In Which I Am A n00b

I'm learning how to use some blog tools and I just clipped this map from the Washington Post with Clipmarks. Yay me. Tool user and all that.

clipped from www.washingtonpost.com

This whole technology plug-in, upgrade thing is a lot like washing the baseboards. You wash the baseboards and see how filthy the carpet is, so now you have to vacuum and shampoo the carpet. Then with the floor and the baseboards so clean, the walls look like ass so you have to clean and then repaint those. Then the blinds look dingy and so on and so on. Today (after my first post when I was trying to write other stuff and do housework) Linus came in and said he'd found this plug-in that I would really like because it would easily and intuitively let me clip bits (pictures, text, or video) from websites to email or blog. Mind you, he'd already tracked Libray Thing down for me this morning. Then, while installing ClipMarks there was the option of having the sources for anything you clip automatically saved in your del.icio.us bookmarks. My buddy Ray has been trying to get me hooked into this del.icio.us thing for...I don't know. How long has it been around? Probably that long and maybe even longer, because like Linus, Ray is a serious computer nerd and is always in on stuff before it even happens. Anyway - I've never quite understood what it was or what the point is. The idea of social bookmarking makes me giggle (bookmarks - so social - wouldn't want to have any of that anti-social, introverted, solitary bookmarking going on) but I like the idea of saving the source of my clips. So we went through another whole sign up thing. Then to make sure it all worked, I had to find some stuff to clip and save (like coupons - only prettier and um, more web-y.) I went to the Washington Post website to find a good article - only to have to register again there. "Re-gi-stray - shun time, c'mon! There's a party going on right here..."

Now I am all plugged-in, signed up, and ready to be social with my books and bookmarks and clips. My life is an open blog. Only now there is a notice at the top of my toolbar that informs me I am following (0) clippers. I am also told that no one is following me and I have no favorite clipper. Let's see - who is the most popular web clipper?! I should follow them! How many followers do I have? Oh no, not enough. Must. Clip. More. How do developers not laugh their heads off when they design this stuff? The virtual world is psuedo-social at best. Linus (bless his heart) keeps trying to explain the concept of a web 2.0 world to me. I'm assimilating as much as I can as fast as I can, but I do realize that there is a lot in the ether that is passing me by. I smile and nod when I hear about easy share, sharewear, bookmarking as a social activity, tag clouds (which morph into searchable, expandable tag bundles sometimes for no apparent reason), and netpubs and bl@h, bl@h, bl@h. (<--That last bit is my little leetspeak joke.)

Which brings us right to the second post I was going to write AFTER I finished all that other stuff on my list but which I will now write BEFORE getting to the stuff on my list. (See this? This is the stuff on my list not getting done. Ever. Clean socks? Highly overrated.)

The other night at supper, it was Mayhem's turn to talk. (We take turns. So civilized.) Mayhem was telling about his new Adidas and about the salesman we talked to about fantasy football the whole time we were in the store. (Sidenote: the salesman knew considerably more about fantasy football than he did about selling shoes. I'm the one who used the measure thingy to size up Mayhem's foot, I'm the one who read the tags about what the shoes were made of and how to clean them, and I'm the one who pointed out that they were on sale.) Mayhem's comment after saying this guy was leading his league by 100 points was, "That guy was poning." Uh, what? Mayhem, by way of explanation said, "He totally poned his league." I was trying to figure out what cornbread has to do with fantasy football.

Me: What are you saying? Spell that word.
Mayhem: What word?
Me: Poned.
Mayhem: P-W-N-3-D.
Me: What?
Mayhem (louder this time): P-W-N-3-D.
Linus: (sounds of pumpkin soup being snorted out of his nose)
Me: What do you mean? That's not a word. Three-d? Like three dimensional?
Linus: It's from leetspeak. There are no vowels. Hackers used numbers.
Mayhem (speaking at the same time as Linus - and thereby dashing my earlier claims of being civilized): It's total domination. You don't use vowels.

At this point in the conversation, I am utterly confused. (Please note I did not have a handy dandy little link to follow to find out what the heck leetspeak was. And not only were Linus and Mayhem trying to explain the lack of cornbread connection at the exact same time, but Chaos and Bug were cackling, making it even harder to hear.) World domination, hackers, spelling without vowels, leeches speaking? WTF?

Apparently I have become my mother. I was probably Mayhem's age when my mother said at dinner one night, "Mick? Mick who? You mean Mickey Mouse? I don't think his lips are all that big." We have never let her live it down. I did eventually understand the explanation and derivation of the pseudo word "pwn3d" and upon further research, found that I particularly like the urban dictionary entry on pwnage. Too little, too late, I fear in terms of the balance in my cool points account. I am overdrawn. I have zero credit in the video culture currency that is required to operate in my teenagers' world. I have been relegated to permanent n00b status. I'd like to think that they'll still let me visit their world and even that in a decade or two, they'd consider emigrating. For now, I think I'll just camp out here in the borderlands. With the other dinosaurs.
Peace.

Two Divided By, Divided By, Zero, Zero, Zero

Tapioca: I'm sorry but I have to talk about it this morning. And by "talk", I actually mean "bitch", "rant", "vent", and possibly "rage".
Thing the First: Our negotiation over visitation has stalled. The last email I got from him two days ago was (once again) laden with whining and accusations. He said, "I did not create this situation, and yet I'm the one that has to suffer." Well, he did create "this" situation. This situation is a wrangling over visitation which we would not be having had he moved like he said he was going to. Of course it was his choice to move or not, to keep his word or break it as he sees fit - but if he chooses not to do what he said he would, then he can't very well say he bears no responsibility for the situation. Do you like how he is the one to suffer? First of all from my point of view - who the fuck cares? You would think that he would understand how little I want to hear about his suffering. He should talk to his therapist about that, not me. (But I refrained from saying that in my reply! I just ignored his statement completely. Someone get me a sticker!!) Second of all - I should point out that the kids aren't suffering and they are the ones we're supposedly negotiating for. They see him, they talk to him, they love him; they love me, they are doing well in school, making friends, and adjusting just fine. They do love him - but he is not "their life" and for that matter, I am not "their life" either. I think that's a good and healthy thing. I adore them; I will do everything in my power to insure their well being in mind, spirit, and body. They are a vastly important, endlessly joyful and challenging part of my life. But they are not my whole, entire life. Mr. Tapioca Head repeatedly says melodramatic crap about how he's a father 24/7/365, how he doesn't go ten minutes without thinking about them, how he doesn't want to give up any of his precious time with them, about how they are his whole life. THIS from a man who historically on "his" weekends pawned the kids off to just about anybody and everybody: his second wife (when he was married), his friends, my mother, my sister, my aunt. Not that I'm complaining about the extra time my mother has gotten because she's loved every minute of it. I'm just calling his bullshit. He has never been involved in their school activities (even when we lived in the same area and he worked in town); he's never kept track of their friends or extracurricular activities; and even this week he says on the one hand he's unwilling to give up a single iota of "his" time while at the same time counter offering in our negotiations for five days less at Christmas!! I don't get it. I sent him back the nicest email I could. I did not tell him what a pathetic, whiny puke he sounded like. I did not wrangle about who started it. I did have to point out that the money situation is of his making (with his late child support payments and unexpected change/veritable lack of health insurance) which means that I can't help pay for plane fares until after he's paid me. I did point out that I was being as reasonable as I could facilitating his visitation by offering to give up my holiday and by offering to pay a portion of the cost. I also asked him to stay solution-oriented and focused on the children. My bad. I haven't heard from him since. It's nice because it means I haven't had to deal with him in two days but it also means that 1) holidays and weekends are still undecided which is stressful for the kids and 2) he has probably decided to put his energy into bringing me to "trial" (which is how he always refers to it.) Bleck.

But wait, there's more!
Thing the Second: Sunday before last Havoc left his hoodie jacket at dad's. Havoc only has one and with the weather cool in the mornings and evenings - he wears it almost every day (when he has it, of course). Mr. Tapioca said he understood and offered to send it right away. TEN days later it gets here. What, did he send it by row boat? I do understand having issues with mailing things (believe me I do!) - but if it's going to be a problem to mail it, then don't offer to do it! Havoc waited for the mailman every single day for a week and finally gave up. At this point, Mr. Tapioca could have brought it with him tomorrow when he picks up the boys for his weekend. Sheesh. In addition to the hoodie, Mr. Tapioca sent Halloween cards from his parents (who are fabulous grandparents and stay very connected to the kids) and a t-shirt he bought Havoc. The t-shirt (for my EIGHT-YEAR OLD) says: I (heart) CHICKS WHO HUG TREES and shave their armpits. I kid you not! WTF?? I think it is ridiculous and inappropriate on so many levels. I don't know why I am the least bit shocked after the last time, but I am. What is he waiting for, Havoc's 9th birthday to buy the t-shirt St. Ann and I saw in New Orleans that says, "Fuck You You Fuckin' Fuck!"? (I can hear St. Ann saying back to me in an Indian accent I can't duplicate on the computer, "No, no. Nothing so offensive in this store.") Really - what is this man thinking? What is he trying to do to my kid? If the court takes my kids away from me to give them to this boundary-less dipweed full time because he is "conventional" and I am not - I will lose what little faith I have left in the system.

