Summer is Coming
June 9, 2013
It’s the beginning of June is New England. We’re on the verge- of summer vacation, trips to the Cape and to the local pool, lazy mornings and late nights. I’ve already entered the season of coffee made the night before, and left in the fridge for the morning, of pedicures, and the familiar stink of sun block. But it’s not official till the last day of school, and that’s coming late this year
My kids are twelve and nine, so each year is dramatically different from the one before. Last year, camp was on the menu. Colin spent his days playing basketball at, you guessed it, basketball camp; Katy went to the Boys and Girls Club. I’m not sure what she did there; made art out of paper bags, played beauty shop under a tree. On our rides home, I only heard bits of what happened each day, in between frequent demands to turn the radio up and heartfelt pleas for ice cream. I’m well aware this year I will hear even less. every minute that passes, my children grow more mysterious.
I’m not sure how we are going to fill their time with during July and August. Money is even tighter, and camp is more expensive. And they have gotten old enough to stay home without supervision. Katy knows not to put metal in the microwave. Colin is well aware of the punishment that awaits if he visits sites deemed “inappropriate” on the computer, (though I’m getting the sense he’s figured out how to erase the history. Sometimes I do wish my children weren’t so savvy.)
But none of this matters. We aren’t there yet. We are on the verge of another summer. Another summer that they rely on me for money and transportation. Another summer when they still need me to remind them to put on the sun block and walk the dog and read a book and get some rest because ‘tomorrow is going to be a big, incredible, wonderful magical day.”
They may be old enough now to make macaroni and cheese without supervision. They are most definitely old enough to walk to the pool, and the park and the store. But they are still young enough that they still need me, sometimes. Even if it’s just to get them from point a to point b.
It’s a privilege to sit on the sidelines and observe them, from a greater and greater distance, as they continue to become the people they are deciding to be. For a time, they will grow more mysterious I will eavesdrop on their conversations for clues, and clean out their pockets on laundry day with a touch of apprehension.
Right at this moment, they are not mysterious. I can hear them out on the front stairs, dividing up gummy worms . Their voices are tangled up in a thunderous bass line from an old boom box, the crash of a lawn mower, a shrieking Yorkie in the yard next door, the whisper of the endless stream of mini vans that pass by at all hours, and the laughter of at least fifteen of their friends. But I can make out the unique sounds of Colin and Katy, laughing. I can tell that Colin is impatient to get to the park, and Katy is a little tired from staying up to late last night.
They may be getting more mysterious by the moment. But I have time to pay close attention. And I’m really, really, really, smart.
I’ve been doing this thing, these essays about my life for a while now. Kids, pets, other peoples pets, growing up, growing old, losing people I love because of different paths, and losing people I loved..
But for the most part I have avoided talking about a pretty important passion in my life, one that actually sent me back to school, and has me currently pulling on a neon blue tee shirt and a pair of black pants and nikes a couple a week. I am in school for Exercise Science, and I recently was hired to work by the South Shore YMCA. I was hired to work in the health and well-being department on the floor. Essentially, I’m a land lifeguard surveying an ocean of barbells, huge tires and thick, long,lengths of rope, treadmills, nautilus machines, punching bags. The people I’m guarding range in ages from seven to ninety two. They are fat, or convinced they are fat They are young, and working really hard to look older. There are athletes, and quadriplegics, and quadriplegic athletes. They are mothers and fathers with kids, there are mothers and fathers cherishing an hour without their kids. I do my best to make sure they are safe, to offer help when they ask, and sometimes when they don’t. As soon as someone enters our area, I’m responsible for checking their feet, flip flops not allowed. I wipe down machines, and mediate disputes over the racquetball court.
This is not where I saw myself, ever. But in my early forties I took a personal inventory and realized the one consistant place I found joy, outside of a Springsteen concert, inside the arms of my children or walking the magnificent Sophie thru the woods at Cunningham Part, was the South Shore YMCA.
I want to stress- I am not athletic At All. Not even a little bit. I have never done a cartwheel, entered a triathlon or even sustained a rally of more than forty seconds on the tennis court.
Not only do I have the coordination of an potato, but I don’t even have the body of someone whose primary passion is spending time at the gym. I have muscles, and less cellulite than most my age, but I’m not what anyone would call ripped, or even svelte. Though I am well on way of being able to do a real push up without being on knees.
