Sowhaddidyoudo?

That picture is worth about 500 words. My weekend has been busy but not crazy busy because I don’t do crazy busy at home because my job is 98% of the time crazy busy. And to continue multi-tasking at home is a sickness as far as I'm concerned.

I really don’t have that much to say because it was just mundane busy stuff, nothing exciting. I made two gallons of infused oil. Perhaps the most involved project I’ve done in a long time. It's involved because of the harvesting, cleaning, grrrr-ing the herbs and prepping the jars and oil. It doesn't help that I can't stand our food processor. It's terrifically complicated and the first time I used it, I spent 30 minutes trying to figure out how to get the freakin' top(s) off. Breaking into Fort Knox would have been easier than opening the damn food processor. It's like a four step process and drives me wild after about the third repetition. But the best part of the oil project is when I get to clean up all the oil I've sloshed and dripped and spilled all over the kitchen. I'm a pro at spilling. (To further digress, the first time I typed this I wrote: "spelling" and we all know I aint' no kinda pro at spelling)

As I went about each one of these tasks first on the back porch and then in the kitchen my brain felt like that photograph: all muddled with eight things going on at once while I was trying think of something to blog about and everything I came up with was boring as Hell.

The most exciting thing that happened this weekend was Kipper went for coffee with us and didn’t make too big of an ass out of himself whining and yipping at other dogs. He loves other dogs and resembles Sonny the coo-coo bird when he sees one.


(thanks youtube)

It’s rather embarrassing and people probably think we keep the dog chained to a rock in a tiny backyard completely isolated from people, food, and other dogs. Either that or he doesn’t have two brain cells to rub together. I'm thinking of hanging a sign on him when we go out with him that informs people he is a few bulbs short.

Yesterday Beav wanted to spend some of his birthday cash and wants to keep it old school with CDs so I took him to two of the used record stores I know about. We ran across a couple more but didn’t stop because he has his “Back-To-School Cold” (why can’t we all just wash our hands?) and wasn’t feeling 100% and we were both hungry and on our way to a little taqueria I know which has some of the hottest green chili ever and it was just what his cold needed. Spending most of yesterday with him one on one was good and made me realize he is becoming a young adult capable of adult conversation on far ranging subjects.

But he’s still a kid, today he mouthed off at me when I told him to slow down in a parking lot. “But I’m a guy, and guys like to go fast! I’ve got the ‘guy gene’.”

Oh what the fuck ever, I’ve got the keys to the car and you might not get to drive until your 25 and your frontal lobe has developed a little more. And then it‘s gonna be a 1981 Honda Civic four banger.

But I resisted saying that and just gritted my teeth and dug my fingers into the side of seat. Praying we made it home before I tore open the upholstery or chided him while hanging on for dear life.

Victus Obscurum

mmmm salty goodness found here

I realized yesterday I might have an eating disorder when I found myself in the basement huddled over a bag of potato chips I had uncovered from its hiding place. When I’m feeling snackish it is necessary for me to sneak downstairs and nosh in secret being mindful of loud crunchy noises and keeping an eye out on the door for interlopers. I will even lie to the offspring if they ask me: “Do we have anymore chips and salsa? “ I bat my eyelashes and look at them dead in the eye shaking my head as I’m picturing the bag of chips and cans of salsa. My hiding places depend upon my sons’ inherited Male Pattern Blindness and so I put ice cream and sorbet behind the frozen vegetables and snack food behind boring things like large boxes of healthy cereal. But I must confess this sneaking around makes me feel weird like I’m some sort of food obsessed woman who isn’t “allowed” to eat snacks because I’ll throw them up after eating two bags of chips and two boxes of cookies in one sitting; or my BMI is 50% and I was told to lose weight or die. Luckily the idea of barfing makes me a little urpy and I‘m keeping my BMI well below 50%. Over eating and bulimia aren‘t the disorders I suffer. My eating disorders are Wally and Beav and if I didn’t hide the chips, cookies and ice cream I would never have the luxury of even getting to make unhealthy food choices.

Hmmm…maybe I should liberate the chips and sorbet from captivity to help nudge off my spare ten pounds. I bet my snacks would be gone within two hours after I left them out in the open. The only thing left would be the empty packages, a few crumbs on the floor and dirty spoons in the sink. The poor dears have those gross and fine motor skill deficits that cause a person to have an inability to throw empty packages away or put dirty dishes in the dishwasher. I probably should have them seen by a physical therapist for this, huh. Oh well their disability will just make them stronger.

Is there SSI for this sort of thing?

The Secret Life Of Mom

I found Lady GaGa here

Yesterday while I was having my hair color updated I text messaged TG a formal dinner invitation. I was so caught up in my own spontaneity that I forgot to check with Beav to see if he had made plans. That was stupid and almost led to a lot of disappointment on my part because he wanted to be at Young Life movie night (Zoolander! Yay! That's my boy!)and I wanted to be on the complete opposite side of town at a restaurant eating overpriced appetizers in a chi-chi room filled with The Incredibly Young And Hip. Because I'm not 100% selfish and TG is 100% understanding we took a rain check and Beav had a movie and poker night with his friends. (We'll discuss the movie and card game choice at another time)

On the way home from Stepford I played a especially chosen and burned CD for The Girl. I thought she was going to squeal (maybe she did?) when the opening strains of "Just Dance" came out of the speakers. Lady Gaga's song induces people, all sorts of people, including my very self-conscious older son, soldiers in Afghanistan and older women in Sephora stop whatever it is they are doing and dance. Because everyone needs a daily dance break. Ellen DeGeneres started this on her show and if you watch the audience, they anticipate it because the joy they feel and the unmitigated joy she exudes is infectious. I think it's vital for mental health. It doesn't matter if you can't keep the rhythm or you look like Paula Abdul. Just stop what you are doing and dance.

We car danced to Lady GaGa all the way home and when we made it home after our Lady GaGa break we rearranged the speakers for better surround sound and turned the music up very very very loud and danced to everything from Lady GaGa and Moby to Neko Case and Marc Anthony. It was about a million times more fun and fifty times more spontaneous than dinner out.

I missed Beav's phone call--made per my stern instruction--telling me what time to pick him up. Bad mom. And I heard about it when he called back, annoyed asking where I was. But hey, he didn't leave a message and I'm not telepathic. He calmed down in the twenty minutes it took to get to the Stepford Young Life house and then he asked the 365 thousand dollar question I was praying he would ask:

"So what did you and TG do tonight?"

"Nothing. Just hung out, watched a little television."

Deadpan. I should be in the cold. CIA. International woman of mystery. Boy doesn't know what he's missin' when's he not at home.

Firsts

The last three days have been filled with a few firsts and revisits. Me, Wally and Beav took a trip to SW Colorado just for the hell of it. I did absolutely no forward planning except for booking a hotel res and glancing at a map. Usually I have a plan months in advance. Restaurants that appeal to me, sites I want to see. Everything is thought of just in case. Just in case what I'm not sure. I always have an obsessively constructed packing list, too. Not this time. Nope. And yeah I forgot stuff: ipod charger and hair dryer, notebook and reading materials but really I managed. I bore the cross of not drying my hair or having the ipod to entertain me. I even survived without a book or anotebook. I did remember the computer so I could write.
Since I moved to Colorado in 1987 I've been to the SW edge of the state once and that was a quick trip to a wedding in the mountains. So Durango was like a new town for me. I'm a little ashamed I haven't bothered with the mountains in about five years. Sad isn't it? I've been half way across the globe but haven't taken a forty mile trip to the west into the foothills. Surprise surprise it's pretty just outside of my town! Who knew! And there is river rafting close to home and hiking too. But I had to plan a trip 350 miles away for river rafting and hiking. I text messaged the girl about two hours into our trip and gushed all over the place about how she and I plus dog should go to the mountains for the day some weekend.

