confessions of a first-time mother

the once and future hiatus

2007-07-18T12:33:00.000-04:00

I’ve been sadly neglecting my bitty plot in cyberspace, but I’ve been busy. Really, I have. Nothing to do with work (is anyone surprised?) but everything to do with a book I wrote years and years ago, which has been resurrected due to Kiki’s insistence and my own curiosity. I knew the pacing in the first couple of chapters was funereal, the plot was outrageously random, the narrative POV confusing and inconsistent. Maddening, to say the least.

As I skimmed it, I realized once again that it’s not a bad little piece of romance writing – the essential relationships are solid, but they’re surrounded by a lot of extraneous garbage. Now so much time has passed since the original writing that I can take a more objective look at the whole thing and find ways to cut it down to the basics.

It makes me wonder how JK Rowling works. Ideally, I’d like to have an office with a big corkboard, so I can cut out plot points and pin them up, rearranging them at will. But she worked under cover of strict secrecy. So the door to her study probably had a lock on it.

So, book seven. I’ve been torn between wanting to know what happens and being more than slightly anxious about finding out. The anxiety seems to be winning out. Frankly if Harry dies it won’t break my heart, but if Ron or Hermione or (God forbid) Ginny gets kedavred, I will likely have to host an official wake.

Which, given the certainty that at least two characters will die in book seven, and the series will be over, isn’t a bad idea. Closure, you know. Sheesh.

And now I hear that spoilers are being leaked all over the internet. Honestly I’m scared to open my web browser, but I suppose I really ought to post this before the entry itself becomes completely obsolete.

I just don’t understand the people who give out spoilers – even if they’re not authentic. Why would you do that? It’s like kicking puppies, or drowning kittens. Simply awful. Fines be damned, I think there ought to be some jail time at least. Or stoning.

I heard a story the other day about an asshole who drove by a line of folks waiting to get book six – he hollered out three words that spoiled the end completely. Buffy and I are going to Charlotte this weekend, staying with the uber-cool Coz, and queuing up for the midnight release. Yes, I’m a Potter geek. But you knew that, right? Right. I’m bringing earplugs, just in case.

**************

I’ve resumed yoga practice – not as often as I’d like, but four times a week is certainly better than nothing at all. Upper body strength is the biggest challenge, after being out of commission for so long. Shoulder is still sore sometimes, but mostly it’s due to weather – like my knees, I suppose. But it doesn’t stop me from practicing.

******************

Did I mention? I’m going to New Mexico to visit Kiki in August. The dreams about missed flights, poor ground transportation and lost tickets have already started. I can’t remember the last time I flew, but part of me is definitely looking forward to the adventure. The other part is cringing at knowing how much I’m going to miss my family.

Speaking of. I hesitate to say this lest I jinx it, but Duckie has been a joy to be around lately. We race each other into school in the morning (she wins every time; I don’t know how it happens), and when I pick her up, she runs to me happily, arms outstretched, yelling “Mommy!” I’ve begun an evening teatime ritual. When we have an extra few minutes, we share a cup of Sleepytime tea and read an extra book to wind down a bit. Yes, I am drugging my daughter with a few sips of chamomile and mint at night. But it’s the sharing that means so much more.

As always, there are rough moments and meltdowns, but repeating the mantra really seems to help, when I can remember to do it. She had a couple this weekend, one of which resulted in a fight to get her in the car seat. I said to her, “Yes, you are very strong. But I am very patient.” Somehow saying it – several times, to be honest – made it so.

Patience seems to be paying off in the garden as well. Some plants aren’t doing as well as others, but that’s to be expected given my lack of experience and knowledge. Others are thriving – I’m particularly pleased with the Genovese and purple basils in the front bed, as well as the anise hyssop. She’s the queen, and the basils are her knights-in-armour.

The four nasturtiums are quite happy despite the lack of direct sunlight, and the three New Guinea impatiens I used to replace the dying petunias are offering big, luscious hot pink blooms, totally shameless. To no-one’s surprise, the potted mint plants are very happy, and the lemon balm I planted in the ground has been a very useful and fragrant addition. The creeping thyme is doing very nicely in the little full-sun corner of its world; it has grown from an infant in a three-inch pot to an adult with am 18-inch circumference and smells divine. I’ve never been a fan of dried thyme, but the fresh stuff is intoxicating.

I had the happy experience of a homemade mint-and-lemon-balm facial wash the other day. My unhappily oily skin very much appreciated the herbal attention. Yesterday we had roasted red potatoes with – gosh, I can’t remember all the stuff I used – chives, rosemary, thyme, sage, and lemon balm. It was yummy, but not as herby as I thought it would be. There’s always next time, and honestly half the pleasure was harvesting and chopping the herbs.

Anytime I want a quick hit of herbal joy (no, not that kind), I can just run my fingers through the plants, breathe deeply, and go on my merry way. To me, at least, it’s worth every second of effort and every penny we’ve spent.

Brian has already prepared another bed in the front. It will get full sun in early spring, so I’m planning on crocus, daffodils and tulips. He’s thinking about setting me up a little greenhouse on a sunny spot of our acre, just so I have a place to keep all my stuff that’s out of his way. It would mean I could start seedlings earlier. We’re planning a few large full-sun beds – so he doesn’t have to listen to me bitch about the aggressive maple tree, and so we can try our hand at some vegetables. A little less acreage to mow will not be a bad thing, either.

Someday I sure would love to try growing berry bushes. Wild blackberries are all over the place around here, but you usually have to stomp through nasty patches of poison ivy, and you have to compete with the birds. Pain in the ass. I’d just as soon keep the patches clean and put up some netting. Maybe in a couple of years.

We were completely at the mercy of Japanese beetles until about a week ago, when I finally figured out what they were. I set up a trap and it’s working. The pink petunia is the most obvious indicator, and the blooms are still whole in the morning. Even the basil is starting to recover from the infestation.

And that’s all I’ve got, for today, at least. I’ve really got to get working on the rewrite, because until I send Kiki chapter two, I’ll never get the next installment of her book and I’m totally sucked in.

Apologies, as always, for the hiatus. Netiquette implies that perhaps one ought to warn readers – so I’ll just say that posts will be, as always, sporadic at best. Unless something really pisses me off, or until I finish reading Deathly Hallows.

bad behavior + beach diary

2007-06-26T11:31:00.000-04:00

Being bipolar is no excuse for bad behavior. I read that on someone’s bipolar blog, and it’s stuck with me. When I have rough days, and when they spill over into lashing out and biting at my husband, I try to remember that.

Speaking of biting – Duckie’s doing it, literally. It started last Friday. Apparently her best friend D hit her for some reason (I’m guessing over a toy), and she bit him back. I spoke to her teacher about it over the weekend. She tried to bite me on Saturday afternoon, when she was over-the-top exhausted from her trip to the beach, and refused any quiet time because she didn’t want to miss Poppy coming over. I can hardly blame her. And it’s hard not to laugh (albeit hysterically) when your itty bitty daughter smacks your ass with a flyswatter.

She feels so bad afterwards. Yesterday I spoke to her over the phone at school (she had tried it again that morning). She was wrecked – at herself, for doing it, and most especially because she was separated from D and because Miss A called me.

There are several potential causes – personnel changes at day care, initiated by summer campers, and one of her best friends has left the school. He was, of course, the buffer between her and D, so his departure is tough on both of them.

But I can’t put my finger on any other direct causes. Over the last few weeks her sense of independence has skyrocketed. That seems to be triggering some other incredibly annoying stuff, most especially willful ignoring, immediate apologies to try to get out of a time-out, and purposefully defying my instructions when she knows it’s going to piss me off – button-pushing at three-and-a-half. Brilliant. The mosey, of course, has become epic. If it gets any worse I’m going to have to start making up words.

My mantra over the last few weeks has been simple. Remain calm, I chant. Remain calm at all times. It seems to be working for me in terms of adapting to her new behaviors – but it drives her entirely batshit when she can’t get a rise out of me. (Hence the flyswatter incident.)

*******************

I finished Children of Men last night. I have yet to figure out how they got from the book to the movie. The process must have been close cousins to the adaptation of Howl’s Moving Castle. In both instances, the movies kept the frames, the environments of the novels, the basic premises. In Children of Men, though, the plot and the ensuing action was injected with some kind of massive super-growth steroid. For Howl’s Moving Castle, they had to simplify the plot just to get it on screen. I barely understood it just reading the book.

I’d highly recommend Children of Men, even if you have no interest in the movie. I enjoyed James’ prose immensely – by the second page I knew it would be the kind of book I would re-read just to be able to savor the language. She has a wonderfully lucid, precise style that allows her to really dig into place descriptions – although I will admit that I skimmed over some of it. Hence the scheduled re-read. I’ll have to buy it just to keep it around, I think.

I thought the movie did a wonderful job of capturing the essential sadness and heartbreak of Theo Faron, the main character. It was impossible to read the book without seeing Clive Owen and hearing his subdued voice in the first-person narratives, which didn’t detract from the experience at all, being that he’s one of my favorite actors. (I understand that this opinion is not shared by my publisher, but still I think he was perfect for this role.)

****************

Beach diary, Summer 2007

Day One

We drive. It’s hot. Opening the windows does nothing. Air outside is the same temperature as the air inside the car. (Previously logged report gives account of why a/c is not running.) Duckie wakes up late in the drive complaining, quite justly and accurately, that she’s stuck in her seat.

Bob Segar’s Night Moves comes on the radio. Brian serenades me relentlessly with a satirical cover of the song by the same name. It has to do with beans and cheese. No more need be said on the account, save that I was howling with laughter and almost drove off the road because I couldn’t see to drive.

We arrive around midnight. The Food Lion is blessedly open 24/7. Our friend W, whose family house this is, is still awake. I set up in a downstairs bedroom with ice-cold air conditioning. I do not question the greenness of said arrangement – at this point I don’t give a shit.

I make the beds up. My eye is drawn to a little toy under Duckie’s bed – one of those little jointed wooden snakes that look so realistic. Better move that, I think. She’ll be up all night playing with it.

It’s awfully smooth for a wooden toy. Oh – and a closer glance shows that it’s awfully still, too – dead still, to be exact. They call them “chicken snakes” in Brunswick County. This one bit off more than it could chew when it tried to eat a small bird. The beak… well, never mind. Suffice to say that both had been sent to their next lives.

“What’s that, mommy?”

“It’s… it’s a toy, honey,” I lie. “I’m going to go get daddy to put it away. Come along with me, darling.”

Day Two

Bright and sunny. Enter the sunblock. Duckie loves watching the boats pass by the dock. Her reunion with Poppy is tearfully sweet. Worth the drive just for that.

Duckie spends an inordinate amount of time ignoring everything I say, especially if it has to do with staying within our view.

A mother starling has set up housekeeping in the bookshelf of the downstairs bathroom. She’s built a cozy nest for her tiny babies inside a big conch shell. They’re so cute. We guess that the dad was the one who had the mutually unfortunate encounter with the chicken snake. W moves the nest to a less busy area of the downstairs, so we’re not assaulted by mama every time we visit the bathroom.

We go to the beach. Water is lovely and warm, beer is cold, sand is everywhere. Duckie is nervous around that much water but she gets bolder by the time we leave. We lose her flip-flops and sun hat.

Brian forgets to put sunblock on his chest. “It’s just a little pink.”

Duck is close to sleep when I pull into the driveway of the house. She’s exhausted and completely unmanageable. Eventually, after much crying and gnashing of teeth (specifically, on Mom’s ass) we rest for a couple of hours in air-conditioned comfort.

Later that evening, Brian grills rib-eyes and zucchini. We eat late, but no-one minds.

I go downstairs to wash my face, take my pills and change into pj’s.

In the bathroom, I glance, as always, at the collection of books on the shelf. Hey, that’s odd, I think. I don’t remember… and that’s an awfully realistic-looking… Then the artfully draped décor flicks its small forked red tongue in my general direction. Realistic, indeed.

I do not panic. I finish the project at hand slowly and carefully. Duckie is upstairs, so there is comfort in that.

I stick my head out the downstairs screen door. “Brian,” I call to him on the porch above. “There’s another toy in the bathroom. Would you please come get rid of it?”

He does so, and I’m able to get a closer look at the chicken snake that wraps itself around his arm. A light brown with an avant-garde pattern of black, dark brown and white on its back, he’s about three feet long. I’m glad I didn’t know how big he was exactly until Brian pulled him out of the bookshelf.

I’m also grateful that W had moved the nest. Those nestlings wouldn’t have had a chance where they were. They still might not – I can’t imagine that there aren’t more snakes around.

Day Three

We go back to the beach for a shorter visit, sans beer. Duckie find her flip-flops and beach hat, and we are all amazed – none of us noticed them, half-buried in the sand, but she did. Someone must have found them and left them by the beach access boardwalk.

We drive back. It’s worse this time. I’m driving a crock-pot set on high, stewing in my own sweat. Humidity is high but we only get one good storm. I’ve never been so glad to see our mountains in the distance.

alienation

2007-06-22T11:48:00.000-04:00

Finally I understand exactly what that word means.

This odd feeling started a couple of days ago.

An expectant mother here at the plant – we’ll call her O – decided that it would be a good idea to visit me at my desk. We started talking kids of course and I gladly showed her a recent picture of Duckie. I got the impression that she would have liked a girl, but she knows she’s having a boy.

“When are you having your next one?” she asked.

“We’re not,” I said, definitively. (A brief daydream about this last week ended abruptly when I remembered how much fun we had with diapers and the accompanying smells, rashes, sleep deprivation due to night-time emissions, et al.)

She looked shocked. “Really?” she asked. “Why not?” As if she was disappointed for herself, not for me. As if it meant something to her.

“Well, we found out I was bipolar when I tried to kill myself a few years ago after Duck was born. My mental health is stable now, and I won’t risk our happiness by going off the meds during pregnancy and nursing.”

I didn’t really say that. But, as a way to shut her up and to make sure no one in this plant (and probably in this county) ever asked again, it was very tempting.

“We’re fine with just one.” This pisses me off, too, because it seems like I’m quantifying a human being. As if kids are things to be tallied up as objects. Gives me shivers just to think about it.

Moving right along. Yesterday, Duckie and I did a quick run to a dollar store to shop for a baby shower today at work (O’s, of course.) In the checkout line, the conversation turned to kids.

Then it shifted, quite naturally, to birthdays. The lady ringing up our purchases recited a nearly endless list of July birthdays in her family. I lost track immediately. What the fuck, am I supposed to be a part of this conversation?

“Wow. I guess you have a lot of Cancer in your family,” I said.

I didn’t actually say that. She wouldn’t have understood and I wouldn’t have bothered explaining it to her. It would have done nothing but offend.

All I wanted was some diapers and a hooded towel. I most certainly did not want to hear a geneology. I can barely keep track of the birthdays in my own family. Chit-chat is fine, but don’t burden me with details.

Then she confided that her father had died a week before her birthday, which was also in July. “I was about to turn 21,” she said, a little wistfully.

“Well, then, I guess you had a good excuse to drink yourself into oblivion,” I said.

I didn’t actually say that. But trying to dam the flood of these comments was becoming unmanageable.

Then the gentleman next in line spoke up. I use this word in its loosest possible sense. Duck had already expressed her dismay at his attention, and for once I did not encourage her to be polite. He was on the tall side, with a belly that preceeded him by several feet, greasy, curly hair, a florid, greasy face, and wore a sadly mistreated, greasy shirt that didn’t quite cover said belly.

“My daddy died five weeks ago,” he offered.

If it had been sunset, you would have heard crickets.

“Get me the fuck out of here,” I said. “You people are freaks.”

Of course, I didn’t actually say that.

This morning my co-workers are all a-twitter at the upcoming baby shower.

Whiny disclosure: This shower is something of a sore spot for me. I wasn’t told about it until quarter ‘til quitting time yesterday. It meant an extra unplanned stop at the freak show on the way home, when I really wanted to be home and packing for the beach trip this weekend. It also meant that I had been completely forgotten in the shower preparations, even though I sit a few steps away from the lunch room.

This is nothing but karma. When I planned RB’s farewell luncheon here, I completely forgot to include our IT guy, who usually holes up in his office like I do in mine. He’s not in a fishbowl, though.

But still, it rankles.

So I have the requisite gift. The ladies in the Lab wanted to share their little purchases – as if I somehow wasn’t familiar with sleep-and-play onesies, or the new bath toys that Carter has come out with, or the simple fact that a new mom (even the second or third time around) needs as much help and as much stuff as she can get her hands on.

“Don’t you people have lives?” I said.

I didn’t really say that.

When I leave my house, it’s beginning to feel like I’m leaving the planet. Not so much like I’m an alien, but that the people around me are. Are you for real? I want to ask. No, seriously, this isn’t some existential hell I enter when I step off my property? If it’s not, its indistinguishable today.

If I’m going to a different planet, I’d like it to at least look different. Give me some warning that I’ll be surrounded by aliens – truffula trees and two suns, or something along those lines. When strangeness attacks like this it seems dastardly and sneaky.

Yeah, there’s some PMS happening. The aliens are annoying the hell out of me.

But this afternoon I get in my familiar car with my familiar husband and my ever-evolving, strange and familiar daughter, and we head to the beach where we were married.

Somewhere a little outside the norm, but familiar at the same time. Balance. Sunshine and waves. A lot of sunscreen. A good book (Children of Men, P.D. James.) A little bit of bliss.

I hope your weekends offer (or offered, depending on when you get this missive from alien Appalachia) some of the same.

Namaste!

four years ago today

2007-06-14T12:08:00.000-04:00

I am rudely awakened by the clock radio in our condo. It’s the Bee Gees, singing “Staying Alive.”

“Oh God,” Brian moans, and not in a good way.

He has to leave first, to get to his Dad’s house in time to ride to the beach with them. I’m told later that several different drugs are offered to help alleviate his jangling nerves. He said, “All I wanted was a fucking beer, and no one would let me have one. Valium was OK, but I couldn’t drink a beer.”

I shower and try to do something with my hair. Useless. It turns out that the hair is the least of my problems. I don’t have a slip for the dress. I’ve only brought a seriously tiny piece of underwear, thinking that the dress itself would be less transparent than it is.

I am sadly mistaken. Given the pictures and the long memories of my friends, I will live with this for the rest of my life. Good lesson for my daughter, anyway. Always bring a slip.

Still, I manage to finish makeup. I finally decide what to do with my hair. I’m alone in the room, so no one is offering me anything. I begin to wish I’d asked for company getting dressed. It’s getting lonely.

I start to shake a little bit. Stage fright, or something close to it.

My stepmother meets me at the stairs. “You look beautiful!” she says. “Do you have a slip?”

Fuck. Whatever. It’s too late to go back now.

I insist on driving by myself, because I want to listen to Sting on the way out. I cross the drawbridge to Sunset Beach just before they open it to let the boats through.

The sky is mythic: cerulean North Carolina blue and boiling with white, silver-lined clouds. I pause halfway over a boardwalk to the beach. I don’t want to get there too early and have to stand around waiting for Brian to show up. That’s a nightmare.

I hope for a little movement in the belly, just to let me know I’m not quite alone. Apparently the adrenaline isn’t enough to wake up the Duck. But I can feel her there, a solid weight, lying on my bladder as she has for the last five months or so. I poke a little, trying to wake her up. Then, as now, she is not to be disturbed when sleeping.

I take a deep breath. Surely everyone’s there by now. Two of our friends have come down the boardwalk to take a couple pictures (and to scope out my location, no doubt.) Dad’s there, too, I think.

I come down the steps to see sixty or so of our closest friends and family, waiting for me more or less impatiently. There doesn’t seem to be anyone else on the beach that day – Saturday is changeover day, so we have a few golden hours where the beach is ours.

I stop trembling once I see that Brian’s there, but I still don’t know what to do with my hands. I suddenly realize why brides carry bouquets, and I wish to God that I hadn’t cancelled the order for a small bouquet of daisies. It would be nice to have something to draw attention away from the belly.

The ceremony is short. My dad reads a poem he’s written. The wind is up, but our friend who’s performing the ceremony speaks much louder than we do. I think he’s the only person the small crowd can hear.

We say our vows, kiss, and then, per my request, Sam and a few others pull out their kazoos and buzz the wedding recessional.

Buffy and I disappear to find a corner somewhere I can change out of the dress and into a bathing suit. We spend the rest of the morning lazing happily on the beach. Even though Brian is hiking a mile or so down the beach for beer, everywhere I look, I see someone I love. Buffy and her impossibly beautiful girls splash in the water. Tammy and her perfectly handsome son play in a warm tidal pool. Sam sculpts a mercouple in sand. The mermaid is pregnant.

We retire to our condo to nap, or at least to lay down. Afterwards there’s the party at a friend’s beach house. A shrimp boil, a canoe full of beer, a handmade blessing quilt from our friends that makes me cry (not that it’s hard to do these days, given the hormones) and the feeling of being well-loved, no matter how inappropriate my choice of underclothes.

Since then, the dresses (for both the wedding and the party) have been recycled into skirts. We still can’t find a place for the quilt, and I refuse to put it on a bed; it belongs on a wall. We plan to paint the bedroom sage green – it will go nicely there, I think.

Everything changes. Some things that you only take out for special occasions become staples of your wardrobe. Some choices that you only had to make once in a while, you make every single day. Some things are tucked away for later: plans for a honeymoon, hopes for school, dreams of traveling the world. Some things are thrown out entirely, eventually: fear, attachment to the past, to old identities and freedoms that don’t really apply any more, out-of-date behaviors that just don’t work.

Some things you have to transform, even in how you love someone, and especially how you treat them.

It amuses me these days to see how much effort and expense and stress is invested in that One Big Day. The real work is done the day after, and the day after that, and all the years that follow. In the mornings, you elbow your partner out of the way of the coffee pot and giggle because it annoys him, and he knows you know it. During the day, you call to find out how much the weekly deposit was (or how much you owe the mortgage company), and steel yourself to be unattached to the response. At night, you let your partner sleep instead of initiating intimacy. Over dinner, you make cracks that only your partner could really appreciate, and only at that particular second. On weekends, you give each other a bit of solitary time to recover from parenthood and partnerhood and all the responsibilities that accompany those roles.

You trust. You apologize, sincerely, and immediately if possible. You forgive. You stumble, and you catch each other, or if you both fall on your asses, at least you know you’re not there on your ass alone.

My husband annoys the crap out of me sometimes. He also adores me. And I love him more with every day, with every second that passes.

Happy anniversary, darling.

three hundred words

2007-06-13T12:49:00.000-04:00

That’s all. I just want to write three hundred words here today. If I manage more, that’s cool. My motivation for exercise (yoga and running both), writing (obviously), housework (ick), and just about everything else, is at a spectacularly low point. It brings to mind my daughter’s violent aversion to getting out of bed in the morning.

The only activity in which I seem to be interested is reading. Which I’m doing compulsively, to the detriment of sleep. Last week was a not-worth-naming fantasy and a twisted, brilliant murder myster by John Burdette called Bangkok 8. If you need linear plotlines, don’t bother. I started reading it because of a brief mention in a travel article on Slate. And it takes place in Thailand, which is predominantly Buddhist. The blurbs also mentioned that the protagonist has visions. Hmm. Murder, vice, prostitution, drug use, Buddhism and mysticism? Sounds right up my dark and scary alley.

Freaky book. Fun, but freaky. Some passages are snortably funny: “He will be reborn as the flea in the anus of a cockroach” or something like it, made me cackle in a quite inappropriate and satisfying manner. (I was at work on my lunch hour and was feeling very subversive.)

Our local library likes to set up displays of books in monthly featured subjects. This month is travel. The book that caught my eye was The Cruelest Journey by Kira Salak. “A real-life Lara Croft” said the blurb. A journey to Timbuktu by kayak on the Niger River. Insane. Irresistable. A pure coincidence that she’s a practicing Buddhist, right? Sure. Whatever.

In other bookish news, you may have seen mentioned recently a potentially popular series in the tradition of Harry Potter – the new Harry Potter?! scream the headlines. Boy archaeologist, journey to adulthood, blah blah blah. I know this has been said before, but it’s worth saying again: Where are the young female protagonists?

Speaking of, I’m pleased to see that the film version of The Golden Compass will be out in December. Lyra develops into one of my favorite characters.

I was wondering, has first person present suddenly become the voice of choice for modern-day writers? I don’t know when I first started to notice this, but it seems to be everywhere these days.

*****

Great. 347.

*****

Caffeine in the evenings has got to stop. It makes me mean as a snake, and I seem to have the least control around my always-testing, button-pushing daughter. It’s just not a feasible option for staying awake anymore. But when the sun starts to go down, I’m ready to crawl in bed and be done with the day. Obviously, that’s not a feasible option either.

If I can manage a couple of afternoon workouts, that might help.

*****

Always on the lookout for weekend family activities, we went to the Blue Ridge BBQ Festival in Tryon last weekend. It was a different world for me, and not altogether comfortable. Fewer hippies than LEAF, and – strangely – no men in skirts. Even Brian refrained from wearing his kilt.

