my india, my america

can i say i have never in my life wanted to go to india?...i mean like it's actively on my list of places NOT TO EVER VISIT!

i love indian food and indian culture and have read so many lovely indian authors...but have never desired to see india...but since i've only been in north america i'm not so savvy a traveler...i'm an unadventurous wuss and rather soft...frankly, the thought of visiting india scares the shit out of me...i'd rather put my traveling energies towards a steering a pair of pretty but sturdy leather sandals towards a bottle of wine under the tuscan sun...

apparently, in addition to being unadventurous, i'm not a very imaginative traveler, either...but i don't care...you can't make me go to india!

on the other hand, the lord of the ring has been dying to go to india FOREVER!...he brought it up once early on and my reaction of vehement distaste was enough for him never to bring it up again...poor sot.

so you can see how he was understandably OVERJOYED upon learning that my dear dear dear friend auntieEN was marrying an indian gentleman and subsequently moving there!

here was his chance!...of course he assumed i'd put aside previous sentiments and want to visit my friend...if anyone could get me to go to india, it would be the promise of spending time with auntieEN...

auntieEN is the kind of person with whom one could spend time with being held hostage by terrorists in a rodent infested cave and still come away feeling as though you've had the time of your life...she quite simply, is the bomb.

so of course i'd want to go to india now!...his eyes gleamed he began to think aloud about the possibility of a trip...he was using 'we' a lot until i said

"um, have a good time and say hi to auntieEN for me"

poor sot.

anyhow, fast forward about a year and a half...i think that's how long she's been there?...i have desperately little contact with her as of late and miss her terribly...never enough to even entertain a trip there, but missed her nonetheless...

until last night...the craziest thing was i was sleeping and dreaming and having the loveliest time...my dreams are so real it's insane...and so subsequently i get these mini-lives so different from my own each night...

so i'm dreaming and i'm in india...and i saw myself there...and it was loud and busy and chaotic and lovely...and there i was on the street and in the cafe and in the market...and there was auntieEN...we were together in india...

i saw myself there and i liked it...i woke up and for the first time thought "i'd like to visit india one day"

then after i got up i picked up the phone to place a call and there was a message...i listened to it and it was auntieEN...calling from india...at midnight...i was asleep upstairs at midnight so didn't hear the phone...

but there she was...plain as you please on the message sending me love and greetings from india...

just like that.

it's funny when you shift inside yourself enough to change...even if it's just a small change...like where to take a trip...it's enough to remind you you're alive...and growing...still.

so maybe i will take a trip to india one day...maybe sooner rather than later...who knows?

i do know it would be really nice to see my friend again...

and to give her a clock set to west coast american time.

x.

the revolution will not be microwaved.

some days i wish i'd just be happy with tater tot casserole.

today is starting out slow as all mondays tend to do..

the duke is dawdling over greek...wingman is at loose ends waiting for school to start...the lord of the ring is doing, well, whatever it is he does involving the computer and a lot of other things i don't the name of and wouldn't understand even if he told me...and i'm trying to find yet one more fish recipe for this week's menu that the boybarians will devour without complaint...

while i enjoy perusing recipes and menu planning and food shopping and cooking the whole keeping it healthy AND enjoyable WHILE including all the 'must haves' on a weekly basis can be a challenge...couple that with all of sudden i've got boybarians who are like toddlers in the eating department!...one week they will devour what the next week they will bitterly complain about...

and as far as fish is concerned it needs to be good and tasty on its own...i refuse to go the tartar sauce as incentive route on a regular basis...not that there's anything wrong with tartar sauce...lord knows my ass just loves it some tartar sauce...but in the interest of parenting as it relates to food choices, tartar sauce is in the every once in awhile category...

and perhaps, like all things i do in my parenting, i can be a bit obsessive on the healthy balanced food front...BUT in my defense this is the hill i choose to die on...well, one of them...

bottom line is i LOVE to cook and to eat and while i'm not invested in my kids "loving" to cook, i do very much want them to care for what they eat and learn to feed themselves...in a reasonable and healthy manner...a manner that does not automatically include a microwave or ready to eat food sucked from a tube...

besides, my kids are going to need to be healthy and robust enough to seek and endure the therapy they are going need when they're older...

alright, enough...the sun is shining and we all seem to be on the somewhat mend...there's a lingering cough and a bit of congestion in the ranks but otherwise all is well...

and just in case you were wondering, there are no kittens yet...all of us being sick last week kinda put that on hold...haven't come up with a good excuse yet this week, but i'm working on it!

yeah.

x.

kids, fevers, pastry.

having kids is weird.

it very nearly is never how you thought it would be.

before you have kids it's so theoretical...not only that, it's this deep wanting for something that is so fucking hard sometimes it's a wonder that any of us asked for this let alone actively sought it...

the craziest part is you have created this person from the very fiber of your being...the best parts of your soul...and yet despite what they are made of, a child doesn't belong to you anymore than the sun does...

because there comes that point when a child ceases to be *your* child and becomes a member of the family...of the world...of myspace...

i know i've written about this before...it's something i've been thinking about because i'm not so sure how i am going to be with the full transition...i don't know if it's my controlling nature or my mama bear approach to parenting...

but i see my children and the children around me growing up...and frankly it's not sitting too well with me...

i suppose it's a natural response to the world around me...i'm not in the first generation of parents to look around and say "what the fuck? my kid's got to grow up with this?"

i'm looking around at people in the news and in the world and out of their godforsaken gourds and i'm thinking one day these could be my children...or any of the children i know...grown up and untethered...

acting like they haven't come from anyone, anywhere, or anything...

the world is just far too much and far too big sometimes...and way too fast for me...wow, i must be getting old...i certainly sound like i am!

bah...moving right along...

wingman had a 24 hour fever and now he's better...i'm glad for that...

i don't generally treat a fever unless it stays the same without fluctuation for a period of time...mostly it's lots of liquids, laying low, and holding them when the fever is spiking or breaking...

last night wingman had a hard time with the temp fluctuation as he was trying to sleep...and at one point while i was rubbing his head and trying to soothe him the duke had come in without me hearing and was sitting next to wingman's bed holding his hand...just being there...

he's an awfully good person, the duke...i hope this world treats him well...i hope this world can handle him!...

and when we're locked in our parent/child, big guy/little guy, cancer/taurus cycle and i'm pissing him off and he's pissing me off i try to think about times like last night...or the times he says things that seriously only he can come up with...like for instance when we were in woodcock pocket we would go to the king arthur flour bakers store for treats...wingman would always get the brownie...no matter what...

but the duke likes to choose something new each time...he does this with ice cream, too...never gets the same flavor twice...and ordering...he always finds the one thing on the menu he hasn't had...it's usually always the MOST EXPENSIVE item, too...but that's a story for another day...

anyhow, this particular trip in question he chose a napoleon...(incidentally, also the most expensive treat in the case)...so he's eating the napoleon and he says

"you know why i chose this napoleon?"

