In Which I Fail But Refuse To Worry Much

Ok - NaBlo is a flat out bust for me. I don't think I've hit the every other day mark, much less the every day mark. Bug turned 18 - EIGHTEEN - on Friday. Saturday I spent quilting - having borrowed a machine from a friend. Saturday night Ninja Princessa and I went to see High School Musical 3. Sunday I embellished a quilt journal page while I watched football. It was a FABULOUS day in football land. Yay for my Titans! Undefeated! Bet's Dolphins won; our Colts won and even though the Redskins lost to the Cowboys last night - I'm still coasting on some serious pigskin induced happiness. I'll try to post pictures tomorrow (of the birthday party and quilting - not so much of the football.) :D Peace.

Daily, Meaning What Exactly?

Well dang! Totally rocky start. Every day was supposed to be every day? I've double blown it - starting late AND skipping. But it's either go on imperfectly or quit, right? Year Two - and still flawed. Maybe third time's the charm for me and NaBlo. Still, rather than quit, here's some catch up:

Rock the Vote: Election Day was long - about a 22 hour day for me. I worked at the precinct and LOVED every minute of it. We had an unbelievable 73% turnout. (That is roughly twice our usual turnout for a general election.) After our polls closed and we got our precinct reported and squared away, it was off to a returns party. I have said it elsewhere but I'll say a bit of it here. I am energized and hopeful and so grateful for the outcome in my state's and our country's presidential elections. I also completely understand that there are those who feel otherwise. I was a blue girl in a deeply red state for far too long not to empathize with the fearful and disappointed looks on some of the faces around me. I will do what I can (little though that feels like) not to fuel any rancor from partisan divides. I hope that showing this cute picture of the Ninja Princessa and her friend Ki in their Election Night gear will fall on the side of the line that is "tasteful celebrating" not "gloating". (Although since Ki kept referring to her temporary tattoo as a "tramp stamp", I'm not sure the word tasteful applies.)

Remember, remember the fifth of November: Yesterday I spent the day trying to catch up on sleep and household chores. We had a family movie night watching, what else but V for Vendetta.

On the slate for today: I'm still playing catch up! I had meant this post to be quick and do something fun with my profile but five interruptions later I'm thinking my plans were overly ambitious. There's always tomorrow though, eh? Peace.

PS - Hello to my NaBlo friends from last year! Good to be back and can't wait to get a chance to visit everyone!

November First Already?

I had still have plans - big plans for NaBlo this year - like maybe updating my blog, making new friends, filling in some significant blanks! I know, I know - I'm two days late but I was in Appalachia where there was zero connectivity (or cell phone service or fast food - not that I missed the fast food.) I'm just going to blog for a whole month starting today. I'm not in it for the prizes anyway. But... I'm on my way to help set up our precinct for Election Day and tomorrow I'll be there for 14+ hours. Sigh. Why is NaBloPoMo in November? Oh, wait. It's not. It's all year long now, isn't it. Dang - no excuses. How about this - missed start, a drive by blogging on day two - I'll be a less-than-perfect NaBlo person in all my glory. Peace!

What Nine Means To Me

My baby turned nine today. Nine. Is it a big deal to other parents? It took me a while today to remember exactly why nine jars me so - why my vision of my child flickers between baby and big kid. It took me a while because it's a gut thing, a sub-terranean thing - this business of what it means to be nine. The first nine year old I ever remember knowing was a strangely wise "big kid" - cool by virtue of her advanced years. In our small troop of neighborhood girls, she was just enough older that if she had pretended not to know us at school, we wouldn't have blamed her a bit. But she never did blow us off. She wasn't like that. She was both too kind and too popular to give in to the schoolyard caste system. She was unquestionably the girl boss in our neighborhood games - the one who came up with better poses for "Swinging Statues"; the one who told us Brownies the spooky Girl Scout campfire stories; the one who knew when to sass the boys back and when to make peace so they'd show us the bird eggs they'd found. I thought her very grown up. In fact, she was so grown up in my mind's eye, that it wasn't until I was in my twenties and saw her fourth grade school picture again after so many years that I realized what a baby she had been at the time. I wept. Big, fat, hot tears splashed onto the ducky fuzzed head of my newborn as I stared at her picture. In that, admittedly post-partum hazed moment, it struck me - literally STRUCK me - that she'd been a baby, someone's baby on the awful, February day she disappeared. I'd known her parents, so my brain must have realized at some point that she was someone's child, but it was my heart - my wide open, new mom heart - that broke all over again.
I had double vision: the confident, capable, compassionate big kid I remember overlaid by the image everyone else had always seen of a vulnerable, achingly innocent, and forever nine-year old girl. Nine. Never ten.