The barbeque, however, was excellent. Ice cream, not so much. Fireworks? Meh. Duck was pleased, but I doubt I will ever be satisfied with country fireworks, unless they’re coordinated by Gandalf himself. To be fair, Brian pointed out that there’s only so much they can do, given the severe drought. Even with a restrained show, the fire trucks were on their way as soon as the show was over. Preventive measures? One can hope.

But I remember New York City fireworks, Philadelphia fireworks, huge productions choreographed to the music of live symphonic orchestras. The kind of fireworks best appreciated lying flat on your back, hands over your ears to block out the explosions that rock your body to the core. Fantastic. The local stuff, especially the fireworks that our neighbors like to shoot off, just tends to annoy me and gives my dog panic attacks. Not fun.

*****

Garden has been assaulted by slugs. Toads are slack bastards. Basil seedlings are now pre-teens, with deep green leaves, nice thick stems, just too tempting for words. I’ll keep them in pots for the summer to avoid the greedy slugs.

Growth of the plants in the bed has been somewhat disappointing, but then again they’ve only been in there a month. I fertilized yesterday (“that smells like poop, mama!”) so we’ll see if I did the plants any good or if I screwed up and burned the roots. I was in a hurry towards the end.

Last week I celebrated a good check-up and happy blood tests (cholesterol levels, etc.) with a big slab of salmon. Marinated in lemon juice, olive oil, lemon balm, chives, parsley, three kinds of basil and a bit of thyme. Yummy. Brian was impressed, and is suddenly eyeing the basil plants with avaricious intent. I had to stop him from early harvesting yesterday. I can’t blame him for being disappointed, but there’s a vendor at the local tailgate market who sells larger basil plants. I’m sick of waiting and it’s almost time for tomatoes. I’ll get a couple this weekend.

*****

885. Cool. Now if I can do that twice a week, I’ll be getting somewhere. I don’t know where, but… well, you get the idea

last days of may

2007-05-30T10:47:00.000-04:00

We hosted a lovely outdoor party over the weekend. It was the first of its kind, in that we had just about everything ready to go a half an hour before the first guests were supposed to show up. Usually we put the early arrivals to work. Not so this Saturday.

It was relaxing, and fulfilling, and once the last of the younger guests left, Duckie asked me to read her a book, then she fell asleep on a blanket close by. She had played hard all day in one way or another, but it still surprised me that she was so willing to crash outside. It gave me a chance to wind down with the last few guests before lugging her back up the hill to her bed. (I thought for a moment the wheelbarrow might be the safest option – damn, but that girl’s heavy when she’s completely unconscious.)

We had three overnight guests and I didn’t have to drive anyone home. In the morning we all had “dirty hippie feet” as C put it, which necessitated a change in sheets and multiple showers. Seriously, my feet were so bad off I had to use a pumice stone. That was probably too much information, but you get the idea.

Since our house is so small (although I’m beginning to prefer the word “cozy”) I got to subject my guests to double episodes of Little Einsteins, which gave me a sick sort of pleasure, especially knowing that several of them were too hungover even to drink coffee. And the music choice of both episodes was annoyingly upbeat.

Yesterday was a day at home because of the holiday. Duck’s post-party meltdown started around 4, when it was time to leave the park and go pick up Brian. All things considered, it really wasn’t that bad.

Moved a lot of dirt yesterday. Put hostas in the ground in what I’m calling the Toad Bed. (It may need a separate address later on.) Transplanted some basil and daisy seedlings into larger pots on Sunday. Visited a local garden center and got three painfully bright pink New Guinea Impatiens because Duckie liked them. I don’t have a freaking clue what to do with them now. The shoulder has been sore but it’s so much worse here at work, when I’m not moving around.

I’m about to get back on the mat for the first time in weeks. It’s really hot today (ask my husband the land surveyor who’s down in South Carolina this afternoon) so running would not be fun in the slightest. And it’s time.

I’ll just breathe. If all I do is sit there on the mat and do a couple of downdogs…

Updated 5/30.

Yoga yesterday was restrained but effective. Maintained breathing, modified everything down to a beginner level, which helped me make it through the entire sequence. Navasana was a reality check. ‘Nuff said about that.

We planted a seedbed yesterday evening. Daisies, zinnias, lettuce leaf and purple basil (I mean what the hell, why not? can you really ever have too much basil?) and alyssum at the border. As always, we’ll see what happens. I am concerned about the high clay content in our soil – that it will cake up and prevent seedlings from breaking through. Anyway.

The transplants are doing quite well – they seem to be very pleased with the extra space. Several of the Genoveses have already sprouted new leaves since Sunday.

I think it’s time to fertilize.

More importantly, it’s time to focus on my girl. She’s been cranky and whiny lately, and while part of it may be growing pains (I think she’s grown a foot and gained three pounds over the last week), part of it also has to do with my attention being directed Elsewhere – party preparations, planting, etc. So tonight I’ll be happy to blow bubbles and throw Frisbees (her aim is weirdly accurate) and read books. Maybe we’ll get some fried chicken and have a picnic outside. We have a lot of cole slaw left over from the weekend.

Oh, wow. Muscles are starting to get sore from yesterday. I mean, I knew it was coming, and I definitely welcome it. But I have got to get up and moving.

*****

Cindy Sheehan officially stepped down as an anti-war rabble-rouser and terrorist sympathizer. It was really sad to see her so beaten down by her experiences with the

America

n political environment. She’s broke, her marriage is over, and now she’s trying to sell the five acres in Crawford she bought to stay up close and personal with George W. An illusion, of course – even when he’s there, he’s not. Clearing brush, my ass.

So I’m sad for her and for all of us. She’s a real hero in my eyes – she did what many people (myself included) want to do – and that’s to step away from all our other responsibilities and focus all the energy on stopping the senseless, dishonorable insanity that our administration is still inflicting on our troops and on

Iraq

i civilians. Most of us can’t, for one reason or another. She did. And now, for multiple reasons, she’s giving up.

The only political blog I can access here at work is a high-profile liberal blog that shall remain nameless because I’m so pissed at them I can barely stand it. Sheehan’s decision, and excerpts from her posting at another group blog, was all over the MSM by ten o’clock yesterday morning. As of this morning, this particular blog hasn’t said one freaking word about it.

Shameful. Cowardly. Disrespectful.

Arianna Huffington, you and your staff can officially kiss my liberal ass. Cindy deserves better.

Herbal Happiness (no, not that kind)

2007-05-23T11:25:00.000-04:00

Apparently, gardening is the most popular hobby in

America

. For the last month or so, I’ve been chewing over why so many people, myself included, choose to do it. What’s the attraction? Whose idea was it to help plants grow, propagate them from seed, or move them around? In my case, it has to do with food – and I’m sure that’s the case for many people, especially vegetable and fruit lovers who can’t get enough of homegrown produce. Not to mention the folks worldwide who grow their own food because they have to, or they would starve.

I do have a few plants in the front bed now that are purely ornamental – the petunias and the “pink” (whatever that turns out to be.) The creeping thyme is only there because I had an empty spot in the layout and it looks pretty.

But my favorites now are the ones that are edible and beautiful at the same time. Now that it’s in the ground, the opal basil is growing up nicely, spreading its exotic dark purple leaves, tempting me to trim off just enough for an accent in a salad. At this stage, such a trimming would be disastrous, so I’ll wait for a week or so – and plant more, in the meantime.

The three mints cohabitating in the large pot are particularly fascinating. The chocolate mint has a slight blue tint to it and darkens up beautifully where the leaves meet the stem. (I know, there’s a name for that part of the plant, but I don’t know what it is.) The peppermint is more of a true dark forest green, and the spearmint, planted several weeks earlier, is the color of new spring grass.

I didn’t understand why they hadn’t grown up very much until I looked at the root structure. You know how you stretch your arms after a good night’s sleep or a satisfying afternoon nap? That’s what these little guys are doing. They’ve almost stretched their rhizomes to the edge of the pot, at which point they’ll have nowhere to go but up.

It’s funny, but this little pot of mint is a perfect example of why I appreciate diversity in people. The contributions to a society can be similar, certainly, but everyone looks slightly different, everyone flavors the pot a little differently, and the whole mess, properly tended, can be absolutely glorious.

There’s a definite, quantifiable return on the investment. But I never would have expected to be interested in making the investment at all, you know? In between mothering my daughter and partnering my husband and trying to manage my own physical and mental well-being, how could I have had time to plant a garden? Wouldn’t I be spending enough time and energy nurturing my human and animal family without adopting plants as well?

That’s the crux of it right there, the illusory concept of nurturing as an activity that someone does for someone else, as a purely selfless act.

However, according to Buddhist philosophy (which has always been part of my sense of things, whether I knew the name for it or not), everything is connected; nothing is separate – you and I are a part of the same web of existence. So are the Hidcote lavender plant, the anise hyssop, and the borage plant in my front yard. When I take care of those wee vegetative beings, I am, at the same time, taking care of myself, and of you.

The act, the gift of nurturing is a cyclical act of love. When properly offered and accepted, it seems to perpetuate itself. And it feels good, doesn’t it? My daughter likes to take care of her dolls, and us, not because she thinks she’ll get something out of it, but because it seems to be an innate, immediately gratifying impulse.* For a long time I shook my head at the baby doll thing. Where’s the tomboy I expected? Why wasn’t she out climbing trees, getting dirty, riding bikes? Isn’t it too girly to be playing with baby dolls? (This, of course, says entirely too much about my own priorities at the time.)

One day I listened to her playing with her dolls and was struck by how lovely it was that she was choosing to spend her time practicing taking care of someone else. There’s plenty of aggressive taking-charge energy in the world. It’s not a bad thing at all to have a little more softness, a little more pink bliss and gentleness to flavor the pot. And while her bicycle is indeed pink, her dresses are pink, and her cheeks are pink, she hauls ass on the bicycle, and runs rampant in those little dresses, and half the time the dirt covers up those pretty pink cheeks. Tomboys can wear pink after all, it seems.

It’s not surprising, then, to see her so intent on taking care of her little petunias. (Even the one she wrecked over the weekend because she was mad that I wasn’t paying attention to her seems to be recovering, although I still have my doubts.)

My own involvement in the garden still strikes me as odd. Totally new, totally different in my life. The only other thing I’ve tried to grow is – well, let’s not go there. It was a long time ago, anyway.

It really is so satisfying to watch the sage and chives pop up and recover – to notice that all my nasturtiums are blooming, the bee balm is taking a proud spot by the front steps, the Echinacea purpurea has grown six inches in the last week, and the German chamomile is offering lovely tiny white and yellow flowers already. It’s nice to putter around when I get home and deadhead the petunias, check the other edible flowers for potential picking, and run my fingers through the rosemary and lavender. (Really, I must plant more lavender. One plant is just not going to be enough.)

Oh, and Plants Don’t Talk Back.

Bliss.

* I’ve read several theories proposing that the nurturing impulse evolved over time simply because animals living in groups who took care of each other tended to survive better than those who didn’t.

spring LEAF report, part 2

2007-05-21T13:02:00.000-04:00

[(un)relaxeddad, yes, this is www.theleaf.com. weekend tickets are on the pricey side, but for a biannual family retreat we can’t beat it. there are lots of other festivals around here in the spring and summer, but we’ve been going to LEAF since before we were married, so it’s home to us.]

sunday was a relief – or rather, a series of relieved, euphoric exhalations. i drove the interstate back to the festival sunday morning, preferring not to risk the stability of duck’s stomach, despite missing the lovely curvy roads over the mountain.

i had mentioned the shuttle bus to her the night before. sunday morning was all about getting out of the house so we could maybe catch it into the festival instead of having to hike three-quarters of a mile into camp. i was totally up front with duck about this. “if we don’t leave soon, we might not be able to ride the shuttle bus.” when, in reality, we might have been out of luck already depending on how fast the lot filled up.

eventually i stopped checking the clock on the drive in. there was either going to be space there or not. nothing i did at that point would have any effect one way or the other.

i slowed down and stopped by the entrance to the offsite parking.

“is there space here?” i asked, quelling the anxiety in my belly.

“oh, sure,” said the older man at the entrance. “plenty. go on up and catch the shuttle bus down.”

“YAY!” i hollered. “duckie, we get to ride the shuttle bus!” she responded in kind.

the ride in was lovely. we crammed into a seat with two other girls. i got to look out the window instead of having to watch the road, which is a rare treat. duckie was babbling excitedly, something about a pirate treasure, but i can’t remember exactly what.

at the entrance we slathered on the sunscreen and headed up the hill.

it was a rather odd feeling to join the group on a sunday morning. sundays at LEAF are usually slow, bleary-eyed and lazy – putting off the camp breakdown and clean-up as long as possible, depending on weather. the weather on sunday was glorious, so there didn’t seem to be much of a hurry to do much of anything. speaking of bleary-eyed, brian was on the hurting side that morning and i doubt he would have been heartbroken if we’d been an hour later.

i dropped off duckie and let her badger him into taking her swimming.

“i’ll meet you down there in a little while,” i said. “and i’ll check in with the h-u-l-a-h-o-o-p lady too.” saturday i had commissioned a child-sized hula hoop for duckie because of her crazy talent and determination with it. i prayed the lady had remembered.

she had. “oh my god,” i said, breathless with joy and anticipation. “you have totally made my mother’s day!” i had her tape it with pink and purple and silver sparkle tape, then went down to check in with the two of them at the “beach” – the sandy bank on the lake where the younger kids could splash and play.

last year we had both stayed knee-deep in the water with her. she was so tiny and the other kids seemed so much bigger, it was impossible not to stay close by.

this year, i found brian before i found her. he was sitting on the bank a couple of feet from the sand, and pointed a few feet down the dock, where duckie was jumping into the water repeatedly. there was no hesitation this year, no nervousness around the water, just a happy bouncing splashing little girl who seemed to play well with other kids and – wonder of wonders – actually got out of the water when we asked her to. like the others, she came out shivering and quivering and slightly blue in the lips. but she was grinning hugely and she warmed up quickly in the sun.

a quick lunch at the barbeque shack, sitting by the lake because we were all too hungry to bother finding a spot anywhere else, then on to the hoops. she didn’t figure out that she could actually take her new hula hoop home with her for a while – and even then, she was happy to share with other kids.

it’s really cool as a parent to have other people stop and stare at my kid in a good way – and not just because she’s cute (which she is) but because she’s doing something amazing. she can keep the hoop going for a good thirty seconds or so – and she’s starting to understand that if it drops down around her hips she can hula faster to bring it back up. it’s hilarious – this tiny little girl throwing her hips back and forth like she’s been doing it since birth. i’m very pround to say that i taught her how, which totally makes up for how idiotic i looked trying to do tricks with the bigger hoops.

back to camp and she played with neighboring kids for a while, then disappeared.

brian was breaking down camp and she was Helping. i was watching the brave people on the trapeze set up a ways down the hill. i hadn’t heard her voice in a minute or so.

“honey, where’s our daughter?” i asked, mostly to annoy him.

he stood up and looked around. to his credit, he didn’t say, “i thought she was with you.” he said, “shit. she was just here a second ago.” and she really was – it couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds since i had caught a glimpse of the white dress out of the corner of my eye.

“four points?” our friend jeff said.

nothing else was said, but since there were four people at camp we all set off in different directions, calling her name. (it occurs to me now that we should have left someone at camp in case she wandered back.) i didn’t have time to panic – anxious, yes, getting to wonder about kid-snatchers and that British girl in Portugal, but the meds are apparently working nicely and besides, panicking wasn’t going to help.

i circled back around, stopping at camps on the way to give her description, her name, and our campsite. there was no one back at camp, which scared me. someone should have found her by now. she couldn’t have gone that far.

brian appeared over the hill with duck in a stranglehold around his neck. “she was down the hill,” he explained. “she said she wanted to go swimming.”

(last year, you might recall, she had said she wanted to go dancing and headed off the same way, because we weren’t moving along in a timely enough manner.)

apparently she reached the bottom of the hill and realized she was by herself and she didn’t know which way to go. she started to cry, and a woman came up and asked her where her mommy was. brian saw the woman pick her up and about lost his footing running down the hill.

“she’s mine!” he hollered, not so much to snatch her back as to prevent her from being taken to the lost kids tent. duck went to him willingly, crying with relief.

we did end up going back to the lake to take her swimming. and this time she stopped quite a few times and looked back to shore, to make sure she could still see me.

i splurged and got a duhks cd (they’re much better live, i’ve decided, or maybe i just didn’t get the right album.) we caught the shuttle bus back to the car and drove home. between the heat and fatigue, not to mention the snores coming from the back seat, it was hard to keep my eyes open on the ride home.

**********

the next day, the big question at work was what did everyone do on mother’s day? since the spring LEAF is always mother’s day weekend, i will likely have the same answer for a long time. i got to wallow in the joy of being a mother.

and my gift?

dirt. seriously, we got about eight cubic yards of topsoil delivered late last week. that’s a big pile of dirt. duck’s loving climbing the mountain, and i finally got to plant my garden. (sb, we both lucked out this year!)

************

strawberries are coming in. but somehow i seem to have lost my passion for them this year

spring LEAF report, part 1 of 2

2007-05-18T12:21:00.000-04:00

because, as usual, there’s just too much to put in one post.

saturday was wretched.

duck threw up on the way out to LEAF and I had to pull the car over onto one of those teeny shoulder spots, then keep her away from the poison ivy while she finished being sick. she got half-digested strawberry all over her white dress and pretty much everything else in a two-foot radius. i had to decide (right there on the side of a winding mountain road, while keeping duck out traffic and out of the ick) whether to keep going into LEAF or just turn back. it was a gamble - was she going to be sick again or would we make it?

i had come prepared for some eventualities. there were some on-the-old-side-dried-out wipes in the back of the car, a bottle of water, her towel, and a full change of clothes. so that was a start.

we cleaned up a bit and kept going. (usually with stomach bugs she throws up once and gets it out of her system.) we stopped at the big grocery store in black mountain and got dish soap, hand sanitizer, and surface cleaning wipes to deal with the car seat. I tried to wash out the dress but couldn't get it all out. i was heartbroken about that dress – it was a gift from a dear friend, and duckie looked absolutely beautiful in it. sadly, i had to write it off.

by then, duck was feeling much better and so wouldn't listen to a damn thing i said. this was a test of maternal patience that i failed miserably.

moving on to LEAF. the parking lot at the nearby high school had filled up 15 minutes before we got there. so she wasn't able to ride the shuttle bus like i had promised her. we had to park in hell and walk into the festival. it rained off and on all day. throughout the day she was feverish and not herself. brian, of course, being the great dad that he is, took over a couple of times and let me get some breathing room. we stayed for dinner then stumbled back to the car around 9:30 (although it felt much later.)

strangely, it was this moment of extreme exhaustion that marked the turnaround. brian escorted us back to the car (which really was in hell, by the way, i wasn’t imagining things) and it really helped me feel less alone in the whole blasted endeavor. i borrowed some of his gentle good humor and we somehow managed to find the car.

on the way home i found that i had reached that state of fatigue and stress that took me almost out of body – there’s a scary word for it called “depersonalization” and it happens to me occasionally, when i’m having seriously bad days. this was close, but not quite. it was enough to keep me separated from the weariness enough to stay awake for the ride home.

as for duckie, she was asleep in maybe three minutes and snored all the way home. she barely woke up from the car to the bedroom. i took a half an hour to prep coffee, take my medicine and make one more effort to wash the dress. what the hell, it couldn’t hurt, right?

so i made the effort, and then collapsed gratefully into the soft, clean sheets of my own cozy bed. anyone ever use those jersey sheets, you know, the ones made out of t-shirt material? they just get softer and softer with age, and these are several years old. It was bliss.

and, sweet victory, the dress came clean. in between the initial washing at the grocery store, the oxyclean treatment at home, and a quick wash in the machine with the rest of the laundry from the Day from Hell, it came out of the dryer the next morning spotless and shining, sparkling white.

duckie came in to visit while i was taking my shower. i said, “honey, go hang out in the living room and have some juice so i can get ready. we have to leave soon to go back to LEAF.”

those crystal blue-grey eyes got really wide. “LEAF?” she said. “again? Oh, YAY!” she squealed, literally jumping with joy.

“yes, darling. and your white dress is clean, so you can wear it today.”

“you got the strawberries off it?”

“yup. clean as a whistle.”

her outrageously joyful reaction was absolutely worth the ten minutes spent the night before.

flush

2007-05-08T13:50:00.000-04:00

The silliest, most mundane things can sometimes be sublime.

Take, for instance, the flushing of a clean toilet. A rush of clear water pours into the immaculate basin, followed by a satisfying belch of air as the water empties into the pipes. The quiet background hum of the water pump kicking in, just as it should, then a softer trickle as the tank begins to fill up. Just as it should.

Given the outrageous losses suffered by the people in Greensburg over the weekend, it’s ridiculous to complain about a clogged septic line and a full septic tank. I didn’t, much, because Brian was outside either slogging through shit-clogged pipes or digging a trench to find the tank – which we had to pump out Sunday afternoon. Some of the blisters on his hands ruptured yesterday, so he got one of his friends to finish digging out the line. I borrowed a long pipe snake from our maintenance guys, he installed a clean-out in the line from the house to the tank, and somehow he managed to get it working, with only a couple of intermittent clogs, to which he ferociously applied the snake.

My husband is one tough bastard. And of course he would have to be, to be married to me.

I sanitized the bathroom top to bottom (this was no ordinary clean-up job), gave Duck her bath, stumbled through my own (somehow you just don’t get as clean when you’re using someone else’s shower) and we collapsed into bed.

We all slept through the night. Halleluia. Because honestly I was considering digging a hole in the back yard and putting up a screen.

This was one of those perfect examples of Calling In The Cavalry. Sunday we took showers at friends’ houses. Monday the shop guys let me borrow the snake, and Brian got his friend to dig the trench. So you know, when people talk about Southern hospitality and generosity, they’re really not kidding.

But you have to ask for help, you know? I think that may be the single most important thing I’ve learned over the last five years. You won’t get it if you don’t ask for it.

*****

The herb festival was insane. I took Duckie with me. Somehow, in between the mob of passionate and oblivious herb gardeners, Duckie’s complete boredom with the whole thing (splashing in puddles notwithstanding) and my own frustration with the stressful and unsatisfying experience, we managed to score three baby German Chamomiles (the older ones were showing signs of being root-bound and yellow-legged), four beautiful nasturtiums, yellow-blossomed with a deep orange center, and a nice healthy bee balm plant – the native one, which is practically a weed, and blooms red when mature. Something’s already munching on the leaves, but the plant doesn’t seem to be overly concerned at the moment.

I’m hoping for an Echinacea purpurea (coneflower) – just because it’s pretty, not really for any medicinal purposes – anise hyssop, upright rosemary, and another specimen of lavender, just to see if I can get it to grow in six hours of sunlight a day. Next week I’m planning to visit an organic gardener a few miles from work, before the planting starts.

Almost all the basil seeds have sprouted. Carrots are showing progress (I’ll be damned if I know what to do with them if it comes time to transplant) but the lavender is slower to germinate. Daisies are looking good, too.

“I’ve really got to separate these guys soon,” I said to Brian last night. “They’re starting to get really crowded. I have no idea how to do it.”

“You know you’re only supposed to put three or four seeds in one pot to start out.”

“Really? Oh. Because honestly I didn’t think they would do anything anyway.”

The plants we got last week are all thriving on the front porch, which bodes well for transplanting in the front bed next weekend. The petunias are blooming like gangbusters (I finally figured out what deadheading means), the lemon balm has grown a half an inch in less than a week, and even the creeping rosemary has crept stealthily outward.

I’ve reworked the garden plan several times. To begin with, I made an effort to keep things more or less symmetrical. But given the new opportunities, input from friends, and time to really think and dream about this garden, it’s turning into more of a sprawling mess of ornamental and useful herbs. I think the only plants that are just for looks are the petunias and the alyssum (if I can get it to sprout from seed, that is.)

We’ve also inherited some day lilies and other fascinating perennials from friends who have divided their own stock. Lily of the valley (YAY!), the requisite hosta, something they call “Pinks” and another plant they call “red-hot pokers.”

Happy, fun stuff. A few minutes more in the mornings for us to water the plants. Duckie is happy to be involved, for the most part, although it shaves off mosey time in the mornings. She has a little miniature upright petunia with variegated pink and purple blooms. It’s so cute. I have no idea what to do with it yet, but I’m sure I’ll figure something out.

I brought the basil inside for the evening – weathering is necessary, I understand, but it got below 40 last night and I didn’t want to take any chances. They really cheered up the dining room. And I pinched a couple of cinnamon basil leaves to chew before bed. Spicy. Will be so good in salad.

There are worse things in the world than having too many nice plants around. I’ll just have to find some more pots.

plans, planting, seeds, and sedatives

2007-05-04T09:21:00.000-04:00

Plans often fall apart. Whether this is due to the vagaries of cloud formations and wind, the often unpredictable temperament of a three-year-old, or poor choices in behavior or purchasing, doesn’t matter a damn. We still have to figure out how to sort through the pieces of a plan, pick up the important parts, and move on. Sometimes you get breathing space for this tricky operation. Sometimes you have to do it instantaneously. Either way, the Buddhist virtue of non-attachment can be extraordinarily useful, when practiced effectively.

Example: Planting.

