wake up and smell the catfood

I am taking a pilates and a yoga class this term.

It hurts when I laugh. 

I am pretending that is a good thing.

In May I am adding "yoga sculpt", which is a hybrid of the two practices (if you know me you know how annoyed I am by people who yak on and on about their practices) with some cardio thrown in for good measure.

The teacher, who frequently refers  to herself as a yogi  (which also annoys me) assures me that this class will change my body. 

I really love the pilates, it is easy on my old creaky knees.

The yoga I could do without.  I already very flexible, super flexible even, from doing yoga stretches for 20 years or so, (until the birth of my second child I could do the splits, and a backbend, despite being old and fat) but I am not graceful at all.

Not one bit of grace flows through this body, so I always look like a buffoon, during the transitions from one pose to another, at least I don't fart, like the woman next to me.

How can she just fart away in a crowded room ?

It disturbs my practice a great deal, much more than the cell phone yacker, on my other side.

My lack of grace presents the same problem in dancing.

I am a terrible dancer.

I don't know my left from my right well enough to be smooth, and I can't follow directions fast enough to be smooth.

I am not a smooth person.  I am a methodical, plodding, peasantish person, who is a lousy dancer.

I wait all year for these peonies to bloom.  They are not the super fluffy multi layered kind that I really love, but they came with the house, so I will take what I get.

Once they bloom, they only really look good for a day or two, before turning sort of inside out and collapsing on themselves.

All my company from last week has gone home, and Mark is back and things are feeling less intense.
One nice thing about last week was that both my brother and my cousin came down, and we had a nice visit.
Here are my nieces with my kids. Freyja was being naughty and putting the dolphin doll over her face, but it is otherwise a good photo.  You could pick us all out, as relatives, in a crowd, by our cheekbones!

 A bunch of leeks came in the food donation this week, and since the school doesn't use onions or garlic, I got to take them home.  I made a leek shortcake, which is leeks sauteed in a white sauce, with a biscuit topping.   Even Ripley liked it!

I am listening to this record, which I purchased sometime in the mid 80's after hearing the fabulously vulgar "why ya do it?" on a mixed tape, given to me by a fabulously vulgar skate punk from Scotland named Chris.  
I like every single song (yes even the ones with the dated, corny synthesizer parts) and it is one of those albums that makes me so deeply happen to still have access to on vinyl.   I can't imagine hearing this on cd (I know, I know everyone that knows me is sick of hearing my anti-digital rants). 

Last night my mother called to say that she will fly in this evening. 

My aunt has taken a turn for the worse and will have quadruple bypass surgery on Monday, if she remains stable, or sooner, if she doesn't.

There is nothing I can do except wait for my mother, then go to the hospital to visit.  I can host out of town family. 

I can cook, I can drive, I can provide a center.

I am selfishly wishing that there was a way to avoid all of the painful, complicated family baggage that this event will surely dredge up.  

So it's all about YOU? How  s e l f i s h

has floated through my mind constantly, since the moment I picked up the phone last night at 8:45pm. 

In my family being selfish is second only to being lazy- a mortal sin. 

The notion of boundaries, self preservation or self interest are completely alien.

I am thinking of how much I wish my husband were home, rather than far away on a business trip.  I am wishing for his quiet, I have got your back,  buffering presence.  I am wishing for his fierce protectiveness and good judgment. 

I am mopping the floor and scrubbing the toilet and hoping for grace.

I had coffee with an old high school friend today.

It was a little odd.

I am out of practice talking to people outside of my parenting world. I worried about my ability to carry a conversation, to be interesting.  

We talked about a mutual friend that committed suicide.
It was nice to talk with someone about that shared traumatic experience.  Not nice, but comforting.  Who wants suicide as a shared experience?  It is like this awful thing we carry around with us, that profoundly shaped who we are, but is not something we can talk about with other people.  He said that the experience made him shy away from being alternative or artistic, at the time, as if the end result was insanity and death.

Interestingly, I had just the opposite reaction.  I wanted to reject every middle class and mainstream thing in my life. 

I felt that the mainstream murdered my friend. 