But I love it. I love walking away from my daily life into a locker room. I love slipping the uniform of working out- the little socks, the reeboks, the yoga pants, sports bra, concert teeshirt. I love the moments just after I’ve worked out- the peeling sweat stained clothes off, wrapping my torso inside an oversized towel, and padding to the steam room. I love laying there, being still, being fine with being still, because I’ve just came from an hour and a half of making my muscles do what I wanted them to do. I have earned the time to sprawl and breathe inside a cloud of water.
When it comes to what I do at the gym- (when I’m not there for work) almost all of it, the basics that is. I zumba in the dark, lift the free weights, and press the leg press. I take yoga, yoga lates, body pump, (strength training with barbells.) I bench press and do sit ups and leg lifts on oversized beach balls. I stretch on the stretch rack, I swim laps in the pool.
So a few years ago when I found myself in need of a professional change, I realized I wanted to chance to help others find what I find inside the walls of a gym. I signed up at Quincy College for the Exercise Science Program. I’ve got one more year left.
And more than once, in the course of that year, I’ve stopped myself and thought- “What the hell are you doing?”
I’m about as scientific as I am coordinated. So I study a lot. I know that the posterior deltoid is the in the back, and that when lifting a weight the muscle action is eccentric, as opposed to concentric. I know that a lot of personal trainers think zumba is silly, and a lot of zumba teachers think that personal trainers are a little high on themselves. I know the correct way to lunge and squat, though I don’t really like do either I am happy to tell someone else to lunge, and squat. I am qualified to correct their form with the authority of someone who spent forty five minutes in a class room discussing lunges and squats.
So this is who I am now- a mother, dog-sitter, creative writer, with a strong sales background, proven success as a manager, living on macaroni and cheese. My family is living on mac and cheese, broken up occasionally pasta, because I decided to go back to school because I really, really like going to the gym.
Sometimes I stop and wonder- What the heck was I thinking? But I don’t do that often. Between work at the Y, work at Quincy College, classes, kids, and working out, I don’t often have the luxury of wondering about much more than what my families going to eat for dinner or if I’m ever going to able to pass College Algebra.
I took the summer off from school, but for the next couple of weeks I need to study for my Ace Certification test. If I pass I get to wear a black tee shirt when I work at the Y.
I just thought I should let people know there is a little more to my life these days than musing about my children, bragging about my dog, and fussing about getting older.
However, I’m not done with musing, bragging and fussing. Just wanted to let you know that most often when I am writing these pages, I should be studying.
I will remember her number.
May 24, 2013
I came up from my bedroom this morning to the vision of Katy, my daughter, eating a large bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios. I open with this piece of information because Kate has been struggling with a stomach virus all week. Five minutes later, when I began my morning diatribe about the importance of punctuality and dental hygiene, Katy looked at me. She looked guilty. “Mom, my stomach hurts again.” She didn’t have a fever. She didn’t look pale. I had the suspicion that her pain had more to do with my lecture than her health. But I tucked her under some blankets on our bed and took Colin to school.
I got home to find Katy curled up on our chaise next to the bed. Then I noticed, Katy had erupted; half digested milk and cheerios were all over our quilt. I washed her hair, put her in some clean pajamas and brought her upstairs to her bed, which I had just finished putting clean sheets on last night. Katy throws up in bed. Not in the toilet. Or on the carpet. Never in a bucket. In bed, most of the time while she is half asleep.
Next piece of business, I got a phone call from my sister in law. My husband’s mom was dying. Today. Margaret has been staying with her daughter Debbie in North Carolina. She is, was, 93 years old, has, had cancer and dementia and failing lungs. So it wasn’t a surprise.
I spoke to her last week. We haven’t been talking as much as usual. I used to call her every day to fill her on every little thing my kids did; she was the only person that never, ever got tired of hearing every little detail. About how Katy loved ketchup more than the cheeseburger she put it on. How Colin would come downstairs 5 times a night to say good night and tell me just one more thing.
So when I called her last week, it was awkward. I couldn’t start talking about what we had for dinner last night, or Katy’s new passion for the recorder, after not talking to her for almost a month. So I told her about school, about my grades, about the weather. She was tired, her voice cracked. Before we got off the phone she said “Julie, don’t lose my number.”