Speaking of river rafting. I went rafting in early June 1987 on the Colorado River. It wasn’t mellow water and it wasn’t fun. I was terrified and had the mantra of "rock head rock head rock head" going through my mind the entire time. It didn't help that our guide plus all the riders except me were either drunk or high or both. Good times. Good times. So whenever I meet people for the first time and they ask if I camp or enjoy river sports I look at them like they have grown an extra head, clutch imaginary pearls around my neck and screech, NO!

We took a short float trip Monday morning and it was a blast. Mind you, it's late in the season and the Animas River was "mellow" but it was just a hoot and a half to be out on the water and swim a little, too. I think I'll go again but maybe earlier in the season when the water is a little more exciting. It helped to have a completely sober guide and sober raft mates. The guide laughed when I told him about my experience and knew exactly what I was talking about. River Rats are known for their party attitudes.

After our float trip we drove up the hill and took a hike. Five miles in five miles out. That's ten miles, a one and a zero. That’s a lot for me, too. The last time I hiked--aside from a two mile dog walk--Y2K. I attempted a fourteener and lost my lunch, breakfast, dinner and god knows what else once we were at 13k. I assumed it was just the altitude and thought I couldn't tolerate it. Turns out it was probably the altitude plus the vicodan I had been taking post oral surgery. The cigarettes didn’t help at 13K either. As I got older and continued to smoke I was terrified of having a heart attack on the side of a hill. But whaddya know, my pulmonary health must be restored because despite being winded from walking from 8000 to 9000 feet my heart didn‘t skip beats, an elephant didn‘t sit on my chest and I didn‘t die. The hike we took was my favorite kind of hike: varied terrain that goes in and out of conifer forest, aspen groves and alpine meadows. I love alpine meadows. I could just lie down and nap in an alpine meadow. In fact, I think doing just that should be on the bucket list. Luckily, I was able to walk this morning and on our way home we stopped at a couple of trail heads along Wolf Creek pass and hiked a half mile up to a lovely water fall and then stopped at another trail head near the top of the continental divide. We hiked maybe a mile in and discovered we were at the crest of the ski area and found a field of strawberries that were just starting to ripen. I left a few for the bears but not many.


Further down the road, I made friends with a genuine yard cow!! We switched drivers in the San Luis Valley and stopped at a local milk/cheese farm store. We turned into the drive way and there she was tethered to the fence in the front yard. Cleo was prettiest little fawn colored cow in the world. She was gentle, too. My life is now really complete because I made friends with a yard cow. What a summer! Elephants and a cow! Does life get any better than this?

I didn't barf riding shotgun over Wolf Creek pass like I did twenty years ago. Beav drove it too. Too bad about the upholstery over the passenger window where the OMG straps should have been. He was pretty impressed with himself when we went back over it today and he was the passenger reaching for the OMG strap. There were a couple of times I had my own eyes closed this afternoon as we made those hairpin turns.

The most amazing first! The sons didn't argue with one another one. Single. Time. No one acted like an asshat. Not even me! No one whined or complained! Not even me!! And I can always find something to whine about. This is a first for us. How sweet, everyone's all grown up now. Gone are the days of knocking each other's teeth out and being confined to separate corners of a station wagon.

"There Is Never Enough Time To Do All The Nothing You Want"

image here

“What I heard then was the melody of children at play.” Nabokov

I love summer. Lovelovelovelove Summer. I love how the sun comes up around five and it isn’t dark until nine at night. I like the sound of the cicadas. I remember the crickets and frogs from Texas, a sound rare here. The trees are lush and green; flowers are in full bloom and it is blissfully hot. Everything looks healthy and robust. I like the way wind sounds as it brushes the cottonwood leaves. It’s my favorite time of the year and yet only lasts twelve short weeks. Last summer I discovered rising early every summer day away from the hospital allowed me time to accomplish more “nothing”. Too bad this summer is the exception. Not only am I accomplishing absolutely nothing but I’m sleeping in like a teenager. I did manage to knock back the weeds, deadhead the flowers and plant a few more things after we returned from our vacation. But that was with help and only because the yard, garden and flowerbeds were in rough shape after two weeks of neglect. But suddenly, I’m seized with a complete lack of interest in doing anything other than lying in the sun on the lounge chair and reading. Mind you last summer I did this, too but only after my chores and projects were accomplished. My summer work ethic has flown far far away. I hope it’s landed and someone is putting it to good use.

I think my generation is the second generation to enjoy summer, free of gritty hard work. I grew up in the suburbs so it wasn‘t like I had to work on a farm, either. Always the suburbs, the halcyon place of comfort and ease. Especially during the summer: no school, a few chores and plenty of time to wander the wild spaces just on the other side of the fence or swim in the local pool, cruise the neighborhood on my bike, or lounge around the boat dock. The only thing I had to worry about was going to the swimming pool, getting a ride to the library, which trashy reruns was I going to watch and if I was eating dinner at my friend’s house or my house. My father’s generation worked from a young age, either odd jobs in town or on the farm. When I am sentimental about my childhood it is summer I remember. Not winter, spring or back-to-school autumns. Playing hide and seek in the Big Thicket just on the other side of our yard in SE Texas; when it was safe to let your seven year old out of your line of sight, untethered by a cell phone with GPS, barefooted no less. My child’s memory thinks we wandered miles from home but if I were to return to this place I would find it much more compact and nearby. That is, if it were there to explore. The Big Thicket is almost completely gone except for a few acres the Indians managed to hold away from the developers. That wild space in summer taught me the names of flowers and that I must be immune from poison ivy and oak because it was rampant in the piney woods. I stopped wandering around barefooted after a snake bite (in our front yard) when I was eight. But it’s still an act of God’s grace in action OF (oldest friend) and I didn’t turn over a rock and awaken a dozing rattle snake in New Mexico. Blessed be, not even a scorpion sting, only a honey bee sting. Perhaps I had my due with a venomous snake bite? I was almost a teenager when we moved back to Texas and a creek ran close to our home with a marshy bit of woods but I was too old for that and preferred just walking the neighborhood streets with a friend or two. This, and one of my good friends had a pool in her backyard Wandering the creek was for little kids. But once my incarceration at the lake began, I would wander around the fields near our land. I hated going to the lake with my parents; it was made bearable if a friend came along. My two best friends’ parents were convinced their daughters were taking advantage of my parents. Years later, I explained to one of my friends’ mom (the friend with the pool) that T didn’t eat much and it kept me from driving my mother insane. One would think, that my love affair with summer would have made weekends at the lake even sweeter. Or that a lake was way better than a swimming pool. Not so much.

