In the now

I Just Can't Wait

2008-01-19T22:34:00.000-05:00

To go to Mexico!! Oh man... I'm making a list now of all the things I'm gonna do.
1. Find and capture a chupacabra (and then name him Judas T. just for Steve-O)
2. Go on an ATV tour
3. Teach my new chupacabra, Judas, how to wail plaintively on the seashore
4. Ride horses on the beach, with or without Judas
5. Wake up in a bathtub full of ice after getting trashed and having one of my kidneys carved out and used in a black market transplant
6. Tour the Mayan ruins
7. Sic Judas on bastards who stole my kidney
8. Swim with dolphins, if I decide that this is not entirely inhumane
9. Find that punk Mexican bitch who killed that pregnant woman Marine and feed him to Judas
10. Snorkel and (possibly) find Atlantis

PS. Check my other site http://52churches.blogspot.com/ ok?

Threnody

2007-12-18T11:57:00.001-05:00

Just got back from St. Patrick's Manor where Cheyenne, my 5th grader (and the rest of the 5th grade orchestra) played the violin for a room full of the elderly. I want to say something poignant about the justaposition of pediatric against geriatric or the spirit of the season or the warm glow on the papery skin of those all but lost to this reality but you know, it just isn't coming to me. I guess the words of a shriveled up little fossil of a woman behind me kind of sums it up. When she heard that the sisters were moving the wheelchairs back to their rooms first and that she would have to wait five minutes before leaving she yelled, "This place is stupid."

The Last two things I put on my new Myspace Blog, in case anyone ever looks here again.

2007-12-08T00:32:00.000-05:00

My editor said that sometimes you worry about the person you've interviewed for an upcoming article might die before the magazine comes out. But he's never heard of worrying that the person you just interviewed for an upcoming article will run over your dentist's receptionist's 200 pound husband then keep right on going. That's me. Setting precedents.

Today my editor (maybe i'll shorten that to Ed because editor sounds a bit pretentious but Ed just sounds like my trucker boyfriend.) OK. So. Ed told me that my next article will be interviewing human statues. At first I thought that he was trying to subtly tell me I was fired. But then I realized that interviewing statues is really more like making up a bunch of crap which is what I LOVE BEST so I became very happy and excited. Then I realized (after visiting the website for the aforementioned statues) that human statues are people who stand really still for a living. Sigh.

A Little Bit 'O Mothers Wisdom

2007-08-19T08:38:00.000-05:00

On this Sunday mornin' fer ya. (In case you were wondering, I affected a Welsh accent for that part but since all my accents come out sounding like an Indian/German mix, I only spelled in a Welsh accent. And since I don't actually know what a Welsh accent is, I REALLY only wrote in an unknown accent, then labeled it as Welsh.) OK with that bit 'o book keeping out of the way, let's move on.

I am on day 3 of a raging, angry infernal bacterial infection. The differences between a viral and bacterial infection are, 1. bacteria generally requires antibiotics and 2. They make me hurt in every conceivable place. Also, if you google bacterial infections you'll learn that they can poison your blood and kill you. If you Google them after you've already googled the side effects of Bactrim (Or whatever antibiotic you've been prescribed) aye yai yai....forget it. You're doomed. Which leads me to Motherly Wisdom Nugget #1: A Little Information can be A Lot of Trouble. I know there's a cliche there but I can't remember it. If a half a percent of people report a flesh eating bacteria reaction from a certain infection, it's going on the side effects. It doesn't mean you're going to get it or even need to know about. But if you read it, the next 5 or ten days are going to be filled with hyper vigilant monitoring. And that, in a nutshell, is me. It's almost guaranteed that if I read a side effect I will have it. Within minutes.

So, I asked my Mom for some help. My mom believes that you get more of what you focus on and what you focus on effects the landscape of your existence. For example, if you look at the glass as half empty, you see lack and emptiness and that colors your world. If, however, you see the glass as half full, then you have something and you are grateful and fulfilled. Over simplified, yes. But Already I can hear the kids waging war upstairs. So, she told me instead of focusing my attention on how many bad things could happen to me, to visualize the Bactrum coming in like stormtroopers and slashing the little green bacteria throats. And to imagine the Bactrum rescuing my poor POW immune system and they get together and fight.

Say what you want. It's day three and I feel the wind turn. I'm stiff and aching from being locked into a fetal position for 36 hours, but I can feel the white army winning. And I didn't spend it scared. At least not all of it. At the very least, I'm not scared of the antibiotics anymore and that's a big thing since I'm pill-phobic. And I think I'm pill phobic because I'm Elvis reincarnated. But that's a story for another day.

2007-08-10T15:03:00.001-05:00

I'm one hot mama. My doctor said so. According to her, I've had a fever for the last year. Yesterday on the boat we ran over what was probably the corpse of a mob hit. It was dark, it could have been a stick, but my bets are on the corpse theory. Also, my dog learned how to speak good morning. It's slightly disturbing. She just said it and it's four in the afternoon. For Pete's sake, Bambi, learn how to tell time or shut the hell up, right?

2007-08-04T09:23:00.000-05:00

I have been so STINKING GREEN this year. First of all, we bought rain barrels and attached them to our gutters so we could conserve water and still have a garden. We switched all our lightbulbs and faucets to conserve water and electricity and I've used the clothes drier ONCE since May. Two loads of laundry a day go out on the line to dry in the sunlight. And we've been buying all of our produce local and I've been riding my bike more to go places (with the little ricksaw on the back toting the yunguns.) I've attached the TV's and computers to power strips that I switch off when we aren't using them The only ungreen thing we do is pollute Lake Whitehall with our motorboat twice a week. But that boat is so darned fun! I can't believe I used to hate it. Last night we took sandwiches out to the middle of the lake and drifted while we ate and the sun sank behind a pillow of pinkness. At one point the surface of the water - which turns into glass at sunrise and sunset - bubbled as if there were a diver beneath the surface. The bubbling continued, some fifteen feet away from us, for about two minutes then stopped. I've no explanation for it at all except that the swamp thing was about to come out but saw our boat and thought better of it. Thank God for that because the swap thing scares the shanizzle out of me. I'd tangle with a lot of things but "Swamps" not one of them. Today is 8-4. I wonder if something magical will happen. I expect so since I dreamed about my dad and a pegasus and a little bitty fat turtle. So now I'm off to water everybody's gardens. I am the keeper of the green. PTCakes garden is the garden of a scientist, organized and full of the products of a brilliant mind. My mom's is the garden of an artist, lush and trailing and colorful. Peace.

Whitehall

2007-07-25T21:51:00.000-05:00

Tonight we packed a picnic and took the boat to Whitehall. We docked out on this teensy little island and the kids swam for a little while. Delta fished and I spent some time communicating with a school of kivvers who identified themselves as "The Angry Anklebiters" and gratefully shared my chicken salad reciprocating by blowing oily purple bubbles that spread along the laketop like fireworks. Eventually they lured me into stripping down to my unmentionables and diving in the water much to the surprise of Delta and my children who thought I was some sort of sea monster when I came around the other side of the island. Here are two pictures I took with Delta's phone. The sun set on the right side of the lake and the moon rose over the left as we zipped through the water. We were extra-zipping when I took the moon picture hence the special effects.

Home Again

2007-07-16T07:38:00.000-05:00

I'm glad to be home, if only for my kitchen. After two weeks, restaurants all taste the same and there's always that little niggling paranoia that I'm going to get salmonella or e coli from something somebody else cooked. Or hepatitis c. or Ebola. Boy am I glad to be done dodging bullets. Besides, the kitchen is a place for witchcraft. Outside, on vacation, I am a mere mortal but back home I am a sorceress. Food Alchemy is my medium and my meditation and the most direct way I can pray for the people I love. And, to paraphrase an apron I saw once, most of the people who eat my cooking go on to lead perfectly normal lives.

2007-07-11T09:12:00.000-05:00

Yesterday we stopped by little house on the side of the mountain because it had a sign outside that read "Gifts by Lavender." Delta said that sign's been up since he was a kid but he's never been in there. So we stopped. I wanted to find a face jug made out of local pottery for my mom Face jugs are jugs made from pottery that have scary, twisted faces made into the belly of them. Making the jugs is a traditional craft as old as moonshine and potters and the purpose was to scare children away from the poisonous substances inside. (i.e. moonshine, whiskey, medicine) Face jugs were, literally, the original skull and crossbones.

Anyway, we stopped by this little Lavender shop to see if the local crafter inside had any to offer. The shop was attached to the house, right inside a little carport and there was a sign asking you to wipe your shoes and ring the doorbell. When a little old lady in a wheelchair wheeled up to let me in, I knew that pottery or not I would have to buy something before we left. She had a houseful of old lady crafts. You know, crocheted afghans and doilies and stars for Christmas trees. She had handmade quilts selling for $500 a piece. She had teddybears and baby booties and dishrags. But no pottery.

So I uncomfortably engaged her in conversation, checking the prices of everything, cringing because the prices were all up around where I'd have to write a personal check. Somewhere in our conversation I ceased to be a customer and she ceased to be a crafter and we became sisters from opposite ends of the spectrum.

"I'm 84 years old already," she said, "And Harold's already 88." She gestured to outside where Harold was mowing a portion of the hundred acres they owned. "And I still clean this house every Thursday."

She also held mortgages for as many people as a bank, owned a campground, two farms and half a mountain, did all her own bookkeeping and crafting, found her way into a half a dozen most notable women books and received a personal Christmas card every year from the Reverend Billy Graham.

And she'd lost 3 out of four sons, one husband to infidelity and later death and both her parents.

All I could ask was, "How?"

"Don't think about things too much," she said, looking deep into my eyes, transcending roles. "Or the panic will get you."

Instead of a face jug I bought a doily and a few dishrags and hoped that Delta wouldn't blurt out that I made the same old lady crafts myself and I thanked her. When we pulled away, I had the serendipitous feeling that nothing happens by chance. There really IS a sisterhood and during this trip I've been embraced and comforted. The same for at home. It's the sisterhood who carries you when you fall.

I promise never to take that for granted again.

2007-07-09T08:18:00.000-05:00

All my sisters-in-law but one are the biggest warmest, sweetest, most Didi-mind-readingist people in the world. One is nuts. Certifiably. I wish I could bottle her up and bring her home so you all could see just what kind of maniac the North American Redneck is but sadly she'd stab someone.

But back to the others. They can all cook and they give you that fresh baked bread feeling.

Oh, wait, I forgot the other other one. SHe's kinda nuts too but in a different way. She channels daytime drama and sprinkles it on everything she touches. '

But the others. They just hug me and tell me exactly how to deal with the crap I've been going through and no one even ever told them! Two of them lost a parent themselves and so they pulled me aside and said things like, "Do you get them there palpitations or that paranoid panicky feeling?" and "Don't you worry girl, you ain't gonna feel this bad forever." And they know it for sure. It's like someone standing a little bit closer to shore and saying, "Come on, you'll be able to touch soon." Plus they're nurses.

2007-07-07T08:55:00.000-05:00

Yesterday we went to the place we call Chez Swann. It's a big farm out in the foothills and it belongs to my eldest brother-in-law. There's horses and four wheelers and a pool and dogs and miles and miles and miles of paths. The kids go wild there on the horses or the bikes. Last night we swam in the pool while the sun set streaky pink over the mountains. But then poor old Bambi had some wild idea that the horses wanted to play with her. Then she got stompled. But she's ok, just a little stiff and limpy and beat up. At first I thought she was done for. I thought she was strolling down Old Yeller lane. When she finally dragged herself over to me I told her, "I guess those aren't really big dogs after all, Bambi." Maybe that's a lesson we ALL need to learn.

On Vacation

2007-07-05T09:24:00.000-05:00

Hey y'all! We're in NC right now, high up in the Appalachian Mountains where the only radio waves that reach are from country music stations. If you want to know what it looks here, watch The Last of the Mohican's or Dirty Dancing. Both were filmed here. I'd add a link but I'm working on an air card here and it takes forever plus three minutes to change pages. Reminds me of the days of dial up or when you had to type in http//: before you went anywhere.

We're having a good time. The house we're staying in, a house that's been in Delta's family since the family rowed here from Scotland and England and mixed it up with the Cherokee's who were here first, is most assuredly haunted. There's been a series of unexplainable footsteps and the presence of a woman named June who pretends to have been a dream but who I know is real. And there's the cranky old great aunt who tortures me while I go to the bathroom. One of the ghosts told me the rest of my story while I was dozing in the upstairs room and now I can finish (ok, start) writing it. One day when it's a bestseller (in hardcover no less) and I'm negotiating over the movie rights I will publicly give thanks to the ghosts of the mountains.

