Temporary Digs

finding cash

2011-03-02T12:09:00.001-08:00

carolyn says that if you chant out loud, that you are actually affecting the universe, creating the change that you are wishing to see. something buddhisty she decided to share the other day, and I'll take anything right now. very hungry for words that heal.

for the past few days, I've been chanting: it is over. what's next? this to rid myself of this nagging feeling that this thing that i've recently lost could be found again and brushed off and put back together and life would go on all blissful-like again. as if what i had was so perfect that finding it again and repairing it was my only hope. it was not perfect. and repair is not going to happen, and my sister finally made this so crystal clear to me (thank you sweet sister), but my heart continues to hurt in a strangely physical way as i try to accept this change. this loss. i do wonder how a chest can squeeze so tightly from sadness when it is all in ones head isn't it?

today on my way to work, I changed up the chant: something amazing is going to happen today something amazing is going to happen today something amazing is going to happen today

i had decided that instead on focusing on the "over" part today, that just for a little while, i'd turn a little attention toward the "next"... not necessarily in a "who" kind of way. more of a "what."

--

so because over the weekend i bought a washer and dryer, the plan today was to meet the delivery guys AND my cableman between 3 & 5. (three men. why not?). anyway, washer/dryer called to say they'd be early, and could i come at 12:15? i could. then phone rang again, and cable man called to say in thick brazilian accent: i do come early today, you can meet about 12:15?

something amazing is going to happen today

so i left my office at 11:45 but decided to do a quick errand, stopping by my old bank, back in the safe, clean, storybook neighborhood i just moved from. i have spent a few weeks now, regretting my return to the grittier shaw, where i was certain i'd eventually encounter dangerous criminals and roving gangs because the neighborhood is so different than the pristine lines of houses and perfect lawns neighborhood we'd just spent a year in (and because i'd been burglarized a few times in shaw, but my point is perception here, not past experience). anyway, i ran into the bank in the shiny part of town, to change my address and name on file and before we got started, the bank man said: "you just missed all the excitement. the cops just left; they were everywhere. we had someone trying to get cash from a teller--first trying to pass a bad check, then demanding it. it was pretty intense."

and i thought, wow. this really is amazing. my paradigm just shifted. the shiny part of town has bad guys too? and i just missed a bank hold up? here in pleasantville? maybe shaw is not so gritty afterall.

something amazing may have just happened today?

and i continued home. and when i got there, the brazilian cable guy was on the front porch all tall and dark haired and mysterious looking. or stoned. and i said: i need to put my dog in a room so he doesn't bother you, and i opened the door and called for cash. then i made a joke about him being a terrifying guard dog, so stand back cableman, and then called for him again. then i hollered for him, and then i screamed for him as the realization hit me that he was not in the house. that after i'd let him step out back this morning, and casually reminded my daughters to keep an eye on him (our fence is not yet installed)...that each of us must have looked away just long enough for him to disappear, and nobody noticed this as we locked up and pulled away for school and work.

i don't know my neighbors yet
i will have to tell my kids that their dog is gone
i did not have a collar on him or a chip in him or a fence for godssake

and i ran down the alley a ways calling his name and starting to cry and dialing carolyn. she just always knows what to do. and maybe there was a buddhist chant for getting your cash back? and she said, as she always does: i'll be right there. and i ran out the front door as the cableman looked at me like i was crazy and i said: go ahead, install some more tv, 1,000 channels just isn't enough, and the washer dryer truck pulled up to me running down the sidewalk shouting to a random man on a ladder: have you seen a loose dog? white? no collar? and he said no, and i turned around and about eight houses in the other direction i saw this older woman getting into a car so i ran towards her.

and her eyes went wide and she assumed i was going to rob her, because this is shaw.

but i said please, have you seen a dog running around loose today? i've lost my dog! and she said: what kind of dog is it? and i said a yellow lab. a big yellow lab. and she looked thoughtfully around the inside of her head for a minute and she finally said: does it have white hair? a really big guy? kind and sweet? and i said YES!! THATS HIM!! and she said (way too slowly): there is a man in that house over there and he took him inside after the dog was following a friend of mine who had her dog on a leash (ouch). and the man was going to call lab rescue, oh, i hope he didn't already call them! come on over this way, he's right in here... and she said what is his name? and i said CASH! and suddenly, a lattice gate crackled into bits and my dog came jumping through it and straight into my arms like Lassie returning to Timmy, or Benji rescuing those two rope-tied, gagged children in that sweet little movie from my youth (there's a whole 'nother story there. hog tied, kidnapped children, knives, guns? age-appropriate entertainment anyone?) or Free Willy jumping out to sea. Well not like Free Willy. But was all in slow motion like a movie stunt, and it was amazing.

the man was not home to thank, but i'll go back later today. the woman, her name was millie. when i was little i had a cherished, handmade doll named millie, who disappeared when i went off to college. i've missed her ever since. but now i live across from millie, who helped me find Cash when i was really down and out.

something amazing is going to happen today. wait for it....wait for it.....

bye bye blackbird

2011-02-08T21:15:00.001-08:00

tonight at about 6, after we’d gotten home from crazy busy days and girls were doing homework and I was back on-line with emails and spreadsheets, kate asked me if she could light a duraflame log in our fireplace. I said she could and watched (with one eye) as she place the log just right in the fireplace and struck a long fireplace match to light it up. and then she stood back a few feet and blew out the match as the flames in the fireplace started to get strong and warm and bright.

and then? she screamed at the top of her lungs as if she’d seen, well, a blackbird fly directly out of the fireplace and straight towards her head. and then she started running around in circles and screaming OMIGOD THERE’S A BIRD THERE’S A BIRD IN HERE!! and then abby screamed ohmygodthere’sabirdinhere!!! and then I screamed OMYGODTHERE’SABIRDINHERE?!!!! and then cash screamed, and i’m pretty sure I heard “holyshitIdobelievethere’sabirdinhere!”

a small bit of chaos ensued. a blackbird took total control of my home. it had flown right down the chimney through the fire and into my house (luckily, it was not on fire itself, as that may have created a slightly larger problem for me).

