it goes something like this

We have continued to have these crazy busy weeks and weekends and I wonder if they will ever stop?

The rockband, name pending,  has taken more form over the past week and had couple practices; I am more impressed than horrified so far.

The kids are keeping the noise level pretty low and working really hard on song writing and only asking me for Dairy Queen money once in a blue moon, and one kid brought a pan of brownies ( I am dazzled by boys with brownies!)  and the girl bass player really kicks ass ( I am dazzled by kick ass, girl bass players) ...

WOW!

Mark worked all day on Saturday.

Freyja had two friends over.

I loved having them.  They are lovely low maintence children of artists.  I was happy for the company.

Working weekends-

That seems to be our new reality.

I went to a housewarming for a dear friend and fixed her faucet.

I felt a tiny bit useful, but got sprayed, by the faucet, sans aerator, which was really annoying and awkward- I walked around the gathering with a wet T-Shirt, not in a good way. 

My friend was busy,

I sliced potatoes, I chopped cabbage, because that is what I do-  I am useful in a pinch...

I hate parties.

I Ate pie and pretended that is was perfectly normal to be wet.

It was that kind of day, and I am having that kind of life lately.

My friend was happy to have a faucet that worked and called me handy.

I am pretty freaking handy.

Rolf and I and Maxwell made our Saturday dinner.

I am trying to teach Maxwell to be handy, he is a not super apt as a pupil.

I wonder what my parents taught me?

They had other things to attend to, I guess.  

I guess? 

Don't take any wooden nickles...   

Not that many teachable moments, 

I guess.  

They were young.   

I am not young.   

I am an old maid an old mama and I want my children to know that I think of them constantly, even when I am working weekends, even when I am fixing someone's faucet.  

I never want there to be a shadow of a doubt about what is on my mind.

My Saturday dinner is SACRED.

My children know it.

My husband knows it.

It is hands off, if you know what I mean.

I am naked without my Saturday dinner.

It all worked out.

We didn't have guests, which I hate.

The not having guests, part-

I hate that.

I need my people.

I lack historical. parental guidance, I need my people. 

At 7:30, Mark noticed and said

"we need to do something special for Mommy"

All of us, piled into the car and drove to north Portland for Ruby Jewel ice cream, and walked up NE Mississippi St, like a pack of hipsters, Freyja was barefoot, wielding a double chocolate cone while perched upon Rolf's shoulders.


At one point she dripped a lot of ice cream on his head.

No one cared.

We laughed - a lot.

We looked at shops.

We laughed a little more.

Revived, we drove home laughing, and watched "the invention of lying" which was funny, although there was a bit about masturbation, that made me cringe, with Maxwell in the room.

We all needed a break.

It was a very good idea to go OUT.

On Sunday, I had to work.

I grilled veggies for 20 people.

I shopped and I cooked, baked and organized, for an In-Service event at work, Monday.

My kids ate take out pizza...  

I am not proud. 

In the evening, Rolf came down to the school as worked as my prep cook.

We made eggplant salad, tabbouleh, and some fruit salad.

We cleaned, we chopped and we laughed a little.

I cooked like a MOFO

I made vegan marionberry muffins for my staff for morning.

This is what I do. I make up for... I compensate and I excel.

I asked the teachers to arrive at 8:00 and work 'till 5:00, which will be brutal for some. 

Toughen up people, there is a lot more of life to come.

When I came home, Maxwell's best friend was seated on my sofa.

He is like a third child to us.

did you get in on the pizza?

No? 

Let me get you a slice. 

and as the Great Mr. Vonnetgut  said, so it goes...

Moonshadow watching band practice

the band!

the most beautiful, lovely, talented and delightful child in the whole wide world, and I get to spend time with him.

Moonshadow and Ripley watching a movie with us.

Ripley as Eurotrash Starfu&*#$

Mommy, always cleaning, to quote Joni, sort of

Watching the band practice and not being horrified, photo by Miss F. green eyeshadow seemed like such a good idea at the time.

Freyja as photographer makes me look pretty good!

I need my Saturday night dinner and you all better play along! 

On Sunday, I started cooking for my staff meal for Monday In-Service, grilling zuch's YO!

a sweet urban farmer donated a giant box of veggies for my In-Service meeting, this is meet cooking like a Mofo, getting ready.

My six pound baby, in his new jacket.

My new favorite wine, that Rolf brought to Saturday's dinner !

Onkel and Riptron

Tall woman wearing clogs

I sometimes look at the "traffic source" listing for this blog, which is pretty silly, considering I have no idea what all the data means, but today I notice one of the search results which led the viewer here was "tall woman wearing clogs" which sounds like some kooky fetish. 