"no. why"

"because i wanted a treat that would try to dominate me"

it very nearly is never how you thought it would be...and a lot of times it's way way better...

but mostly it just makes you wonder how in the hell you got here.

x.

first class, baby.

so on our way to woodcock pocket little ol' us got to fly first class...the lord of the ring traveled so much last year he enough upgrades...

can i tell you the boybarians are spoiled already...great.

the most interesting part is the look of the other passengers...see, obviously first class boards first...this is because people in first class are so important and special, also it gives their own personal flight attendant time to serve the first round of drinks before the plane has to take off...

and this is the most important part about first class...the free drinks...makes people feel all smug...like they are getting one over on someone...even though by purchasing a first class ticket they've paid an ungodly amount of money for the "free" drinks...apparently, this doesn't enter the equation...

and they ply you with enough alcohol in first class probably so you don't figure this out...

oh, and the warm moist towel, too.

so there we are, first row in first class...and here come the passengers who are sitting in coach...and you know how when you board a plane you go around the corner through first class down the aisle to your seat?

well every passenger juggling their loads of carry-ons and bags of fast food for the long flight who rounded that corner and saw the boybarians kicked back in the wide seats with real glass glasses of refreshing beverages got the SAME EXACT LOOK OF DISGUST ON THEIR FACES.

the look that says i have worked my entire life, worked hard, and here are these two KIDS kicked back in first class and i am having to stand and jostle for the next ten minutes while everyone ahead of me takes all the good overhead bin space and then try and settle into a seat the size of a potty chair...meanwhile these two KIDS have not a care in the world and a refreshing beverage by their side.

what's worse is wingman was wearing his "life is good" shirt...

indeed.

first class is everything they say it is...and more...they practically try to get you drunk and the drinks are GOOD! the meals are complete with real plates and real forks and real knives...real cloth napkins...

when you are done with one service of food, there's always a nicely prepared snack a short time later...fresh cookies and milk...champagne before you land, and anytime you want it before that...

warmed moist towel.

your own bathroom.

at one point the duke was watching his movie player, drinking his beverage that never got below half full and the flight attendant went up and set a bowl of fresh warmed mixed nuts on his tray and once again refilled his drink...

the duke looked up and i swear he said, "of course...thank you"

like "of course i should be being presented with this thoughtful between meal snack because i was beginning to feel peckish and you flight attendant, you are doing your job...the job you were meant to do...the job of serving me"

the whole 6 or 7 hours was like that...well at least i think it was, the flight attendant was just as thoughtful with my drinks and mine were considerably stronger the duke's!

imagine the boybarians' dismay when they learned we were NOT flying first class on the way home!

oh my god what a coupla snobs! especially the duke!

"what! we're not flying first class? we'll still get served food and stuff, right?"

"um, they will definitely offer one beverage service, maybe two, but not food unless you pay for it...and it isn't the same food they have in first class"

"oh, this is just gonna be great!"

he's all sulky a minute then he asks

"will they at least give us a bag of peanuts?"

"i wouldn't count on it"

"why bother going anywhere then!!"

i do believe we are all in for it with that one.

anyhow, it wasn't so bad and the duke survived...i will say though, we were sitting in the row behind first class and the level of service between the two is astonishing...on one hand i'm hearing their flight attendant asking if they want another glass of champagne to go with the chocolate mousse she's prepared while my flight attendant asked me, all wearily, to move my jacket that had fallen a half an inch into the aisle...then hit my arm with the beverage cart...

and i must say this...i am not a small woman myself...and i certainly don't begrudge anyone extra weight wherever they may have it...

BUT there is a reason other than the pervasive and insipid shallowness of american culture that flight attendants are generally rail thin...our flight attendant was a woman i affectionately referred to as "the old battle axe"...

her demeanor and countenance was along the lines of one might find in an advancing middle aged person who is continuing to suffer the ills of extensive injuries received on the many football fields of their youth...

but it was her hips that really did me in...her hips were solid and wider than the aisle...she never once said "coming through" or "excuse me" or made any effort whatsoever to get down the aisle without bashing anyone...consequently, the entire 7 hour flight she was knocking into my arm with her hips!...and it hurt!

and the one time she did turn sideways to get by someone i got the "battleaxe" right in the face.

"why bother going anywhere then" indeed.

but like i mentioned earlier, we made it in once piece across country and back, with all of our 10 pieces of luggage intact, and nary a mitten missing...

and now, now we get kittens for hugging and kissing...

ha! i've begun rhyming in casual speech!

obviously the beginning of the end comes when you least expect it.

x.

jig.

well we're home...we escaped in the middle of a nor'easter, got stranded ten minutes from home because the diva decided to rear her pretty head and do something funky to her transmission, and landed here smack dab in the middle of some terrible deadly flu like illness in our county...

but we are all in one piece, had a fabulous time, and miss our vermont family like crazy already...

new england definitely gives me a new appreciation of the world *cold* and the notion of *history*...what a wonderful, fabulous, amazing place...

we're back to full school today and are starting to make plans for the spring...it's green and lush here compared to the white of new england...the crocuses are peeking through and the frogs in the pond out back have returned and sing us to sleep every night...

if i didn't know how much work lay ahead with this property in the spring and summer i would say that this is my favorite time of year...

nice to see you again!

x.

next stop, boston.

well we're off!!

the boybarians are totally excited about our stay in boston...

wingman is excited because

"boston has the BEST cwam chowdah!"

i don't know how he knows this but he's very committed to this being the case.

the duke, however has other plans

"i'm going to wear my yankee's hat and just see what happens"

good lord.

anyhow, i wish you all well and will check in with travel updates...

x.

