I bought a few things for work, because I am working at a place that requires business casual, which is far afield from that clothing that hang in my closet.
I've worn jeans and hippie dresses for the past 25 years, to every job I've ever had and it's been completely acceptable, if not expected.
So I bought four new outfits, because the four things I rotate now are pretty shopworn, and winterly.
Three of the four were simply not good.
One dress a knit thing with a sort of flowery print and empire waist, was shoddily made, although I liked the design.
The second dress had weird sleeves and too much lining.
It looked like the breastplate of a suit of amour, and made me feel stiff.
The third outfit was so so.
The top was fine. It was white, which is always a gamble, for someone like me, who drinks coffee while terribly near sighted, and has a tendency to spill, but it was cute (although Mark said it was "see though", by which I think he meant white, having almost always only seen me in black).
The accompanying skirt was an abomination.
Hideous.
Long, overly long.
Mark couldn't quit put it into words, but upon seeing it on, Rolf exclaimed,
"there is simply too much FABRIC!"
and as usual he was completely correct.
He may have not been this correct, since the time in the early 90's when he observed that the dress I was wearing made me look like a secretary.
The lot of it is going back, except for the see-through white tee-shirt with the little bow.
To hell with clothing, I will go on with my Mao inspired peasant dress and they can avert their eyes if they don't like it!
Tuesday, April 28, 2015
I have few indulgences, when you get right down to it, in relation to the typical middle aged modern person.
I don't shop.
I don't really wear makeup, and the one lipstick I use regularly is 5 years old.
We don't have cable, and we are frugal as can be, with the exception of a few meals out per week.
We don't have debt, we don't have toys.
All of this has a lot less to do with virtuousness, and much more to do with my neurosis regarding money.
I have a naturopath that I see several times a year.
Maybe five in a bad year, maybe less when I'm betterish.
I used to have a hypnotherapist, but he was insanely expensive and didn't draw blood.
I love my naturopath very much.
She listens to me.
She pats my hands.
She tells me I matter, and that I'm meaningful.
She worries that I work too much and rest too little.
She tells me that she is proud of me, and knows my taste, my struggles, my strengths.
She pours me cups of tea and cares deeply about my well being.
She is like the parents I never had, and for $125 an hour, it's a bargain.
She also got me put back together last year after my iron dipped so low that my MD suggested a blood transfusion and a hysterectomy, which seemed like a terrible idea to me.
I know tons of people that feel this way about their therapists, but I never had much luck with mental health folks, all they every wanted to do was give me sleeping pills and stuff me full of anti-depressants, that they couldn't really explain fully.
My friend Dom is a big believer in western medicine. She is game for any kind of treatment, and I suppose that works for her.
I have never felt the slightest bit of care from a doctor in my life, in fact, I have actively felt uncared for and harmed at times.
So I opt to take vitamins and practice Emotional Freeing Technique, and do yoga sometimes and breath deeply and believe strongly in the power of having someone care about you, even if they are just pretending to for money.
I don't shop.
I don't really wear makeup, and the one lipstick I use regularly is 5 years old.
We don't have cable, and we are frugal as can be, with the exception of a few meals out per week.
We don't have debt, we don't have toys.
All of this has a lot less to do with virtuousness, and much more to do with my neurosis regarding money.
I have a naturopath that I see several times a year.
Maybe five in a bad year, maybe less when I'm betterish.
I used to have a hypnotherapist, but he was insanely expensive and didn't draw blood.
I love my naturopath very much.
She listens to me.
She pats my hands.
She tells me I matter, and that I'm meaningful.
She worries that I work too much and rest too little.
She tells me that she is proud of me, and knows my taste, my struggles, my strengths.
She pours me cups of tea and cares deeply about my well being.
She is like the parents I never had, and for $125 an hour, it's a bargain.
She also got me put back together last year after my iron dipped so low that my MD suggested a blood transfusion and a hysterectomy, which seemed like a terrible idea to me.
