's a whole lotta turkey...

so, in order to fulfill my bringing duties for thursday and cooking duties for friday i am limited on time and cleverness...

but, i shall return...if i don't see you before then, have a happy thanksgiving...

x.

bad mommy, stealing is wrong...oh, and so is lying...

some months ago i mined a bunch of cash from the duke's wallet...it wasn't all at once...but over time i bled the kid dry...

see, he keeps it in my purse so when we go somewhere he has it...

which is an extremely unwise move on his part if you ask me...because it was there and convenient and so i took it...like a common thief...a petty criminal...but it's not like i took the kid's money and spent in on colt 45 and porn...it was necessary, and really for the good of all of us...

at first it was only 10 bucks because i had no cash at the time and needed it...for lunch (he might have starved if i hadn't...we can't have that) at another place that doesn't take cards...i intended to replace it the following day but forgot...

then it was another 7 one time when we parked at the ferry and i had to pay...again, i had no cash and used his...hey, it totally saved him from having to spare change the 7 bucks from other waiting passengers, okay?...

i took the last 2 to pay for a video when i didn't want to use my debit card for such a measly purchase...it was a magic school bus video, which is educational i might add...if i hadn't the duke may never have know what was going on inside ralphie's body...

the change got taken last saturday when the lord of the ring and i had forgotten to bring cash for the soccer coach's gift and we needed it to round out the cash he and i scrounged up...

and where was the duke during this time of thievery you may wonder?...well, since i keep the wallet he really didn't pay much attention to its whereabouts...and then when he did ask?...

i lied...i told him i couldn't find it...so i am a thief and a liar...the deal is i just kept forgetting to get the cash to replace it...it's like me and gas...for my car...the tank has to be nearly empty before i will stop for gas...i just forget, and then when i do remember, it seems like it's always at a bad time...

we've already established that i am lazy, so this really shouldn't come as much of a shock to y'all...

so, the other day i FINALLY went to the bank got the cash i needed and replaced it...all of it...down to the change, and i even slipped in a few extra silver coins...

then today i "found" his wallet...he was absolutely thrilled...and then he totally thanked me for "finding" it...yes, i felt like crap...then he looked at the money and said

"hey, don't you owe me some allowance?"

yeah, like three months worth...but i figure i can string him along till christmas...

x.

with sundays like this who needs mondays?

so two sundays ago i took the boybarians out to a cutesy seaside town...we walked around a bit, spent some time at the bookstore and then set off in search of lunch...

this is where it all falls to hell...

we decide to head across the street to the bakery...they have soups and scones and focaccia bread and then a little something sweet for after...

we go in and are drawn to the big glass case filled with pastries and cakes...everything looks so delicious...we were mesmerized by it all and that's why we must not have seen the four men lurking in the bay window between the doors...

just as i am starting to explain lunch choices it happens...

the four men bust into song and start singing...loudly...right there in the tiny quaint bakery these big men are singing a big song...a big loud song...

the boybarians are just staring at them, and wingman covers his ears...meanwhile, i am trying not to grimace and wondering what to do...i look around to asses my escape options and see that everyone in the friggin' place is watching these guys and they look happy...smiling and bobbing along to the music...

are they insane?...are they drunk?

okay i'm all for artistic expression and all, whatever...but a barbershop quartet in the middle of lunch in the middle of a tiny bakery?...

i realize that in order to leave i would have gather up my stuff and the boybarians and walk right past them singing and in fact might have to shove one out of the way to get to the door...that's clearly not going to do...

i may be bitch but i am a bitch with manners...

so i am trapped in line, shouting out the choices to the boys and wishing the line would move faster...it doesn't because it's one of those hip bakeries staffed by generation "who gives a fuck" and they are all moving slowly and chatting amongst themselves...

god was i ever that annoying?

anyhow, after ten minutes, yes TEN MINUTES of standing in line and listening to the loudest barbershop quartet ever, we get to the front...i place my order (silently hoping that by the time the food is ready a table will be open)...she rings me up...

"oh, um, we don't take cards"

"what?"

"um, yeah, it's just cash or check"

i must have just stood there with that tight look on my face (which anyone who knows me knows that's the look that precedes a bitch attack) but she must have thought i didn't get it...