in the same way that alanis morissette doesn't know the meaning of ironic.

taking responsibility for what has happened is not the same as admitting you were wrong to begin with.

just sayin' is all.

x.

checking in.

we leave on friday night to stay closer to the airport for an early a.m. flight to boston...

i am currently pretending that i am not on the verge of getting as sick as wingman has been the past couple of days...

i am also pretending that i am on schedule for getting us all ready to be gone for a month...

it's a good thing i have an active imagination.

x.

road map to the future.

today i had to draw a map of how the duke's rude morning behavior affects the rest of the house...

he was at the top, the lord of the ring and i were lower and to either side, and wingman was at the direct bottom...poor wingman, it's gotta suck being the smallest...

it's not pretty to be an adult and lose it over the actions of a child...you'd think at 35 you'd be farther along...you'd think that as your body ages so do your emotions and your maturity and it just isn't true...at least not always...

when the duke is in a bad mood in the mornings he is ferociously rude...patience is a virtue and in this case to retain even a shred of it would render me to saint status...

i should be able to handle it without buying into it...but a lot of the times i can't...i just can't keep my cool in the face of unhinged rudeness...then it spreads and everyone gets a piece of it...

so he's at the top, the lord of the ring and i flail at the sides and if wingman steps in the way he's involved too...

portrait of a family...

oh, it's not every day...but it just *is*...it exists...this taking over of the household by the erratic emotions of a developing child...and he's not even into full adolescence...sigh...

so after trying to explain it i drew him a map...

"look where you are...you're right on top and we're all at the bottom...and your bad mood starts falling down, falling on everyone and covering us all and pushing us into a bad mood, too...your little brother especially because he's way at the bottom...then he gets it from everyone"

silence.

"and papa and i are adults, we should know better...we should be able to deflect it...but when someone is shouting and being rude and they won't stop it's hard to keep patient...it's hard to do what you know you *should* do...and then so you do something you shouldn't...like lose your cool when you should try to keep it...i know you know how this feels"

silence.

"it is okay to be angry...it is okay to be upset, and mad, and unhappy...it is okay to think that what i am saying is the biggest load of bullshit ever and to think i'm the world's biggest idiot who doesn't know a thing"

head snaps up. eyes grow wide.

"you are entitled to feel whatever it is you are feeling...no matter what...that is your right...but you do not have the right to be rude...or disrespectful...ever"

eyes on me.

"you're allowed to feel like socking your brother, even...it doesn't mean you can do it...ever...just like it doesn't mean just because you are mad at me or think i don't know what i am talking about you have the right to be rude to me...tell me!...tell me how you feel, write it down, compose a song, do a dance, i don't care how you tell me, just *tell* me!...without rudeness and disrespect"

"okay...can i keep the map?"

dorothy sayers, a mid-century author and arguably the leading champion of classical education of her time and still widely read today once said of this age, "...its nuisance-value is extremely high."

indeed.

(she also wrote ads for guiness and was said to have coined the phrase "it pays to advertise")

now i just wish someone would draw me a map.

or, buy me a guiness.

x.

just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

this nearly replaces my wwsnd? credo...(what would stevie nicks do?)

but nothing can really replace a standard response that includes a long scarf, tall heels, and a wind machine...you know i'm right about this...

anyhow, just because you can, doesn't mean you should can really be applied anywhere in life...

fashion, dating, having kids, meth...you know, the usual suspects...

if we had the just because you can, doesn't mean you should policy firmly intact pop culture as we know it would be just that much better...there would be no paris hilton and all her attendant wannabes, no coco (ice-t's wife) and no jackass movies...there would be no kevin federline, no leggings, and no parachute pants...there would be no star jones without the weight, and no meredith viera AT ALL...

my god there is so much more but i just don't have the time...

recently i've tried to get my kids to understand this concept...not as a control device, but more as a for a plea for moderation...genetics alone should have them worried...

but, for more recent day to day survival as a child it's also good policy...

for instance, if you are five years old just because you can turn on the light and continue to read calvin and hobbes after your mother turns it off and tucks you in for the night doesn't mean you should...

because it's wrong and because it will irritate your mother that she isn't being listened to...but mostly because due to this defiant action in order to be a good parent your mother has to actually

1. be present and invested enough to care that you have disobeyed her...which is harder than it seems given the lateness of the day, the existence of the couch, the cold drink in hand, and dog the bounty hunter on t.v...

2. be engaged enough to act on said information and actually haul her ass across the house and up the stairs to once again tell you what's what, turn out the light, and get you tucked in...

3. be prepared to again follow up on the first two should they not stick for sake of parental consistency...

dude.

but seriously, if you're gonna do this, kid, then learn to read in your head...DING!...wingman is still in the phase of reading aloud and hasn't yet mastered the art of reading in your head...

i bet when he does he'll think he's discovered some great trick that only he knows and feel like he's got one over on me but good...

fine by me...

oh, and just in case you were worried, dog the bounty hunter most certainly DOES NOT fit into the just because you can, doesn't mean you should category...not by a LONG shot...so you just don't even need to worry about it, okay?

and just because you can, doesn't mean you should can apply to otherwise intelligent and discerning adults as well...

like sometimes just because you can stop and browse and wonder, doesn't mean you should...

let's say you're the type who does the majority of their shopping at places that jumbles all their random merchandise together...like bras with the power saws and holiday items with automotive and pet products with the cds...better yet if it's a *discount* retailer with any manner of items that rotate on a weekly basis...

hypothetically, let's just say...

and let's just say that you were at one of these establishments to purchase a suitcase for romantic weekend away with your husband...and while browsing the store looking for the section they are displaying the luggage this week you come across the rug/pajama/lingerie (such as it is) section...

and let's just say, hypothetically, you slow up a bit and glance at what is being offered...let's say you are thinking wayyyyyy down deeeeeepppp in your addled brain that you're going on a romantic weekend and though you aren't the type maybe you'll just take a peek at the nightwear...for shits and giggles...

and let's just say you are more than a bit appalled at the ugliness of the pajamas and skimpiness of the "lingerie"...what grown woman would wear this? you might say about the tasmanian devil flannel pajamas...or what grown woman would FIT into this? you might say about the camisole and panty set (if you can even call it THAT! but, i'm just guessing) just about big enough to fit a bratz doll...