My in laws are as colorful as a sky full of balloons. I come from a family only in theory and to marry into a family of this many - more than I can count on all my fingers and toes - is a trip. My one sister in law (she's a redneck. She'd insist that I tell you that. Really.) has a house that was struck by lightning seven times. And just last week her little doggie was struck down a nd killed by lightning too. There are times when the noise level alone sends me running for our little whitewashed room in the attic. You should hear the way they say my name. I'll teach you how to do it. First, stand up. Now take a deep breath in, open your mouth so wide that the person in front of you can see the punching bag in the back of your throat and now holler "Down" as loud as you can and mostly through your nose. Then cock your head and make a little sarcastic face and think about the myriad ways yankees disintegrate the fibers of American culture. But don't use big words when you think about it.

I love my in laws and I love coming down here. And I DEFINITELY don't think southerners are all named Bubba or need a diagram to tie their shoes. I admit, the first time I came here I kind of thought it. But all the years of Mason Dixon hopping have taught me why that is. It all boils down to the speed of speech. Our northern vowels are crisp, fresh, snapping lettuce, crunchy apple. Southern vowels are long, meandering, bottle of molasses, katydid song, mountain brook. To us, fast is the way to be. Slow speech mean slow mind. To them, fast speech means uptight, in a hurry, know it all.

Today we're off to Asheville. The check engine light in my car came on and we have to go see what the problem is. Then we're off to Chimney Rock or Cherokee or up to Grandfather Mountain. We've got an appointment to look at some property in Blowing Rock, the place that the fictional town called Mitford was based on. It's the only place other than Massachusetts that I could ever see myself living. It's about as close to perfect that a town could be.

Talk to ya'll later.

Hello Again

2007-06-23T08:20:00.000-05:00

It's hard for me to imagine still keeping this blog. Indeed, I'm not sure if any eyes will ever read this I've been away so long and I'm such a different person now, so unrecognizable, that I'm almost tempted to crumple this page up and relocate to a new one.

I've got an anthem for the past few months, and I before you mock me for quoting Fergie, know that my ten year old daughter leaves few oppurtunities for more "sophisticated" listening. But somehow, on some weird dimensional zit, I've found that Fergie channeled me and wrote a song about the experience:

I hope you know, I hope you know

That this has nothing to do with you

It's personal, myself and I

We've got some straightenin' out to ...

..But I've got to get a move on with my life

It's time to be a big girl now

And big girls don't cry

Don't cryDon't cryDon't cry

The path that I'm walkingI must go alone

I must take the baby steps 'til I'm full grown, full grown

Fairytales don't always have a happy ending, do they?

And I foresee the dark ahead if I stay....

...But it's time for me to go home

It's getting late, dark outsideI need to be with myself and center, clarity

Peace, Serenity

I suppose that could be interpreted a few ways.
Delta and I are happy. My children are fine. I have a house and a car and clothes and food on my table in embarrassing quantities. (And the ass to prove it) But you know, you pass go a hundred times and never notice. It's the one time you land in jail that really gets your attention. An awful lot depends on the way the dice fall.

I don't know how much detail I should reveal. Delta would tell me I should keep my business to myself, but how can I? I've never been able to. And besides, the path I've walked is ugly, scary, dark and full of things waiting to suck the beating heart from your chest. And walking it reduces a person to nothing more than a pile of ashes. I'm too humiliated by my own mind turning on me to write about it yet I'm sure, having survived it, that someday someone is going to need what I learned while I was out there. Someday someone else is going to be where I was, and you know what? I came back with a map. But most of all, I came back.

2007-04-03T22:15:00.000-05:00

Had class tonight. Scary lady said I am the star pupil. Learned how to curtsy. When we did our "come" exercise, I ran to Mommy so fast that I had to skid for five doglengths so I wouldn't tackle her. Mommy brought steak for my treat tonight. All the other sucker dogs had cheese or dry cookies Being VIP (puppy) has it's privileges. Mommy was so proud of me, she had me show Daddy all my tricks when we came home. Daddy said I am a good queer-bait dog. Kind of. That made me all warm and fuzzy on the inside. Being warm and fuzzy inside and out was a little strange. Made me have to pee on Phee-Phee's bed. Now I'm not star pupil anymore. Oh well. The sun will come out, tomorrow...

2007-04-02T22:10:00.000-05:00

So, what is a passport, exactly? A few pieces of paper stapled inside a cardboard cover with some info and a picture. Right? I wonder what inside this little book costs a hundred bucks to make. Is there a diamond core inside the cover? Is the ink actually liquefied platinum?

But, in a display of unprecedented brilliance, I aerated, seeded and fertilized the yard yesterday. If you live in the area, you'll note that the weather this week is optimal grass planting weather. I don't have to water a damn thing. We're gonna be golfing in the back yard in a month the grass is going to be so abundant and lush. And all I had to do was bribe mother nature with a US passport.

Another thing, my dog is actually stupid unless there is a piece of cheese in my hand. She's like a remote control car or something and the remote is cheese. And the batteries are cheese. And I'm not really sure where I'm going with this simile.

Someone recommended that I mention the things that are good during the day. SO, here it goes. I was really born. I have evidence of this in the form of a birth certificate that I had to purchase at the Natick town hall today in order to complete my passport transaction. I mean, you always figure you were born because, like, you're here and all, but to have hard proof, well, it's just a little gratifying. And I bought some really expensive lavender tea today. After I drank half a cup I started to wonder if lavender is truly edible. That thought sent me into a mild panic attack during which my esophagus swelled shut. But I'm okay now, and that's the good part. Oh, and lavender IS edible. See? good news and science all in one blog. What more could you ask for?

What I Need For This Blog

2007-03-31T09:19:00.000-05:00

Is a gimmick. A theme. Some kind of something I can always write about. Something not self depricating. That's why I'm not going to write about Thursday. If I wrote about Thursday, I'd have to tell you that, in one day, I wore 2 different shoes, referenced nipples in the children's department of Barnes & Noble - LOUDLY - and was informed by the bagger at Stop-N-Shop that I look like I'm expecting. None of those things are particularly flattering and I'm trying to be a positive thinker now.

Bambi's Rebuttal

2007-03-22T21:05:00.000-05:00

Salutations. It's been brought to my attention that my dear cousin Daisy has her own blog at PTCakes house. That's nice an all, but since we look so much alike I wanted to be sure y'all knew that she has way more chins than me. I only have one. I'm not saying one chin is better than, oh, the three I counted on Daisy. And I don't have nothin against jowls and big long black hairs either. All I'm sayin is, my groomer's got spaces available. Don't my nails look good? I done got a full set, wash, cut and blowdry today. Damn I look good. Shoot.

First Day of Classes

2007-03-20T21:31:00.000-05:00

Today Bambi and I started obedience classes. She's a slutty little trouble maker, that one. From the the very first moment she whined and flirted and called all the other dogs to her. I guess I should just be happy she didn't try to eat anyone. That's a step in the right direction. The woman who teaches the class is, ironically, German. She does nicht approve of zee vay mein hunt behaves. I vill train mein hunt und I vill like it. Yavol!

2007-03-19T22:05:00.000-05:00

My cast is off HOORAY!!!!! But not off all the way. It's quasi off. I'm supposed to put it back on when my foot hurts which, according to my doctor, will happen most of the time for the next two weeks. But whatever. I'm FREE!!! No more leaning through the bathroom door when my kids are in there and screaming "Here's MOMMY!" My doctor DID say not to run the marathon this year. You got lucky Kenya - you hear me??!! So, tomorrow I am quitting sugar, dairy and meat until I lose 15 pounds. Except, of course, the sugar that naturally occurs in the foods I eat like chocolate. And except the dairy in the cream that goes into my coffee.

Sunday

2007-03-18T20:54:00.000-05:00

Today we went over to Tiara's and Ghosthunter's for dinner. First, all of us (except Tiara who is, unfortunately, not bi-lingual) spoke in pig latin. The kids, for an added challenge, spoke pig latin with pig (ham) in their mouths. Then we all laughed and laughed and laughed till our ribs cracked at things that wouldn't have been funny if we were with anyone else. I'll tell you, a real treasure is friends who laugh at the same things you do. Particularly if you have a "unique" sense of humor, like me. Delta was in such a fine fettle tonight, every time I think of the things he said I chuckle. Unfortunately I can't share them with you because, as I mentioned above, you wouldn't find them funny. I love Regina Spektor even more today than I did yesterday. And this morning, I figured out how to end my short story. Sigh. Now I can stop nodding and lying and really end the story. Yay.

If It's Weird, It'll Happen to Me

2007-03-17T22:43:00.000-05:00

And that's a fact.
I used to think that The Shining was a work of fiction. Then I fell down the stairs and broke my right foot and spent five long weeks trapped in the house with three little people who lost no oppurtunity to demonstrate my flawed parenting skills. But that's ok. Parenting is mostly hindsight anyway.
Here is a brief summary of the things that have happened since I last hobbled down here to the computer....1. Quit smoking (yay me!!!) 2. Became allergic to Splenda 3. Was test pin-cusion for guy studying to be Paramedic who laced my hand vein up like it was a shiny blue corset 4. Fell madly in love with Regina Spektor.
Monday I go to the doctor and find out if I can take my cast off. I think I had a better chance before the leaping incident of last week. But, you know, sometimes things just chase you down the hall in the middle of the night. Then you have to leap. It's survival.
And then, on Monday when they TAKE THE CAST OFF (because they will, leaping or no leaping) I will begin, in earnest, a health kick that will result in me shedding fifteen pounds by the end of June. Because, believe it or not, that's all that's left till my goal weight. I can't believe it either. Maybe I'm lying. But I DID quit smoking.

2007-03-04T12:36:00.000-05:00

Today would have been my dad's 67th birthday. It's also the 3rd anniversary of the day my grandfather died. I dreamed about rats and school showers and I ate an annisette cookie for breakfast. This afternoon I'm getting a new tattoo - one with the mysterious numbers 84 involved. Tommorow I might get to remove my cast - or "have a little incision". Either way, tommorow is the end of my holding pattern. I'm so freaking happy spring is almost here. I like March. I like waiting and vacillating between winter and spring. It's like spring foreplay.

2007-02-17T23:31:00.000-05:00

So, I taught myself how to so the Scottish Sword Dance. And I practiced it for 2 days straight, even though my poor little foot was hurting a bit. And then I took the kids to see Bridge to Terebithia. And then I ran around in my snow boots, ignoring the pain in my foot. Then I came home, took off my boots, told Delta my foot felt a little funny, took off my sock and noticed an odd bone poking up through the top of my foot. So, I had a nervous breakdown went to sleep, woke up in agony seventy times and then went to the Emergency Room this morning. "So, you fell down the stairs three days ago, and you're just coming in?" all the nurses and the (very hot) doctor asked me. "Why yes," I answered ("And, I'm having pain a little higher," to the doctor) (Just kidding) (No I'm not) "And you walked around on this for those three days?" they asked, and I nodded, then they all gathered around the xray of my foot on the big computer. My foot, incidentally, looks like a pterodactyl. Turns out, I have sprained my foot, fractured it AND chipped a little bit of bone out, which is the piece that had floated to the top and poked out. Delta said I am much tougher than he thought.

2007-02-14T21:31:00.000-05:00

Delta brought me home some chocolate covered potato chips today. If you said "Ew," then you have never had PMS. Or you are a cardiologist. The chips came in a very pretty leopard print Chinese takeout box and are my new favorite thing. And I've discovered the root of my run of misfortune: Our bed is inauspiciously placed. In re-doing our bedroom, we moved the bed so our feet face the door, we're in full (porno) view of the huge mirrored doors, right across from the bathroom and over the garage. Any more anti-shui and we'd probably spontaneously combust in the night. If my back weren't broken from falling down the stairs, I'd move the bed. I guess I'll have to keep my fingers crossed till the bruises heal. Incidentally, if anyone has any holy water they'd like to donate or maybe a necklace of garlic or a silver bullet...wait...am I mixing superstitions?

2007-02-14T08:43:00.000-05:00

The last seven days or so have truly been a comedy of errors for me. Aside from squirrel tail trophies, desperately ill children, paper-shredder carpeting, minor vacuum fires, now I have fallen down the stairs and crashed through the wall. My dear friend EmEl took one look at the hole and said, "I just can't believe a female did that."

But Delta sent me flowers. There's something so exhilerating about having flowers delivered to the door. Ten years and four kids later, that and never saying "Why yes, as a matter of fact you are fat," is the glue of marriage.