I called her every day after, and I think I only got to speak to her once more.
Right after I got the call that the priest was on his way to give her last rites, the turtle turned up in our tv room. About a week ago, he had disappeared from his bowl. We all thought the dog ate him.
During dinner, conversation went back and forth from Margaret’s death to the discovery of Picasso Roadkill, (he’s a painted turtle found on the side of the road). Dinner was quick, just Katy and me. We had to drive over to Roxbury to pick up Colin from basketball practice. I wasn’t happy about driving to Roxbury at 8 o’clock. I have a lousy sense of direction, I can never find a parking space, and I always get lost coming home. To make matters worse, on the way to pick my son up, (while I was trying to figure out a way to get mad at my husband for asking me to do just that, even though his mother had just died hours before) in a sudden moment of clarity I remembered today was the day I had to start cat/snake sitting for a woman in Cambridge.
Change of plans. Katy and I drove to Cambridge. We couldn’t find the house. I finally parked the car, deciding that we would walk up and down Harvard Street until a building looked familiar. Or until a key fit in the front door.
We found the house. We fed the cat. We left food for the less friendly cat. We looked at the snake. We scooped litter.
Then we left, to go back to the car, and return to our original errand. Picking up Colin from basketball.
One glitch. I had lost the car. We walked and walked and walked. I gave Katy another speech about something stupid, picking up her feet, or not jangling the car keys, or to never leave the house in her pajamas. We walked, and walked, and walked. Katy tried to ask me questions. She wanted to know what her Nanna had been like as a young woman. She wanted to know who my high school boyfriend was. She wanted to know why she was named Kaitlin and what I would have named her if she was a boy.
I don’t think I answered any of her questions. I think I shook her off a few times, she was holding my hand, and sometimes I just couldn’t bare to be close, to be clung to. I just wanted to march forward fast, without speaking, find the car, pick up my son, and get home.
She kept reaching out, though. And she was the one who reached in my back pocket and grabbed my phone the 34th time it rang. She told my husband where we were. He’d picked up Colin. He came right away. On the way to get us, Colin spotted the car just blocks away from where Katy and I were standing.
On the ride home, in the dark, in the tunnel we call the Katy tunnel because it was completed just before she was born, I told them about Margaret. I told them about how one night Marg and I stayed up late, got drunk, and plotted how I could convince Sheldon he really did want a baby. I told them how she always announced that she didn’t like bread with her pasta, and that she always had bread with her pasta. I told them how their Dad used to call her “Mumsy” and how that would make her smile.
They are both in bed now. Colin’s probably awake, he’s watching the turtle in the dark and trying to remember how his Nanna used to rock him to sleep. Katy is sleeping, soundly. I hope she doesn’t throw up tonight.
I’m sitting here trying to figure out if this is a night for a sleeping pill, or a night for a walk in the dark with my memories. I think Katy and I did enough walking for tonight. So I think I will sit on my stoop for a while with Sophie and think about things.
I do need to get to bed soon. I need to get up early. I want to have breakfast with Colin. And I want to walk Katy to school. I will hold her hand, and ask her questions, and she will shake me off, and skip ahead, and tomorrow will be a wonderful day.
Long F#$%%^^ing Day
May 19, 2013
This morning at 5:30 my son was driven by his father to meet his basketball coach. Colin had a game to play in Fitchberg today and since neither his Dad or I were able to take the time off to drive him, (it’s about an hour and a half away,) his coach kindly offered to give him a ride. I didn’t say good bye to him. Or maybe I did. Five thirty in the morning feels like a very long way away from now.
Long story short, and I mean very long story, short, until 9:30 tonight I didn’t speak to my son. Or his coach. Or any of his fellow team mates. I called the director of the basketball program. I called my son’s other coach, who knows my son’s current coach to find out what he thought of the man that drove my son to Fitchberg at 6 o’clock in the morning. At about 7 pm I took an opinion poll at a going away party I was at to see if people thought I should be concerned at not being able to reach him. I called my mother. I told the woman behind the register at the CVS.
He finally called at 9:45. Even though he left with only eight dollars in his pocket a fact I told every one when I was telling them my tale of woe and worry, he said he had had enough to eat. He said he had fun at the games, that he had played well. He said he would be home soon, and would call me when they was getting close. When we hung up, he told me he loved me. That was kind, I’m sure he was a little horrified at the flurry of text messages and voice mails from me, his father and head of the AAU program.