There was plenty of nothing to do that first summer at the lake. For me at least. I certainly wasn’t going to build a retaining wall or help pour cement for the boat dock. Or move dirt from one pile to the other. I was way way too busy being miserable to help with the work. I think by August we had a television in the trailer. If I remember correctly it a miniscule black and white set with a terrible antenna. Maybe. We did have a radio but my father had me convinced the only station it would get was an AM Country station. What, being SO FAR from the city and all. I think I was in my thirties when I figured out he had lied to me so I wouldn’t bother touching the radio to find another more suitable station. That first summer at the lake, I read War And Peace. I was thirteen and I read Tolstoy. That’s freakin’ bored. And I wrote probably the most anachronistic historical romance ever written by a young girl. I found a copy of it when we moved to The Fabulous House In The Suburbs. I very systematically ripped the spiral notebook into tiny pieces, a time consuming task which offered up plenty of time for me to wince and throw up a little in my mouth as I read each astoundingly bad word. Dad foolishly tried to get me interested in fishing. Again. A few years before, he tried to take the family fishing. I was not having any part of it and so noisy no one was catching fish until he rigged my line and for forty years (yes, 40 not 4) I thought I had caught that fish. “Catching” the fish probably only kept me quiet for an hour or so but that’s better than nothing. So he thought maybe I was a grown up enough to enjoy down time, sitting in a boat at dawn staring at the water and a small piece of nylon string. Because, yeah, that is way way more interesting than watching a snowy version of the Match Game or reading Tolstoy at the decent hour of ll:30 in the morning. And to my credit, I tried but I stopped trying because I did have a few minutes of mature, empathetic clarity, and felt sorry for Dad because it seemed like all he did was untangle my line. Is it any wonder the second and third summer we had a lake place, my parents let me stay with my sister in Southern California for a few weeks? I’m sure their ears stopped ringing from the complaints, sighs and whining after about ten days of being blissfully teenager angst free. I never asked them what they did while I was gone that month: I probably don’t want to know.

One of the best summer’s ever was the summer of ‘82. My hours as a nurses' assistant at the hospital had been reduced and I was living with my best friend, her boyfriend and Jack. That July, BF-boyfriend and I camped our way to the Texas coast, with stops in Austin and San Antonio. BF couldn’t go; she was starting her career as a nurse that summer. It was also the summer I read Lolita with Jack. We took turns reading it out loud to each other. This came about because I had been reading Tess Of The d’Urbervilles and was so depressed by it, my three housemates took it away from me, sick of my tears and rants about the injustice of it all. I‘m not sure why Jack thought Humbert Humbert‘s fantasies of a young girl were going to make it all better. I wish I could ask him. That summer was the beginning of Jack’s untimely and premature march towards a senseless and completely preventable death. Because he is gone, the memories are a little sweeter and more precious. I’m thankful the two most painful episodes in my life happened in the summer months because I know they were made more bearable by the simplicity and generosity of the season. Besides that, the painful stuff always seemed to happen just before school started again and the new school year made everything new in one episode and the other episode just gave me courage to start a new life one autumn.

The Wheels On The Bus Go Round and Round

Thursday started for us at dawn when we said good bye to our hosts in Siem Reap and started the The Big Bus Aventure. We clamored on board and noted our fellow travelers weren't old women with chickens for market but bleary-eyed college students. I guess the good news was we weren’t on “the chicken bus” and the bad news is I was spending the day with teenagers. Fortunately, it was early so they were quiet and my guess was they hadn’t been to bed yet or had scant sleep the night before. We wound our way through early morning traffic; I was surprised there was so much traffic before seven in the morning. The bus station was a large parking lot, littered with people waiting for busses to run and vendors selling baguettes and drinks. The bread here is the best bread I’ve ever had. Probably because Siem Reap’s weather reminds me of living in a proofer: Hot and damp but not hot enough to actually bake. We found our bus, loaded our extremely heavy backpacks and The Girl went in search of baguettes and cheese for our journey. I wasn’t really sure what to expect: had the rainy season started to the south and the road under a few inches of water? What would we see? Would the villages be horrible or picturesque? Would I die of boredom on a ten hour bus trip? Most importantly, the bus was leaving late…would we make our connection in Phenon Phen?

The ditches were full in places but the road was dry
Lots of cows.
Both.
Absolutely not
Yes and we even waited for a bus later than our own.

We had covered a few miles on National Highway 6 a few days before when we were making our way through the temples. I knew what to expect: small houses on stilts, cows and people working at various tasks along the road. Our bus was comfortable, cool enough without being over air conditioned. The scenary flashed outside my window like a dream at times and a green blur at others. The Khmer pop music playing in the background was the perfect accompaniment for the countryside to unfold and tell a story of a day in Cambodia. A few of the songs were very catchy and at times I felt like we should sway, sing along and perhaps wave lighters in the air as a tribute to the moving lyrics and power ballad cords. Stirring stuff. Too bad I hadn’t a clue what was being sung.

As the landscape rolled past me, I snapped picture after picture trying to capture exactly what it was I was seeing. Sometimes I captured the scene but most of the time I was so close but so far away. The voyeur in me loved watching the lives pass as we made our way through the country: children on their way to school, helping in the fields, men tinkering or planting, Women working in the small garden plots, babies tied to their sides. I watched groups of women sitting in circles, performing small detail oriented tasks, the younger women always turned towards the oldest who sat higher than the rest. Sometimes they looked deep in thought other times they had the easier continence of telling stories or gossiping with one another. The small shops in each village held a clutch of men who were working side by side fixing things or loading trucks. Each village had a small primary school (at the least) and by the time we were out of Siem Reap, morning school had started and the bicycles were neatly parked by the classroom doors. The schools were low slung one story buildings, built around a common area and almost always next door to the village temple which were always the most ornate and largest buildings in the village. The school windows were unfettered by glass with only simple shutters to protect the classrooms from wind and water. I imagined the afternoons in the classrooms were stifling. By ten, you could see kids playing in the common area: boys on one side of the playground and girls on the other. I’m not sure if this was the rule or just the universal way children are until they are teenagers. The games they appeared to play were just like the games our own children play. Some of the schools were in more prosperous villages than others and had real playgrounds with the old fashioned equipment my generation grew up with before it was considered too dangerous to have a merry-go-round and climbing bars.

Many of the villages seemed to specialize in one craft or task. One village had wood and wooden building materials; everything from firewood to furniture. Another specialized in cement and stone masonry. Masons were working on decorative images of Buddha and some of the characters featured in the bas reliefs we had just seen in Angkor: Garuda and Apsara dancers. A few days before we went though a village which specialized in sticky rice cooked in hollowed bamboo shoots. Stand after stand of this special rice was featured on the side of the road. It was amazing the women recouped their outlay on rice and bamboo. But then they probably gathered their own bamboo and grew their own rice. Every available spot of land appeared to have rice growing on it and as we moved further south it seemed like the rains were beginning and the rice fields had become paddies. Rice as it is growing is a surreal shade of green, too.

As the day progressed the microcosmic worlds I witnessed progressed, too. At lunch time, people were gathered sharing a meal; often it was simply a man and a women. One couple were seated close together, heads almost touching, laughing about something together; the intimacy evoked in those few seconds is remarkable to me. It also brought home the idea there is joy to be had even if you are a sustenance farmer in the middle of a developing country. Probably more joy than most of us in the cities know. These homes were without evidence of electricity and I know they don’t have running water. Their lives are uncluttered by the things I take for granted: just now I’m typing on a computer, television playing in the background and Air Con humming to keep the cloying night heat and bugs outside. This is not to say I’m romanticizing living conditions I witnessed. Some of the farms were unspeakably littered with trash and often surrounded by a moat of nasty looking water. By and large the filthiest places were adjacent to larger towns and perhaps the most desperate living conditions I witnessed were outside Phenom Phen. It was in these places the people looked dirty, unhealthy and poorly fed. It puzzles me why this would be the case: the larger towns had health clinics, large schools and a temple or monastery at the center of the activity. Why did those people appear hungry? And when I say dirty, I mean truly unkempt. On the most rudimentary farms, the children had cleanish hair and the women appeared recently bathed and their simple sarong skirts and tee shirts were well cared for. I’m actually very troubled by what I witnessed in PP’s outskirts. The city itself wasn't much better and it was a busy, mad and desultory place.