So, now the kids are home. Ya-Ya has a raging fever and an ear infection. Must go shovel out and bring her to the doctor. It's a good thing there's no school. Today was supposed to be her first violin concert. She's have been crushed to miss that.

What's Grosser than Gross?

2007-02-08T22:37:00.000-05:00

Your dog eating a squirrel.

What's even grosser than that?

Your dog getting carsick and vomiting furry squirrel chunks all over the rug of the passenger side floorboard.

And the cruel irony of it all? Said dog had just left the groomer where she was meticulously de-squirreled, inside and out. Excepting, of course, the contents of her stomach.

Yuck. FYI, squirrel meat smells like turkey. Sorry again, Squirrel Lady.

It's a Sad Night in Newton.

2007-02-07T23:13:00.000-05:00

On the one hand, LOST IS BACK!!!! Hooray! sixteen beautiful Wednesday nights, no repeats. Aaah.

But, just to maintain the balance, there's some bad news too. I came home from jujitsu tonight to find my darling dog, Bambi, sweetfaced little angel, in the side yard eating a squirrel. I don't know what else to say about that. Delta was happy because they finally have something in common. Sorry squirrellady.

Dreams

2007-02-05T23:05:00.000-05:00

My mom gave me a huge, gigantic dream dictionary. Normally, I'm a bit of a cynic about dream symbolism. Well, maybe cynic isn't the right word. I believe so many different theories that I don't really believe any of them. But the other morning, after 48 hours of Oskar being terribly ill, I stayed in bed and analyzed a particularly strange dream. And guess what? It was all on the money. By the time I'd finished reading, it made perfect sense for a two headed woman to be driving my car while I sat in the back seat. I totally understood going to stay at a Black Forest inn with my brother-in-law, said two headed woman and this guy Delta works with. The fact that I left the phone in the car and couldn't call Delta to ask him why I was in a German inn with the aforementioned smorgasbord of characters was explained. The innkeeper's phone call - insisting I get rid of my snake-stick - revealed something so profound that I've actually been relieved since learning it. But I can't explain any of it to you. That would be excess information. Over-share, if you catch my drift.

2007-02-01T21:28:00.000-05:00

Finding out your husband loves IKEA is like finding out your 1970 Bronco comes with a built in GPS, heated seats and self-park feature after you bought it.

Finding out your husband does not like to assemble all the things he buys you at IKEA is a little less exciting. But fun in a rolling snowball sort of way. (kitchen snowball leads to playroom leads to office leads to bedroom leads to bathroom, you get the idea)

Building things - things someone else cut out and measured and counted screws for - is a wonderful way to cope with grief. That and running. When I got out of the Corps, I vowed never to run again. There could be a field of burning Napalm around me, and still my feet would not move faster than a leisurely shuffle. But now I've discovered this passion for running I never had before. I'm out three or four times a week, two or three miles at a time, dog or no dog, kids or no kids...

and speaking of dogs my poor beautiful Cassius had to go to that great big "farm in Montana". Our vet said he was "deranged" a "victim of bad breeding". I think my father's death was the catalyst for his psychosis. He went nuts. Very sad. I guess now that he's gone I can show you a picture of him....

So a lot has changed here. I wrote an essay about grief being like an earthquake. Everything in my life is different. I'm starting all over, a different person.

We got the kids a new dog, her name is Bambi and she's the sweetest thing that ever lived. Her name, first and last combined, make her sound a bit like a streetwalker. She comes from VA and is the 5 month old illegitimate daughter of a couple of hunting hounds. I love her.

I'm no Scientist

2007-01-09T08:43:00.000-05:00

I don't know why it's ranging between 40 and 70 degrees in the middle of January, but I've heard every reason. Some of my friends say it's global warming, some say it's cow farts. One weatherman said it's El Nino, the other a reciprocal weather pattern with Alaska. This morning, the milkman told me it's because the sun is burning several degrees hotter than normal, just as it did 400 odd years ago before the plague.

I don't know who's right. What I do know is, the temperature got hotter when I started running consistantly. Probably, I did it. Thank me or crucify me, it is what it is.

New Years

2006-12-30T11:08:00.000-05:00

I need some help finding a good New Years resolution. I already walk every day, I already have a healthy "private" life, I've already vowed to become smarter with OHM, more frugal with Tiarra, more organized with Delta and now I want something exciting. What shall I do? I'm open for suggestions. Post an idea, please, something easily attainable with 3 yunguns in tow. Preferably legal. Otherwise, I'm game.

Great Dream

2006-12-29T09:39:00.000-05:00

I had a Great Dream last night.I Was riding through war torn Chechnya in back of a cab driven by a man who may or may not have been trying to kill me. I was naked. I looked over to right and realized that Brad Pitt was riding next to me, also naked, very sad.

"What's wrong, Brad?" I asked.

"I'm ugly."

"Jesus Christ," I said, moving a ~~little bit~~ lot bit closer to brad, "You're gorgeous. You're as gorgeous as...I was going to say Brad Pitt but since you ARE him..."

"You really think so?" (Puts his arm around me. I realize we are married - don't ask me how I realize this. It's my stinkin dream.)

Suddenly cab driver could have ak-47 trained on my forehead and it wouldn't matter. I'm about to DO IT in the backseat of a moving vehicle with BRAD PITT!!!!!

But then someone started licking my hand and I remembered why I hate dogs so. After evicting the stupid dog from my bedroom, I desperately tried to get back to that dream, but succeeded only in riding down an escalator, losing my hat in the belt, pulling it out and having every single hat ever lost in the belt follow it. Not quite Brad Pitt.

2006-12-27T09:10:00.000-05:00

party at brothers' house was great. love all new sisters-in-law. Reminded of the fact that 1. if can be late, will, 2. if can get lost, will. Arrived at party 3 hours late after extended tour of Nashua NH. Was invited to NY Eve party at other new brother's house. Want to go but Delta wants to stay home. Must arm wrestle to determine winner. Also, must reciprocate to new family with party at this house. Must hire home decorator.

edit: also, today is the day I must end my grace period as quasi-eldest in father's line and assume my new grown up role completely. Ah, well.

Happy, Merry

2006-12-26T09:15:00.000-05:00

We had a wonderful Christmas, thank you very much. We stepped in sort of gingerly, and I had a few moment s like when we lit a candle for my father at Fatima and when we stayed up late Christmas eve and of course, christmas morning. But the days were nice as a whole.

I inherited a cousin when my dad died. He's 57 years old and so like my dad it's almost supernatural. I'd never known him before but now we talk every day and he came by on Christmas with his girlfriend, brought gifts for the girls, stayed and talked with Mom and Superdad. It was almost like the old days.

Today we are headed up to my new brother's house for christmas with them. It's wierd becoming a family when you are all old enough to have families of your own, but I'm convinced it can happen. All it takes is practice.

2006-12-17T21:37:00.000-05:00

Someone stole my brand new big, heavy, Scotch Tape dispenser. Someone in this house. When I find out who that someone is....Now I have to rip little chunks off the extra rolls. Damn it.

Today was Phee Phee's big winter dance production. I cried through the whole thing. And I forgot tissue, but that's ok, the important thing is how amazing my little pumpkin was. I'm always amazed at kids. Can you imagine getting up in front of an auditorium full of fancy dressed people and dancing around in a skin tight leotard? Me neither. Come to think of it, I think me in a skin tight leotard dancing anywhere is explicitely forbidden in the Geneva Convention.

Restructuring

2006-12-16T21:54:00.000-05:00

Man it's been a while since I last wrote. Let's see, what's happened?

When I was in fourth grade (seriously, I'm going somewhere with this) my mammie moved me from Framingham to Ashland. The move, the fifth in my life, didn't sit well with me. Actually, to this day, I loathe Ashland. There's, like, 2 good things about Ashland and that's it. And I'm getting to one of them.

So, I was in Ashland and I was in the fourth grade. I was entering elementary school at an utterly inconvenient time when everyone else was adjusted already and settled with their best friends and state fair projects and what not. I don't know what kind of impression I was going for, but it involved itching powder, thumbtacks, and one rather unhappy teacher. At any rate, it garnered lots of attention, some good, some not so good. One day I was revelling in my newfound noteriety sipping some water at the bubbler and this amazon girl came over and shoved me face first into the cold steel nozzle. I don't know what happened next, the details are hazy. I think there was some sort of scuffle, a little bit of arguing, maybe a couple weeks of reciprocal sabotage and then, voila, I had a best friend.

I've been through many best friends. Some are now like family, some have come and gone, others are rekindling and some are falling away but through it all I never forgot my first, Sabies. I realize that sounds just a bit creepy, but it wasn't like that at all. Sabies and I covered a whole lot of life together.

We started out acting out scenes from our favorite series of books. (The Black Stallion) We would argue over who got to be Black and who got to be Flame. (One freakin word - one word about me being a big black horse now is all it will take for a punch in the nose. I still have thumbtacks too) We argued over who's dad (Both Electrical Engineers) was smarter. Her dad was also a detective, but my dad had better business cards, and that was tres importante.

Back then, parents weren't as good at parenting as they are now. Sabies and I were largely unsupervised. We learned how to do things like set the woods on fire, creep out the front door while my mothers boyfriend snored on the couch at midnight (in a VERY revealing bathrobe - GAG), put ourselves to sleep with Nyquil so we could have a midweek sleepover (never worked. Should have visited Mayo Clinic) and other less innocent things as time passed. For being so naughty, we were so very naive. I don't know how we lived.I don't know how we lived so dangerously and yet so chaste at the same time. (well, sort of)

Anyway, Sabies and I lost touch around the time I went in the Marines. I don't know why or how, I guess it had something to do with me being a Marine and all gung ho about that, but I never forgot her. Years passed without us speaking. Then, just a couple of days after my dad died, Sabies called. And we picked up our conversation where we left off. How can that be? How can so many years pass, how can so much life pass and yet I feel like she's been there all along?

Someone upstairs is really looking out for me.

2006-11-26T09:59:00.000-05:00

"One day in retrospect the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful."– Sigmund Freud

Looking back thusfar, I can buy that. The only unadorned stories I tell are those of triumphant journeys back from terrible places, snapshots seared into memory by the flashbulb of intensity. The images I rotate on my brain's screensaver are memories of times when all "we" had was each other and the sweetest moments were tucked away innocently between the bookends of obligation.

I'm kind of hungry right now, and, as Delta pointed out just now, I am not a normal AM blogger, so all I can equate it to to is a bowl of raisin bran. I love raisin bran, all of it, but it's the raisins that make me keep eating.

Lately

2006-11-22T22:22:00.000-05:00

Whew. It feels like both a million years and a heartbeat since I last blogged. Time has ceased to define anything for the last few weeks. Here's what I've gathered so far:

1. Grief is like sitting on your feet so long that they lose feeling. As soon as you try to stand up you realize that there's no feeling at all and that perhaps the two slabs of meat attached to your ankles are not yours at all to command. Then the blood comes rushing back all at once and hits you like a curveball. You can't move. Even the smallest movement of your littlest finger reverberates through your body down to your throbbing feet. You can't concentrate on anything but the pain. You're afraid the pain might never end. But it does lessen and you're left with pins and needles, still a bit shaky but able to walk around even if it is with a limp. I'm limping now. Grief is the single worst feeling there is. You know how when something really good is about to happen like Christmas or a date with that really hot Scottish guy in the band you've worshipped for eight years? You know how you get that little twinge of anticipation every time you think of it and the twinge makes you act a little nicer to everyone and makes even balancing your checkbook tolerable? Well, grief is the exact opposite. Grief is the grand wizard of all things crappy and the little twinges make you suck just a little bit more when they come, and they do. It's like sitting back down on your pins and needles for a little while.

2. My grandfather always told me to surround myself with people better than I am. Thank God I listened. If there's anything positive about this grandiose saga of shit, it's that when I fell off the tightrope because my two little slabs of feet wouldn't hold me up, I fell into a net. There is nothing I could possibly write that could express my gratitude to those of you who caught me. There has not been one moment, since the terrible moment of truth in the "family room" at the hospital till this one right now in front of my computer that I have felt alone. So many people have reached out to us... the fact brings tears to my eyes. I am so thankful.

So, tommorow is Thanksgiving. I hope you have a wonderful day. I hope you have something to be thankful for. Safe Travels and Tryptophan for all. (BTW - I just found out that one would have to eat more than one turkey for the tryptophan to put one to sleep. The sleepy feeling is really from the gross amount of food crammed into one's stomach.)
8-4

2006-11-15T23:23:00.000-05:00

It's been 12 days since my father died. He was my biggest motivator for writing this blog. Every day he'd check and if there was nothing new he'd rag on me. The last two entries felt alien, like I was writing to no one.