so there was the screaming and the running around and the flapping of wings and dogs and kids and then there were three girls huddled together in a bathroom screeching til one of them realized she was the only grown up in the vicinity and must get a hold of herself. so she (ok, I) creeped out ducking the divebomber once, twice, and then returning to bang on the locked bathroom door (seriously, kate and abby? a bird is going to BREAK IN TO THE BATHROOM IF YOU NEGLECT TO SLIDE THE LOCK ACROSS THE DOOR??)

eventually i reached the kitchen phone to call carolyn (because the cell phone was too close to the rabid and raging phoenix) to say what do I do if there is a bird flying around and around my house and every time I look at it it flies toward my eyes? and she said, very calmly and confidently, as apparently this happens all the time at HER house in the COUNTRY: have the dog and the girls go in another room (check!) so it’s all calm out there with just you in charge (ha!) and then you just get a towel and walk nonchalantly toward it and throw the towel over it, gather it up and take it outside and let it go. um, ok.

so I grabbed a towel and tiptoed toward it, but then it flew directly toward me so I threw the towel over my OWN head and laid on the floor like I was dead.

and after a few minutes I came back to life, and crawled back toward a basket of laundry in the tv room to grab a larger bird trap (carolyn said if you are too scared to get really close, get a sheet). so I crept toward the front door underneath a KING SIZED brown sheet (disguising myself as the floor, obviously) and I managed to get my front door open with the bird doing angry circles overhead, and then I crawled toward the back door under the sheet and got the back door open and suddenly, overhead (above the sheet) I heard...swoooosh...

bye bye blackbird.

this is not a youtube video of our adventure, though abby did manage to record a few harrowing moments on her flip camera as she ran for the bathroom. this is simply background music to fade out this story and my day...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdbWUPhjniE

---

ps. I am now a hero in my house, a supermom extraordinaire, and I shall have that brown sheet embroidered with an S and I shall wear it to work tomorrow. of course the girls didn’t actually witness my playing dead, as they were locked in the bathroom screaming at that time. they just think I calmly shoo’d the little guy out the back door with a little to-go bag of birdie treats for the road.

could I have summoned up this black bird with my little tattoo? with my new favorite song “birds” by kate nash? by saying to myself over and over and over “bird by bird. just take it bird by bird...”? with this crazy creepy sad and nervous week that needed a bit of hilarity to lighten the mood? whatever. I totally forgot about not having a place to live in a few weeks, AND that stupid stupid boy who broke my heart—for just long enough to sleep well tonight.

man life is funny and unexpected and rather surprisingly joyful underneath all this crump some days.

No. Not dead. Burnt badly. --Dr. Evil

2011-01-22T15:35:00.001-08:00

so i'm ready to write again. i have a story to tell. it's about a lost year, and it's a true story and it doesn't end well. it begins on january 1, conveniently, and it ends rather sadly--on january 1st. but there's this epilogue that takes us two weeks into a new year, where the drama drags on, full of run on sentences and unnecessary plot twists that make it a tragedy of shakespearean proportions, where everybody dies and the main character (wait, she's still breathing) cannot get her eyes to stop burning. maybe she froze them during her 5 degree training run this morning, and she's not really this sad after all.

sometimes color counts

2009-02-24T20:15:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I just want what I want. And when I'm willing to pay for it, I want what I want with a heartfelt thank you for shopping and have a nice day.

Like yesterday. I'll set this up with a thorough yet succinct history. (Upon re-read, not so succinct)

I've needed new running shoes for a few months now. My old orange ones from the marathon are literally cracking. And the white and green pair i bought last year are now gray and snow/winter-worn down to will-work-for-food, but I've been forcing them through the last few weeks of unpredictable St. Louis weather, knowing their time had passed a while ago.

As a side note, at Christmas, my husband decided he too needed running shoes for some training he was beginning for his new adventures in 9 to 5dom and i decided to buy them as my Christmas present to him. It was about then, Decemberish, that I a: decided to go shopping for both of us and b: discovered the Great River Running Store (the name has been been changed here. it is actually the Big River Running Company) had just opened up near this coffee shop I love called Murdoch Perk (really) in a small neighborhood i that I like, in the city I try and shop within.

Now the Great River Running Store is tiny. And mostly empty any time I passed by. But I love little-businesses-that-could, and I try so hard to support any new start ups in our city that aren't pawn shops or check cashing places or dollar stores. So I decided to buy my next pair of shoes there. And my husband's Christmas present at the same time.

At Christmas I went inside and found out they "didn't carry Asics yet but would in a month or two, so please come back." So I purchased my husband's shoes at The Running Center on Manchester (always, always good service). And decided to wait for a hole to form in my own, or at the very least, for another month or so to check back at GRRS.

So on Saturday, I stopped into Great (Big) River. They now carried Asics. Woooohoooo. But they only had one style of Cumuluses. Orange ones that looked a little like my crackalack pair I have from 2007. I tried them on, knowing that barring a misplaced staple or string there wouldn't be a thing wrong with my favorite brand and make of shoe. Except for the dang cheap looking orange stripes on the side. I stood there feeling my feet all at home inside this ugly pair of shoes. And my brain kept saying: don't do it, you hate these orange shoes, but my feet kept saying ooooh these feel yummy so my feet let him ring me up and I took them home.

By Monday morning I realized i was never going to wear those orange shoes. They were still snug as orange bugs in a rug in the box on my dresser. I'd rather wear my OLD orange crack n peels than put these cheap looking orange painty new models on (the orange swooshes aren't even dyed plastic, they are paint on white plastic). So I bagged them back up and searched for my receipt. Unfortunately, for someone who never never loses a receipt, I've suddenly become one of those people who let the receipts fly around my car with the windows down just moments after purchasing something. how did i become my husband?

So no receipt, but I was certain it wouldn't matter since Ben (also not a made up name. a very real running boy named Ben works there) would certainly remember me by all the personal info he gathered when he made the sale. So I went in with my bag of shoes and with my research done (they come in black/limeade/steel stripes and would've cost $85 with free shipping, no attitude, and arrived on my doorstep by wednesday, if I'd've just bought em on Amazon instead of paying the upcharge for the pleasure of shopping locally and supporting other entrepreneurs like me.