As we pulled into the bus station the Tuk-Tuk drivers and tax drivers rushed the side of the bus, screaming at us to purchase rides from them, pounding on the sides. It reminded me of pictures I've seen of riots in the Middle East as the mob descends on American military convoys or press convoys. These guys were like piranhas and made the kids at the temples look like Doctor fish. The city was a disorienting experience and I felt so very green and gullible. Like I had just come in from the provinces. I can't even wrap my head around what this city must feel like to someone who has spent their life on one of the farms in the country. It must seem like Hell. I haven’t been overwhelmed by a city since 1984 when I walked up the stairs from Penn Station and into Midtown Manhattan. I was 23 and it was one of the most intimidating moments of my life: I was completely alone in an alien place. This is how I felt in PP. I’m so glad we weren’t staying there or looking for a place to stay because I would have simply withered into a puddle of babbling frightened goo on the side of the street. Changing busses was nerve-wracking on it’s own.


The rest stops were like episodes of Bizarre Food. The Cambodian delicacies offered to us included crickets, worms, freshwater snails and crab (from the rice paddies), deep fried bat on a stick (no, really). I expected to see Andrew Kimmern around the corner snacking on the bat and crabs. The most exotic thing I tried Thursday was sticky rice, banana and a little coconut milk congealed and baked in a banana leaf. It was a little bland but filling and I would eat it again if I could douse it with Khmer ketchup (“Mild Hot Sauce). Just walking through these mini markets was a day’s worth of memories and images.

After leaving the mad crush of Phenom Phen we crept our way up into the mountains. I couldn’t take pictures because the bus we were on was like a school bus and the windows were small and had large bars across them. I’m hoping for a different bus on the way back to Siem Reap next week because the countryside was breathtaking, a cross between Switzerland and Maui. The farms were well tended and clean, the cows were fat and healthy looking. I’m not an outdoorsy person by any stretch of the imagination but this place made me want to strike out on my own, walking stick in hand and climbing the mountains just to witness the views from the top. I wanted to rest in the lush fields and climb the tall trees. Never mind the wild boar, snakes, insects and land mines. There was large monastery in these mountains and just imagining the quiet in such a sacred place gave me a great sense of peace and was a drought for the degradation and frenzy of the capital city.

As we moved closer to our destination, I could feel the anticipation mount in the Khmer people on the bus. They knew we were getting closer and started talking more to one another, excited to be either returning home from the capital or beginning a sea side holiday. Our first glimpses of the Gulf of Thailand were unforgettable: the mountains rising on side and a lovely light blue sea, off in the distance on the other. It was a little gift before we entered Sihanoukville, a miniature version of Phen Phen.

“Snookie” is a beach town and it is geared for “Broads, Booze and Boys”. This place feels ready for action as you enter into the downtown, each side of the main drag flanked with tall spindly guesthouses and open air restaurants. Twenty odd years ago I would have welcomed this scene and been the first off the bus looking for the all night Beach Rave (it’s on Serendipity Beach, in case you ever want to go) and a cold Angkor Beer ready to groove to the pounding music and let my freak flag fly! ‘Snookie is a gritty beach town. Really gritty. Like Atlantic City before the casinos gritty (I’ve seen pictures). Like Progresso Mexico gritty. Ok…maybe not thatgritty. Even after PP and Snookie, Progresso remains the grittiest scariest place I’ve ever spent a night. The third rate carnival that was in town that night just iced the cake which was decorated with disheveled cross dressing boy hustlers who were turning tricks in the “hotel” we were staying. When we told people where we were staying in Snookie if they were at all familiar with the town their unanimous response was: “Why there? It’s really far from everything. Don’t you want to be in the middle of town? Close to the beach bars?” Um…no…because when I look out my window in the morning I want to see this.

Jelly Side Down

the cute head Pocket Toast Pal was found here


If I do say so myself, I believe I deserve this vacation. Between The Girl breaking her arm last week; my own really nasty sinus infection; The Beav confessing, after six months of the rest of us playing “where’s Wally’s bike”, he sold it (without permission) and then racked up $300 in extra text messaging charges; and Wally’s adventures at the bank I ‘m pretty well done. Stick a fork in me and call me toast. I asked my Spare Girl--a single mom with probably the most spirited teenagers on the planet--if it was August yet because this summer is shaping up to be…um…challenging to say the least.

So here I am sick, whiney and pitiful. Good thing I’m alone. Because I’m not sure I even want to be in my own company. The jelly topping on the toast is today I found out I didn’t get the job I was asked to apply for. It was a good job and a good fit. I cried after I talked to the nursing recruiter and later my boss had the grace to ask me if I was going to be alright with this decision because the important thing is “you are happy in what you do.“ I will never forget that gift. Yes, some days are harder than most but everyday is an adventure and everyday I learn something new either about the human body, psyche or myself. It doesn’t get any better than that. Unless you count I get to work with a great team of nurses.

And Beav asked how he can pay me back the money. (window washing and garage cleaning plus moving the lady next door)
And Wally appeared to really listen when I told him for the third or fourth time how to balance a checkbook. But that’s a moot point because he no longer has a bank account to jack up. (he is into me large and will also be washing windows, cleaning garages and moving the lady door.
And in less than twenty-four hours I leave my life for a couple of weeks and see how the other half lives.

The lower half that is.


My guess is witnessing physical poverty unlike anything I’ve ever seen will cure my poverty of gratitude and faith. And if it doesn’t, I’m guessing this guy will kick my ass. In the spirit of love. Just like Christ would.

Next stop Siem Reap. I’m the one with my mouth hanging open in awe and wonder over the bas reliefs.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Karma

In the middle of all the angst over Wally and what happens next Beav has decided it’s time for him to regress back to Weird Hormone Boy. I thought we had left WHB behind at the Crack Shack but I guess I was wrong. WHB is not welcome here because there is not enough room for more than one moody person in this house and by default of my age it gets to be me! Seriously, didn’t the kid get the memo? I’m the only one allowed to be grouchy. Beav has also reverted back to his previous incarnation of The Boy Who Won’t Get Up For School. Hells bells, the kid who hated school always got up on time and this one? He loves school Loveslovesloves school. Fortunately, the only person nagging is me because back in the day it was a chorus of me and Wally which would lead to Beav crying in grades 2 through 5 and yelling at us to leave him alone in grades 6 and 7. I’m not sure how much he actually hears because if I had to listen to my whining nagging voice I sure has hell wouldn’t stay in bed because I would welcome a chance to go to school and get away from it! And it’s not as bad as it was when he was in the second grade and I had to hold him down and force his shoes on him, carrying him to the car. Once he went to school in jammies. Because I‘m just that mean. This morning, he managed to get dressed and hopefully brushed his teeth and was sorta kinda awake he comes into the family room where I’m doing something emergent on the computer like checking in to see if my Fb friends have purchased sheep dogs for their farms or they have managed to “ice” someone in Mafia wars when I hear a very terse young man voice bark at me: “Let’s go.” Not, “hey mom I’m ready” or “Mom can you please drive me to school now?” And certainly not: “Mom, sorry you will have to speed on the highway to get me to school on time but it’s time to leave. I should have rolled out of bed when the alarm went off.”