Phew - ok - I'm done ranting (for now). I have another post for today and it's more in the vein of pondering than bitching - but I have to go get some other writing and housework done. If I forget, remind me tomorrow to tell you how I discovered what a n00b I am.
Peace.

A Little This, A Little That

Havoc's pumpkin soup was a hit. Well, it was as much of a hit as it could be given that half the family doesn't like the taste of pumpkin! His soup was creamy and beautiful - served in the pumpkin itself. The spices were nice (paprika and coriander) and it complemented the garlic bread perfectly. The green salad was a nice touch. The kids have really gotten on board with kids' cooking night. Mayhem has the next turn and he's chosen a Rachel Ray recipe for Grilled Shrimp Scampi over Angel Hair Pasta. Yummy! (I have some teensy concerns about children using the grill so there will be major parental oversight for that part, but over all the kids are doing so much on their own - it's amazing.)

It's raining here - which the news reporters keep telling us won't bring us off of water restrictions - but still! Lovely, drippy, drenching, wet rain!! Mayhem's rain dance worked!

Hmmmm - what else to report?? I do not want to open the can of tapioca this morning. I have nothing exciting on my agenda to celebrate or agonize over. (Balance bank account, go to grocery store (again!), vacuum, scrub shower using as little water as possible - so exciting!) I have some NFL type of things to say about the changes to the draft and the Pro Bowl, but you - my five loyal readers - NONE of you like football. What is up with that?!! (If I happen to have a reader out there who does like football - send me a comment - something, anything! Let me know!) I could comment on the news (fires in SoCal - scary, be careful people!, war in Iraq - scary, be careful soldiers!, political debates - scary, be careful voters!) Training is going well with our base run being six sets of 5:30 min run to 2:00 walking. Tomorrow is a day of speed work which I suck at but secretly look forward to because it means a shorter run day. I'm building weight lifting back into the training routine. Woo hoo. Are you mesmerized yet by my thrill-a-minute lifestyle? It may not be much to blog about, but I am happier than I have ever been (minus the tapioca). I LOVE being boring this week. Count me content.
Peace.

Today Size Doesn't Matter

I have a defective mail gene. I am postally challenged. And yet today I managed to send a certified letter to my ex AND a package of these (how fun are they?!) to my sweet baby nephew, Thrasher. In addition to that, yesterday I went to the community center and threw the pigskin around with Havoc; took Mayhem to buy the perfect shoes (he's particular but also very appreciative); and found the exact right pumpkin for tonight's pumpkin soup. I graded four classes worth of worksheets in one day to help Bet AND I ate lunch at lunchtime (instead of at 3 pm when I'm so hungry I'd eat a wombat). I haven't had any soda or caffeine for a whole week. (Well - except for that one cup of hot chocolate that was mostly to warm my hands!) Still - no soda! I have to celebrate these things because I have worthiness issues. Some days I feel exhausted by the end of the day but don't feel like I've done anything important enough or productive enough to account for it. I do hundreds of small things. But so do other people. They do big things and then do small things to boot! I don't have any big things to point to as accomplishments (unless I can be allowed to point to my gargantuan babies who shave, ride bikes, do homework, and sometimes even do their own laundry). I'm not going to let that get me down though. Today I'm going to celebrate my accomplishments regardless of size and pronounce them good enough.
Peace.

Mondays Are For Lemurs

I LOVE OCTOBER! The weather is great and the football is greater! Not only did Rob Bironas win for the Titans in the last two seconds of the game with his 8th (and NFL record breaking) field goal of the game - but he also happens to be the kicker for our fantasy football team. We got 28 points - from our kicker! Yay! (Life is not so good for the Miami Dolphin fan in the family. 0 and 6. Eeek. Poor Bet. Maybe next year?)

In other fun news, Linus' mom is here to visit for a few days. She's awesome. And Dunc got a great job and has applied for a cool apartment. It's all good. Bet and I were talking about the flux since the move and she said, "I can't believe I'm saying this, but have we had any time here yet when it was just the eight of us?" This from the gal who went from living alone to insta-family. :D We also joked a bit about having a new version of the old sitcom "Eight is Enough" based on our unconventional family.

The tapioca report: I guess we're at the lowest ebb of tapioca possible right now. I'm working with him trying to negotiate a reasonable visitation schedule. I'm sure it's the calm before the storm but I'll take the calm for as long as it lasts. I sent him a very detailed letter saying exactly when the kids were out of school, what my ideas were for maximizing his visitation while minimizing the actual travel time for the children, and which specific dates would work best. As usual I spent hours and days and he spent minutes. He immediately sent me back a letter that said he thought that was great but went on to show he hadn't read what I wrote at all. He quoted the days for both Thanksgiving and Winter Break completely differently from what I had suggested. So while he says he wants all the time he can get, he actually wrote me back and cut off SIX full days of his time with the kids. I'd love the time with my kids - but why exactly is he suing me for custody when he doesn't even want the vacation time I'm willing to give him?!!!!!!!!!!! Also, he is unwilling to discuss visitation in January because as he says, "We should of had adequate time to resolve our legal custody issues by then." Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. It is infuriating to spend hours looking up exact school vacation schedules, consulting the legal orders, and thoughtfully composing a letter only to get a response that is ill-considered, half-assed, and a grammar nightmare to boot. Bleck. Still... Calm. Before. The. Storm. Soon we'll be in court and you know how much I love that.

For now, I'm all zen and enjoying the now. Maybe it's a leftover runner's high as Bet and I ran for an hour yesterday. An hour! Me! Running! We've got this plan where we're running for a certain number of minutes and then walking for two minutes, then running again. Yesterday we increased the number of sets we ran and also increased the run versus walk ratio. It was fantastic. It was the best run we've had. Maybe the Miami Half Marathon isn't a pipe dream!
Peace all!

Locusts Cooking (Part II)

Luckily for all concerned, we did not have all of the ingredients for alfredo sauce on hand last night. Instead I was served ramen and a side salad. To my utter astonishment, Chaos was the one who asked if the kids could cook more often. He wanted to make it so the kids cooked four nights a week - that way their individual turn to be in charge would come around more often. Havoc was all about it. Bug almost choked. When asked why he was against it, he said that if the kids cooked every night then we'd be eating more meals like this (as he pointed before him) and then he said, "I want a chance to eat good food sometimes." Chaos made a few stabby motions at himself to show he was wounded but everyone was cracking up. We decided to up the kids' cooking nights to twice a week - Tuesdays and Thursdays. We reiterated the rules about menus being set and grocery lists being made two days before the dinner. Chaos was such a good sport and in a fine mood, he agreed to all of it. It worries me a little about what he's planning for his next turn, but it was great to have such a lively family dinner. Not that they aren't all fairly lively - what with Eddie Izzard punchlines and all. Oh - that reminds me. This is why God invented Youtube - so I could show you our family's favorite comedian! Here:

Peace.

When The Locusts Try To Cook

For kids who eat a lot (and I mean a LOT) - my children are not very savvy when it comes to cooking. The exception here being Havoc, the eight-year old chef. It's really the other four - the ones that range in age between 12 and 16 that I'm talking about. You'd think with them being the ones closest to being out on their own and having to fend for themselves that they'd show a teensie bit of interest in the process. But you'd be wrong.

We've started taking turns cooking supper. Linus has Mondays (as that's the day he's least likely to be out of town); Bet's got Tuesdays; I've got Wednesdays; and the kids have Thursdays. The weekends are mostly fend-for-yourself - which comes as a relief after the kids' night. At first we tried to have the kids cook as a group, deciding on the menu by consensus. Normally, they're pretty good at consensus building (as it's a pretty important skill in a family of eight) but when it came to food they just sort of stared at each other hungrily. We decided to have them take turns being in charge. Accountability, task delegation, planning - all good skills to develop.