There are some images engraved in my mind that have not changed from that day. These photographs - dark and stark - match my memory exactly. They evoke the hot smells of cigarettes and coffee and the voices of the dozens of tired volunteer searchers - all carried on the cold wind. I can hear the ragged rustle of the bushes outside of my window as the German shepherds lunge through our hedges and comb our yard under the moonlight. I can feel the hexagonal pattern of the fabric on the back seat of our car - a pattern that I traced with my fingers over and over while we waited to be waved through the police cordon to get to our house. This is a view of my neighborhood in 1975:
Copeland Drive, in front of the home of Marcia Trimble, is crowded with police cars, Civil Defense vehicles and other cars as Middle Tennessee joins forces to search for the missing nine year-old. (Gerald Holly / The Tennessean) 2/28/1975


Tom McGinn, a Philadelphia dog trainer, unloads two of his German shepherds with the help of Metro Youth Guidance Officer Howard Bassham, while Sgt. Sherman Nickens, right, watch. (J.T. Phillips / The Tennessean) 3/4/1975



It's been helpful for me to dredge up these images, to write, to acknowledge the links. The formless dread I've been feeling is no longer so formless. I am facing a threat to my family - even if it is "only" a custody challenge and it resonates back in spiraling and layering ways with early trauma, fear, and the first loss I ever faced. A loss that I shared with my neighborhood, my city, and my era.

Now that I have connected some dots - it makes sense that the bare trees, the fading light, the cold wind, and the barking dogs have felt ominous. The pieces are settling. I am settling. My old grief is very much a part of where I come from. My fear of future grief and loss on any scale relating to my children is understandable. Strangely, connecting the two has melted the icy panic inside of me. Connecting the dots of experience enables me to connect to the healing and growth I've gained too. Someday maybe I'll detail how and why Marcia's faith impacted mine. Maybe someday I'll own up to exactly how much time I spent (and how much mayonaise and lemon juice I used) trying to get my hair to look just like hers. Tonight, though, I'm going to go sneak a peek at my sleeping big boy/little kid. Tonight I'm going to breathe deeply. I'm going to trust the process - not necessarily the court process or the police process or even the family process - but the bigger, wider, more cosmic process. Strangely I find that tonight, after all this, I can trust that it really will be ok. No matter what. Peace.

**Edited to add - here is the link for the first story breaking on this case. It is a pivotal story for me personally - and a huge story for Nashville then and now. Peace.

Awry

I so wanted to have a kick ass post for the last day of NaBlo! Instead, pretty much all I can dish up is crap with a side order of stress. Weeellll - that's not completely accurate. Today is Havoc's birthday. That's fun. My "baby" is nine! I am working hard today to concentrate on him - his excitement, his sweetness, his enthusiasm. I want to be fully present to his nine-ness without the tinge of sadness that seeps from the past and the worry that casts shadows on the future. It's taking some work not to let my thoughts spiral back to the day Havoc was born. Towards the context that involved my ex. Towards the mixed up way things were when I was desperately trying to hope and pretend away my concerns. I can see myself that day: deliriously in love with my new baby, delighted with my sons who were now big brothers, joyful that my mother was so close and helpful, and lonely/sad/worried about Mr. Tapioca leaving us in the hospital because he was sick and needed to get enough rest to be able to go back to work. I want to shout to my then-self from this point in time and say, "Yes - you're right - those little red flags are not your imagining! Brace yourself! It'll be a little better for a little while and then it's going to suck glass shards! But you and your babies will be ok!"

But I can't shout back to myself. I also can't hear my future self shouting back to me today. I wish I could! I would love to hear that it's going to be rough going for a bit, but ultimately ok. I want that to be the message I would hear if I could. But what if the message is - "Hey - those looming depositions, the lying petitions, and the rest of the soulless court stuff? It is going to shred you and your family! Enjoy what peace drippings you can muster right now, because it's only going to get worse!" Gaaak. Fears, hopes, faith and rage. Nausea. I can't navigate that today. I can't make it go away - or be funny. (I wish I could make it funny! If Linsey can make a post that was both touching and hilarious about the love of her life being diagnosed with celiac disease - why can't I pull an iota of wry humor out of the absurdity that is this pending court case? NOT to trivialize what is so hurtful but to be able to enter into it fully enough to get past the paralyzing aspects. I want to hold up the ridiculous parts in affirmation of the entirety because being able to do so would mean my faith that it will be "ok" was solid. Can't do it today. Not by a long shot.)