Here's what Ben said, seriously: you know we're not supposed to just let anyone come in here and get whatever color they want. i mean if we just did this for everyone we'd never sell the colors we order ourselves, you know. i really shouldn't do this, because now how am i going to sell the orange and white ones if you are now buying the green ones? you are really lucky you got me today, because nobody else would do this. and he said it all with a really sincere smile, in between making the phone call to asics, like he was doing me a really big favor by selling me something I'd driven to his store (three times now) to pay him a profit for.

i promise I only mentioned once that maybe I should just return them instead. (but without the receipt I knew I should only mention this in a whisper while he was lecturing me, because I could not likely not get very far on that front anyway.( i'm reminded of this time i heard someone say: you should not write checks yo ass cain't cash.

but he made the call and let me thank him profusely and he ordered the green ones and sent me away to await a phone call in a week or so when i could drive back a fourth time to get the shoes i wanted.

and i left feeling, i don't know, disappointed? in myself for letting this bad customer service leak out into the world on my watch. silly for wanting "what i wanted" and was willing to pay a hundred dollars plus tax for. annoyed for having gone out of my way to support the little guy (the store, not Ben, though he IS runner-skinny). I felt like i had bad hair and was obviously such an amateur because a REAL runner wouldn't care what color her shoes were.

sadly i'll never shop at the overpriced, cute, empty running store again. and I'll only ever see Ben again at the 11th mile mark of the half marathon I'll run in April. He'll be walking in the opposite direction, eating a bagel and wearing that tin foil blanket, having finished his FULL marathon in the time it'll take me to ALMOST finish the half. but i'll be wearing some fine looking limeade & steel colored asics and smiling from my head to my happy green feet.

bad waffle mornings and all

2009-02-11T09:53:00.000-08:00

I need to write more often. I need to write more often. I need to write more often.

Or maybe i'm just not a writer after all.

But I have to be. Because my master plan is to save myself from all this stuckness by selling something wonderful to the world so i can go ahead and move into my own fairy cottage with my own clean floors and my own clean bathroom and a guest room or two for my kids.

Here is something that moved me recently: my youngest daughter was having a meltdown over some waffle-without-enough-syrup tragedy that had taken place in my kitchen before she ran upstairs to where I was trying to force myself into grown-up work clothes which generally repel me. This began about ten minutes before her bus was to arrive, and included a sobbing girl with wet hair from the shower we had finally insisted she take (she prefers crusty skin and crumply hair even under her princess crown) which was soaking her shirt down the shoulders toward her sleeves. She was sobbing and insisting nobody listens to her and that daddy promised he'd get her more syrup but then he ANSWERED THE DOOR AND IS STILL TALKING TO THE AIR CONDITIONER GUY AND HE DOESN"T EVEN CARE ABOUT ME ANYMORE AND NOBODY LISTENS TO ME. And I had to start brushing and blowdrying her hair and her shirt over the commotion, risking the bus pulling up before the waffles were inserted into her sobbing cheeks with or without syrup and realizing this was one tragedy i just didn't have the energy or the time to make all better. She was having a bad morning. It was more than the naked waffles, but i had no time to dig deeper. These happen more days than not, and in my next life i will fix mornings. I will be a morning repairman. The world needs morning repairpeople more than airconditioning guys anyway. But I digress.

Abby was bawling and I was blowdrying and telling her she needed to pull it together and I watched her secretly try this thing I had mentioned to her a few weeks ago in passing: I'd told her that I learned if you force a smile onto your mouth even if you're really really mad then some endorphins get released in your body and you actually accidently start to feel a little better. And I caught her trying this out (which she NEVER would have admitted). Tears were shooting out of her eyeballs at an alarming speed, while she covered her mouth and nose with her hands. She didn't know I could see the indentations of her dimples on either side of her hands. She was force-smiling behind her hands and trying not to let me know she was doing it. it was a strange sight: tears from angry eyes and dimples at the same time. kind of like when it rains while the sun is shining. which sort of explains abby in a nutshell now that i think of it.

I don't know why this made me so heartachingly happy and sad at the same time, but it did. To see my daughter trying out something that I had told her might make a person feel better. she must have believed me, she tested my hypothesis and it worked for her. i'm one notch farther away from totally annoying mom with the blah blah blah. she got on the bus, syrupless waffle in hand, and smiling in her dry clean hair.

It was like I had gotten some sort of sign that things were going to be ok out there in the world with me and this one with all the drama. she listened. she actually put my words of wisdom to use--of course without ever admitting it, and I'll never never let her know I saw it go down--but i got some sort of sense that everything's going to be fine, bad waffle mornings and all.

maybe i'm not doing such a bad job pretending to be the grown up in this family afterall.

because i swore i'd write SOMETHING tonight

2009-02-04T20:34:00.000-08:00

to the tune of "if you're happy and you know it"

oh I take out my frustration on my skin
by my face you'll see what kind of shape i'm in
if i'm happy then you'll know it
and my face will surely show it
but for now i need a mask to hide the sin

seriously, i totally beat the hell out of my face just now obsessing in front of the mirror just to delay getting into bed because my head is so spinning with this day and my work and the bank and the buildings and my husband and. why do i do this? it looks very bad afterwards and takes three days to heal. and then i remember the wolfman children i just saw on the discovery channel, or was it tlc, but anyway it was the most disturbing and sad thing that i've seen in a long time. these children have a chromosomal disorder which makes hair, thick furry long hair, grow on their faces and bodies like the wolfman. and they are so painfully beautiful and sad and will live such a different and difficult life than me and my children without the wolfman disorder and i am so lucky that nothing should ever drive me to pick at my skin or even bother looking twice in the mirror, right? its good skin, mostly. and i am lucky. i will treat it nicely tomorrow.

walking on water

2008-07-30T21:47:00.000-07:00

I do miss God.

It's like i have to remind myself sometimes that I don't believe in him anymore. like he died or something. that makes me sad, actually. i'll be in the middle of asking for something or thanking for something or just plain admiring the work--and i'll remember: wait, you don't believe anymore. and then i'll feel nostalgic, like how i miss my grandpa and wish i could visit him again.

i was thinking about the soccer team my daughter plays for. it's the neighborhood church, st margarets. and i was just chatting wiht a few moms about the best place to get gently used soccer shoes since we have to buy them like every six months with as fast as the feet are growing. and i realized, all these people, all these believing people: where did they get these notions? where did all of these people get these father, son & holy ghosts?

we were watching that magician chris angel the other night. he was walking on water. seriously. walking on a lake with people all swimming around him and feeling his feet and gasping in amazement. and the only thing we could come up with to explain the strange sight was maybe some sort of clear "high wire" type thing that was rigged just below the surface of the water?? what the?? and then craig said: maybe THATs how jesus did it.

and i had to agree. he may have been a very talented magician, and what, with the whole pass-it-on thing as a substitute for the media, we may have just gotten the story wrong--you remember the game where you pass a story around the slumber party circle, and the story starts out about bobby playing ball but ends up with barbie spending a day at the mall with her lottery ticket winnings and buying all those people lunch in the food court? maybe THATs how jesus did it.