According to the two almanacs I’ve cross-referenced, the last three days were supposed to have been ideal for planting, while the next two are categorized unequivocally as completely lousy. Like, “Any seed planted now will rot” or “Do no planting.” Although I’m willing to plant on less favorable days, it seems idiotic to ignore such advice, especially when it comes from two separate sources.

Thanks to my husband’s intense digging, hoeing, and tilling, the front garden bed has been cleared. But we haven’t prepared it with appropriately amended soil. Not ready for planting. OK, no problem. I had been thinking about moving the big pot from the back porch to a sunny spot in the front yard anyway. I could go and pick up some essential plants from a local nursery (more on Jake later) and set up a perfectly acceptable container garden instead. I can’t seem to find the specific kinds of Echinacea (coneflower) and chamomile plants I want to use in the front bed anyway. The Asheville Herb Festival is this weekend and I will be shocked if I can’t find them there. I just won’t be able to plant them for a couple of days.

Oh, blast. Never mind the details. I got the wrong kind of soil for the container last night, Duckie’s behavior was atrocious, it was raining and cold and it just stopped being fun. All I managed to do was repot the sweet and cinnamon basil plants from the big pot to smaller individual pots, whack away at the oregano (one big bastard of a root system, let me tell you – I almost had to get out the axe) and set a slip of oregano and some spearmint in a pot together.

Given how aggressive these two plants tend to be, we’re running kind of a celebrity death match on this particular pot. Brian’s money is on the spearmint. But even though the oregano I planted was maybe a tenth of the entire plant, I’m betting on it. It’s well-established, tough, and territorial. Choked out everything else in the pot last year. Bastard.

Gambling with gardens. Fun stuff. Anyone want to throw in a bet? Next week we’re running lemon balm vs. chocolate mint. My odds are with the lemon balm. My friend Ebby in Florida, who worked in a nursery for a while, says either way they might break the pot. Which would, in itself, be pretty funny.

What I learned yesterday (skip this if you’re bored senseless):

Lavender likes alkaline soil. Jake was nice enough to re-open the nursery and get me out a handful of it just for the one plant. Apparently it’s not sold in small quantities.

Those peat pots that are so popular now? The directions say to pull off the bottoms and plant right into the ground. Bullshit. When I pulled up the basil plants that had come in peat pots, they were completely root-bound. It’s no wonder they weren’t growing. I pulled off the sides, fluffed them out a bit, and put them in separate clay pots, allowing them some extra room to grow. They looked happier immediately, so I look forward to seeing what happens.

Soak clay pots before you use them. Otherwise they have a tendency to suck water away from a newly planted root system. You can get a 6-inch pot and saucer for under $2 just about anywhere, and they do just fine.

You know when you plant seeds and they say they’ll sprout in like seven to ten days? I always thought they were full of shit. I just couldn’t imagine those teeny tiny seeds becoming anything other that little flea-like bits of organic matter. But I tried them anyway. Genovese basil and daisies last week. What the hell, seeds and dirt are cheap. I used plastic cups we already had in the house.

They sprouted in five days. I couldn’t believe my freaking eyes.

“Duckie, come look!” I hollered. jumping up and down. “Our plants have sprouted!” It was a very exciting development.

**********

Yesterday morning on the way out to the main road Duckie said, “The car sounds like a storm.”

She says random things like that on a fairly regular basis. I can usually connect the images pretty quickly – it’s like a free-association game, but of course she’s much better at it. I have too much junk in my head, for the most part, to really let those thoughts fly freely and give them the space they need.

Sounds like a storm… And since we live on a gravel road, the sound of the tires on the rocks as we drove out to the main road did indeed sound exactly like thunder in the distance.

Her teachers keep telling me she’s got a fantastic imagination. I take it for granted, because I’m not around kids who have other gifts, so I have no basis for comparison. But after yesterday I think they really might be right.

*******

Lately I’ve had a serious case of the creepy-crawlies. Maybe you’ve experienced it once or twice – after dusting, maybe, or cleaning out cobwebs, or fighting mosquitoes. I feel like there’s always something little hanging out on my ear, or on the back on my neck, or down my shirt, or… well, you get the picture. It can be maddening. It began a couple of weeks ago when tick season started.

I filled the Seroquel prescription, but I haven’t even taken the bottle out of the bag. Crunch time for hormones is coming up, though. Hope I won’t need them.

(SB, I’m not on birth control, btw. Last time I tried, it made me nuts. No, don’t laugh, I’m serious. I’m concerned with weight gain and mood changes. And I’m already on two medications. A large part of me rebels at the thought of adding another one.)

I’ve had to be careful with what I eat these days. I’ve added some walks around the plant during the days to try to make up for the calories I’m not spending doing yoga and running. But somehow over the last six months I’ve managed to drop an entire bra size. Go figure. I’m guessing that the muscle mass is probably deteriorating some, too. Which is a crappy way to lose weight, but yoga still isn’t an option.

Once we get the garden planted, I can go back to afternoon runs. At the moment we’re all in the heat of battle with outdoor improvements. Which is also a nice way to burn calories, I suppose.

What I don’t understand yet is how we’re expected to keep up the inside of the house while trying to improve the outside. Laundry? 50% clean, but unfolded. Dinner? Fast and furious. Vacuuming? Seldom. Dusting? Er… *cough* well, anyway. *sneeze*

I suppose there’s nothing earth-shattering to say today. But I’ve been busting ass at work for four solid days now (yeah, I know, imagine that) and my brain is just tired. This is, quite frankly, a nice break.

And I hope this weekend brings (or brought, depending on when you read this) a nice break for you, too.

“Try not to do what you did

and try not to do what you wish you could do

and try to do what you need

according to how you feel.” ~Bryan Kest

Damn but I miss yoga.

learning to fly

2007-04-27T17:42:00.000-04:00

I tend to blog to bitch about something. Lately, though, bitching and complaining seems like a terribly negative contribution to the world. I’ve been on the receiving end of it so often these days that I hardly want to show up to that particular party. Which is, in itself, a complaint, of course.

Did you hear? Nancy Pelosi went to Syria. I love this woman. Dick Cheney said it was “bad behavior.” Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, a Harvard University Professor and a Pulitzer-prize winning historian, said, “Well-behaved women seldom make history.” You’re damned straight. Thank you, Mr. Cheney, for proving this point so eloquently. Talking heads spouted lots of theories as to whether the history will turn out to be shameful or admirable. As far as I’m concerned, it takes a lot of guts to take up the reins of foreign policy and do what the President ought to be doing anyway, especially in the Middle East.

*****

Thinking my shoulder was All Better because the pain was mostly gone, I started practicing yoga again. Three lovely sessions last week, only to wake up Saturday morning thinking, “Damn, that was stupid.” So back to the babying. I can’t imagine that yoga would be a good idea anytime soon – probably not even at LEAF. I’ve re-established a nice running habit, though.

*****

I’ve been wanting to do something with the front garden bed for a while. The windstorm swept off the front porch rather violently and we’ve rearranged some other areas that resulted in a much less cluttered porch. Which only made the weeds and rocks in the front bed stand out more.

I always thought of it as a shady spot until I took a moment on Saturday to simply observe it – I was thinking about which plants would make the best ground cover – something had to go there; I wasn’t going to just mulch it over.

Come to find out the spot is actually sunny in the morning and for most of the afternoon. Without taking the time to step back and simply observe, without judgment, I would never have noticed.

I’ve never been much of a gardener. Last year I tried herbs on the back porch – the oregano came back with a vengeance and kinda killed off the basil. I think I might divide it and set some down in the front bed just to see what it does. Two basil plants – a cinnamon and a sweet – went in on Sunday. I’m trying to keep them nicely watered this year. Even went so far as to buy a watering can. (Duckie already had one, of course.) Imagine that.

So I like the Idea of a front garden. I like the thought of coming home to a bed of flowers and herbs (maybe strawberries too, if my boss ends up handing down her strawberry pots) instead of a bed of weeds and rocks. It will take patience, sweat and time. I wouldn’t have had the time or the inclination had I not wrecked the shoulder and yoga practice.

Brian has good ideas, too – we might end up renting or borrowing a small tractor. An acre of land has a lot of potential.

*****

The governor of North Carolina, Mike Easley, had a $35 million budget deficit, so last month he decided he was going to make it up by cutting mental health funding and community service programs, even to the point of making retroactive pay cuts. A huge outcry from mental health service providers prompted some reconsideration. (Note that this did not go through state legislature; it was an autocratic decision by the governor’s office. I thought that stuff was illegal, but hey, what’s good for the federal government is good for the states too, right?)

I don’t know how much Virginia Tech affected this issue. My guess is, the protests had already sent a signal to the governor and it became a visible political issue after the massacre.

I had a med check last week. The counseling center had two handouts explaining the cuts and laying out some options for registering protests with the governor’s office. (Which reminds me I have yet to do this.)

I said to Dr. M, “How are things in the mental health community these days?” I don’t really know why I asked; what was she supposed to say, anyway?

“They pretty much suck,” she said. “How are you?” She’s good at that. Part of the job description.

Brian and I had discussed the PMS issue at length before the appointment. He said that three out of every 28 days I make life hell for the people I love the most. Since Dr. M regularly asks how Brian thinks I’m doing (because let’s face it, my perspective can be somewhat skewed) I brought that to the table. The Lexapro increase wasn’t doing the trick.

“Have you talked to your OBG?” she asked.

“No. Haven’t seen her in years. Regular doc does the yearly physical.”

“Might want to. Progesterone may be an issue.”

“OK.”

“We might want to consider temporary treatment for those three days. I’d hate to recommend it because I don’t usually prescribe benzos for bipolars, but –"

“Benzos? Downers?” I asked, just to clarify. “Like Valium?”

“Yes, Valium is one option.”

I wrinkled my nose. “That doesn’t seem like a safe option for me. I had Valium once for an operation and I really liked it.”

“Seroquel, then,” she said. “It’s meant as a sedative for mood disorders. Which is you. Half a 25-milligram dose to start. You’re sensitive enough to chemicals that it will probably knock you out. Try it before you need it – do a test run when you’re not busy.” When I’m not busy. Yeah, ok. I’ll pencil it in.

I couldn’t help but think of James immediately, who has had such a hard time with the side effects.

“Side effects?” I asked, just to be sure we were talking about the same thing.

“Weight gain, risk for diabetes, hypertension, drowsiness.” Yup. Same stuff.

The nose wrinkle again.

“But,” she said, “you’d only be taking it for three days a month, and at a very small dose.”

Brian said it would be good to have around.

“Even if I’m totally useless and, like, unconscious?”

“You don’t have to take it. But it might be good for me to be able to say, ‘Take a pill.’”

Which is kinda scary. I used to like downers – a lot. I used to borrow Ambien from a friend during my first marriage when I was really miserable and preferred to be asleep anyway. Now, though, I really dislike the idea of not being conscious enough to deal with my daughter.

Then again, maybe it would be better to be unconscious than potentially violent. Which is terribly sad. (Enter the whine.)

*****

The three yoga practices I shouldn’t have done last week yielded a fascinating revelation. I was moving into warrior iii (otherwise known as the airplane), a challenging balance for me, and it seemed very right to channel some energy through the heart chakra to balance out the back leg. I had always thought of the standing leg as the balance point – but maybe sometimes it isn’t.

Balance with the heart, I thought. It worked like a charm.

The Animal Planet aired a show last night with strange and amazing facts about animals. In autopsies of dead orangutans, those crazy tree-swingers who rock and roll from tree to tree so effortlessly, scientists discovered that there’s about a 50% occurrence of bone fractures in a normal orangutan’s skeleton. From falling out of trees.

So if you’re an orangutan, you have to fall, to learn how to fly.

chains of history

2007-04-05T14:34:00.000-04:00

When I was in college, I often experienced a sometimes overwhelming awareness of links between subjects I was studying. Come to think of it, this may be a personality trait – I have a constant need to connect my friends, too, whether they want to be connected or not.

That awareness has returned. Might be because I’ve adopted the practice of reading several books at once.

Last week I finished the most recent book in Sara Donati’s Wilderness series, Queen of Swords. It takes place in New Orleans, and she does a fantastic job of weaving together history and legend. She also pulls in threads of racial relationships, which was complicated by the interactions of whites, black slaves, free people of color, and native Americans. Slavery had already been a key element of the series (as it was in early American history) so it was no surprise to find it illustrated here.

Titine’s story was the hardest to read. I won’t spoil it, but I will say that Donati has a talent for depicting heartbreaking brutality in vivid, unflinching language.

There were other fascinating female characters, as there always are in Donati’s world. The darkly powerful Maman Zuzu, the alpha in a cabal of voudou priestesses, is a woman you absolutely don’t want to piss off. Creepy. Tantalizing. An earthly divinity.

After Into the Wilderness, Queen of Swords might well be my favorite of the series, simply due to the main character, Hannah Bonner, and Donati’s cultivation of such a rich, satisfyingly juicy ethnic environment.

But it ended (my husband was grateful, as I was losing sleep) and I went on to the next fiction on my list, Neil Gaiman’s American Gods.

American Gods is grand in scope, so it shouldn’t have surprised me to meet Mama Zuzu there, but it did anyway. And again, the brutality and sickening reality of the slave trade. I’d forgotten. Really, I had. As a child I went through a “Roots” phase – I was seven when the mini-series showed, and at some point I think I read the book. Kinda dovetailed onto the Gone with the Wind obsession, which included at least twenty re-reads. I’ll have to add Roots to the ever-lengthening reading list.

A chapter of American Gods is dedicated to Mama Zuzu’s fictional history – how she was sold into slavery, her life as a slave in Lousiana. The prelude to it speaks to ghosts that haunt me almost daily – how do I live, knowing that people are suffering all over the planet? How do I even manage to eat one bite of a perfectly boiled egg when I can imagine a woman just like myself on the other side of the world, who might still dream about eggs the day before she dies of hunger? How do I celebrate life when I am constantly overwhelmed by visions of death?

“We draw our lines around these moments of pain, and remain upon our islands, and they cannot hurt us. They are covered with a smooth, safe, nacreous layer to let them slip, pearllike, from our souls without real pain.

Fiction allows us to slide into these other heads, these other places, and look out through other eyes. And then in the tale we stop before we die, or we die vicariously and unharmed, and in the world beyond the tale we turn the page or close the book, and we resume our lives.”

(American Gods, p. 323, Harper Perennial, 2003)

This is the part that bothered me yesterday when I read it. We die unharmed? I don’t buy it. The places I go when I read sometimes seem more real to me than “the world beyond the tale” and heartbreak is heartbreak. It is neither difficult nor unrealistic to acknowledge that while the person who dies in a book does not exist in that name, another soul has walked the earth and experienced a life and death so close to the fictional person that any differences are subsumed by the reality of their suffering.

For me, fiction is another layer of reality. Crazy, I know, but there it is. To assume that a reader can walk away from a tragic fictional story without leaving a bit of soul behind is absurd. And strangely, I find myself as heartbroken by fictional death and suffering as I am by real-world histories. Because it’s all happened before, somewhere else, to someone else, and, according to some Buddhist theories of reincarnation, most of it has happened to me, too.

I don’t know how I could exist, soaked forever in that awareness. No doubt I’d end up in a padded cell. Thank God I’m not alone in this borderline insanity, you know?

Drawing that boundary around human catastrophe is not a matter of preserving a sense of comfort; it’s a matter of maintaining basic functioning sanity. And I don’t think I’m the only one who sees it that way.

I say it a lot, don’t I? Especially here. It does not do anyone any good for me to scream and cry and beat my head bloody against a wall. It might, however, do some good to choose to look at things as they were, as they are, and as they might be. Not to look away. That’s a start, anyway.

So along comes the first three chapters of A People’s History of America, by Howard Zinn. (SB recommended it over a year ago and I’m finally diving in.) It’s the teaching version, which I’m really digging because it has questions at the end of each chapter. Said questions are enlightening me on just how much stuff I gloss over when I’m reading. It’s embarrassing. I’ll have to unearth the notebooks after all.

First chapter is Columbus and the beginnings of the exploitation of Native American populations. Second chapter, race and slavery. Third chapter, indentured servitude. Three slim chapters to establish the disgraceful building blocks of colonial economy.

The second chapter, again, was a tough read. The facts of the matter are starkly presented. My mind pulled images from Queen of Swords and American Gods effortlessly to illustrate. This time, the questions at the end were a wake-up call. How much of the facts do I really remember? How much of my potential for clear-sightedness is dimmed out by attachment to emotion? (This is an attachment thing. I’m not pretending that emotions are bad – they’re not. Attachment to them, though, can be dysfunctional.)

Late last night I was chatting with Brian and we got onto the subject of… well, I can’t remember how we got around to it. I said that I was irrationally surprised to find out that the Dutch had been leaders in the slave trade.

“They still are,” he said.

“No way,” I said, remembering him messing with my head at dinner over the question of whether a peanut was actually a nut or a bean. “Prove it. What are your sources?”

“Pick. Up. A. Newspaper,” he said.

“I don’t read newspapers, you know that. And anyway it all depends on who’s writing the story, who edits it, and who prints it. Give me a context.”

“OK,” he said. “Research ‘diamonds.’”

“Oh,” I said. “Blood diamonds.”

“Yes.”

So I’m researching. I thought of James, who has always kept this issue in the spotlight on his blog, having lived in Africa for a while. And while it would not surprise me to discover that there are some unscrupulous members of the Dutch diamond bourses – which seem to be the most prestigious in the world – I can’t say that it points the finger at a slave trade per se.

Although it occurs to me that exploitation and slavery don’t have to include transporting the victims from one country to another.

Well, hell. Over a thousand words and not a damn bit of sense in the whole thing.

High winds and chilly temperatures are back.

I managed to run a bit on Tuesday afternoon. I felt better than I had in weeks. I focus on the lower body and abs to take my mind off the shoulder and my under-used upper body.

I read Tim’s Ashtanga blog and I miss yoga practice. I know, it serves me right. But I miss backbends, and forward bends, and twists and… well, pretty much all of it.

This is turning out to be a hell of a long week.

witches among us

2007-03-30T13:09:00.000-04:00

Small victories first. Duckie has slept through the night with no accidents and no late-night bathroom trips for the last few days. Fingers crossed. I’m not used to sleeping through the night myself, so it will be a welcome adjustment.

Our six-month quality system audit came three months early yesterday due to budget shenanigans. This morning, I realized that I could easily choose to be grateful for the annoyance (and, yesterday, embarrassment) of our third-party auditor. Even though he’s a patronizing, Republican, Fox-watching, subtly sexist ex-engineer, there is a blissful relief that settles over my work mind once he’s gone. It’s hard not to be grateful for that.

Relief came in yet another way yesterday. Our favorite teacher at Duckie’s school (who has happily returned due to yet another personnel change) is a reiki practitioner. I asked her for five seconds and she gave me three minutes. Like Brian and Duckie, her hands are naturally warm to begin with, and by the time she finished, her hands were noticeably, startlingly hot against my back.

I was pain-free for six solid hours afterwards. I don’t know how it works, but I’d really like to learn.

Wednesday afternoon, my favorite co-worker here at the plant was overcome by a spell of dizziness, nausea, and cold sweat. It was worrying, and before her husband came to pick her up, she was still shaky. We sat in the front office and she tried to explain that it had happened before, she didn’t know why, and she was somewhat scared about it.

I leaned in slightly and said, “I know what’s wrong with you, April.”

“What?” she said, not wanting to hear the answer.

“You’re dying.”

Apparently it was the perfect thing to say, because she erupted into giggles.

Said giggles were also due to the unsettling behavior of my boss (I’ll call her MB from now on, as she plays a large part in my life, after all). She’s a charismatic Methodist. Kinda like a Methodist on steroids. She speaks in tongues. (Not at work. At least, not that I’ve noticed.) I know for a fact that we don’t agree on some things, but I have a lot of respect for her faith. I also appreciate the fact that she’s stopped asking me to come to her church. Might have to do with the picture of the Dalai Lama on my bulletin board.

A few minutes earlier, she had asked if she could pray over April.

April said, “Sure – I can use all the help I can get.”

MB knelt down right there in the front office, held April’s hand, and began to pray. It was a sweet, heartfelt prayer to Jesus for healing and love, and I did what I could to help out. It’s a good thing I didn’t meet April’s eye, though, because she was quietly freaking out at the time.

To break up the freak-out factor, I said, “It’s the chair, I’ll bet. RB used to have anxiety attacks and now April’s having panic attacks. I bet it’s the chair.”

So my boss exorcized the chair. I shit you not, she prayed over the chair and moved her hands in ways that would be called witchy if she weren’t so solidly based in the Christian faith.

It was completely unreal.

Later that evening a storm front came through. I was jumping up and down with glee in the kitchen and I thought of April, who is the only person I know who shares my infatuation with rainy weather. “She’s got to be loving this,” I thought. And then it occurred to me that her body must have felt this front come through hours before it hit.

I said as much the next day. She gave me an odd look and said that her doctor told her it was most likely an inner ear thing.

“That’s exactly what it was,” I said. “Barometric pressure dropped, you caught it before anyone else did. You’re a douser. Or, not exactly a douser, but a water witch. Don’t worry, I won’t tell my boss.”

April laughs easily. Then she quietly admitted that her grandfather had been a water witch, too – could always predict storms, knew where to dig wells, had a natural affinity for water.

“Well, there you go,” I said. “You’re a water witch. I do so love being right about stuff like this.”

I simply must start a teleplay about this place. I only witness some of the strangeness that goes on here – there’s no telling what kind of odd happenings you might see on the graveyard shift, you know? We could at least get a season out of it. There would, of course, be a murder. There are about a dozen ways to die in this place. And sex. I’ve already heard some lurid stories about trashy trysts on the third floor.

An industrial sitcom. I bet if I can get a pilot written and a catchy title, I could sell it in a heartbeat. Might even be enough to pay for school.

So, happy Friday, y'all!

brooding monday

2007-03-26T12:32:00.000-04:00

I seem to be having a rough time today.

Self pity.

Not enough compassion.

Too much compassion.

Not enough awareness.

Too much awareness.

Three boiled eggs on a plate last night on the dinnertable, amongst a green Greekish salad and Brian’s scrumptious grilled chicken.

Flawless white, buttery yellow, perfect like a picture.

For us, they were a side dish. Something to cut up and go on top of the salad.

There are families whose days might revolve completely around three eggs. When and where to get them, finding the water and the fire to boil them, how to share them.

My guilt will do no one any good. My prayers might, but self-pity surely won’t.

********************

Good news: Nicholas and his mom were back at school today. Maybe they’re back for a while, maybe not. But at least he’s up and around.

********************

Can’t run – the shoulder hollers at the slightest jog, even with Tylenol. Have abandoned even the idea of upper body yoga, at least for a couple of weeks. At this point I don’t even want to stretch out my left arm. Time for a sling? Back to the doctor? X-ray? Acupuncture? Damned if I know. Maybe just stop trying to pretend I’m not kinda broken right now. Legs-up-the-wall is fine, though. Most lower-body stuff is fine. I can still walk pretty quickly.

Weight loss has stalled. No doubt due to the lack of intense physical exercise. Moods are 65% shitty, 20% level, and 15% chipper. Quick calls to my friends are doing a lot to boost my mood, even if the friend on the other line is having a shit day too.

****************************

John and Elizabeth Edwards are amazing people. I saw the press conference on Thursday and while I am in complete agreement with my husband that it’s good publicity for them to have a press conference about Elizabeth’s recurrence of cancer, my opinion is that it’s also an opportunity to see how they handle obstacles and challenges. It was no doubt the only option for them – and the best one. I’m still not impressed with his opinions on gay rights, I’m still disappointed by his lack of support for Melissa (Shakespeare’s Sister), but eliminating poverty is a hell of a platform for a president. He recognizes that so many of our nation’s suffering stems from that, so to tackle that behemoth would put a dent in some other areas.

*************************

Last December in Massachussetts, a little girl died from an overdose of Clonidine and other drugs in her system (both prescription and OTC, as far as I can tell.) A psychiatrist had diagnosed her with ADHD and bipolar disorder. She was four.

I shouldn’t have read the rest of the article. You can look it up on MSN if you want.

Compassion for the girl (who looks frighteningly similar to myself at that age), not enough compassion for her parents and for the people around her who let it happen. The girl died the day before the local social services agency was going to come for a surprise visit.

How do we get off this Wheel? Why can’t I learn these lessons for other people? Was I the social worker in a past life? The relatives who lived with them, who saw how sick the girl was and did nothing? The mother? The girl? God, just to be able to hold that child for one second.

I long for my girl at times like these. Instead of trying to talk myself into the feeling of gratitude (as I did this morning, turning off the coffee pot and forcing a smile on my face), I am filled to bursting with thanks for her whiny obstinate boogery dancing shining loving self. I want to leave work and take her to the park.