No. Here's what I can do. Even if it's it's boring to write about. Today I can go to Havoc's classroom to see their international project presentations. I can admire his "German" chocolate brownies (even if I can't eat them because coconut give me hives.) I can pick up a few more birthday gifts from the Kitchenworks store for the budding chef. I can squeeze him and get us ready for tomorrow's houseful of nine year olds. I can scream and rage "Mr. Tapioca Head is a pathetic, empty liar no matter what happens in court!" in my head all the while smiling at and being pleasant to everyone. (<--I'm Southern like that.) Today I can be a flawed, angry, loving, and not-funny mom. Tomorrow I might could be something else. (<--That's the best cliffhanger I can manage. It translates to "Y'all come back, now. Ya hear?")
Peace.

In Which Mayhem Is A Weirdo (I Mean Boy-o)

Last night the kids were maniacally jolly as they cleaned up after supper. They were ricocheting around the kitchen, scrubbing and pinging off of each other. It was NOT quiet but they were operating just under the reprimand threshold. They were silly and sarcastic with each other - all five of them dishing back what they were served - all the while loading dishes, wiping counters, and sweeping floors. The three adults (and the two dogs) retreated to the library which is connected to the kitchen by an open doorway as well as a window-like pass-thru above the sink. In short, we could hear everything but couldn't be seen. Often this is an ideal set up. Every once in a while, it means the adults miss a key element to a situation.

As the kids finished up their chores they trickled into the library one by one. Mayhem, being in charge of trash and recycling, was one of the last to finish. The normal rattling and rustling sounds I heard from the kitchen in no way prepared me for Mayhem's appearance. He walked through the library with trash bags in hand and his (abundant) hair sticking straight up off the top of his head. We are talking a 10-inch long, crazy, white boy 'fro. There was a moment of utter silence, then everybody gabbled at once. "What happened?" "What did you do?" "Your hair!"

Mayhem's face was bright red and his voice choked as he said something about needing to remember to be careful around wall sockets - but he could not maintain when he saw my panicked face. He burst out laughing. He hadn't gotten even partway electrocuted. He had made his bushy hair stand on end by rubbing a trash bag on his head*. Ha ha ha. Not only did he get laughs for looking ridiculous but he scored on mom. The kids think "getting" me like that is absolutely hilarious. Last night they thought it was so funny that it spurred them to reminisce about past successes in pushing the mama juuuuust far enough. They brought up the time Chaos gave Mayhem a swirlie. That memorable incident happened on a day they were being weird and push, push, pushing me. They weren't being "bad" or breaking any actual rules but they had hovered and interrupted, been rambunctious and loud. Some days using every mama tool in my kit just barely covers it, you know? The kids know to a scarily exact degree how hesitant I am to waste my mama credit on minor infractions. They know this, in large part, because they have repeatedly conducted experiments to find out precisely where the line is between pranks that will "only" earn them extra chores and behavior which will result in restriction (or worse). Bet couldn't believe the swirlie. She said to them, "I can't believe y'all did that! What if she hadn't laughed?!" and she made a mock serious "oooooh" face to indicate the trouble they would have been in. Chaos said, "We'd already had to do all our laundry, pick up our rooms, clean the kitchen ("And the bathroom," reminded the Princessa), and walk around the block!" ("Yeah, twice," added Mayhem.) "What else could she have made us do? It was a joke and we had nothing to lose!" Bet mouthed to me across the room, "What's he going to do? Sue you?" Spot on! That day I had played all of my (minor suit) cards and the kids had totally called my "bluff", winning the hand. Although the look on their faces last spring and the look on Mayhem's face last night, when for a split second they had to wonder, "Oh crap, what if this joke is too far?" tells me that we're still squarely in the midst of healthy limit testing and I still (for a few more short years) do hold the trump cards.
Peace.

*You may think - as did I - that rubbing a plastic bag on one's head is a strange and random thing to do (especially when one has been told all one's life by one's worry wart mom not to put plastic bags over one's head). I asked him why. Was he trying to make his hair stick up? Did he know that would happen? And why a garbage bag? His answer, "I had no idea what would happen. That's why I did it, mom. To find out. It's called an experiment." Ahhh. You know, even as a middle schooler, I did NOT look at things and wonder what would happen if I hit them with a hammer, put them in the microwave, or rubbed them on the top of my head. Linus says that's because I'm not a boy. You think?

Jackpot

I LOVE playing the lottery. I know, I know - tax on the poor, the evils of gambling, the curse of sudden wealth syndrome, yada, yada, yada. Still. I love to play. It feels like play. I'm a lucky person in general and it's fun - so why not. It's exciting to pick numbers and dream about what I would do if we won. I don't HAVE to play. I don't buy a ticket every week, but I probably buy one a month. I certainly don't use the lottery as my retirement planning tool or spend money I don't have. I do, however, enjoy it as a big, wild, "what if". If I had to justify it, I could point out that I spend significantly less on the lottery than the average American spends at Starbucks. A chai latte gives me a tummy ache but a lottery ticket gives me a license to dream. This flimsy piece of paper may not be an exotic guilty pleasure, but it's mine and I'm savoring it. For a few more hours anyway. Until I make myself go to the Powerball website. Between now and then, I'll just hang out here with Schrodinger's cat and dream a little dream.