When I talked to my mom, she chuckled. Not hysterical laughter, or obnoxious you-are-a-craz-idiot- guffaw, just a quiet, beneath her breath, low kind of chuckle. Maybe she thought I was too busy inside my hysterics to hear it.
She told me “He’s growing up. Colin’s smart, and he’s fine, and he’s had enough to eat. I promise.”
And she was right.
She also told me I couldn’t bury one of those satellite gps’s under his armpit while he was sleeping. Or make him quit basketball and take up ping pong in the neighbor’s basement.
She told me Colin is growing up, and there isn’t a helluva a lot I can do about it.
And she didn’t say it, but I got the impression she was trying to prepare me for the fact that this is just the beginning. It is going to get much, much worse, at least from my point of view.
I’m hoping that if this whole teenage growing up thing makes me utterly panicked and miserable, that he has a wonderful time. That he scores many, many baskets, survives a thousand crushes, makes a few true friends, eats his vegetables and shares his pizza, swims, and runs, laughs like an idiot, and cries when he needs to. Personally, I would like him to do all of this, and get enough sleep, but that’s reaching a bit.
But I am going to get him a charger for his damn cell phone.
Making Space and Losing Things
May 8, 2013
I don’t care what people say, unless a woman lives under a rock, she is probably prepared for childbirth. And everybody knows that time goes by quickly, that one day they are babies and the next, they are slamming doors and smoking pot, (or so I’ve been told). These are two truths that are always brought up when the conversation turns to the things in life that surprise us, and tell me, is there anyone you know that isn’t aware that having a baby hurts a lot, and time flies, even if you aren’t having fun.
What no one ever mentioned to me when I was younger was all the people I would lose as I got older. I’m not talking about death, or break ups. I’m talking about the friends and family that have quietly disappeared from my life. I was talking to my daughter the other day about a photo we have on the mantel, she is a baby, swaddled in the every girl baby must have, a pink blanket, and she is held by a smiling Uncle John. After admiring herself, she pointed at the smiling Uncle John. “Who’s that?”, she asked. “Uncle John, you remember Uncle John!” “I don’t remember Uncle John. Is he your brother, or Daddy’s brother?” “He’s a friend of our family. He’s, he’s, he is your Uncle John. He lives in Dorchester.” She stared at me blankly. Katy doesn’t know where Dorchester is, she doesn’t care where Dorchester is, and she can’t figure out why I seem to expect her to figure out who this smiling man in the picture is based on a location she only hears about when her father is talking about traffic. “He gave you that blanket,” I remember. I watch her face.
“Mom, I was a baby then. I don’t remember getting that blanket. I can’t even remember what I had for lunch last week. When was the last time I saw him?”
And I thought about it. And I thought about it some more. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve seen my dear friend John. A long, long time since I’ve seen Simon, or Alex or talked to Patricia on the phone. It’s been years since I discussed literature with my cousin Daniel. Decades since I laughed with Andy, listened to Kent play the guitar or listened to Andrea whine about her husband.
So many people have slipped out of my life when I wasn’t looking. I know everyone is connected these days, and almost anyone can be found, but how would I start a conversation with some I haven’t spoken to in twenty years- “Hey, having a baby, really hurt, hunh? And did you check out how summer seems to go by in a week these days?”
Some people fade away because of geography, some disappear, or fall out of touch as one settles down, and one climbs the corporate ladder. And what makes me sad, when I think about these people that I have loved and lost, is that I miss them. I miss them when I hear a song, or glance at a photo, see someone driving down the street with a familiar profile. Some many of these people are always just on the edge of mind, like a lost library book, or a dream hours after waking up.
Honestly, I don’t have the time right now to reach out to these people whose numbers filled my phone books (remember phone books?), sat across from me in restaurants, got me on guest lists, toasted me at midnight, and brought me aspirin in the morning.
My life is fuller than it’s ever been. Two kids that have reached the ages where I drive them around a lot. And I’m happy to because some days that’s the only time I get to speak to them.