I know tons of people that feel this way about their therapists, but I never had much luck with mental health folks, all they every wanted to do was give me sleeping pills and stuff me full of anti-depressants, that they couldn't really explain fully.
My friend Dom is a big believer in western medicine. She is game for any kind of treatment, and I suppose that works for her.
I have never felt the slightest bit of care from a doctor in my life, in fact, I have actively felt uncared for and harmed at times.
So I opt to take vitamins and practice Emotional Freeing Technique, and do yoga sometimes and breath deeply and believe strongly in the power of having someone care about you, even if they are just pretending to for money.
Wednesday, April 22, 2015
Listening to A Flock of Seagulls can lead to accidental goat consumption and divorce
Maxwell has been taking drum lessons from an old friend of mine.
My friend the jazz drummer lives way the heck out in North Portland, almost to St. Johns, which is a very long way to go at 2:30pm every Sunday, for a half hour lesson.
He's a good drummer, that much I know for sure, and so far he seems to be a decent teacher. Maxwell has taken to practicing once in a blue moon, even, which makes all the driving a loitering around during the lesson seem worth while (for what it's worth, we could probably sit in my friend's living room and wait, but that feels overwhelming to me, since I am not a fan of loud noise).
On a recent Sunday, it was just the three of us, Freyja being away on a trip with my mother, so I suggested that we all go to the lesson, Mark and I would speed grocery shop, then we could have a late-lunch-early-dinnerish thing after.
I had this fantasy of eating barbecue brisket at the place near the drum lesson.
My mouth was all set for it, as my grandfather used to say.
On the way to the lesson we encountered traffic, the result of a crash on I-5, which made us very late.
A half hour late.
Both Mark and Maxwell were hungry when we left the house, because I made them skip lunch, in favor of this barbecue fantasy I'd created in my head, that was to happen at 3:00pm sharp.
We dropped Maxwell off for the lesson, and went and did our shopping, and encountered even more traffic, and were quite late picking up.
Mark and the kids all suffer from crankiness brought about by low blood sugar, or hunger. In fact they need to eat rather often, for such slim and trim people.
This is a very alien concept to me, who despite being quite plump, can go long periods of time without eating a bit, and feel perfectly shipshape. In fact, I prefer not to eat all day and just have dinner (which I know is TERRIBLE and possibly makes me the worst person ever).
So here we were in the car, with me merrily thinking I was going to get my brisket, and Maxwell and Mark feeling all woozley and peaked from hunger, when we noticed the barbecue place was closed.
There wasn't anything to speak of nearby, so off we set for Alberta St. in search of something special.
I was merry.
I was in search of something special, they were in search of immediate sustenance.
As we drove the conversation turned to Mark playing in a band in high school and he might have mentioned playing A Flock of Seagulls cover tunes, and I might have said
"WHAT!? I wouldn't have given you to time of day!"
and he might have not been in a very festive or jovial mood and said
"Yeah, Max, Mom was really cool and alternative"
and I may have run my mouth a tiny bit, talking some good-natured smack, thinking we were joking, because I totally was and all of the sudden everyone was in a terrible mood.
The traffic was awful and the mood was terrible and no one was laughing at my hilarious barbs, and the afternoon was just spoiled.
We did manage to find a parking spot, in an area that appeared to have a cluster of cafes, but when we got out of the car, nothing seemed to be just right.
That's when Maxwell suggested that we go into a taqueria he'd noticed when we drove past.
I wasn't really in the mood for tacos, since my whole vision involved having something Freyja would hate, since she wasn't around to limit my choices to tacos and pizza, but it seemed like a bad idea to push the more exotic options, at that point.
I could tell straight away that this was not going to be a good kind of hole in the wall taco place.
This was a bad, not very clean taco place.
To make matters worse the menu was one of those wall mounted jobs, with print so small that I couldn't read it, without my glasses, which I lost when Freyja was in 1st grade.
Both Mark and Max, with their enviable vision, had already ordered, by the time I managed to ask the sullen lady at the counter for a printed menu, and then wander around searching, while she barked vague instructions from her perch behind the counter.
