friday.

oh my goodness if i could just sleep a whole night who KNOWS what i could accomplish...

le sigh.

lately my nose is so stuffed at night it wakes me up...and last night right before i woke up i was having my recurring dream (not the math dream THANK GOD) that i'm trying to put my contacts in but they are really huge and too big to fit over my eyes...

and i'd get up and do something productive or watch t.v. or something but i'm afraid of the dark...

so i lay there...and then right about the time i start to drift off a few hours later the lord of the ring starts to snore...

i've got errands to run and costumes to finish and it's family movie night so i'm off...

but don't forget, it's the great pumpkin charlie brown is on at 8 pm tonight...

x.

defending your life

middle school: the purse

god i was just a dork...a dork with a cowlick...

anyhow, this particular middle school remembrance involves me losing a purse...my favorite purse...grandma billie bought me this purse when i was visiting her...it was white with polka dots and it was totally *in* that year...definitely a first for me...

so at school one day i lost it!...i was devastated...i checked the office once or twice, no luck...then about the second or third day of it being gone during the morning announcements on the p.a. i hear "there's been a purse turned in at the office"

i just knew it was mine!...the class just ended so i raced to the office...now, in my middle school as in many it was the popular people who got all the fun jobs...like reading the announcements and planning the dances and getting out of class to do errands for teachers...

it's like the teachers were all in on it, too...this whole idea that the popular and the beautiful somehow just deserved all these perks...were the teachers never young once?...or were they just intimidated by people they knew they never were?

so of course the girl running the announcements was there...the most popular girl in the entire school...i go in and say i was the one who lost the purse...

"oh, can you describe it?"

"yeah, it's white with polka dots"

"okay, what's inside...we have to ask that too"

i can't say anything...i'm just standing there...

"well, what's inside...you tell me i'll look and then it's yours...i can't just give it to you in case you saw the outside"

"monopoly money"

"what?...what did you say?"

"monopoly money...there's monopoly money inside"

"monopoly money?...you have got to be kidding me"

so she either doesn't believe me or just thinks it's too dorky to consider and starts to unzip my purse...i should mention there are at least one or two of her friends hanging around waiting for her...

so yeah, there's an audience...

and yeah, she unzips my purse and pulls out a wad of monopoly money...

what, like you never played "bank" with your younger sibling when you were in middle school and then forgot to take the money from your purse...

she is holding the money up and howling with laughter...her friends have joined her and i'm just standing there wishing to be any. where. else.

she's almost done laughing when she spies something else and says

"looks like you have a lot of money here...but i guess if you had to you could write a check!"

and yes, she then pulls out a homemade checkbook...you know, from the "bank"...

finally the warning bell rings for the next class so she stuffs everything back into my purse and hands it over...

"count it if you want, but it's all there"

of course she can barely get this out because she's laughing so hard...and then she and her friends leave the office howling with laughter...

i must say that i learned a bit about karma the next day when she was reading the announcements and came across the name of a girl i had had in class...this girl had the unfortunate last name of "pekar" pronounced "pea-car"

of course she didn't know that and pronounced it quite differently...which of course made her the center of laughter and teasing for quite some time for her mistake...

if it were the movies or i had suddenly grown some balls i would have walked up to her and said "who's laughing now, beyotch!" and then tossed my cowlicked hair over my shoulder and walked away...

i know i know, they didn't say beyotch back then...but in my fantasy i invented it right then and there...which made me instantly popular...and got me a free makeover...and a dance with the boy in the brown button up sweater who read homer at lunch and with whom i fell in love after dissecting a pig together...

but he's a story for another day.

breakfast of champions.

so it's wingman's snack day at school this afternoon...

you cannot imagine how much excitement this produces...he's been looking forward to it all month...

he chose teddy grahams, big red grapes, chocolate milk...

he gets to pour the milk and enlist two friends to help him pass it all out...

and yes, this is a very political process...who you choose really matters a LOT...and if you promise to choose someone in return for something and then don't, well it's bad news...and if you yourself get passed over?...it's just a heartbreaking process any way you slice it...

kinda like the mob...or high school...

anyhow, wingman gets picked a LOT...so that's good...makes him feel important...the duke said to him yesterday

"everyone picks you to help pass out snack, huh?"