The Princessa's turn was first. She did a great job, to a point. She decided she wanted to make a variation on Havoc's stuffed shells by making them with white sauce instead of red sauce. She gave me a shopping list two days before (part of the requirements), she wrote out what each brother was going to do (although they then got together and swapped jobs), and she cooked supper. I stayed out of the kitchen entirely (also part of the requirements.) In addition to being out of the kitchen, I was out of it in general due to my amnesia horseradish. I was not watching the clock. Mayhem (the skinniest and always the hungriest) came in to my room around 7:15 and asked if they could eat supper. I told him the Princessa was in charge and if she wasn't done making dinner then he just had to wait. He told me that dinner was done - it had been sitting on the counter for 20 minutes. Where was the Ninja Princessa you ask (as did I)? She had gone back upstairs to her room to listen to music and read her book. I asked her why she hadn't served supper and she said she was waiting for me. I asked her how I was supposed to know dinner was done if she didn't tell me. She said, "I don't know." I asked her why she didn't call everyone (including me) to supper. She said, "I don't know." There is a bizarre lapse in teenage cognition. Not only that but the table wasn't set, the salad she had planned wasn't fixed, and the pasta dish was cold by the time it made it to the table - an hour later than our normal time. The Ninja Princessa had nothing to offer about her deviation from our well-established dinner routine other than, "I don't know." Bet talked me out of my tree. She was exactly right to remind me that these are precisely the challenges we want the kids to face and figure out on their own.

It's Chaos' turn tonight. It was supposed to be Havoc's next but Chaos started mouthing off about the whole process and got his turn bumped up. To say that Chaos is not quite on board with this system would be an understatement. I told him on Monday night that he needed to have a grocery list to me by Tuesday if he wanted me to get anything. I reminded him on Tuesday. Yesterday when I asked him what his menu was (and mentioned it now needed to be able to be made from ingredients on hand already since he hadn't given me a list), he told me that his plan was to make ramen noodles with alfredo sauce. If "bleck!" is the first word to come to your mind, then you are not alone. Bug thinks it sounds great, but both the Princessa and Havoc made faces of complete disdain. Bet has magically got work she has to do and won't be home. Linus is home but has just had a work call that has pretty much ruined his appetite (as if he had an appetite for ramen alfredo to begin with). Mayhem is planning ahead. He's called dibs on the leftover pizza in the fridge. I'm trying to stay out of the kitchen - but Chaos sounds pretty bossy from in here.

A conversation topic that is sure to come up at supper tonight? What is working and what is not working with this new supper plan. Am I a bad mother if I admit that I am looking forward to Havoc's turn? The dinner bell has just sounded. Pray for me.
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.

On Parties And Parenting

We had a fantastic housewarming party last Saturday. Our dear friends C is for Coffee, Salsa Man and their two kids made the drive out. Bet's mom and Karl (a troll boy) also came for the weekend (uh, separately - in case that wasn't apparent. It would be terribly odd to think of them showing up together. Karl is 6 ft 8?9?11?! - a red headed, former rugby-playing giant of a (bisexual) man and Louise is a 5'2" smart yet scrappy, gum chewing grandma also known as Ya-Ya.) Anyway, I forget how many people we'd invited to the party, but I think about 75 showed up. Food, friends, crazy loud conversation (especially from the corner of our kitchen now known as Mojito Bend) all warmed the house. Havoc had chosen to make a special appetizer for the party. He'd listed out all the ingredients the week before, made most of it the night before, and had it perfectly displayed at the head of the food table the day of. I wish I could show you a picture of his scrumptious cheddar cheese, white wine, pecan encrusted cheese ball - but I didn't take a picture of it before the party. And it was gone before I knew it. I did have C is for Coffee take a picture of the plate - scraped bare with a few forlorn crackers abandoned and adrift. Havoc was pretty darn proud of that empty plate! I personally loved that our closest friends helped us hang shelves and art work mere hours before the party. Their touch, their mark, their laughter - it's still here even though they had to leave. I think that's what a house warming is all about. (That, and Dude, if you ever need some mums, have a housewarming party! Seriously, we have more mums now than we know what to do with and they're gorgeous!)

The rest of this week has been by turns fabulous and irritating. Parenting teens is more of an emotional roller coaster than I thought possible. I thought the infant stage (with the new mom hormones, the lack of sleep, and the baby changing every day) would be the most volatile. I mean, I knew teenagers themselves were volatile and challenging but I guess I expected the process of parenting them to be an unremitting struggle - a constant slogging. It's not. It is up and down and all over the place. We've got good grades and smiling faces. We've got a bit of slyness, a nudging of the boundaries, and a wholesale trample of the rules followed by, "Wuh? What did I do?" We've got restriction and recrimination. We've got hilarity at family dinner and full participation in family movie night. We've got treat wheedling and homework frustration. We've got a first break up for the second child to date. He's ok. Not quite broken hearted. Maybe a bit confused. Apparently it was a mutual break up for no reason. Sometimes that's the way it happens. We've got a kid scratching the word "Justis" into his arm. (Clearly, we've got spelling issues too.) Decoration by Sharpie is one thing, decoration by sharp object a whole other thing. We've got a call in to the therapist. ("Oh hey, Dr. Smith - you missed something here!") We've got hugs and tears, beautiful school pictures and kids who are even more beautiful in real life. We've got memories of our own teen struggles overlapping our understanding of what our kids are thinking, doing, and saying. In short, I think we've got the usual quota of joy and terror. I could use a little less terror, but hey!
Peace.
And speaking of peace!! How about that kick ass committee in Stockholm awarding Al Gore (and the global warming group) the Nobel Peace Prize for all of their work?!! I think it is awesome and far sighted and much deserved. We have the movie "An Inconvenient Truth". We're watching it on Family Fun Night next week.
More Peace.

Advertisers Are Demented

This is weird.

Why would you want your pits to smell like Vanilla Chai? What next? Should Starbuck's jump on this trend and start their own bath and beauty line? Carmel Macchiato Antiperspirant Gel? Double latte, half-caf/decaf bath beads?!

This is weirder.


Cartoon Mucus? Why? (Please God, Linus did NOT just say he wanted a Mr. Mucus T-shirt!) Doesn't anyone else out there think it strange and oh-so-weirdly-American that not only is there a Mr. Mucus, but that he has a family and a football team?! And the oddness doesn't stop there! Have you seen that bizarre, toe fungus commercial which features an animated foot with eyeballs? EYEBALLS on a FOOT!! When the foot catching on fire is the least disturbing aspect of a commercial, perhaps that is a big fucking clue that there is something terribly amiss with the whole thing! Who in the HELL thought up that commercial? They should be shot. Dead. And you know, I can't even come up with a suitable punishment for the executive who watched that pitch and bought it. But wait. There's more. Can you believe there is an even worse commercial out there than the eyeballs-on-a-foot one? Maybe if you don't have "an eyeball thing" as my children call it, you won't think this one is worse - but still... I don't even know what the product is because I went screaming from the room. There is a camera zooming in on a black and white movie image of an eye and as the image grows you see teeth chomping (a mouth talking?) in the iris of the eye. EEEEEEEEEEK! Teeth chomping INSIDE of someone's eyeball!! I totally can't handle that. What product could possibly ever, ever be sold by an eyeball full of teeth?!!!

Don't you wonder what archaeologists (or aliens) who dig this shit up later are going to think of us?? "We don't have any skeletal evidence because eyeballs are soft tissue and are rarely preserved in fossil form, but we have recently uncovered miraculously in tact printed pictures that have knocked all of our earlier anatomical theories on their ear - or in this case, eyeball. It seems the ancients [or humans] had some way of growing eyes where and when they wanted them. We have several literary sources referring to "eyes in the back of the head" but until now we have had no hard evidence lending credence to..."

Peace.

Old Newness (And New Oldness)

So here is the entry I was fixing to post TWO WEEKS AGO when life (in the form of a silly ex-husband) intervened.

New this week:
1) Fall weather! I LOVE 50 degree nights and 75 degree days!!! Hello football weather.

2) Speaking of football, Havoc wanted to play fantasy football too so he created a team this weekend called the Gridiron Chefs. :D He jumped up and down in excitement when he got his favorite QB, Tom Brady, in the draft. He's wearing his Patriots jersey today to celebrate. (**Update is that Havoc's fantasy football team is kicking the snot out of mine and Bet's team. Butterhead.**)

3) Mayhem has a girlfriend! He told me that at the dance, 8th graders kept asking him to dance and he turned them down. I asked him why and he looked AGHAST. "I couldn't dance with them when I was there with Lisa!" Ahhhh. Because I was supposed to know that he was "there with Lisa"? I dropped him off at MAT'S house before the dance and took MAT home after the dance and all I'd heard about the girls was that business of zapping! Bet teasingly asked Mayhem if he had kissed Lisa and Mayhem said, "Never on the first date!" which was funny but also good. However, yesterday Mayhem went ice skating on what was supposed to be a "double date" of him and Lisa and then his buddy Sam and Sam's girl (who I think is Lisa's best friend.) Turns out that Sam couldn't make it and Lisa had two friends with her. Mayhem did not seem to mind spending the afternoon with three girls. (**Update is that Lisa is not only quite pretty but she's in the super gifted group at school. Cute and smart! Yay Mayhem. Only thing is, I think she's turned his brain to mush. Calls from teachers over the weekend indicate that Mayhem needs to pay a leetle more attention to school. A suggestion was made that turning in worksheets with actual work on them would bring his newly dropped grades back up. Doh!**)

4) Ridiculous emails: Mr. Tapioca Head has been sending me harassing, pathetic, crazy emails. He calls me names. He threatens me with things he's going to bring up in the "trial." Then he closes with something like, "Do not respond to this email. I will not read it. Respond only to my lawyer." So I haven't responded. THEN he starts sending me whiny, lecturing emails because I'm not answering him. My attorney told me to send this email to him (which I did):

Mr. Tapioca Head -
Unless there is an emergency affecting the children, please direct all communication to me through the attorneys.
-Lilymane

It is amazing how free I feel having sent that email. Don't get me wrong - I HATE the lawyer games. They are expensive and stupid. But since "he started it" and I have to pay lot$ just to have an attorney - it is great to know that from now on she can be my filter. I no longer dread opening my computer.