The first ten days after his death I'd realize, out of the blue, that I'd been pacing. Looking out the window, walking across the house to look out another window, wandering upstairs and down. I didn't give it much thought, but later I read in a book about grief that this type of behavior is known as searching. Though a person's intellect understands that the missing person is gone, the subconscious does not and thus searches, endlessly. When I read that, I thought how sad that sounds - searching, wandering, hoping that next time you look, the person you love so much will be there. I guess you spend so much time being, well, conscious for lack of a better word that you don't even realize there's more to your brain than just that. I guess it's like, out of consciousness out of mind.

On Death and Dying

2006-11-12T00:45:00.000-05:00

As I think everyone knows by now, I lost my father last week to sudden cardiac death. My father's heart simply died. Certain things have gone awry since then. I can't eat or sleep or write. I can't focus on one thing for more than 20 seconds. I spend the sunlight hours wishing for a sign from my father and the darkness terrified that I'll get one. I spent the last week wrapped tightly in the anesthesia of numbing shock. My priest, who is quite fond of metaphors, once told me that the road to healing is straight through the woods, one step at a time. Last week I told him that I'm afraid of that, afraid of the amount of grief waiting just beyond the tree line and he reminded me - one step at a time. If there's one thing I can offer, the first lesson I've learned thus far it's this: don't leave anything unresolved. Don't let anyone wonder if you love them or not. Cling tightly to the people you love. The people I love have carried me for a week now. Without that, I might have been lost, wandering about in the woods. I pray we never walk alone.

2006-11-09T23:47:00.000-05:00

...here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

(excerpt from ee cummings)

i miss you

8-4

2006-10-31T21:39:00.000-05:00

Tonight I pronounce a new ritual for Halloween. From here on out trick-or-treating supervision is the sole responsibility of the paternal figure. For this and all other Halloween's to follow, the mother shall stay home and drink wine with her friends. So it is written, so it shall be done. Oh, and CeeBeeW or Tiarra - post your pics.

Dear Everyone:

2006-10-22T22:34:00.000-05:00

I have fat blood. I'm done for. I'll probably have type 2 diabetes by the end of the week and a heart attack soon thereafter.

On a scale of 0 - 150, my triglycerides are 203. There is so much lard in my blood that I am probably very flammable and/or slippery. No wonder my feet are always cold: all that frosting blood can barely squeeze through my "spidery little veins".

Dear Gods, you hit 30 and it all goes to shit.

Tommorow I will start my new regime of sleeping, eating brown rice and running. And that's IT.

This Weekend

2006-10-20T21:41:00.000-05:00

is going to be great! We have some of our favorite family members coming in from NC! And they want to be spooktified. There is NOTHING I like better than spooky stuff. Of course, Delta will be out of town next week. Where will I leap when the hair on the back of my neck stands up? I'll have to be brave. Here is a list of all the things we are going to do this weekend. Lunch here, because that's the visitor law. Then, we are going to this person's party. Then we are going to this place for dinner. My nephew was particularly pleased with that idea since he saw the place on Haunted Travel Channel. We are headed over to this place because of this legend and then off to here for a tour through a very old, very haunted... Does anyone know of any spooky restaurants out that way, preferably on the water where we can eat dinner??

Phlebotophobia

2006-10-17T09:44:00.000-05:00

"Dear God, Didi, you're THIRTY now, it's time we check your cholesterol," said my VA doctor yesterday at my physical. "It's just a blood test!"
I'd been called out over cholesterol. I mumbled something, blamed it all on Delta, and went home to fast for twelve hours.
This morning I waited my turn in line at the lab counter.
"Oh, a veteran," said the receptionist loudly, thus ensuring that I'd have to take the needle like a Marine and not like the needle sissy that I am. "Take a seat, we'll call you when we're ready."
While I waited, I did a couple of sets of one-armed pushups to show everyone else how tough I really am.
"Didi," called the phlebotomist.
I sat in the chair and she locked me in with that padded bar you rest your arm on and rolled around the four extra long emty vials that I was doomed to fill as if taunting me.
"Make a fist. Have you had anything to eat or drink this morning?" the vampire asked sweetly.
"No. Just a cup of hot water that I pretended was coffee."
"Oh that's so cute," she said, giggling. "little pinch."
Little pinch my ass.
I'm not afraid of needles. I have a million tattoos. I have no problem with vaccinations - not even the tetanus shot I have to get from time to time, usually after over-zealous chopping in the kitchen. On that note, I'm not afraid of pain either. I delivered three babies sans drugs. It's the sucking feeling, the sharp, cold steel of the needle, the rush of corpuscles that gets me. Allowing somebody to drain your blood, for whatever useful purpose, goes against the law of self preservation.
One year, I came up with the most brilliant idea for Lent. Since you're supposed to give up something you really care about, I decided to donate blood. Genius! I could condense forty days of self-denial in one morning. I tried, honestly I did, to be brave. But that needle is big. And the red cross laughs at blood vials - they want entire bags full.
"This will take about 11 minutes," said the nurse. "You'll squeeze this little thing, then when I tell you to stop squeezing, you just lie here until the bag is full."
I could feel my heart rate speed up.
"Little prick," she said.
My bag started to fill.
"Okay, sweetie, you can stop squeezing," she said.
Only, I couldn't. It was like I had rigor mortis. Even my grimace from the initial "little prick" remained frozen to my lips.
"Sweetie, let go," she said a bit more forcefully. "Let," she pried, "go!"
My hand, though empty, stayed in it's claw shape and I filled that bag in about two minutes thirty seconds. After that, they made me lie down a little while longer and drink some of their magical elixer known as Orange Juice.
Before I left they put a little "hero" sticker on my blood doner card. I thought they were trying to make me feel good but it turns out my blood is so clean and virus-free that it can go directly from my arm into someone who needs it. That combined with my rare blood type has turned me into a stalker victim. The Red Cross calls me monthly for more blood. Doesn't that just figure? The comedy of irony.
When I come home from the lab I must keep my right arm at an obtuse angle so that no one will bump the needle site. It will remain this way for the next 24 hours. The bandage will have to wash off on it's own because I will not touch it. My father laughs at me, so does Delta. I ignore them, and make my way to the fridge for a glass of oranje juice.

2006-10-11T21:43:00.000-05:00

I love Lost. Jin is the Asian version of Delta. I also love Mr. T and I pity the fool who doesn't.

2006-10-08T22:38:00.000-05:00

How many best days ever is a girl allowed to have? I'm far too tired to write more than this little expression of how grateful and happy I am to have such wonderful friends and a whole new family. I always wanted a big brother, now I've got 3. Of course, it was my mom and superdad's day, but this is my blog and so I can say that when one of my new big brothers called me sis tonight, and another one called us all family and then the other one said anyone who is a friend of mine is a friend of the whole family to CeeBeeW, well, how could I be any happier?

T-30 Hours till Mom and Superdad's Wedding

2006-10-07T21:49:00.000-05:00

To have everything go according to plan implies that one A. Has a plan B. Comes equipped with an attention span. Sadly, I have neither. But that's ok! Twelve hours of full throttle last minute planning is wonderful excercise. And you should see the setup (if I do say so myself). So we're two plates short. We've got an extra dessert fork! And as for the forgotten coffee cups/water goblets/cake plates, well, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. Wish us luck!

2006-10-06T20:50:00.000-05:00

Have you ever watched the show To Catch a Predator? Delta watches it every week. The thing that baffles me, and I admit that's not a challenge, is how many pedophiles there really are out there. Doctors, lawyers, engineers, "respectable" people soliciting sex from young girls they meet online. To Catch a Predator might be the best show on TV. Never in the history of humanity has anyone done so much to air the dirty drawers of the loathful pigs who prey on little ones. Speaking of pigs, I think a cool ending for each episode would be if they corralled all the pedophiles in a little mudpit, smeared their vile genitals with kitchen scraps then unleashed a herd of underfed male boars upon them. That would both teach them a lesson and remove the risk of them forgetting what they learned. It's always good to multitask.

I read somewhere this week that "they" did a global study and found out that 70% of the world's women have been victims of domestic violence. My dad asked me tonight if I thought those sorts of people were always around or if the world was going to shit. I think they've always been here. For a long time the victims of bullies and perverts suffered in silence. My dear friend's mother has breast cancer. She didn't tell anyone because she was too embarrassed and I think that illustrates the mentality of so many women born before the seventies. What in the world could make a woman ashamed of herself for being raped, beaten or stricken by illness? God I hope I teach my girls right. If they learn nothing else from me, may they always find their voice and may they never forget what their thumbs are made for. (eyeball pluckers.)

Anniversary

2006-10-02T20:48:00.000-05:00

I started this blog a year ago yesterday. I had just turned 29. The numbers 3-0 are just starting to sink in now. I am in a new demographic. I am in a new decade. People younger than me can no longer trust me. But that's just fine, I don't care. The thirties is where all the cool kids are.

I had such a great birthday. I was still over at CeeBee W.'s when my new year began with WiccanChick and AngryLittleBitch. Then I came home and Delta let me sleep till exactly 10:03. I haven't done that since before Ya-Ya was born! Then I got an iPod and a coupon for a facial (and now that I know the types of things you Sat Nite Jammers talk about...NOPE)and all kinds of little goodies and Tiarra made me a basket FULL of all my favorite things. We went up to the mad Greek's in-law's vineyard and we were too late to work but not too late to enjoy some homemade Grappa (anisette and almond). Then we came home and I had all KINDS of messages on the machine and even some singing and some emails and I got on AngryLittleBitch's blog AND CeeBeeW's. Then we went out to dinner with Mom and Superdad and I got all kinds of presents and they sang to me and at then I got a backrub and put German lessons on my iPod...~sigh~ this was a GREAT way to usher in the next era.

And I have to say...I met my goals for 29. Now I need NEW goals for 30. I think one of them will be to be nicer to people. And be healthier. AND finish my draft.

This officially concludes my birthday celebration and the accompanying ramble. Peace.

What, Karma?

2006-09-25T20:38:00.000-05:00

This past weekend was the Highland Games. We wait for this event all year long. This is our Christmas, Rosh Hashanna, Halloween and Superbowl all rolled into one. So, I shouldn't have been surprised when Delta went on without me after Phee-Phee and Oscar came down with croup. After a day and a night on prednisone, the girls were given the green light to travel so we headed up to NH to join Delta. Everything seemed fine.Until I woke up to the ominous sound of a pig rutting in my blankets. Fortunately it was just Oscar. Unfortunately the rutting sound was a portent of things to follow, quite literally. Seconds after I identified the sound , buckets of meatball red vomit soaked through my fleece pajamas and onto my skin beneath. Oscar was like a fondue fountain, the puke just kept coming. And even after I'd changed our pajamas and our sheets and walked her to the bathroom to brush her little fangs, I couldn't shake the queasy feeling I'd gotten when I tried to pull my shirt over my head. I managed to fall back asleep but when I woke up I was still queasy. I thought about going home, but DElta convinced me to stay. My stomacheache grew worse as the morning progressed. The two mimosa's our friend Jay the Scott brought over did not do anything to abate the pain. A long, hot, 75 cent shower did nothing to improve my mood. Finally, I stood in the doorway of the public restroom, beseeching the heaven's to send me a sign and suddenly a great rolling wave of thunder answered me. If you were to record the sound the thunder made and play it back at a much higher speed, you would clearly hear "Didi - go home - you are sick" but I had no recording equipment so I missed the message and stayed.
"You can go," said Delta, "And bring the camper back with you."
I know what you're thinking, "Whatchou talkin bout, Delta?" right?
Me too. But so strong was the feeling that he knew something I didn't and that if I left I would miss out on that something, that I stayed despite my churning digestive tract. By the time I rolled into my driveway last night and dragged my ass into bed, kilt and all, my fever was at 102. I drifted off to sleep (After Desperate Housewives of course) promising Karma that next time I'll listen and just stay home.