"yeah...well, everyone except ellie"

ellie?...who's this ellie?...and what the hell's ellie's problem?

so i say

"is ellie a nice girl?...do you like her?"

and i didn't mean *like* like...i just meant, like as in they are friendly with one another...

but man you should have seen the look on wingman's face...he couldn't even speak!

apparently he *like* likes her...even though she *never* picks him to help pass out her snack...

sounds about right.

i'm too old for this.

i'm working on halloween costumes for the next few days...the duke is going as a civil war union army general, wingman is going as a harry potter quidditch player...i have the quidditch robe that i made a few years okay and i need only to tweak it...

i got a navy blue blazer and a black hat for the duke...if i turn up the collar and add some gold trim and some buttons here and there, plus the sash, i've got a costume...

i'm still waiting for the year someone decides to go as a ghost, but i'm not holding my breath...

though, this year's costume making doesn't seem like a lot of work...in fact i feel as though i'm getting off easy...

as you can understand, this makes me very nervous...

x.

dinner tonight is being replaced by something i like to call defending your life (i love albert brooks...don't you love albert brooks?...don't feel bad, i meet so few people who do...that should tell you something right there)...little vignettes of my life growing up to properly illustrate the origins of my silly mortal ness....

defending your life

grandma billie

i visited the bag lady in paris' mother, grandma billie, for six weeks one summer...the summer before seventh grade i believe...anyhow, at that time grandma billie was still a cocktail waitress on sunset in l.a...she drove a big powder blue cadillac with white leather seats...her husband drove a burgundy cadillac with dark brown leather seats...

it was in the burgundy cadillac that my older sister and i were quite often whisked to the place where my grandmother worked and allowed to sit at the bar knocking back shirley temples...as many as we wanted...

(we *could* stop this particular story right there and keep some therapist in car payments...but, just for giggles, let's proceed)

we went out to dinner every single night...every night somewhere different...we had to dress for dinner, skirts and stockings...the works...she always had a half carafe of the house chablis and a side of ice (house chablis?...i learned much later, the HARD way, what a headache in a bottle that was)...and yes, she poured the wine in the glass with the ice...

and she drank a beer every single morning upon rising...in fact about the second or third morning was when i noticed her going to the refrigerator, pulling out a can of beer, and slipping something over it...

"grandma, what's that?"

"oh honey, these cans are so cold in the morning i made this beer cozy to slip over them so grandma's hands don't freeze"

"oh...well, it's nice"

was i slow child?...or just socially inept?...nice?...okay forget that it was BROWN STRETCHY TERRYCLOTH!...because no matter how you slice it, that's just messed up...but stretched over a morning can of beer?...

nice.

and if there's anything more to say about that i just don't know what it is...

except i must now disclose that when i myself served alcohol for a time i'd be up late and when i'd finally get up in the late late morning i would have a glass of chardonnay with my breakfast...

the apple really doesn't stumble far from the tree, does it?

can you hear me now?...good.

forgive my absence...i've been experiencing some technical difficulties...

not to mention job dissatisfaction as of late...

working with the duke is like working with a really short always on the edge of combustion boss who lives in perpetual middle management mania and misery...as you can imagine, it's a whale of a time here...

plus my neck has been out and i have a sinusy achy cold like thingy...

my theory is, for every time a mother gets away for some non-mother like fun she must pay for it when she returns...wings my ass...everytime my bell rings i just have twice the work when i get home...and then there's duke and his bad mood...

i go away for one evening and now here i am...a congested and yet also drippy put upon and pushed around quasimodo...

part of my evening away found me in a church for a wedding...as you can imagine in my station in life i don't have much call to be in a church...and this was a CHURCH church...there was no khalil gibran, no rumi, no guitar or indian flute music or drumming, no pro-liberal peace loving hippie hugging posters on the wall, no lesbian minister...