I have continued to feel that way since 1985,  until today, sitting in a noisy cafe, when I suddenly  felt like I was possibly wrong, childish or foolish to harbor such bitterness and resentments.  

a bird in the hand

Early this morning I saw a blackcapped chickadee, a bluebird, and a robin in my backyard. 

I didn't have my camera, dang it.

I adore chickadees.  A few years ago I spent a lot of time trying to render a good felt version, but they never came out quite right. 

If I didn't have children and a cat, I would keep pet birds.

I am concerned that the cat is going to start up her hunting craze again.  Last year she killed eight little birds.  I have tried putting a bell around her neck, but she always manages to take it off.

to hell in a handbasket

I just got off the phone with my aunt.

An aunt I dearly love and care for profoundly.

An aunt that is a deeply wounded person that has sought refuge in religion.  Right wing, funamentalist, extremist religion.

The religion of fear and separation and desperation and threats and condemnation.
 
I am close with her, so when things get hard she calls.

She she believes is dying today.

She is worried about my eternal salvation.

She is not concerned with herself, only with my place in heaven. 

She tells me this in a hysterical tone, speech slurred by all the over medicating she does.

These conversations leave me gutted and exhausted.  

I spent the last six months of my paternal grandmother's life, having the same drugged out, hysterical, confused conversations.

I don't need this in my life.  I do not deserve to have people I love turn into babbling psychic vampires, with scary voices that make me feel like they have been possessed by the very demons they fear. 

Ironically,. I am the target of this lunacy because I have had loving relationships with these people, because I will listen, I will care, I will be effected.

I am not able to tell them what they want to hear, but I can be polite, concerned.

There is no relationship in these conversations.

The religiousness robs them of intimacy, or authenticity.

There is only the desperation of what I hope is the regret that there was not more love, more contact, more pleasant times.  I don't know.  That is what I hope I put up with this shit for.  I hope this insanity translates into love. 

"Why do you let these things bother you so much?"

My mother asks.

"Hang up"

She suggests.

and that is why they call me, and not her.

crafting up a storm

The big fundraiser auction for Freyja's school is coming up this Saturday.  Since I have no money to buy anything, I always try to contribute a lot to sell.  Last year my cakes and handmade items brought in some serious long dollars- just saying.

Last night I waited until Freyja went to bed to get started, so I was a little frazzled by the end, but I think my things came out pretty nicely.

Two tooth fairy pocket pillows

the pocket for the tooth/money is on the back.

Two tulle fairy dress up skirts.  Sewing tulle is an impatient sewers worst nightmare! 

Two pirate dress up vests. Rrrrrrrrrrrrrr. 

I also made eight of my lightswitch covers, and gift certificates for dozens of dozens of cupcakes, spaezle, and other home cooked items, to be delivered. 

I think I am done.

I may have one or two more tutu's in me, but Mark left this morning  on a business trip, so I may try to conserve my energy. 

Maxwell came home from China with a new short haircut!  

He has not cut his hair since he was seven, so this is a bit of an adjustment for his old mama, who continues to do double takes.  

Oh, and the only remarkable cooking this week has been a pizza.  Half sans cheese, for Mark.

Freyja is now old enough to play with paper dolls, but apparently I am not old enough to be patient with my reckless five year old, so Mark is the only one she will allow to assist her in dressing the dolls. 

It is going to be a loooooong week with daddy away, friends.  Pray for me!

times flies

It is the anniversary of  our first date.

Like the cliche, it feels like no time and a lifetime has passed since then. 

Despite my grumblings about his running my car out of gas, and not being chatty enough, I feel very lucky to have such a dedicated partner. 

I am lucky to be able to be home with the kids most of the time, but also have a part time job that makes me feel like a grown up.

I am lucky to have a roof over my head that belongs to us, and is big enough to offer personal space to all of it's inhabitants. 

I am lucky to be able to feed my children quality food of my choice.

Lots of things to be happy about, that makes the things I like to kvetch about seems petty and small.

walking on eggshells

These are very sweet little nosegay bouquets inside sweet little brown speckled eggshells, which you can't see because I am a terrible photographer. 

Trust me, they are cute.