Maybe Jack Ate the Toothfairy

2008-06-06T23:29:00.000-07:00

My six year old lost her second tooth recently. She is the determined sort, and when she decided it was time for said tooth to be removed, she simply started a wiggle campaign that would have Hillary shaking in her boots. She just began following me around one evening, inciting me to pull it. Promising me that if I didn't just take it out she'd continue to harass me for the entire evening. I think her words were: Mom, you know what's going to happen if you don't pull it out. And her wiggly grin, complete with a pinchhold of thumb and forefinger and a streaming line of clear drool that ran like a waterfall down her arm to her elbow, was irresistable, even though it fronted for a threat from a child--something i swore i'd never respond to.

But I conceded. I had her grab a papertowel (for a dry grip, and also to mask the tearing feeling that accompanies the removal of a tooth. to mask it for me. it makes me shudder. in fact even the MEMORY of the tearing feeling makes me shudder) and i twisted a tiny little tooth out into the air. she was stunned for a minute--and then over the moon with happiness. and she ran about the house, showing off the tooth to her sister, her dad, her dogs--first cash (see my tooth cash? it's my little baby tooth it is), then jack (see it jack? it's so tiny! tiny little tooth jack! tiny little tooth. no, little jackie boy, it's not yours! it's my tooth, jackie. my little toothy. leave it? leave my tooth jack.)

And then she said mom? i'm going to put my tooth on the fireplace mantle so that i can bring it to school tomorrow and show mrs. russell. and i'll put it under my pillow tomorrow night for the tooth fairy. you don't think she'll be mad if i don't give her my tooth tonight, do you?

what i didn't hear later that night was her sister coming down the stairs to fetch said tooth after they discussed the matter from their beds after i'd tucked them both in. apparently big sister decided little sister ought to go for the cash right away, and deSCRIBE the tooth to mrs russell instead. so the next morning went like this:

i'm in my room getting dressed when abby enters sobbing. sobbing.

mom! she says through some very dramatic waterworks. mom! guess what the tooth fairy left me last night. (imagine six year old drama--big eyes, brows squeezed toward the heavens, head tilted, arms squeezed by her sides). THIS. THIS IS WHAT THE TOOTH FAIRY LEFT ME LAST NIGHT! SHE HATES ME! and she holds out her hand to me. and i see nothing at first. i think this is a very good way to make a point, and i am pretty impressed by her fistful of nothing, until i look a little closer. she is holding a splinter of wood from her bed. a little tiny chip of unpainted board, which i'm certain she has found during her dramatic bed-dig in search of the money stash she expected from the fairy.

oh my. it was very very hard not to laugh at this moment. my daughter is holding up a splinter. from the tooth fairy.

i am realizing i'm in for a rough morning, and i follow her up the stairs sorting out the drama. she's buying my explanations so far--and if i find the tooth i can save myself. i actually contemplate grabbing one of kate's old teeth we've got in an envelope in my closet, just in case i can't find it up there--but i do. its on the floor under her bed, next to a few more splinters of wood from the underside of her mattress.

jack has followed us up there for the hunt, and he's now wagging his tail at our discovery of the missing tooth on the floor under the bed. or at our backsides sticking up in the air.

abby is still heartbroken as we back out from under the bed, and i'm seriously at a loss as to how to smooth this one over. but i try this:

maybe the tooth fairy DID come last night, abby. maybe jack ATE the tooth fairy....jaaaAACK? did you eat the tooth fairy? jack? drop her jack! drop the tooth fairy! not yours jack! drop her!

it worked. she was laughing and looking for fairy dust on jack's tongue by the time i headed back downstairs to get dressed. i'd saved that fairy's ass yet again. i believe by now she owes me at least one sparkly favor.

an even better bumper sticker

2008-05-22T16:12:00.000-07:00

in sloppy, hand cut, white stickers, pasted across the back window of a beat up old beige chevy impala:

TO THE POLICE: IF THIS CAR IS BEING DRIVEN BY ANYONE OTHER THAN AN OLD FAT WHITE GUY, IT'S BEEN JACKED AGAIN.

Vanity Plates

2008-05-22T15:13:00.000-07:00

viewed on the back of a car recently, pulling out of a parking lot: URAWSM

this actually stunned me. took my breath away. I actually almost cried--which, amid exhaustion, financial stress and general malaise, is not a difficult thing to muster, but still. what a random act of kindness, to just put that out there to hundreds of strangers every day? URAWSM.

huh.

i am so used to seeing stickers spouting ugliness, spraying everyone with little drops of poison on the highway. stickers of cartoon characters peeing on rival car makes or schools/politicians/religions, all kinds of insults to the president, rainbowy declarations of sexual preference, claims that honor students are smarter than my kids, and dogs are smarter than honor students. opinions on abortion and war.

so URAWSM struck me as little bits of glitter from the good fairies, i suppose. and for a moment, i did actually believe it.