(warning: Judgmental with a capital J rant and Opinionated with a capital O somewhat emotion based and terribly simplistic rant and ramble ahead...proceed at your own risk)

no, this was the kind of church that gives it to you straight...the man is the head of the household, the woman must submit, marriage is between a man and a woman...emphasis on the man...

and something about "cleaving" that sounds slightly dirty but considering the source i highly doubt it is...

good lord, really?...in this day and age?...i know we haven't, but i'd like to think that we as a people have gone farther than that by now...that as the world turns and changes so do we...that with the problems the world faces today somehow who chooses to yoke themselves together oughta not be so "important" in the grand scheme of things...

it's one thing to watch the debates and follow the votes, it's another to watch it unfold before your eyes...

and seriously, it's like some people didn't get the memo because i'm not sure i know of a household where the man is the leader and the woman submits...i mean, really...what would get done?...ha ha...he he...heh.

listen, it isn't as if i don't respect another's beliefs...far far from it...i believe everyone has a right to worship as they choose...e.v.e.r.y.o.n.e...it's just that anything that seeks to control and compartmentalize something so intimate and seemingly ever changing and endless as a personal relationship with the *creator* of their choice just seems wrong...

and it isn't just the marriage issue...because obviously that's one issue of many but so very indicative of what is going on...

it's just that i've been talking to the old guy upstairs and his female counterpart(s) for a lot of years now...though, it's not something i'd call a relationship, really...he doesn't write, he doesn't call, i've got to do all the legwork...but like anyone who's chased the beautiful and elusive just for the few moments they choose to shine their love light on you, it works for me...

and this is different too in that in this "non-relationship" there's no danger of me waiting by the phone only to end up having to sleep on a futon and navigate his roommates in the bathroom...or waiting all day to go out with him and ending up paying for all the drinks because he "forgot his wallet"...again...

but, i digress...

the thing is i have a hard time believing that god or jesus or anyone else in their position gives a rat's ass who marries whom...who wears the pants in the family...if you even wear pants...i believe there are bigger fish that are being fried...way. bigger. fish.

control by fear and intimidation is the coward's way out...it's the bully's creed...and just because you continue in the age old practice of the co-opting of one particular person's life and tweaking it to fit your own agenda and organization doesn't make it True...

i imagine jesus as a constant eye-roller...

and again, i was a guest in this church...i wasn't forced to go...in fact i wasn't even *technically* invited (a story for another day)...in some, okay many, respects it's so very rude of me even to complain and bitch and Judge...

it's just that you can damn well believe what happens in church (or mosque or temple) doesn't stay. in. church (etc. etc.) ...and never has...therein lies the eternal rub...

history shows us that...the present more than drives it home...

ask the druids and the witches...ask the israelis and the palestinians...ask the abortion doctors and the women they aren't allowed to serve...ask mark foley...

all right, i'll stop...you get the belabored sensationalistic somewhat juvenile point...

as far as i'm concerned, i am the word and the light in my life...i am who i am because i believe what i do and am free to change my mind without fear or recrimination at any moment...

i believe in gaia...i believe in jesus...and i believe in god...i talk to them on a regular basis and i shoot the shit with the saints and the angels, too...who are we if we aren't our beliefs?...who are we without spirit?...who are we without our *network*?...hell, if verizon has one you can bet those omnipotent beings of light have one too...

i'm not saying that this cannot be found in a church...or that those who choose to worship in a church are incapable of having this...far far from it...

but i am saying that it's awfully freakin' hard to find anything when someone deliberately refuses to offer a light...

x.

coffee table tablescape, 10:05 p.m. 10.17.06

1-2-3 draw- art book

can of colored pencils

white drawing paper

play treasure chest

julio franco and rocco baldelli baseball cards

pad of paper with drawing of our house complete with imaginary attic, and imaginary pets

water glass, half-full

partially eaten apple from the tree

now we are six by a.a. milne

homemade bookmark for above book...it's orange and folded and has HARRY POTTER written on it

wine glass

wine bottle

t.v. remote

cell phone

baby doll hat

boybarians are sound asleep

the news is nearly over (they said "seattle's own dave matthews"...good. lord. i can hardly wait to make a name for myself and buy a house in the emerald city...then suddenly i'm never-more not from a cow town in california!!!)

we are here.

x.

see you in the funny papers...

as a daily newspaper reader i also read the comics...

i don't know why because they are rarely funny and mostly really dorky...

but today, oh my god it was like the comics gods were peering down and pointing their fingers right. at. me.

unfortunately, i will have to relate them to you in text as i don't know the first thing about linking or anything like that...

life in hell by matt groening (the little guys wearing fezs)

before this relationship goes any further, there are some scary things you should know about me...i'm cranky, mean, explosive, and erratic...

that's not scary.

i'm negative, sour, vicious, and vindictive...

that's not scary.

i'm paranoid, histrionic, self-obsessed, and delusional...

that's not scary.

but i promise i will never leave you...