(**Update is that I was all ready to post that until I immediately got more email from my ex. Not only that, but he started sending email to MY attorney, too. She responded to him with this:

mr. tapicoa head:
it is my understanding that you are represented by the firm of bubba, redneck, and earl in this matter. since you have an attorney, it is improper for you to communicate directly with me. please do not email me directly any more. just ask your attorney to communicate and i will deal with him. if you are not represented by an attorney, then i can talk to you directly.
lilymane's kickass attorney

(Apparently I do not pay my attorney enough money to use capital letters. That must be the platinum level of representation that I can't afford. Still, lower case aside - I love my attorney.)

Do you know what Mr. Tapioca did when he received that email from my attorney? He wrote her back saying he had not meant to be improper but blah, blah, blah. He wouldn't shut up! A dozen emails later (sent to both of us) and my attorney sends him another note:

mr. tapioca head:
please stop emailing me. it is improper and inappropriate, as i have already told you. i will not read what you write. if you have something to communicate about this case, please direct it to your attorney, who can then get in touch with me.
lilymane's kickass (and pissed off) attorney

Take one guess what the man did! One. Guess. If you guessed that he EMAILED HER BACK then you have begun to comprehend the vast expanses of my ex's inability to respect anyone's boundaries. Would it surprise you to learn that at one point he was TEXTING me trying to get me to agree to his proposed visitation plans? What did he expect back, do you think? A text saying, "ok u get kids when u want & dont 4get Rx info"? I don't know about you, but in my world text messages are for things like, "Will be 10 min late. Sorry." NOT for discussing issues that are in the process of being contested in court! The man is beyond irritating.

His new and completely passive aggressive strategy is to send an email detailing how he wants things to be and then to conclude with "If I don't hear from you, I will assume this is all ok with you," which makes me want to pluck out his eyeballs. Does he think that strategy is going to work? When he shows up at the airport and the children don't get off the plane, do you think he'll whine to the ticketing agent, "But she didn't write back and say she objected to taking the children out of school to fly them to me so I assumed she'd just do it." As if he hadn't already been a pain in the ass enough for four exes, he has changed jobs (and phone numbers and health insurance for the kids) AGAIN. That makes seven times (although Linus insists it's eight times) in six years. And again, he's playing games about getting the information to me. i could care less about his address but I found out the health insurance was no longer valid when I couldn't refill Havoc's prescription for asthma medicine. My child needs this medicine to help him BREATHE! I get emails without ceasing concerning matters of Mr. Tapioca's convenience but not a bit of communication about matters vital to the health and well-being of our child (in spite of my lawyer asking his lawyer for it, etc, etc.) And that is waaaay more update than any of us wanted, isn't it?**)

So maybe now you can see why I haven't been posting? I've been trying to spare you the rant that I knew would spring forth the minute I got to typing. I also have to admit, I've spent as little time on the computer as possible in the past two weeks in a futile attempt to avoid the tapioca tide myself. That's been a little bit like throwing the baby out with the bath water as I've really missed my blog and it hasn't stopped the insanity of my ex. I need a new coping mechanism that's lighter on the avoidance and maybe heavier on the butter and salt. Butter and salt make everything better, don't they?
Peace.

PS - Mojo requests! Please send good thoughts to St. Ann and John the Magnificent this week as they have their own tapioca to deal with. And send some healing vibes down South to my buddy Steve's mom. Peace, peace, peace to everyone!

Everybody Clap Your Hands

McD's commercials have sucked bigtime in recent times, but this one makes up for it. Best EVAH!

Hally Podder

All four of the Princessa's guests arrived within three minutes of each other. That, in and of itself, was amazing. More impressive was the geometric progression of the decibel level. Even at that, I think we were spared slightly as their voices screeched beyond the range of human hearing and into bat-intercept-only frequencies. Mayhem was horrified. (You'd think he at least would have been prepared since he's the one in school all day with them.) He looked at me and said his ears were bleeding. Then he nattered on about the signs of impending apocalypse. "The darkness approaches! What's that I hear (with my bleeding eardrums)? The sound of locusts?" I took pity on him and took him to the dance early. (He had a fabulous time but right now I'm all about the Princessa so you'll just have to content yourselves with that cameo appearance in today's post.) Duncan met the girls and immediately declared that he would take Chaos and Bug to the game store. They were gone in under five minutes which is impressive speed for a mini herd who as individuals take about 15 minutes to get out the door. As far as kids go, that left only Havoc and his buddy Brandon exposed to the deafening giggles of the Harry Potter fan club. The little guys are smart as well as cute. They ate their pizza and scooted upstairs to build a "Lego community." I'm tempted to say we heard nary a peep from them - but how could we have over the noise the girls were making?! They might have been peeping away and we would never have known. With everyone thus arranged and Linus out of town, it was just Bet and I on the front lines.

I remember being 12. I have distinct memories of my father covering his ears and leaving the room when I had friends over. I thought he was weird. Now? I have sympathy for him. Somewhere in the last couple of decades my ears have lost the ability to interpret piercing shrieks as something pleasant. Bet and I did discover that putting a couple of walls and a door or two between us and the girls baffled the sound to bearable levels. Actually, by some trick of the acoustics, we were able to distinguish their words better from two rooms away. It reminded me of Harry's finally being able to understand the golden egg's clue when he opened it underwater. Then again we had Harry Potter on the brain. As would you, had you been around these girls. It is ASTOUNDING how much HP they can pack into one evening. There was not a moment free of HP. They sang songs (and chants and epic poems) - each about some facet of the Harry Potter universe. Bet could not stop asking me, "WHERE do they learn this stuff?" To say the girls "watched" the Harry Potter movies might be mislabeling what they were doing. They played scenes, replayed scenes, skipped to another part, switched disks, jumped to special features, went back to the original movie, had a shouting match analyzing certain lines, dissected each character's appearance, flung spells at each other and at the people on screen, etc. It would not have been a pleasant viewing experience for the less than thoroughly indoctrinated. One of the girls brought a pirated copy of one of the movies from China. They played that one with the English subtitles on just to laugh at the mistranslations. I had to laugh with them at the one scene I saw. I don't know nearly as much about HP as these girls, but I'm fairly certain that there is no scene where Ron's mom is discussing yogurt with Hally Podder.

It was a fun, but long night. I woke up several times to check on the girls. At 2:30 a.m., they had turned off the movies but were still up talking. (Duh. Slumber party.) I inadvertently interrupted a game of "Would You Rather." (Do boys play this game? One person poses the question, "Would you rather kiss soandso or whositwhatsit?" and everyone has to state their preference. No fair saying something like, "Would you rather kiss Mr. Bean or Daniel Craig?" The choice can either be between awful and repulsive or handsome and charming. In my day you got extra points if you could make the first names the same, e.g. Tom Cruise or Tom Selleck, Sean Connery or Sean Penn.) As I shut the door behind me, I heard one of the girls say, "Ok, I've got one. Would you rather kiss Dobby or Goyle?" Bwa ha ha.

Moving to a new state is such a leap of faith (or a crap shoot - take your pick.) It could be the best thing you've ever done or it could be disastrous. My kids are resilient in so many ways, but of course I've worried about their adjusting. My worries on that score are fading. I love that my sweet, smart, goofy kids are attracting sweet, smart, goofy friends. I love that they're having fun and fitting in. If my daughter starts kissing house elves, we'll reassess, but until then - I'm thinking we're on the "best thing ever" end of the scale.
Peace.

Yes. No. Crap.

This is Mayhem's new answer for everything. Whether I ask about his homework being done or whether he remembered his laundry, this is the answer I get. It's an enthusiastic, "Yes!" followed by a hurried, "No" (sometimes preceded by a, "Wait!" or a telling, "Uh,") and then a sincerely sorrowful, "Crap." He SO wants to please but then he wants to be honest and then he feels bad both about being scattered and also about the lecture/extra chores he knows he's about to receive. It cracks me up every time he does it. It's a succinct summation of Life in the Mayhem Zone.