My Delta's as Sneaky as They Come

2006-09-18T20:38:00.000-05:00

Today started out a perfectly normal Monday. Ya-Ya stayed home sick from school. We met OHM at Starbucks before Oscar's ballet lesson. After ballet we headed out to Ipswich to this awesome place for my quarterly Polarity/deep tissue massage. (And by deep, I mean she stirred my bone marrow.) Everything was going just fine until Delta called me on the hour and a half drive home.
"Are you going to jujitsu?" I asked, glancing at the clock and noticing he was already 15 minutes late.
"No, I just got home."
"Just got home? It's 7:00. WHere have you been?"
"What am I on parole?"
"If by parole you mean advising Queen Mother as to your whereabouts for the last 2 unaccounted hours than yes."
- wait. I'm making things up again. Let me remember how it really went - ....
OK. Something about jujitsu, then this big, elaborate fabrication about picking earthmoving equipment with his friend The Mouth to do work on Mom and Superdad's house before the wedding. With absolutely NO prompting on my part. And if any of you don't know already, I'll tell you that when someone makes up a whopper before you can even ask what they were doing, something's up. And I KNOW you know that when said whopper is followed by a hissing through the teeth so as to mimic phone static, something's REALLY up. So, I seethed all the way down Route 128. Then I fumed across the Mass Pike. Then I ground my teeth into a fine powder through the backroads of Framingham. Then,when I finally got home and sailed through the house with my chin in the air and my eyes pointedly averted, Delta fell over onto the bed in a fit of giggles.
"What?" I demanded.
"The windows look nice," he giggled. And I have to admit, he took me aback for a moment. He noticed I washed the windows! But then I saw the blue diapers wrapped around his forearms.
"What have you done to yourself?" I cried. "Why have you wrapped yourself in surgical diapers?"
And then I realized why. My sneaky Delta Hotel went off and got himself some more tattoos today. This is the fourth time he's brought me home tattoos as surprises. Why doesn't he just tell me when he makes the appointment? That Delta and his secret tattoo-gettin' life. After the pain from my jaw grinding subsided and the migraine loosened it's grip just a hair, we had a good laugh. And he does realize that this is war. I too will find myself a secret life. I just can't figure out what.

How to Plan a Wedding in Just Three Weeks

2006-09-15T21:55:00.000-05:00

On October 8th my mom is going to marry the man of her dreams. This is a second marriage for both of them - my mom is a divorcee and my future super-dad (my mom's alternative to the title stepdad) is a widower. Both of them have kids - my mom has me and my superdad to be has three sons and all of us are married with families of our own. Mom and Superdad are going for the ultra-low key this time around. But when my mom used the words "We're just going to have something simple, us and all the kids and grandkids," I thought that meant everything was under control. Last night she called to ask if my future supersister-in-law had been in touch with me.
"About what?" I asked.
Long, l-o-n-g, looooooooong pause.
"About the wedding plans," answered my mom in her I'm-speaking-this-softly-because-I-can-see-the-end-of-your-life-and-it's-at-hand voice.
"The wedding plans," I said.
"Keep it simple," she growled.
What I'd failed to realize, way back when when they announced their engagement, was the command prompt buried in the exciting exposition.
Do any of you have any idea how long it takes a Libra to plan a wedding with all the choices involved??? Here's an illustration. Delta and I, both Librans, spent 25 minutes at the Toyota repairs counter yesterday with "the man" looking on before we decided to let him remove the door panel of the sequoia to see why the drivers side window would not go up. Twenty five minutes, one decision. We can't even decide where to go to dinner without calling a UN Special Convention. I can't speak for all librans, but when my very limited decision making tank is overloaded, craziness ensues. That's why I sometimes wear Delta's clothes and speak in tongues. So, my mantra - no - my prayer for the next three weeks is that no one ends up sitting round the reception table eating from Pez dispensers, wearing jester hats and drinking windex. Thank God my supersister-in-law to be seems to be quite level headed.

Whoa...

2006-09-12T19:49:00.000-05:00

So, you know how we have this cute little Scotty Highlander camper, right? And how we're some camping fools, right? Well, it wasn't always this way. When I first met Delta, I had taken a life vow of not ever camping on purpose again. Something about shelter halves and rifles in my sleeping bag and brown recluse spiders and dirt on any exposed inch of sweaty flesh just did me in. But Delta loves to camp. He's also a champion peer pressurer. So one year I relented and we went tent camping and I was reminded of how much I loathe waking up covered in dew and stuffy nosed because I invariably wallow over some previously unseen hill facedown. I'm always cold and sweaty at the same time and I must be charged with some mysterious Swifter energy because all the dirt from everywhere sticks to the worst possible places on my body. So Delta bought me a pop-up. We used it two, maybe three times, then I decided that it was too much like a tent with wheels and I hated it. So Delta bought the little Scotty. Meanwhile, the pop-up sat in our back yard all old and unloved. The roof had some weird problem and all the snow went inside during the winter so the thing was basically wrecked come spring. Delta was sad. He thought all he could do was give it away on Craigslist to be used as a trailer. So one day this guy came over talking about how he wanted to take his boys camping and showing Delta his tattoos and they got along all right. Delta liked him because he came right out and said he was stuck in the eighties, and anyone who can do that - and actually is - is freaking hilarious. That was months ago. Tonight I was reading through the blogs and I noticed that a friend wrote about the camper she'd gotten from Craigslist for free. "No way," I told myself, "Too much of a coincidence. It couldn't possibly be OUR old pop-up!" So, I went to flickr and found a picture of this girl's boyfriend.
"Delta!" I called. "Do you remember the guy you gave the camper to?"
"What about him?"
"Did he have curly black hair? Was his name Karp?"
"Yeah, as a matter of fact it was Karp."
"Did he look like this?" I said, stepping aside from where I'd been blocking the monitor."
"That's him! That's Karp who took the camper! Why is he on your computer?"
How weird is that??? I'm so glad that Karp and Marla got the pop-up. I'm amazed that they actually fixed it up but glad that someone is getting some use out of it and making some memories. I really want to see how they handled that roof leak. Life is so weird. We took out an add in Craigslist and filtered a bunch of people only to give the camper to the boyfriend of a girl I've known since I was 16. Ha.

2006-09-08T21:52:00.000-05:00

Don't think I haven't written because I don't love you. It's not you, really, it's me. And it's not that I don't have anything to write about, I do. There was Phee-Phee's luau birthday party where she cried 'cus she wanted too and, well, you know how the song goes. Then there was the camping trip in the wake of the hurricane and the ghost hunt to the top of October Mountain where an abandoned old graveyard can be found, sinking away into oblivion. And Oscar's third birthday party out in the sticks. And I'm wondering why I've heard the concept of parallel universes a total of three times this week from three seperate parties whose words echoed precisely the words of those before them. And then the other concept of serendipity repeated by two close friends who I swear have met each other but insist that they wouldn't know the other if they were "choking on her". And then, of course, the failed root canal and Tiarra's insistence that I shall succumb to brain fever before the rooster cries three times. Lucky for me I'm addicted to novocaine. School started last week in a tidal wave of melancholy. Turns out that stupid tacky homily that everyone who has ever raised a child to adulthood forces into the brain of every new parent is actually true. They do grow up too fast, and you do find yourself looking at the soggy breakfast cereal they've left behind wondering where in the hell you were when it happened. Stupid true cliche. But, one must not continue to pop out children just to fill the lonely hours in an elementary school day. Especially when one's husband has had a vasectomy. Life's full of these little winters I've come to discover. As Delta would say, does say whenever he suspects a whine is about to pass through my lips, Suck it up and something good will happen.

2006-08-26T21:55:00.000-05:00

Six years ago, this night, in a nesting frenzy that may never again be equaled, I cut, colored, pasted and embellished sixty Christmas cards while waiting for the pains of labor to grow strong enough. At 2AM I finished the last of the cards, bent over at the waist and sweating, yanked Delta out of bed and headed for the hospital. My little Phi-Phi, two weeks late already, was on the way. She made her grand entrance at 9:27 and she didn't make a sound. Having been there before, I waited, panting, for the doctor to put her in my arms, but nobody did. A hush fell over the room. I looked forward to the doctor, wondering, and in one long, dragging, heart breaking moment I saw my tiny blue baby girl, wet and still, engulfed in the blue surgical scrubs the doctor wore. I looked over at Delta, saw a tear in his eye and wondered again why nobody moved. And then the room erupted in ordered chaos. In one continuous motion the doctor found her scissors, cut the cord and whisked my Phi-Phi over to the NIC cart brought in for high-risk babies. My eyes ceased to function. I could hear the swishing crinkle of the gowns the doctors and nurses wore, murmured instructions,sucking sounds and rubber soled shoes on hospital linoleum. I could feel Delta's hand on my forehead and on my cheek, could feel the shivery heat and emptiness that immediately follows childbirth. But I can't remember seeing a single thing. Then from the corner of the room came the tiniest, reediest little lamb-cry, slow at first but gaining confidence. I don't remember the moment my eyes worked again, but it must have been when the doctor brought Phi-Phi to me, barely wrapped in a blanket, eyes squeezed shut and mouth working overtime. Her entrance was quiet, but in true Phi-Phi style. Full of drama, with a couple of twists, and done completely her way. And that's the way it's been ever since. Happy sixth birthday little one.

2006-08-25T23:05:00.000-05:00

I recently discovered the magical world of itunes. That fact, coupled with pounds of cut-rate CD-RW's from a brother-in-law who manages a certain store specializing in such products has turned me into a song burnin' machine. I burn so many CD's that itunes feels it necessary to remind me from time to time that I must pace myself lest I succumb to the underworld of piracy. I've spent the last 2 hours re-discovering all the songs that ever moved me. How could I have ever forgotten them? A forgotten song is truly a vehicle of time travel. Having 26 songs, all from distinctly different instances, is an overwhelming buffet of memories. I can't tell if I'm happy or sad or nostalgic or relieved. Not that I would know or anything, but I kinda feel like the eighth hour of an acid trip. Lord have mercy.

2006-08-22T20:52:00.000-05:00

I would write but watching a clip of K-Fed's performance at the Teen Choice awards has left my brain physically and chemically incapable of forming a complete

Besides, I just found out my Phee-Phee, at 5 years old, can add double digits in her head. The Gods have smiled upon

Strange Things Happen to Me.

2006-08-16T20:39:00.000-05:00

I was flipping through my dayplanner today, searching for the place where I wrote out the battle plan for Phee-Phee's upcoming birthday party and I noticed that between today and July 20th (Where I eventually located the SMEAC) some pretty weird things have happened.

One day in July I went on a picnic here with OHM. Phee-Phee wanted to see the inside of this chapel on the way back from the porta-potty. I accidentally broke in, set off the alarm, summoned the Framingham Police who came screeching into the parking lot, weapons at the ready, while I stood there looking both sheepish and guilty and Phee-Phee screamed "My MOMMY DID IT!" at the top of her over-competent little lungs.

Then the other day, yesterday actually while we were on our scary book buying errand (thanks ALB) Our new gecko escaped from it's box. (Our old gecko died despite our hand feeding - may he rest in reptile peace) He wedged himself inside the door frame. While I was standing outside assessing the situation (Listening to Ya-Ya wail and watching my father cower like a little girl -sorry Dad, but it's true) a well-dressed, impeccably groomed man walked by.
"Need some help?" he asked.
"Are you afraid of gecko's?" I answered.
"OOOOOOOOOH I wish you'd said that was a dog. No matter. Tell me what to do."
"Well, when I open the door you catch the gecko and put it back in it's little box." I said.
"What is that? A take-out box? Gecko's come in takeout?"
"Yeah, it's the number four lunch special at Lotus Flower."
"Ok. Wait a minute. Let me go all the way back to my car six blocks away and get the special box I use to trap reptiles and snakes."
"Okay, thanks."
***Ten minutes Later***
"Ready. Open the door," he said, positioning plastic shoe box under threshold. I opened the door, the gecko leaped into a puddle and the man captured him in the box.
"HOORAY!!!" We all cheered. (By now a crowd had gathered. Thank God I cleaned my car last week.)
But then our cheering gave way to perplexity. How to get the gecko from the upside-down box to the take out box? The man decided to lift up the box and grab the gecko.
"It is kinda cute, afterall" he said.
BUT, the gecko we bought is a gecko of alarming speed. Perhaps the speediest, shrewdest gecko of all creation. He hauled his little ass across the parking lot, the crowd erupted in shrieks.
"Oh God DAMN IT!!! Shit, shit shit shit shit DAMN!" the man cried. I ran to the next car over, where I'd last seen him go, the man ran to the other side and my father ran to the front. We had the gecko cornered. My own fear of actually having to touch the thing made me chase it with my arms over to the man who was determined not to let him get away a second time. He grabbed him, held him squiggling but triumphant over his head. The sun broke through the clouds, a chorus of angels sang hallelujahs, the crown gasped in awe. The gecko was caught. The I bought the man a tea and a cookie, thanked him, knighted him, announced him to the crowd as a hero amongst gecko's, everyone clapped and we all went on like nothing happened.

So, thanks for not shooting me FPD and thanks for rescuing the gecko, Well-Dressed Gecko Man.