so let's just say you are about to turn away and continue your hunt for the OH MY GOD WHAT ENDS UP TO BE THE CUTEST SUITCASE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD!! (but, again, i'm just guessing here) when your eye catches a rack next to the bathroom rug/toilet seat cover sets...it's red, it's sexy without being what some creep who didn't advance past the emotional age of twelve who had to go to the prom with the "unfortunate" cousin for lack of anyone else would think was "sexy", and TRA LA looks to be of a NORMAL SIZE!

so let's say you step forward to get a closer look...you feel the lovely fabric...you admire the fact it's cut nicely, but not too *nicely* if you get my hypothetical drift...you get the beginning of an idea, an awful idea...you flip the hanging tag...

you read DELTA BURKE INTIMATES on the tag...

i'm just saying is all.

x.

p.s. for those of you looking for defending your life look no further...i will resume with the humiliation when i can adequately put into words my shameful and embarassing experiences...or until somebody makes me into a reality show...which ever comes first...

time to get up offa that thing.

hola!

well now that the holidays are over life begins again...what is it about holidays that make the world seem to stop?...because it never does, it just seems to...

and then you come to january 2nd and you're like what the hell just happened?

anyhow, i'm taking this week to get right back into school, get all holiday decorations put away (and i don't mean in their *spot* in the upstairs hallway) and get the big red house squared away for our trip to woodcock pocket...

yep, we are heading to new england for a spell while the goddess mother prepares to bestow upon us another beautiful being...

this time we are staying in our own place and bringing the lord of the ring along for the ride...we are all looking forward to it!

in other news another new year is upon us and there's a sense of renewal coupled with the unsettling notion that time is moving way too fast...

this year the duke turns 10...10!...who knew!...and wingman is growing so fast i can't keep up, and will soon be homeschooling with us...two of them and one of me...seems i really am no good at math because i should have seen that one coming!

my new year's resolution, such as it is, is to try very very very hard to stay in the moment...to let the little things, and some of the big, to pass me by without so much as a glance backward...to put worry away where it can't do any harm, and to just be *here*...

these boybarians are becoming so very big so very fast...and while i don't wish time to stop, per se, i do want to be able to savor the time that does pass...

i'll try...we'll see...it's a goal...

the thing is though that anyone who has ever parented knows what a hard task that is...to be able to switch gears quick enough and deep enough to really get down to the eye level of a child and really really truly listen with patience and willingness to a long drawn out detailed account of whatever is most important to them at the time...

and it's not the content or speaker it's the switching that gets me...okay, well yeah, who really wants to listen for the millionth time to a blow by blow account of a calvin and hobbes comic, or how exactly to get to some level on some computer game i will never in my life understand let alone play...seriously...i can barely listen to other adults talk about interesting stuff...

it's a good thing i don't need to date...

but, i digress.

the thing is, whatever is being said is obviously important to my kids so i try...but i'm just no good at the switch...which kills it at the get-go...i just can't do it...i can't go from listening to a story on the radio to instantaneous tuning in of the kid beside me who has already launched into a story of his own...

i can't go from a train of thought in my head and switch fast enough to catch the train of thought the kid next to me is already on...

i miss half, have to back everyone up, and get impatient because of it...which makes me want to make it end before it has begun...

and this is just when i'm not in the middle of actually trying to accomplish a task...teaching, cleaning, cooking, laundry, the endless search for my glasses, my keys, my purpose...

i have actually said to my kids, "i'm walking" and made the motion for them to follow and talk to the back of me...i've actually said "you've got to walk and talk, i'm moving"...

seriously...it's not pretty...and rarely am i doing anything that is as important as listening to my children...but i can't properly do the switch enough to FULLY stop whatever domestic ritual i'm performing...and so i end up as some kinda cross between alice from the brady bunch and an aaron sorkin character...

i know i need more time alone...i know i need a door that closes...time to think, to write, to *not*...i know i need a million things to be a functioning adult person...which then makes me a better parent...

who doesn't, though?...and how do you get all those things?

i haven't a clue, so i suppose this is the year to figure it out and get my shit together...to attempt at manipulating the ducks into some semblance of a row so everyone (magic word) gets what they need...

it's funny how much time we need to spend and how many things we need to make happen just to be able to fully stop for one minute...

god, i hope it's not just me.

x.

sledding as contact sport.

more snow.

LOTS of snow!...which means the whole day long in and out and on and off of snow gear and endless rounds of supplying dry clothes and hot chocolate and tea and soup...

it's a lot of work to have fun...

anyhow, today is likely the last good day for sledding...there's a warming thing going on and things already look a bit drippy outside...

the best part is we've managed to nearly complete our school week even with all the outdoor fun...i just love not being part of someone else's schedule...

in other news, well i guess there isn't much other news...when there's enough snow for snowball fights and sledding outside, with all the attendant trappings, little gets done...though i did manage to very nearly read the entire calvin and hobbes collection in the past few days...

but lest you think i was slacking off by the fire with my comics and my mugs of tea i just want to point out that it was research...see, the boybarians have become HUGE fans of calvin and hobbes...the duke of fun checked out ALL the calvin and hobbes books from the library, and they've both been devouring them...

which seems charming if one didn't actually take into account what kind of child calvin is...if you can't remember, do go a check out a book and get reacquainted...good lord i'm glad we don't have neighbors...

so, calvin being calvin, i need to keep up...those books are like step by step manuals on how to create mischief and mayhem!!...this way, if i read them all i'm one step ahead when one of my little calvins gets an *idea*...

and hey, reading calvin and hobbes as parental research is a lot more interesting than "how to talk to your kids about sex"...bonus...

though watching wingman jump onto the duke's already moving sled only to be fully shoved off into the snow halfway down the hill at top speed seems like something the duke was capable of coming up with all on his own...

x.

a man's gotta have something to believe in.

so the good news is that i've made it!!!

just a few days more with those christmas boxes in the hallway upstairs and i can bring them down for decorating...it's the home stretch baby!