What about you? Lottery - love it or hate it?
Peace.

Morning News And Compulsive Peace

Maybe reading the news first thing in the morning isn't such a good idea.
This is sad. This is horrifying. Both are senseless. This helps if I can overcome my cynical side sniping and dismissing it as political theater.

My new wf Jeff asked me yesterday about my obsession with peace. I want peace. I yearn for it. I have a passion for it. I am searching for inner peace, outer peace, and sideways peace if it's available. I will visualize it, grow it, document it, explore it, sit with it, and share any little bit of it I can find. If I were a superhero, I would want my superpower to be peace. I'd dish up some serious Pax Lilymana. Peace talks, peace walks, peace deals - grasping at straws is better than refusing to reach. I don't mean to be glib as I repeatedly write the word peace, wish it upon random folks, and generally sling the concept around in my daily life. It's my way of praying without ceasing. It's my antidote to this morning's news - or any morning's news for that matter. The microscopic glimpses I have of peace are redemptive to the degree that I believe a full-sized, industrial-strength, global dose of peace would be nothing short of heaven. If we have the capacity to perceive even the shadow of it - how can we not ache to bring it fully about? Dynamic hope. Transformational love. Universal salvation. Divinity: inclusive, transcendent and immanent. Relational unity. The peace which passeth all understanding. That's what I'm talking about.
Peace be with you.

Tallulah Tinklepants

It is hard to believe that a dog this tiny could piddle so much, so often. Just saying.

Turkey Tettrazini For Eight Hungry Folks

Ingredients:
1 pound of spaghetti (cooked)
1 stick of (salted) butter
1/2 medium onion, chopped (I like sweet ones)
garlic, chopped (I use about six cloves - but we love garlic)
1 cup flour
1 quart of chicken broth (I very much prefer Wolfgang Puck's organic chicken broth)
1 pint heavy cream (yummy but fattening - oh well)
1/2 cup cooking sherry
mushrooms (1 medium package, fresh - mixed wild ones if you can get them, or boring button mushrooms or even a couple of small cans if you have to)
chopped leftover Thanksgiving turkey - 3 or 4 cups preferably but we don't always have that much left over
1/2 cup grated fresh parmesan
(seasoned) breadcrumbs for topping (optional)
sea salt (to taste)
pepper (I have a mix of several types of peppercorns - and it makes a difference) (also to taste)
*My boys like it best when I throw in a few dashes of Tobasco but if I'm making it for me, I throw in some Worcestershire sauce.

1. Cook pasta, drain, and place in the bottom of a large casserole dish. (For this much, I use two of the deeper Corningware ones.)
2. While pasta is cooking melt butter and sautee onion and garlic.
3. Stir in flour. (I cook this for about five minutes over med-low heat, because I don't like the flour to taste raw - but some folks are impatient and go right on to the next step.)
4. Whisk in liquids - broth, sherry, and then cream.
5. Add mushrooms, turkey and salt and pepper. Cook for a few minutes if using fresh mushrooms - sometimes I even throw them in at the beginning with the garlic and onions but they work fine if added in here.
6. Take off heat and stir in cheese. (And any seasoning like Tobasco or Worcestershire.)
7. Pour mixture over pasta (top with bread crumbs if you want) and bake at 325 for 30 minutes.

So What's He Going To Do?

I was stressing as the boys were going to their dad's (=Mr. Tapioca Head's) before the break. I've wanted to get their hair cut for weeks and weeks but the boys were adamantly against it (and the Princessa weighed in on their side). My mother SNORTS when she hears me say anything about their hair. Her comment is that at least of none of them have purple hair. Ahem. So I let the boys go on being shaggy, until of course the day before they were to go to their dad's when both Mayhem and Havoc said they wanted their hair cut and Chaos said he would allow his to be trimmed. Where do you think that came from? (One guess.)

I also discovered too late to rectify the situation that the boys have outgrown (or put holes in - grrrr) the only khakis they have here at my house. No doubt about it, they need new nice pants and they'll be getting some - but there was no time before Thanksgiving. I let them go to see Mr. Tapioca Head's parents on "my" weekend right before the break and I didn't think to check their clothes two weeks before break. (My bad.)