In the past five years, I’ve created a whole new circle of friends, in the town where I live. They are wonderful people, they appreciate good books, often offer me really nice wine, and read the NY Times. lot of them have kids too, and commiseration can be fun. I love these new friends of mine fiercely, and make sure I let them know as often as I can without seeming either needy or stawkerish. I only wish sometimes they knew a little more of my history, who I was before I became Julie, mom/writer/student/lousy housekeeper/sometimes funny, usually kind, when cranky I don’t speak much. The Julie from before was an interesting woman but kind of a mess.
I guess it’s not surprising I’m missing some people from before. And even though Julie 2.0 has things a little more together, I’m sure there are some friends that will fall off the radar as I move forward thru the rest of my life.
I just wish I had known when I started to make friends, real friends, not those based on proximity or the first letter of a last name, that I wasn’t going to stay friends with most of them. I would have liked to have been a little more attentive, taken more pictures, maybe told a few what I found so special about them. I wish I’d known, just a few times, when I was spending time with someone that I was never going to see again. Or that I could have been a little more aware all along that not everyone we love stays on our speed dial forever.
No one warned me about that so I just told you. What you do with the information is your own business. Maybe you were in a sorority 30 years ago, and text your sisters every time you are at a stop light. Maybe your families is just like the Waltons. Maybe you don’t have any friends and you don’t want them. But you’ve read this far, so I’ll end with what I’ve been trying to say all along.
Everyone always tells you to hold your kids close, they grow up so damn fast. All I’m trying to say is hold all the other people in your life that you love close by too.
Boys
May 1, 2013
I am a fifty year old woman. I am at an age when I should be gardening, or sorting thru cruise brochures, or joining a wine tasting class.
Instead, I am quite often surrounded by boys. Teenage boys. One of them is my son, who, like most 13 year olds, has begun to travel in packs of other thirteenish year olds. I spend a lot of time with the son of friend of mine, he’s on the cusp of 16, I think. He doesn’t look like a boy, anymore, but he is one. I am blessed that I get to see that side of him. I drive him places sometimes, and over time, and out of sheer boredom, I’ve gotten to know him.
Tonight, I was bringing this young friend of mine home from a class. He had his head stuffed between earbuds. He had a bag of Wendy’s on his lap. He had a scowl on his face and a french fry in his mouth.
A song came on the radio, and the ear buds came out. And he sang along. Not softly, not under his breath, out loud, each word clear, each note on key. He didn’t look at me; I didn’t look at him. I harmonized, or attempted it, during the choruses. I slid glances at his face, and saw his eyes were wide open inside the dark of the Grand Marquis. I still can’t believe he let me hear him sing. When the song was over, he stuffed the earbuds back in place. He popped a french fry in his mouth, he sighed and closed his eyes. Back in position we went. I drove the car, he went somewhere else in his head.
About a half an hour after I got home, my son came in from a basketball practice. He laid on the sofa, protesting he was too tired to make it up the stairs. His dad tried to wrestle with him, and he rolled over, closed his eyes. (What is it with boys and the shutting of eyelids. Is it some adolescent version of peekaboo?)
I waited for his father to go downstairs. I told him it was time for bed. “Don’t you want to hear about practice?” he asked. He didn’t sound hopeful. He didn’t sound mad. He wanted to know if I had the time to listen. I did.
He told me, little by little how his practice sucked. One kid announced to everyone he didn’t want to pair up with him in a drill because my son was no good. Another kid swore at him for fouling him out. I don’t know exactly what went on, I don’t speak basketball. I just know that my son was squeezing tears out his eyes, and his lip trembled, and his shoulders shook. I know that he wouldn’t let me lay down next to him. We spoke face to face.
I said what I could. I told him how much I respected him for his drive, his determination. That the most I did sports wise growing up as a kid was join the swim team. I stayed on it until I was eleven, then quit when we moved and I found out I’d have to swim in a lake. Perseverance has never been my middle name, hasn’t even been an occasional visitor in my life.
I don’t think I helped. I did get a smile when I reminded that body spray is never a substitute for a shower. I think he was smiling because he thinks I’m wrong and that body spray is even better than a shower.
Boys, these mysterious creatures that clutter and lift up my life. I watch them struggle, and I really want to make everything all better for them. And I can’t. I shouldn’t even attempt to.
I just need to make sure I’m around when their eyes are open and they want to talk.