NO cleaning out the closet to make room, NO rearranging and moving boxes, nada!

procrastination has its high points and i'd say they are severely underappreciated...

in other news, thanksgiving's over and christmas is upon us...the bag lady in paris escaped the still warm and consistently the same season of the lone star state and paid a visit...

unfortunately, or fortunately she missed the big snow!...it's snowed more here the past few days than you can shake a shovel at...very holiday like...sledding, hot chocolate, the beginnings of an igloo...

in school related news, we've started a new math book, greek is going well...i'm trying to remember i want to get the duke to do more memory work, but i keep forgetting...that's very w.c. fields, but true...

wingman sits up in his bed at night adding large and complicated numbers together with ease...he may be scarier than his brother in this respect...maybe i can hire him to teach algebra when the time comes...

i lost a pound...i was so very proud of that lost pound i celebrated and suspect it came back and brought some friends...le sigh...but we must remember it is not a sprint but a marathon...not a six pack but a half rack...

which i suspect is half the problem...

anne lamott suggests to take the task of writing bird by bird...i can really appreciate this as my approach to weight loss seems to beer by beer...not really, but it seems like it...seriously, i kid...kinda...beer by beer...that's pretty funny, though...IF YOU'RE W.C. FIELDS!

anyhow, all is well and i've missed you terribly...i simply have no time to write wherein i can arrange a thought without being interrupted...it is excruciatingly awful to have a train of thought interrupted...as i get older i find i just can't switch gears that easily...

and we plan on kittens in the spring...who am i fooling...

i need a laptop and a locking door...right...please, do excuse me while i laugh myself silly...

the great american novel is just gonna have to wait...

which is good because all my current ideas are crap...well, and the not so current ones, too...

no matter, i have you...my captive audience, devoted and true...

you are still here, aren't you?

hello? hello?

x.

defending your life

defending your life is on hold until i can adequately process the fact that the house wine here for years, the wine i *discovered* coincidentally JUST HAPPENS TO BE the same wine my own mother knew all about and favored lo so many years ago coupled with the fact that my favorite sitcom on television is the only show grandma billie (with whom i have very very very little contact) watches at all!

who. knew.

and

no. wonder.

great american novel my ass...there are SO no original ideas left!

next friday.

ugh. it takes so long to make it back here these days...

but i'll catch you up with a few highlights of the week...

on halloween we braved the cold for trick or treating...the duke was a civil war union general...at first his jacket turned out to look like something captain merill stubing would wear for a formal occasion on the love boat...

but after a few tweaks, a bunch more glue, little less gold braid, and a few glasses of wine he looked terrific!

wingman went as a quidditch player and looked very cute...i made the robe a few years ago and only had to hem it...the only problem was he got so attached to the black fingerless gloves that went with the costume that he has worn them constantly since...along with a lot of black...and his striped skull cap...

can i tell you.

he's five and i can't really imagine what real adolescent experimenting will bring...

why do i think there is eyeliner in his future?

and what is it about halloween that brings out the inner hoochie in girls and women?...i mean, really?...if i saw one bare middrift on a five year old i saw a million!!!...and when they become barely legal it gets much worse...oh, it's hoochieween!!!...look, i'm hooker for a day!!!...whee!!!

and we wonder why there's no woman in the white house yet...

i don't...i figure in every woman's life there's at least one hoochieween costume...but more importantly at least one hoochieween costume picture...enough said.

myself, i plead the fifth.

and i'm sorry, but there are some people who should just NOT be wearing unstructured mostly mesh costumes...i say know your limitations when it comes to many things...but especially so in the arena of the "naughty (insert profession of your choice)" costume...

scary.

also this week i discovered you tube...oh my god you can find almost anything on there!!!...the lord of the ring came in the back where the computer is and i had the headphones on...he said

"what are you doing?"

"oh, my god i've just discovered you tube!!...it's totally cool!!...i just watched an old al stewart concert video...he was singing year of the cat live!!...can you believe it!!...next i'm gonna watch stevie nicks and lindsey buckingham when they reunited and sang on the david letterman show!!"

"oh, really?"

"what can i say?...i come late to technology"

"yeah, and then this is what you choose to use it for"

party pooper...

no matter, because i've recently discovered a crop of prince videos that i'm dying to watch!

and because i'm on a roll i will relay to you the following conversation from yesterday...i was having my near daily exchange with the duke about how he needs to quit dawdling and get his school work done...to which he responded with what he thought was a humorous response

"yeah, yeah i'm gettin' to it...keep your shirt on, lady"

then the lord of the ring piped up from his office

"duke!...do not call your mother *lady*!"

then from my computer i responded

"yeah!...you have no business calling me a lady!"

"oh good lord, honey, you know what i meant!"

at this point the duke closed the door that separated the lord of the ring and me from him...

i'm assuming he finished his work and fed himself lunch but zz top was on you tube so i have no idea what he did the rest of the afternoon...

okay, ha ha, i keed, i keed...what kind of mother would i be if i spent the afternoon watching zz top on you tube not knowing what my child was up to?

it was really the cars.

x.

defending your life

middle school: mean girls

it took me a long time to realize i was bullied in middle school...oh, and by the way, when in the hell did i start calling it "middle school?"...i'm from the central valley, k-fed country, home of wine in a screw cap jug...it was called JR. HIGH for criminy sakes...

"middle school" sounds like you own horses...

any. way. moving right along, there were two girls who verbally abused me for two years solid...and i suppose since i wasn't getting the shit kicked out of me or my chemin de fer bag stolen i didn't consider it "bullying"...

but that's what it was...and it sucked...they would say i smelled like pee in some *bit* they would do about three or four times a week...

"hey mg #1, do you smell that?"

"what, mg #2?"

"that smell"

"what smell?...oh you mean the pee smell?"

"yes, mg #2...the pee smell...i wonder where it's coming from?"

then they would both turn and look directly at me...

as you can imagine the students around this exchange would giggle and laugh...every single time...i'd like to say it got old, but since i was the object of it, it never really did...

we had some sort of science class together and in some act of stupidity, cruelty, or naivete whenever it was time to group up the teacher would always group me with the mean girls!...again, do they not notice what goes in their classrooms?...do they not care?

so, for one particular project we had to collect gutter water from in front of each of our respective houses and compare the findings on slides...like how they were different or the same or whatever...

gutter water...you can see where this is going...

so, we get to school the day of the project and i had my jar of gutter water and i put it on my desk...

so of course, mg#1 pipes up

"oh, there's no drinking in class, x"

ha ha...

so it comes to the time of the project and i have my jar of water and the mean girls don't have anything...so i ask

"where is your gutter water?"