AIEEEE!



guess which one is me.

and

baby blues by jerry scott & rick kirkman

mom and dad are in the kitchen talking

mom: zoe and hammie are over at keesha's house doing homework, so it's double-quiet around here.

dad: double-quiet?

mom: yeah. quiet because they're not making noise, and quiet because i'm not yelling at them for making noise.



can i tell you.

oh, another thing i was reading in the paper was a big article on math curriculum and standards different approaches to teaching etc. etc. etc..

in fact they had the same subject on the morning radio program i listen to, too...

i am decidedly math-phobic...but as a teacher i've had to really talk myself down from that ledge and rise to the occasion...it sucks and makes me break out into a sweat each time we come to a new concept but somehow the job gets done...(isn't your faith in me just bursting with that statement?)

so anyhow, back to the article, they were suggesting getting back to the basics...quit with all this conceptual *art* math and start doing drills again...

i'm not so into the drills...i figure you learn it then you keep going back to it here and there and explain why you'll need it in the future and you're good...like you don't just learn to add and subtract or to multiply and divide and that's that...no, you use addition and subtraction and multiplication and division in nearly every other arena when moving on in learning math...you learn it and then constantly use it from then on out...

but i see what they were saying...they are suggesting we should not only learn it, but drill it in...the national council of teachers of mathematics says that fourth graders should multiply whole numbers fluently and second graders should quickly recall the sum of two plus five...

so because i am human and apparently base a lot of my self worth in what my children can and cannot accomplish i did the following:

"hey wingman (kindergarten), what's two plus five?"

"um, um, um, 6! i mean 7!"

"hey duke (fourth grade) what's five times seven?"

"35"

booh-yah!

okay, so maybe i need to get a life but at least my kids can do math...

(and just as aside...i cannot stand when people drill my kids, especially the duke, because we homeschool...like a *test* to see if my child is the one getting left behind...it's really really annoying and rude and above all condescending...but *i* can do it because they lived inside my body for 9 months and like that's not really annoying and rude?)

anyhow, moving right along...we didn't have the green chile beef stew last night because the recipe suggested that it was much better made the day before and reheated...so we'll have it tonight instead of pizza for family movie night...

instead the lord of the ring got pho for us...i love pho...and for an ass backwards military hick town, we've got some really really good pho going on...

happy friday!

x.

p.s. if i ever say "booh-yah" again please shoot me.

and, is that even how it's spelled?

making your own mistakes: priceless

so we've got a family member who's quite ill...terminal cancer...my father's sister to be exact...we are not close with her due to time and distance and all that...but she is my father's sister, my aunt, and it is sad nonetheless...

so my father called and told me and then called back awhile later, kinda concerned...

"you know, honey, while the women in my family haven't been particularly hearty, this doesn't have anything to do with you...she has this for her own reasons, it's not a family thing...you're going to be fine"

"dad, i've got enough mental illness to keep me busy...i don't have time to worry about cancer"

"oh, honey, you don't suffer from any mental illness...you've just got kids"

"yeah, so is that what you tell yourself?"

to his credit, he laughed...

see that's what i love about my father...he laughs when there's pobably a lot more he'd like to say...no parent likes to think their children have problems, or that their children think they may have problems...

but he takes it in stride...we're both nuts, he knows this...whattayagonna do?

but that's what i love about both my parents...they accept me as i am...they don't tell me what to do and they don't expect me to be any different than who i am...they don't try to talk me out of how i feel and they don't try to tell me i'm someone i'm not...

they recognize their own flaws and allow me to have mine...my father laughs when there's so much more he could say to try to *fix* what i might have broken...

i am flawed and at times broken and a lot of the times wound incredibly tight...they see this, at least i suspect they do, and never once do they suggest i should be any different...whether they like what they see or not...

they have never told me how to parent, how to homeschool, or how to live...

i am sure they have wanted to...i am sure things have been "suggested"...but the expectations of who i am supposed to be have always resided with me...

this has been a bigger gift than i ever realized...because i have been able to make my own decisions without fear of disapproval i have been allowed to grow at the pace i've needed...

we should all be so lucky...lucky enough to chart our course and not have it questioned at every turn...to be able to move at the pace and in the direction we are meant to go...not to have to fulfill the expectations or broken dreams of another...

because as humans we rationally know we can't learn from the mistakes of another...it's as parents that this rationale comes into incredible question...