I ignored the terse command because I’m usually not the friendliest person in the morning, either.(I know everyone is reeling with the shock,, I’ll wait here until you gather your senses) I come by my morning nature naturally but my father makes me and Beav look like Little Mary and John Sunshine. He was like the meanest grouch in the world before work. I always hoped he would wake up to a civilized state by the time he got to work. When I say mean, I don’t mean he would start the day out by beating us or hurling insults at us. No. He would sit and glower at the Today Show and offer monosyllabic comments in Jane Pauly‘s direction and grunt at me and mom. When I was in high school I would sit at the breakfast table with him; mom would putter in the kitchen and I would try my level best to be conversant with them even though I was half asleep and the 36 electric rollers jammed into my scalp didn’t help elevate my mood either. Besides that I had HEAVY things on my mind like…should I have lunch with Donna or Paul because if I had lunch with Paul we could watch All My Children at his house and his mom would make us something really good…but if I had lunch with Donna we could go to the mall and skip fourth period but that would involve lying to the attendance secretary and just how afflicted with menstrual cramps can one girl be…would anyone notice my new blouse and did my jeans make my ass look cute or flat and was Keith really interested in me or was he interested in me to get to Amy because everyone was interested in Amy anyhow and why should I bother because it was all going to end in a big explosion of heartbreak like everything else had ended this past summer ... So given my mood state any given morning of my senior year why not bait the hell out of my dad with incendiary remarks about how I thought Jimmy Carter was doing a great job .

I was poking a sleeping dog with a stick. An old sleeping dog with a sharp stick. An old sleeping dog who had been abused by mean people when it was a puppy with a stick. An old sleeping dog who had been abused by mean people when it was a puppy left in the cold to starve with a stick.

Poke poke poke…I think Jimmy Carter* is cool and what he is doing in the middle east is cool.

GRRRRR noises, comments about Southern Baptists as president,…hick farmer…democrats…ruined the economy…

Pokepokepoke I think Israel is wrong…”

“GRRRR…1948...how can you think that…it‘s their land”

PokePOKEPOKE“The cold war is stupid and pointless. No one is going to nuke anyone. It‘s just a waste of money.”

Have you ever seen someone breathe fire? I know my kids have seen me do it. Beav saw me do it yesterday after he auditioned for The Most Ungrateful Teenager Of The Year Award (the boy nailed it too, he made Wally look like the Dali Lama and Sister Theresa’s love child) Anyhow, it was at this point I would make some sort of peacenik dove remark completely uninformed by any reality other than knowing I would get my dad’s attention and he would breath fire at me.

By the time we were finished establishing which side of the aisle we were one; my dad had me burning the flag and I had him lobbing missiles at Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan. My mother started referring to breakfast as World War Three. What she didn’t realize is I always started my early morning diatribe against the war machine just to see if I could get him to string a sentence together first thing in the morning. Just to see if he was paying attention because when I was 17, I was three.

So now when I hear Beav say in his barky little man voice: “Let’s go!” I hear my father and instead of getting upset with Beav, I laugh, because I would rather the commute to school not resemble Breakfast Wars 1978.

Dad and I still go at it. In 2003 I almost asked him to leave my house because he was going on and on and on about how great George Bush was. Just like an old dog that had been poked with a stick one too many times and exacts Cujoesque revenge on his abuser. Karma’s a cruel bitch sometimes, isn’t she? And this summer I almost put the old man on my email filter because he insisted on sending me emails about how Obama wants him to sit before a death committee because the Neurontin he takes for his terrible neuropathic pain is costing Medicare too much money. Looks like I’m getting poked with my own stick.

The other stick I’m getting poked at is The Messy Room stick. My mother would threaten me with the Front Lawn Humiliation. We would go around and around like Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin on the way to Camp David because I had not developed the fine motor skills necessary to hang up my clothing after I had had it on for three minutes and decided it was what I wanted to wear. I was threatened with all sorts of things, mean notes about taking my clothes to Goodwill or never sewing for me again or--her favorite threat--putting everything on the front lawn. Now I was clueless and thoughtless when I was seventeen but I wasn’t stupid. I would have to be so dumb it burned if I thought she was actually going to take the time to move all that crap on my floor to the front lawn. Really? It would be easier to just hang everything up in the closet. Yesterday, I was cleaning the house and audibly groaned when I saw Beav’s room. He’s normally relatively tidy. When me and Ward went to our first parent/teacher conference for Beav his tote was perfectly arranged. Scared the crap out of me, I flashed on a picture of a boy with blistered, bleeding hands from compulsive hand washing (oh don’t I wish that now) Of course the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree and I considered leaving the “front lawn” note but then I stopped a minute and thought about it. Screw the front lawn, I could take a picture of his room, post it on my Facebook page tagging it as a picture of him so it would show up on his wall. The shock and awe I thought this would inspire continues to make me cackle like an evil genius. Can you imagine? Much better than the lawn. Much. I may just file this away for future reference. Feel free to use this with your messy teenager or messy spouse. But I’m not sure this would be a great idea because Karmic justice could be served all over me if the kids took a picture of me screaming at them about something and posted it on their walls. Yeah…no.

The “My Parents Hate Me So They Bought Me The Crappiest Car Ever” karma is living at my house, too. Beav won Most Ungrateful Teenager Award yesterday when he got huffy with me about the 1990 Honda I will be giving him. Obviously, I’m giving him this crappy beater because I don’t love him. Why else would I ruin his life? It couldn’t possibly be because I can’t afford to buy him a car with the magic checkbook that makes all his dreams come true. (I think my checkbook is magic because without fail there is always enough to provide what we need with a little left over for what we want. But that is a subject for another blog entry) The Honda has been a source of consternation since last winter; when Wally decided buying the Honda was all part of my diabolical plan to ruin his life. The Girl suggests we keep it forever and give it to Wally or Beav’s kid as a present. The grandkid would point out what an awesome relic it was and be grateful--tearful even-- as I cast a withering stare with my filmy and rheumy eyes towards the once thankless boy who is now a middle aged man with his own unappreciative son or daughter. Besides that? Every teenager needs to start out their driving life with a crappy car. The car at the top was my second car and it was nice compared to the first car: The Stupid Death Machine Pinto who’s only claim to fame was a decent 8 Track tape deck. I’m still not completely convinced that car is why I wasn’t the most popular girl in school my junior year.

After discovering I was ruining his life via the Honda, Beav told me what he wanted for Christmas and It’s a good thing Beav didn’t see my face when he assured me the PS 3 is no longer $700 but a paltry $300. But he assured me he doesn’t need 120 gigs of gaming memory, just 80. What a magnanimous boy I’m raising. And what a relief it’s NOT as expensive as it was this summer! Too bad it’s what I spend on both boys each Christmas. I guess I’m going to have to live with his Whoville like disappointment when he wakes up and imagines The Grinch stole his PS 3 and left behind crappy gifts. Please excuse me while I pat myself on the back because I had a What Would Jesus Do moment versus a What Would June Do moment after he gushed his great news of all the money I was saving this winter. Instead of setting fire to his dreams, I simply mouthed to the back of his sweet dear head: “Oh. My. God. Where is the pod you crawled out of and why don’t you find that nice kid Beav and bring him back here because I don’t like this current boy who claims he is my youngest son.” If I had allowed June to respond, the verbal flash fire would have destroyed our family room. Feelings would have been hurt and Beav probably would have run away from home. Or worse. He would have been completely oblivious to my ire and asked for some other crazy expensive shit. Like a rocket ship or a pony.