I might as well be all about Mayhem today and tell you about his weekend plans: He's going to the dance.

Despite the ridicule from Chaos and maybe to get away from the Princessa and her four friends who are having a HP movie marathon here instead of going to the dance, Mayhem is going stag to the first middle school dance of the year. I hear one of the reasons he's going is because he's been "zapped" so many times. Zapping is some business (game? political process?) involving having someone's name written on your hand along with a time. If the person whose name is inscribed on your flesh looks at you before the appointed time, then you (or they?) are "zapped." Somehow the zapping results in someone being asked to dance - although again it is not clear whether it is the zapper or the zappee who has to do the asking. There are many involved (think Byzantine) rules governing the whole system from what constitutes an actual "look" on down to what color inkpen must be used before lunch. I have no idea how the names and times are chosen and parceled out. And I'm not going to ask any more questions about it, because frankly, the answers make my head spin. If you want to start this program at your school, you must get the details from Mayhem. He is apparently a total stud muffin because he's been zapped a record seven times even before the day of the dance! He forgot to have me sign a French test (on which he got a 101%!!), he can't find either the charger for his cellphone or the headphones for his iPod (both of which are very important to him) - but he had picked out his clothes for the dance by 6 a.m this morning and has asked me to buy him a brand new comb so his hair will be just right for the occasion.

Mayhem: where middle school and ADD collide in the most marvelous fashion.

Peace.

Chipmunk Snorting

My dog currently has his nose wedged into a small hole in the patio bricks where he once saw a chipmunk flee. He is huffing and puffing - his sides pumping in and out. He is a dog-shaped bellows. He picks his head up, turns to me (clearly gauging my patience level with his antics), and then quickly stuffs his fluffy, leaf-covered snout back in the hole. He wheezes a bit then turns that into a short series of fake sneezes. Then he goes back to huffing and puffing. He will continue this bizarre little ritual for as long as I will let him. WHY? What on earth is he doing? He cannot possibly think he's going to catch a chipmunk this way. Does he think he will learn more about them if he just keeps sniffing and sneezing between the bricks? Canine behavior is so perplexing to me.

Walking to school yesterday, we discovered the unmistakable sign of rabbits. Bet said, "Be careful not to let Wasabi near. He'll eat it." Rabbit poo?!! My dog eats rabbit poo? I am 100% positive that in the little guide book on Wheaten Terriers, where they give you a short quiz to determine if owning a Wheaten is for you, it does NOT ask if you can handle a dog who eats bunny pellets!

I'm beginning to wonder if all that Bounce** has gone to Wasabi's brain. Trying to inhale chipmunks and consume rabbit droppings does not seem normal to me. I know he's a dog, but there has to be a weirdness line somewhere, even for dogs. I'm pretty sure my poor, fluffy dog has crossed it! Anyone know a good therapist for dogs in the greater Raleigh area?
Peace.

**I would link to one of the several posts about our dog snorting Bounce laundry sheets, but blogger is not being cooperative. Word to the wise - do not let your dog near the Bounce. Before you know it you will be fending off weird canine addictions right and left!

It's Gettin' Hot In Here

Hotness Story #1:
The Princessa has made a bunch of new friends. The only problem? They all think Mayhem is "hot." It TOTALLY squicks the Princessa out. Mayhem thinks it's hilarious. All of last week the running gag in the family was, "Is it hot in here? Oh it's Mayhem." He rolled with it and dished it back saying things like, "Don't touch that pan. It's hot like me. Oh yeah." Middle school is such an interesting time.

Hotness Story #2:
In an encounter with a totally different kind of hotness - Havoc got a chance to tour a real, working restaurant kitchen. We'd gone to the mall to sign him up for Cub Scouts and we passed this great kitchen store. We ducked in to gaze admiringly at all the cool utensils and pans. We were about to leave when in walked a man in a chef's jacket (Chef Benjamin, according to the elegant embroidery on his chest) speaking in French to a man in a suit. They began comparing glassware. Havoc's eyes were THIS BIG. "Mama, that's the first chef I've ever seen who wasn't animated." The chef caught Havoc's stare and came over to speak with us. I explained that Havoc wanted to grow up to be a chef and this was the first time he'd seen a real chef in person. Chef Benjamin said, "And I am French. A real French chef." Havoc said he'd just started studying French that week and offered a tentative, "Bonjour." Chef Benjamin smiled and quickly spoke to the man in the suit, who we learned was named Alex. Alex looked at his watch and nodded yes. Chef Benjamin bent down and asked Havoc if he wanted to take a tour of a real kitchen. Havoc's smile could not possibly have gotten bigger as he said he'd LOVE to. Alex took us down the way to a gorgeous, exotic fusion restaurant. We saw the sushi kitchen and the experimental kitchen where the chef was developing his new recipe for tiramisu. We met the dishwasher (=the heart of the kitchen) and the pastry chef who was making expresso cookies in a mixer that looked just like our Kitchen Aid would if it had been raised in Chernobyl. We met the sous chef and saw the pizza ovens. Havoc was following Monsieur Alex's directions exactly - stepping carefully and keeping his hands tucked close. We got near the grills and it was hot. Monsieur Alex told Havoc that he should be careful but not fearful of the heat. If he really wanted to be a chef then he needed to know that kitchens were HOT. "If you can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen." Havoc assured Mr. Alex that he could take it! It was such an unexpected treat. They were so nice and encouraging - offering my child a once-in-a-lifetime experience that he will remember forever (no matter what he ends up becoming professionally.) Havoc could not wait to get home and tell everyone about it. When I kissed him goodnight, he told me his face hurt from smiling so hard. He also said that he really believed that one day he'd be a chef. "Mama, I have this feeling inside me that is so big. I can't imagine it ever going away." I told him that if that fire continued to burn in his belly then he'd be one of the most wonderful chefs ever. I also told him that if his fire burned dimmer later and he didn't want to be a chef professionally - he could continue to enjoy cooking for himself and friends for his whole life. It was a rewarding and wonderful skill and I'd support him at every level. He hugged my neck and said, "Cool, mom. But I just know this is what I'll do." And he fell asleep smiling.
We're writing a thank you note to Chef Benjamin and Mr. Alex this afternoon. I'm going to have to let Havoc do it mostly by himself because I cannot for the life of me figure out how to convey his smile in words - but I bet Havoc can do it.
Peace.

Radio Silence

For once I've been quiet because I've been busy with fun things! We've had meet the teacher nights and family dinners and Eureka watching and - just fun things. I'll say more soon - but right now I have to say

It's time for NFL FOOTBALL!!!

Not only do I love football - but it's the Colts! How great is that???! This is absolutely my very favorite time of year!
Peace and happy football to all!

Conversation About Conversation

It's been an interesting week for conversation here in Lilyville. What do I say? What don't I say? How do I say what I mean? What are the kids saying? What do they mean by it? After more unpleasantness whereby my ex told me that the letter from his attorney threatening to try to take my parenting rights away was a "compromise" - I decided I needed to tell my kids that there was more going on than whether they wanted to live here or there. I've thought about every single word I've said. I strive to make sure I give as much accurate information to the kids as possible with as little emotional stress as possible. It's hard work - especially knowing how little Mr. Tapioca Head thinks before he speaks (or sends me email.) After talking to my lawyer (who sounds just like Terri Gross from Fresh Air!), I decided that my response to the threats is to follow the protocol in our divorce documents. I'm going to try to go to mediation over this issue even though I'm fairly sure it will be as useless as it was for the previous issues. I'm going to ask for more conversation.

As much as I don't think mediation has a snowball's chance in h-e-double hockey sticks of succeeding in this case, I have come to realize that deep down I have a surprising amount of faith in words as a means to resolve problems. Aside from the fact that our document REQUIRES the attempt, I want to try one last time to talk through our parenting disagreements. The talking turns out to be important to me. I lie awake thinking of what was said, what needs to be said. I find comfort in the idea that the mediation process is out there (and required as a first step) in this "battle" over what's best for my children. I pay very close attention to what my guys are saying and what they're not. I've been re-reading emails and processing what's said there. I've thought about why I choose certain words and what the emotional connotation is of the words that are being hurled at me. The more I've thought about the words, the communication process - the more centered and hopeful I've felt. I see (hear, think about) words differently than I have before. It's a bit like when you take an art class and the teacher shows you how to look at the world in terms of light and shadow, line and hue - instead of the way you're used to seeing things. On some days I've thought about one word over and over until it begins to sound bizarre and mean nothing. Other days I've turned over phrases and instructions, interested to see how sometimes clarity arrives out of the blue. I don't know that it will amount to anything concrete - but I have to be fully me as I wade through this crap. Being fully me means being aware and intentional and committed to the communication process for as long as possible.