"oh, we don't drink gutter water"

ha ha ha.

AGAIN, i'm sure, i mean i must have thought this was getting old at the time, but intimidation coupled with an already low self-esteem coupled with JR. HIGH does things to your brain...

so when they were done laughing, mg#1 says

"well, since you ask, we don't have any gutter water in front of our houses because where we live there are no gutters"

obviously i'm confused and so i engage them further...god, i was a slow child...

"how is that possible?"

"well, where we live there are no gutters because there are no sidewalks"

"yeah, where we live there are no sidewalks because we don't want just any old person to be able to walk in front of our houses"

oh. good. lord...if it were the re-written movie version i would have at this point said

"oh yeah, if i lived in the trailer park under the overpass i suppose i wouldn't want anyone to walk in front of my trailer house to see where i lived either"

but this was in real time 1983...and the truth of the matter was that they lived at the country club where there were actually no sidewalks, and i really actually at one point lived in the trailer park under the overpass...

so as it happens in both real life and in the movies, since i had the jar of gutter water i did the project and they copied my work...and the teacher was either too stupid, too cruel, or too naive to care...

it went on and off like this for the two years of JR. HIGH and then we went on to high school...i had absolutely no dealings with mg#2 (mg#1 went somewhere else) the four years of high school other than to wonder from afar at her continued popularity despite her PROMINENT though apparently noticeable to no one other than me FACIAL HAIR!

i kid. you. not.

the world is an explicable and cruel place...but rarely to those who actually deserve it...

they had to come up with the whole *the meek shall inherit the earth* because there somehow has to be something to make up for jr. high and high school for the majority of us who peaked much much MUCH later on...

but despite my high school respite from the mean girls, as it happens in both real life and in the movies, they do show back up once more later on in our tale...

but, that's a story for another day...

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!

if it's friday it must be family movie night...

oh joy!...i can't WAIT to see what lost gem from the 80's we'll be watching tonight!

seriously, i love family movie night...but there are so few *family movies* left that we haven't seen we are digging deep and coming up short...

i can't wait until they're old enough that we can change family movie night to thursdays and watch the office together...no video stores...no stupid movies with insipid characters and sappy happy endings...just michael scott and all of his profound wisdom...i'm chuckling already...

because now we've nearly come to the point wherein beethoven (the 7 million movies made about the big old dog who wrecks the house the neighborhood the town but they STILL KEEP HIM!) and all of its sequels is looking good...

time to get netflix...

if only i wasn't so afraid of convenient economical technology offering so many choices i couldn't possibly narrow it down...

oh, and re: the duke of fun and my using him as fodder for my blog, i have not yet figured out a course of action...but i can say in my best tootie ramsey voice

"there's gonna be troubbbblllleee!"

should it come down to it i will try to protect you all as accomplices, but i can't promise anything...

x.

dinner tonight

pizza

sometimes we make our own, sometimes we hock one of the boybarians and get a pizza from round table...but mostly we get a take and bake from our fancy grocery store and it's very good...and cheap...and for now since the boybarians are still of reasonable size and hormones, there are leftovers...what more could you ask for?

don't answer that.

when you're on a roll you might as well butter it...

continuing on the rant from yesterday i just want to say i do not care for skinny jeans...

i did not care for them twenty years ago when i was skinny and i don't care for them now...i won't go so far as to say they are dumb, but they don't look good...even if you are skinny...

they make you look like the cartoon version of robin hood when he dresses up like the stork at the archery competition...

not a good look...still, maid marian falls for him!...i cannot pretend to understand the female mind...

so i needed new underwear and went shopping the other day only to find out they stopped making the underwear i liked...

of course they did...and in their place they have some sort of seamless microfiber business...

now i understand microfiber has its uses, i do...but can't a girl get a simple pair of cotton underwear?...why does everything have to be so fancy?

i realize, of course, that if i bought my underwear in places that don't sell them in plastic packages of 3 right next to the grout cleaner and the rain boots i might have better luck...

but i don't...the reasons are many, the logic thin...

so i browse around trying to find a replacement...i just want underwear...i don't want to make a statement...i don't need to advertise anything...i am long past the stage of show and tell...i just want to cover the bits and be on my way...

i look and look and they are all low rise bikini thong blah blah blah...and none are in black...why don't they sell black cotton underwear anymore?...i like black...it suits my cranky mood...but no black...at least not in the utilitarian undies...

no they have plenty of white and pink and all these incredibly ugly colors i can't imagine liking past the age of 12...

and then i spy what might be my only solution in this case...boy shorts...

now...let me just say that boy shorts seem like a good idea...and i'm sure on the right body they are most excellent...but i am skeptical...it seems like an awful lot of material if i were to actually get my correct size...but still, i am willing...desperate...

until i see the colors...good lord...they are all hideous pre-tween bubble gum colors...with white bands likes boys underwear...they are awful!

i buy them...

i buy them because i need underwear and i'm there and because at least for now i'm not going anywhere else...

they aren't so bad...rather like those big girl panties you used to get as a little kid...only bigger...and uglier...

and now for the laugh of the day...

i had to take the duke of fun into the naturopath the other day...she was trying to assess what remedy to administer for some scalp issues he's been having...after about an hour of chatting and an exam she's nearly at the stage of deciding what will be best...just a few more questions to narrow it down...

"so...would you say that the duke is 'yielding' in nature"

can i tell you.

but at the time i thought it unseemly to fall down on my ass laughing and peeing my new ugly underpants for hours on end until the proper authorities were called in...

the duke is about as yeilding as pete doherty in re-hab...he's about as yeilding as charlie sheen at a gambler's anonymous meeting...he's about as yeilding as george bush *anywhere*...

boy is not yeilding.

he is a taurus...he is the firstborn son of a somewhat ALBEIT IN A LOVING WAY controlling neurotic mother...

it is not in his best interest to be yeilding...plus, i bet it's just not any fun...

i put all of this in a very very very respectful and positive way and she administered the appropriate rememdy...

i couldn't wait to get home and share it with the lord of the ring...this will work for a laugh for about another 4.5 days and then fall into a not very funny but still slightly clever one word insided joke for another few years at least...

OH MY GOD!

the duke of fun on his way to do his latin *just* asked, and i quote

"do you write anything about me on your blog?"

shit.

what do i do! what do i say!

i lied.