At that point my good humor was completely warn thin and I was furious at Mark for being such a baby about my teasing over his terrible taste in music, when he was in high school, and I was further furious at them for ordering without me and not helping with the menu problem.
I noticed one of the photos on the menu that hung far above me, looked like a soup that I often have at our neighborhood place, so I pointed at it and said,
"I just want #8"
"You want birria?"
"Yes!"
"B I R R I A?"
"YES!!"
and I went to sit down.
As I joined my cranky family, it dawned on me that I had just ordered goat soup.
Soup of goat.
I'm not a vegetarian, but I am a goat enthusiast and I was just horrified by my mistake.
My mouth was in no manner set for goat!
"Goddamn it you guys, why didn't you help me? I couldn't read the menu and I think I accidentally ordered GOAT."
"Let's just GO, this place is almost guaranteed to suck."
"There is no way I am leaving and giving that woman the satisfaction of thinking I didn't know what I ordered!"
"Mom, you didn't know what you ordered! You ordered goat!"
"She doesn't need to know that!"
Then the goat arrived.
Unadorned, in a Styrofoam container.
While my family ate tacos, I sipped at my goat broth.
I got up and asked for a lime.
The woman pointed from her stool at a sad pile of juiceless limes on a sideboard, that I'd overlooked (she was not moving from her seat for love, or money, as my father might say).
When they were finished eating we packed up what was left of the goat, and took it home with us, for Rolf to eat in the morning.
I made up a little song about the mistaken goat, in a Styrofoam tote, and Mark apologized for being a dick about the new wave music ribbing, and Maxwell sang a little harmony and added a bit to the verse, and said that it was one of my very best songs, close in quality to "I have my cat in my hands", and we drove back to SE with very little traffic.
My friend the jazz drummer lives way the heck out in North Portland, almost to St. Johns, which is a very long way to go at 2:30pm every Sunday, for a half hour lesson.
He's a good drummer, that much I know for sure, and so far he seems to be a decent teacher. Maxwell has taken to practicing once in a blue moon, even, which makes all the driving a loitering around during the lesson seem worth while (for what it's worth, we could probably sit in my friend's living room and wait, but that feels overwhelming to me, since I am not a fan of loud noise).
On a recent Sunday, it was just the three of us, Freyja being away on a trip with my mother, so I suggested that we all go to the lesson, Mark and I would speed grocery shop, then we could have a late-lunch-early-dinnerish thing after.
I had this fantasy of eating barbecue brisket at the place near the drum lesson.
My mouth was all set for it, as my grandfather used to say.
On the way to the lesson we encountered traffic, the result of a crash on I-5, which made us very late.
A half hour late.
Both Mark and Maxwell were hungry when we left the house, because I made them skip lunch, in favor of this barbecue fantasy I'd created in my head, that was to happen at 3:00pm sharp.
We dropped Maxwell off for the lesson, and went and did our shopping, and encountered even more traffic, and were quite late picking up.
Mark and the kids all suffer from crankiness brought about by low blood sugar, or hunger. In fact they need to eat rather often, for such slim and trim people.
This is a very alien concept to me, who despite being quite plump, can go long periods of time without eating a bit, and feel perfectly shipshape. In fact, I prefer not to eat all day and just have dinner (which I know is TERRIBLE and possibly makes me the worst person ever).
So here we were in the car, with me merrily thinking I was going to get my brisket, and Maxwell and Mark feeling all woozley and peaked from hunger, when we noticed the barbecue place was closed.
There wasn't anything to speak of nearby, so off we set for Alberta St. in search of something special.
I was merry.
I was in search of something special, they were in search of immediate sustenance.
As we drove the conversation turned to Mark playing in a band in high school and he might have mentioned playing A Flock of Seagulls cover tunes, and I might have said
"WHAT!? I wouldn't have given you to time of day!"
and he might have not been in a very festive or jovial mood and said
"Yeah, Max, Mom was really cool and alternative"
and I may have run my mouth a tiny bit, talking some good-natured smack, thinking we were joking, because I totally was and all of the sudden everyone was in a terrible mood.