And hot on the heels of that gratitude is guilt that I didn’t really feel it this morning, when she was pitching a record-breaking tantrum about having to wear shorts to school under her spring dresses.

untitled

2007-03-19T12:33:00.000-04:00

I’m almost done with a book that RB’s son’s ex-girlfriend loaned me, called Guests of the Sheik: An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village. Non-fiction, if you can believe it – seriously, I’m branching out, it’s kinda scary. It was written in the late 60’s, by a lady who lived in a fundamentalist Shiite village (El Nahra) for a year in 1957. Her husband was (is?) a social anthropologist, and they spent the first years of their marriage in this completely foreign environment. She had almost no Arabic, and she chose to wear the abayah and live in purdah (seclusion of women from most interaction with men.) This meant she was thrown into a society consisting almost entirely of women, having to start from scratch, as it were, with scant knowledge of the language and social customs.

It would have driven me insane in a matter of days. Hours, maybe.

Elizabeth Warnock Fernea, however, is made of stronger stuff.

I look forward to reading more of her work, but here are some of the things I can remember off the top of my head (before I forget):

Salination of farmland was a serious problem for rural Iraqis. Might still be; I haven’t gotten that far in my studies yet, although I’m very interested in finding out the causes of it.
Even if she’s veiled, men can often tell who a woman is simply by her height, her posture, the shape of her body under the abayah, and the way she walks.
The abayah in this village was worn most often clasped by one hand under the chin. I assume this is for ease of disrobing once a woman is in an appropriate environment, but it seems like a big pain in the ass to have only one hand to maneuver when traveling.
Occasionally some women would show a glimpse of ankle, sometimes adorned with a gold bracelet and emphasized by a brightly colored skirt under the black abayah. I can only imagine how erotic that could be for a woman in purdah to bare even that much skin to a man, and for a man to witness it. It might be enough of a hook for an historical romance (and yeah, I’m starting to mull it over in my head already.)
To be separated from one’s family even temporarily (as much as one might have disliked them) was a terrible fate, as so much of a person’s identity was created and sustained by their place in a family unit. The woman around Fernea in the village expressed much dismay and sympathy that she had lost her mother and was separated from her family.
The abayah – most especially when worn with a full face veil – provided protection from the sun as well as wind and the ensuing dust clouds. Interesting that in this village, at least, light skin was very much prized above dark skin.

Next on the list of Middle Eastern studies is Bernard Lewis’ The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years. Which is, in itself, an amusing title.

**********************************

Dinner last night was a perfectly slow-cooked corned beef brisket, cabbage cooked in. (I do so love the shiny new crock pot.) Mashed red potatoes, yellow and green beans, and pickled beets for me (Brian still maintains that they taste like dirt.) The only drawback was that the entire house reeked of cabbage for hours after. Probably still does, come to think of it; my nose has likely gotten used to it.

**********************************

Per Brian’s request, I went to the doctor on Friday afternoon. I was seen quickly. Dr. K was about to leave for a week and it was late in the day, so the last thing they wanted was to have to stay open late for a patient. Dr. K usually sees elder patients, so I think she likes treating me simply because I’m a novelty item. I like her – she has a good sense of humor and some wild-ass hair to boot. It’s like my husband’s hair, on crack.

After some poking, prodding, and moving of the arm, she announced that I might have fractured my clavicle.

(“You broke your collarbone?” Brian chortled later.)

She suggested an x-ray, but agreed that it wouldn't tell us much. Whether the bone was just bruised or broken, it would still take six to eight weeks to heal, and I should just use it as little as possible. Sometimes you sling the arm, but in this case, I’ll just be really gentle. The worse part is trying to get Duckie into a shopping cart (yeeeeow!) and not being able to sleep on my left side. I turned over in my sleep the other night and was rudely awakened by a jolt of tearing pain across my shoulder. Even turning from flat on my back to the uninjured side was enough to wake me up thinking, “Well, that was stupid, Andi.”

Can’t run for another week or so – although come to think of it, the quick jog I did from the school to the car this morning didn’t hurt at all. Walking is fine.

Yoga will be tricky. I haven’t tried over the last week, but I might experiment a little this afternoon. As I’ve learned from other injured yogis, there are options for practice even if you’re hurt. I think it would do me some good to keep the blood flowing and oxygenated to sustain the healing process. Just v-e-r-y c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y.

So anyway, happy Monday, y’all. Share your weekends in comments!

oh, is that so?

2007-03-15T14:24:00.000-04:00

This was the Buddhist tip o’ the day from Beliefnet yesterday. I just got it this morning:

“He who knows that all things are his mind, that all with which he meets are friendly, is ever joyful.” - Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa.

I am having a really hard time believing that today. Fuck friendly. I want to tear shit up. So it’s time for a bitch session. Yeah, yeah, check the moon cycle, I know.

Last Saturday was ladies’ night at Buffy’s. Tons of fun. Too much, according to my body. I hadn’t eaten much that day because she had promised us her avodadalicious homemade guacamole among other treats. When I got to her house I indulged in twenty minutes of rare warm yoga, then emerged to the promised guacamole and a lovely bottle of Shiraz and I’ll be damned if I can remember the name. Suffice to say it was highly drinkable.

Sam, Heather and I retired to the back porch so Sam could gift me with a haircut and the relapsed smokers (including myself) could get a fix. It was an unseasonably warm night. There were lots of stars. And then there was Heather’s voice saying, “Hi, there. How ya doing?” She was looking at me from a very odd angle – kinda perpendicular – and from way up above, as if I was – oh, I dunno, lying down or something.

Which I was. Apparently I had bent back over the railing to look up at the stars and come up a little too quickly. The general consensus was that the wine, the lack of food, and a couple of other factors had combined to product a significant drop in blood pressure.

So yeah, I passed out for a couple of seconds. I am told that it was a lovely, graceful faint, which is some small comfort given the restricted movement of my right arm from the “blunt force trauma” – as H the nurse put it – of my shoulder hitting the deck.

It doesn’t appear to be getting much better, but this is probably due to my inability to stop using the blasted thing. Today I discovered that the pain is directly proportional to the extent I reach outward from the body. This has helped some.

I’ve registered for a three-hour Flow into Spring yoga workshop next weekend. I’m not sure I’ll be going now. Bloody freaking karma. Some lessons I just haven’t learned yet, apparently.

************************

Monday afternoon, Duckie came down with a feverish, snotty cold, which resulted in two days at home – one with Dad and one with Mom. Yesterday was my day. The weather was sublime, so we went to the WNC Nature Center and got a rare treat – the bears were awake and lively.

Things I learned at the Nature Center:

Bears really can climb trees, and damned well, too. A land surveyor in a western North Carolina wilderness area would not do well to climb a tree to get away from a bear. Brian had told me this, but I had to see it to believe it.

Black bears go dormant during the winter, but they don’t actually hibernate.

The small, downy feathers on a barred owl’s face direct sound to their tiny ears. (We got to see one up close.) The tufts of feathers on other types of owls (like the Great Horned Owl) are only for show – they’re not actually ears at all. They’re meant to break up the predators’ silhouette for better camouflage in a dark forest.

Trying to carry a stroller down natural granite steps with a bum shoulder can easily result in a twisted ankle.

Duckie’s back in school today. I went in early early early this morning to escort her to the nightly bathroom break and found an empty bed. Suspicous sounds in the kitchen – might be the cat, I thought, but probably not.

She had made herself a little den of sorts on the kitchen floor (we keep low lights on there at night to prevent injuries as we stumble bleary-eyed towards the light switches.) Her bear blanket down first, of course, because it’s much warmer than the cold tiles, part of her tea set, her impossibly soft musical lamb (it’s a Gund, can you blame her?), her new markers, and the basic mandala design we had been working on that afternoon. She had almost finished it.

“It’s ok, Mom,” she said. “I’m in here.”

“I see that,” I said, going for the camera.

“I’m almost done.”

“OK.”

Yup, I thought, trying for a low light picture with 400-speed film. She’s going back to school tomorrow.

*******************************

Last week’s impending mid-life crisis has resulted in some interesting responses and developments. Sam mentioned that perhaps some of the more cosmetic urges (haircut, hair dryer, new lipstick – I mean, I’d be kidding myself if I thought I’d bother with much else) has to do with the coming of spring. Point to Sam.

Many people have agreed that it’s sad to see talents go unused and abandoned – their own and those of people they love. I have been observing my borderline unhealthy urges to pursue several different subjects at once (a bit of OCD mixed with incipient hypomania is always an interesting combination.) In the process, I’ve come to see that what I’ve been doing over the last few years has not been the most exciting of activities – but it’s practice for life. By consciously practicing happiness and contentment and peace (not always easy), I might be able to walk down some of these paths and resist the ever-present specter of perfectionism that, in the long run, causes stagnancy.

I’ll be forty in a couple of years. So if I live to be eighty (which would be cool) I still have a few decades to grow and change and share my gifts with the world. If I get all panicky about it and focus more on what I haven’t done than what I could do, I won’t do anything at all.

Which is kinda where I was to begin with, you know?

Working with a different paradigm. Parenthood, partnerhood, yoga, brushes with death – you know, it all makes a difference.

(Un)Relaxed Dad, in comments, mentioned that his boy Dudelet is three, and that he’d been experiencing some similar thoughts (and icky dreams, too.) It sparks a bit of curiosity about the changes parents go through as their kids grow.

*hey, (UR)D, how's he doing, by the way? I can't check your blog for updates. GRRRR.*

So much to think about today. Happy to get the monthly bitch session over with. I'm gonna go eat some chocolate now.

Namaste, y’all.

roll out the mid-life crisis

2007-03-09T15:06:00.000-05:00

Lately I have been haunted by memories. They don’t stick around long, but there are a hell of a lot of them. Used to be I didn’t remember much about college years and … well, pretty much anything detailed up until a few years ago. Some of it I’ve been blocking out, and some of it was blocked out for me by brain chemistry (including whatever chemicals I was ingesting at the time.)

I’m sure it’s a good thing, even though it’s uncomfortable. I’ve got to accept the things I did in the past – the good stuff and the bad stuff – because there’s not a damned thing I can do to change it. Whatever amends I’d want to make now would only open up my own wounds, and the wounds of others.

It’s impossible to unwind the memories of what I did to other people from what I did to myself. They’re all linked together – uncomfortable recollections about the effects of a debilitating lack of self-esteem – essentially, what happened because I felt worthless. The things I did to make myself feel better – especially the casual and sometimes catastrophic sexual relationships.

Did I actually do that? It saddens me to think of my past self as someone so thoughtlessly cruel, and at the same time, so miserably dependent on the worth that other people lent me for moments at a time.

My dreams lately have not been memories, exactly, but conversations and events that trigger memories in my waking hours.

Last night my subconscious took things a step farther.

I’m attending an awards ceremony for an independent film I’d done (and whoa there’s a chick I haven’t seen since high school, what the hell is she doing here?) I think I’ve been in this dream theater before, but it was bigger and Duckie was there. This is all grown-ups.

During one of the breaks I’m sitting on the steps in the aisle (red carpeted, nice quality) and this seems normal – it’s a very casual affair (no pun intended) and there are other people hanging out in the aisles, too.

I’m talking to an old friend, who I haven’t seen in years, but who has recently popped back up on the radar. It’s not surprising to see him here, just weird. He wrote and directed the film, after all. So we’re catching up.

What have you been up to? he asks. Are you still in theater?

No, I say. I haven’t had time, and there doesn’t seem to be much going on that’s worth the time away from Duckie.

There’s an uncomfortable silence, and he looks at me almost sadly, as if he’s disappointed that I’m not using any of my special talents much anymore.

I woke up with that dream fresh in my mind. My way-in-to-work conversation with Brian led me, quite clearly, to the realization that no matter what amazing things I’ve done in the past, the fact remains that I’m not really using many of my gifts. I’m cultivating new things – yoga, motherhood, partnering – all good and important practices. They foster patience, diplomacy, steadfastness, loyalty, honesty.

But here’s the thing: when I was in high school I wrote, a lot. I learned French, Latin, and studied a bit of Russian, Greek and Japanese. I played the clarinet (pretty damned well, I might add) for going on six years before I quit. I just put it down and never picked it back up. I’ve been in more shows (acting, directing, costuming, hell, I even hung lights and designed sets) that I can remember off the top of my head. I seem to have been hard-wired for creativity in one form or another.

The wiring is still there. The particular interest in theater and writing has waned, but lately my brain has been bored. I’m picking up several books at once now – and not all of them are historical romance or fantasy, either. It occurred to me a couple of weeks ago that

oh shit i haven’t even opened up my email yet

my newly awakened appetite for information could be partially appeased by repeated trips to the library. So I’m reading some classics I never read in high school, and I’m even slogging through some non-fiction, too.

Hey, it keeps the brain sharp, right?

And in the meantime I can daydream about going back to school full time when Duck starts school. History, maybe, with a minor in religion. That would be wicked. Especially if I could learn Arabic, too.

Anyway. A woman can dream.

prayers of all kinds

2007-03-06T11:44:00.000-05:00

I have my own dinner prayer now. I’m fine with Brian’s Christian blessing, but it never quite covered all my bases – especially the one about sharing your blessings. And I wanted it to be simple enough for Duckie to say along with me, eventually, if she wants.

With this food, we are blessed.

With this home, we are blessed.

With our love for each other, we are blessed.

May we always share our gifts with the world.

Last Thursday night I also added “With our health.” Because Ms. C, one of the teachers at Duckie’s school, has been out for the last two weeks. Her boy, who’s a year ahead of Duck, is at a hospital across the state for open-heart surgery. Ms. D said it’s to repair a hole in the wall of his heart, but when they went in, they found another one and had to fix that, too.

On Friday I asked Ms. S about it. She lowered her voice so her kids wouldn’t overhear. “We haven’t heard much. I don’t think she’s going to be back next week. Last I heard, the surgery made it worse.”

Good God, I thought. Bad enough to think of anyone in open heart surgery, let alone a five-year-old boy. The C’s must be losing their minds.

So for the last four or five days, there has been a steady rhythm in the back of my head: “God, let him be OK. God, let him be OK. God, please let him be OK.”

If you pray, if you share energy, whatever, keep him up there in the light, would you?

His name is Nicholas.

yoga fear and online loathing

2007-03-05T16:04:00.000-05:00

Last week the IT department at work got their shit together and Blocked the Blogs. I can’t get to my favorites. Given that having my husband hack into the plant’s server and open up the floodgates would get me a) fired and b) prosecuted, I’ve asked Kiki for some assistance in keeping Confessions alive. Until I can figure out another way, I’ll be posting through her, and I won’t be able to get to Letters and the Caravan (or Go Fug Yourself, or Shakes’ place, or the Rude Pundit.) For some reason I can still get to Yogamum’s site, Waiterrant, and the Huffington Post. Most other sites (money and food, thank God) are still open, but anything that looks remotely like a blog (including, damn their eyes, the Dark Wraith’s shadowy corner of cyberspace) is off-limits.

What about home access, Andi? you might ask.

Well, honestly, it’s another fifty bucks that we just don’t have. So I’m prevailing upon Kiki’s good will and fast fingers to cut-and-paste for me, at least until IT screws up and unblocks all my favorite sites. She will also be moderating comments.

I can’t tell you how much this pisses me off – to log into my own freaking blog account and see nothing but a big blue-and-red window with the company logo and “ACCESS DENIED.” Oh yeah? Blow me. (I suppose I could be more articulate and less profane, but it’s Monday and I haven’t got the energy.)

And of course, the next time I can get to an open computer elsewhere, I’ll figure out how to work a site-feed to download updates from my favorite blogs directly into email, if I can. I haven’t a clue how that will work, though.

On to other news.

New yoga class on Saturday. Anusara this time – light-hearted, fun, level 1-2 type stuff, not much I couldn’t handle, with a couple of exceptions that mostly had to do with my short little arms. And partnering.

I was just telling Brian Thursday night over dinner that I wouldn’t be broken-hearted to miss a certain workshop in the summer because it specifically mentions “partner yoga” in the description. The whole concept terrifies me – not because touching other people creeps me out – it’s the idea of having to find a partner in a class full of strangers. Dealing with self-esteem and self-confidence issues from childhood that have never quite been put to rest.

They popped up Saturday, though, like whiteheads on the day of the prom. "We'll be doing some partner work..." Joe started, and my brain short-circuited. I have to find a partner? It took me long enough to find one in life, and I'm supposed to find one here? This is bullshit! I paid money for this?

There was a chick with long dreadlocks who happened to be facing me, right at my eye level. I tried to catch her eye, because after all, we were supposed to be partnering up, right? And at the same time, I didn’t want to count the number of people in the class (is it odd? even?) for fear that I would be exposed as totally lame.

Although I don’t know what was going on in Dreadlocks’ head at the time, my internal monologue had regressed back to the tortured years of early adolescence.

Oh crap. I’m so fat. I’m such a geek. The least she could do is smile, you know? That would be enough. It’s a fucking anusara yoga class, damn it, aren’t you supposed to be friendly? I hate her. What’s wrong with me? I"m not that sweaty. I haven’t farted even once. I brushed my teeth right before class. Why won’t she make eye contact? I’m gonna be the only person here without a partner. I suck.

Oddly enough, I ended up partnering with the big beefy guy next to me. I’m not even sure how it happened – I think he may have taken me under his sizeable wing out of pity.

It was my first time. So, yeah, I’m no longer a virgin. Bring on the jokes, y’all, I’m ready.

We did full backbends and I had to work hard to even make a dent in his established pose, but I was able to do something, anyway, even if I wasn’t sure what it was. And after the backbends we went into downward dog, with the partner leaning into the back of… oh never mind, I can’t begin to explain it without illustrations. Suffice to say that for me to make any difference at all for this guy, I had to put all my weight into it. On some level it reminded me of the wee bit of shiatsu I learned in NYC – where you use your body weight to lean, instead of push, and you share the rhythm of breath with your partner.

I’m pretty sure I was a little too vocal in my appreciation of the adjustment. I’ll have to work on discretion. (No, this was not a Harry-met-Sally moment, but it did feel so good.)

Anyway. Fun stuff. A good alternative to Cat’s Saturday class (the level 2-3) if I’m not feeling up to it.

My Religious Rights

2007-02-27T10:30:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was rough at home. We got back from our beach trip Sunday evening, picked up Duckie from RB’s house, and plopped on the couch to watch the Oscars. I did, anyway – Brian scared up some snacks to munch while we watched the red carpet coverage. It was much more fun with his company.

Brian (upon seeing Nicole Kidman): Woah, Nelly! What the fuck is that?
Me: I think she’s wearing a cup holder on her shoulder. Or maybe a beer coozy.
Brian: Maybe it’s a collar for her second head.

Brian (upon seeing a particularly strange mirrored bodice, I can’t find the name of the woman who wore it – may have been Eddie Murphy’s date): Wow. Someone raided the Star Trek costume closet.
Me: Wow. And you know, that’s not even original Star Trek or Next Generation. That’s nothing but Deep Space Nine, there. I mean I love the rest of the bodice, but the mirrors have just got to go.

Brian (upon seeing Gwyneth Palrow’s pleated peach): Yeesh.
Me: Oh, Gwyneth. It does such strange things to her boobs. Kinda flattens them out and squishes them over at the same time. I love the detail work, and the pleats are gorgeous – but I hate the waistline and her hair looks totally dead.
Brian is silent, paying more attention to the shrimp than to the gown, which covered entirely too much skin for his taste. We didn't see Salma Hayek anywhere, which is a darned shame.

Me (upon Helen Mirren’s entrance, through the adoring lump in my throat): Oh, Helen. And that’s what you’ll be wearing to get your Oscar. Spectacular. I can’t wait. (The close-up later was just as satisfying.)

Did I stay up to watch her get it? Yes, I did. So I was tired and grumpy all day yesterday. Brian couldn’t rouse himself to go to work at all, so he stayed home with Duck. Basically our routine has been shot to shit, which we expected.

Struggling with Duckie’s now mythic mosey on the way to the bath was bad enough. Then a commercial came on (on the food network, of all things) about censorship of religious freedom – specifically, censorship of Christian religious freedom.

There were John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., Ronald Reagan, and excerpts from other famous speeches. Over their mouths was a little black box, and the word “God” was blipped out of the speech. The commercial went on to bemoan the violation of First Amendment rights for Christians all over America, and to direct like-minded viewers to a new website, “My Religious Rights Dot Org.”

As usually happens when I am personally faced with an example of gross stupidity, all the blood rushed from my head, making rational thought impossible. Don’t throw anything, I thought. Don’t say anything. Not yet.

Brian looked over and must have noticed that my jaw had locked and my face had gone white.

“What?” he said, with a pretty good idea of what “what” was.

I just shook my head and went on to shuffle the Mosey into the bath tub.

I thought about it while Duckie was role-playing with her growing collection of rubber ducks. The initial rage had worn off and my left brain shifted back into gear. After a few minutes, I went back into the living room.

“Here’s what." I said. "That advertisement is completely illogical. It’s playing on people’s conflation of a bunch of different issues – freedom of religion, separation of church and state, censorship, first amendment rights, and it’s supporting the illusion that Christians are persecuted in this country, which is complete and utter bullshit.

"Those speeches have never been altered or censored. It’s absurd. Granted, the implementation of protecting free expression has been far from perfect, and downright stupid in some cases. But to state that the concept of God and Christian worship (which, by the way, is not the same thing) is being hounded into the ground in this culture is ridiculous. What it comes down to is that efforts have been made to respect other religious practices and it pisses some other people off, so they turn it into this big bullshit argument that’s so insanely presented – and so completely believable at the same time – that it takes way more than five seconds of bullet points to deconstruct it. It’s so full of shit I can’t stand it. That’s what.”

“OK, then,” Brian said. I went back to Duckie’s bath.

I went to the wesite this morning. More of the same illogical, unreasoning, intellectually lazy whining that pisses me off on a regular basis. What it comes down to is basing an entire organization and movement on the occasional poor implementation of rules and regulations created to protect freedom of all religions in public organizations, and, incidentally, freedom from other religions in which a person may or may not want to participate.

Get.

Over.

It.

Oh and here’s what else: We like to watch the Food Network for the same reason we like the Weather Channel. For the most part, it’s apolitical. We can enjoy Rachael Ray and Alton Brown and Iron Chef America without getting into discussions of how Dick Cheney and Hugo Chavez can both be the Devil at the very same time. We can make fun of Jim Cantori’s shiny head and superhero weatherman persona, and both express frustration with the Weather Channel’s reliable inability to predict weather in our area without being assaulted by the insanity of most of today’s media. In a household as ideologically and politically divided as ours, those are safe TV viewing choices.

This ad snatched away a safe spot for me. And that pisses me off, too.

Might just hafta write me another letter this week.

Ice Cream, New Jersey & John McCain

2007-02-19T09:52:00.000-05:00

Last week I mentioned to Brian that Ben & Jerry’s is coming out with a new flavor named after Steven Colbert – the Americone Dream. Vanilla with fudge-covered waffle pieces and a caramel swirl. Probably not as yummy as Karamel Sutra, but than again, what is?

Me: I can’t wait! I have to start lobbying our local Ingles to carry it.
Which will take forever.”
Brian: Pah. Liberals.
Me: I know! Ain’t it great?

So, to maintain this spirit of light-hearted liberal cheerleading (which beats the hell out of banging my head bloody against the wall of conservative closed-mindedness that prevails in my county), I will say this:

GO NEW JERSEY!!!!!

Oh, and Mr. McCain?

Right down the street from my house, there’s a nice little lake of refreshing, freezing cold water. The ducks seem to like it. I suggest, respectfully, that you jump in it. And stay there.

Shuler Votes Aye

2007-02-19T09:13:00.000-05:00

The House resolution passed on Friday. We knew it would, just as we knew that it would be blocked by the Senate and blown off by the White House.

My chief concern on Friday afternoon was to find out how my representative voted. I’ve been wondering how his votes would reflect his claims during the campaign, especially given the rather warlike attitudes of this constituency. It was noted during the run-up to the November election that he was the only kind of Democrat who would ever get elected in this district – Traditional Family Values, an ex-football player, won’t work on Sundays (although you have to wonder if he played football on Sunday in his previous career.) But, while his positions on stem-cell research, abortion rights, and GLBT civil rights are significantly different than my own, at least his attitude on the Iraq war was less supportive than his predecessor. A trade-off. Better than the alternative. Charles Taylor was – well, hell, I won’t get into it; I’ve posted already on his enabling of Congressional corruption, especially when it comes to Tom DeLay. (Have I? Or was it a rant to a co-worker?)

When Shuler was elected I decided that it was time to start voicing my opinion, loudly, and often. It’s not enough for me to cast a vote. It’s up to me to holler, even if it has to happen on an answering machine or a fax. (I’ve done both so far.)

So I swallowed my anxiety and my fear of being blown off. Friday afternoon, as soon as I heard they’d approved the resolution, I called Shuler’s office.

“Is there any way to find out how Shuler voted?” I said to the man who answered the phone.

“Yes,” he said, “I can tell you.” There was a distinct pause.

“Really? Great. So… how did he vote?” It was like a little two-step pas de deux – he didn’t want to answer, and I didn’t want to hear the answer.

“He voted Aye.”

“Seriously? Awesome!” I said, before I could stop the rather unprofessional tribute from jumping out of my mouth.

“You’re happy about that?” the guy said.

“Well, yeah,” I said. “Why?”

“Because everyone else who’s called this afternoon has been furious.”