IAMAWSM.

business class

2008-03-11T22:49:00.000-07:00

I'm at the Mandalay Bay Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, and here's the thing: My hotel room is bigger than the first floor of my house. There is a bedroom, larger than two of mine at home. A bathroom complete with marble & glass shower/steam room, jacuzzi tub (for six, i swear), two sinks and a fancy dressing table between, separate room for a toilet and scary bidet (it's not scary by anyone else's standards but my own, i'm sure. i just don't get bidets. i do like a clean bum as much as the next gal, but bidets just seem so totally alien to me. although i do remember these kids from down the street from my grandparent's house in east middlebury vermont. i remember them showing me their new bathroom, and it had one of those inside. look! it's a booty washer, the little girl said as we all gathered around in awe of the little sprinkler that would shoot water up into your bum if you balanced just right). Anyway, I digress...there is a living room with fancy furniture, a foyer, an office, another bathroom, a dining room with a table for eight, sideboard, and bar, and a full kitchen without a scary stove. And there are buttons to draw the drapery. And there is (are?) drapery along three full walls--bedroom, living room, and dining room. but there is no freakin mini bar, and i could really use some mnms.

there is a funny story involving a facial and a mini-nap by the facialist (?), which i unfortunately told at dinner tonight, leaving myself and four others in tears, so i can't bear to write it here now. i will try again tomorrow. because it is a story worth getting down in print, if only i can top the verbal version. suffice it to say, there was a mask, a few pads placed delicately over my eyes, and approximately twenty minutes of drying time, during which i believe i heard some snoring. now one can't be sure, with pads over their eyes--but i have never felt so bizzarely out of place at my own facial before. it was like i was spying on the hired help while they stole a little shut eye on the clock. and what is one to do with pads over ones eyes, naked as a jaybird under a sheet. how is such a complaint voiced? and is it really a complaint? i mean, wouldn't you pay a hundred and thirty five dollars to lay still in a darkened, cool room, on a warm cushy table, under a sheet and a blanky, with a mask on your face and cool cotton balls on your eyes and have no chance of the email ding or the cell phone ring, even if there was an unmistaken snore every so often, by the aesthetician who had apparently gotten too comfortable in the side chair?

life, as bizarre as ever, is good right now.

curbing the snake

2008-03-10T19:35:00.000-07:00

I have seen my hero and lived.

Tonight I got to stand against a wall, body to warm steamy body, in a packed auditorium smelling hot headed smells and shifting my weight so as not to lock my knees up in the very bad shoe choice I made and I got to take in the self deprecating, politically charged, feminist, democratic, god-and-jesus believin' Anne Lamott. How lucky am I?

I have tears in my eyes just remembering. The second I recognized her beautiful dred-locked head up on the stage I wanted to ball my eyes out in pure joy and ecstasy. I couldn't believe how lucky I was to see her right there in front of me. Had I been braver and raised a hand, she might have even taken a question from me. Next time.

She's a wise, wise woman, who, given a different zip code, I would follow around for years until she finally noticed me and invited me to be her friend. I have learned so much from her and am moved to the core by her writing and her mother-wisdom and her honesty. How lucky am I?

Here's how lucky I am: we were late. Not in the usual way, but yes, in the usual way. Where we had stayed too long in the pre-event cafe, sipping a glass of wine as we discussed ethics as religion. I was with my best friend--the one who luckily didn't wait so long to invite me into her life--and we stood up to leave, just in time to make it to the event with twenty minutes to spare. Only when we arrived, we were stuck in a snake--a SNAKE (which word I will note here came to me quite by accident, yet fittingly, it was a word she mentioned several times as her biggest fear & dread)--a SNAKE of a traffic jam through six packed aisles of parked cars. In twenty minutes I was in the very farthest position from the entrance and the exit, with my car locked in by other anne-stalkers, and there was absolutely no solution in sight. I would actually miss the one appearance Anne Lamott would make in St. Louis forever, I was certain. My brain started searching for another way. Another way through, over, under, around these devil cars. There had to be a way. It was now 7:02 and I was as far away from the front doors as I could possibly be.

So, right there in the atheist ethical society parking lot, i began to ask. to pray, i guess you could say. and i will tell you i now save up these prayers for only the direst of situations, as i mostly don't believe in god. but there i was, in the back row, looking at six aisles of jam packed parking lot, and a single snake that went on for at least a half a mile in front of me, moving at a car length per five minutes at this point. So i got out. i got out and ran up to the car ahead of me, who could at that moment, squeeze her car into a left turn, going the opposite direction of the other cars, the opposite way than we were expected to go, and take the chance we could exit out the way we came in. All three of her passengers told her not to do it. The wanted to wait for the light to change. I said, do you want to try going to the left here? and she looked terrified. like i was going to reach in and grab her hard cover Traveling Mercies and make a dash for the podium if she rolled her window down more than an inch. and i said you wanna try it? And all her passengers said: oh no! don't do that, we'll never get in if we don't sit here in line WAITING FOR THE LIGHT TO CHANGE. So i slunk back to my car and got in. And i watched the traffic like a hawk, up there and to the left. there was only enough room for one car to make it's way beside the building and into or out of this jam, and if anyone pulled in as i began to make my escape, we would both be jammed into a game of chicken, or king of the mountain or something. and i watched as my clearance became ten inches, two feet, three, four, six, and i wrenched my car to the left and called out to jesus. please, just give me a good spot. let me see this woman. just one good spot. and i pressed on the gas, and floored it as best as one can floor in a parking lot of gridlock, and i came up to the "in" lane and i made my right, betting it all on a favor from god.

my car slithered upstream like a water moccasin, not so much as a speed bump to slow me down, and as i turned to the right, wrapping around to the front of the building, no less than one car length from the front doors, along the yellow curb where people were just beginning to break the rules and park anyway, there was enough room for my car, with this written in the yellow paint:

here you go, you non-believer. this is my little yellow curb, which will be given up for you. take this, you, and park at it. it is just long enough for your silver highlander and a little bit of faith. anne will take the stage in five minutes. i stalled her a few minutes for you too. you're welcome.

To Cheat or Too Cheesy?

2006-09-13T22:35:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking about COE's question the other night. And I think the answer is not that one cheats because something is not right or that something is missing in a relationship. One cheats because one doesn't choose not to.

Something is always not right. Something is always missing. There is always something askew. Something more intriguing out there. Something mysterious and hot and bothersome and more sexually appealing than one's own mate at the moment--no matter how deep the bond, how beautiful the children, how happy the home.

I've been there. Cheated on a husband. Hurt people. Deeply, badly. Wrote it off with: something was not right (Do you remember the french nun in the Madeline cartoons? I'm picturing her running down several flights of stairs to catch a cheating wife and her lover in the deep passionate throws of an "a-f-f-a-i-r").

But that is not it. It is not that complex. One only cheats because one doesn't choose not to cheat. That's all.

My dad once told me you don't sort of lie. If you lie a little, you are a liar. Choose carefully. Lie or don't lie.

