In Which Translation Occurs (Sort Of)

Lilymania needs an update. Bad. I thought I'd go out and find a cool new template to celebrate three years here in the blogosphere. (Three years!) Of course I managed to find the perfect template - on a technical blogging page that's all in SPANISH. (I have always wanted to learn Spanish, but so far all I've managed to get is a little Russian, some French, and a smattering of Italian and Latin. The last two help a teeny bit with the Spanish but not nearly enough to translate a page about widgets and templates!) Then I noticed a handy dandy translator button off in the margin. (You see where this is going, right?) Who is in charge of this stuff?!! Here is a sample of what I got:

I think ofreceros free, as always, several designs of pagination so that you prune to unload them and to install them without problems… You have a little patience.

One forgot to me. . . You can see a sample working in the main page of my blog, right under the entrances or posts, you puncture Here.

Errr, yeah. That was helpful. (Not.) I particularly like the pruning to unload and the instruction to "puncture here". You have a little patience indeed! Well, I'm out of patience, friends. For the nonce, Lilymania remains the same. Oh - and Bet and I are off to Philly tomorrow to see Madonna in concert. Chances are I won't be blogging until we get back. (Shall I say "so much for NaBlo" once more? :P ) Peace.

Where Do I Go Now

Hmmmm, May 27th to July 9th is a long time. A lot has happened. Here's some of it:

We enjoyed hanging out all together while we could as school wound down.

The Ninja Princessa turned 13 and started taking martial arts again. (Tae Kwon Do this time, not karate but I'm not changing her name because it just wouldn't have the same ring. )

She got a silver bracelet from her brothers that says, "A sister is a forever friend." (They picked it out!) She almost cried which made them go all boy and start hitting each other to relieve the tension. (They did not put up with hugs.)

I got a hair cut. Woo hoo!

Chaos turned 16 and had a Cthulu tentacle "cake" only someone stole one of the tentacles before I could even take a picture. Boys! I'm sure I should have posted about this earlier too because I won't do it justice here, but Chaos has this new routine that he does about being oppressed because he's a "Ginger". It's a hilarious play on a combination of the red-headed step child being left out and Black Power rhetoric. (NOT to make light of real civil rights struggles. He more or less walks that line carefully.) I'll ask him to take out the trash and he starts in on how it's always the Ginger has to do the unwanted tasks (even though the chores rotate by week and it's his week on the schedule). He's got a couple of red-headed friends at school too that he calls his Brothers In Red. We've made jokes about him being the Ginga Ninja etc, etc. At one of our hilarity infused family dinners, Chaos interrupted a story the Princessa was telling and she interrupted right back saying something like, "Can it Ginger Snap!" We lost it. Hence the "Ginger Snap" on the cake.

Chaos tried to steal my Israeli Paratrooper canvas satchel so I got him one of his own with a skull on it.

Bet went to an oceanography institute for a week and built an underwater ROV (which I will have to get pictures of because it is very cool. She's going to do some great things with her students involving the topics she studied. She's trying to write a grant to get some sextants for her classroom. How cool is that?

We took pictures of the dogs' noses:
Tallulah -

Wasabi -

And Linus had a birthday. Bet and I decided to make it a "theme" birthday. We woke him up with the Secret Agent Man theme song and sent him on "missions" all day long (mostly to get his own birthday presents and to eat). He got clues and maps and had special agent assisting him.

Bet and I were Agent Smith and Agent Smith. We were bad ass. And we got to boss Linus around. It was all kinds of fun. Everyone had to wear X4/GM12 Eco-transponders (i.e. nametages). Agent-In-Training "The Bug" had a cool beetle on his and Agent "Slim Dunk" had a crazy cartoon WWF Wrestler. The evening ended with a party of 12 Special Agents converging on a little Indian restaurant around the corner for dinner. Good times!