We spoke for ten more minutes about Shuler’s involvement in the Blue Dog coalition (yeesh), his concerns about troop support and fiscal waste. The guy was obviously relieved that he wasn’t going to get another ass-chewing from a pissed-off Shuler constituent, and pleased that there was at least one voice of support for Shuler’s vote. And I was relieved that Shuler, despite his "conservative Democrat" stance, wasn’t the kind of Democrat who would cross the line about the Iraq war.

So I suppose I’ll shoot off another fax to Shuier’s office this week, once I figure out what Murtha and Pelosi will put on the table next. I have a fax template already set up.

See, I know I’m not the only person in Henderson county who gives a shit about getting us out of this war. But I might be the only one with access to a fax machine and a telephone during Shuler’s office hours. And hell, the guy on the other end of the phone wasn’t that scary at all.

Support Our Troops!

2007-02-16T09:34:00.000-05:00

As upset as I have been this week about the virtual mauling and violence perpetrated and threatened by insane right-wing internet users towards one of my favorite writers, this makes me want to weep with joy.

Pelosi’s – wait for it, folks – Doing Her Job.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

It’s become clear over the last several years that the administration is militarily incompetent. The Commander in Chief has no active military experience, but his idiotic opinions and illusions trump the wisdom and field experience of his generals.

John Murtha, with Pelosi's backing, is planning to say, essentially, “We’ll throw you some more money. Fine. We’ll fund your insane escalation. But if we’re sending our troops into the mouth of hell, we’re gonna make sure they’re trained, rested, protected, supported and otherwise treated like human beings instead of cannon fodder. If we’re gonna use our taxpayers money to continue this fiasco, we are going to take control of how the money is being used.”

And that, folks, is how you support the troops.

YES.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the House follows through.

I Am Spartacus

2007-02-15T10:52:00.000-05:00

In a tiny little hiccup of the internet such as my own, it's almost not worth posting this. Imagine a wee little ameoba with a rudimentary set of vocal cords squeaking from a drop of water. But then again, for the record...

I am Spartacus.

backwards, into the muck

2007-02-14T11:50:00.000-05:00

Shakespeare’s Sister is one of my favorite blogs. It’s unapologetically progressive, exceptionally well-written, and quite often the graphics are hilarious. It’s a group blog, but the site is owned and maintained by Melissa McEwan, otherwise affectionately known as Shakes.

A few weeks ago she shared some fantastic news – she had been hired by the John Edwards campaign as a technical assistant for the blog section of the campaign website.

Yesterday she resigned.

A certain member of a right-wing religious group (I’m not going to give him the honor of a link here) took issue with a blog post or two she had written before she joined the campaign, saying that it was profane, bigoted and intolerant of his religion. Honestly, I have no problem with this guy voicing his opinion. Free country, right? But this guy has a very loud mouth and apparently much more money than sense. He demanded quite publicly that she be fired from Edwards’ campaign. (There is another blogger also involved, but I am not familiar with Marcotte’s Pandagon, so I don’t feel remotely qualified to comment about her involvement. Although the end result was the same in both cases.)

Edwards waited a day or two to respond. He said that he’d spoken to the two bloggers, they had expressed their remorse that anyone had been offended, and that he did not support and would not allow rude and profane language connected to his campaign. He’d give the two bloggers a fair shake, though, and they stayed on for a few more days.

They received all manner of comments on their blogs – both positive and negative. The negative ones were mostly rude, mostly disgusting, and almost never thoughtful or relevant to the discussions at hand. I caught a piece of the sickening insults and threats that were aimed at Pandagon before Marcotte had to temporarily shut down the site.

The trolls, as they’re called, invaded the comment sections of Shakes’ place soon enough. For the most part, their comments were moronic and hurtful, but rarely anything to worry about beyond a brief rise in one’s blood pressure. What we weren’t seeing was the private correspondence that was happening via Shakes’ email. Mostly she kept that to herself.

She wasn’t just dealing with insults and profanity. She was getting death threats.

Now, we all know that death threats have been aimed at both liberal and conservative bloggers and talking heads, celebrities, politicians, sports figures, writers. Living as a public figure in today’s warped society can open up the floodgates to all sorts of nasty lowlifes. I can’t imagine that anyone who receives a death threat would be completely blasé about it, even though they might pretend to be.

So what’s the diff? Maybe I’m taking this too personally. Maybe I’m mad because it’s a writer I really love, who’s taught me how to recognize intolerance in many of its sad and hurtful guises.

But there’s one thing that most public figures have that Shakes doesn’t: money.

Comparatively speaking, talking heads make tons of money. Plenty of dough to spend on security systems for their houses, a big guy to drive them to and from work, and probably this stuff is part of their contract anyway. And I’ll bet when they get serious death threats they can call in the FB-effing-I.

Somehow I doubt the FBI would respond if Shakes called them in. They won’t do anything if she turns in the IP addresses of all the people who made those threats. And she can’t afford to set herself and her entire family up in a secluded house somewhere with alarm systems on all the doors and windows and a bunch of farting, drooling, grumpy Rottweillers patrolling the property.

Shakes was gutting out a long period of unemployment before the Edwards campaign snatched her up as a technical advisor. She was understandably elated when she got the job, not only because she was finally drawing a paycheck again, but that she was doing something demonstrably positive for a cause she believed in – Edwards has been a favorite of hers for a long time.

It has upset me deeply, although my worries can’t remotely compare to Melissa’s. And it’s not just PMS. I had the same sinking, weepy feeling last week when this first came out. I was happy to see that Edwards hadn’t fired her, but I thought, “It’s only going to get worse from here.” Yeah, Democrats won the last election. Yeah, Pelosi’s Speaker of the House. Yeah, all that’s pretty cool.

But things are going to get a lot worse, and a lot uglier, before they get better. The level of discourse about this issue has at times dropped to the level of rabid monkeys slinging shit-stained knives. Graphic, terrifying obscenities that don’t attack the blog or an ideology or an issue, but are directly aimed at a brilliant writer.

To be sure, Shakes chooses to use profanity in her posts as well – I can hardly blame her, given that I myself have to keep a mighty tight rein on the keyboard here sometimes. But as furious as she can get in her invective against the wrongs she sees in the world, she has never threatened another person with bodily harm. Impeachment, yes, certainly, and often. Jail time? Absolutely. But even the commenters at Shakespeare’s Sister don’t usually call for mutilation, rape and death. (Although there have been one or two calls for castration.) We’re a thoughtful bunch for the most part.

I don’t know where I read this comment, but it made sense to me, that blogs are more like conversations than literature. They’re dialogues. The best ones remind me of what the ancient Greek universities might have been like, when classes were held outside, and anyone who strolled by could join the conversation. I’m sure some of those discussions became pretty heated and impassioned, and I’m sure violence erupted sometimes. But I doubt it was the norm.

So, yeah, I know the Internet is a scary place to be sometimes. But I love Shakespeare’s Sister not because I always agree with her (for the record, I don’t) but because it’s generally above the fearmongering and hate-slinging you see on so many other sites. It’s a useful, respectful discussion for the most part. Safe, even if it challenges me intellectually and emotionally.

Now I feel like someone’s broken into the place. And I feel like online political discourse has just taken a huge step back into the muck of mindless brutality. Because I know it’s hard to have intelligent, relevant, respectful, but still impassioned discussions. It’s easier just to throw shit – and believe me, I know whereof I speak.

One step forward, twenty thousand steps back. The trolls will eventually get bored and go away, I hope. Hopefully this will open up another opportunity for Melissa – personally, I think she’d make a great writer for the Daily Show. The guy who started this idiocy has come out of the woodworks as the worst kind of bigot himself, one who doesn’t have a remote clue about the fundamental nature of a democratic society – that you have to be free to express your opinion without getting clubbed over the head, no matter how much or how little money you make.

But it absolutely fucking sucks.

better today

2007-02-13T08:57:00.000-05:00

This is the post i didn’t want to write, but I thought I would have to yesterday. I was gonna give it one more day before I freaked out:

DRAFT:

I’ve lost my wedding rings. i’ve been looking for them for four days now and I can’t find them.

I’ve somehow misplaced two years of undeveloped 35 mm film. I had it all nicely collected after Christmas and now it’s gone. I’m terrified that it might have been thrown out when we got rid of all the boxes and trash in the house.

I shouldn’t be attached to these objects – they’re just things, after all. They symbolize my connection to my husband, and memories of my daughter’s early years *sob* but I am still connected to them both, so I really shouldn’t need them, should I?

But I’m still brokenhearted.

Then, yesterday, after boo-hooing on Brian’s chest about these and other matters (see below), I found my rings, in the side pocket of my cargo pants that I stole from Brian in the first place, and he found the film.

This began to balance out the news I got yesterday afternoon. Our all-time favorite teacher at Duckie’s preschool resigned “for personal reasons.” I was wrecked. Duckie will be, too, once she figures out that she won’t be seeing Miss Lisha again. Miss Diane is not, so far, a favorite – although to be fair, I haven’t really met the woman. This will be a pain in the ass to schedule. Most of the teachers work from 8 to 4 – my hours exactly. Not a big deal to miss afternoon yoga (I can always practice before bed,) but I can’t get out of here before 4; there’s just no way. *sigh*

I’ll reserve judgement until the new teacher for Duckie’s room starts next week. I’ll see how Duckie likes her, and how she manages Duck’s temperament. Miss Lisha reveled in it: “I just love her spirit!” she’d say. “She just gets so awfully mad and stomps that little foot, and she’s so strong-willed. She’s just fantastic.” I fear that we’re going to hear less positive things from Miss Diane. Duckie doesn’t seem to listen very well to people she doesn’t like, and she can sense weakness. She knows when she can push your buttons, and will frequently do so (you know, like every Monday evening.)

And until then I’ll put a call in to a local preschool that’s just opened – it’s a Montessori-style school, so maybe that will be more fun for her anyway. We’re paying enough for child care; we might as well be getting our money’s worth.

*****

Back on the yoga wagon yesterday. Started with 5 rounds each of Surya A & B. By the time I got through the 2nd Surya B I was getting light-headed and nauseous and had to rest. I’ve recently discovered that all that harping on planting and pushing through the back foot for Vira i actually works – which has made the lunge that much more intense. Likely why I was tired after two rounds.

Tim said that he did the Malas for the New Year. That’s 108 sun salutations. I would have been flailing at ten. Maybe it’s a good goal for the rest of the year.

So, mood improving slowly but surely. Eye is less puffy, face is clearing up some (a homemade oatmeal-honey facial mask will do wonders for oily skin.) Brian has been incredibly gentle with me over the last few days.

I still wonder how it can happen that two people so different in our strongly held opinions about, say, Dick Cheney, can end up as soulmates. Anyway, there it is. Our daughter, being a lovely intelligent Libra, will probably develop into a gifted diplomat.

weekend blues

2007-02-12T11:24:00.000-05:00

I have simply got to start planning better for road trips. Even the short ones – like the jaunt down the mountain to RB’s house on Friday night – are entirely too stressful for me. I’m inevitably late packing. There’s always one more load of laundry to do, one more thing to get, one more place to go, one more item on the list that I don’t remember until we’re halfway there, in which case I’m upset because I forgot it (or thought I did, anyway.) Short trips, long trips; it hardly matters anymore.

Once we arrived, some peace descended. Duckie played hard with RB’s older boy. There’s enough space that she could run herself in circles all night long – and did, for a long time. I think they may have set a record for the most hours of tag in one night.

I had made a chocolate cream pie with raspberry sauce for RB’s birthday. (In case you’re wondering, homemade everything. Drool at will.) I brought the makings of a sinful Greek salad; you know, the kind that hardly qualifies as a salad because of the olives and feta cheese and… oh goodness, yes, that’s the kind of salad I can get into.

Good food, fantastic conversation (ranging from leg shaving to the Vagina Monologues to burkhas to women’s lib), a glass or two of smooth and inexpensive shiraz, my daughter watching too much television and *gasp* playing video games. But, for the most part, she ran rampant through the house, laughing maniacally. God, I just love that sound.

Duck and I spent the night cuddled in the cozy sleigh bed in the upstairs bonus room. I woke up feeling pretty shitty. Not physically – although that was part of it (see below) – just really blah. I woke up feeling envious of RB’s house. Envy isn’t usually a problem for me, but it sank its teeth in hard that morning. I could have spent hours cleaning her marble countertops, shining her brand-spanking-new stainless steel sink, checking for hot spots in her new oven.

We headed back in time to get dinner started in the crock pot and take a long nap. Despite the Jabba-sized pile of laundry to fold on our couch, I just couldn’t rouse myself to give a shit. I couldn’t even get up the gumption to do dishes, a prerequisite for cole slaw, because you have to soak the cabbage leaves in the sink before you chop them up. So the barbeque was lacking in cole slaw – another failure. (If you’ve ever experienced depression or even just had a really shitty day, you’ll know that this tends to snowball.)

Last week my left eyelid started swelling up for no good reason that I could tell. I’m thinking it was some kind of allergic reaction. It’s happened before and eventually went away. But Saturday and Sunday it got truly grotesque, to the point where I didn’t even want to go out lest people think I’d been beaten up. (This is more likely than you might think, given our location.)

I’d been struggling with an awful facial breakout for the entire week. It wasn’t getting much better. In between the pimples and my unfortunate resemblance to Quasimodo, I didn’t want to look at myself in the mirror.

I could have gone to the yoga class on Saturday, but I didn’t. I suppose I could have done yoga sometime over the weekend, but I didn’t. I suppose I could have managed a shower sometime on Saturday, but I didn’t.

Damned if I could tell what triggered it. I seem to be pulling out of it a wee bit at a time. I’m hoping it’s PMS. Hard to tell these days.

There’s a road trip to the beach coming up in a couple of weeks. RB has agreed to keep Duckie for the weekend so Brian and I can have a bit of adult time together. Mostly this will consist of trying to keep warm in one way or another. Our friend W’s family has a beach house on the intra-coastal waterway, which is really great in season (we had our wedding party there), and lovely off-season too, because it’s deserted. There’s a huge wood stove in the house, and I intend to spend a fair amount of time as close as possible to it without singeing my hair. A trip to the library is in order, I believe.

I’ll start planning now. I’ll start packing this weekend. Surely I can manage this a little better. I’m a grown woman. I’m intelligent, capable, and experienced in organization and stress management techniques.

I can do this.

I’ll start tomorrow.

*********

P.S. It did not help that the temporarily reunited Police picked Roxanne as their Grammy opener. So many fantastic songs to choose from – Spirits in the Material World would have been just perfect, but of course Roxanne won out, being their first hit single. It’s not that I don’t care about that song – I actively dislike it. And I was so looking forward to the performance, too. Still, I'll check for tickets.

P.P.S. It does not help that my boss is still stressed out and spreading it around the lab like so much gloomy fertilizer. I often enjoy her company, but due to my constant fear of her temper, I have taken to ignoring her completely unless she talks to me first. Plus I look more like I’m working. (Which, actually, I am, believe it or not.)

P.P.P.S. Miss MH (who gave me the recipe for the cream cheese frosting) reported that she’d seen Sheri (of the unwashed children) at a local grocery store yelling at her kids for no good reason that MH could see. Kids were grimy, cart was full of sugary sodas and “nothing I saw that was good for kids. No hygiene products, no cereal, nothing. I heard her screaming at Bubba two aisles over. ‘Bubba, you get back here right now! Don’t make me hunt you!’”

I drop my head in shame. Because I’m listening to gossip. And because I know I have spoken sharply to my daughter in public as well. I am not one to judge another woman on that. RB and I have agreed that we both feel bad for Sheri – her mother left early in her life, so it’s pretty clear that she has no model to go by. She never had a mother to show her the kind of love she could give to her kids.

But also I drop my head in shame that I don’t know how to help these kids. DSS is already involved to a certain extent. If anyone’s got ideas, let me know. I worry about them. A lot.

hiding the bodies

2007-02-09T13:37:00.000-05:00

Overheard in the canteen today at ten o’clock, in a noisy breakroom full of chirping Friday employees and the blare of cable network news.

CNN: Anna Nicole Smith was a very troubled woman – all those lawsuits, she really had a lot going on in her life.

Employee MC: Well, I guess they pushed aside the astronauts.

Me (loudly): Well, I guess they pushed aside the war.

Silence.

Me (glancing around as if I’d just farted): Oh… sorry.

Taking my bowl full of warm, raisiny oatmeal back to my cold desk, I glanced back at Employee PW, who was nodding enthusiastically in agreement.

***********

I also put a call in today to Heath Shuler, the Rep for Western NC. Next week, vote against Bush’s surge, I said. Unfortunately it’s one of those resolutions against something, so I’m not entirely sure the message will get through effectively. If he votes against the resolution, he’s essentially voting for the surge. Damn, but these double negatives piss me off. I may have to call back just to make sure. I don’t know, I’ve never done this before. I suppose I’ll have to practice on his office answering machine for a while.

So, a little more vocal now than usual. Maybe that blue chakra thing is kicking up again. Still can’t talk about anything substantial in the way of current events with Brian. But I don’t seem to have a problem bringing thigns up with other people, especially when I see the news suddenly focused, exclusively, on the death of a celebrity, no matter how big her presence in pop culture. I mean, come on.

People die every day. Some die from old age or otherwise natural causes, or disease. Some die at their own hands. Some die at the hands of others. Eventually it’s going to happen to you and me both.

But you know what’s weird about the portrayals of death these days? You never see the bodies, unless it’s on a fictional TV show. Which sets the brain up to see it as fiction, doncha think? Seriously, check out the coverage of the Iraq war on any station – you see blown up buildings, cars on fire, soldiers with guns, people running – but you don’t see the bodies. They’re hidden, pushed aside, forgotten, in favor of trashy washed-up singers, lunatic astronauts and dead non-celebrities.*

I just want them to be acknowledged, is all. If we saw the bodies of the people who are dying there and in other forgotten parts of the world, if we saw them every day at lunch time and dinner time and break time, if we had to sit with Banquo’s ghost in the morning and as we go to bed at night – would we still be silent about their murders? Would we still be able to turn away?

I don’t know. Maybe some people would. But it seems to me that the folks who usually try to hide the bodies are the murderers themselves.

*Internal dialogue:

Good God, Andi, do you want to see the bodies?
No, I don't. I see them enough in my head. I want it to stop.

blue chakra deficiencies: my unstructured musings about language and war

2007-02-07T13:46:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was a late practice. Not midnight – somewhere around 9-ish. It ended up being an hour long gentle feel-good-and-breathe kinda thing. Just about fell asleep. Had to stay up another half an hour to wake up Duck for the 11 o’clock pit stop, so I ignored the growing pile of laundry to fold, flopped down on the couch, wrapped myself up in the down-filled throw that has somehow lasted three years now, and turned on the TV.

CSPAN: General Pace and Robert Gates answering questions from the Senate Armed Services Committee.

If I have to hear one more person say, “It’s in the Iraqis’ hands now. They have to make progress, set benchmarks, follow-through...” if I have to hear that one more time I may have to induce projectile vomiting in order to truly express my disgust at the utter hypocrisy and lack of awareness of our polticial leaders – Republicans and Democrats both.

Another 20,000 troops. Pace had a good point when he said that so much of what’s really needed in Iraq isn’t what the military does terribly well. Reconstruction, diplomacy, project management – you know, all the stuff that should have been happening from day one (except, let’s be honest, there shouldn’t have been a day one to begin with.) So Pace is suggesting that perhaps some of those 20,000 be replaced with (or bolstered by, I couldn’t really get a grasp on the vagaries of the proposal) civilians with the skills to handle these tasks. Outsourcing, doncha know. Offer military-style benefits and insurance so that when – er, sorry, if they are killed in service to their country, their families have some financial security.

But have you noticed, or is it just me? Nothing in all these suggestions and proposals has been said about the language problem. I’ve heard people bring up the equally shameful issue of inadequate equipment for the troops, but so far I haven’t seen anyone jumping up and down about the fact that our troops in Iraq can’t communicate with Iraqis.

How in the sam hell are we supposed to manage anything if we can’t communicate with each other?

There’s a civil war in Iraq. A significant part of the population of Baghdad is deeply invested in the need to blow people up. It does not appear to me that the Iraqi government is capable of producing a diplomatic policy that could ever break this cycle. Because, hey, let’s face it, just about everyone’s on one side or the other, unless of course you’re a Kurd, in which case you’re staying the fuck out of Baghdad if you’ve got half a brain.

So we’re sending more troops and more guns, but what’s desperately needed is weeks and months and years of careful, respectful communication and negotiation. Iraqis can’t do this. They’re too close to it. They’re emotionally involved – to say the least. When you and everyone you know has lost someone to a bomb or an abduction or an unexplained disappearance, it’s hard to remain objective.

But we could. We could maybe manage the one thing that’s been so sorely lacking in this entire debacle – we could help people get through to each other.

Except we don’t have enough Arabic-speaking Americans over there to even begin to touch this problem. I heard a year or so ago that a homosexual translator was discharged, and the implication at the time was, “Hey, look at these assholes, they’re getting rid of people we desperately need due to their sexuality.” I don’t disagree, but I have a hard time believing that this is a situation that happened a lot. I doubt there are enough Arabic-speaking members of our armed forces to make this recur frequently. Although it does speak to someone’s incompetence to let even one valuable translator go.

General Wesley Clark wrote recently that “U.S. troops so far have lacked the language skills, cultural awareness, and political legitimacy to ensure that areas ‘cleared’ can be ‘held.’” [hattip to Minstrel Boy, also a firm supporter of Wesley Clark.]

I’ve been saying for weeks that if Dubya wants to send another 20,000, fine, do it. But you’d best make sure that 10,000 of those troops speak Arabic. And what are the chances of that?

Here's the story that makes me shake my head hopelessly:

"Fear of Bias Keeps U.S. Muslims out of military."

Our military has indeed been courting the Muslim population in America, with the intent to bring in more troops who speak the language and who might have a slightly more appropriate background to help improve operations. The Marines built a new Muslim prayer center at Quantico. Now West Point has one too. The Air Force commissioned a Muslim chaplain. Great, lovely. Except it doesn’t seem to be working very well.

Wonder why?

It was noted in this Reuters article that after 9/11, there was a lot of distrust and suspicion about Muslims floating around. That noxious cloud has not dispersed. It still stinks to high heaven. Examples? OK. No problem.

Late last year on his prime-time commentary show, Glenn Beck interviewed newly-elected representative Keith Ellison. He said, “What I feel like saying to you is, 'Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.'” And that’s the least of the verbal stench he likes to add to the cloud.

So if Glenn Beck, who is on the air for hours a day, either via radio or CNN, is spouting his fearful and semi-hysterical ravings, it lends a certain amount of credibility to that fear and intolerance. People watch Bill O’Reilly, too, and seem to think that he sticks to the facts. But these two aren’t reporters. Their shows are commentary, not news, and if they screw up a fact or two, they’re not obliged to go back and correct them. But they have prime-time slots on news networks. It can be confusing. A viewer can watch and adopt some of the attitudes for his own, thinking that perhaps fear and intolerance are OK to give in to. And perhaps acting out of those attitudes.

What if you’re Muslim and happen to be channel-surfing one night – you see Keith Ellison on the tube and you think, you know, how cool is that, right? First Muslim elected to the U.S. Congress. Excellent. So you keep watching, and you see that Ellison’s being bashed on a national news network for his religious practices and beliefs.

Would that make you want to go right out and join the military? Or would it make you want to shut up completely about your spiritual beliefs, no matter how peaceful and nonviolent you are as a person?

Intolerance is not helping. Fear is repelling the very people we need the most in Iraq.

Used to be Glenn Beck was an annoyance to me. Now I struggle against active antipathy (a.k.a. the urge to find a large rock and throw it through the TV screen.) And people say that liberals are a danger to the country, hurting the cause of freedom and democracy. Piffle.

I am often reminded of an anecdote that I read a while ago – I think it was Riverbend who wrote it, but really it could have come from anywhere. It was about a house that was being searched – very late at night – by an American patrol squad, with one Iraqi translator.

There was a lot of chaos. There was a lot of tension, and a lot of shouting. It seemed to me that a single misstep, a single itchy trigger finger, thrown knife, or lobbed loogy might have resulted in the death of the entire family. Because no one speaks the language, and what may have been "Don't shoot!" may have been interpreted as something completely different.

There was a Star Trek Next Generation episode (“Loud As A Whisper”), where the Enterprise is escorting a highly effective negotiator to a planet decimated by civil war. (I'm gonna spoil it here, by the way.) This negotiator can neither hear nor speak; he communicates by the use of three very special translators who have direct telepathic communication to him – a sort of Grecian Chorus. But they get blown up early in the episode. To attempt the negotiation, the mediator has to teach the two parties sign language in order to communicate. Through this learning process, the two representatives come to realize that they share more than they thought, and begin to take the first steps towards peace.

If we want to help Iraqis (which is not necessarily the case if you're in the executive branch of the United States government today) we have to speak the language. We’ve destroyed their country and blown their lives apart. Learning the language, however difficult and alien it might seem, is the least we can do. And maybe, in the course of learning their language, we might learn something about them, too.

final report

2007-02-05T10:00:00.000-05:00

... on NaYoPracMo.

