Stuff about me you probably don’t know

I haven’t read a single Harry Potter book.

I have never worn a two-piece swimsuit.

I don’t dance, never have, never will. (Unless you count square-dancing in eighth grade P.E.)

My eyebrows have never been professionally waxed.

I do not own an iPod.

I hate to watch DVDs at home.

I don’t drink alcohol.

I didn’t have my first date until I was in college.

Every time I hear a kid say “mom,” I think I’m being paged.

I’m between generations, not a “Boomer” nor a Gen-Xer.

I don’t drink coffee. The only thing I’ve ever ordered from Starbucks was hot chocolate.

I hate to spend money on purses. My current purse was purchased at Value Village.

These are random facts listed for no reason at all.

Boys will be boys (if we let them)

I love it when you say, “Hey! Me, too!” Then I am able to put my life into perspective. I have to admit, though, that when you say, “You’re doing a great job!” I think perhaps your judgment is off because sometimes, right here in my own stretch-marked skin, things don’t look so cheery. However, I’ll tentatively agree with you . . . you probably have a better view of things from there. I’m too close.

So, thanks, everyone, for your supportive comments on the last post. I so appreciate it (even if I haven’t answered your comments. Yet).

Ever since the difficult day with my teenagers, I have been restraining myself, holding back, trying to act like the grown-up in the house. I really must reign in the over-reacting because as anyone with kids knows, children of all ages manage to mirror the behavior and mood of the adult in charge. I find that very annoying because if I’m being irritable the last thing I need is irritable kids. So, I’m pretending to be calm, even going so far as to say to myself, “Okay, be calm, just relax,” which weirdly enough kind of works.

The Tomb movies

Okay, so guess what the boys have been doing for the past three days? (And when I say “boys”, I mean the neighborhood boys as well as my own.) Any guesses? Big hole? Nope. That’s so last spring. Street football? Nope. That’s so last May.

Give up? Okay, get this. I look out the patio window and see a bunch of two-by-fours propped between the deck and the fence. The boys are constructing what looks like an elaborate lean-to, something the folks on Survivor might build on their first of thirty-nine days on an island shore. I march outside to say, “WHAT?” and they say, “We asked Dad if we could use this old wood from the deck and he said it was fine. See? We asked!”

And so I gave a pointless, but mandatory warning about nails and hammers and left them to their creativity and team-work.

100_1310.jpgA little ringleader from down the street who has a rattail haircut brought over his own red hammer and a passel of nails. I think he’s about ten years old and he’s the one who thought it a good idea to drag out the old dog crate from the shed and use it in the construction. (Hey, I paid good money for that crate!) I made him cry today, but it was unintended. I looked out the patio window and saw what looked like an awl. An awl? So, I went out to investigate and said, “Hey, what’s this?” and he grabbed it to his skinny body and said, “It’s my tool from home.” I said, “I know it’s a tool, but what do you plan to do with it in my back yard?”

My son said, “We’re going to poke holes in that.” And he gestured toward the plastic tray from the dog crate, which is in perfect condition. (And that crate cost a lot of money!)

So, being mindful that I am the Queen of Overreaction, I tempered my natural inclination to throw myself forward into a grand mal seizure and said, “Uh, no. Bad idea. You cannot poke holes in anything back here.”

And Rattail Kid burst into tears and said, “I’m taking my tools and I’m going home!” and I said, “Hey, now, you’re not in trouble, but you just can’t ruin that plastic. Plus,” I said, “It’s not your fault. It’s his. He should know better.”

But Rattail Kid said, “No, I’m making bad decisions, too. It was my idea. I’m going home.” And so, I said, “Fine. Go home. But you’re not in trouble.”

Then I reported to his older brother what had happened, being careful to emphasize that he was NOT in trouble. (He did disappear for awhile, then was back with a vengeance.)

You would not believe the backyard shelter now nailed firmly with about a billion nails. Another neighbor brought over a bunch of old wood from his yard, including large sheets of plywood and several big blocks of railroad ties . . . it looks like I’m running a homeless camp behind my deck. (You know those camps you sometimes glimpse in inner cities or under freeway overpasses if you look closely enough? Yeah. That.)