"no"

"good"

"why?...would that make you upset?"

"i don't know"

then he left the room to do his work...

um, just a guess but I'M BETTING IT WOULD!!!

good. lord. i may have just lost my best material!

sure i got out of it this time with a well placed lie...but i know from personal experience that only works so long...

shit....where was i?

oh, yeah, the yeilding thing...

i need to go.

x.

dinner tonight

bowtie pasta with ham and peas
salad
apple blueberry pie

the pasta with ham and peas has a very very light cream sauce and parmesan...it's a nigella recipe...i just love her and i LOVE her recipes...they are easy and always delicious...though i've never cooked from how to be a domestic goddess, i hear that book was a bit wonky in the recipe department...but her later books are fab...

anyhow, wingman requested salad...he likes simple salads so a green salad with cucumber and peppers sounds good...the lord of the ring made the pie yesterday and it's so delicious!

the milkman cometh...

bring on the jokes, people!...we now have a milkman...

in an ever increasing effort to know where my food is from we now have our milk delivered from big strapping men in striped overalls...well, that's what i've heard since they come at the crack of dawn and i've never actually seen them...

the whole recent e. coli scare has really driven home the point of trying to source fresh local produce, meats, and dairy...i've spent this past summer on this and i am so glad i've found as many resources as i have out here...

but not as happy as i am that i haven't had spinach in about 6 mos!!!...for awhile there i was getting it all the time...bleh.

speaking of food, well dieting and exercise and other bodily tortures, i was reading this magazine that i get *solely* because it was 9 dollars a year and i am addicted to magazines...it has *some* good women's health information here and there but mainly it just has teeny tiny women talking about their weight loss and how hard they have to work at it...

blow. me.

i understand we are all runners in the same race (or sitters on the same couch) as women...it's hard to accept our bodies as we are...man i remember being early 20's with not an ounce of fat on me with cute figure flattering clothes being in clubs and SUCKING IN MY STOMACH!...good god i'd like to smack that girl!!!

BUT the whole whining about how hard you work to stay thin and healthy all the while having the benefit of personal trainers, private chefs, NOT TO MENTION photoshop and airbrushing well then...it's just wrong...

i still read the magazine, though...because apparently along with not being as thin and cute as i was when i was younger, i'm also apathetic and largely indifferent to the things that bug me...

so i'm reading it and there's some woman documenting what she eats in a typical day so they can analyze where she *goes wrong*...

well, i'm no expert but i can tell you right now that skipping breakfast and stopping for a grande caramel latte with whip every morning ain't doin' you no favors, laurie k. from denver, co....

so they go through the day and the nutrition expert *weighs in* (ha ha that's mine!) and says blah blah blah and then

"if you cut out the roll at lunch it's a savings of 200 calories a day!"

one roll?...200 calories?

wow. kinda puts the bottle of wine at dinner into perspective, doesn't it?

but on a *lighter note* (ha ha again, mine!) it's a good thing i don't even care for rolls!

indeed.

well, i'd love to sit here and talk about my accomplished drinking abilities but i've got a latin lesson to give and a wingman to distract from running by said latin lesson dressed in his roman gladiator suit yelling "attack! attack!"

oh, and i also have a date with the treadmill...

that is unless i can find something to distract me from my workout...

we can only hope.

x.

dinner tonight

tacos

the boybarians are thrilled!...one of their favorites for sure...spicy ground beef, crispy, salty, corn tortillas fresh from the frying pan, chopped cilantro and tomatoes, shredded cheese, sliced avocado, diced red onion, fresh salsa, tapatio hot sauce...

i really gotta get up earlier in the morning...

but as you can see by my absence that just isn't happening...

sigh...

anyhow, i have a rare few quiet task free moments so i thought i'd check in...

oh, and

happy autumnal equinox!!!

i was going to make pumpkin doughnuts in honor this first day of autumn (and the 2nd birthday of my lovely neice, the flea...but i didn't get *actual* permission to wish her a happy birthday blog style to i'm just slipping this in) this morning but i had to take wingman to the dentist...i'm going to make them later or tomorrow morning...

and this weekend we need to take a walk to gather stuff for our nature table...

i love fall...

so the duke of fun has become quite the fan of this particular band...they are whiny and annoying and trite but he's 9 so whatevs...

anyhow, he wanted me to look them up on the web so he could check them out...so we're on the site and we see that you can watch some videos of theirs...

now, we aren't the MTV generation around here...i mean sure, like in 1985 i totally rocked the MTV, but now i'm old and so is the lord of the ring and the boybarians are young so we have no relationship with the watching of videos...

i do know enough to know that a LOT has evolved (and i use that word lightly) in the world of videos...and that nowadays what you get on MTV is what you used to get on cinemax late night...

needless to say, i was a bit worried...so i say to the duke

"we can watch this, but if anything inappropriate comes on i want you to turn your head...okay?"

"okay"

so we click it on and are watching it and there comes a part wherein the band is in a car on the vegas strip...they are all singing and hanging out the windows of the car and climbing around and just being drunk and silly...

all of a sudden the duke shouts

"OH. NO. THEY AREN'T WEARING THEIR SEATBELTS!! TURN YOUR HEAD! TURN YOUR HEAD!"

can i tell you.

and so the parental mocking commences...i wondered how long it would take...

the worst part is he has the whiny song all stuck in his head and i have to live with him bopping about and singing it...

wingman isn't much better...today i was on the computer on one of the gossipy sites and there was a picture of mariah carey performing...well, for some reason she feels the need to wear a bra like top and boy shorts with a robe like thing while doing so...lordy...there are just some things that should be left to the imagination...

anyhow, i didn't know wingman was behind me until i heard him running away shouting

"duke! duke! mama was looking at girls in their underwear on the computer!!"

fantastic.

that's just great because then it was time to take him to school...i can only imagine...and it's probably "share day" too...

so after that bit of fun i was talking to my little sister on the phone and she was reminding me about a picture my grandmother had in a frame in her living room...

see my aunt had given her a frame for her birthday...and it had a fake picture in it that you're *supposed* to remove and replace with one of your own...

only my grandmother kept the fake one in there...when asked about it months later she said that since there aren't any good pictures of me and since the woman in the photo looked like me, she was just keeping it and thinking of it as me...

okay, so there are so many levels of wrongness to this whole thing it's going to be hard to know where to begin...