There has also been some complete crappiness - mostly involving Mr. Tapioca. The court stuff is ridiculous and the tactics his red neck lawyer employs are stupid. (I hope Mr. Tapioca isn't paying that guy very much. I have yet to receive a document from him that has fewer than five spelling/grammar/punctuation mistakes. Seriously, the last thing I got was a list of questions that weren't even numbered correctly! That doesn't even go into the insanity of the content. I have had such a hard time resisting the urge to post that document here!!!) I think one of the reasons I haven't blogged is because I haven't wanted to spew about it all.

Chaos, Mayhem, and Havoc are all with him for the summer. I get to go visit and have the boys every other weekend. The Princessa is gone for 6 weeks (which used to seem long but is 3 full weeks less than the boys are gone!) Bug is an only child with us for the first time ever. It's a very different dynamic. Bug is still in school - and kicking ass. He's gotten nothing but A's so far! (Chaos finished his semester with straight A's too! The Princessa and Mayhem? Lucky to simply finish the year - especially Mayhem whose attention span was strained to the breaking point with weeks left to tough out! Havoc breezed through but doesn't get letter grades the way the middle and high schoolers do.) Bet is home for the summer and Linus is working from home. It is a summer completely different from any other.

The good news is the triathlon training is going well. We're on track for the San Francisco half marathon in a few weeks. (Our long run this weekend is an 8 miler!) We've already done a "mock tri" the same distance as the olympic distance we're signed up for in September (swim a mile, bike 26 miles, run a 10K) and we did it in less than the cut off time for the course. Since our main goal is to finish, it was a huge confidence booster!

I'm not sure what direction Lilymania is headed. There are some challenges to mommy blogging. It's hard to find the time to blog in the moment when we are in the midst of family activities and it's even harder to blog about my kids when they are all gone for the summer. I've found on my few attempts this summer that those posts come out pretty whiny! And there are only so many cute dog posts I can write. I don't plan on abandoning ship but I'm relatively content to drift aimlessly for a while. Maybe I'll play around with the format and layout and that will spark something - but until then... PEACE!

Photo Mania

Mayhem - did I tell you he's back on restriction? Yeah, FOUR D's on a progress report will do that to you. Good thing he's cute, eh?

Bug wanted to dye his hair black. It's a little blue and kind of elfin, but I think those are pluses in his book. He got A+'s in both of his classes! Yay! We like adult high school!

Wasabi says, "Where are mah eyes?"

Tallulah says, "Treats please!"

Kira says, "But I'm not even yours!"

The Ninja Princessa says, "Yay! I'm off restriction! I can play video games for the first time since February!"

Action shot of Havoc. And a close up of the dimple.

Linus on the porch with a look of "Quoi?"

Bet from faaaaaar away. Obviously I hadn't figured out the zoom yet.

Chaos being Calvin (will post more in this series tomorrow because they are pretty funny) and also him snuggling with Tallulah on my bed.

The kids brought me tortellini in bed (b/c I don't like breakfast foods). They were cute and silly and I love them to bits!!

Guess what I got for Mother's Day?? (And if you didn't guess cute pink camera then dude, what's wrong with you?) Peace.

Stragglers

Thank you for the comments, emails. I haven't decided quite what I'll do but for now I think I'll keep posting more or less the way I have been. (Let's hope for the more because I've gotten pretty good at the less and it's not as much fun, now is it?)

I realized I was behind on promised pictures! As usual they are clickable if you want to see them larger. Here is Tallulah Rockstar - the crazy conehead - giving me a mournful look. (I particularly like the "You are my sunshine" pillow next to her that I didn't notice when i was taking the picture.) When Wasabi had to wear a cone it paralyzed him. If the edge of the cone touched anything - he FROZE. I would find him standing stock still and have to coax him to move again. Tallulah? The vet told us to try to keep her quiet for the first few days. I raised my eyebrow at him, we both looked at her, and he said, "Good luck with that." She proceeded to smash, crash, and bash her way through the next two weeks. The cone was in sorry, sorry shape by the time she FINALLY got to take it off.
In case you think that Chaos, being nearly 16, might have grown out of his Calvin phase...think again. Here is a picture of Chaos, Mayhem, Uncle Richard, Linus, Bug, The Ninja Princessa, and Havoc. We miss you Uncle Richard!!!