"um, see cards cost us money for you to use them...so it's like not a good deal for us"

well thank you, suze orman for that enlightening fiscal explanation...that certainly helps the fact that i have been waiting in line for ten minutes being assaulted by a barbershop quartet only to have a child with eyebrow piercings and bra straps bigger than her shirt deny me food...and cash or check only???...you'd think one of them could put their apparently useless thus far college degrees to work and make a sign stating their "policy"...and who writes checks anymore???!!!...

i don't like a place where you're just expected to "know" what's what...and if you have to ask you obviously don't belong there...it's a bakery kids, not some secret ultra cool after hours club...

instead of saying what i would like to, i give her a wan smile (again, manners) and i gather the boys my stuff and my busted ear drums and head out the door...of course all the while trying to explain to the kids why it is they can't have the lunch they chose and trying to keep my ever growing irritation at bay...

by this time the barbershop quartet had finished and as i headed out the door THEY FOLLOWED ME!...

i'm walking up the street and they are right behind me and they start singing!!!...i grabbed the boys hands and start to move faster and faster...

i am being chased by a barbershop quartet!

okay, to be fair, in retrospect i think they started singing when they were behind me and then stopped in front of the shop next to the bakery...but i could have sworn they were following me...

so now i am extremely annoyed and sweaty (bad combo) , and the boybarians are beyond hungry and really whiny...

we eventually find lunch but before we could actually eat it i tried to be a good consumer and alerted the cashier to undercharging me 1.99 and ended up getting charged five extra dollars and then when i alerted him to that he got all snippy and bothered...and in the end mr. employee of the year finally ended up charging me only three extra dollars and my soup got cold in the process...

and of course, we had to bus our own table...and of course there are still tip jars everywhere...

we get back to the car and who is standing in front of it but the barbershop quartet...of course they are...where else would they be?...

they are singing their big ol hearts out and there's a crowd of people (clearly, again, each of them insane, or drunk) smiling and stopping to hear them...we get in the car and just sit there...

"c'mon mama, start the car"

"well, i can't until they stop singing"

"because that would be rude?"

"yes, that would be rude"

so we sit in the car listening to the barbershop quartet...it's the song that never ends...the boybarians heads begin to bob and i think one of them started to hum...

x.

free to be lazy ol' me...

so i am horribly behind on my novel adventure...

i like to think it's because the words i do have represent some really great work, and that it might just have to be about quality at this point rather than quantity...

but that is a crock of shit...the truth is i took a week off and now i am screwed...

i got some good work in today, and will work again after dinner...yup, twice a day for the next fifteen and i just might be able to do this yet...great...the thing is, i've never been a do anything every day kinda gal, so i certainly have no business thinking i'm gonna be able to write twice a day...i'm more the kind that starts off with the best of intentions and then just barely makes it to the cutoff with a big old sigh of relief and the knowledge that it never ends up being a job well done as much as it ends up being, well, at least the job is done...but i am ever optimistic, despite my obvious affliction...

which i do believe they call procrastination...only that sounds far too generous in my case...let's face it, i'm lazy...interested in doing and being more, dreaming big and exploring possibilities...i'm just lousy on the execution...

man, i would have made a really great stoner...i say *would* because of course i couldn't possibly afford to take up smoking pot now...

anyway, this week i aim to get back on track and stay there...and if that doesn't pan out i can fall back and be satisfied with the old "at least i tried" bit...

you see, i was raised during the free to be you and me era...which, in addition to giving me a lifetime of catchy egalitarian kid power songs stuck in my head, sure does come in handy...it's good to know that no matter who i am or what i do, or don't do, that i am special!...that i don't have to *win* to be a *winner*!...hell, i don't even have to finish the damn race!...come to think of it i don't have to even enter the race!!!...i can sit on my ass at home drinking shasta cola watching brady bunch re-runs and i will be just as good as the guy who did win the race...because that's "just who i am", and that is enough...

and with that kind of encouragement i grew up thinking that i could be anything!!! i wanted...even if i strived to be a housework hating, dolls for boys pushing, extreme makeover qualifying ugly woman/man (my choice, of course) married to a dwarf that most certainly WOULD NOT DRESS MY CAT IN AN APRON!!!...and it wouldn't no, SHOULDN'T matter if i was ugly and my partner was short...because apparently we shouldn't care about our looks or our size, shouldn't want to change a thing, and in fact should be ecstatically happy about it!!!...

though if i had a cat who liked to bake i think i'd be totally excited about the possibilities and would want to treat him or her to a fantastic new apron for their efforts...a totally non-gendered, functional, you are free to be who you are and this is in no way trying to box you in or put you in some sort of submissive position in which you must bake at my bidding kinda apron...no siree...or ma'am...or ???...sometimes it's hard to tell with cats...

but, i digress...

ahh, those were the days, indeed...of course reagan had to come along with his "contract for america" and that damned president's fitness challenge and muck it all up, but that's another story...(personally i knew then that arnold was going to be a problem)...

in truth, despite the overtly politically correct (if you were a liberal) soundtrack of my generation, i do want to make it to 50,000 words...i want to finish what i have started and to finish well...i have set a goal for myself and i would like to have a satisfying return on that investment...