I sent the boys as clean, well-groomed, and nicely dressed as possible given their baseline scruffy and khaki-less status. I was talking to Bet about it. She was taking a shower. I was pacing our (very large) bathroom and fiddling with stuff on the counters - stressing about what grief I was going to get from Mr. Tapioca Head about it. Grief that I feel like I might deserve (sorta) but that I don't want to deal with anyway. Bet leaned her head out of the shower and watched me for a second as I anxiously racketed around. Then she said, "What are you worried about? What can he do? Sue you?"
Well, there is that. He's already played his trump card. It's the only one he's got and it's on the table. He's got a petition in court (as I recently officially found out) suing me for custody of the children - in his words "to get them out of that warped and demented environment [I] have subjected them to." Yeah. Haircut shmaircut, eh?

In other (and way more fun news) - Happy Blogiversary to me! Two years today I've been in the blogosphere. I love it. I've decided to stay!

I've got more to say today, but I may have to say it tomorrow. My "to do" list is a mile long and for having been up for five hours, I've not gotten a heck of a lot of it done yet. Hope you're making more progress on your Monday. OH - and a total shout out to my buddy Solsys for coming up with the word "Frazy" to describe yesterday. Frantic, frazzled, lazy and maybe a bit crazy to boot. Excellent wordsmithing pal!
Peace to the people!

If Angst And Ennui Had A Love Child

You know those days when you're hungry but don't want to or can't decide what to eat? I need a word for that feeling. Maybe not one that revolves around food though, but one that describes the urge or impulse to do something that is thwarted by the equally strong and opposite pull caused by unwillingness or inability to figure it out. Stymied is too strong, depression too permanent, blah too formless. Stress and lethargy are factors. Miasma, irritation, lassitude, dread, compression, implosion and funk are all part of it, but they're bit parts - not the starring role. I want a descriptor for a feeling that makes you want to pace but robs you of the energy to do more than mope. I need a concrete label for this vague sense of enervating dissatisfaction.

Today, I am full on wallowing in whatever this feeling is. I have it about eating and also about blogging. I keep standing in front of the open refrigerator without moving until my indecision makes the heat in the kitchen kick on. I want to blog. I "need" to blog. I don't see the value of anything I have to blog about. I have the feeling about running. I want to run, need to run, can't figure out how to tumble into my shoes and go. Too many variables about weather, route, and timing. I've been looking forward to football all week but at the moment could care less. At the exact same time that I have three different thoughts about what today's games mean and who's playing and what my fantasy team's stats are - I have this "why bother" attitude about even finding out where the remote is or what channel the games are on. My skin feels too tight like I might burst, but my brain feels soggy, my thoughts are drowned. I imagine this is what being on uppers and downers simultaneously feels like. (Thankfully I don't know, I can only surmise.)

The most oomph I can muster is to fret about what to call this crappy state of being. Is it even an actual emotion? I want to name it, pigeon-hole it, have power and dominion over it. If I had a name for it, I feel half-heartedly convinced I would be able to banish it. I wish there were a recipe process for building words. Some languages just let you keep adding on syllables and root words until it means what you want it to mean. I guess if AT&T can push cell phone service in Philawarepragacago, then I should be able to make up my own word for how I feel today. But laziness and uptight perfectionism are allied in preventing me from even the semblance of an attempt. Fuck it. <--That's eloquent, eh? I may not be able to come up with a name for this feeling, but I've got a two-word, easy to remember motto for it! My hope for you, dear web friends, is that you need neither name nor motto and can just enjoy your day. (Root for the Titans for me in case I can't my poop in a group to watch the game, ok?)
Peace.

It's A Good Thing She's Cute

Tallulah decided at 4 a.m. that she was done with sleep. I'd forgotten that puppies keep baby sleep schedules. We took turns entertaining her - but it was Wasabi that did the best job. He's such a good big brother! He hops and nips and chases her but he's gentle. They played tug-o-war with that pathetic rag of a toy squirrel. Tallulah tried every trick she knows but Wasabi stood there like a rock. Then he backed up a step or two and dragged her. They both thought that was fun.

He better enjoy that while he can - she's going to be bigger than he is in about three months. He tuckered her out enough that we got another nap out of her. Now if only the adults in the house could catch a few extra zzz's.
Peace.