My final crime against He Who Is Self-Entitled was the audible gasp over his eight hundred dollar camp dream. Eight. Hundred. Dollars. For camp. One week of camp. Not a month of camp. Young Life Camp. Jesus camp. I don’t need to dust off my New Testament to see that Jesus didn’t charge more than my share of the mortgage to be a member of his flock. Now some of his nefarious priests did in the late 15th century but we live post reformation and it doesn’t cost 800 bucks to love the lord. That’s free. And for a tank of gas I can drive him up Floyd Hill to a lovely trailhead where he can take a walk and bask in the glory of nature for about 20 bucks. Fifteen bucks if we drive the Honda.
















*in the Old Man's defense: he volunteered for Habitat For Humanity over the last few years and thinks Jimmy Carter has done great things since his presidency.

Good Morning Yesterday

I swear, my Texas accent returns the second I step off that airplane. Hell, I even start thinking with a Texas accent. Years ago, when I was an even bigger bitched up snob than I am now, it would have unnerved me slide back into that drawl! Now it just cracks me up to hear the stuff coming out of my mouth. I’m never about to do anything. Nope, immediately, I’m fixin’ to do something or go somewhere. I’m not southern enough to “bless” someone’s heart but that will probably happen after I visit Wally on family day in the Deep South. TG is from the Midwest and she thinks the accent is charming. I must admit Sophocles sounds preposterous with a Texas accent and it was at that point when we were doing this play in high school my accent began to fade. Mr. Evans, bless his heart (snerk) tried to educate it out of us.

Which brings me to the real subject of this week’s entry: my high school reunion (nice sequay, huh!)

I was one of those rare people who really enjoyed high school. Yeah, there were days I thought the world was ending. I had my heart broken in small pieces on two momentous occasions. I broke a heart. I was teased about my height, my skinny and endlessly long legs and returned the teasing in kind. Despite all of this, I loved high school and was lucky enough to make lifelong friends. So I always look forward to these ten year reunions. Each gathering has been completely different, too. Each one better than the last in some ways and I always learn something about me and people I was lucky enough to grow up with.

This year, I got to see a woman whom I never fail to remember when I see a Goth chick walking into my boys’ preppy high school. My high school was all about preps and sports and I thought the key to survival and therefore happiness was to be just. Like. Everyone. Else. She was a little bit hippy and a little bit punk and had the most amazing hair I have ever seen. When we were all ensconced in our helmet head Farrah do’s, Her hair was dressed simply and spilled down her back without a drop of AquaNet on it. When we were girls, She genuinely liked and got on with everyone because she was such an individual everyone knew her not because she was the girl who got pregnant or busted for dope or had to miss school because she lived in a terribly abusive situation but because she was just She and completely unlike the rest of us desperately trying to conform. She is still wildly original and creative. She’s also extraordinarily beautiful and appears to have been cryogenically sealed and frozen for the last thirty years because she looks absolutely the same only with a touch of experience around her eyes. What a pleasure to talk to this woman who wasn’t afraid to just be herself. Too bad I said something terribly awkward and goofy (I haven't changed, either) I hope I can fight the urge to stop one of the art chick’s at Beav’s school to tell them this story! (can you imagine the level of humiliation I would visit upon him if I did this…hmmm maybe I can use it as a threat to get him to make his bed)

Another amazing woman, shares my name but with a sharper edge. EdgierJuneCleaver has five children. Five. That’s a lot of children. I would be drunken-in-and-out-of-rehab JuneCleaver if I had five children. And while she is proud of them and has nursed one of them through the unspeakable experience of cancer, Edgier has her own life and a career. Edgier is the Quiescental Texas Girl: smooth as butter but can cut you like a knife. She also has those classic Texas looks: beautiful and leggy.

I was lucky enough to be escorted to both parties with my original Prom Date (PD). I was his galpal in high school and we spent a lot of time hanging out together. PD always had an opinion about what I was wearing or my hair. So he was better than a girlfriend because he would tell me the truth. One day, I was fussing about my hair or something stupid and he gave me--to date--the funniest compliment I’ve ever received: “June, out of all the girls I know you always look consistent [this was good, really!].” It’s the “consistent” word that cracks me up. He was a Mathy boy so variables are something he spent time thinking about.

This year neither of us had dates or spouses in tow and we talked to one another like we did all those years ago: as one another’s sounding boards and confessors. I learned to trust him when we were kids because he was the only person out of all my friends who had the courage to tell me the boy I had dated for almost two years was also seeing one of my friends. He of course shrugs it off as, “It was a question of loyalty.” Loyalty in friends goes a long way with me. So months later, we find ourselves without dates to the prom; we decided to go together. The people we wanted to go with had other dates. But I don’t remember feeling like a consolation prize because PD was one of the people I most liked spending time with. Besides that, he borrowed his brother's hot car and wasn't afraid to wear a baby blue tuxedo so we matched. And I knew he was a gentleman.

He still is a gentleman. Thankfully he left his baby blue tuxedo at home.

Driving Under the Influence

This past July (oh lordy that was a lifetime ago) I was issued a traffic ticket, my first in about twenty years. When I saw the lights flashing in my review mirror it scared me because I didn’t have a clue what I had done wrong. I was driving at the speed limit on a street I had driven down almost every day for the last sixteen years. I pulled over and waited for the deputy sheriff to lean down and speak to me. She was a plump blonde woman, very young very polite and to the point, “Do you know why I pulled you over, ma’am?”
“Um…actually I don’t have a clue.”
“You failed to stop at that stop sign”
that’s impossible! I have stopped at that stop sign for sixteen years, sheesh there’s a school up one street and the community pool up the other, I could mow down a kid if I didn’t stop!
“Really?!”
“Did you stop at the stop sign?”
I know I looked at her like she had two heads because I thought it was a silly question. “Well…if you didn’t see me stop then I suppose I didn’t stop.” I’m very distracted today; a week ago my fourteen year old had his wisdom teeth out and he’s still in a lot of pain and feels like crap; my stupid ex husband and his nasty wife kicked my nineteen year old out; and he just announced his ship date was moved up and he leaves for Georgia in about six weeks rather than in twelve weeks. Did I mention my job really sucks right now?
“Do you have your proof of insurance?” well f*ck me runnin’, no I don’t have my proof of insurance, and it’s at home on my kitchen table. Let’s see if I can remember the big ass speech I gave my son about always always always ALWAYS have your proof of insurance in the car because just this minute I need to hear it!
“I’m not sure, can I look for it?” The very polite officer allowed me to toss my car looking for my proof of insurance and alas and alack the only one I found was a year old even after I did everything but tear out the carpet and rip open the seats.
“Ma’am this is a year old.”
“I know” I sighed, “Can we call my insurance agent, and you can confirm I’m insured?”
“No, but you can go to court on this date and then you can prove you have insurance. And thank you for not lying to me.”
thank you for not lying to you? Are you high? Why the hell would I lie to a sheriff’s deputy? People lie to you? People blatantly run stop signs and do illegal maneuvers and then lie about it? Are they high? Dude, you have so much power in that little notebook that the last thing I’m going to do is lie to you. (Obviously, I’m not one of these people who cries or acts stupid to get out of tickets.)