And it's not just the legal stuff that's got me thinking about language and communication. It is exciting to live in a new place. It is amazing to me how much the "cultural dialect" changes just moving one state over! My kids seem to be dealing with the newness remarkably well. They're finding friends - many of whom are newcomers too. With the university so close, there is always a large and diverse transient aspect to the community. In my kids' schools, one fifth of the students are "new kids" which definitely takes the stigma away. My kids have new friends from Russia, San Francisco, Birmingham (the one in Alabama AND the one in England), and Boston. In addition to new friends from new places, the kids are navigating new schools - each with its own lingo. The primary wing, the kiss and go circle, the cafe, the Seven Aces - all of these are new and important labels my kids had to decipher on the fly.

I'm not as good at deciphering as they are. I had lunch with Havoc yesterday. Havoc's new buddies Tommy and Ben were pointing out the kids in the class and telling me everyone's names. Ben was born here and Tommy, though a transplant, moved from New England a whole year ago and is quite the expert now. Tommy is diligently passing his hard won knowledge on to Havoc, and by extension to me. He took it on himself to make sure I learned about everyone in Ms. A's third grade class. The row we were sitting on had an Erin (from England - been here a week), a Sophie, a Brandon (from LA), a Zin yu (from here), a Noemi, and a Zoe. It was hard to hear over the din so Tommy had to repeat some of the names a couple of times for me. One name in particular was hard for me to understand - Themeena? He said it again and again - finally getting out of his seat and coming around the table (which is against the rules) to say clearly right into my ear, "She's THE MEAN ONE - Havoc needs to stay away from her. She thumps people." I couldn't help but laugh. (And of course I told Havoc that if that girl ever thought about thumping him, he was to talk to a teacher immediately.) I never did learn her real name.

To add yet another current to the communication stream - this week we've gone from zero to four foreign languages being studied in our household. Chaos is taking German, the Princessa Latin, Mayhem and Havoc both French, and Bug (who is coming back on Saturday to live with us permanently!) is studying Japanese with Linus. Havoc came home yesterday and announced, "La fenetre!" as he pointed to a window. And "la poubelle" as he threw his snack wrapper in the trash can. Chaos can count (to 9) and say (most of) the alphabet in German. We are quite the melting pot family. We're cross contaminating each other with all of our separate new experiences. I love it. I love that it's deepening and enlivening our family tongue.

I think all families develop a pidgin to some extent. Families have nicknames, inside jokes, and funny references to family events that might be hard for outsiders to follow or understand. The patter changes with the ebb and flow of shared experiences. Our family patois is rich and has roots in Harry Potter, Dungeons and Dragons, sci-fi books, and unusual board games. Recently we have all watched (over and over) the stand up comedian Eddie Izzard's show "Dress To Kill". (He's an actor in films like Mystery Men and Ocean's 13 - but it's his stand up that we love.) He is bilingual and did an encore of his show in French. In the show itself he has several bits about studying languages. His comedy seems to magically fit our family's ethos right now. (Although it's not really a family values kind of gig. It's definitely pushing things to have Havoc watch it - just so you know. I semi-justify it to myself by talking to him about the inappropriate bits. I also console myself with the fact that no matter what I did, his big brothers would quote it to him - so I may as well not leave him out.) If you had been at our supper table last night you would have heard an amazing array of out-of-context Eddie Izzard punchlines like "Of which there are five'', "Were you surprised? I was surprised!", "The City - uhhuhh", "Cake or Death?" and "Love all this!" We were in stitches. You probably would have smiled and nodded and looked for the closest way out.

The laughter helped. Everyone had a line to throw in and everyone laughed. Laughing together helped open everyone up to talk about their days. It helped us feel closer to each other. It just helped everything. I wanted to bottle a bit of it to save for a rainy day. While laughter can't be bottled, it occurs to me that one of the great thing about words is that they can be shared, remembered, saved, and used to evoke past good times. I think the next time one of my kids is gloomy, I'll offer them "Cake or Death?" (I think sharing a real smile is worth possibly having to explain myself to the family court judge!)
Peace.

Beginnings

Blogging has gotten harder because I don't want to spend my time whining and wailing about my ex - but it's very much on the surface for me. I work so hard not to let any of it out in front of the kids. Then I sit down to blog and that's what spills out onto the page. Thank heavens for the delete key! The trouble is I spend an hour typing and deleting and end up with a scant paragraph that is pathetic - mostly explaining why I don't have a real post!

I thought I'd figure out a good system over the weekend - but as you can see - nada.
I thought this morning - with the first day of school to tell you about and Bug having to leave and Mayhem having his 13th birthday and all - that there'd be plenty of Tapioca free post fodder. But everything, everything here is slimed.

What I do have free and clear is thanks. Thank you for the helpful comments and support. I can't tell you how much it's helped. I can feel it all sinking in and beginning to be processed.
Perhaps by this afternoon I'll have gotten my filters in place enough to post a real post. I have an interview for a part time job today - that should be blogworthy!
Peace.

Back To Basics

I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but I have a mutant adrenaline system. When I get triggered, my adrenal glands make enough adrenaline for twelve emergencies. We're talking serious overkill. It's all well and good to have a burst of energy when you perceive a threat. I can see how that evolved. I can picture my ancestress minding her own business gathering berries or what have you when out of nowhere lumbers some huge predator. If she can get it in gear in a nanosecond to leap over the river or hot foot it away, she's got a much better chance of surviving long enough to pass her genes down through the ages until they land smack dab in the middle of me. The problem is that I seem to have gotten my entire generation's share of instant energy production and I can't figure out how to share the wealth. It's like having 100 fabulously cooked lobsters and no refrigerator or friends. You will be sick to death long before you manage to eat them all, they will stink up the place unless you get rid of what you can't use, and you will still be hungry tomorrow.

I'm at DEFCON 14, adrenaline pouring out of my ears, hands shaking, all senses ramped up - hyperfocused on everything and there's nothing immediate I can do. What I'm facing is a legal struggle that could take weeks if not months. I'm here to tell you that adrenaline is not a useful substance for a weeks or months long effort!! Even finding a lawyer is a process drawn out over days as I make calls, leave messages, and wait for return calls. There is only so much Googling that adrenaline will let me do. Cleaning is the same. It works for a while but my insides know that scrubbing the shower is not a concrete step towards being done with this threat. Hanging out with the kids is great because it grounds me in what I want (ie my family to get to stay together) and it uses up the right kind of energy to pay attention to them (as they are usually all going in different directions at once.) Soothing though it may be for me, there is only so much mom teenage boys should have to put up with. It should also be noted that hanging out with your kids involves doing what THEY want to do. There is only so much Job For Cowboy I can listen to or Full Metal Alchemist I can watch before it's not so soothing anymore.

What I'm learning (or re-learning or remembering) is that converting all this adrenaline overdrive into a steadier, more long-term energy base takes being kind to myself. In some ways it seems counter-intuitive to focus on myself when what I want to do is pour my whole being out into fixing the "problem". But when I pay close attention to my daily care, when I skip nothing - that's when I feel more centered, calmer, quieter and stronger inside. It's not that I think washing my face, taking my vitamins, and pumicing my heels is a secret recipe guaranteeing my success. It's just that the little routines give me structure and out of that structure comes the energy I use to follow the bigger routines that in turn fuel the care I provide for my family. Being thorough and gentle in small ways gives me confidence and clarity in big ways. Amazingly mundane stuff that. But magic nonetheless.
Peace.

Does ANYONE Ever Answer These?

This is the text from some spam I got today that cracks me up:

Hi, my dear friend I've been searching for a man of my dreams,
of my desire and I indeed hope that you are that person, and I have somehow fallen hopelessly and undeniably, though virtually in love with you. To be honest, I never thought I would ever utter those words, but now, they come forth effortlessly and with great sincerity. I'll be forever grateful to you if you show me just how shallow my life was. At last, I have a chance to give it depth and purpose. It would probably be better to tell you this during meeting in person, eyes to eyes, but I knew that the proper words would escape me. I wrote you this letter instead. Please answer me at ...

Why, why, why do people write and send this crapola? Of course that line of thought leads to the question of why does anyone read it? And here I am someone who read. I didn't open it though. (I didn't inhale?) My preview was on and this drivel was the email the cursor was on so I saw the first lines even as I was deleting. Does that at all protect my computer from getting worms or viruses or whatever? But that's yet another side issue. My main point is what is the purpose of these? How could anyone fall for it or find anything interesting enough to click the link? Surely it's code. It made me think back to when raves used to be held in different places - warehouses and such - and you'd have to find the address by putting together seemingly random info from a couple of different band posters that were stapled all over the city. (Um, and in case you are wondering - I had friends who were cool enough to know how to do all that. On my own, I'm sure I not only wouldn't have understood how to decipher the address - but I wouldn't have even known what a rave was.) Anyway - I figure this stuff is just some scattershot process to get people to porn sites - but for the life of me I can't imagine why anyone would go to the trouble of writing, sending, datamining for addresses, risking getting caught, etc. Where is the payoff - for anyone??
Mystery.