I don't find myself having any more or less reasons to cheat on my husband and our less than perfect lives than I did with my first. There is no big difference in the relationship. No magic soulmate bond that is guaranteed to keep me true forever. I used to think: I cheated because we weren't right for each other. Something wasn't right. Something was missing. I wanted something more.

Nah. I just cheated. I lied a little bit. I didn't choose not to. I do now.

Choose not to, that is.

Welcome Back

2006-07-14T23:58:00.000-07:00

Because MB reminded me of my own God-dramas at our meeting the other night, here's my own first person ramblings on the subject...

I remember losing Jesus. I let him go pretty recently, actually, after the eighteen years of Sunday mornings, several more years of Christmas eve masses and even the continuing thanksgiving graces before turkey. It was a little bit sad, sort of like saying good bye to my friends on the last day of college, but it happened when I started to realize I needed to explain the him to my kids.

See, kids are these amazing lie-detectors. They force you to figure out what's real and what's make believe, and though the magic shows you get to put on at Christmas and Easter and for the first eight lost teeth, are the most beautiful, heartbreaking part of this parenthood thing, I had my own come to Jesus, and figured out he just wasn't the one for me anymore. Especially since I needed to explain him to my kids. And just like Santa Claus or the giant bunny that I'd dealt with as a kid rather quickly once the word was out, I let Jesus go. The tooth fairy was actually harder, I'll admit. A lady with glittery wings? No matter the creepy part about the teeth, she is much harder to let go of than Jesus, I'm afraid. Sparkly wings totally trump the water thing. We parted on friendly terms, and all. I just didn't plan on seeing him much anymore, save the occasional birthday greetings on Christmas.

I didn't graduate to the absence of God til last year. I brought him back again recently, though, after witnessing one too many miracles for my own good. The most recent one took place after my husband lost some very important bike racing equipment and something called Sirius radio because I'd stored them along with all the junk from his front seat in a trash bag while I was driving his car (you can see where this went, right?) and the bag got dumped and God handed it back to us after a mere focused request, which some might call prayer.

See I'd been driving my husband's car for a few days because of a bike accident that left him with a fractured clavicle, unable to shift gears in his Lance Armstrong Subaru. So we'd traded cars and I accepted that sipping coffee on my way to work was a thing of the past. It just can't be done while downshifting in the city. So one morning I needed to clear his front passenger seat of all the items he stores there: letters from the city regarding our rental properties, computerized biking equipment, gum wrappers, pumpkin seeds, energy bars, and boxer shorts. See, I needed to drive a colleague of mine to a fundraiser we were attending that afternoon. So I grabbed a trashbag from inside my office, carried it out to the parking lot as we were leaving, cleared the front seat of my husband's life's work, ate a few of the pumpkin seeds, threw the rest toward the grass, and then banged wildly against the blue fabric, hoping the dog hairs would vaporize. And we drove to our fundraiser in the dirt-mobile, me grinding gears and watching her head bob as I shifted.

Two weeks later, the bag went into our dumpster along with about fourteen others during a wild-eyed mid summer cleaning I did to prepare for a realtor's upcoming visit to tell us how to best sell the house in the fall. I hadn't noticed the difference between trash and his treasures. But that's not part of this story, really.

The story is that I saw my husband cry when we figured out this bag was lost. Not because of the Sirius radio, nor the important city paperwork lost in the dump. And not even, because of the four hundred dollar bike racing computer thing that was tossed. And they weren't duck noise type tears, just a few tears of defeat snuck in when he thought I wasn't looking. A defeat I hadnt' seen yet with the broken shoulder. He wasn't going to race again for a very long time. He had metal in his shoulder, and had yet to move his arm. His life temporarily sucked, and he hadn't yet realized this. But having his things--the important things that bike racers hold dear--having these things placed into a trash bag, and loaded into a dumpster by his wife insulted him to the core, may have even re-injured his shoulder and his pride. This is the man who never sulks. He is carefree to the point of infuriating others with his rastafarian attitude toward life. Don't worry, be happy may as well be tattooed on his forehead. But at the moment of realization--his things were likely loaded into the trash and the trash was dumped this morning--he caved.

And I walked away. I went to the stairs for some reason and stood there stairing at the wooden steps. And I said inside my head: God please give us back his things.

And the next day my husband opened our roll-out dumpster to drop in the morning's trash and there were two bags stuck in some goo at the bottom of the can. One of them was the bag from the front seat of his car.

So God is back. Jesus, I'm afraid hasn't visited in a while. Maybe I'll see if he's available next week.

To Unexpected Cash

2006-07-14T21:40:00.000-07:00

So I'm driving home from my office tonight. It's past six and I've called my husband several times to say I'm on my way, I'm sorry, I'll be home in 20-10-40-five more minutes I swear. And i pull up to the first light and look down. I'm driving my husband's car, because of the broken collarbone thing (it's a stick and his shoulder now contains metal plates and screws) and I see the gas light is on. Way on. And i have no idea how long you get once the light comes on in this car, where as in my own, I know that I get about five more rides before I really ought to get some gas. And I hate pumping gas. But there's this Sinclair station right near my office, and I really like the station because this very cool black man who drives this giant shiny black truck with neon lights underneath bought this and the car wash across the street and turned them both into these brightly lit beacons of light where there used to be a ratty old closed up fallen down filling station that I would have never even considered pulling into.

So I pulled into the station and there's eight pumps and seven are in use and I maneuver the little stick over into the one empty spot and I start to turn off the engine and I remember that the tank is on the other side in this car. So i pull ahead a few feet and start on a three point turn and just as I start to pull in to my pump, this bitch in a blue something or other pulls into my space stopping about five inches from the front of my car. It took me a moment to sort this out in my brain, as I was reeling a bit from the shock of the stolen gas pump and i had visions of this scene from fried green tomatoes where this young bitch in a sports car swings in front of this older woman to steal her spot and the woman begins repeatedly ramming the young girl's parked car, and I just stared at the girl with this dumbfounded look on my face (i may have mouthed fucking whore, but I'm not certain) and pulled around a jeep wrangler that had just entered the scene and headed for the newly empty spot on the other side of the lot.

Well, I rounded the station squeezing around all the hungry cars and started to pull in to my space when out of nowhere the jeep wrangler (red, like mine was when I was young and cool with my long hair and the top down) screeched (i'm not kidding, screeched) around the corner and landed in front of my pump. I do believe i laughed a short hysterical laugh at that point, and I also believe I made eye contact with the jeep bitch when I said fucking whore again (she smiled) and then I fumed out of the station (literally) and continued my trek through the hill on my way home.