So yesterday morning I had my day in court, it was the first day of autumn, snow on the mountains, errant flakes driven by a damp cold wind hitting my face as I walked into the court house. I gulped when I saw my name was the first on the arraignment list. I was being arraigned . Damn, when I saw I was being arraigned I felt like I should have brought F. Lee Bailey’s protégé or something for this serious business. I checked in with a clerk who looked--I swear this is not an exaggeration-- eerily like Della Street’s older sister. There were only five of us to be arraigned that day and the other four were my children’s age. I was the only matron jailbird in the bunch. Della Street gave us a copy of our rights and I was immediately fascinated I could plead guilty by reason of insanity, for a moving violation! Awesome! I wonder if anyone has ever done that. I imagined the look on the judge’s face when I told him I ran the stop sign because I was insane. “Ok, Your Honor, I wasn’t actually insane, insane. Have you ever had teenagers? I mean those people are enough to drive you OVER THE EDGE! And I was at the edge of the brink that day with the Ward and Alexis Asshat Show much less dealing with two teenaged boys. You know it’s just amazing I didn’t wreck the car. . .“ Ummmm probably not a good idea to plead insanity. I could also plead “no contest” because this wasn’t really a moving violation because I rolled through the stop sign. I know I rolled through it because if I had driven through that tight corner I would have toppled the Mitz onto it‘s right side. You can‘t take a corner like that at 30 in one of those things without terrible repercussions. No Contest seemed like the better option because Reason by Insanity could also mean a 72 hour M1 hold, and my State Nursing Board frowns on nurses having M1 holds on their medical records. Besides, they might decide to keep me and the mental health option on my health insurance is probably the most craptastic in the industry (aside from Medicaid which is next to nothing but I’ve already beaten that dead horse with a few sticks). My final option was the least amusing but the most sound: just plead guilty, pay the fine and eat the insurance points for failure to stop at a stop sign. I quietly tallied how much money I had and said good bye to the new shoes and jeans I wanted as I listened to the names being called and people were ushered into a room to discuss their cases with an associate DA who looked fresh out of law school and probably had visions of being Mayor or God or something. After they had their little face to faces with Doogie Houser Esq, they quietly walked into the courtroom, tails between legs. I was really nervous about all of this failiing to have insurance is a really serious offense(OMG as it should be!) and if proof isn't valid, too bad. One of my co-workers--a hot 40ish blonde MILF type, told me this would be a piece of cake, just show up and they will dismiss the ticket, she had done it a few times over the years. Well, yeah of course it was thrown out, look at you! was my response. Oh no, she insisted, that county’s DA is really easy-going. When it was finally my turn and I followed him into a little office trying to look law abiding and NOT my usual bitchy MO.

“So Ms Cleaver, you failed to stop at a stop sign, is this true?”
“Yes it is.” rolled, I rolled through the intersection, an intersection I have pointedly stopped at for years. . .
“And you didn’t have proof of insurance. Did you have insurance on this date?” He looks at me like he wants to give me the chair because I had left my effin’ insurance card on the kitchen table.
“Sir, I’ve had auto insurance since I was sixteen” I pushed the card over to him.
“It appears you did have insurance.”
yay! He can read!,
“How is your driving record?”
“Oh you clever boy, I know you have my driving record resting in your hand. What kind of idiot would sit opposite you and lie. This is another chance to be caught in a lie and then you send me into the court room to get scolded by a judge. I know this game, sonny. ( I wonder what he would have done if I had said: Let‘s see, over the past ten years I have been issued fourteen DUI‘s; one night I was going 120 and when they finally caught me I was given a speeding ticket; I ran over a small child; and I’m wanted in California for a minor little road rage incident involving a hand gun and a fist fight.
“I haven’t had a ticket since about 1987”
“How are your points?” He leans towards me and glares when he asks me this. I thought any minute he was going to hand me a phone so I can hear Beav pleading with me to tell the truth so they won’t kill him. I’m thinking Doogie's nanny let him watch too many LA Law episodes on Lifetime television when he was 12 and I’ve watched too many conspiracy flicks on TNT.
“I don’t think I have any points on my license.”
“That’s correct, Ms. Cleaver, you don’t!” So now he is morphing into Monty Hall. I can hear the DING DING DING and applause in the background, pretty purple, green and red lights are flashing because I’ve just picked door number two and I get a new washer/dryer, a year’s supply of Rice-a-Roni and a Dismissal!
“I’m dismissing this.”
“So I don’t have to pay a fine for the moving violation and I’m not getting any points?” I’m feeling paranoid, this was way too easy. He didn’t really dismiss it and next week there will be a warrant out for my arrest.
“Just be a better driver!” He said peering down at me like I’m NOT old enough to be his mother.
Be a better driver? Look you little bug, I taught my oldest son to drive and I’m teaching the other one to drive. . .don’t tell me to be a better driver…if you want to be all bad ass why don’t you get a real lawyer’s job. . .

“Thank you, sir I will.”

So it was dismissed I didn’t have to plead insane or no contest or even sit in the courtroom. I can buy new jeans! And shoes!

Life is sweet sometimes, innit?

Ahh The Brisk Smell Of Pencil Shavings

(TVland.com gave me the picture. Isn't it creepy how the Cleaver boys resemble my kids? Thankfully, my Wally doesn't have a creepy spray on tan and my Theodore is about a foot and a half taller)

I was chided yesterday for almost making Beav late to school. "Mom, we need to leave earlier because I didn't get to class until just before the last bell." I hope I didn't give him the WTF look I was feeling at that moment because that would have been rude. So I asked myself for about the 5000th time: who is this child? And where did this genetic drive to achieve come from? Not me, because all I want to do is hang out and sort of let life happen to me; and we all know it didn't come from his slacktastic asshat father! Somewhere across town there is a couple who are...I don't know...lets say they are a heart surgeon and a judge...wringing their hands and hanging their heads in frustration because their child is not like them: over achieving, motivated and an academic star. This kid across town has the Rasta-man approach to life. "When da' boat comes mahn, theen I do mah homework, don sweat it mahn, I get it done." I just hope the hospital doesn't realize their mistake. Even though this go round with high school is a big gear change for me; (picture slowly backing up and suddenly slamming the car into drive while jamming the gas pedal to the floor) it's not a bad feeling to have a kid who wants to be in his seat and ready for class when the final bell rings because his brother (and his mother)were thrilled if they were sliding into their seat as the final bell sounded. The Beav even had homework the first week of school! Wally didn't have homework until the last three or four weeks of the semester when he realized he was in danger of failing and decided it was time to do the work his teachers would assign all those last minute projects because that's how those teachers roll. (sure they do, honey. Everyone wants to grade a twenty page project the last day grades are due!) Do I really look that stupid? Do these pants make me look that stupid? Because my kids think I'm as dumb as a rock. I suppose I am as dumb as a small rock because when Beav announced he was doing homework last Wednesday, I was a little bitched up and commented: "You have homework on the second day of school? Isn't that a bit much? Your brother never had homework during the first week of school!" The look of utter disgust with the accompanying eye roll was almost warranted in this case. His brother--God love him, I know I do--wasn't an honor student. Even if he had worked really really REALLY hard he wouldn't have been an honor student. So he didn't bother to work at all and then suddenly in the home stretch he would make an effort and end up with a C. It. Drove. Me. Out. Of. My. Mind.