I made all 31 practices - with a couple of two-practice days thrown in for good measure. Granted, the last one was after midnight, but I’m counting it. It was, after all, 40 minutes, even if it did start at 12:05. I was just… er, well… unavoidably detained. I didn’t ditch the yoga, I just had to postpone it a little.

And somehow I ended up with a short restorative on February 1st. Midnight yoga is interesting. The house is silent and dark. My mind suspends harsh judgements about strength and flexibility – after all, I’m practicing at midnight, and it’s not exactly a high point in my day in terms of energy. Body says, “Hey, this is more than I expected to get. Cool. Nice. Thanks.”

Practicing daily has brought a small but vital revelation in terms of body development and maintenance. See, I always thought that skipping a day here and there would be ok, just because I needed to rest, I was so tired, blah blah. And it is ok, really. But by not skipping, I still tend to the areas that need help – my hamstrings, inner groins, back and shoulders, for the most part. Oh, and my head. You know, the whole, letting-the-thoughts-go-for-a-little-while thing. So I’m offering my body some extra blood flow and flexibility, and I’m giving my brain a little break at the same time. What could be bad about that, even if I do start off tired? By the end, I might still be tired, but I’m generally not quite so hostile about it.

So by continuing to pay attention to those muscle groups daily – even to a small degree – I’m not having to take the one step backward for every two steps forward. It’s more like taking smaller steps consistently, in the right direction.

And I know I can do it now – daily practice, that is. Over the last month I’ve practiced in all kinds of different conditions – sleepy, whiny, sick-ish, distracted, bloated, slightly intoxicated in one form or another (obviously I skipped the balance poses), and of course the times when I got a good, sweet, challenging practice in at just the right time of day.

In terms of follow-through and commitment, this is … well, not exactly momentous, but it’s a big improvement over my usual manic project initiations – the ones that usually either fall flat or end up so overwhelming that I freak out about them and stop enjoying myself. (Manic = panic; it’s only a matter of time.)

*****

RB transferred to another location in the company – it cuts her commute down by more than half, and it gives her room to move up, which is something she never would have had here, no matter how long she stayed. I’ll miss her, even though we’ve promised to keep in touch. (Next Friday night will be pizza and movies at her house. With a big fluffy guest bed. Yummy.)

So, speaking of projects, I thought it would be appropriate for me to initiate and coordinate her going-away luncheon at the plant. It was considerably healthier than folks were used to, but I did it for her anyway, and the rest of them can kiss my ass. But that engendered some deadline-oriented stress that I had to work through last week, on top of lost work – mine and Brian’s – due to one illness or another and weather-panic school closings.

I don’t think anyone ended up with food poisoning. I didn’t bake this time (oh, the horror!), but the cake I bought was a big hit.

It was also a lovely excuse to finally buy a 6-quart slow cooker. I’ll be doing a chicken tomorrow for dinner, I think. What a concept – Sunday-style dinner on Tuesday night. Luscious.

So NaYoPracMo is officially over, and I’m maintaining daily practice. Because, you know, it feels good, whether I do fifteen minutes, forty minutes, or two hours.

Oh, and also because I’ve dropped two jeans sizes over the last six months. Nice incentive, that.

Worst. Dream. Ever.

2007-01-31T09:55:00.000-05:00

*note: copious amounts of profanity below.*

I've not been sleeping well lately. Duck had not just one but two accidents Monday night – or was it Sunday? The last few days have kinda run together. Maybe that accounts for it, I don’t know.

I don’t remember the run-up to this dream. But I found myself in a custody battle over my daughter with a woman who’s not even part of my family.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this girl before, who’s now working in the Lab part-time while Chatty Co-Worker is on medical leave for her broken hip. I’ve tried to avoid it, but to understand this dream, I think I have to give you at least a sketch. Hmm, what to name her? This is tough. I don’t want to be negative, really I don’t. And I suppose she must have her good points, it’s just that I can’t think of them now.

She has two kids. She works two jobs (so, OK, she’s industrious, there’s a plus.) It’s pretty much common knowledge that her husband is a drug addict – although she attributes this to his back problems, to which she also attributes his inability to work. Hence, the two jobs. The youngest, a boy, is home with his dad, with very little supervision, if any. The eldest, a girl, recently started public school. The school has already taken an interest in her, because she’s lagging behind a little – she had also stayed home with her dad in early childhood. Which is fine. but I don’t get the impression there was a lot of early education going on.

Back in September she brought in a picture of the girl, who is really awfully cute, and in the background all you could see was piles and piles of unwashed laundry. Used to drive my friend RB nuts when the kids would come in to visit – she’d say, with a suspicious tearful shine to her eyes, “They’re so sweet. I just want to take them home, buy them clothes, and give them a bath.”

We’ll call her Sheri. (Names have, of course, been changed.) Her own hygiene issues are fairly pronounced. She does a great job with makeup – really, she does – but then I got stuck next to her at a meeting and realized that the makeup and perfume is masking something kinda funky.

Coupla years back I remember she came in with a black eye. Ran into a door, she said, or some such nonsense.

There’s something wrong with the plumbing in her house, and she says she doesn’t have the money to fix it. So they have intermittent water, hence the hygiene issues.

Anyway, at some point I stopped feeling sorry for her. Now I fight off annoyance. Suffice to say that I think the kids are being neglected in lots of ways, and it infuriates me to no end. Don’t have the money to fix your water? Ask for help. There are tons of social services around to help out with that, especially if your husband is on disability. Can’t come up with ten bucks to get your daughter to a doctor to look at a below-the-waist irritation? Ask me. Ask anyone; we’d be happy to drop off the money at the doctor’s office. We’re suckers for kids around here.

Stuck in a dead-end marriage with a drug addict who beats up on you occasionally? Get out, for your kids’ sake, if for no one else’s.

You can love your kids all you want – but if you can’t manifest that love in their lives, it’s not going to do them much good.

But you know, I shouldn’t judge. I know that. And I know she’s got some serious problems in her life, and I should be trying to focus on compassion for her, for her kids, and even for her husband.

My subconscious, however, seems to disagree.

As I said, I don’t remember the run-up, or how the situation evolved. All I know is that I dreamed she had somehow gotten custody of my daughter. It was temporary custody while I worked it out with the court system, but there was nothing I could do to get her back while I waited for a hearing.

I knew D was living in this cesspool. I knew she was running around unsupervised with the father there, at risk for the gods only know what kind of danger. I knew there was a good chance she’d end up with lice. I knew she wouldn’t have gotten a bath more than once a week. (I admit that I bathe my daughter once a day whether she needs it or not.) I knew they were giving her junk food and undiluted juice and probably soda and parking her in front of the TV for hours, until she got bored and probably started going through cabinets and experimenting with cleaning supplies and…

Oh God but it was awful. I can’t even express the feeling; there isn’t a single word in the English language, or in any language that I know, to do this feeling justice. Desperate, terrified rage. Helpless in the face of unfeeling, misguided bureaucracy – and of course, more scared for my daughter than for myself. And those words don’t really begin to describe it. I wanted to slam my head against a wall to make it stop.

In the dream, someone mentioned that it might not be a good idea for me to see Sheri at work. I said no, I needed to deal with this and be able to stay calm so I could eventually get my daughter back.

But Sheri’s expression when she saw me was smug. Sneering. Arrogant. She was pleased I was so anguished. I knew from her face that the only reason she had my daughter was because she could. Because she wanted me not to have her. And that was the only reason. My daughter, as an object, to be used to hurt someone else.

“Goddamn you,” I hissed. “You have two kids already you don’t ever see. They’re dirty, you’re dirty, you don’t even know my daughter and how beautiful and wonderful and special she is, you’re just using her for the money or the tax deduction or whatever the fuck you think you’re getting out of this, maybe even just to piss me off because of what I have and you don’t. Stop smirking, you stupid fucking bitch, and give me back my daughter!”

They had to pull me off of her. Apparently I did not remain calm. And even as I was trying to beat the crap out of her, some part of me knew that it wouldn’t do any good, and that it wouldn’t get my daughter back.

I woke up screaming and sobbing, and so incredibly grateful that it was just a dream. Grateful that I’d had to change the sheets twice that night because of the accidents she’d had. Grateful that I was in the blessed partnership of parenthood with Brian, that I got to give her baths and make her dinner and share naps with her, and keep her active and learning and growing. And clean, for fuck’s sake. Clean and safe and loved.

I’m sure there’s a lot I’m supposed to learn from this dream. To be grateful for the challenges I have as a mother. To learn compassion for Sheri’s children, and to say mantras for them, because they could be my kids, you know? And really, if you think about it, they are. They’re mine and yours and everyone’s. A child neglected is a sin against the world.

In this case, I’m grateful the school is stepping in to question her parenting. Maybe she’ll get the help she needs but for some reason doesn’t know to ask for.

I suppose this has been lurking around the dark places in my head for a while now. Sorry to have vomited it out here, but you know, sometimes I just have to get it out of my system and get some sympathy.

heavy work, light blog

2007-01-29T09:12:00.000-05:00

So can you believe I actually spend last Thursday and Friday deep in the trenches of document control and corrective actions? Wow. What a pain in the ass. By the time I got home Friday I had the makings of a fantastic headache from eye strain. I’m continually grateful for the wonders of modern pharmaceutical technology.

Still practicing daily. Evening practices Friday and Sunday, book-ending a kick-ass two hour practice on Saturday morning. Hip flexors are still sore. Sunday was a nice thirty minutes on the mat. Sun saluations sprinkled with some interesting variations, legs up the wall, nothing too strenuous but not exactly low-energy either.

Duck and I slept for three hours yesterday afternoon. I don’t think she was feeling very well, and she looked like crap this morning – as much as a gorgeous three-year old can, anyway. No energy, not even enough to whine – highly unusual for her. Some tummy issues (I won’t go into details) and constant complaining about her belly yesterday.

I made an Executive Suggestion. In between Duckie’s likely illness and the negative wind chill this morning, I thought it would be a good idea if she and Brian stayed home. See, I know that cold doesn’t get you sick, but I also know that an immune system can be lowered when a body is trying to keep itself warm for long periods of time. (This is one of the main reasons I don’t run in the wintertime. Oh, and I’m a total wimp. I hate that sharp pain in the chest when you suck in that cold air. It makes me hostile. Just not worth it.)

If we’d taken her to school, there was a good chance I’d get a call sometime this morning to come pick her up. I’d have to take more vacation time (10 hours already this year.) This way, they’re both warm and happy at home, and Duckie doesn’t spread whatever intestinal illness is troubling her. The Right Thing To Do. Somehow I don’t think Brian minded so much. He’s the one who would have to be outside all day in this bitter cold.

So, OK, three more days of NaYoPracMo. It’s not like I’m jonesing for January to be over. I think I might actually make it a goal for the next month, too. You know, just to see.

West Asheville Yoga is offering a free yoga day in a couple of weeks. One of the mini-classes is a half-hour intro to ashtanga. The regular class is an evening during the week, which would kind of be a pain in the ass to schedule. So I’d like to go to this one to see if I like the teacher first. Granted, a half an hour ain’t a lot, but there’s a short anusara class afterwards, so it’ll still be worth the trip.

Anyway. I think I might try to get some more work done today. I seem to be on a roll.

keeping on keeping on

2007-01-24T09:57:00.000-05:00

I watched some of the SOTU last night. It was worth the time spent watching people mill around in the House just to see Pelosi and Cheney share a podium above Dubya.

I have some doubts about the credibility of Bush’s proposed policy changes. As I told Kiki this morning, I could spend hours deconstructing the details, but I ain’t got hours. I suppose what irks me the most is knowing that he wouldn’t be proposing these policy changes at all if Democrats weren’t in the majority. Never mind just doing what’s right – do it because it will get you some much-needed political points. Maybe it doesn’t matter – maybe it matters most that the improvements are made at all. (The health care proposals, by the way, do nothing but piss me off.)

Practice yesterday was low energy, which didn’t surprise me. But I did make it through, skipping the the extra push-up from chatauranga to down dog. Just didn’t have it in me. Pleasantly sore this morning.

I wonder sometimes if I’m too attached to the whole concept of NaYoPracMo. Is this an ego thing? I know it’s good for me, I know it’s important to maintain integrity and commitment when I start something, but I guess I wonder how much of it is tied into the struggle for Achievement. It’s kinda tempting to make it to January 30th and then skip the 31st, just on principle.

Speaking of morning, today was better. I came out of the shower to Duckie standing in the hallway half-awake, which is always a good time to Impose My Will on her. Eventually we turned it into a race against Dad to see who could get out of the house first. Somehow Brian morphed into a bear, and we were tip-toeing around trying to hurry silently out the door. Good energy, fun, and highly effective. This morning my gratitude meditation was for the continuing support of my husband and you guys, because y’all always seem to chime in when I most need help. (My daughter thanks you, too, even though she doesn’t know it.)

Brian has been busting ass around the house. It’s so easy to miss the extra work he’s been doing, but the fact remains that last night he made dinner, packed my lunch for today, did all the dishes (handwashing, too), gave Duckie her bath, read her books, and pretty much put her to bed. I did some laundry, read my book, ate some cookies (BAD Andi, BAD!) and went to bed early. Just, you know, wow.

Nice, especially after listening to a massive freak-out on the way home because she wanted to go to the grocery store instead of going home. I swear I thought she was going to scream herself sick. Time-out as soon as we walked in the door. I gave her a chunk of our favorite bread to munch on, too, just to start evening out the blood sugar.

I’ve finally gotten around to packing a snack box in the trunk of the car (pretzels, goldfish crackers and raisins) to help stave off her after-school hunger. I’m usually starving after work, too, so the least I can do is make sure we’re both fed on the way home so we don’t end up peckish (read: psychotic) before dinner. Hmm. Might be a good excuse to make some granola.

I realized yesterday that things kinda started to roll back downhill right around Christmas, when I felt guilty about not spending enough time with her. As soon as that happened, I got emotionally plugged into her tantrums and couldn’t pull free of her anger and frustration. Remaining calm was about impossible, because I was so involved in blaming myself for her behavior. It might have been appropriate, but it was completely ineffective. That seemed to improve as soon as I became aware of it – not to mention that there’s a bit more time now that the holidays are finally, officially, Over.

I still haven’t finished painting the hallway. Gotta finish that before I can start on the bedroom.

another quiet day

2007-01-23T13:22:00.000-05:00

It’s not like I’m taking a vow of silence or anything. It’s just that I don’t want to spread around my less-than-optimal mood. And silence also seems to prevent me from picking up everyone else's crappy attitudes - my own is lousy enough already.

Skipped afternoon practice yesterday in favor of an early Duck pick-up and a brief discussion with Miss L about the new brass at school. Miss L is singularly unimpressed, which does not bode well for ongoing stability. And just when I was getting all safe and comfortable again. Shit.

We went to the grocery store afterwards and Duckie was fairly well-behaved until we hit the checkout line. Then it became a struggle to keep her in the cart. I’m guessing her fatigue, hunger, and lingering resentment over yesterday morning’s spanking won out over her generally sunny disposition. And how can you expect a three-year-old to resist those damned toys they have hanging in arm’s reach of the checkout line? Bad enough that the candy is down at eye level for kids who are walking, but stringing up kid-bait even for the children in the carts? Shameless.

It did spark an idea, though. Working from the tips I got yesterday from Yogamum and SB_Gypsy, I talked to her once we got home about the balloons she likes so much at the store. (Even the little ones on sticks – she doesn’t care as long as it’s filled with air.) Our deal is that if she helps get herself dressed in the mornings for the rest of the week, I’ll take her back to that very same store and she can pick out a balloon.

This morning she grabbed her favorite jeans out of the dirty clothes hamper in the bathroom. (My fault; I should have hidden them better.) Obviously, they were not what she chose the night before. Pick your battles, mom, I told myself.

“OK,” I said. “Wear them if you want. But if you want to wear them, you can put them on by yourself.”

And she did.

*****

I’ve been exhausted for the last two days, most likely due to the female cycle thing. So, slow and short practices Sunday and Monday night. Back to afternoon practice today. Kinda nice, though, to remind myself that I can have a late-night practice every now and again, without panicking because I don’t have the time or the space for an afternoon session.

So far, 22 practices in 22 days. Un-freaking-believable. And I’ve lost count of the number of times I would have skipped doing anything if it hadn’t been for this commitment.

*****

I just want a nap. Remember back in school, when they told you to put your head down on your desk? I’d love a good half an hour of that right now.

Maybe this is about caffeine – I’m back down to a biggish cup, and that only in the mornings. (Last week was pretty crazed as far as the caffeine goes. I actually woke up Saturday morning with a dehydration headache because I’d had nothing but coffee all day on Friday. Except for the wine, that is.)

So maybe that’s it. Maybe I just need to find some B complex, see if I’ve got any tucked away in my desk. Maybe I just need to get off my ass, drink more water, and do a for-real yoga practice instead of pissing and moaning about low energy levels.

Bleh.

mad mommy monday

2007-01-22T08:36:00.000-05:00

Today will be a silent day for me, at least verbally. One of those things where if you can’t say something nice, blah blah blah. My boss is already grousing over in her corner of the lab and what I want to tell her would get me fired for sure.

Trip to Charlotte was great, as usual. I practiced every day (somehow I’m still maintaining NaYoPracMo), we walked around one of Charlotte’s posh neighborhoods, enjoying the relatively mild weather and brilliant sunlight, and we went to see Children of Men. It’s unbelievably good. Violent, but not gratuitously so – and some moments of breathtaking beauty. I’m still processing it. It’s important, though. Despite its post-apocalyptic setting, it brings the reality of our world as it is now right in front of your face. The social commentary is a little heavy-handed, but I’ll forgive almost anything to see Michael Caine play an old stoner hippie – and so spectacularly well.

Cuaron deserves an Oscar. So does Clive Owen. They won’t even be nominated, though, given the late release and sadly understated publicity for this film.

Anyway. Brian and Duck had a wonderful weekend together, too. Great for both of them, because since the Spanking, she’s wanted nothing to do with him.

Baby A hung out with us for a while on Sunday afternoon while Todd and Pamela did some more house-hunting around here. Rough process, especially in the winter; there’s just not much on the market.

This morning was wretched. Waking up my own self was manageable. Duckie was having none of it. It resulted in another spanking – this one administered myself. The threat was out of my mouth before I could stop it, and I’m not going to threaten something and not follow through. She calmed down and paid attention fairly quickly afterwards, but then freaked out demon-style in the car on the way to school because she wanted her *&#@((^ mittens.

God, there has just got to be a better way to deal with this. I suppose I just need to get up earlier and get ready myself before trying to rouse the rabble. Get over this whiny feeling of “it’s unfair!” that I’m the one who has to do it. I’m the morning person, after all, even if three days a month I couldn’t feel less like one.

Make sure she gets to bed earlier. Start the night before? Talk about setting aside her pretty nightgowns for a while until she’s old enough to get dressed on her own in the morning. Then again, how do we administer such a policy, where the consequences of bad behavior in the morning aren’t put into place until later that night? I’m all about some natural consequences, but what do you do when she just won’t get out of bed?

I’m totally at a loss.

So I’m wretched this morning, too. I’m deathly pale from monthly anemia, I haven’t even brushed my hair this morning, and I’m just all-around cranky. But I did manage to shower and brush my teeth. There’s that. And I’m not living in a refugee camp. There’s that, too. Hard to see Children of Men and forget the reality of my own dumb-lucky situation as a middle-class American citizen.

So, OK. Pony up and get over it. Happy *&^%*# Monday, y'all.

dashing off

2007-01-19T10:32:00.000-05:00

Late-night practice yesterday – I said ok, 15 minutes minimum, went for 40 or so. Loooong deep seated fwd bend, heavenly savasana. Nice. Don’t know how the hell I’m gonna fit one in today – will be picking Duckie and her best friend D up this afternoon – I leave in about an hour. Running errands, keeping the peace, packing for Charlotte, I don’t know. Might have to fit in 15 minutes before I leave and 15 minutes once I get there – which may be a good way to bookend a two-hour drive.

Er… too much to say, too much to say, too much to say… what song is that from – Dave Matthews Band, something?

Do I have time to – well, maybe, ok, I can get this done, then run the backup, then do the certs, then maybe I’ll take a minute to fax –

What?

I’m sorry, am I babbling?

Anyway. Gotta run. Have a great weekend. Enjoy your snow, if you get any.

don't forget - colbert v. o'reilly TONIGHT

2007-01-18T14:52:00.000-05:00

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT:

Stephen Colbert and Bill O'Reilly trade appearances tonight on Fox News and Comedy Central.

I can't even find words to explain how bizarre and awesome this is. Kinda like post-post-modern self-referential self-involved comedic punditry.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to watch O'Reilly tonight, just to see Stephen Colbert. And yeah, I'll stay up late to see Colbert just to see how Papa Bear manages.

This may be boring - they may just spend the entire time agreeing with each other. What a shame that would be.

Or they could end up throwing chairs.

(I can always hope...)

Day care lament

2007-01-18T09:24:00.000-05:00

Yoga update first:

Daily practice is lovely. Yogamum pointed out that we’re halfway through. I read somewhere that it takes at least 21 days to establish a new habit, so maybe 31 days of yoga, in one form or another, will help set that into my daily schedule.

Practice yesterday was stiff at first but loosened up nicely. Marked improvement in upper body strength, probably because I chose not to jump back into plank, which seems to be harder on the arms (not to mention the joints.) So I suppose it kept a little in the tank for slowly lowering down and rolling into updog without touching anything to the ground. Just about every time.

I kept my head down when I lunged forward so I actually saw where my feet were going instead of doing it by feel. It improved my confidence in the standing poses immensely, and it meant I didn’t worry about alignment so much when I came up into warrior ii. Just keeping a visual awareness made all the difference.

Balance was totally there. I had to stop myself from getting all uppity lest I lose focus and fall over.

I skipped the last pose in the standing sequence and used the time to get deeper into that lovely pigeon hip stretch. Knees were almost getting pissy about it, so I pulled back a little.

Bow pose great.

So I ended up sore, even afterwards, but at least my back is starting to release a little. I did some gentle stuff on the bolster to help keep the hips open, and a hot hot bath last night with some Batherapy mineral salt in the water really helped.

On a side note, does anyone know why that stuff works? You know, like Epsom salts are also supposed to relieve muscle pain and tension, but I have no idea why it would work.

Left knee is grumbling. I don’t want to take ibuprofen because I think if I do, I’ll stop being aware of it and strain it further. The wet weather doesn’t help.

*****
Duckie’s school is pissing us off – the teachers are great, and they love her, but they’re closing early on Friday afternoon to have a staff meeting and they didn’t notify us until yesterday. Two days is not enough notice. I believe I actually reached the point of “sputtering mad” when I was on the phone with the school director yesterday.

This morning there was some precipitation. Sleet when we left the house, turned to rain, no big deal. Itty bitty slick spots over bridges. No problems getting to school.

They were in the gym, and Miss B told me when we came in at 7:45 that they weren’t opening until 8. (Delayed opening.)

This was not on the news. This was not on the Internet. Apparently they made the decision to delay opening roughly around 7 AM.

I dropped her off anyway. There were two other kids there, one of whom was her best friend D, and what the hell were we supposed to do for 15 minutes? Wait outside? Be late for work? Get myself in another attendance mess? Miss B understood that – she was being put in a terribly uncomfortable situation herself, and didn’t like it one bit.

I was fuming.

So I’m taking Duckie's best friend D tomorrow with Duckie and we’ll run some errands, maybe bake some cookies, let them play together while I get packed for Charlotte. Duckie will be pleased. D will likely be violent – he’s been bashing her over the head with various toys lately and we can’t quite figure out why. Anyway, it doesn’t fly at school and it ain’t gonna fly at my house, as much as I adore him. I foresee a lot of time-outs in our very near future.

Things seem to be stabilizing a little. Especially since I discovered these little dark chocolate sticks tucked away in the cupboard after Dad and Judy’s visit. Rademaker’s. Perfect. Little bits of chocolate, just enough to tame the Bitch Beast, and fairly low in calories to boot. I’m gonna have to find out where she got them.

Weight is somehow stable. The goal for the holidays was just to not gain – and I managed that. I think I’ll stick with that until it starts to warm up again. I can’t see a lot of weight loss happening until my body starts to believe it’s spring and can shed the winter pounds.

Enough bitching for today. Anyone wanna bitch, join in – misery loves company!

be gentle. and don't throw the plate.

2007-01-16T10:46:00.000-05:00

Afternoon practice yesterday. I ditched the extra arm strengtheners from plank to downward dog. They wore me out in the first five minutes, and this time, it wasn’t why I was on the mat.

The spot in my back eased up considerably by the end of practice (only to tighten up again overnight.)

Knee is still a bit squishy.

It shames me to say it, but I haven’t done sun salutations in so long (like, you know, ten years or so) that I can’t remember the sequence. Maybe this week I can re-learn them. That would be cool. I wouldn’t mind making up my own practice sequences this week. It worked pretty well for the shorter practices last week - sun salutations would be a good building block.

As I wander in and out of the blogs of the other folks participating in NaYoPracMo, I’ve noticed some lovely common themes. Moderation. Restraint. Listening. Awareness. Focus. Intent. Compassion for the self.