Dog Lips

Guess what we got today? She's a seven-week old Redbone Hound. Tallulah Rockstar is her "working title" so far. Linus wants to call her Red Sonja. Bet is still deciding what her permanent name is going to be. I'm going to call her Tallulah for now. She is fiesty and independent, sweet and such a gorgeous color. We went to Rebel Red Kennels to meet her. I have nothing to compare the kennel to. Maybe all kennels/breeders are gracious, have beautiful land, provide run space for each dog, have cozy and clean dog houses and well-mannered, beautiful dogs. It seems unlikely - but maybe they are all as wonderful as Rebel Red Kennels. Tallulah came right out and played with us. She and her brother puppy Fred made a bee line for Wasabi - who we'd brought along to make sure he and the new pup would be compatible. I had been a bit worried that she might be afraid of such a bigger dog, but it was entirely the other way around. She had no fear and lunged for his beard. He jumped straight up in the air and cowered behind Linus' legs. They adjusted quickly but the first few moments were amusing. I think all the playing tuckered her out. She slept the three hours home!
She's a kissy little thing. Her face is all wrinkly. Her nose is velvety and she has the softest, flappiest little dog lips. Bet says dogs don't have "lips" but look at her! She has dog lips. And puppy breath. And a poochy little belly while the rest of her is bony. She bunny hops towards Wasabi to play. Her ears are so big and floppy that they dip in the water when she drinks from her bowl.
Then she has to toss her head and flippity-flap them dry. Looks like I might be a doggy blogger again for the next little while as we all adjust to being a multi-dog family! Peace.

Turkey And All The Trimmings

Bet and I ran five miles this morning - two and a half of them UP HILL. I feel entitled to eat all I want today. Good thing, too. We are having a feast.
Baked brie, steamed shrimp (with Old Bay), turkey, cranberry relish, green beans, "company grits" (=with heavy cream, white pepper, and gruyere), stuffing and dressing, gravy, french silk pie, chess pie, butterscotch fudge, and chocolate fudge. Mimosas early on and later a gorgeous white wine. This is the first year in a decade that I haven't made my carrots, parnips, and leeks au gratin. We already have so much - and only five people sitting down to supper - that I'm saving that dish, maybe for a supper next week. I hope everyone out there in Blogland is having a wonderful day.
Peace.

Uni-dogs, Math Fertilizer, More Pigskin

Canine Singular:
I've never* had more than one pet at a time. I know people with menageries - but my fur babies have always been only children. I bring this up because Bet wants a puppy. She's grieved her sweet dog, Sluggo, for three years (almost exactly three years) and it's time. Bet has been ready for about six months but the timing, what with our family moving, hasn't been right until now. She loves hound dogs. Her Sluggo was a blue tick hound-mutt. We've found a good Redbone hound kennel. And they have a six week old girl pup. We're going to see her on Friday. I'd be surprised if Wasabi is still a single furchild on Saturday. I'm excited and nervous. I don't know if I'll be able to love another dog as much as I love Wasabi. Puppyhood about killed me the first time around. I don't know if I can handle it again. Of course, I know more about what to expect. Maybe that will make it better. I think Wasabi would LOVE to have a sister. He loves the human kids and they romp with him - but it's not the same. Having our friend's dog Grace stay with us for a few days was so much fun. Wasabi and Grace played and played and played. He was so sad to see her go! It seems like such a big step to me though. (I know, I know - for a woman with five children - having two dogs shouldn't cause this much angst - but it does!)

Teacher's Helper:
I helped Bet grade papers today. Having two seventh graders of your own in no way prepares you for the weirdness of seventh graders en masse. It is amazing to me the detailed sketches, doodles, and colored-in silliness that adorns papers that are otherwise devoid of the homework that is supposed to be on them! I think it is beyond strange how many of her students do their math tests in PEN. Ink pen. For math. It is even stranger how many seventh graders turn in papers with what appear to be bites taken out of the corners or sides of the paper. I showed her one with actual TEETH marks on it. "Yep," she said, "they eat the paper." Why? Why would a child eat their own homework? And last bit on the grading front: Bet is teaching prime and composite numbers. More than one child wrote "Compost number" on their paper. Bwa ha ha.

Thanksgiving means:
Football! Glory be - a week with football all over the place. I love it. (I secretly love it more than turkey.)

Is anyone eating something fun and non-traditional for Thanksgiving this year?
Peace, peace, peace.

*Ok - unless you count fish. We had an amazing clam and a puffer-fish cousin that made kissy marks all over the side of the tank - who knew fish could have such personality? But it's not any harder to take care of two fish than it is to take care of one. Know what I mean?

At Least Chaos Is Happy

Piss. The Titans blew it. I hate that. Vince Young played his heart out but the defense was like a sieve. Rob Bironas did his part and refused to be iced. Our defense better figure out quick how to play without Haynesworth. Even when he gets healthy, I don't expect him to be with the Titans for long. His contract is up and he's been playing like someone with something to prove (and after last year's mess, he better be!) I feel sorry for LenDale White who is from Denver and had 50+ friends and family at the game. I know he wanted to show top form and celebrate a Titans win - neither of which he did last night. Double rats!