BUT, if that doesn't all pan out the way i hope, then at least i can be secure in the knowledge that it's all right to cry...

and more importantly that no matter what happens, i will always be a winner in marlo thomas' eyes...

score!

x.

me and ashcroft both need a little break...

sure, it seems his job was a bit more demanding than mine, but it's all relative, right?...

so i'm off for the next coupla days...

wingman has the sniffly sniffles and is need of more than the usual amount of mama attention and my NaNoWriMo word count needs jumper cables and an iv...it could use a transplant of plot as mine has seemed to atrophy, but that's another problem for another day...

oh, and history stalled somewhere around the byzantine empire last week and we have to get back on track as the gupta empire of medieval india is feeling a bit left out...so we've got more history than usual to complete this week...

next week we start studying the rise of islam and learn about muhammad...well now that's timely wouldn't you say?...maybe i oughta ask old george w. if he'd like to sit in on this one...

be good while i'm gone and if you've got an extra oh say 1,500 words or so lying around could you send them to me?...

thanks...

x.

of pencil boxes and hobbit journals...

we do so much here at the big red house...we learn and live and eat and fight and dream and wreck and repair and mess up and clean...we are each other's best friends and worst enemies...we are in love one moment and at odds the next...we are on a daily basis filling our minds and filling time...we are not exciting and yet the possibilities are endless...

we are a family...

i am a very mortal mama...i rage i laugh i cry i hug i learn i apologize i screw up i shine...

my kids are dream children...they too are mortal...they are the most wonderful annoying god forsaken gifts from the highest on high you could ever want...

but the end of the day, i am so there...thank you bedtime, thank you lights out...

tonight we played a game...due to a set of circumstances beyond our control, it was bedtime when we started...it was touch and go here and there but we had a lot of fun and everybody managed to make it to the end...

wingman won, of course...he always wins...even if he doesn't know the game and you "move" for him...he wins...he's off feeding peanuts to the cat, comes back for his turn, could care less, and wins...you ever want a partner for vegas, take this kid...the duke may have the strategy but damn does that little one have the luck!...

so wingman wins it's the end of the evening and time for teeth brushing and pajama wrestling...and of course, the duke is doing something dumb, dramatic, and duke-like and totally hurts himself...he cries, i hold, long story short he tries to get out of the whole nighttime bathroom ritual (teeth, toilet) due to the "incredible pain" he is suffering...

yeah, no such luck, dude... i have crappy teeth and i vow to help him to not...he doesn't KNOW suffering until he has to deal with teeth subject to genetics and a lifetime of benign neglect...and NOBODY likes a peed in bed at three a.m. due to not using the toilet beforehand...

he's crying, wingman is up too late and beside himself and near tears, and the cat is batting the playing pieces under the furniture which means i'll be on hands and knees to retrieve the suckers...if calgon includes a shot of morphine i'm there...take me away...no really, you need a vein?...

lucky me, the lord of the ring, savior of all things bedtime, is handling the meltdown...

meanwhile, i am handling the delicate psyche of the child...two to be exact...in my own way...

sure, being up too late is the cause, even if it is for family fun...but damn the end of the day no matter the time can be delicate for any of us...especially the little and the sleepy...

upstairs i am mama getting the lamps turned on and beds turned down...and under each pillow a little something...very little, but something...

a few years ago i left a little random gift under the duke's pillow...and every once in awhile since then i will repeat the gesture...he knows it's from me and however small it makes him smile...we are literally talking maybe three or four times...but boy does he talk about it...