We made them stop nailing things at 6 p.m. in deference to the neighbors who might have their windows open. By then, they’d started a second project in the overgrown hedge. “What are you doing?” I said. “Isn’t one enough?” and my boys said, “That’s their,” meaning Rattail Kid’s and two other boys, the 9-year olds. Apparently, this shelter in the woods is for the teenagers. And they promised to clean it up. Ha. Just like the giant hole they dug. I filled it months later. And like the hammocks in the tree. I gathered up unfamiliar pillows and mildewed sheets months later and deconstructed everything myself.

But! These are the kinds of things boys are supposed to do. In the “old” days, they’d be building a campsite at a creek or piecing together a treehouse in the woods. I love that they are working together, that they are creating, that they are pushing the very boundaries of what they are allowed. (I’ve never let my sons use hammers before . . . what would they hammer? So, to see my 9-year old wrangling that heavy hammer, concentrating on driving a big nail into an old piece of wood warms my heart a little.)

They’ll lose interest in a week or two and then I’ll have to demand that they pull out the one billion nails (which are nailed part-way in, then bent over and nailed against the wood–they’ll never come out without a fight) and put all the materials they used back. Meanwhile, they are being boys. Hooray.

(And this all occurs because their computer is broken. Ha. We came home from vacation and it wouldn’t fire up.)

* * *

Now, here’s the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me in a thrift store.

I had some time to kill before a movie, so I went to Value Village to browse. I found a black velvet jacket, then noted it said “Anne Klein” on the tag. I examined it closer, noticed the original tag on it with a price of $320.00. I tried it on and it fit, despite being a larger size than I wear these days. The tag said it had two pieces, so I went to the skirts and what do you know? I found the matching skirt, still with its original tag.

The jacket was marked $4.99. The skirt was marked $5.99. I purchased a $320.00 Anne Klein suit for $11.00. Never worn, 100% cotton, black velvet. That’s a mark-down of 97%.

I love a bargain.

I Quit

I quit. I quit because I am unqualified. I took this job when it involved nothing more than cuddling babies, changing diapers and offering the appropriate amount of formula per day. I wasn’t required to make conversation, enforce rules or deal with teenage lapses in judgment.

I was good back then. I could blink awake at the first whimper of a baby and rush in silence to a room, cradling a baby by the glow of the nightlight, shushing him back to sleep even when my arms turned into limbs of stiff pain. I could distract a crawler from a ledge, shuffle a schedule to accommodate naps, sit on the floor for hours at a time, clacking blocks together and reading board books.

Now, I am the Queen of Overreaction. For instance, today, as I drove my teenagers to their friend’s house, they asked me, “Can we go to youth group with him?” And I said, “Are you kidding me? You’re asking now, on the way?” And he said, “I asked yesterday.” But here’s the thing, the match that lit the flame of my annoyance. HE DID NOT ASK ME.

He does this with alarming frequency. He says, “I told you,” or “I asked you,” but he doesn’t. Perhaps he breathes the words into the air, but he does not make sure that his words land in my ears so that I hear and understand and respond. Does he not realize my brain is like a colander and people are continually dumping stuff into it? The important stuff sifts through and sinks in, but the big chunks, the rocks and noise and blabbering just filter right out.

I said, with indignance, “YOU DID NOT ASK ME!” And he made the mistake of insisting that he did. In essence, he insinuated that I was lying or mistaken.

So, I yelled at him . . . you may have seen me in that blue van, shouting into the rear-view mirror.

I hate myself when I overreact. Even when I’m right.

Tonight, all is well and then the phone rings and it’s someone who loaned us something for our trip. We returned the something, but without the power cord. Uh, duh. So, I ask my boys about the cord and they dance around the information I need. They avoid telling me. They blame each other. They deny knowledge of said power cord. They were the only ones who used the cord and they emptied the van of their belongings when we unpacked it.

However, apparently the power cord vaporized into thin air because they were baffled by what might have happened. So, I’m asking questions like, “Do you remember unplugging it from the van?” and “Did you pack it into your backpack?” But here’s the main problem at this point. While I am interrogating one of them, I call him into his room which is filthier than a homeless person’s cardboard box (no offense to homeless people). I am sifting through video game boxes and sticky glasses and find a broken mug, but no cord. I am shooting questions into the air like bullets and this kid next to me, my son, is giving me the old, “YOU NEVER LISTEN TO ME!” accusation, which is probably true. I don’t need to listen because I already know what he is going to say. And also, I’m rude and disrepectful and have I mentioned, unqualified for this job?