This may be it for my posting abilities today. Four of our chickadees are flying the friendly skies this afternoon and that's a little bit of airport craziness right there. Today I am thankful for the unseasonably warm weather in Denver which means the Princessa will not have to repeat her being-stuck-in-an-airport-during-a-blizzard exerience!
Peace.

Pigskin Report, Thread Deficiency, And The Sports Physical From Hell

I didn't run or lift yesterday but I think I did some of everything else on my list! I'm sad to report that I'm still struggling to find a solid balance/peace about the looming court crap - but I've made enough progress that I can eat without throwing up. (Hey, it's a start!) In other news:

Football: (*Non-football freaks friends can skip this part.)
It was an ok day in football land because the Colts won even if the 'Skins and the Dolphins lost. I'll reserve my final verdict for after the Titans/Broncos game tonight. Chaos and I were jokingly trash talking this morning in prep for the game. One of us is going to be sad tonight (and I hope it's him!) :D The Patriots game was crazy. Havoc hasn't seen it yet because he can only stay up for the opening drive of the night games but we recorded it for him. What a happy boy he'll be. He was a tiny bit upset with me yesterday for forgetting to switch his fantasy football team around while he was with his grandparents. About five minutes after game time, we realized he still had Adrian Peterson starting. Oops. He tried to be comforted by his projected stats being a few points ahead of his opponent's, but he really, really didn't want to lose this matchup (and undefeated status). Never fear. The boy is still crazy undefeated. Tom Brady and Randy Moss (just the two of them) got him 70 points while his opponent's whole team got a total of 66 (their QB was Donovan McNabb). And Havoc still has a player - LenDale White - in tonight's game. He's three games and 150 points ahead of the next closest team in his league. He's the FF equivalent of an NFL rookie whose team wins the Super Bowl. I want him to enjoy it while he can because I don't know that he'll ever have a chance to dominate in FF like this again!!

Art/Quilting:
Here is a picture (in process) of my mermaid journal quilt page. She's my triathlon winning mergirl: my personal talisman for 2008. I've got a veritable goal trifecta - a finished novel, a full size art quilt and an olympic distance triathlon - all on my plate for 2008. She'll eventually have a medal dangling from her left hand and a bike tattoo on her right shoulder. This pic is her in her basic components (my drawing on the right and her fabric self on left). I based my cartoon of her on an antique woodblock picture. I practiced free motion quilting her on a mock up cartoon/muslin quilt sandwich last night, but I got sucked into football before I got to work on the real deal. (You can click the photo to see more detail. Her hair is awesome shiny, auburn/gold! And her tummy is white on white paisley. I had to layer her right arm to get the depth/texture I wanted. With only one layer - her bathing suit and hair showed through her skin. How weird would that be?) I get stuck sometimes with my lack of technical knowledge about quilting. I don't know if you're supposed to stitch the edges of applique before you make the quilt sandwich or after. Same with embellishments - should those stitches show on the back with the quilting or be hidden inside? I'm forever making it up as I go along and wondering what "real quilt artists" do. Eventually I'd like to be in a show so I suppose I should start finding these things out. It just seems I hit those decision points at ridiculous hours and I'm impatient to keep playing. I don't want to stop and wait hours (or days) to find out the "right" way. I want to keep going! On the other hand, I do value skilled work. I want my art to flow through my medium, not get hung up on crappy craftsmanship. And I don't want to waste my time trying to invent a way to achieve a look or texture that someone else has already figured out! Quilty dilemmas!



The other thing that gets me stuck is that I buy lots of fabric but not enough thread! I love thread. I don't know why I don't buy more of it. Oh wait - I do. It's because I spend all of my money on fabric. It's difficult to convince myself to pass up a fabric I love because the chances of it being there when I come back are slim. I have less urgency with thread. It will be there. In fact, that's the problem. It will be there, right on the quilt shop shelf instead of in my studio at 5 a.m. when I get the urge to quilt! I do the same thing with embellishments - I have hordes of beads and gorgeous fibers - but recently realized I didn't have the right (or for that matter, any) needles or threads with which to sew them! It will probably not surprise you to learn that I also have to force myself to buy fusible web and batting. I hate what that says about me - like I'm a superficial quilter who doesn't remember or value the un-glamorous quilty bits. Am I the Marie Antoinette of the quilt world? "Let them eat beads!"