Back when I was into stage combat, I took a three-week stunt workshop in Seattle. I discovered that I was absolutely terrified of rapelling and high falls. Just couldn’t do them. Some stuntwoman I turned out to be.

I learned that keeping your abs engaged while driving (especially on the turns) improves your driving ability. Doesn’t have to be doing 180’s and 360’s either (although damn, but those are fun! When you do them on purpose, that is.)

I remember what the teacher said about safety. You want to be able to go to work the next day. If you get hurt, you can’t work. If you don’t work, you don’t get paid. Also if you get hurt, you get a lousy reputation as a stuntperson and no one will hire you.

I keep that in mind during just about every practice. If I get hurt, I can’t practice tomorrow.

I daresay there are some other yogis and yoginis who are thinking the same thing this month. It’s pretty freaking cool, if you ask me.

*****

Things at home have not stabilized yet. I didn’t expect them to, really, not yet. I’ve been snappy and he’s been smart-assy and we’ve both been picking fights. I’m not sure why, but this has been going on for at least a month. (Happy holidays, right?)

There are two words that shut my brain down entirely and force blood into my head so quickly that I can actually hear it pounding in my ears.

“You always ---“

I rarely remember the rest of the sentence. All I hear is the pounding of blood in my ears and a voice inside saying, “Don’t you dare throw that plate. Don’t do it. Breathe. Remain calm. Don’t throw the fucking plate.”

I only know one person who says that to me anymore, and that’s my husband. It would be so much easier for me to hear, “Sometimes you…” or “it really bugs the crap out of me when you…” I mean, come on, there are lots of things I screw up in my personal relationships, especially at home. He screws up, too. But for some reason, it infuriates me beyond words to have those mistakes describe my entire spectrum of behavior. It’s not fair.

Last night we agreed to start over, clean slate. After Heather’s party, the Holidays were officially Over. Maybe we can spend some time reducing stressors (budgets, anyone?) and reconnecting. I’m just so emotionally drained that it’s hard to generate any energy for it. Yoga recharges to some degree, but not enough to keep wading through this relentless downhill current to reach him across the river.

I’m just tired, is all. The Charlotte trip is this weekend. Maybe that will help. Or maybe I’ll just feel guilty all weekend. Crap. I foresee lots of chocolate in my very near future.

showboating

2007-01-15T09:47:00.000-05:00

Well, it’s over. The dessert table was spectacular. OK, maybe it wasn’t exactly spectacular – I didn’t use fireworks. But I did light a lovely pillar candle at one end.

Sam came over as promised on Friday night. We worked steadily (her salsa and ambrosia, my scones and spongecake), blabbing pretty much constantly, ‘til around 3 in the morning. Not exactly the early night I’d hoped for, but very productive. Conversation ranged from creative processes to food to mental illnesses and coping with them, to … well, it was all over the place. I think it was the first time we’d had extended time together for like three years or so, since Duckie was born. Exhilarating, inspiring, and comforting all at the same time – that’s Sam. She’s blogging again, btw.

We finished the sauces and assembled the cakes on Saturday morning. She showed me how to temper the egg mixture in pastry cream, and the stuff came together magically – she used a different technique than JOC, and it was perfectly fine. (Asking for help + accepting the offer + letting go of the Plan = happy Andi and great desserts.)

I should also mention that using a thin layer of frosting to seal in crumbs, then refrigerating a cake for an hour or before finishing the frosting does WONDERS for its cooperation. I usually hate frosting cakes. This time, it was actually fun, not to mention yummy, as I’d just finished the homemade cream cheese icing with an extravagant amount of freshy chopped orange zest.

More help showed up Saturday when we finally made it to the hall. We had to stall Heather for a half an hour or so before we were ready for the big reveal. She’d brought her entire liquor cabinet, so that had to be set up as well, along with the rest of the food. Still, if I needed an extra pair of hands to help transfer a cake or lug another box of supplies in from the car, they were always there. It was like running my own catering company for a couple of days. I even wore my semi-sexy khaki apron to keep the sauces and frosting off my party clothes.

Sam and I shared many joyful and high-spirited hugs and high-fives as the spread evolved.

In the end, the spread was artfully and elegantly arranged, the cakes were quite lovely, the scones were snapped up immediately, and the bride seemed pleased. The cheesecake, by the way, was worth every second of work. I think I may have had three slices, on top of sampling the other desserts and yummy food.

One guy there, I have no idea what his name was, but I’m fairly certain that my blood pressure would have shot through the roof had I spent more than five minutes in his presence, approached the dessert table with a plate in hand, saying, “Oh, yay! More junk food!”

“Excuse me, are you talking about the dessert table?” I inquired politely.

“Well, yeah,” he said.

I proceeded to enumerate all the non-junky qualities of the desserts presented, focusing mainly on the nutritive assets of each cake.

But what really got me teeth-gritting mad was how anyone could have called that table “junk” of any kind. I had set up sturdy cardboard boxes of varying heights turned upside down, then covered them and the rest of the table with these gorgeous plum-colored damask tablecloths that Judy passed down to me the week before (totally by luck.) The cakes went on top of that, the pillar candle with its own statuesque holder to hold it up, small plates of chocolate-chip orange scones and ghirardelli chocolates tucked into available spaces to add some flavor, ceramic crocks to hold the sauces for the cheesecake, and…

I mean, it was really nice. And he said, “junk food.” &^%er.

************

Practice on Friday afternoon was short, but sweet. Twenty minutes. I did unroll the mat, but I didn’t change out of work clothes – I was wearing good clothes for yoga anyway.

Somehow I managed a fifteen-minute practice Saturday night after we got home from the party. It was kinda fun – I knew I was entirely too full to do much, so I designed the very gentle poses as if I were about 7 months pregnant. Embarrassing, yes, but effective.

I had to answer my own question of what constitutes a practice. Ten minutes? Fifteen? State of mind? Breath?

I decided that the minimum (which could change, of course) was fifteen minutes, and should involve (if possible) the use of some kind of floor covering, just to make things a little special. I used a rug on Saturday night. And my happy bolster.

But I managed it.

Sunday was a Sara Ivanhoe tape with my yoga friend Pamela (who was, you might remember, staying with us for the weekend for some house-hunting.) It was lovely. Not too much, about 40 minutes of lunges, twists, standing poses, and abs. And since it wasn’t a challenging routine, I could really focus on posture, breath, support of the legs, subtle stretches that I didn’t get a chance to enjoy during faster Kest-style vinyasas, and a more correct form for the abdominal work. It was a great way to move back towards a deeper practice this week. Lovely.

The muscles in the middle of my back, especially on my right side, are very stiff today. I’m guessing it has to do with spending hours working at a countertop that’s just an inch too high, not to mention the several hours doing dishes to keep up with the next pastry project. I managed to get six or seven solid hours of sleep over the last two nights, and I think it gave those muscles a chance to be a little too still for a little too long.

I’ll do the third Kest video today – it’s got a lot of good twists to help get some blood flow back to that spot.

Work beckons. I’d like to tell it to f*&$ off. However *cough* there are bills to be paid.

P.S. Daffodils are trying to come up in my front yard. This is NUTS.

Wiped. Out.

2007-01-12T14:09:00.001-05:00

So tired.

Had the shortbread crust for cheesecake ready to go last night after Duck went to sleep. Patted it in the pan as required, baked for 10 minutes at 400 degrees. Burned it, literally, to a crisp.

Had to start again on the crust. At least this time I’d had some practice. This one went better. I bumped the heat down a bit (obviously my oven’s running a tad hot) and kept an eye on it.

The cheesecake recipe requires an ungody amount of beating. Careful beating, too – cakes are so freaking persnickety. Doubt I’ll be making cheesecake again anytime soon, but this one turned out well (more or less – at least I think so.) I set a pan of boiling water in the oven to give it some moisture as it cooled – it’s been so dry here lately and the last thing i wanted to see was a big cracked cake when I woke up in the morning. Monster of a cheesecake, too – New York style, in memory of the trip to NYC the bride and I took years and years ago. Maybe it’ll taste good, maybe not. You know at this point I’m not entirely sure I care much. Drench old shoe leather in chocolate and raspberry sauce and it will likely improve substantially. We will have both. And caramel.

Maybe four hours of sleep from having to babysit the slow-baking behemoth. Back up at quarter to six, spent plenty of time with Duck, and she still pitched a fit when it came time to brush her hair and put her shoes and socks on. I have never seen a mosey like this girl’s mosey. It’s spectacular, and irritating as hell.

I had a shocking, nauseating urge to paddle her bottom with the flat back of the brush. It was terrifying. Wasn’t it just Tuesday that we had to resort to a real spanking? Wasn’t it just three days ago that I was in tears because I couldn’t find any way to make her comply?

I didn’t dare threaten it – because I would have had to go through with it. I don’t want to be that parent. I could never be that parent. Could I? Oh God oh God oh God please there has got to be another way, I just have to find it! It’s just that sometimes I feel like I’m the only one looking.

Get up earlier? Hold her juice hostage until she’s dressed, do we really have to go through this shit again? And for crying out loud, why does it always seem like it’s my fault that we get out of the house ten minutes late, no matter how hard I try?

*****

Tried 10 minutes of practice yesterday and ended up with 30 instead. How do you manage a 10 minute practice, anyway? Seems like you could do maybe five poses, if that. Six, if you rush them.. I don’t get it. I should try again this afternoon, though. In-depth practice tomorrow, and I’m damned tired, did I mention?

My friend Sam will be coming to pizza-movie night and to help with preparations for H’s wedding party. P and T and their baby A come in tomorrow afternoon. Our other friend W is also going to be staying with us, so that’s five adults, two kids, one bathroom. I’m kicking the guys out – they can piss off the back porch for all I care, we live in the country, after all, and it's not supposed to be all that cold.

I can’t wait for next week. No baking, but worse – in-depth budgeting. Get me a bucket. Bluurgh.

This is the first full week I’ve worked since mid-December. My eyes are drooping right down into the keyboard. Two more hours. (OK an hour and a half now.) I can manage here, then I go home, do the absolute minimum for house, dinner, and cakes, and go the fuck to bed. I’m better in the mornings anyway.

Saturday (crap, is that tomorrow?) will be fun anyway – a little bit of adult playtime, punctuated by test-driving these freaking cakes and indulging in things I shouldn’t be eating or drinking. And maybe another early night.

I’m gonna try to stop whining now.

I’m grateful for my tired eyes because it means I have a job.
I’m grateful for my tired body because I’ve used it to create spectacular baked goods for my friends.
I’m grateful for my resentful husband because it means he loves me and misses me.
I’m grateful for my maddeningly stubborn daughter because it means she is strong-willed and independent (and strangely clingy and affectionate all at the same time.)
I’m grateful for yoga because it allows me some time to float outside the confines of identity.

And I am totally grateful for diet Dr. Pepper. At this point I’m fairly certain it’s the only thing keeping my eyes open.

wisdom of the ages - or something

2007-01-11T11:13:00.000-05:00

Practice yesterday was about an hour. Decent balance, knee squishy. I enjoyed the bow pose because I discovered that the depth of the backbend can be controlled by the strength of the legs – and I had a little more strength in my legs yesterday than I’m used to, so I could really work the backbend. Moderately. No dizzies ;) (I know, I know, totally self-evident, but I'm a newbie.)

We all went shopping last night. Somewhat stressful, somewhat fun, and we managed. Bringing the family alleviates the guilt to a certain degree.

I think I’ll take Yogamum’s suggestion and indulge in a quick practice this afternoon, then take Duckie to the cake store with me to get some last-minute things. We’ll pick up Brian, go home, and spend some nice down time before she goes to bed and I start on the cheesecake.

I’m a little ahead of schedule. Since I have to take Duckie to her late-night bathroom break, I’m up ‘til 11 whether I want to be or not. Last night I had the second part of the carrot cake out of the oven by 10:45 (previously not scheduled until later this evening.) And it didn’t take but fifteen minutes or so to do the shortbread crust for the cheesecake.

Made-from-scratch sponge cake planned for tomorrow night. I’ve been told not to have anything going on in the house while it bakes – no traffic through the kitchen, no laundry, no dishwasher, to keep it from falling. Sheesh. And me, a multitasker. Well, hell, it’s only 25 minutes. I can be still for that long, surely.

It’s a fantastic thing to work with women who have been baking most of their lives. What little experience I have in cake-baking has been shored up by their knowledge. I got a recipe for an orange cream cheese icing for the carrot cake, as well as detailed instructions for mixing it, as well as things not to do. “The longer you beat it the thinner it gets,” said Mary Helen this morning.

Mom wasn’t much of a baker. I got maybe two recipes or meal ideas from her – a general idea of how to make pasgetti sauce, a killer recipe for sausage gravy, and a funky dish she called chicken scampi, even though there wasn’t any shrimp in it

So even though I didn’t learn from my natural mother, the wisdom is still there, just from different voices. I finally feel comfortable enough here (after 8 years) to ask for help and listen. It’s kinda cool – because it means that on some level, in some way, all of these women are my mothers.

*****

I have to admit that I spend entirely too much time wondering about how people managed before electric hand mixers. And how exactly they figured out that if you beat the shit out of a cake batter, it will rise better, or that if you beat cream or egg whites like there’s no tomorrow, you get whipped cream or meringue. Who thought this stuff up? Maybe I should take a closer look at the Gastronomique. Which is always fun, even if I don't find what I'm looking for.

yet another project

2007-01-10T08:33:00.000-05:00

Lots to do today. It would, of course, help if I would stop putting shit off.

Practice yesterday was significantly less hostile than the day before.

This morning was significantly less combative than yesterday’s, although I could hear her crying as I left the school. Heartwrenching. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong – except part of me thinks that working is the wrong thing to be doing. But then I’m pretty sure I couldn’t manage as a stay-at-home mom.

Looking forward to getting past this next baking project – three cakes for a friend’s wedding reception. Maybe chocolate chip orange scones, because I know the bride loves them. Brian came in last night, got a general idea of the organizational madness involved in said project, and said, “Good God, woman. Have you lost your mind?”

A brief verbal scuffle ensued. Given that I’d spent the last hour and a half in preparing recipes, reviewing techniques, and going over the shopping list (again) I could not help but resent his evaluation of the situation, simply on the basis of the paper scattered over the kitchen table.

“Look,” I said, gathering the sections together and shuffling them neatly with a satisfying *crack* on the table. “Boston Cream Pie, here. Carrot cake, here. New York Cheesecake, here. Sauces, shopping list, timetable. Maybe scones. This is how I do things. I’m just going over stuff so I don’t have to interrupt the process to buy something extra and write up recipes in bigger print.” (As I have mentioned, my failing eyesight and lack of kitchen space make this a critical piece of the preparation.)

I even have a binder to keep it all together. What’s the problem?

Oh. Yeah. I miss my family. That’s the problem.

Well, it’s a favor for a very dear friend. Saturday’s the deadline, so it’s not as if this is a long-term project, like a theater project might be. And this will effectively drain some of my stores of contraband sweets in the house.

It’s just that keeping up NaYoPracMo is tough this week. I’m feeling stretched a little thin. Illusory – what else would I be doing with the time? Logistically, this is the best use of the hour. Really. At least, that’s what I keep telling myself to get past the excuses.

Duckie has slept through the night the last few nights. So maybe I can manage morning practices again soon. Fingers crossed.

Work. Gotta run. Audit schedule, corrective actions, certifications, revisions – I have simply got to stop putting shit off.

two for one; and a lousy morning

2007-01-09T14:52:00.000-05:00

two practices in one day, that is.

yesterday's afternoon practice: i was hostile to the whole idea. there’s a long down dog in the first couple of minutes of the routine i'd chosen, and i heard my internal voice hollering: “i HATE yoga. this shit SUCKS. i’m so sick and tired of this crap. i can’t even breathe properly. i’m not warmed up and i don’t wanna be warmed up. this is so frigging annoying.”

ten minutes later, right around the time the warm-ups were over, that voice faded away. i went a bit too far in the camel backbend, though, and ended up with some dizziness and spots in front of my eyes. a tangible reminder of the necessity of moderation.

evening practice: after a quick dinner and putting the girl to bed, brian laid down with her (she’s afraid of the dark) to help her go to sleep – i won’t do it anymore, but to avoid unpleasantness at bedtime he sometimes will.

the house was quiet. the laundry wasn’t exactly done, but it wasn’t piling up, either, and i decided that my upper left back needed a little bit of love. i turned off some lights, lit a candle, spread a blanket on the floor and pulled out the bolster – the new one i got for Christmas.

nice, sweet, gentle restorative stuff. nothing to get me worked up, nothing to break a sweat, just some easy stretches and deep breathing in the silence of a sleeping house.

the new paint job is very soothing, especially in candlelight. if i could have picked colors for a yoga room, i would have picked those.

*****
today began with a thoroughly shitty morning. it involved a spanking. brian and i are both wrecked that we had to do it. i finally, truly understand the meaning of the phrase, “this hurts me…” etc.

i always wanted to be able to find other ways to discipline, you know? the last thing i ever wanted to do was to inflict pain on my child. but this is the second spanking so far in her life.

the first one was at the lake. we had gone there to see ducks or walk or something last spring, i think it was. she had run out into the road a few times over the week before, and she did it one last time there – into a road that is essentially a blind curve. i see cars fly around that curve on a regular basis.

i pulled her ungently out of the road and whacked her on her bottom. it startled her worse because she had just stopped wearing diapers and there was no protective padding between her bottom and the flat of my hand.

“We do not run out in the road. A car could come by and not see you. It could squish you. I would miss you terribly. We do not run out in the road. Ever.”

She hasn’t done it since, but I still hate that I had to spank to get her attention.

This morning she was having a fit because she didn’t want to get out of bed. It’s hard for me to blame her – I feel like that a lot, myself, but then I don’t really have the option of laying in bed ‘til whenever. Or, rather, I do have the option, but I like my job for the most part and I really like the paycheck and benefits.

We tried everything we knew. We tickled. We teased. We cajoled. We played Power Rangers. We were firm. We put her in time-out. . We tried to force-dress her. We threatened to hold her dolls and her puzzles hostage. She became increasingly hysterical. Screaming, crying, kicking, you know, just a shitty morning all around.

“What do we do?” I said. “I got nothin’.”

“I’m about ready to spank her,” said Brian.

“Oh, God,” I said. “There’s got to be…”

But there wasn’t. We had to go to work, she had to go to school, and we were already late because we’d tried so hard to do this without resorting to corporal punishment.

“OK,” I said. “We warn her first. Duckie, here’s the deal. You have to the count of three to get dressed, or you’ll get a spanking. One. Two. Three.”

More screaming and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

“I can’t watch this,” I said.

“I know. Go, and shut the door behind you,” he said.

I shut her bedroom door and started getting the rest of my stuff together. I clapped my hands over my ears. I just couldn’t handle hearing it. I wanted to puke.

After a few long long moments, Brian came out, visibly upset. I hugged him. “I’m so sorry,” I said.

I went back into her room and sat down next to the bed.

Through hitching, hacking sobs, she said, “Daddy spanked me!” and pointed at her bottom.

“Yes,” I said. “He did. Let’s make sure it never happens again. Come on, let’s get you dressed so you can get something to drink before we leave.” She was entirely amenable to this. I wanted to hold her and hug her and cry with her, but I think it would have defeated the purpose.

So I suppose I’ll be getting up a good fifteen minutes earlier, to start poking and prodding the lazy twins (he’s almost as bad as she is for laying in bed) before I get in the shower and start my own morning routine.

I hate it.

Guilt, practice, food, work. Bleh.

2007-01-08T09:35:00.000-05:00

I almost hate to blog my practice here because I know it likely bores the shit out of folks who don’t share my irritating obsession with yoga.

Side note: On the way in to work this morning, Brian says, “Remember there’s a right turn here.” “Yeah, I got it.” “Sorry,” he says, “It’s just that you were talking about yoga, so I thought I’d make sure you remembered the directions.” Does this man know me or what?

Daily practice since the first of the year. I’m not sure I even want to judge them in terms of “good” and “not good” – I mean, hell, I’m on the mat every day, so can a practice really ever be Bad? Maybe not as happy as another practice, but they’re all good anyway, just by being.

Two long practices this weekend. Frankly, I'm grateful it's Monday so I can downgrade back to an hour after work. I’m tired. Yesterday I got whiny at the beginning. “I really don’t want to do this. Damn it, what a pain in the ass this is. I hate the first ten minutes. I can’t even breathe through my nose in child's pose. Do I need a neti pot? What a pain in the ass this is.”

Then the nose cleared, the mind quieted, and the practice took over.

And damn, I was so freaking sore afterwards. It wasn’t a bad kind of sore – it was really more like, “Wow, my body didn’t break during [insert name of pose here]. Cool.” Also it was a good excuse to spend ten minutes in a mineral salt bath. Just enough to loosen me up enough to enjoy the soreness instead of being disabled by it.

Yogamum is faithfully keeping the NaYoPracMo blog updated, and it’s very inspiring to know that there are plenty of other folks who deal with these same challenges every day. I'd really love to figure out how to put the graphic in the sidebar, but the new Blogger Beta is messing with my head.

She mentioned a popular excuse for not practicing – “I’m full; I’ve just eaten.” You’re supposed to practice on an empty stomach. I truly understood the wisdom of this after trying to work a mild inversion after eating popcorn only an hour before. Yuck.

But this has an unexpected benefit – if I try to make sure I can practice when I want, it means I can’t overeat beforehand – because I have an idea of how long it takes to digest something. And this means yoga practice has to be more important than what I feel like eating or overeating. It’s kind of a nice way to improve eating patterns.

It’s a juggle, though. Do I practice or do I visit with Dad and Judy and make sure the chicken pot pie gets in the oven on time? Do I practice or do I play with Duckie? Do I practice or do I … You get the idea.

But you know, somehow I have to find a way to justify it despite the guilt, and most often the justification comes in knowing that when I spend this time on myself (i.e., on the mat), I feel much better (less resentful, in other words) about spending time and energy on other people. And hell, you know, yoga practice is good for me. Although anything can be bad when it’s done immoderately.

I do have to say that if it weren’t for Brian’s support, this sweet challenge would be next to impossible. We’ve been having some bitchy, sniping moments lately and I’m not sure where they’re coming from, but still, he’s been consistently encouraging. (Some of this is probably coming from a fear that I will be an utter bitch if I can’t manage this – which, you know, hey, is probably true.)

I got a call on Friday to come pick up Duckie from school – she had a slight fever, red cheeks, and a really bad attitude. But by the time I picked her up she was pretty much back to normal. I was already out of work, so we had a nice day together, some shopping, a solid nap (which we both needed.) I managed a quick, less-than-enthusiastic practice that evening while she reveled in Steve Irwin’s Antarctica adventure (I was a little envious), we did our usual pizza…

Well, I’m getting off track. What it comes down to is that I’m totally covered up with work from missing Friday and I’m procrastinating by writing this blog entry. Which has, of course, happened before.

Anyway. Hope everyone had a good weekend. Weather here was nuts. It was seventy degrees on Saturday, and I wore sandals. In January. In the mountains of Western North Carolina. Insane.

P.S. Speaking of food, I did manage to avoid the sugar orgy on Thursday, but I blew it on Friday and Saturday. Back on the wagon again...

just when you think it's safe to get back in the water

2007-01-04T10:13:00.001-05:00

several of our employees are retiring today. they have snacks in the canteen. snacks? no, well, it’s kinda more like a junk food/sugar orgy. i’m not gonna go into the details, they’re too painful.

i went in a few minutes early to make sure i had time to make my oatmeal before the line started. the smell of chocolate and sugar hit me at the door and almost brought me to my knees with longing. it’s like putting a recovering alcoholic at an open bar – seriously, the addiction is that powerful. i wanted to cry.

it’s better now that i’m back at my desk. i can see people but not the food. at some point i’ll have to stick me head in and say happy retirement or some such bullshit, but i’ll need to get my blood sugar stabilized beforehand.

see, i could indulge – but there’s a party for a good friend next week and i’m doing a lot of the desserts; there will be wonderful decadent food there, and the week after i’m going to see my friend in charlotte – we usually make pie.

so is this worth it? would i actually be able to eat one chocolate chip cookie and leave the rest alone?

not today. it would turn ugly.

*****

at dinner last night, brian asked how practice went. i shrugged and changed the subject – not because i didn’t want to discuss it, but because practice was fairly unremarkable. still, i got on the mat, and that’s something, right? almost an hour, and i damned sure didn’t want to come up out of savasana at the end. which is, for me, the sign of an effective practice.