I guess the Calvin look is better than the I'm-practicing-for-my-mug-shot look:
The one where Chaos is sort of smiling? Mayhem is being silly (and Tallulah has snuck into the photo.) This is why God invented Photoshop I suppose.
And finally we come to fun and games with sharp objects. Linus would like you to think he was grievously wounded while defending my honor. In truth, he lost a fight with a box cutter while doing something involving servers at work. He managed to miss all tendons and major blood vessels - thankfully. I should have taken some pictures when it had all those blue stitches in it.
Then I could have framed it next to this picture and had a matched set. Bet sliced her leg open in two places while building our glass block wall this morning. Warning: do not step over razor sharp spikes of metal embedded in a half built wall.
I've told them both that in this circumstance three is not a charm. No stitches for Lilymane. No. No. No. So, how's your weekend going?

Tummy Report: Writhing

Note to self: NEVER, EVER, (for any reason under the sun) agree to be on television again. I haven't even seen the interview but reading the transcript and the online description of the interview? AGONY. I'd love to think they misquoted me (grammar mistakes, leaving key words out, etc) but chances are it's even worse in the live action version. The script says that what has haunted me the most (since I was supposed to be with her the day she was kidnapped) is that if I had been with her that day maybe something awful would have happened to me too - but that's not the part that haunts me!! Well it's a part of it - but the bigger part is if I hadn't been sick - if I had been able to be with her - would we have been too big of a target - would she be alive today - would my presence mean that she would have been safe? THAT'S the part that is haunting. And when the interviewer said the "stories" would be on two nights in a row - I thought that she meant my part was one of a couple of bits they were doing and I'd have to watch both nights to catch it. Turns out my part stretches over two nights. I'm on twice. Egad. I don't regret my impulse to tell the side of the story where the "victim" is still a little girl who never set out to be an icon or milestone. I just wish I'd been more articulate. Bleck. ANYWAY.
**Edited to add: ok, having now seen the the video, the subject/verb agreement (or lack thereof) was all mine (but I think I switched ideas mid sentence) and thankfully, the other two sentences which sounded so moronic in transcript actually make more sense with my pauses, facial expressions, and hand motions. Still. Never again.

On the B List of nauseating factors: I realize I am paying my attorney to play lawyer games. I just don't want her playing them with me. Today I have to finish up my portion of the "discovery" process. You know what I've discovered? I hate this.

On the brighter side of things (aka things that don't make my stomach hurt): Chaos gave me a big hug this morning and told me he loved me. Often I get that response when I buy Totino' pizza rolls or agree to let them do something silly (like have a special supper where we watch "Men In Tights" ) but this time there was no prompt. I gave him a big squeeze back and said, "Wow. I needed that." He said, "Yeah, I know." And we listened to Rob Zombie at max volume all the way to school.

Brighter thing 2: I was telling Chaos something about the weather forecast today and he asked, "What did you just say about devil monkeys?" Uh, nothing. I would have laughed it off except twice this weekend Bet misheard me say something about monkeys. Once she thought I said something about "adventure monkey" and then "monkey time" - which makes me wonder what on earth I'm saying that sounds like I am monkey obsessed! (I promise you I do not often willingly talk about monkeys. They gross me out - poo flinging, screechy, little beasts that they are.)

As much as I would like to blog more - I have to go gather, copy, and mail documents and then I have to wade through emails with attached Tapioca sludge (<--emails that made me ill the FIRST time I had to read them so I can't imagine today will be any better.) You know I'm dreading my day when the idea of doing laundry instead sounds like heaven! Peace to the people.