The traffic was awful and the mood was terrible and no one was laughing at my hilarious barbs, and the afternoon was just spoiled.
We did manage to find a parking spot, in an area that appeared to have a cluster of cafes, but when we got out of the car, nothing seemed to be just right.
That's when Maxwell suggested that we go into a taqueria he'd noticed when we drove past.
I wasn't really in the mood for tacos, since my whole vision involved having something Freyja would hate, since she wasn't around to limit my choices to tacos and pizza, but it seemed like a bad idea to push the more exotic options, at that point.
I could tell straight away that this was not going to be a good kind of hole in the wall taco place.
This was a bad, not very clean taco place.
To make matters worse the menu was one of those wall mounted jobs, with print so small that I couldn't read it, without my glasses, which I lost when Freyja was in 1st grade.
Both Mark and Max, with their enviable vision, had already ordered, by the time I managed to ask the sullen lady at the counter for a printed menu, and then wander around searching, while she barked vague instructions from her perch behind the counter.
At that point my good humor was completely warn thin and I was furious at Mark for being such a baby about my teasing over his terrible taste in music, when he was in high school, and I was further furious at them for ordering without me and not helping with the menu problem.
I noticed one of the photos on the menu that hung far above me, looked like a soup that I often have at our neighborhood place, so I pointed at it and said,
"I just want #8"
"You want birria?"
"Yes!"
"B I R R I A?"
"YES!!"
and I went to sit down.
As I joined my cranky family, it dawned on me that I had just ordered goat soup.
Soup of goat.
I'm not a vegetarian, but I am a goat enthusiast and I was just horrified by my mistake.
My mouth was in no manner set for goat!
"Goddamn it you guys, why didn't you help me? I couldn't read the menu and I think I accidentally ordered GOAT."
"Let's just GO, this place is almost guaranteed to suck."
"There is no way I am leaving and giving that woman the satisfaction of thinking I didn't know what I ordered!"
"Mom, you didn't know what you ordered! You ordered goat!"
"She doesn't need to know that!"
Then the goat arrived.
Unadorned, in a Styrofoam container.
While my family ate tacos, I sipped at my goat broth.
I got up and asked for a lime.
The woman pointed from her stool at a sad pile of juiceless limes on a sideboard, that I'd overlooked (she was not moving from her seat for love, or money, as my father might say).
When they were finished eating we packed up what was left of the goat, and took it home with us, for Rolf to eat in the morning.
I made up a little song about the mistaken goat, in a Styrofoam tote, and Mark apologized for being a dick about the new wave music ribbing, and Maxwell sang a little harmony and added a bit to the verse, and said that it was one of my very best songs, close in quality to "I have my cat in my hands", and we drove back to SE with very little traffic.
Monday, April 20, 2015
enough to just about break your heart, if you let it
A woman just came to the door, asking for work.
Like a depression era drifter.
A broke down lady with blue, blue eyes and a black backpack.
She looked clean enough, said she and her daughter had just become homeless and were trying to get a motel for the night.
She didn't strike me as a junkie, or a thief, but you really never know.
Mark would not have approved of me talking to her, to giving her a $20, to telling her how sorry I was.
He doesn't like me giving people money like that. He thinks I'm a soft touch (I am).
It's getting dark, and I don't have any work to do.
If she'd come yesterday or Saturday, she could have helped me with the garden, Maxwell wasn't worth a good goddamn on Saturday with the garden.
He spilled the cedar chips all over the sidewalk and then huffed and puffed a great deal when I asked him to sweep up.
"that's money, you are leaving on the sidewalk."
He doesn't care very much.
That is the side effect of having mostly all you need, a willingness to leave things lay.
Two weeks ago I hired a man named Walter to clean up our shameful mess of a yard.
The mower's been broken for a while and it shows.
I asked my friend John to take a look at it while we were having coffee weeks ago, now.