*****

god save me. they’re gonna think i’m rude if i don’t eat. ok, it’s time to step in for a moment. wish me luck.

just enough time

2007-01-03T15:44:00.000-05:00

... for a quickie.

the trim is done. now to remove the tape, sand down the couple of places i dripped, and cut in. strangely, i seem to really enjoy that part of it, even though it takes longer and is more precise work. i’ve gotten really emotionally attached to my 1 ½ inch trim brush. it’s the OCD talking, i’m sure.

oh and i will never again ask myself why i do yoga. never again will i question the real-life value of my practice, not after having to use side plank repeatedly to move back and forth in a two-foot corridor between the entertainment center and the wall, while trying not to disconnect i don’t know how many cables. not after having to mount and descend a teetering old stepladder, keep a steady enough hand to cleanly edge the walls, and avoid both dripping and dropping the paint. (our human resources manager, who strongly encourages safe behaviors both at work and at home, would have had a shit-fit.)

painting a house, even just the inside rooms, involves attendant physical challenges: stretching and squatting and contortions and nerves and stress. six years ago, it completely wrecked my neck, shoulders and knees. now, it’s the not moving, the sitting back at a freaking desk, that’s doing me in. for the last two weeks i’ve been moving at a nice humming-along pace, sitting down for maybe an hour every day, including drive time. it’s no wonder i fantasize about yoga and stepladders. they're fun compared to this.

practice yesterday was humbling. i tried to get up for a morning session today, but duckie was up three times last night – the first to tell me she had to go, the second to get help finding a new pair of underwear because she had gone. i had to change the sheets that time. doing laundry at 3 in the morning is always a blast. i only vaguely remember the third instance. i think it resulted in her locking the cat out of her room. this is understandable, because our cat is almost as big as she is (there's a lot of maine coon in him) and monstrously flatulent to boot. anyway, this morning i had to pick the lock from the outside before i finally just asked her to open the darned thing.

she opened it helpfully, looking all sweet, just in her underwear, those unbelievable crystal blue eyes framed by a wild shock of blond hair. (she’s going to make a great Tinkerbell for Halloween – her idea, not mine.)

“honey, why’d you take off your nightgown?”*

“because i did, mommy.”

“aren’t you cold?”

“uh-huh. will you get me some juice? i want a big one.”

oh. well. of course. whatever.

i’d say i miss my mat, but at the moment it’s really pissing me off. here i was all pleased that i’d managed to clean it over the holidays, and now i’m noticing an annoying lack of traction in the back feet during standing poses. i took a good look at it yesterday after practice and sure enough, there are bits of the rubber flaking off where my feet usually go. the whole back half of the mat is distinctly thinner.

so ok, time for a new mat. maybe i can borrow (ok, steal) duckie’s for a while until i can pick up a new one at cat’s studio – she’s got some lovely extra-thick extra-long ones that she gets in bulk, then cuts up for class use. it means i’m gonna have to get back to the studio, though, and i don’t see that happening until the end of January. pppthpt.

but how cool is that? i actually wore out a yoga mat. who would have thought?

*this is a silly question on my part. she just learned to take off her shirts by herself, so of course she’s going to practice at any given opportunity.

confessions of a pie addict

2007-01-02T12:57:00.000-05:00

I painted the living room and hallway (mostly) over the break. A warmish creamy color on the walls, milk chocolate for the trim. Ditched a lot of useless stuff – I mean, a lot of useless stuff, including the living room curtains, which were wrecked from last spring's encounter with front-porch paint and a terrified hound. We haven’t decided on a new treatment yet, so the windows are bare. No walking around in the bra, pending clothes decisions in the morning.

I love it – it’s like moving into a new house. The walls are totally bare – all the scuffs and dents and picture holes and unwashable dirt from my previous marriage – gone. Love it, love it, love it. I even managed stolen conversations with two beloved soulsisters, despite the manic, obsessive drive to completion that went with the whole painting project.

I very much enjoyed Dervish’s Spirit album, although if I’d listened to those heartbreaking, soulful Irish lost-love ballads one more time I would have had to shoot myself. (kidding.)

Looks like the den is going to Brian. Which is fine, because the way the living room looks now it will make a lovely yoga practice room when Brian and Duckie are sleeping. At least now it will actually be used for something other than chucking things we can't locate elsewhere.

I didn’t get around to painting the bedroom – which is for the best. I woke up yesterday morning to catch the light on the test wall at an unusual angle and, hey presto – look, mom, a wall of puke! Brian says he’ll use the paint in the den instead.

God, so much else to report, but it all seems to have happened months and months ago. Domestic dispute in our neighbors' house resulted in the two older boys and their dad sleeping on our couch, despite having all the furniture pushed to the middle of the room. And I thought I was nuts. (I mean, I am, but at least my medication is working.)

Spent three hours on Friday night taking care of a two-month-old infant. Tiny, wee fingers, just out of the hospital from RSV, but his mom and the rest of his family were in a wreck and they all had to go to the hospital to get checked out. Everyone's OK, he wasn't in the wreck, but I volunteered to take him for the evening. Poor kid - nasty diaper rash from the antibiotics - I mean, the worst I've ever seen, and Duckie had some vicious ones. Kept wanting to nurse, hungry, but I only had the one pitzy two-ounce bottle that I had to keep washing and sterilizing.

Honestly I don't know how moms with two manage it. It was my "once and for all" moment - if I ever want to get pregnant again, all I have to do is remember those three hours. Not so much because of how hard it was to take care of baby D (which was tons easier simply because of experience and my body's willing cooperation), but for how much I missed spending time with my daughter.

I have to brag on the Christmas pie - remember, the pumpkin pie with the praline top crust? Outrageous. Coupla times I ate slices with my hands for breakfast when I was home alone painting. (Ah, the shame of it! Kiki and SB, if only you’d been there to share it with me it could have been our dirty little secret!)

Day before yesterday, I tried a shortening crust with a bit of whole wheat flour, less sugar than usual, and a pinch of garlic powder, meant for a quiche. The quiche (ham from Christmas and broccoli) was delightful, even though I used skim milk and light cheddar cheese. Does that mean I can eat more of it? Say, three slices instead of one?

Dad and Judy are coming into town this weekend to deliver his latest project, about which he has revealed absolutely nothing. I think it's big, but I could be wrong. I thought it was a kitchen table, but I'm pretty sure I'm wrong about that. I think it's bookshelves, but... I mean, I have nothing to go on. And my stepsister has kindly sent me an email gloating that she's got hers, she knows what it is, I'll love it, but she's not telling me shit, either. Nice.

So I'll have to make a chicken pot pie for them. What a shame, you know? He seems to love it, and it's about the only thing I can muster up that won't cause havoc with someone's digestion.

Two whole practices over the break. Body now screaming for attention. Yesterday’s practice was hard, lots of resting, but at least it was a couple of steps in the right direction. Loose joints from the lack of muscle development over the last few weeks, so the front foot landed much farther in the lunges than usual. Sweetly sore today. We’ll see what happens over the rest of this month as I make desperate efforts to practice every day.

Practice scheduled for this afternoon. I got up at 5 AM to try an hour, but those new yoga pants felt so deliciously comfy and soft that I decided to get back into bed to appreciate them fully. I hope to hell no one needs the conference room this afternoon. I've simply got to find a backup space for practice in the afternoons. Otherwise I'll end up half-assing it at home in the evenings, which will piss off everyone in the house, including the cat.

Happy New Year. Everyone else says it; I might as well, too, even though it doesn’t feel any different. Sure would like to procrastinate a little less at work, but as you see, that isn’t coming along very well.

hot chocolate love

2006-12-22T11:14:00.000-05:00

Is doubling the Lexapro permanently a good thing? Er… I don’t know. It may be too good. It’s really hard to tell given all the madness accompanying the holidays.

I found a CD yesterday that I hadn’t listened to for years. It’s the Deller Consort doing William Byrd’s Masses for 3, 4 and 5 voices. I tried to listen to it in the car yesterday but it got scratchy. It’s probably a good thing, because I can’t think of anything I could actually do while listening to this music. It’s transporting. Luscious harmonies, and at the same time you can get utterly lost in the counterpoints. And I’ve only gotten to the three-part mass so far.

I’ll probably have to turn it off soon – I keep getting all weepy. Really, this music is just heartbreakingly beautiful.

The baking frenzy is almost over. Two more days. But then there’s the pie. Did I mention? There’s a pumpkin pie with a praline top crust that I’m going to try this weekend.

Brian’s baking a ham. Mmmm… sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes, green beans, stuffing, crescent rolls, egg nog, and pumpkin-praline pie. A low-carb dieter’s nightmare. Glad I'm not one. I ought to get some wine, too. Add it to the list.

Believe it or not, my weight has actually stayed steady. My only goal has been to not gain weight over the holidays. While cookies have been everywhere (I dipped a frozen Hershey-special-dark-chocolate-chip-cookie into my coffee and about had a mochachocogasm right there in the kitchen) I’ve been so busy in the evenings that I’ve barely sat down except to scarf some dinner and keep doing. But it’s getting done – names are getting crossed off, holiday cheer is being spread in the form of pumpkin-chocolate-pecan bread, pits of love, brownies, gingersnaps (oh that’s right, all the gingersnaps have disappeared) and even salted toasted pecans for my boss, who’s trying to watch her sugar.

Yesterday we went through Duckie’s old clothes and toys, then delivered two bags to Goodwill. Some of the toys caught her interest again, which is fine – eventually they’ll bore her, and until then she’s got another little something to play with. (This morning she was playing doctor with the musical beagle; it was hilarious. I got a shot, too. She’s very good at administering them; I didn’t feel a thing.)

We’re working with what we’ve got. By the time I get back to work ten days from now, we will hopefully have turned our den from junk storage to functional, pleasing space, complete with small computer desk for laptop, Brian’s clothes (he gets a big dresser of his own), a corner for his guitars, and another one for my yoga stuff. Enough floor space to let our friends and family crash, and certainly enough for me to lay down my mat.

I miss my mat. My last practice was class on Saturday. After six months of minimum four-times-a-week practice, my mat is screaming to me like a SWAT team. “You! Get down on your hands and knees, now!”

Last night while Duckie was falling asleep (she still insists on having me in the room) I slid down to the floor and stayed in a little ball of a child’s pose for a few blissful minutes. Then virasana for a while until my feet threatened to fall asleep entirely, then a s…l…o…w roll up to standing. By the time I was done, my head was entirely clear and Duckie was asleep.

Which brings me to Yogamum’s challenge, and a New Year’s Resolution, which is simply to practice every day during the month of January, no matter what.

Here’s the link. I’m excited; it’s another way to connect with yogis without having to actually go to class. Love it. Pretty site, too, very zen.

I can’t imagine I’ll be posting over the holiday. No connection at home.

I wish you peace, love, joy, and mouth-watering dark chocolate kisses.

about cookies - tips and tricks

2006-12-20T15:54:00.000-05:00

For a while, I had about lost the Christmas cookie spirit. After a forced bake to make a ship date, I had moved on to pumpkin bread and left the cookies. Then, today, a very thoughtful co-worker remembered my grousing about only having two cookie sheets to rotate, and got me a brand-new Wilton non-stick for Christmas. So I may have to get back into the swing of things.

Turns out I’m having to take tomorrow off. Duckie’s school is closed on Thursday and Friday, and I’ve made arrangements for Friday, but Thursday’s plans fell through. So I’ll have to content myself with (hopefully) a trip to Saluda to snag some last-minute hand-made wearable art, a nice afternoon nap (hopefully), and … well… cookies.

In the spirit of sharing, I wanted to pass along a few tips that I’ve learned over the last ten years of cookie-making.
Use a little advance planning. Make the dough separate from the actual baking. It will help keep you focused on the fun stuff (like helping a three-year-old hold a hand-mixer) and you won’t feel so overwhelmed at having to do it all at once.

Since I’ve gotten glasses, I’ve had to just accept the fact that my eyes aren’t what they used to be. Duckie can spot Shrek or Dora the Explorer from fifty yards, and I’m sure the marketing agencies know it. Me, I’m a little more challenged.

And there’s nothing more annoying to me than wasted steps and a broken train of thought walking from one side of the kitchen to another to get the next part of a recipe. Small as my kitchen is, I can’t remember how many times I’ve screwed something up because I was in a hurry and forgot a step or even an entire ingredient. And these were sober moments, too, in case you were wondering.

To alleviate these annoyances, I write the basic recipe, along with critical processing points (“add gradually,” “stirring constantly,” “sift first” etc.) on a single sheet of paper, in black sharpie, using embarrassingly big characters. Then I tape it to the kitchen cabinet above my favorite work zone next to the oven.

Once mixed, bake a small test batch – two or four cookies, depending on how many people you’ve inconvenienced by hogging the counter space. Not only does this give you a handle on the perfect timing and the eventual desired outcome, you (and your inconvenienced household) get some immediate gratitification for all that work you just did. And if you blow it, you won’t have wasted a dozen cookies. Keep in mind, though, that four cookies on a sheet will bake significantly faster than twelve.

You can freeze cookie dough for up to two months. Some of these doughs are even better after they’ve been frozen; I don’t know why, Alton Brown probably would. This year, I started mixing doughs just before Thanksgiving. Still haven’t baked them all, although I’m getting there.

Use several sheets of plastic wrap to wrap the dough. I strongly recommend the Reynolds plastic wrap with the zip-track for cutting. Five years ago I wouldn’t have spent the extra money on it – I would have dealt with the stress and added time involved in dealing with stubborn, cantankerous, self-governing plastic wrap. Now, I wouldn’t do it any other way. I’ve been tempted to give boxes as stocking stuffers.

Once wrapped, write the contents and the baking directions (remember, these are supposedly why you did the test batch) on a slip of paper and tape it to the dough. Listen, I know it sounds anal-retentive – but if you come back to the dough a month later, it might have frozen to a darker color. Sugar cookies might look like gingersnaps, and gingersnaps might look like chocolate crinkles, which will really piss you off later on. If you want to get really technical, jot down the date you made the dough, too. (Dough doesn’t usually last long enough in my house to make that a necessity.)

Then give the dough an extra layer of protection by putting it in a freezer bag. One big freezer bag can hold several batches.

The possibilities for creating cookies are mind-blowing. Other people have written books about it, so I’ll skip the details of rolling and shaping. I will suggest that if you’re working with chilled dough, even drop cookies (like chocolate chips) can be shaped into little balls before setting on the sheet.

Some people prefer big monster balls, but I like them on the small side. They’re neater and easier to fit into your mouth all at once. (James, stop choking on your coffee. Get a grip.)

When it comes time to bake, use parchment paper. Seriously, I mean it, use parchment paper. It completely eliminates the whole problem of cookies sticking to the pan, reduces clean-up time to almost nothing, and allows you to dough out several dozen cookies at a time while others bake. And as long as you don’t burn the cookies entirely, parchment paper will always give you that perfect finished bottom.

Know your oven. Mine runs hot, so I set it a little low. Others have colder ovens; they set theirs high. Figure out what yours does – don’t fight it, just adapt.

Set. Your. Timer. Cookies are high-maintenance. Thirty seconds can make all the difference. If you have to pee, if you have to answer the phone, if you have to change a diaper, let the dog out, blah blah blah, you could easily lose track of those thirty seconds.

When you do set your timer, set it on the low end of the recommended bake time. I usually go a minute less – you can always add more time, but once a cookie’s burned, it’s burned, and there’s nothing you can do about it unless Superman’s around to make the time turn backwards.

Set your timer for half the recommended bake time. At the halfway point, pull out the cookies and turn the entire sheet around in the oven. This will ensure that any hot spots in your oven don’t ruin a few cookies up on one corner of the sheet.

Of course, this is a good rule for baking anything, especially pies. I had been doing it for years, and Brian thought I was just being anal-retentive. Then I got the Pie book last year from Coz and there it was, in every recipe: “Turn the pie halfway through baking.” Then Alton Brown (for whom I harbor a secret crush) did an episode of Good Eats dedicated completely to the different incarnations of the chocolate chip cookie. He does it, too. So there! I gloated.

Once you’ve turned them, set the timer again. This is where I always blow it. Cookies are turned, they look great, on to other matters, until I smell that disappointing dark sweet flavor of just-baked-too-long-by-a-few-seconds cookies.

Underbake. The cookies will keep baking when you pull them out of the oven, even if you move them immediately onto a cooling rack. So if you want to make sure that your soft cookies stay soft and your crisp cookies don’t shatter inappropriately, underbake. Underbake, then let them set up on the baking sheet for a moment or two before you try to move them.

A thin flat-bladed spatula, as wide as you like your cookies, is the perfect tool for transferring the finished product from sheet to rack. And since you’re using parchment paper (even on the nonstick surfaces; I promise, the bottoms will be perfect) you don’t have to worry about scratching your pans from the metal.

Speaking of pans, make sure your pan has cooled down some before you lay the next batch down. (Using several cookie sheets will allow you to rotate them out. I put a thick towel down on my kitchen table and just move the sheets to rest there as the next sheet goes in.) If your sheet is too hot, it will start to cook the bottoms immediately, which might mean you a) burn the cookies and b) ruin the shape. Plus it’s just safer, you know? Especially if you ever tend towards the clutzy in the kitchen.

A cooling rack is a nice thing to have. It lets the bottom of your cookie stay crisp, which help cookies keep their shape. They’re inexpensive, and they work well for pies, too – to keep some air circulation under the pie dish so that the pie cools more evenly. I suppose you could do without one – but if you care enough about cookies to read this far, why the hell would you want to?

So there’s my gift to you for the holidays. If I could get the piece of shit scanner here at the plant working I might could manage a Christmas picture of Duckie with her bessfen Santa Claus, but that ain’t in the stars today.

Hope things are well with you, and that you’re finding a few precious moments of peace here and there.

wonky

2006-12-18T09:24:00.000-05:00

i mean, you know, not really in a bad way, although there are certainly stressful and harsh energies flying around. i haven’t slept well the last few days – too much to do, too much caffeine, too much sugar, not enough yoga. dog barking all night last night so that i heard it even when she’d stopped – one of those earworms, i guess, or not, i don’t know. i’m going to try again to bring her in tonight, because really, this is ridiculous. someone’s going to shoot her out of sheer frustration and sleep deprivation – and that someone might be me. which would, you know, suck.

on the other hand, i think i’ve just been handed the best Christmas present ever. no, seriously.

over the last few years, since the wedding to Ex, i’ve lost touch with my mother’s sister and her daughter – let’s call them Aunt B and Aunt S. Technically, Aunt S is really a cousin – but she’s older than I am by a few years, so I always thought of her as an aunt, and that's what we called her. She lives in Dallas, so there wasn’t a lot of contact anyway. And I was so self-involved for those years that anyone who wasn’t right in my field of vision didn’t really exist for me.

I suppose I kinda paid for it in karma. Since Duckie was born and I finally seemed to get my shit together (you know, as much as it ever is), I had tried to find them both. Searching in North Carolina, searching in Texas, just searching. Googling endlessly – even checking obituaries, because in my world, when people disappear, I have to acknowledge that they might be dead.

Well. *cough, grab more tissues*

They’re not.

I checked my email this morning and read a forwarded message from my dad, from aunt B. She got remarried four years ago – I’m not sure where she’s living, but I hope she’s still in NC. I have my doubts – I seem to remember she was planning to move to Texas to be closer to S. So I have no idea, really, where they are.

But I have email addresses. And I’ll send them my phone number. And I’ll book a super-saver flight if I have to, and take Duckie on her first plane ride. Yes, I will go to Texas. These women are both wonderful people in their own right (I’ve been damned lucky as far as relatives go) but they’re also direct connections to Mom. And I guess I kinda feel like if I can introduce them to Duckie, it’ll be like introducing her to Mom. *sniff, grab more tissue*

*********

Everything else pales in comparison to this, even (selfishly) the unfortunate circumstance of chatty co-worker, who broke her hip this weekend and is about to have surgery on it. But you know what’s amazing – the first thing she said to me on the phone when she was trying to reach our boss was “Happy Birthday.” That floored me. (Yeah, it’s my birthday – she was on pain meds, but she wasn’t delusional.)

I have my fingers crossed for her, of course, and for my boss, whose stress level just skyrocketed when she found that the Lab would be without a fully trained technician for a long while – maybe permanently, because Chatty Co-worker is pretty close to retirement age already.

*********

I had a good body weekend. Yoga class on Saturday was workable and interesting. I like Cat’s new space. It’s smaller and cozier than Asheville yoga, and the class was made up of just five women. We worked Dancer. I teetered and tottered, of course, but the left leg was significantly better than the right, as usual.

I went to Target afterwards and knocked out probably 75% of the Christmas shopping. (Can I just say, if one more person asks me if I’m “ready for Christmas” I’m going to have to bitch-slap them. I’ve got Seven More Days, damn it!)

I also went back to the sportswear section to check for new yoga pants. The last time I tried was back in August, before the Kest workshop. I went to four stores than and found exactly nothing. Waistlines too low, and no drawstring in sight to help hitch up the pants above the belly. The last thing I want is to have the flabby C-section tummy flop out during trikosana, or any other pose. How to wreck your focus, 101. Wear shitty yoga pants. I was pissed.

So I checked out the new line. Nice colors, lovely cotton/spandex blends, and – hello! drawstrings. I pulled a couple off the rack and compared them to my own waistline, thinking, well, ok, I’ll try the large first and see what it’s like.

I tried the medium first instead. And they fit perfectly. The large pair was entirely too large, and looked bulky, even on me. God, I love spandex.

So yeah, it was a good body weekend for the most part.

It doesn’t justify the dozen or so cookies I ate (oh, so that’s why I never have enough gingersnaps) but I look forward to my first long practice, whenever that might be.

I skipped Friday and Sunday. No time today (UPS calls,) unless I squeeze in a half an hour before bed (better than nothing.) Maybe tomorrow, but I’ve got a med check in the afternoon. Tempting to get up early. But damn there’s still so much stuff to do. Even so, I know that I’ll be able to do them better and be happier about it if I take a few minutes to breathe and move. I don’t need to make it terribly complicated, you know?

OK so maybe not exactly manic but possibly moving towards a little hypo. But it’s seven days to Christmas, how else am I supposed to function?

Fresh Market has some yummy flavored coffees. Might have to go get me some – somehow I’ve run out of café l’orange.

Enough randomness and burbling of the stream-of-consciousness. Time to get to work.

mild weather

2006-12-14T10:06:00.000-05:00

Outside and in. Top half of the cycle early again, so I felt more than willing to double the lexapro last night.

We finally picked a paint color for the living room. Don’t laugh – it’s called “Baked Scone.” I swear I didn’t look at the color name until after I pointed it out, although I still don’t think Brian believes me. I think I’m almost looking forward to painting. Trim kinda sucks, but I really enjoy rolling walls.

Yesterday I came to the conclusion that early morning practice, as much as I love it, is simply not going to happen until Duckie’s nighttime issues are sorted out. It puts too much strain on us as a family – you know, ‘cause when Mom’s tired and unhappy (even when she practiced for a coupla hours this morning) everyone’s miserable. I have a tendency to broadcast my moods – the good ones as well as the bad ones – so it really isn’t fair for me to sacrifice our household wa in the name of yoga. Defeats the whole purpose. And I can always get it long practices on the weekends, thanks to Brian’s continued support.

I’ve been better about regular afternoon practice, and I’ve gotten lucky – no late-afternoon visitors to take up my yoga studio here at work (the conference room.) I’ve pushed it a little this week. It’s worth it, although my body’s feeling the effects. I may skip on Friday or do a lighter routine.

Balance is improving on both digasana b and uttitha hasta padangusthasana. (I threw those names in just to impress YogaMum.) Yeah, I’m still using the strap on the latter. I don’t care. I wouldn’t even begin to be able to get this pose without it. Later when flexibility improves I’m sure I’ll be able to drop the strap, but for now I’m happy I can manage a bit of balance at all.

Focus on the breath, I’m told. How am I supposed to focus on the breath when I’m teetering precariously on one leg?

I tried it anyway. Somehow, it helped. So much anxiety was going into when I was going to fall, how I was going to fall, and how hard it would be to get back into the pose – totally distracting. Letting that go even for a few seconds at a time was a big improvement. Then I got all jacked up on the not-falling bit, getting all excited (look, Ma, no feet!) and I fell anyway.

Early this week I tried to get into bakasana (crow) without starting off with the head to the floor. I could see how it would eventually work – but I definitely need more arm strength to manage it. The end result was a hilarious oopsy forward roll off the mat. I was glad there wasn’t anything in front of me. I suppose a background in stage combat really does do some good. At least I remembered to tuck my head.

Sore in strange places – especially in the upper and middle back muscles. I’m thinking it has to do with activating the arms – these would be the muscles I’d use if I had wings.

My friend P in Columbia has adopted some of FlyLady’s techniques for managing a household effectively. One of the 11 commandments is “Don’t try to do two projects at once. ONE AT A TIME.” That’s got to mean big projects, right? Because I just don’t think I could live without multitasking the little stuff. I can’t just stand in front of an oven waiting four minutes to turn the cookies. Not when there’s laundry to fold and dishes to do.

So after four batches of cookies last night, folding clothes, making dinner, doing dishes, blah blah blah, I found myself kinda worn out. And too sore to want to sleep, so I did an unusual late-night five-minute legs-up-the-wall series. It was really nice.

A bonus point on not practicing in the mornings: I can wear real pajamas to bed, especially the silk PJ pants I got a couple of months ago. Light as a whisper, they are, and since it’s turned cold I can’t wear them out anymore on errands and weekends. So even though I got up with Duck twice last night, I still managed to appreciate the fact that I could sleep until six, and that I was wearing silk pajamas.

God, I’m so spoiled, and I feel so guilty about the entitlement sometimes.

But still, it’s divine to have silk pajamas.