"remember that time you left (insert whatever it was here) under my pillow?" it gets brought up more than you know...

it had been some time since the last under the pillow surprise and judging from the tears in the bathroom the time had come again...

i had seen a pencil box with a rain forest theme at the store marked down to 99 cents the week before...i had no idea what possessed me to buy it but i remember thinking at the time "this will come in handy"...it has two pencils, a sharpener, a ruler, and an eraser with all kinds of rain forest animals printed all over...in a handy box...

about a year ago i found a blank journal called "a hobbit's journal" at a library book sale for 10 cents...i bought it simply because the duke and the lord of the ring were reading the hobbit at the time...i had no idea what i would do with it...the duke was much too new at penmanship and creative writing for it to be of any use to him, but i thought at the time "the duke will love this, someday"...

well, that "someday" had come and i knew exactly what to do with each...

the pencil box went under the pillow of a little boy new to school who envied his brother's pencil box...and without one of his own was forced to store his one prized football pencil inside his brother's box...and who despite having won the game that night was still having a difficult time getting to bed without tears due to the overwhelmingness of the lateness of the hour...that went under a pillow with bugs and butterflies on it...

the hobbit's journal went under the pillow of a boy, still little, though you wouldn't know it due to the nature of his perceived "bigness", largely due to the existence of his little brother...and as a result of that had to also deal with this perceived "bigness" in the form of his mother's idea that because of his age and birth order he should be able to be more responsible and less "instigating"...and that for now, he cannot possibly understand that she is still making her way as a mama...and that mama has a hard time remembering that he is still a little guy, regardless of when he was born...a boy in that position could certainly use a place to store thoughts that were his and his alone...thoughts that could be freely written...written not as a school exercise, but as an exercise of his own doing...thoughts that were not checked for grammar and not subject to whether or not they were a proper "example" for his little brother...that journal went under a pillow that had charlie brown and lucy and peppermint patty and snoopy and woodstock...

the pillows were turned over and the surprises found...smiles and chattiness abounded...along with an embarrassed and terribly pleased smile from wingman, and a very sincere thank you from the duke...

the trials of the day were forgotten...in their place were smiles and happiness...

it wasn't much, but if i've learned anything i've learned it's the small stuff that we remember most...

i am not a perfect parent...not even remotely close...damn, some days i feel like they'd keep me out if i didn't show actual documented paper proof that i belonged...

and yeah, i recognize that a bad day can't always be bought off with cheap gifts and the slim hope that such will make it all better...

but sometimes, well, sometimes they can...

because it's the thought that counts...really...and more often than not, that's all we have to go on...

x.

a day late, and one blog and 1,500 words short...

my headache is gone...and so is thursday...

which means i have missed a blog and 1,500 words towards my 50,000 word goal...

but, i rejoice in the fact that today is indeed a new day, and is also friday...which doesn't have quite the same impact as it did when i was younger, but gives me a certain thrill nonetheless...

i am now off to put words on a page in what i hope turns out to be a clever, insightful, and prolific manner...

happy friday!

x.

not tonight honey, i have a headache...

i've had this godforsaken headache since saturday...

it got pretty bad last night and in my desperation i had the oh so brilliant idea of taking my advil with a glass of wine...that actually did the trick for a bit so i decided to keep the party rollin' and had more wine...

i'm sure y'all can see where this is going...too bad i didn't...

yes folks, as a reward for my genius plan i woke up this morning with my headache firmly intact, a pounding hangover, and four more years of george w. bush...

sigh double sigh...

as it stands this evening,

*the headache remains and is apparently pissed at my efforts to eradicate it and as a result is renewed in its vigor

*the hangover is history after a greasy breakfast and large doses of caffeine

*the political song remains the same in america which means, among countless other horrible things, we'll likely be at war with iran within the year and be subject to four more years of those beastly bush daughters

sigh GREAT.BIG.DOUBLE. sigh...

boy if i didn't have those few years in the early nineties to explain i might just think about running for president one day...apparently anyone can get elected these days...

but, alas, i guess the best i can do is raise my boys right and hope for the best...teach them to look to history before they leap, and that might isn't always right...that true strength and power comes from the soul, not the fist...and that respect is earned, not forced...

for now, i'm off to bed to pull the covers over my head and dream of brighter futures and headache free mornings...

x.

november 2, 2004

i certainly do hope y'all voted...you did?...right?

good...i thought so...

(insert appropriate guilt for not doing so here)

x.

1919 down, 48,081 to go!

so i started my novel adventure today...

made it to 1, 919 words and found a good stopping place...and how exactly does a writer determine a good stopping place?...well, it's different for every writer but for me it comes down to mathematics...

2 boybarians + 12 rolls of paper towels = good stopping place

oh, and here's the link to check my progress should one be compelled to do so...

www.nanowrimo.org/userinfo.php?uid=57690

halloween was good...boys were cute...loot was plentiful...cracked out on sugar attitudes abound...

x.