I hope the person wasn't terribly disappointed to only find a short woman wearing clogs. 

I wonder if anyone ever googles "short woman wearing clogs in hopes of looking taller." ?
Now that would be a interesting fetish!  


If I have my way, I will be purchasing these clogs for fall.

 

or, perhaps these,  a style I favored in the 80's, which those who have known me since high school will remember, if you are weird and remember other people's shoe choices from 25 years ago. They are a reissue, because, clearly they are awesome! 

 

I adore Fluevog shoes, which claim to protect you from Satan, which is really all you can really hope for from a pair of shoes, now isn't it?

Oh, goody a drumset!

My mother send a drumset home with Maxwell, without asking if it was ok. 

I have no idea why they thought it was a good idea, but I now have it set up in Freyja's playroom, which is part of our livingroom.

I am not very excited about it.

It is a big drumset.

It could be bigger!  It isn't like as big as say Rush's drummer's kit.

That is what my friend Don said when he came over to set it up.  

I  phoned him the night before, when the pile of cartons had begun to drive me batty after sitting in the corner for over a week. 

Yes, Don is correct.  

It is indeed smaller than a 1980's progressive rock band's drum kit.  

I will give him an A+ for observation.   

Don is a musician, and for him it seems perfectly normal to have a drum kit in your living room. 

He also happens to be one of those repulsively upbeat and cheerful types that insists on seeing the bright side of everything, which is the primary reason I phoned him at 11:00pm and begged for assistance, rather than facing the snarlfest that would surely ensue if Mark and I attempted to put the blasted thing together.  

You should see us try to put up the Christmas tree!  It isn't pretty!

He was the ideal choice, sauntering in almost on time, with his sticky one year old and a bag of groceries, that needed cooling in my fridge. 

He gayly poured the whole crew limeaide and set to work screwing things together, while his baby daughter dragged a suitcase around the living room (she and Don found the suitcase in the basement, where he had gone to fetch ice, from the deep freeze.)

And by cricky, within an hour he had the whole thing assembled, backward, to accommodate our left handed player, despite a little setback, when I made the baby cry, by turning on the vacuum cleaner.  

Bad Vacuum!

She wailed, and demanded to go outside.

In the end, Maxwell was delighted (he got a basic lesson on how to do a rock beat), his friend was impressed that I was able to conjure up a drum assembly team so nicely, and the baby was happy the vacuuming was over at last.  

I had dinner with old friends on Saturday, which was delightful.

One friend mentioned that a two day weekend made her feel like she hardly had time to rest, or catch up, or get anything done, and I agree... two days is simple not enough to feel rested.

We crammed a lot in though!

Freyja had two, count 'em two action packed play dates with sweet friends.

I got to have my grown up dinner, with Miss F. behaving like  a champ.

She and Rolf and I went out for pastry Early, early Saturday morning.  My friend Joe came by for a much needed visit.

She and I went shopping like crazy people at three different grocery stores.

We made an appearance at a big neighborhood gathering (but it was too damn hot to stay for the free food provided by local restaurants!)  and Lily brought over a ton of cool treasures for our new outdoor living room (aka, the covered deck).

we had to add a second table, then Miss F decided she had to have her own table, so a third was tacked on the end!

I wasn't very cute by 6:30 on a 96 degree day!

loving my new roof!

people trickling in

arugula and tomatoes

beets, eggplant, grilled zucchini

taking photos in the dark, with Joe covering his face.

Lents park on sunday, FREE FOOD, man!

sweet little bird wallet!

AND a big cone of hydrangeas!

and a super beautiful wreath from Lily!

AND a sweet vintage picnic basket, perfect for holding doll clothing.

the dolls are relived that their clothing mess has been attended to! 

I just came to know that my neighbor is poisoning racoons, using catfood as bait.  

Delightful.

Our neighborhood is full of nosy,  roaming cats, just looking for a snack. 

We are keeping Moonshadow inside for the time being, which is no easy feat, restraining a very motivated twenty pound cat takes a lot of maneuvering, let me tell you!

It could all just be a rumor, since the neighbor told me that she was only trapping, the racoons.  

She does really hate both the racoons and cats though, so I have a feeling it may be true.  

Her persistent hatred, along with the fact that a giant, dead, raccoon toppled from the roof of her deck into our back yard, a few months ago, seems to indicate that she is capable of raccoonacide, or I suppose it could just be a coincidence that a big unwounded raccoon just happened to drop dead after a visit to her garden.