I hate myself when I behave worse than my kids.

The kids never did answer my questions, although he did finally admit that he knew they lost the cord, but they didn’t offer that information to me. HELLO? I am infuriated at this irresponsible shirking of responsibility, this withholding of important information, this teenageness.

I found the power cord on the kitchen counter.

I overreact. I know I do. I am at an elevated level of pissed off-ness just by walking into their disgusting pig-sty of a room. I blast like a rocket into fury instead of giving them the benefit of the doubt or gathering information without freaking out. I suck.

I simply must stop it. STOP IT. STOP IT! Get a grip before I cause them permanent, irreversible destruction. What I want to know is this, though. If nothing I have said to them to this point, fourteen years of parenting hasn’t made a dent in their behavior (TURN OFF THE LIGHT! STOP FIGHTING! PLEASE QUIT LEAVING EMPTY MILK CARTONS IN THE FRIDGE!) then why do I think that I can affect them negatively? My positive influence hasn’t had any effect at all.

I don’t want to be one of those screaming moms that kids plot to get away from. I don’t want to be a bitter old biddy that no one can stand sitting next to in church. I don’t want my kids to hate me.

(Will they ever stop driving me crazy? Can I stop acting like a lunatic? I want a do-over.)

Really, I quit. I can’t do this. Hire someone else with qualifications.

A no-tail cat tale

When we were first married twenty years ago, I was in a big hurry to adopt a kitten. Those were the days when I longed to nurture something, anything, preferably something cute. My lifetime allotment of the desire to nurture has dwindled dangerously close to empty. But then, I had to have a kitten.

And so we ended up with two, Sterling and Hamden. Sterling began life as a calm stray, but turned into a raving lunatic by the end of his 11 year lifespan. He spent his kittenhood spilling his water bowl and knocking things off tables. Hamden, on the other hand, was a perfect cat, an orange tabby with paws that looked like oversized mittens. He, alas, died from diabetes when he was 12. I loved that cat.
By then, our twins were five and our baby was a baby. But for some reason, we decided we must have another cat. And so, Millie the Millenium cat came home from the Humane Society.

Soon after, we got a dog, a Newfoundland, and Millie was not pleased. Soon after that, another baby was born into our family and Millie went crazy. She licked herself until she bled and refused to come down from the television. My husband took her to the vet thinking that perhaps she had an allergy, but no. Millie was mentally ill and needed to be medicated the rest of her life. Poor Millie.

After Millie, we adopted a spunky black cat named Shadow. Shadow behaved much like a dog and insisted on going outdoors. He followed us around the block. He was plucky. He, unfortunately, disappeared and right after that, the notice from our town reminded us that coyotes had been spotted in town and to be careful with our pets. Oh. Thanks.

After that, my husband said, “No more pets!” and frankly, I agreed, though I didn’t want to be the one to tell the kids. So, my husband told the kids and predictably, our youngest son cried a river of sorrow.

Within a month, my husband informed me, “The neighbor has kittens. I told her we’d take two.”

Wha–??!

We ended up with three mutant cats, two with no tails, one with half a tail with a bent end. They had fleas when we got them. They are ugly. The bent-tail cat walks funny, with her feet turned out. One tailless cat is freaked out all the time and looks at me as if I intend to carve her up with a butcher knife at any time. She is the most paranoid cat ever and her name is Roy.

The last cat is fluffy. She has long fur, but no tail and looks like a walking cloud. She’s sweet, though if someone walks too close to her, she’s apt to snag them with a claw just for the heck of it. Also, her hair has become matted because I have no innate longing to nurture, thus I ignore the cats as much as possible and I didn’t realize she needed to be brushed from time to time. The cats aren’t even on my to-do list. Poor cats.
So terrible mats developed on her back, months ago (I really should not be allowed to own pets) and TONIGHT, finally, tonight, I took clippers to her back and with much difficulty, shaved her.

Then, I examined her hind quarters and discovered matted poop. That explains why I plunged her into a sinkful of water and massaged her butt with my hands . . . touching poop. I’ve been a mother for fourteen years and I have no less distaste for touching poop than in my pre-motherhood days.