One Week Into Lent And I've Blown It

I tried to give up Tapioca for Lent, but he won't leave me alone! I thought that since he's waitng until Spring Break to see the boys and our mediation is set for Easter Monday that I could get through the Lenten season without struggling with him. I won't bore you with all the details (especially the ones involving insurance coverage) - but in addition to calling my house at 9 am two mornings in a row and hanging up (what, he thinks I don't have caller id??), he is (through his attorney) bugging me about scheduling a time to depose me. Again, so much for going into mediation with any honest effort at resolution. It's merely a logistical hurdle in the way of putting me on trial. BLECK.

Still - I'm working on ways not to be in the struggle. Bet says I need a mantra to turn to instead of spinning my energy up about him and his crazy-making ways. How very Lenten! In my most Episcopagan way, I've decided to turn spin into spin. It's too cold to run, but Vivian (my bike) is on the trainer and I can ride inside. I can take the adrenaline my body automatically produces to fight him - and I can use it for a better purpose. I can train on two levels at once. I already knew I can't complete this triathlon without connecting to my deepest strength and honoring the creative force I'm a part of. I'm just adding to that knowledge by turning turning Tapioca churn into muscle!

Looking at it that way, I haven't truly blown my Lenten discipline. I have struggled with my not struggling with his shit - but it's aligning my internal compass. I call that a saving grace.

Linus, on the other hand, is actively avoiding salvation this week. One of the things I love best about him is that sometimes he's so very Linus. He's in San Diego for a conference and to train his replacement with the old company. He likes his replacement and he likes the new president. The slimy sales guy that's with them? Not so much. At dinner (the company dinner!) the other night, the slimy sales guy turned to Linus and said, "Maybe the reason for this whole trip is not to save (Name of Previous Company), but to save YOU. Maybe God's ulterior motive is to give me a chance to witness to you so that you can accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior." At which point Linus responded, "Mr. Slimy Sales Guy - let me explain this concisely and clearly so we can get on with our supper. I reject Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. Knowingly, willfully, and intentionally. Dessert anyone?" Linus is quite spiritual but not remotely Christian. I don't think Mr. Slimy Sales Guy knew what to do with him after that.

We're an odd mix, the three of us: me (pagan and liturgical both), Linus (fully recovered Catholic, now techno Taoist), Bet (with her M.Div and silent faith, who is fascinated by popular religion yet repulsed by church). Somehow we fit, though. Supporting each other - spirit, mind, and body. Which is enough of a ramble on religiosity for this pagan sex/hallmark holiday.
Peace.

No Bail Money Necessary

Happy New Year! I know. I'm a week late. You know how we have all these traditions about starting the new year the way we want it to continue? We kiss our sweetie(s) at midnight and eat all kinds of "good luck" foods (like black eyed peas cooked with a dime?) etc. Weeeelllll - I sure hope my new year goes better than it started out. Here's the saga: I started 2008 bright and early (3 am Jan 1) puking my guts out. Sad, sad Lilymane. I almost never get really sick and I can't even think of a time where I've been the only one to get sick. If I do finally succumb to something, it's usually after everyone is better and back and school/work. This time I broke with tradition! I was the only one even remotely ill. (Thank heavens!) It is very much NOT FUN to be sick (vilely and horribly sick) when everyone else is home and having fun playing games together! (I mentioned the sad, sad Lilymane part, right?) I managed to get myself better just in time for Bet's birthday on Friday. Yay Bet! As part of her celebration, she and I went to the NC Museum of Art in Raleigh. Friday night we had a big party with 20 or so friends. In addition to celebrating Bet's time on this planet - we celebrated Linus' new job offer! Yay Linus! Then of course it was Wild Card Weekend. Yay NFL! (Although it was total suckitude as ALL FOUR of the teams I was cheering for managed to be eliminated. But it's the Playoffs. I love the energy. LOVE it! The football is intense. No one is holding back. The play calling is interesting - bold. You watch the players mature as athletes and sportsmen right before your eyes. There is nothing like the playoffs. Should I whine now that there are only seven games left - total?? No? Ok - I'll save it for later on in the week.) And if that weren't enough to keep me off line - we had Tapioca weirdness.