2006-08-15T11:16:00.000-05:00

I'm off to get Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark because the Angry Little Bitch said so. And it's wise to obey anything an angry little bitch says to do. I'm really excited, got a good feeling about this one. Usually I make up my stories, but this time I'm going to memorize one from the book. Ya-Ya is excited too because I told her that I'm going to scare her back to the womb. But then I thought about that. Having a nine year old of exceptional height climb back into the womb would be only slightly less comfortable than disemboweling myself with a plastic fork. Probably wouldn't help much with mine and Delta's race to lose ten lbs either. Unless she brought with her a kidney and a couple of ribs on her way back out. Or, in accordance with (K) Angry Little Bitch's comment, my liver.

2006-08-14T21:53:00.000-05:00

We're some camping fools now. For us, the word weekend is synonymous with "sleep outside of house." We only say weekend because it's shorter. I realized that my favorite part of camping is the part where I tell a story or two that scares the living shit out of my children. I wonder if this is a character flaw on my part. My girls like what they call "scared silly" stories, the kind that are real scary but then end up with someone shooting off their big toe or finding a pink jellybean and then everyone goes "AWWWWWWWWW" and slaps their forehead. Or they would, but I always seem to forget the silly part so my people usually end up in tears with their hands over their ears. That being said, does anyone know any good campfire stories?? We're going camping this weekend.

2006-08-09T22:48:00.000-05:00

Tonight I went on a ghosthunt with the Ghosthunter. I'd write about it, but I think I'm possessed.

2006-08-07T20:34:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I went mountain biking for my first time ever. It is, by all outward appearances, deceptively simple. It's just riding a bike, right? Right. Riiiggghhhttttt. Perhaps if one is not towing a thirty plus pound human behind one's bike in a rickshaw built for roads over tree roots and boulders and massive lumps of earth surrounded by four foot moats of hellish sand. A small measure of cardiovascular endurance would also have come in handy. At least Tiarra found ways to amuse herself, most of which were at my expense. "Oh dear," she would lament from time to time, "Didi is in front of us again." Then she would sigh loudly and make a big show of using her brakes.

The kids did remarkably well. My Phee-Phee is supernatural. How else could I explain the cliffs she flew over, completely unseated during the soaring potion yet pedaling strong when the tires hit the rocky earth? (Also, from time to time her head spins. That's the real clincher.)And Ya-Ya? She was nowhere to be seen, off racing into the sunset with her dear friend Tee. Oscar survived too. She was by far the most encouraging person, saying things like "Slow DOWN Mommy!" completely amazed by what seemed like throttling speed to her but in reality was, well, in a word, pitiful.

Also, I am reading the BEST BOOK I HAVE EVER READ IN MY LIFE! It's this one, and I highly recomend it.

2006-08-06T08:56:00.000-05:00

Go ahead and try to find scotty dog fabric. You won't be able to because I bought the only fabric left on the planet earth and used it to make curtains for our new camper. And you know, it had to be scotty dog fabric since we are upping the kitsch factor in our scotty highlander camper. Which is really funny since it was made in 1976, the year I was born and Delta's real name is highlander and he's a Sotsman. Kind of like, serendipity.

Inaugural Trip in the Camper

2006-07-31T20:38:00.000-05:00

Arrive at "resort" campground. Am fooled by lush acres of waving grass, grazing horses, ripe perennials and heavy maples. Waved through gate and directed back through commune of blue tarp covered, palate decked campers to sliver of crooked land on side of mountain. Surrounded by women with snow plow asses stuck to golf carts hurtling themselves and six toddlers a piece back and forth from nylon camping chair to community toilet. Realize that all the "cool kids" have unbuttoned Hawaiian shirts over contrasting swim trunks with thirty pounds of gut between the two. Hear someone yell "Hey look at that old camper" and realize they are speaking about us. Burst hose for water hookup. Monitor children's honing of the whine and art of the complaint. Try to decipher the fifty different seventies rock songs blaring at once. Neighbor with sun-purpled rawhide skin accosts us en route to pool, tearfully reminiscing about his grandfathers old camper that was just like ours. Pass other scary neighbors who demand we stop and play Texas Holdem. We refuse and move on to community board where we decide whether or not to sign up for Thanksgiving potluck, Christmas in July, New Years in July, Texas Holdem championship or Adult after hours pool party. Arrive at "no", continue on to pool, have much fun. Return to campsite, tearful rawhide neighbor brings wife back to tour the inside of camper. Oscar eats jar of black pepper while man recalls every last detail of camper. Take Oscar to community toilet to rinse mouth out, leave rawhide and wife with Delta. Experience botulism scare while eating baked beans and trying to find date on can. Beans taste botulish. Sit around fire, eat marshmallows and scare living shit out of children for sake of tradition. Ward off ominous night call of "Texas Holdem? Anyone know how to play Texas Holdem?" from our neighbor. Realize that sleep is great campsite equalizer. Feel "in" with the "in" crowd while standing in line for community toilet. Wave goodmorning to rawhide and Texas Holdem. Spend day at pool thinking about coming back for New Years in August. Decide camping is good. Will do again.

This is a Strange Planet

2006-07-29T00:12:00.000-05:00

But we all knew that already. We're off to go camping tommorow. Camping is a strange thing to do. At least if you also own a home. Why we willingly go off into the forest to set up a new, much smaller home with no real toilet for me to lock myself into for some bloody piece and quiet for a little while, to eat terrible food cooked over a wannabe stove and sleep on six centimeters of yellow foam that calls itself a "bed" I'll never know. Especially where, in the woods, we are looked upon by some species as dinner. And tommorow is supposed to be skin blistering weather. Inside the tin can movable make believe home away from home, there are heat strokes waiting to happen. Right now. Just waiting.

PArents are also strange. I am not strange, and I am a parent, but most other parents are strange. Mine in particular. Once you grow up and realize that they are actually humans as well, with their own thought patterns and ideas, they become even stranger. Like my dad. But, he's mine and I love him. And I probably seem strange to him, though I don't understand how that could be possible. Maybe because he doesn't think normally. But that makes him fun to be around.

PMS is also strange. I think there must be a purpose for it. But I'm afraid too wonder too deeply lest it involve maiming, fire, and possibly a scud missile.

Anyway, a great weekend.

2006-07-25T21:14:00.000-05:00

PT Cakes told me that she saw on CNN it's time for Armageddon. My whole day has been f&^ck#d up since then. It would just figure God would wait till we got our new camper to pull this crap.

***UPDATE: 5 seconds after posting, lighting singed eyebrows still smarting**** Sorry God. Didn't mean anything by it.

Our Contest

2006-07-24T08:43:00.000-05:00

Delta and I have a new contest. Whoever loses 10 lbs first wins. If I win, I get a no strings backrub. For more than 5 seconds. The deadline is Sept. 23, weekend of the Highland Games. I lost our last bet, whether Brophy School was on the left or right side when turning off of Temple Street, and I think I lost several before that as well. So, my time has come. Delta better start doing some hand crunches.

Two Wierd Things

2006-07-22T09:42:00.000-05:00

Happened over the past two days. One, I saw a giant oval shaped ball of mist hovering over my deck. When I put my hand in it I couldn't feel it or any moisture from it though I could disturb the particles. I thought it was some serious humidity or some other freak meteorological episode but just in case I went to check on everyone in my family, including my dad who has been staying here since Satan invaded his own property. When I opened the door to the room where my dad is staying, I was greeted by the sight of my dad's arms and legs au natural, all bony and coltish and enough to send me into convulsions of unhappiness over my discovery.
"What the hell are you doing?" barked my dad.
"Looking for aliens," I answered then slammed the door and ran upstairs. Back out on the deck, the oval was gone.

Today I decided not to get out of bed at all until my kids were back in it. My own mild form of protest. Of course it didn't work but I did manage to finagle myself a pretty frickin horrible dream. We were at the house in Old Fort, it was wobbly as ever but huge now. Delta had invited people out the yin yang to stay at this house. So big was it (says Yoda) that I couldn't find my way around. (I must add that I do have a recurring dream about a house - I've had it since I was but a wee little Didi. It morphs into other shapes but always retains the same soul. This was my usual house but in Old Fort costume.) Anyway, the house was about to turn into hellhouse and I knew that from experience. The house was angry. I told Delta to get my kids out of there now, but he didn't believe me as usual. I followed him up this b ack staircase and the stairs beneath me crumbled. He had to grab my hand. And then he saw the man. He was about seven or eight feet tall, gray, covered with hairy spikes like those on a grasshopper and his face was plastered in a wide toothy grin. With strangely long arms outreached he came toward us and I shoved Delta down a hall.
"Get the kids out of here," I said again.
"What are you gonna do?"
"I have to find Phee Phee."
So Delta found Ya-Ya and Oscar, brought them out along with the thirty or forty people he'd invited to stay at the house and I went back in to find Phee Phee. But before I could move an inch, the man grabbed me, scraped me with his spiny hairs.
"Miss me?" he asked, still grinning.
"Yes, as a matter of fact," I said, deciding my only defense was to play along. His iris' were green rimmed with blue. "I missed you very much and we have so much to talk about. Just let me get my kid out of here so I can concentrate."
I jerked away from his grip and put my Albannach CD in this old, wall mounted 8 track player and surprisingly it worked. I tried to turn it up loud but it wouldn't go.
I looked back at the man and I saw phee Phee's legs sticking out of his mouth. His mouth had grown large, like a giant catfish mouth, to swallow my child. I yanked the legs,panicking, but they belonged to a cabbage patch doll. He laughed hysterically. Then the real Phee phee woke me up.

And the impression that I was left with was not that the dream was about my kids or even me, but some faint memory of something else.

Curse you, Brain

2006-07-19T09:16:00.000-05:00

I just can't seem to get motivated today. Last night I dreamed that my friend Arby hated me so much that she made a collage out of pictures of loathsome things that reminded her of me and took it on the Oprah Winfrey show.

That kinda threw me out of my game today.

The Following Post Refers to A Gynecologist

2006-07-17T21:06:00.000-05:00

**SO THOSE OF YOU SQUEAMISH WITH EXCESS INFORMATION BEWARE***

I try not to wear lipstick to the gynecologist. It's just one of my things. But that said, I was still mildly offended today when my obgyn did not recognize my face in the waiting room. I mean, 3 kids, come on. But then I thought about it and realized that if I had been standing on my hands in the waiting room with my panties around my neck so he could be addressing the end he's more familiar with and he STILL didn't recognize me, I could be mad. I'm glad Delta's not a gynecologist. What could you possibly do, as the wife of a gynecologist, to stand out in the crowd? I saw a woman, once, in Okinawa who could stack quarters on a coke bottle with her -ahem- you know. She could also chop bananas and shoot them across the room. Both seem like useful endeavors, but quite frankly, if that thing doesn't sing, wear a hat and play the cymbols I just don't think you'd stand a chance married to a gyn.

2006-07-16T08:57:00.000-05:00

If you notice that my blogroll is lacking your name, please either leave your site address in the comment section or email it to me.

I hope y'all are having a good weekend. I'm going to meet the devil at the crossroads, strike a bargain perhaps. Also go on a family bikeride.

Vacation recap...

2006-07-13T21:29:00.000-05:00

We are home. I tried to blog along the way, but for some reason I couldn't access my account. That was the BEST vacation EVER!!! Should I write about it? Will you read it? Maybe I'll just stick to a brief synopsis, day by day. K? K.

Day One: Finally left. Stop in CT at rest stop. Smell carcass. See man who looks as if his skin is bleached white leather stretched over skeleton with a corn bugle stuck underneath at the nose area. Man throws many black garbage bags into dumpster behind rest stop. Possible source of carcass smell. Stop in NJ for Pizza made by Mucho Brazillians who stop cooking our food to watch the World Cup. Luckily France kicks Brazil's asses. I think. I don't really know or care. But we eat. That's good. Oscar decides woman at counter might possibly be child eater and begins to howl. We leave. Spot Elvis driving MR2 in CT. Go to Roadside America and marvel at amount of time man who built it must have had. Did he hate wife? Take picture of big Amish people. Eat ice cream and take more pictures of the types of people who build big Amish people. Stop in Winchester VA where we always stop, to sleep in dirtbag hotel that pretended to be four AAA stars on the phone.

DAY TWO: Pull dust mites from eyeballs and continue on to NC. Marvell over how fat everyone else is. Wonder if we too are fat??? Exhaust ourselves with deep thoughts. Stop and eat pizza. Arrive in NC.

DAY THREE: Go to creek, collect crawdads, make them fight with each other then wear them as earings.