This woman is not very well liked in the neighborhood, although I don't really mind her, except when she smokes and it wafts onto my deck.   

She has threatened to shoot our cat in the past, but I always tried to overlook that part in the interest of good relations.  

You know, turn the other cheek and all that. 

... she didn't know what to do!

I had a doozy parenting blunder on Tuesday.

It all started Monday night.  

I was all flummoxed over that missed e-mailed invitation for Freyja, for  a fairy club meeting, and I was all jangled by work and I was all distressed over how I was going find childcare for Freyja while I went to pick Maxwell up at the airport, that I somehow allowed myself to be led astray from my plan.

The plan was a simple one, to have a neighbor stay with Freyja while I went to pick up Maxwell. 

Then I started fretting about the e-mail thing and my mind got all woozly with worry. 

Then I allowed Mark to interject his opinion, which is never a good idea, because when I deviate from my plan, trouble is sure to follow. 

I should know better.

His idea was that he could somehow come home at 4:00pm and care for Freyja, which is about as likely as pigs flying, since he hasn't made it home before 6:30 in ages. 

So all of this was floating around in my head, making me very nervous, when a reply came from the mom of the fairy club child and I thought some how that the fairy club was the next day, right at the time I had to be at the airport, and having Mark pick up from there at 6:30 seemed like a pretty good solution. 

Problem solved!

E X C E P T !!!

The fairy club was in fact on WEDNESDAY, not Tuesday. 

I don't have a cell phone, so I didn't find out that my child was at someone's home on the wrong day, until I walked in the door at 5:55pm, and noticed a message from the daycare center.

"ummm, Heidi Freyja is saying she is supposed to go home with the fairy club, and her carseat is here, but the fairy club is Wednesday!"

Lucky for me the fairy mom was a good sport and took Miss F home with her. 

I phoned Mark who informed me that he was still at his office in Milwaukie!!!

Not close to picking Freyja up at all.

A whole town away!

I raced across town and picked her up at 6:15.

I was totally mortified, being someone that is not only, never late, but also  most certainly not usually confused!!

They laughed it off and offered to pick her up for the club the next day.

I happened to have an evening meeting so I asked Mark to pick up at 6:30 -and don't be late, I cautioned.

Except, I didn't go back and read the invitation, which said 6:00pm, so Mark was far from delighted with me when I got home at 7:30. 

The level of my embarrassment was so high, that I spent the balance of the evening pacing around the deck asking Rolf over and over to assess the lameness factor, and whether baking some kind of apology cake was in order? I briefly considered smoking a cigarette to calm my nerves and  in the end I made a card, and some candies and hoped with intensity, that this woman also has the occasional off week.

so many ways to feel like a bad person

I feel totally overwhelmed by the constant requests for my attention, my time, my presence, my opinion, my expertise, my company...

Today I realized that I had a ton of old e-mails that had been sent to my old address (even though I did tell folks the new address, but I suppose a lot of stuff is just auto piloted out without much thought.) and many of them were invitations for Freyja, which makes me feel even worse, or worser, as Miss F. would say- that is even worser than I thought.

I talk a lot about how odd modern parenting is, where there are so many organized play dates and birthday parties and fairy princess clubs and other things I am behind on keeping up with.

Maxwell was fairly easy to deal with, the preschool was small then, with lots of  people with similar lifestyles to ours, so not so much of the keeping up with the Joneses, or just plain keeping up.

With Freyja it feel like a lot of work to make it all fit together.

In fact as I sat here writing this post, I realized that I had not signed her up for her fall session of the circus class, which fills up quickly!

I stopped writing, signed her up, and my heart was racing until the receipt showed up in my in box.

Whew, another disaster averted. 

Mark and I talk about how when we were children you were mostly outside, until dinner time.  You were playing outside with neighborhood children, then later  when you got older, hanging around some central place like a part or school grounds, getting up to no good until dark.  There were no play dates and birthday parties were largely family affairs.

I had three phone calls regarding  work, tonight, and that was a pretty slow evening, compared to the way things have been lately.  Mark spent the lion's share of Sunday at the office.  He took Friday off and we spend two hours running errands, it hardly felt like time off.  

There is a drum kit sitting, boxed up,  in my living room, that Maxwell mailed home from my mother's place- he returns tomorrow with the expectation of a place for a rock band to practice.

I wonder how I will pull that one off?

Every time I turn around more, and more piles on.  I haven't picked up a book in days, I haven't slept through the night in weeks.  I just keep thinking of all the undone, and half done things I should take care of, all of the appointments I am need to make, the e-mails I need to return.