**I have to interrupt myself and say that I got a very funny voicemail from my new webfriend Jeff. He called to see if I was ok, if I'd fallen off the face of the earth and maybe needed help climbing back on, or if perhaps I'd been arrested for taking his advice and doing away with my ex. "If you need anything - like bail money - just give me a ring," he said. Don't I have the greatest friends? Now back to the story involving Tapioca, but not bail money (in case you were worried I was throwing in some foreshadowing.) **

Tapioca Report: My mother calls and says, "Have you talked to Mr. Tapioca Head recently? Do you know if he's....ok?" I told her I'd been out of commission but while I was on the phone with her I checked my cell and computer. No messages of any kind. Yay! I love not hearing from him. My mother on the other hand was now trying not to fret. I could hear her trying to figure out how to word what she was going to say. Maybe all mothers do this (egad, maybe I do it to my kids) but my mother has a certain way of pausing that lets me know to pay very close attention to what she says next. Sometimes she pauses because she has decided to leave some of the salient points out for various and sundry reasons (never good reasons as far as I'm concerned - so I listen for the gaps and grill her on them) and sometimes it's because she wants to make sure to say something disturbing in as calm a way as possible. What she said was that the police had been questioning Mr T's neighbors. (She has a customer whose daughter lives next door to my ex and was one of the ones questioned. Of course mom's customer had to rush right in and find out what was going on. My mother tries so very, very hard not to have the shop be Gossip Central but she is fighting a losing battle. Scientists should study the phenomenon. Small town rumorspeed is waaay faster than lightspeed.) So here's my poor mother trying to (on the fly) figure out how to make sure everything is ok by calling me without sounding like an alarmist or a gossip herself. At this point I need to reiterate that as much as I would wish (selfishly) for my ex to disappear - I would never in a million years want that for my boyos. Luckily (for my mother and my kids) at about this point in the conversation, Chaos got home and answered my casually posed question - yes they'd spoken to dad just last night. My mother actually said, "Phew." We still have no idea what it was all about, but at least the fucker is still around (pardon my French.) I guess Mr. Tapioca being missing is one plausible reason why the cops would be asking his neighbors about about "his comings and goings" and what kind of car he drives. In that scenario he would (probably) even be "innocent". Yeah, yeah. I know he hasn't been accused of anything (that I know of) (yet) and that even if he had been - innocent until proven guilty in a court of law and all that. Still. Can you think of any reason for those kinds of police questions that doesn't involve something...unpleasant?? I can't come up with anything. Of course I don't really know enough about how things work to come up with many ideas at all - unpleasant or otherwise. What I do know is (once again) my mother and I ended a conversation with her telling me she truly believes he suffered some kind of brain damage during that surgery (eight weeks before he left me) because he's just been so...weird ever since. Weird Tapioca - just what everyone needs to start the year, eh?

So recap:
Yay Bet! Yay Linus! Yay NFL (sort of)! Yay Friends! Yay having fun with my kids!
Boo intestinal disturbances and Mr. Tapioca!
The good far, far, far outweighs the bad. I think 2008 is going to be a fantastic year.
Peace!

The Hoarse Whisperer

Last week I went to the doctor here. I liked her fine - even though the whole process was a nightmare and took, I kid you not, almost three hours! I could bore you with the details of the visit but I won't. Instead I'm going to bore you with the details of what happened AFTER the visit. My new doc suggested I get a flu shot while I was there. Ok. One less medical thing to do later, right? (For the record, I do usually get flu shots since my kids are asthmatic. We've never before had any problems.) It might be more clear cut if I could tell you that mere hours after the vaccination, I had flu symptoms. That's not what happened. (Although the one time Bet got a flu shot, that's what happened to her - so she is definitely not pro-vaccination.)