I was driving up Columbia fuming about the whores when I got this sudden flashback to my yoga class earlier, and swore Buddha himself told me to calm the fuck down and to stop carrying the fucking bitches. So I did the full yoga breath that my instructor taught us today and I tried to let it go a little. Then I remembered the station at Kingshighway would be at least in walking distance if I did indeed putter out on the way home.

I made it to the other station just fine, and chose my pump based on the two that were available for the handicapped cars with the pumps on the wrong side, pulled in for my gas and got out to pump. I was feeling a little calmer now and did the credit card thing, turned on the pump, briefly acknowledged the man in the pimp-my-ride who had turned on his car alarm once or twice from inside his car just enough to get my attention (I figure I'm good for maybe three more years of pimp-my-ride appreciation so I'm generally gracious during the occasional flirt these days) Frankly I'd almost forgotten about the whores completely by this time, and I hung up the pump, closed up my tank, hit yes for a receipt, waited, and then walked around the car to my door, opened it, sat down, reached over to pull the door shut and glanced down at a roll of cash lying there on the asphalt under my car door. I believe I heard heavenly music and saw the money actually glow.

Now how often does this happen?

I couldn't believe it at first. I looked around to sort out the situation but couldn't. The only thing I COULD do was pick up the money, scan the gas pumps quickly, confirm that there was nobody looking around for a lost wad of cash, thank my lucky whores and pull out of the station. What the hell? Pimp my ride was long gone and there was nobody else nearby looking a hundred dollars poorer.

So I pulled into traffic and headed home, somewhat stoned from this unexpected highlight of my day.

The rest of bizarro night went like this: I get to the light and call C and say you're not going to believe this. He says: what'd you do run out of gas? This because I'm now an hour and a half later than I'd said I'd be. And I said no, there were these bitches and now I have like a hundred dollars and what would you do? Would you turn it in? And he said no way in hell. Found cash is yours. Now if it was a wallet or something you'd have to turn it in. But found cash lying around is the finders. There is no way anyone you bring that wad of cash to is going to do anything other than put it in their own pocket after you walk away, so that is yours baby. You got some money. Now this SORT of sounded like Buddha, but somehow not so much. Maybe it was the Gold Buddha, that fat and happy one in the chinese restaurants.

Now the strangest part of this entire truth-is-much-stranger-than-fiction tale is this: I got home, told my kids about my strange luck (I left out the fucking whores part) and started playing miniature soccer with them on the back deck. C brought me a Widmer. Now if you're a Widmer fan as we are, you know that we only recently got to start purchasing this fine Portland microbrewed Heifeweizen in St. Louis very recently because of some red tape with A-B's monopoly on the beer distribution in this city. Thankfully the ban on good beer is over, and we can now find Widmer in our favorite pub (O'Connell's) and the fancy grocery stores in town. Now if you drink Widmer, you also know that under every cap there is a prost--German for toast--to something or other--fresh starts, skirt-blowing breezes, drive thru liquor stores. The prosts are each different--we've rarely seen the same one twice--and reading them is fun, like opening fortune cookies, I suppose.

C poured a beer for me and sqeezed in a lemon. Then he brought me the icy cold glass of beer and my bottle cap. It read "A Prost...to Unexpected Cash."

Temporary Digs

2006-07-07T14:45:00.000-07:00

So we're moving. Not far, mind you, just away from the degenerates in my backyard. I SO hate them, and this hatred is very very bad for my children. There are at least 8 people on the fire escapes hanging out/smoking dope/drinking beer/braiding each other's hair at any given moment. And there are six fire escapes overlooking my back yard. And the dopesmoking isn't what bothers me. It's more the loud talking way that certain people communicate in at all times. The loud talking "get yo mowfokin ass back in dis house fo I pop a cap in yo mowfokin ass stupid mowfoka." This from the mother (fucker) to her seven year old child, who now speaks to my children this same way when they go outside to swing. It is not a nice thing to try and enjoy a back yard, which we worked very very hard on for six years, building decks, swingsets, planting grass and growing a nice little oasis where there used to be a car graveyard. Urban pioneers we were, rehabbing this house in the hopes that the neighborhood was on its way back. It is, but just not in my backyard, unfortunately. And now we're prisoners--forced to our front porch by the fire escape dwellers spewing hatred at us from their stoops. We even tried several times to make friends with them, but I swear we come off looking like the stupid white people that are usually featured on movies that star nice black families (why is it that white people in black movies always look like they have sticks up their asses). C doesn't have a mustache or a combover and rarely wears khaki pants. I wanted so badly to teach my children there is no difference between people, and that there is no race better or worse than any other. So we live in the city and we buy the black baby dolls from Target and we try to not be intimidated when walking past a group of four black guys in white t-shirts holding up their pants. But then we go into our backyards to swing and we get "stupid mowfokin white ass bitch shut the hell up" from a seven year old with corn rows in response to "row row row your boat sung in time to my four year old's swinging. And even with a few years of Raven as one of their favorite tv shows, my youngest said the other day, you know what mom? I like Chelsea best on that show because she has a white ass, just like mine.

I give up.

4th of July

2006-07-06T09:33:00.000-07:00

so my husband broke his collarbone in a bike race last sunday. and with a new titanium shoulder and eight screws as of this pas monday, I believe he qualifies as a bionic man now.

on the fourth, the girls and i took him breakfast in the hospital after a long day of visiting the day before. he was not well. he didn't eat and was kind of a grayish shade of white most of the day. we ended up going home to let him sleep more and returned to drive him home at about 4. he can't sleep because of the sling now and what with all the bolts inside his body, it makes for long nights and weird days. he's doing better today, and actually getting more and more color in his face by the hour, so things'll return to normal soon. I did find his bike rigged up to a trainer in the basement last week (before the surgery) and i believe it was down there so i wouldn't know he was riding while on pain pills and in a sling with a fractured clavicle. he's truly addicted in a frightening way.