DAY FOUR: Can't remember

DAY FIVE: 4th of July. Go swimming then ride wild horse who rears up and gives me black eye when thunderstorm and fire crackers scare her. Then ride horse down street with crazy brothers in law. To those of you who have never galloped for your life, wet hair streaming out behind you, thunder and lightning crashing all around - do try it if you get a chance. Feel very exhilerated. Ride four wheeler up and down mountains with Delta.

DAY SIX: Visit Chimney Rock and write while Delta takes kids inner tubing

DAY SEVEN: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Go to Grandfather Mountain Highland Games. See Albannach. September Boyfriend gives us copy of new CD. Phee Phee finds salamander. Brother and Sister in Law takes kids home so Delta and I can stay for night concert. Drink 12 pack. Sneak stageside to watch our favorite band play hang for a little while with them.

DAY EIGHT: Go to favorite mountain creek and then to BRother and Sister in Law's for cookout.

DAY NINE: GO back to Highland Games :):):) Phee Phee tracks down salamander and puts him in Mason jar.

DAY TEN: Drive to Raleigh to see other bri=other and sister in law's house

DAY ELEVEN: Home. Stop for three hours in traffic because manure truck has flipped over. Sleep in PA then eat in NY at a town that was apparently stolen out of the Soprano's screenplay. GREAT food. I swear. Great food. I didn't see nothin eitha.

DAY TWELVE: Cricket eats salamander in vulgar display of woodland celebrity deathmatch. Glad I didn't bet on that one. Home at last.

TRAVEL ENTRY 1

2006-07-01T07:43:00.000-05:00

See? Our vacation just started and already I'm lying! It's 8:40 AM and I'm still sitting like an exhausted lump of meat, in front of my computer. Delta had to go get 2 new tires for the boat trailer. But, I shall remain positive. The four hours late start will ENSURE that I-84 is drained of floodwater.

Grizzwalds! Mount up.

New Look

2006-06-30T21:09:00.000-05:00

Because PTCakes said my old look offended her eyes. I thought about it and realized that the white on black offended MY eyes too.

Anyway. We are supposedly going on vacation in the morning. I say supposedly because one can never be too careful with ones words when describing a future event involving me or any of the other melodramatic souls in my family. The Grizzwalds don't have s..t on us. So far several factors are working against us: 1. My near-homicidal PMS, 2. Part of our route being underwater due to stalled weather pattern in PA, 3. Recently discovered dry-rotted boat trailer tire practically ensuring dramatic blowout in middle of gridlocked interstate in 99 degree heat, 4. Oscar waking up with a 103 degree fever.

Everyone I know is in a bad mood today. I don't know why. Maybe my PMS is so powerful it's contagious. Anyway, that's about the only thing we have going for us. Every trip that begins with a good mood ends with a family member being disowned. But trip that begin with seething eyes and gritted teeth ends in...well, I better not jinx it.

PS Niblets, GREAT FUN LAST NIGHT!!!!

2006-06-26T21:18:00.000-05:00

I.m trying a new program of going to bed at or before midnight. This stange and new experience directly corresponds with my "decision" to start jogging which stems from the michelin man who lives around my midsection and the fact that I'm going to turn ~gasp~ t-h-i-r-t-y ~wheeze~ in four months. Since my eyeballs shit the pot, I've decided I need to at LEAST lose some weight before my metabolism goes too. When I got out of the Marine's, I took my legs out to lunch and promised each and every muscle that we would never run again. Not for fire, not for flood. Not for earthquake, typhoon, Cujo, or food poisoning. But I lied. And it's all Tiarra's fault. She goaded me, peer-pressured me GUILTED me into running by telling me things about my heart. Of course, EmEl was the one who told me about all the extra blood and arteries you have to make for every extra pound of lard you have. And that was pretty gross. Anyway, my body was all, "So, you wanna run you FREAKING LIAR? Fine. Watch this." THen my knees were like ZOWWWWWWWWWW and my calves became slabs of meat lathered in Napalm and set on fire, and my toe bones? BRUISED! But Dear Doggy likes it. So we're gonna keep on trying. Besides, I think my heart likes it too.

2006-06-22T23:16:00.000-05:00

Let me just tell you, a million bucks couldn't have made me happier than seeing the look on Delta's face when he got his father's day gift. But Iwill tell you all about it. Just not right now. Because she is 15 and has commandeered my computer to do whatever it is 15 year old's do on MySPace. I watch "To Catch a Predator," don't worry. Anyway, it's late. Will write when physically able...Good Night

2006-06-17T18:44:00.000-05:00

I found the very best opthamologist in the WHOLE WORLD!! He taught me all about my eyeballs and how they work and he even looked into my brain! And guess what? It's there! And then this really great guy helped me pick out my new glasses and he was so much fun! He said since I only have to wear my glasses at night and while I'm reading and writing, I could go funkier than most people. And then we tried on every single pair of glasses and the ones we liked the very best of all are mahogony with four little rubies on either side. And they are Prada, which didn't influence me at all. I swear. Now I must buy shoes to match! My glasses will be ready next week and guess what else? They speak French just like in the commercial!!! I can't WAIT to get my glasses. My eyes will stop hurting and I can even drive over 10 miles an hour at night! I'm gonna tear UP the streets of Framingham. If you see a black Sequioa doing the Tokyo Drift late at night, holla at me. You won't see me beacause Delta pimped my ride with dark tint, but that's okay, I'll see you. 14 hours till the BEST FATHERS DAY GIFT EVER!!!!

AHA Moment

2006-06-16T22:39:00.000-05:00

My little Oscar woke up with a hundred and two fever this morning. If you know me at all, you know I tend to, well, embelish things. I don't mean to be a drama queen. Honest I don't. But I spend more time blowing things out of proportion than I care to admit. So, by the time the pediatrician's office opened at 8:30, I had already convinced myself that Oscar had either lead poisoning, west nile virus, bird flu or a deadly south american flesh eating bacteria from the spider that bit her last week. The doctor, a SUBSTITUTE since our regular pediatrician was off doing something else today despite my child's illness (don't think he didn't get a voodoo doll) said that it was just a little virus, and really too early in the illness to know anything for sure. Of course, she is not familiar with my children, so how in the hell should she know? What school did she go to anyway? The diploma on the wall said Harvard, but please. Anyone with a printer and an imagination can graduate from Harvard. So, we went to CVS to replenish our stock of Childrens Tylenol, Motrin, Pedialite, Pedialite pops, sore throat lollypops, bandaids, thermometer condoms, first aid cream, cotton swabs, cotton balls, witch hazel and bedside toys. When we left, we ran into a friend of my mom's who said I somewhat resembled a male cadaver and thus must also be ill. Sure enough, we went home and I took my temperature and it was a hundred. So, I immediately ruled out lead paint. West Nile and Bird flu were iffy too because neither one of us had any of the other symptoms. But I'll be damned if I didn't have a spider bite on my right foot. Curse you Terminex! What do I pay you for anyway? (Voodoo doll) Oscar and I went to sleep. I woke up fever-free, but she didn't wake up for hours and hours. So long, in fact, that I had begun to worry about whether or not she had slipped into a coma. Alas, my child is now fever free and wide awake. Chances are, she will not go to bed in the forseeable future. But at least her late hours and dreary frame of mind have allowed me to pass the 18,000 word mark in my story. And now for the AHA moment: Tiarra said that she has never met another person who has so much off the wall crap happen. I thought about what my mom always tells me: "Whatever you focus on, you get more of. I spend SO MUCH time researching and diagnosing off the wall crap that I have become a magnet for it. Imagine if that's a fact? From now on, I'm only thinking good things. If I think hard enough, I might just find an extra ice cream sandwich in the freezer. Yum.

2006-06-14T19:51:00.000-05:00

Last year I took a CPR class. I already had a working idea of what to do in an emergency from what I learned in the Marine Corps, but somehow something in my pea brain reasoned that I could ward off disaster by taking a class.

Today, I was standing at the kitchen sink, minding my own business, when my little Phee-Phee barreled around the corner clutching her throat and turning purple. SHe was choking on a grape. My skin puckered. I grabbed her, turned her around, kicked her feet apart and did exactly what I learned - in the Marines. I made my hand into a beer mug fist, turned it sideways and heimliched the hell out of her. She caught her breath, screamed for water, which she then puked up and began choking again. SO I heimliched her all the way down the stairs and into the front yard in the middle of a thunderstorm in my poor stocking feet. I always run outside in an emergency. God forbid the sky is raining railroad spikes one day. So, there we were, backlit by streaks of lightning, lurching around like quasimodo until at last the grape was swallowed.

That was some scary shit.

2006-06-13T20:12:00.000-05:00

I haven't been writing here because I have been writing there. I started out with a goal of 300 words a day and now I try to stop at a thousand. I don't know what happened to me, I'm like a crackhead over this story. I'm at about 13,000 words now and I think I'll stop around a hundred. Si, I'll talk to y'all then. Actually, probably before that because I have a FREAKING HUGE gift for Delta on Father's Day. My gift for him will make all other gifts look like PRACTICE. The only way Delta will ever be able to top my gift is if he finds me a hot 25 y/o yogi who will walk around my (freshly remodeled) home wearing only white linen drawstring pants and who will give me massages at my whim, cook me fresh food and then watch the kids while I try to contain myself at a thousand words.

2006-06-04T19:49:00.000-05:00

Oh Boy was I smug today. Smug and self righteous. I woke up fine, took the dog for a walk, took Ya-Ya out for coffee, everything APPEARED perfect. But really I was building up this snowball of smugness and then when we went walking with Tiarra tonight my dog turned into an idiot, my kids turned into Damian from the Omen only cubed and I proved once and for all that underneath my mild mannered alter ego lies the Lord of the Underworld. (That why my kids were so naughty, get it?)

The Men In My Life

2006-06-03T20:22:00.000-05:00

Some of y'all know that my mother's day gift last year was an eight week old Cane Corso puppy. I was never a "dog Person" before he came along. Somehow, I fell in love along the way. My dog is big and drooly and he farts, burps and snores like an old man on a bean diet. He's massive and strong and prone to chewing up anything his unhingable jaws can fit around unless he's walked/jogged on a daily basis. We were walking this morning in the deluge, I in my poncho, he in his Gorton Fisherman raincoat that he abhors, and a thought struck me. For all the complaining I do about my dog - the vet bills, the groomer bills, the work, the 50 lbs of food a month, the work, the shit mountains, the chewed up stair treads, the work etc...he has really been the catalyst for many positive changes. For one, I walk more. He's a big, strong, dominant dog who has forced me to become a strong, confidant assertive leader. (At least while he's around) My entire novel has played out on our walks, I've met more neighbors and received more stares from hot men in trucks than I would ever garner on my own. We've bonded so closely that we even turn our heads at the same time.

He's a dog, I'm a human, we both know our boundaries and we're not too touchy feely but there are times when I can just think for him to do something and he'll do it. He's more in touch with me than I am with myself. Once, he even saved my life.

We've been through some times, me and that old dog. Okay, he's only one. And I'm only just becoming the owner he needs me to be. Becoming a dog owner was similar to becoming a parent in the respect that you don't realize how life altering the change was until you look back on it.

Memorial Day

2006-05-29T09:05:00.000-05:00

This morning we went to the Memorial Day parade in Sudbury. The parade seems to be shrinking a little every year, but neverless, I still manage to turn myself into a blubbering mess when they stop to play taps.

There weren't many people there. Not even a cupful of the turnout the 4th of July parade gathers. That breaks my heart. With the amount of troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, Horn of Africa, Philippines and wherever else we are, you'd think some more citizens would turn up to remember.

Is it the solemn nature of the day that makes everyone stay in bed? Maybe the fact that I'm a former Marine makes me biased to pomp and circumstance and the respect that a parade full of veterans deserves. I don't know. But I'll tell you what, there wouldn't be a 4th of July without Memorial Day. If there is only one grizzled old veteran hobbling down the street holding a flag on Memorial Day, there should be streets full of citizens clapping him on.

All political and personal opinion aside, we recognize Memorial Day to remember and honor those American soldiers sailors, airmen and especially Marines who gave their lives in service to this country and her people. The very least those of us still living can do is remember.

So, before I get off my soapbox, do me a favor: remember. Don't ever forget.

Sh&t Does Not Make Good Fabric Softener

2006-05-25T19:52:00.000-05:00

I have been accused of neglecting my blog.

Actually, I have been living in a vacuum which happens from time to time and I have been immersed in writing a story.

There's not too much going on here. Oskie is finally transitioning into her own bed. That's been giving me bad dreams. She's also taking on the challenge of potty-training. She's an all or nothing kind of girl. We don't "F" around with pull-ups. It's panties all the way. Which is fine, except for the other day when I discovered that the horrific smell coming from my dryer was coming from some little turds she'd thrown in the hamper along with the panties.