He tinkered around and got it going, after washing out the fuel filter with gasoline and messing around with the spark-plug, but there is something off with the idle.
John's good with fixing stuff, being an engineer, I suppose, but he wasn't keen to "spend the better part of the afternoon" trying to figure out that idle.
I had high hopes my invitation to dinner would change his mind, but it didn't. That's when I phoned up Walter from a flier, and he said he'd come right over, and he did.
I liked Walter right away.
I liked his glasses, his horned rimmed glasses.
Mark thinks I'm foolish for basing my decisions on things like that, but I don't care.
I treated myself to that yard work and I am happy with the results.
I almost never feel like people are going to rip me off, and they almost never have, not the ones I've dealt with directly at least.
This lady at the door, she could be up to no good.
I said, thinking of Mark and his distrust of people,
"I'm a stay at home mom. I'm just here day and night, with my dog, so I do all the work there is to do, and I'm married, so what I don't do, he does."
I thought I was being extra crafty, letting her know someone is here most of the time.
I have my nosy neighbor looking out, next door of course. The one that likes to look through binoculars, at everybody.
The lady hugged me when I gave her that little dab of money.
She said "your eyes are stunning, your are so pretty" and I told her hers were too, because they were, I told her that she was a beautiful person to do what she was doing for her daughter. She had acne scars, a lovely smile, an open face, a pretty wave to her hair. I hope she's ok.
When the woman left, I thought I should have offered her some food to take along. I felt like a real creep for not doing that, but what to do?
Like a depression era drifter.
A broke down lady with blue, blue eyes and a black backpack.
She looked clean enough, said she and her daughter had just become homeless and were trying to get a motel for the night.
She didn't strike me as a junkie, or a thief, but you really never know.
Mark would not have approved of me talking to her, to giving her a $20, to telling her how sorry I was.
He doesn't like me giving people money like that. He thinks I'm a soft touch (I am).
It's getting dark, and I don't have any work to do.
If she'd come yesterday or Saturday, she could have helped me with the garden, Maxwell wasn't worth a good goddamn on Saturday with the garden.
He spilled the cedar chips all over the sidewalk and then huffed and puffed a great deal when I asked him to sweep up.
"that's money, you are leaving on the sidewalk."
He doesn't care very much.
That is the side effect of having mostly all you need, a willingness to leave things lay.
Two weeks ago I hired a man named Walter to clean up our shameful mess of a yard.
The mower's been broken for a while and it shows.
I asked my friend John to take a look at it while we were having coffee weeks ago, now.
He tinkered around and got it going, after washing out the fuel filter with gasoline and messing around with the spark-plug, but there is something off with the idle.
John's good with fixing stuff, being an engineer, I suppose, but he wasn't keen to "spend the better part of the afternoon" trying to figure out that idle.
I had high hopes my invitation to dinner would change his mind, but it didn't. That's when I phoned up Walter from a flier, and he said he'd come right over, and he did.
I liked Walter right away.
I liked his glasses, his horned rimmed glasses.
Mark thinks I'm foolish for basing my decisions on things like that, but I don't care.
I treated myself to that yard work and I am happy with the results.
I almost never feel like people are going to rip me off, and they almost never have, not the ones I've dealt with directly at least.
This lady at the door, she could be up to no good.
I said, thinking of Mark and his distrust of people,
"I'm a stay at home mom. I'm just here day and night, with my dog, so I do all the work there is to do, and I'm married, so what I don't do, he does."
I thought I was being extra crafty, letting her know someone is here most of the time.
I have my nosy neighbor looking out, next door of course. The one that likes to look through binoculars, at everybody.
The lady hugged me when I gave her that little dab of money.
She said "your eyes are stunning, your are so pretty" and I told her hers were too, because they were, I told her that she was a beautiful person to do what she was doing for her daughter. She had acne scars, a lovely smile, an open face, a pretty wave to her hair. I hope she's ok.
When the woman left, I thought I should have offered her some food to take along. I felt like a real creep for not doing that, but what to do?
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