Small World
March 20, 2013
My world has felt tiny lately. I don’t know if it’s the weather, which has been a never ending onslaught of snow and wind. Maybe it’s school this semester, I’m studying Biomechanics and Intro to Computers. Both topics leave me a little humble, and humility is not something I’m accustomed to in the academic world. Or maybe it’s just that I feel like what I’m doing mostly right now is waiting. I’m waiting to get my degree. I’m waiting to begin a new career. I’m waiting for spring.
I’ve had a lot of time to pay attention to my children. I turn to them when things aren’t perfect in my world. My twelve year old son, is starting a new basketball team on Thursday. I get nervous about his love of sports; it is unfamiliar to me. I don’t know what makes a three point shot a three point shot, just that it’s farther away than a one point shot. He is incredibly talented and this gift of his will serve him well. Lately he has become preoccupied with his place in the world. In other words, he wants to be popular. About this I also have no clue. I was the last picked for gym class until I started high school and gym consisted of walking around the track smoking cigarettes.
When Katy is near, she is usually close to me. When we watch tv or read, some part of her leans onto some piece of me. She still throws herself into my body when I pick her up at the bus, still laughs at most of my jokes. She is nine. She is the peace keeper; when Colin and I fight, she takes me aside and explains to me that he is getting ready to be a “teenager” and that I really should give him space. When she is mad, and I do make her mad, she storms as far away from me as our tiny house allows. She tilts her head up, and her neck looks as long as a swan’s. I think she’s trying to put her nose in the air, she must have read somewhere that is appropriate behavior for little girls that have been wronged. I am thankful she doesn’t feel wronged that often, it’s a matter of time before I make the mistake of laughing as she flounces up the stairs. I didn’t even know it was possible to flounce in an upward direction until Katy figured it out.
My world is kids, animals, dirt from kids and animals, friends that know my secrets and still call me for advice, a yard that can only be described as sad, school, long walks in the woods, and respite from it all at the gym. It is a very small world, right now anyway. But it is filled up with everything that I love. Except for the dirt. And I promise that I will do something about my damn yard if the snow ever melts.
My feet are cold. They are still stuck inside the long, brown, polka dotted boots I wear for shoveling. The socks are a little wet, and the jeans I tucked inside the boots are also a little wet. This explains why my feet are cold, but not why I’m still wearing the damn boots.
It is the tail end of another “snow event”. In other words, it’s still snowing. In about twenty minutes, I will head back outside in my quest to clear a path along our thirty feet of sidewalk. It snowed a lot, two feet I think, so the walls of white along the path are about three feet high. I am proud to be the one that built those walls of snow, me and my shovel make a helluva team.
Colin and Katy started their snow day out in the kitchen, making pancakes. Katy is nine, Colin is twelve. This was their first attempt at creating a breakfast that didn’t come out of a box or a bag of bread. I chose to stay out of the kitchen, I stayed on the sofa and listened to the process.
“I don’t know Colin, do you really think we should add two eggs? The box says to add one.” “Katy, what did you DO with the spatula?” “Why do you think I did something to the spatula. I don’t even know where mom keeps the spatula, I don’t even know what COLOR the spatula is… Sophie!!!! Put that down!!!”
For about 2 minutes I listen to both of my children chase Sophie the Wonder Pup, as she flies around our dining room, spatula firmly planted between her jaws. Then I hear- “Sophie… treats.” Katy is using her sweetest voice, the one that promises wonderful, wonderful delectable morsels. I almost got up to go see what she offered.
About ten minutes after the spatula was recovered by my daughter’s feminine wiles, and some old slices of turkey, the first batch was done. Colin called out “Orders up.” Katy stood at the refrigerator and asked me- “What’s your poison?” meaning did I want milk or orange juice. When did my kids begin to talk like short order cooks or bartenders? Why didn’t they bug me to make french toast?
Most snow days, we tackle the driveway and the sidewalks together. We argue over who gets which shovel, and wears the gloves that don’t match. We throw snow balls, and there comes a time where I have to institute a cease fire because one hits Katy to hard in the head.
But today, I felt like I could handle the job on my own. While I listened to them make breakfast, watched them serve breakfast, marveled at them cleaning up after breakfast… it occurred to me that maybe they deserved a break. And maybe I needed a few minutes outside by myself to get used to the idea that Colin and Katy are growing up.