What happened to me is that I got home and felt fine. I continued to feel fine except for a tightening in my throat which turned into a weird scratchiness. I had no fever, no aches and pains, not even a sore throat. What I did have was a voice that started dropping octaves. Then I had a voice that was somewhat intermittent. By Saturday morning, I had no voice whatsoever. My children, who already use the fact that they didn't hear me as an excuse not to do their chores, rejoiced. My dog got a little clingy. He's used to me talking to him all the time and I think he was worried he'd done something wrong. Linus, who is also used to me talking to him all the time, has had to try to decipher my croaky crackliness over the phone because he's in San Francisco for the week (lucky duck!). Every day I think my voice will be back today for sure and it keeps not happening. How long should I wait before legitimately worrying that I have some rare throat disease that has stolen my voice and has no intention of ever, ever bringing it back? Should I admit that words like "throat cancer", "nodules", and "polyps" have already been floating around in the worry closet that is my brain? Other words - more sensible and likely words like, say, "laryngitis" were harder to come up with on Saturday afternoon as Bet and I sat around discussing my condition. (She was talking. I was merely able to mouth words, but you get the idea.) I could not think of the right word for losing your voice. I kept coming up with words that I knew weren't right. Linoleum, for instance. The only medical word I could think of was amnesia. Bet was having the same trouble - the only word she could come up with was horseradish. We decided that that is what I must have: amnesia horseradish. It is perhaps a more amusing and comforting diagnosis if you happen to have been self-medicating with one (or three) of Bet's kickass hot toddies.

Sadly, hot toddies are far less practical at 9 am on a weekday. Hence the encroachment of scary thoughts like, "What if I'm stuck like this? What if I can't ever speak again?" I've thought about calling the doctor (or possibly emailing her), but I'm conflicted about that. What if she wants to give me another shot?!
Peace.

Landing

Goodbye old house! This is the crew we traveled with (minus my mom, second from the right - next to Chaos in the back row - she and VBGF's mom were there to see us off.) Who's Who - (L-->R) Thaxton*, Bug, Joey*, Mayhem, Uncle Richard, Marmie (my mom), Chaos - then SH, Wasabi, Havoc above him, Me, VBGF. Is now a good time to say that I'm tired of using initials? Names are so much easier. Will it confuse you terribly to switch to Linus and Bet instead of SH and VBGF? I'll write a new thing for the sidebar soon, really my poor blog is long overdue for it, but it will have to wait. First I must deforest the cardboard jungle that is currently growing in my new home. See?
Bikes. In the library. Hmmmm. Not a good long-term plan I think. Upside down couch. Difficult to sit upon. Must. Rethink. Library.

Cook? Can you even see the fridge? Not sure we'll be making home-cooked meals anytime soon. Yet, I can't believe we brought even more cardboard into the house by ordering pizza!

Here we are! Homeowners! Bet, Linus, and Lilymane (me). Do you see our one key? One. key. For a family of eight - in a house that has FOUR doors. (I will not say bad things about the previous owners. I will not say bad things about the previous owners. I will not ...)
This is a bumper sticker we saw in the parking lot of the closing attorney's office. I had already decided I liked these people when I saw "Coexist" on one car, something funny and anti-Bush on another, and two HRC stickers, but when Linus saw the one above, he said he was never living anywhere else. (And if you don't understand it, it's ok - it's a Dungeons and Dragons (or general d20 RPG) reference.)

I suppose I'd best get up and dig into some of those boxes!
Peace.

*Thaxton and Joey are both only children who have been friends with my kids for years (five years? four?) They are part of the junior troll boy contingent who game(d) at the house every Wednesday night. When we moved I told both of their mothers that I wanted visitation rights. They are such good sports! They agreed to let their boys move with us for the first week. We have to send them back on Sunday but it has been such an incredible help to have them with us. Aside from the fact that they have hauled more than their fair share of stuff in and out of U-haul trucks, they are helping my boys set up their rooms, explore the new neighborhood, and adjust without losing their friends. They are more precious than gold to me.