The cat, however, seems grateful.

I am inordinately pleased with the accomplishment of this random task and I thought you’d want to know.

So there.

Tagged

I’ve been tagged to post 8 random things . . . I’m pretty sure I’ve done this recently, but this is for my blogging buddy in Australia.

Death Sentence download

1) My toenails are always polished, but my fingernails never are.

2) I am the only one who ever turns off the upstairs bathroom light. I do so at least ten times a day.

3) I never go to bed before 11 p.m. unless I’m sick.

4) I do a Google search on my friend, Lori Bumstead, regularly. We became friends in second grade, but drifted apart eventually. I still wonder whatever happened to her. (Google has been unhelpful in this quest for information.) Lori, where are you?

5) I used to write songs in college. Once I wrote one called “Dead Butterflies” which was complete nonsense.

6) Almost every one of my elementary school photographs shows me wearing orange, usually orange polyester. I have never willingly worn orange since (except for that college talent show in which I wore orange polyester and white go-go boots in a crazy humor attempt).

7) I still miss the television show “thirtysomething.”

8) I am on a never-ending quest for the perfect healthy muffin recipe. I love muffins but no one else in my family does. (What’s wrong with them.)

Consider yourself tagged if you haven’t yet done this fun little exercise. You’re it!

On death and dying

She walked into my room with the old hooded towel from her baby days on her head. Her fist flew to her eyes, a sure sign of impending tears. I said, “Hey, what’s wrong?” in alarm and pulled her onto the bed. (But not onto my lap because she was in her wet swimsuit, having just returned from the pool.)

She cried, then, rubbing her eyes. I ran my hand over her legs. “Are you hurt? Did you fall?” She shook her head. “What’s wrong?” She sniffed some more.

Then, finally, “I don’t want to be dead!” she said.

“You aren’t going to die,” I assured her.

“And I don’t want you to die!” she said.

“I’m not going to die until I’m very old.” Perhaps a lie, but I offered it anyway.

“Like great-grandma?”

“Yes. Great-grandma is still alive and she’s 101.”

“What about my regular grandma?” she asked.

“She’s alive, too.”

Then, fresh tears and, “I don’t want to die!”

“You aren’t going to die.”

“Because children don’t die?” she asked.

I paused. Then chose to lie. “That’s right. Children don’t die. You’ll live for a long, long, long time. Probably.”

The In-Laws buy

Her tears had stopped by then, comforted by my lies. My husband said Grace had been talking to a little girl at the pool and the conversation was about death. Grace could not stop talking about it when she got home, and apparently on the drive home from the pool, she carried a terror of dying which she could only hand to me in person.
During her bath:

“Mom, what would your mouth and eyes look like when you’re dead?”

“Mom, what does God look like?”

“Mom, are you going to die?”

“Mom, when are we going to die?

I believe in heaven. I believe in God. I believe that death is not the end, only a doorway to another life. But looking in the blue eyes of my 4-year old daughter, I offered lies because I can’t bear for her to consider a loss that great.

I’m sure we’ll be talking about death for days and weeks to come. I can only hope that no one in our family–including 101-year old Great Grandma–dies anytime soon. Or ever, really, as long as I’m hoping and wishing.

* * *

I should note that we often talk about death around here . . . I am matter-of-fact about the topic. My kids know that my dad died when he was 47 and they’ve asked about that over and over again. But yesterday, she was so worried about dying RIGHT THEN that I felt it was not appropriate to have a rational discussion. We will talk about it again soon, I am sure, and than I will clarify . . . I say this in response to the comments advising me to be truthful. I have been in the past and under normal circumstances, I am forthright on this topic, but yesterday? Yesterday I chose to assure rather than offer facts. (Geez, do I sound defensive or what?)

I’m boring, but I read a lot

You couldn’t really be interested in the fact that I bought a pillow tonight. Or in the happy fact that I purchased said pillow on clearance, paying less than $30.00 for the king-sized down-filled item, including a set of 600 thread count pillowcases. (Full price for pillowcases and pillow would have been $75.00.)
Unfortunately, that is about the highlight of my day. The rest of time was allotted to cleaning up the kitchen, putting away the last of the stuff from Vacation Bible School, and sitting poolside for two hours while the kids swam in the deserted pool. (Overcast day today and no one was at the pool.) Oh, and answering email.
I was also working on a writing assignment (just sent it off into the wild blue yonder).Today, it’s boring to me be.