The driveway is done. The sidewalk and the stairs up to our house are clear. I’m a gym rat, and I like the fact that I am strong enough to do all this work, to shift mountains of snow from one spot to another, without pause.
But I saved the other side, the sidewalk on Franklin. I have laid out our collective mittens, found a few extra shovels, and we are going to finish it up together. There will be snow balls thrown, and endless negotiations about who gets which shovel, and whether we should clear in front of the neighbors house. And if we still like each other when we are done, and can still feel our toes, I’m thinking this snow is the right kind for building a snow man.
I’ll see what they think. I am hopeful that they are still young enough to be bribed with hot chocolate, especially if I still have my stash of the right kind of marshmellows.
Bewitched and Bewildered.
February 27, 2013
Tonight, after I made our salad, I looked at the naked avocado pit on the counter. I asked my daughter if she’d seen any toothpicks.
Her eyes narrowed- “How many toothpicks do you need?”
“Four should do it,” I answered.
“Ok, I’ve got a stash in my room.”
Moments later, this beautiful creature presented me with exactly four toothpicks. Katy wouldn’t tell me where they came from, or for what reason she stored them in secret upstairs.
And so continues the mystery that goes by the name of Kate. I wonder what she would have said if I’d asked for twelve toothpicks, or twenty.
I’m thinking the mighty seed would be tucked into the bag of scraps intended for Miss Debbie’s chickens.
School Vacation Week for Them And A Question for You
February 25, 2013
My kids had mid winter break last week.
My brother had chest pains and had two stents put in his chest; my mom says having two stents put in his chest at 48 is no big deal, the surgery was non invasive.
I got a C on my BioMechanics quiz on Tuesday, my attempt at diagramming the muscles in the upper thigh was pathetic.
My mother in law, currently suffering from the early stages of dementia, was found to have breast cancer at her last checkup. Five minutes after she left the doctor’s office, she told her daughter they needed to go out and celebrate “another perfect checkup.”
When my husband told me this, I started to cry, but then I remembered I was late picking up my best friend’s kids from the school bus. They didn’t have a break this week. So if I was late I couldn’t use my own kids as an excuse. And I didn’t want them to see me crying because then I’d have to explain the whole thing to them and I’d cry more. Or they wouldn’t notice me crying
And I’d cry even more after I dropped them off.
My daughter went to camp. My son, he’s 12, in seventh grade, didn’t want to go to camp. He said he needed time at home to relax. I let him stay home, but made him put clean sheets on my bed, and walk the dog, and fold clothes, even Katy’s clothes, which always end up on the floor. Every morning before I left, I told him to feed the animals. I’m not sure what he fed them. Each night, when I got home, Sophie, Michael and Bijoux all seemed more anxious than usual. So, I’m wondering, did he feed them, or did he just listen to obnoxious music all day and they aren’t used to having him around. Maybe they have an afternoon napping club and he messed them up. So I fed them really large dinners each night.
Other than the C, school was good. Katy had fun at camp. Colin seems more relaxed, but he also announced this morning he is suffering from a severe cold. So I don’t know if he’s relaxed or weak from fever.
Thank God we went away for a weekend. Thank God, I saw my friend, and had a conversation outside of what’s for dinner, or what’s for lunch or whether the special socks are dry. Thank God, there were movies, and time to talk without any agenda, bigger than small talk, but smaller than meaningful… just conversation. And then home, and a drop off of luggage, and we deposited ourselves at another friend’s house for the Oscars. Chicken wings, and skits about boobs, and Captain Kirk as the voice of all wisdom…
And home by 9:30. I’m packed for the gym in the morning. Colin and Katy are ready for school There is milk for their cereal. There is cream for my coffee. There is coffee.
I am at the age where normal, daily life is going to be interrupted by horrible, horrible news. And I need to move forward thru my normal daily life because I am lucky enough to be in the middle of one. My prayers go out to the world, and soon enough, I know, I will be asking that the world pray for me.
Happy February Vacation Week. We are a little closer to springtime tonight and a little closer to death.
Are you an optimist, a pessimist or just plain disgusted with poorly executed transitions?
I’m a little of both, but figure this will pass once the sidewalks are clear and I get a good grade on my midterms.
julierichmond 