dia de los muertos...

today marks the day of the dead, all souls day in mexico...this is the day that people honor those who have died as adults...yesterday was all saints day, honoring angelitos, or those who have died as infants or children...today i think about my grandma and jeni-o and my cat...three who did not know one another in life, but who are tied together by my loving them and missing them...my own triumvirate of loss...

bold and strong and loving each of them were...you couldn't tell any of the three what to do and often they would tell you what's what...even so, there was a regalness and beauty in their strength...

but isn't there something so unmistakably comforting about a strong woman who makes you melt when they hold you close, that strength transformed into softness...especially so when they allow you to do the same for them?...

ahh, wingman's surgery is cancelled because of insurance technicalities and shuffling and arbitrary this and that...i've always said it's not kids or home ownership or careers that make you an adult, rather it's having to deal with insurance companies that marks the passage from adolescence to adulthood...

they just fuck everything up and give you the runaround and MAKE YOU do THEIR JOB...they put you off and deny and put you off and deny and put you off and deny UNTIL you get so damned sick of it you just give up because it's too much damned work and hassle and you need to be somewhere and don't have hours to sit on the phone...

apparently they did not get the memo that says that i don't have anywhere else to be...

hopefully, fingers crossed, we will get to it towards the end of the month...except, it won't be in the hospital like everyone said IT COULD ONLY BE IN, but rather in the dentist's office...which is the only place the insurance company will pay for...

so of course i had some concerns about the switch and ask the billing lady to ask the dentist to call me and OH MY GOD FREAKY PARENT ALERT ON LINE ONE!!

good lord you would have thought i was hysterically shouting incomprehensibly on the phone about "my baby! my baby! my poooor baby!!" the way the dentist called and talked to me!

i just asked about the difference of an in-office rather than hospital procedure...but of course because he's a dentist and i'm just a mom i've gotta get the wary and HIGHLY exasperated don't worry pat on the head...

unless it has not been made clear before, i do not care to be condescended to by anyone...least of all a weasely looking dentist who shares the exact same name with a hapless cartoon character...

it will move along and it will be done...in the meantime i will try my best to remain calm in the face of people who choose to fuck with me because they are greedy and manipulative and turning this country's health care coverage to shit and that's just what they do or people who fuck with me just because of some misguided notion that they think they can because they have chosen to stick their hands into people's mouths for a living which gives them some sort of special distiction and therefore they deserve not to be questioned by concerned parents...

hey, i willingly chose to examine vaginas but you don't see me mincing about like an exasperated go away you bother me i know it all and your questions bore me dick cheney do you?

this is my son and he needs this done and i will behave...it will likely kill me or put me in rehab, but i will behave...

moving right along to wingman's preschool parent conference yesterday...there were many positive glowing things said about him...he's a good and ecstatic learner, well liked by the boys, and all of the girls as well and plays with them too... (which is ironic given the fact he never wanted to go to preschool in first place because he didn't like "gorls")

and i must share something really adorable...

there is a little girl in his class who is two and a half and speaks only chinese at home...because she is quite young and doesn't speak much english she is quite shy...but she LOVES wingman...

and apparently he is very sweet to her and they talk together and when they sit in circle at story time she sits by him and puts her head on his shoulder and twirls his curls between her fingers...

and speaking of hair, i've gotten to the bottom of the all of a sudden wanting his hair cut and then backing out at the last minute issue...

seems there's this in your face mouthy kinda bill o'reilly mini-me kid who hassles wingman about his hair...and yesterday his teacher relayed to me the following conversation that happened at the snack table a few weeks before...

"are you a girl or a boy"

(okay, i have to say this is the SIXTH WEEK OF SCHOOL and about the millionth time he's asked...seems someone's a few cans shy of a six pack)

"i'm a boy"

"boys don't have long hair...you should cut it"

"duh, i have an appointment at the haircut place"

and that's the day he came home and said he wanted to make an appointment to cut his hair...his teacher was impressed he used the word appointment and i was impressed i didn't ask for the name and the address of this little shit so i could teach him a thing or two about gender identity and how it has NOTHING TO DO WITH HAIR LENGTH and basically how to keep his little biased trap shut and quit buggin' my baby so he can eat his snack in peace!...

but, i digress...

because then we go to get his hair cut and right when he walks in he says he doesn't want to...

it could be for any number of reasons...but i'd like to think that he figured out that he didn't have to just 'cuz some mealy mouthed little kid said he should...

plus, who's gettin' all the ladies while a certain someone apparently always seems to end up next to the kid who STILL has to wear pull ups!?!

indeed.

today's $1 menu tao

work

the woodcutter
works in all seasons.
splitting wood is both
action and inaction.

work is necessary...survival of a family depends on the efforts of those who work...and whether that work is inside the home or outside the home, is rewarded with a paycheck or not, or is recognized as a *job* or not recognized at all, work must be done...

but it cannot be done lazily or haphazardly...any job worth doing is worth doing well...and it must be done when it needs doing...and, whether we *like* to do the work or not, there is satisfaction in the going about of a task and seeing it to completion...

and despite all the circumstances surrounding the work that we do, *good* or *bad*, there is infinite satisfaction in knowing that our effort is rewarded in the supporting of our family...

that being said, the lord of the ring is done with his month-long job working from home and is once again commuting to los angeles and back each week...rushing to catch the ferry cab plane cab working till all hours of the night living in a hotel room and eating alone...

this too, shall pass...

x.