Tomorrow, it will be painful to be me as I’m having a tooth extracted. I fully expect to drool blood and otherwise venture to the brink of death because I am dramatic like that.

Tonight, I am eating popcorn because when will I be able to chew again?

Then, I will sleep peacefully on my king-sized pillow.

Oh! But I have to ask. Has anyone read Jodi Picoult’s Plain Truth? Because if you have, we must talk. I finished it on vacation. Before that, I read Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Have you read that? Oh. My. What a book! (Did I already rave about it?) And after that, I read Girl, Interrupted. I’ve never seen the movie, but now I want to.

So, what are you reading? And, do you love your pillow or feel indifferent toward it?

Gone in a flash

You know what I miss? My pillow. Oh, pillow, where art thou, pillow?

It occurs to me that I failed to mention a writing contest I entered and won. You can go here to read my article.

I find it distressing that school starts in a little more than a month. (August 30 around these parts.) I did have a random moment of longing for pumpkin patches and falling colored leaves, but the sane portion of my personality digs in her heels, resenting being dragged headlong into the future at such an alarming rate.

I’m not ready. And I have too much work to do. Didn’t summer just start twenty minutes ago?

Home, Sweet Home

We drove over a thousand miles in the past two days.  With four kids in the backseat.  The good news?  We’re home.  The bad news?  Our 4-year old got car sick for the first time.  (She called it a “car cold.”)  The good news?  She informed me that she was going to throw up and then very conveniently did so into an empty coffee cup.  By the time we stopped the car for gasoline, she was perky and ready to eat chocolate donuts.
On our journey from Southern California to green Washington state, we passed an onion processing plant . . . we smelled it a mile before we saw it.  We saw many trucks full of tomatoes and one full of peppers.  We saw a truck carting a bunch of dingy white chickens to their fates.  We smelled miles of cows, cows as far at the eye could see.  We saw sheep, horses and miles and miles and miles of tan, desolate hills.  We saw Mt. Shasta swathed in a shawl of white, cotton-batting clouds.  We stopped to pee way more times than we stopped to get gasoline or eat which hardly seems possible if you consider that what goes in must come out . . . how does more come out than goes in?

The most tragic event occurred Friday.  My husband, in his quest to get us out of our hotel room as quickly as possible, failed to notice my beloved pillow on the bed . . . and I didn’t take one last look around because I’d already been shooed out of the room.  I called the hotel as soon as I realized my loss, but had to leave a telephone message.  (I found myself in one of those crazy telephone loops where I didn’t get to talk to a real person about my crisis.)  Tonight, my husband called again and alas, no one has seen my pillow.

Clearly, if I travel with my pillow, I am very attached to it.  Was very attached to it.

Tomorrow, after I sleep in and get a crick in my neck, I’m going pillow shopping.  And grocery shopping.  Alone.  Glory to God in the highest.  It’s good to be home.

The Burning Plain full

The mighty power of email

Ha.  I emailed the manager of this hotel and at this very moment, as I type, I am the proud inhabitant of adjoining hotel rooms.  And only the boys had to move . . . I stayed put.

Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?

Today, we “did” California Adventures.  The Tower of Terror beckoned twice, as did the Grizzly River Raft, Soarin’ Over California and California Screaming (a roller coaster).  The only bummer was that by the time we rode the roller coaster, I had developed a severe lack-of-food and caffeine headache and my brain rattled around in my head with every curve and swoop of the coaster.  Ouch.

However, after food and Diet Coke, we were mesmerized by the stage show of Aladdin . . . it was truly remarkable.

Tomorrow at 7 a.m., we’ll be back at Disney in an effort to actually ride the Finding Nemo attraction.  The waits in line have been upwards of two hours . . . which is ridiculous.  I hope that if we arrive super early, we can avoid that nonsense.

Since we’ve been here I’ve done laundry three times.  Which is sort of funny to me.  However, my technique is to pack light and wash often, so I only packed enough clothing for three days for each of us.  This hotel has only two washers and two dryers . . . apparently, I’m one of the few who wash clothes while vacationing.

And now I’m rambling, so enough.