first of all, yeah, so i take a bad picture...but she was my grandmother!...she's supposed to not care...and second, hello!, the woman in the picture was 40 if she was a day!...

i was maybe 15...shit, i actually can't remember how old i was because i didn't even remember the incident until my sister walked me through it...gee...i wonder why it is i can't remember things...

this along with the relationship i have with my boybarians just further highlights how it is i have come to my current mental state...

no wonder i don't get up earlier than i do...

x.

dinner tonight

spicy red beans with coconut rice
salad

last week was the week of beef. it's what's for dinner. so i've been doing more beans and grains dishes this week...though the recipe says spicy, judging from the ingredients i don't think it will be too spicy for wingman...coconut rice is a favorite...of course it won't be cooked well because i'm cooking it, but with the coconut milk in the dish it doesn't seem to matter...

and in another matter all together, what to do with beets...sure they're good for you...but who really likes them?...good lord ever since that unfortunate canned beet incident in the second grade i really haven't had a moment's peace that included beets...ever...but then came the day that wingman was allowed to pull as many as he likes from the neighbor's garden...

oy vey...turns out he really likes pulling beets...

BUT!...beet risotto...oh. my. god...it's so delicious, and you can't even TASTE THE BEETS!...the recipe is actually beet and greens risotto from vegetarian cooking for everyone by deborah madison...so not only are there beets, there's also about a pound of greens...very healthy...very tasty...

even if you are not a vegetarian you should have this cookbook...it's amazing and the recipes are always delicious...

reason #34592 why i shouldn't leave the house...

it's been a long week of school...just now i feel as though i have a chance to sit down and say hello...

though it's probably because i'm supposed to be cleaning the house roasting a chicken preparing fettucine alfredo cucumber salad green beans a green salad garlic bread and a homemade italian plum tart...but first i have to pick the plums...

all by 4 pm today (the duke invited the granparental unit for dinner)

instead i am here...writing to you...finally...so, in a way, avoidance is a great motivator...

so we went to the store this morning...and of course i slept in and rolled out of bed and did little other than put on different clothes than the ones i slept in and said "oh heck this once i'll just head out...i never run into anyone i know anyway"

see, you shouldn't even *think* things like that...because then it's a given you will run into everyone you know AND their freakin' dressed to the nines reality show ready sister...

first i run into the only actual friend i have out here...which wasn't bad at all...we chatted...and our chat was just long enough for the lord of the ring to be unsupervised at the olive bar...

good lord that man and his fussy little plastic containers of olives, tapenade, peppers, whatnot...it's like crack for the foodie those olive bars...though i'm sure crack is considerably cheaper...

and it wasn't just the olives...because the olives are next to the breads...we needed a good loaf for our dinner tonight, but of course we can't just have one loaf because that will be eaten at dinner and then what will we make croutons out of later?...

indeed.

i am soooooooo thankful they moved the cheeses to the other side of that section of the store or i'd have to hock a boybarian just to get out of there!

though i must dislose the fact that the wine aisle is right next to the olive bar so i am not entirely inculpable (it's a word...i looked it up) in that respect...

of course then i proceed to run into two mothers from wingman's school...i don't have a clue who any of the parents are or what they look like because there aren't any social functions or gathering spots at pickup or drop off or anything like that...

can i just say THANK GOD!

sure, he's invited to all the birthday parties where the other parents are but i don't go...that's what i have the lord of the ring for...

anyhow, so the only way i knew the first one was a parent from wingman's school is there was a cart full of giggling girls calling his name...then she says

"oh we saw wingman, hi wingman...hi, i'm so and so's mom...so and so and so and so's friend here are in his class at school"

"oh. hi. my aren't you thin and pretty and dressed really nicely for having a baby on your hip and two kids in your cart one of which isn't even yours...is that perfume i smell?"

okay, so i didn't say that but boy if life was like the comics and you had that bubble over your head...

anyhow, so wingman gets that affected look on his face like, yeah, what ladies?...what's all the fuss?

he's not what one might call *charming* at times...especially when there's being a fuss made over him...

good thing women are always chucking dignity and whatever else for the gruff rude types...he shouldn't have any trouble at all...

so then we get our lunch and head upstairs to eat it before wingman has to go to school (12:30-3:00)

we're eating lunch and i'm saying to wingman

"i remember so and so's name but what's the other girl's name that was with her?"

he tells me her name and we are chatting and all of a sudden i kid. you. not. there's another thin, pretty, well dressed woman AGAIN WITH A BABY ON HER HIP chatting me up...she comes to our table and is like

"hi, i couldn't help but overhear (sure you could lady because you're obviously nosy...it's a human trait you should just accept it and move on) but i'm so and so's friends mom...hi wingman!"

"oh. hi. oh, we just saw your daughter downstairs with so and so and her mom"

oh. you saw my daughter?...here?...just now?...she's on a playdate with so and so"

"yeah, here...i just saw them downstairs"

some playdate..i know! why don't you send your daughter to come on over to play and i'll throw her into the minivan with all my other kids and we'll go to the store and then i'll 5 point harness her into a huge uncomfortable cart while i shop for a million hours...FUN!

and that mom looked like it was definitely news to her that her child wasn't at so and so's house...

what i would do if i actually had a life i do not know.

x.

dinner tonight

roasted chicken
fettucine alfredo
green beans
cucumber salad
green salad
bread
plum tart with vanilla ice cream

i am stuffing the chicken with garlic and lemons and basting the outside with butter...the fettucine alfredo and cucumber salad were the duke's request...both are so easy and good...especially the fettucine alfredo which has to be a recipe from the gods...pasta, cream, butter, cheese, i mean really?...the green salad and bread will round it out...

the plum tart is made with italian plums which are ripe just this week...we picked some earlier in the week and i made up a batch of liqueur to steep for the next few months...i've never made an actual tart in an actual tart pan, so we'll see how it goes...the plums are halved and then arranged prettily on top...

p.s. i have three words...

lime. chipotle. butter.

good lord i made this to accompany red snapper earlier this week and i just about fainted from the deliciousness of it all...

p.p.s yes, i have noticed i'm getting all paula deen on you with the amount of butter i am employing in my cooking...but i assure you, it's not all that much and i promise to round it out with some barley or something...

there's barley in beer, right?