So now I guess I have to act like an Honor Student's mother. I'll need to practice saying things like: "full ride" and "financial package" and "Vida" and "admissions essay" and "loans" and "dorm assignments". I'll also need to work on my sniff and sympathetic smile after I breathlessly and thoughtlessly ask after Snively or Bratleigh (the IEP kids) when I'm quietly told Snively hates school and Bratleigh can't wait to start community college. What I won't do is make a judgemental remark about their parenting abilities or the effects of divorce on young children to our other friends when Snively and Bratleigh's mother is out of earshot. (Does high school ever really end?)

My only other experience parenting a high schooler was being the mother of a kid who had yearly IEP (Individual Educational Plan) conferences. What hell this was for Wally. One teacher, a guidance counselor, the psychologist and his parents gathered around a table to tell him the fourteen ways he was a great kid and the fourteen ways he sucked. No wonder he hated high school. He was the kid in the separate classrooms just down the hall from the big classrooms and he did horribly in them because he hated it so much. All he wanted to do was blend in with the rest of the kids. Of course this is what he wanted and it was completely appropriate. Only after he was mainstreamed in an honors history class (the honors part was a misplacement) did he excel. The teacher adored him and let him stay in the class and Wally even earned an A. You would have thought the kid brought home a letter announcing he was a Rhodes Scholar. I wept over that grade. Not because it was an A but because of what it meant to Wally's self esteem. Wally learned at a young age what it's like to work hard for something and fall just short. Wally also knows what it's like to work hard for something and succeed. This is what gives Wally his heart. The Beav on the other hand, is sort of set up to be a dilettante. He can do school with his eyes shut and his hands tied behind his back. This sort of ease doesn't teach the lesson of what it means to throw yourself into something mind/body/soul. If he decides he doesn't want to attend one of the academies and settles for a state college it will be because he doesn't want to make the supreme effort. But if he really wants to go to one of the military academies, it will be necessary for him to actually apply himself and not just do the bare minimium for an A but the extra steps it takes to make an A+. Even though he is rocket scientist smart he is not Einstein/Oppenheimer smart. You see, Beav made the mistake of confessing to me he didn't really work as hard as he could in middle school and now I know his dirty little secret and I have an excuse to ride his ass.

In some ways, It's back to school for me, too. After next Monday, Wally becomes a maggoty maggot on the shoe of a big mean drill sergeant and Beav returns to Alexis' show house, I will have two glorious full days of absolutely no commuting, no meal prep, no driving to Parkour or cross country or patient care or supervising anything besides my own projects. My writing project has taken a life of it's own and I was given a flash or insight via a dream Sunday night so I begged to take call Monday for the explicit purpose of writing. (I didn't tell them this) This absolute drive to write something down that minute is a new sensation. (my wish was granted, I was at home on call and I worked on the hot mess of a novel and my efforst were fabulous if I do say so myself) I get all bliss-out just thinking about next Tuesday and Wednesday.

When I was a wife and living in the Fabulous House In The Suburbs, one of the neighbors was renowned for having a gathering on the first day of school. Cocktails commenced at 0900. The idea of such a party amused me (cocktails at 0900 repulsed me). But I'm such a pragmatist and in many ways so close to my roots of Quaker farmer; I always "celebrated" by doing chores I had been putting off all summer and sorting out the boys' clothes. This year wasn't any different. I cleaned out Beav's closet and sorted clothing.

Yee Haw, Party on June!

The last day

I’m waiting but I don’t mind waiting in the microcosmic sense of the word. Those short stints of waiting: in front of the school a few afternoons a week; in check out lines at the grocery store. I have a file of articles pulled from magazines to read in the car for the after school wait and I amuse myself reading tabloid covers at the store. If I’m waiting at home there is always some sort of ’net entertainment. I don’t like waiting in the macrocosmic sense. You know, waiting for the big stuff: like the end of the Bush era, or for vacations to start.

Why am I content to wait? I think it’s twofold: My job is terribly time dependent. Medicines must be given at scheduled times. Tasks and duties must be preformed within a prescribed time. They simply must.. Rather than being a clock controlled freak at home, I work at not over scheduling my life and if I have more than three things I MUST DO OR THE WORLD WILL STOP SPINNING on my days off, I‘m pissy and angry about it. Today for instance, is the last day of the year and the boys are with me. Wally stayed out until about God only knows when last night and is still asleep; Beav gorged himself on The Sims until about that time so they have both just now rousted themselves to a waking state at the bright and early hour of 1pm (hey, it‘s 0600 in New Zealand!). I was waiting on them to get up so we could do something together. Maybe see this movie . Maybe go to the mall so they could spend some of their Christmas cash

What did I do while I was waiting? I read a few blogs, chatted with friends; goofed off at facebook. I could have been in the chilly basement making scrap pages or revamping some frames I’m using in a home dec project. I could have even gone to my second favorite crack dealer--the fabric store--but I didn’t. The only thing on my To-Do list for today I’ve come close to tackling is writing a blog entry. The two more important things on the list involve thinking about nursing stuff and aren’t terribly interesting. They’ll get done. Eventually.

So am I procrastinator? I don’t think of myself as one because I have places in my life where things must be done. The boys must be places, I have to show up at work on time and preform my duties on time. When I was in school, I didn’t wait until the last minute to study for tests or write papers. If that had been my approach, I would be flippin’ burgers and living in a trailer park. I’m not smart enough to fake my way through school. My Quaker ancestors would think of me as a lazy but then that was the 17th century and I’m not growing my own food or clearing land or fending off Indians. So I have time on my hands to see what my invisible friends are thinking about today; bantering and/or arguing with them. What a lush life.

This being said, last week I made up my mind to be more productive in the new year because I’m about to morph into one of the a Wall-e character. I’m promising myself every day off I will do something physical. Physical beyond pushing the vacuum cleaner or opening the ‘frig door. This will require getting up earlier than 9ish. Working out, walking and going to yoga has been spotty for me but once I do them, I feel much better; my body and soul feel lighter. After the physical is accomplished, I will tackle the creative. The joy I felt those few days before Christmas when I made my sister’s gifts did more for my soul and my state of mind than hundreds of hours in therapy. She loved them by the way. Loved them! I have plenty of projects to occupy me without spending loads of money. Which circles my third goal to eliminate debt and save enough money to go here next year. My fourth goal, to develop a much needed habit of daily meditation and gratitude journaling will--from a metaphysical standpoint--bring me closer to the end of the debt and closer to Spain.

I know I can reach all of these goals. I’m mapping them out day by day. Besides, if I can quit smoking and wean off the nicotine patch the first six months of 2008 and I can do anything. It will take some adjustment to the daily
to-do list extending beyond two items. Fortunately, they aren't chores so it isn't like I'm resolving to poop scoop everyday!

But in the meantime, it’s still 2008 and I have time to check my email and poke around Craigslist before I get busy, right? The last day of my procrastinating life feels much like the last day I was a smoker who smoked cigarettes. Good. I am reveling in my hanging out. It feels good to wait. But unlike smoking I will be able to endulge myself now and again with hanging out and doing nothing. Unless I'm truly addicted to hanging out and doing the bare minimium and that would be bad.

Today’s passage from Manifest Your Desires starts with these words: “Be easy about all of this. Life is supposed to be fun, you know.”

It is supposed to be fun!