Pep Talk For Myself

I will not be getting any of these when we finish up school supplies shopping tonight. Maybe I'm wired differently than other parents, but if I truly felt like my kid would need one then I wouldn't be able to let them go to school - ever. Am I an ostrich? I know how random and unpredictable violence has gotten. Of course I think about Columbine and Virginia Tech. I just can't help but think that the solutions that lead to safety and peace for our children are not down the path of better defensive armament.

This week is filled with new student orientations, placement tests, and meet the teacher nights. I keep typing and erasing what I want to say about this. We had a short family meeting with the kids to get organized about the week and to say that we'd found out Mr. Tapioca was no longer moving here and that he was suing for custody. We told the kids that when they felt like sharing we wanted to hear how they felt. We had to make some decisions and certainly wanted to take their thoughts/feelings into consideration. I'm sure I'll hear more as I have more one on one time with my guys this week but it's hard. Mostly it's hard to see my kids now torn about investing themselves here. Chaos got home from the time with dad and didn't want to look at his schedule to see what classes he got. Havoc (the 8 year old) told me last night while we were waiting for the muffins to bake, that since I'd gotten to have him for the weeks and Dad had only gotten the weekends for the past six years, then he thought maybe he wanted to live with dad for a while. Very interesting to me that Havoc quoted the six year part. He doesn't track time like that. He's never once shown an awareness of how long his dad and I have been divorced. It was hard to hear him parrot his dad's type of reasoning. I let him keep talking and he began to sound more like himself - trying to find a solution, trying to put things together one way and then another. He told me it was hard - he didn't want to have to choose because really, he wanted to choose both. He said part of him wished dad and I hadn't gotten divorced so we could all live together still. Then he said that wouldn't work because he'd miss Linus. He said he'd still have gotten to see Bet (as she's known them all their lives.) He finished by saying he didn't know what to decide.

I told him that I needed him to understand some very important things - the first one being he never had to "choose" one parent over the other. He could say where he wanted to live, he could say how he felt - but he didn't ever have to make a choice of one over the other. He gets to love his parents as much as he wants no matter what the living arrangements are - and that none of this custody stuff changed how much we loved him. I explained that I needed to know how he felt because that informed my decisions, but that he didn't have to make any decisions, the decisions were for the grown ups to make. He said, "Yeah the judge." I told him I still hoped his dad and I could work this out without a judge but if we couldn't then yes, a judge would have to decide for us. My peacemaker middle child, Mayhem said whatever happened would be ok with him.

Interestingly, Mayhem just came in to snuggle and talk to me. God, I love my kids. They are so ... good. I keep reminding myself how lucky we are. This custody stuff sucks. I feel threatened. I do not want my kids taken away from me. I believe with all my heart that they are better off with us because we know how to be present, how to build family, how to help them with school and how to teach them life skills. Mr. Tapioca hasn't yet been able to maintain any of that even in the time with the boys he has now. He talks a good game - but work always trumps family for him. I can't imagine how he thinks he'd be able to do all that needs to be done in daily life with the boys. But for all that - even if the "worst" case happens and I lose in court - it has to be remembered that my kids are not in a war zone; they are not doing drugs or in trouble with the law; they are not being abused and molested. And in addition to all the bad things that aren't happening to them, they are, at heart, naturally sweet guys! They will be good men. Even if this patch for our family is rocky, they will be good men.

That helps. Some. I think the more I remember it, the more it will help. I had NO IDEA that parenting would require learning to give myself pep talks. Feel free to give me advice on how to do it better! I'm not at all sure I've got the hang of it.
Peace.

When Not To Bike To The Beach

Our bike trips seemed to be plagued with extreme weather. Last year we chose to bike in Upstate New York and Canada thinking to avoid the heat. Sadly two of the seven days we biked were the hottest on record there - and incidentally some 10 - 15 degrees hotter than home! Then in April Bet faced record breaking cold temperatures while biking in the South. I don't know why we didn't expect the 104 degree day we had on our first day biking to the beach! I was done after two days but Bet biked the 73 miles on the last (and coolest day) to finish on a very strong note. Here are some images from the trip:

Bet and I checking our gear just before take off.

Fluffy dog saying goodbye to Mama.

Fluffy dog not so fluffy anymore.

Wasabi barked at the waves and tried to bite them. I wish I'd been able to get a picture of him when he'd only gotten his legs wet and the rest of him was still dry. He looked like a cotton ball with chicken legs. Later when his face was soaked and his beard hanging all bedraggled, he plunked his chin down into the sand and pulled it back up again - with sand dreads dangling from his chin. We burst out laughing which made him run around some. All in all it was a fun trip to the beach. (I'll gloss over the part where Linus, the Princessa, Bug and Bet all stayed out in the sun between 12 and 4 without enough sun screen on. They are all peeling now. I'm peeling too - but if I hadn't sat under an umbrella back in the state park headquarters for those four hours, I'd probably still be in the hospital with sunstroke.) The boys should be home tomorrow and school starts in a week. Summer is coming to a close. This time of year is both sad and exciting to me. This year it might end up being more of both of those things. I'll try not to be a bore about it here on Lilymania, but I just got a certified, return-receipt letter. (I hate those fuckers. They are never good.) This one was from my ex's new lawyer saying that not only has my ex decided not to move, but he's decided to sue me for custody of my children. Soooo pleasant, that. I'm hoping he brings my kids back to me as scheduled tomorrow. I'm hoping I won't whine and carry on here. But I might. It helps me process. Hope the summer is closing out nicely for everyone. I'm off to see Order of the Phoenix a second time.
Peace.

Shopping Carts And Bicycles

I don't know what it says about our shopping habits that we have discovered the following since the move:
-You can buy caskets online from Costco.
-You have to be careful in the freezer section of the grocery store lest you end up with these instead of the ones for kids. (By the by, do you know what national holiday August 2nd was? Random, I know. Also? I missed it. Wasabi didn't though! He celebrated with his new favorite treat.)
-Here broccoli is more expensive (in a price per pound kind of way) than steak. Linus freaked out a little bit about that.
-Feeding ten children dinner at a baseball game takes almost all nine innings. Baseball fan that I am (not), I think this is the exact right proportion of funnel cakes, cotton candy, and hot dogs to strikes, balls, and conferences at the pitcher's mound. As an added bonus, you get to say things to the kids like, "Stop touching your uvula!" This won't stop them from daring each other to do weird things in public, but it will ensure that the other baseball fans scoot over to give your group a wide berth. You should try it sometime. Of course, if you happen not to have ten kids of your own, you could maybe borrow some of mine. They're the four on the back row and the one in front on the left. You'll have to talk to St. Ann about borrowing the other five.

Although now might be a good time to ask, because she could use a break! On her drive back to PA, she ended up with a scarily high fever from mastitis. Instead of staying in bed (or going to the hospital!), the crazy girl went to her job interview on Monday. Sure hope she gets a job she wants that bad! Send some good mojo her way.

Finally, we're leaving tomorrow morning to bike to the beach. Yes, it's 103 degrees here. Bet and I have realized that we cannot possibly plan a big bike trip without the weather gods freaking out. What with record high temperatures for us in Canada and NY last summer and record low ones over Spring Break - we've come to accept that we're doomed to bike in extremes. If you have any mojo left over after sending some to St. Ann, you could send the remainder out into the Atlantic to make sure we don't have a surprise hurricane or something.

Peace.

Going Postal (By Way Of The DMV)

Postal Thing One: I went to the post office in Tennessee before we left and got a "relocation packet" chock full of completely useless crap. It had thirty-seven coupons I didn't want and only one change of address form when it turns out only the most unblended of families can manage with just one. Even though there is a check box you can mark to indicate that you want the address change to apply to the whole family, it doesn't do diddly for you if your family members happens to have different last names. We were three forms short. I had squillions of errands to run and dammit, I had already marked the post office off the list! Grrrrr. I had no idea how to get everything done. I had to get immunization records for all the kids, their school transcripts and report cards, the dog's vet records, the HIPA (are there two P's?) forms to release my medical records, forms to have Havoc's gifted program qualifications transferred, and so on and so forth. Then I was told by some helpful soul that you can change your address with the post office online and have your mail forwarded immediately. Hurray! Or rather, it would have been "Hurray!" if we'd been able to do anything online, but some dipweed at the cable company disconnected our internet two days early. Grrrrr. When we could get online (in East Asheville, halfway through the move), guess what we found out? You CAN change your address online if you have a credit card in each name and are willing to pay a dollar per change. Even if I were willing to pay the stupid dollar fees - I don't have credit cards in my children's names! Duh! And grrrrrr.