TODAY

2006-05-21T07:45:00.000-05:00

Is the annual house tour. From 12-5 I will be out snooping through 9 or 10 Framingham homes that have been deemed "interesting" by the Historical Society. This is one of the Historical Society's more stellar fundraising ideas because it appeals to, and validates, the inner snoop. And you wouldn't believe how many inner snoops just need a little coaxing by way of expensive pink tickets and a photocopied tour map. Framingham sweats nosy people who maintain a polite, non-outwardly-inquisitive demeanor every other day of the year. House Tour aficionados are cousins to those people who stretch Saran wrap across the toilet on April Fools Day.

Bright and early we meet outside the Historical Society building for a brief pep talk about respecting other people's property and not stealing the crystal which is punctuated by peals of shrill laughter because who are they to insinuate that we respectable ladies would dream of stealing a penny from the roadside nevermind Waterford from someone's home. Then a bald man who has bathed in copious amounts of cologne holds up his pistol, fires, and we're off. Hundreds of nosy women in broad hats and bright springtime dresses, kitten heels and straw purses, spread out across Framingham Centre like overturned watercolors, racing to skulk, slide, slink, slip, snake and sneak in and out of other people's closets and cabinets all the while maintaining a running commentary with our accomplices and acting under the attractive guise of permission. We paid for a ticket, we expect to be impressed but the most we steal is ideas.

Need Therapy for Therapy

2006-05-20T09:12:00.000-05:00

*** UPDATE***
It was written in the stars!!! I no longer feel bad because my shopping spree was pre-desitined

Libra Date of Birth: 10/01 Are you experiencing a shopping hangover today? Are you worried that you really outdid yourself despite your best intentions to the contrary? Don't fret, Dawn, you'll be back on track economically in short order. Cash will begin flowing again and your lifestyle will not suffer in the least. Instead of worrying about money pay attention to a yen you may be experiencing for a creative outlet. Follow that instinct and see where it takes you!

I've been on one of those poor me kicks again where I get mad at Delta and then convert that energy into new shoes, new outfits, new Elfa shelving systems, books, CD's, Venti Non-Fat Green Tea Latte's...You know what I'm saying.

The good thing is, I've made progress. An emotional upset used to land me in a big bag of Doritoes. I guess, now that I think about it, that's more like lateral progress. But at least I'm moving, right? Anyway, I must cease retail therapy hell. We all know what happens when the bill comes.

How do you get around all these side pocket diversions without getting sucked in? After my root canal I could SO see how someone could addict themselves to prescription drugs. Just weenie old Codeine makes you feel so relaxed, so chill, that Ya-Ya and Phee-Phee would have had to tattoo Satan across Oscar's forehead before I got my ass up off the couch. Seeing a new addiction coming like a freight train, I stopped taking the codeine. But that need must demand an outlet because, as I mentioned, I've got new shoes.

So, I am led back to an earlier point. My new mission is locate, close with , and destroy that little demon that makes me do out of control things. Or at least find a positive outlet for it. And that's why I need therapy.

I Get By

2006-05-17T20:59:00.000-05:00

With a little help from my friends...

Today was AWESOME. And I didn't even take any codeine yet. First, we went to Ya-Ya's recorder recital at the school. Before the concert, we got to go into the classroom and look at the stuff. I love Ya-Ya's teacher so much because she finds ways to be whole and caring and creative under the rigid MCAS thumb. I judge teachers by how their classroom makes me feel. Mrs. Ya-Ya-Teacher's classroom makes me feel like staying.

Then, the recital kicked ass. Those guys are so damn cute when they are all synchronized and clapping their hands and staring earnestly at their sheet music. They are so young, not yet fired in the kiln of life and their eyes reflect this innocent excitement, this sweet pride in their musical accomplishment. They are so happy, it makes you cry.

After the recital, OHM and I went out for coffee. Then I went to PTCakes house for a little while. She gave me this beautiful framed picture of some roses Delta gave me a while back. I came home and found two wonderful hand made mugs from BeeDee, then Tiara came over (and reminded me that my veins suck) and she looked over our 401K and helped me understand it. I pretended that I did. Then CeeBeeW. came over and chatted for a little bit and then SanDeeRay came over and then we played outside with JLo, then we went to ElEn's house and saw all the gorgeous things she's done, and now I'm ready for bed. I'll tell you, I am so LUCKY to be surrounded by these people. You know you've accomplished something when all your friends are beautiful, smart, talented, kind...Man. I can't even believe how lucky I am.

I LOVE MY

2006-05-15T20:54:00.000-05:00

Dentist!
It all started a few weeks ago with a vague sense of unease. I felt like something was wrong with me. I ran the usual barrage of litmus tests: mad at Delta? check. Mad at paternal figure? check. But new "mad at's" and "Guilty of's" began creeping into the boundaries of my conscious. I thought maybe lupus or congenital heart failure. Then last week I had this dream that my bottom right row of teeth fell out. That sucked. I woke up and thought for sure they were loose. I checked my dream dictionary, which only added to my confusion. None of that made sense. Then yesterday, my tooth started to ache. Really bad. When I woke up this morning I felt like my head might, at any time, explode. I called my dentist and begged for help. He brought me in, asked me when I had chipped my tooth, (I had no idea) why I had not come in to have it fixed, (because I didn't know) and recommended a root canal. When I asked him if a root canal would hurt, he said, "You tell me, I'm halfway done." And no! It doesn't hurt! As a matter of fact, it feels great! I love novicaine! I love the dentist! I love root canals! I love Tylenol with Codeine! Hooray dentistry!

2006-05-12T18:25:00.000-05:00

Delta Hotel is off to a funeral in New Jersey. It seems like Delta is constantly going to funerals. I worried for a little while that I might have married the Grim Reaper. But when I asked Delta he said no, it's just that he has so many people: friends, family, that it's kind of inevitable.

This funeral is different. A Marine from his old unit was hit with an IED. So, keep Delta's safe travels in your minds tonight, if you would.

PTCakes

2006-05-10T20:36:00.000-05:00

This is for you. So you don't have to look at Voodoo anymore. THough I can't imagine why you wouldn't want to. I can't talk right now though. Lost is on and it's wierder than ever. I need to pay attention. I need to figure out what this is all about.

The Power of Voodoo

2006-05-05T21:24:00.000-05:00

I am writing about a character who has roots in Voodoo, something I am not very experienced in. I mean aside from a battalion of little pin stabbed dolls under my bed, but who doesn't have those? (BTW, Niblets, Bavaria is wherever I SAY it is. Understand??) Anyway, I went to the library today to check out some materials. (I am allowed back in there now. And ever since I returned those apple tree books, the flaming bags of poop have stopped appearing on my doorstep.) So, I was surprised at the amount of material I found. So was the librarian at the checkout counter. After the first three books and the cassette of Negro Spirituals, her eyes crept up to my face and remained there for the rest of the transaction.

Later, Emel said that the librarian was profiling me so she could give an accurate description to Homeland Security. Then he laughed uproariously at the thought of me leading a Voodoo revolution. I dug around under my bed, found my Emel doll and said over the phone, "Pay no attention to the tingling sensation you are feeling in your legs." He stopped laughing.

Lockout

2006-05-01T11:19:00.000-05:00

That's the opposite of a boycott. Next Monday, let's say that only people holding valid work visa's, green cards or SS cards are allowed to drive/work/buy anything in the US.

Maybe it's PMS, but I haven't been as frustrated with the war as I am today in a long time. Iran has nukes, there's a genocide in Africa and illegal immigrants have their hands wrapped around America's balls, yet there we are in Iraq. We got rid of Saddam, we learned that the only WMD involved in the "crisis" are seated in the oval office. We are "helping" a nation that pre-dates Christ Himself fix the problems we think they have. And we are still in Iraq. Our "oil crisis" has netted Exxon 8.4 BILLION dollars, enough money for every man woman and child in America to fill the tank of an SUV twice for FREE. Yet we're still in Iraq.

Genocide is a government sanctioned slaughter of man woman and child. Yet we're still in Iraq. If we really need to be somewhere doing something, it ought to be Africa. Historically speaking...That's the place for America to help.

2006-04-30T20:20:00.000-05:00

The reading was great. It's marked off as one of the best days of my life. And I want to devote some time talking about it. However, right now I am very busy imagining what Massachusetts will be like without 900,000 citizens (That's what the illegal immigrants are proposing we do tommorow during their "Protest America" day.) And I have to say, not paying the taxes for the welfare, court fees and unpaid medical bills of 900,000 illegals sounds pretty darn good. Thanks guys.

Showtime

2006-04-26T22:21:00.000-05:00

Well, this may be my last post. A few months ago, I wrote a story and entered it in a contest. I didn't think I'd win. I REALLY REALLY REALLY didn't think that. Because if I'd thought that, I wouldn't have entered, knowing that part of the "prize" is having to stand up on a stage in front of people and read. So, since I might die tommorow, I wanted to say, thanks for reading. And I'd really love it if you would come to the reading. Here's the info... "April 26th" is a typo. It's really April 27th.

That being said, I am sincerely grateful. Thank you Niblets (Holla)

I forgot to mention...

2006-04-25T22:36:00.000-05:00

Tonight, still warm and damp from her bath, Phee-Phee looked deep into my eyes and said, "Your breath smells like caterpillars."

Should I admit that? What, exactly, does a caterpillar smell like? What does that say about my child, about ME? I don't eat caterpillars. I promise.

2006-04-25T20:05:00.000-05:00

That's it. I quit. Twelve hours ago, I declared myself a lesbian, but then PTCakes pointed out that you can't just do that because you are mad at your husband. She's right. I'm just not a lesbian at heart. But I am sick of drama. What's the word for that?

MiniVein

2006-04-23T20:40:00.000-05:00

What a weekend. We had one of those weekends that passes faster than a glass of prune juice. Today I went over to OHM's house to help her put up a new dining room chandelier. I'll tell you what I learned: electrician is not a born trait. After we managed to get the thing secured to the ceiling and outfitted with the fifty million little hallogen lights that came with it, we flipped the switch. By we, I mean OHM because the two of us flipping the light switch at the same time would be, in a word, wierd. Anyway, OHM flipped the switch and the chandalier lit up amber for just a second before a very electric and scary sounding pop came from the switch and the power went out. OHM got on the phone with my dad and I went into the living room to do some yoga when all of a sudden it hit me - dimmer switch does not mix with hallogen. I told OHM this and she decided to make the dimmer switch into a regular switch. I wasn't really sure about that being a completely viable idea which is why I hid in the front hallway when she tried to turn it on. The new chandalier did not turn on, however, the kitchen light did turn off. Which is why I am taking back my own and OHM's electrician self-certification.

Then Tiarra came over and told me I have spindly little veins. She said I should be fine as long as I don't get anything that requires extensive antibiotics intraveinously. I'm pretty sad about my underachiever veins. I think my little veins are the root of all the difficulties I've had in life.

2006-04-19T20:12:00.000-05:00

Sorry about the Happy Easter greeting still being up. Know that it irks me more than it irks you because I'm not a post-holiday cuddler. After any major event, I like to roll over and go to sleep. Pastels, eggs, bunnies and tulips should all go away now. I've moved on to summer planning. (Don't take it personally, Easter. It's me, not you. We can still be friends. And who knows, maybe we'll get together again, say, next year.)

Happy Easter

2006-04-15T21:54:00.000-05:00

Tonight, while we were dying eggs, Ya-Ya asked me what eggs have to do with Easter.
"Hm," I said. I had to think about it for a moment. Sometimes when my kids ask me big questions, I overshare. A couple weeks ago, Ya-Ya asked me why dogs don't see in color, and I ended up on an hour long digression of quantum physics. Which I only pretend to know about. But religious symbolism is never ever a succinct topic. Eggs, bunnies, crucifixion, lambs blood over the door, what does it all mean?

Luckily we were in the kitchen, where I do my best thinking. I tend to use cooking as a medium for deep thought, which is probably why I once cut off my own thumb. Then lost it down the garbage disposal. But again, I digress.

I picked up an egg, not yet mauled by my girls, and thought.
"An egg is a perfect symbol of potential, Ya-Ya," I said, "A perfect symbol of rebirth."
"Oh, ok."
And the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. The winter is death, introspection, the spring is renewed life. Passover :death and oppression rewarded with life and freedom. Resurrection: death as the price for life.

There's a common thread here. In the Lord's prayer, we ask for this day's bread. Not to save yesterday's, or hoard tomorrow's. We were meant to die and be reborn every day, without expectation or regret. It's the rhythm of things.

One day, I'll tell Ya-Ya that.