Kidlets:
I took Mayhem back to the doctor to "finish" up his sports physical. We have been through an awful lot just to make it so this guy can play FRISBEE at school. (I realize that it is a sport and they do run around, but come on! It's not a high pressure, contact activity! It's FRISBEE!) Two weeks ago, Bet took him while I was out of town and he FAILED. He hasn't had an asthma attack (or so we thought!) for two years but at the doctor's he could not "pass" the peak flow meter test. He couldn't blow enough air out for them to be happy at all! I don't even have an inhaler for him anymore! I made him use Havoc's and we practiced (which was funny - "Come on, you can blow harder than that! What if that were your birthday cake? Huh? Don't you want your wish?") Guess what? When we got there today, they didn't make him re-do the breathing test! They gave him his own Rx for an inhaler, tested for hernias (he HATES that part), and stressed out about him not having his flu shot yet. (Sidenote: The boy is a shot magnet. Every time we go to the doctor's they discover some shot he needs. It's a little weird. It's also a hassle because the boy has no fatty parts in which to inject vaccine!) While we were waiting for the nurse to come stick him, he asked me if I thought he could have surgery and get a robotic finger when he grows up. (For anyone joining us mid-story - Mayhem was born without a pinky on his left hand and his left arm has it's own size and muscle/tendon geometry.) He began to talk about all the things he thought would be cool about having a robotic finger. I think he's been watching Inspector Gadget. He wants an all-purpose robotic finger: knife, scissors, file, toothpick, flame thrower, etc. The nurse came into the room just in time to hear me say, "I don't think they'll let you on the plane with your Swiss Army finger." She gave us quite the look. Mayhem was laughing too much to even notice the shot. AFTER insisting on him getting the shot and giving it to him, the nurse said, "Now, make sure to stay away from anyone with a cough or cold for the next two weeks, ok?" WHAT?! You'd think she could have mentioned that warning before the shot was given. The boy is getting on a plane tomorrow night along with a million and twelve other people traveling for the Thanksgiving holiday. I was already worried about the mutant cold virus but NOW I have to worry that my kid is at risk from the common cold because we got him a shot to prevent him from getting the flu?! Ever feel like you can't win? I don't think I can talk him into wearing a mask, but maybe I could pre-soak all of his clothes in Lysol. Two-fold benefit there - wholesale germ slaughter and potentially cold-infested folks staying away from the kid who smells weird. What do you think? Anyone else have a better idea?

Peace.

Avoidance Behavior

What I want most to do this morning is not talk - not let anything out for fear it will be a scream and rant of epic proportions. But then there's NaBlo. I'm not very good about talking without saying what's on my mind. I'm not very good at blogging without spewing if things are brewing with my ex (=Mr. Tapioca Head for any new readers.) And they are. Looks like we'll be in court for this custody battle sometime around the beginning of the year. (Such a great way to start out a year, eh?) The papers saying he is the better parent would be laughable if it weren't for the fact that these are my kids on the line.

My brain is so full of anger that I'm not going to post any more today. I'm going to go get some thread and quilt. I'm going to dig up my favorite book (Rimrunners by CJ Cherryh) and get lost in a (hot) ex-space marine's troubles. I'm going to get sucked into football and probably cheer too loudly. I'm going to run (but not the ten sets because Bet is sick) and I'm going to lift. Through all of it I'm going to pray and throw spells and say affirmations and all that cheesy stuff that has comforted folks and worked magic through the centuries. I'm going to be grateful that my children are healthy and beautiful beings and remind myself that as awful as this crap seems, there are so many moms who deal with worse situations on fewer resources. I hope somewhere in all that avoidance and gratitude I recover the parts of me I like best because the part of me that could easily spend the next two hours typing about what a lying, dickweed my ex is? Not so much my best side.
Peace.

Squirrel Guts Everywhere

There are so many things I have in my brain to post about this morning - the debate last night, how meeting new friends is stirring up old memories, Beowulf tonight on the IMAX, Bug's 17th birthday party (OMG we are old enough to have a 17 year old son!!), football matchups this weekend (Havoc's fantasy team the Gridiron Chefs are still undefeated even after the Patriots' bye), comments about being transparent but not invisible in my life, etc. And I would post about all of that - or at least about SOME of that except I can't hear myself think!! This is what's going on at the foot of my bed (from which I blog):
(**The soundtrack doesn't come through but imagine if you will - "GRRRRL! RWLLLL! RRGHHHH! RWLLL! GRWWWL!" And toss in a few dozen SNORTS and a few whines.**)



Wasabi has a friend Grace staying over for a few days. They have been playing tug-o-war with a fluffy squirrel toy for HOURS. (You may remember this is Wasabi's favorite game.) Squirrel fluff is flying. Everywhere. It's on my bed, my floor, my hair. Wasabi is ridiculously happy. He and Grace are very cute. They are also very loud. I have tried to shoo them out of my room, but they think I am trying to play with them. Real posting may have to wait until tomorrow!
Peace.