What with a house to buy, two ginormous trucks to unload, ceiling high stacks of boxes to unpack, kids to care for, and people to feed in the midst of it all, I will admit that it took me a couple of days to get myself down to my new local post office. I'm such a slacker!! I filled out all the forms and handed them to the nice lady. (Nice here being a euphemism for scowling bitch.) I asked her about the online address change process. It seemed to me that not being able to change your children's addresses is a drawback to the system, so maybe I'd missed something. She explained (while rolling her eyes to indicate what a moron I was) that the credit card requirement prevented terrorism and identity theft. The system protected postal patrons from having strangers submit false address changes. Ok. I then handed her four cards where I had filled out my children's names at the top and then printed and signed my name (which in no way matches that of my children) at the bottom. Did she bat an eye? Did she ask to see my ID or any type of proof that it was my children for whom I was submitting address changes? No and no. Apparently terrorists and identity thieves are totally stymied by the online credit card obstacle and never, ever think to use the paper forms. Being ever so helpful, the nice lady snarled at me for not filling out the other side. Er, other side? There was one long blank with something like "Address of Post Office" written underneath. No explanation. Had I realized I was supposed to have written something there, I still wouldn't have known what to put without asking. Ms. Snarlyface gave a huffy puffy sigh and explained that OBVIOUSLY I had to write the name of the city from which I had moved because my mail was still there, not here. In the four seconds it took me to fill in those blanks, she managed to add, "You know, most people do this BEFORE they move." So pleasant. I wanted to klonk her on the head with the two tons of paperwork I did manage to get done BEFORE I moved.

Postal Thing Two: Our mailbox is attached to our house, not on the street. It came that way. For the first few days after we unpacked, we got mail. Not a lot and mostly junk, but we got mail. Then for a few days we got nothing. Zilch. Those few days happened to coincide with the arrival of our fabulous guests (and their two minivans - which is the relevant piece of information vis a vis the mail although we didn't know it at the time.) I wasn't particularly worried about the lack of mail, but Bet was. She's a very orderly person and the empty mailbox with no explanation was driving her crazy. While the rest of us were entertaining ourselves by inventing strange and unlikely reasons for dearth of mail, Bet marched down to the post office for the official word. The post office was holding our mail. Our pull-through driveway had not been so pull-through due to the five cars in it. At the post office they said that the mailman should have left us a note explaining the situation. And he did. Look. This is the note the mailman left us:

Am I the only one who thinks it is absurd that the official explanation of why we had no mail delivery is a note scrawled upon a piece of mail that the mailman REFUSED TO DELIVER? This piece of mail (from my bank and clearly marked "Time dated material - response required") was mixed in the pile with all the other mail being held. PO can stand for pissed off and for post office. Coincidence? I think not. Be that as it may, the Post Office is the model of convenience and efficiency compared to the Department of Motor Vehicles. Ask me how I know.

DMV Thing One: Linus, The Ninja Princessa, Chaos, Mayhem, Havoc, and I spent three hours at the DMV today. The children needed to get state photo ID's (required for air travel now, even for kids) and Linus and I needed to change our licenses from TN to NC. The idea behind the DMV process is that there is a triage desk at the front where they assign you a number based on what you're there for. Driver's test? Your number is B233. License renewal? Your number is A111. Anybody need a study booklet? Here you go. Bing, bang, boom.

For us? Not so bing, bang. In three hours we only managed to get the kids' cards. Linus and I have to go back in two weeks for ours. We stood in the line to get a number for more than forty minutes before the line even moved. We'd been there about an hour and fifteen minutes before we got to the front. When we did make it to the triage nazi we were told we hadn't brought enough documentation to get our licenses today. Even though Linus and I both had our old licenses, our birth certificates, our passports, our social security cards, the deed to our new house, and our insurance cards - we couldn't get our licenses transferred because we did not have the declarations page from our car insurance packet. Fine, we can come back. The boys, however, are getting on a plane tomorrow morning at 8 am and need their cards today. The DMV woman (definitely kin to the post office matron) went through the paperwork we needed for the kids.
"Birth certificates?"
"Check."
"Social security cards?"
"Check."
"Proof of residency?"
"Proof of residency? The deed to our house?"
"Are they listed on it?"
"On the deed to our house?! No. But we're provably their parents and we have our custody papers with us and our names are on the deed."
"No, that's not good enough. We need something with their names on it."
"Like what?"
"Utility bill, credit card statement, that kind of thing."
"For the KIDS?? They don't have credit cards and their names aren't on the utilities!"
"What about the lease? Kids have to be listed on leases."
"We just told you. We moved two weeks ago from Tennesse straight into the house we bought. No leasing."
"You'll have to stand aside until I can get the supervisor to come straighten this mess out."
I didn't move over much. The supervisor happened by.
"What seems to be the problem? No lease? No credit card bills?"
"They're kids between the ages of 8 and 15."
The man cackled, "8 to 15! AH HAH! Then you should have school records!" like he'd caught me out.
"I do have school records. From Tennessee. We just moved here TWO WEEKS AGO and the kids have not been in school yet."
"Bank account statements?" he shot back.
"I haven't had time to open accounts for them and I don't think we'd have statements this soon anyway. Isn't there any way to make this work? The kids are supposed to fly tomorrow. They need these ID's."
No answer. The supervisor walked away, clipboard in hand, to administer a road test. I kid you not. He just walked away! Fortunately for everyone concerned, another DMV worker sauntered over and said we'd have to have affidavits.
"Ok. Where do we get those?"
"Oh we can do them when you get called back. You just have to pay $2 each."
I wanted to scream. We cannot be the first people to ever have just moved to the state with their kids! I couldn't believe it took fifteen minutes of dickering back and forth when the triage nazi could have said in 10 seconds, "There's a small extra charge and a form for you to sign but it's not a problem. Here's your number. Next!"
We took our hard earned numbers and sat down. There were about 15 chairs and about 35 people waiting. The supervisor came through and made everyone who was sitting on the floor stand up. Nice. Random, pointless, and unposted rules for added entertainment value! We were so over our DMV experience. At least we'd had enough foresight to have the kids bring books. They were super as we waited another hour and a half for our numbers to get called.

DMV Thing Two: The triage nazi loudly told incoming people that they'd have to wait for hours. At least two, possibly four. She'd been there 17 years and August was always the very worst month. All these people moving into the area. Clogging up the lines. Many of them associated with the university so they had to get here before school started. So inconvenient of them to all come at the same time. Lots of them furriners whose paperwork took forever to process. I'm thinking sensitivity is not something they screen DMV job applicants for.

Finally our numbers got called. It took under ten minutes to do all four kids. They didn't once look at my license or question if I was the mama even though I signed my legal name now which, again, in no way resembles the name I had on the birth certificates. (I've legally changed my first name and taken my maiden name back.) It mattered not. Silly me for hauling all the divorce, custody, and legal name change paperwork. Who cares about that stuff? The declarations page of the insurance packet, now...everyone knows you can't go anywhere without that!

DMV Things Three and Four: Before it was all said and done, each of the children got to decide whether to be organ donors or not. I ask you - does that make any sense to you?? Yes, it's a good thing to know my children's wishes. Yes, I was pleased that they were all so hypothetically generous with their precious organs, but come on now! God forbid it should ever come to pass that that horrific decision has to be made - but if it does, I should hope that it is an adult who loves my kids and NOT a check box on a form at the DMV that decides the issue. Finally, Havoc (the EIGHT year old!) had to sign a piece of paper saying that he was not a registered sex offender. I have no explanation for this. I did ask if the woman was sure she'd given us the right form. She took it back, looked at it, handed it back and said it was required.
But when we all compared notes afterwards, we realized that none of the other kids had to sign such a form. We were scattered at different desks and passing money back and forth because the $2 affidavit fee had to be paid separately from the ID fees and then the photos were taken way over here and it was a lot of back and forth in a few short minutes. Otherwise I would have asked why the holy hell such a form was required for my cherubic third grader. Profiling? Has there been a rash of unregistered sex offenders of elementary school age?!! Did I miss something?

I'm trying to stay positive about this move. I want very much to invest myself in this community. It's just that today I've begun to wonder what is up with North Carolina. I can't put my finger on it exactly, but I have a feeling that somewhere something is amiss when the state bureaucracy expects children to pay their utility bills with their credit cards and to register their sex offender status. I can only hope that if I keep my children out of the Post Office and away from the DMV that things will be ok.
Peace.