as a parent, i think i do a pretty good job...i do worry, though, that i may not be able to keep from *suggesting* things to my children a little more than is healthy...as a mother of young children this is necessary...

though, how will it be as they grow?...will i be able to help myself?...especially through the teen years when they resemble toddlers more than adults in terms of the pace of their growth and emotional development?

how will i stop myself from marching right over and picking them up when they stumble as i did when they were little?...how will i help telling them how to do something *right* when they've done it the exact *wrong* way as i did when they were little?

i don't know, for now i am *working* on it...because i am remembering how it felt to be able to make those big decisions and not have anyone stand in my way...how it felt to feel as though i knew what i was doing and not have anyone tell me i didn't (i will let you in on the worst kept secret in the world; mostly i didn't)

how it felt to fall because of my own misstep, not because i got tripped up on another's expectation...

my children are 9 and 5...i've got some time...but i know it isn't much time...there's never enough time when you're a parent...

and i can just see the day i sit by the phone DYING to call and *help*...DYING to *fix* whatever is broken...DYING to impart my *wisdom*...

good god, please just let me be able to just. sit. there. and wait...to not pick up the phone... but rather wait for the ring i can dare to hope will come...

x.

dinner tonight

green chile beef stew

a whole pound of green chiles gets roasted for this recipe...along with tomatoes, onions, garlic, cumin, beef...they cook together slowly for three hours...i can smell it already!!...i'll serve it with corn tortillas...

happy july 2nd! and now july 3rd!

this post was started yesterday and finished this morning...excuse the wonkiness...

imagine my surprise when i turned to the new week in my lesson planner and found it was july 2nd!

they really need to pay the three year olds who make these calendars better or something...

friday movie night turned out to be great because we happened upon a great movie...5 children and it...what a sweet, charming, movie...i don't think it ever made it to the theatres here, it's british...anyhow, if you get a chance to see it please do...

so after we got the movie i had to stop for a few things at the store...okay, mistake number one was stopping at this particular store...this is the *other store*...this is the store where i always run into trouble...i think it's because i spend the entire time snooping in other people's carts and silently (though it sounds REALLY loud in my head) lamenting the state of our national *diet*...

good lord i am amazed at what people buy!...better yet what people consider food!...it's just no wonder at all that america is fat and unhealthy and losing the war on terror!...

well, i suppose we can't really blame our lame *foreign policy* on hot pockets and smuckers uncrustables...

i'm just sayin' is all.

anyhow, since i spend the entire time judging others at this store it only stands to reason that i will eventually run into trouble...

so we're at the checkout and i put my items including wine and beer on the counter...the checkout guy who is older than me says

"you know what i'm going to ask you...do you have your id.?"

no one ever cards me...ever...except when i come to this store...it's weird...which can only mean one thing...that the youth who shop this particular store in their teens and twenties already look like they are mid thirties greying grumpy perpetually sweaty stay at home mothers...

so i say (this is the point when i always get in trouble...when i open my mouth)

"are you flirting with me?...because no one ever asks for my id."

ha ha...i'm being funny...right?

apparently not because that's when he looked up with this grim slightly horrified look on his face and that noise that records make when you abruptly grab the needle off and stop the song came over the loudspeaker...

"um. no. it's just policy"

and then...

wait for it...

"...ma'am"

wow. no really, thanks for that!...that's just nice...ma'am?...ma'am!?...what the fuck! he's got one foot in the grave and he's calling *me* ma'am?...

moving right along, yesterday, during school we were reading about some ancient roman leaders and some guy named tarquin superbus came on the scene...i was like

"super bus?...oh my god that's awesome!"

the duke said

"um, i don't think that's how it's pronounced...i think it's superbus"

"it is, though...it says right here"

"let's look at the pronunciation guide"

"okay...look, duke...right here su per bus...man that is awesome...who knew...super bus...what a great name for a band...tarquin superbus!"

"um, mama, that's not what it says...you're missing the h and the emphasis is on per...not the whole thing"

so i look again and sure enough it says right there in black and white

suh per bus

he was gracious enough to not give me the look...

but you just know this is going down in the book when he decides to write it...

x.

dinner tonight

buttermilk waffles with maple syrup
thick peppered bacon
eggs sunnyside up
crispy hashbrowns with jalapeno and onion
fresh orange juice

yes folks, per the duke's request, it's breakfast for dinner!