this was our fourth of july night: the girls and i drove to webster for a carnival in the rain. we wore rain coats and carried two canvas lawn chairs and two umbrellas. after spinning wildly on a tilt a whirl, and snapping a few wet photos of the girls on a car carousel, we threw a dart at a balloon and won bracelettes before the fireworks started booming and we plopped our two chairs down in the center of this muddy sloggy carnival, close enough that they made a sort of love seat, and lay back with the umbrellas just covering our foreheads and watched the most fantastic fireworks show i've seen in st. louis. maybe it was the company. or the rain and the much muted crowd because of it. but i agree with my four year old jellybean of a daughter who said at one point mom? i had no IDEA there was a holiday that was this much fun.

tough decisions

2006-07-06T09:31:00.000-07:00

So I can't decide: start smoking or train for the Disney Marathon in January. Both sound equally appealing at the moment. But one I can do from my new porch swing.

party lines

2006-05-19T20:26:00.000-07:00

Ok, it has officially been too long since I've posted. I could not get in for the near life of me tonight. Of course, I had already spent thirty minutes of the ten I'd promised myself I would write tonight, reading the real-writers-of-my-writers-group's recent posts before I realized I was blocked from the blog by my own absence. I nearly had to resort to asking Norma Jean for more help getting me reconnected. I'm pretty sure she already thinks I'm a writing slacker and a computer idiot--so I try to avoid requesting further Blogging for Dummies assistance whenever possible.

I'm running in a 10k race tomorrow in Forest Park. If I can force myself out of bed at 5 to eat and register in time that is. I'm going to try because I haven't been taking the running thing seriously enough. It's like i can't commit to anything and it's driving me insane. I would like to say I read write and run, but so far, I only watch tv regularly. And mostly reality/survivor/amazing race type shows unfortunately. I even got sucked into American Idol this season. And I cared. I was actually bummed when Chris got voted out.

The other day i got a voicemail on my cell phone. It was an accidental dial by one of my clients...where she hadn't meant to call me but must have inadvertantly hit redial. And for the life of me I could not hang it up after I realized that she'd accidently dialed my number while out to dinner with a friend. Just like reality tv. I just could not turn it off or hang it up no matter how guilty and voyeuristic it made me feel. I even got really pissed off when I got another call ten minutes into listening to her private conversation. It was like I actually stopped and debated...click over, thus having to start listening to this message again from the beginning? or skip the new, live, call coming in on the other line so I don't have to listen to the first ten minutes again...weird. Why is it that other people's completely uneventful dinner conversation feels like some sort of scandalous event to me--merely for the fact that they didn't know they were being listened to? And how is it that my husband could have simply hung up after a few seconds when he realized the call was accidental. he said "i would have just hung up" and I was shocked. How could someone just hang up? What about all those words you would miss? I remember an episode of Little House on the Prairie where Mrs. Olson got a telephone operator job (or maybe ran the phones through their store) and she just couldn't stop listening in on all the phone calls. I'm Harriet Olson. I also remember being little and discovering the joys of listening to a neighbor's conversation on our "party line." One of my client's calls the group consensus the "party line," as in "what's our party line on inviting spouses to the corporate holiday party this year?" It took me a minute to figure out she meant what are we all going to say to our husbands. Maybe this is why I need to listen in.

the price of admission of guilt

2006-03-03T10:49:00.000-08:00

Temporary Digs

Yesterday I was in a meeting for two hours at a client's office. When I got out, I listened to my voicemails. My 4yearold daughter's teacher: Abby has a fever. It is 12:30. You need to pick her up right away. (It was 2:30 when I got this message). My husband: I'm on my way to pick up Abby. You need to come home right away. I'm editing a video at an agency and need to get it out today...And then about four more from my husband.

As I dialed home to explain while mom-guilt doom developed at a stop light, the car in front of me ran over a man. Well, not exactly over, but down. He crumpled in front of the white car clutching his legs and writhing. And i couldn't look away, and I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do because my husband had picked up the phone at that moment and all I could do was tell him exactly what was happening as it happened. It went like this:

Where you at?

Oh my god, a man just got run over.

What? Run over? A man got run over?

Yeah. Uh. A man is run over. He's on the ground. This guy, this guy in a white car just ran him over. He was trying to turn right on red. He was looking left and... I can't tell if the guy is a homeless guy or what. He's very well dressed and he's holding his legs.

(A nice thing I guess, to dress nicely if you're going to be making a scene under a car later that day.)

Call the cops. You need to call the cops.

But I can't I'm talking to you.

Hang up and call the cops.

But now the driver is getting out. He's pulling the guy up and he's opening his wallet and he's handing him a bunch of cash. Oh my god, the guy is just limping away with a handful of cash.

And as I sat there watching it all, cell phone to ear, the driver got back into his car and completed his right turn and drove away. In my stupor, I actually contemplated giving the guy a few bucks as well. I did have a little extra cash for parking meters.

a nicer definition of the f-word

2006-02-28T17:26:00.000-08:00

I'm in the dining room on my laptop right now, having just cleaned up a giant pile of crap that my giant pile of yellow lab puppy dropped off for me a few feet away while I was entering some bills into my bookkeeping software for the rental units. This is a conversation I just had with my six year old daughter when the kiddie table I had picked up at a yard sale a few months ago fell apart while she was leaning on it. She was in the sunroom watching Cinderella and trying to put the top back on the table so she and her sister could eat their dinner out there (it IS Mardi Gras after all and CAB is making a mean red beans and rice).

Mommy, this table is just fuckin'!

The table is what Kate?

It's fuckin. It's just fuckin'!

Did you say this table is just fuckin'?

Yeah, it just keeps falling apart! It's just so stupid and fuckin'.

Hmmm. OK. I'll try and fix it. And you? Try not to say fuckin' ok?

OK Mom. Can I say damn?

Not at school.

Locked Out

2006-02-05T20:02:00.000-08:00

This morning I walked with my daughters and dog to deliver my dog's shot records so we could get the secret code for the gate at the dog park in my neighborhood. We've been locked out, waiting for two months for thevery busy dogpark gatekeeper lady to mail us the secret code that unlocks the gate, and just found out the very busy dogpark gatekeeper lady didn't have all of our paperwork and needed this last piece of paper in hand before she could grant us holy ground access.

This might have been a simple 20 second transmittal, had she a fax machine or an email address or any piece of current technology that might have allowed me to transfer the information without physically appearing before her, but she had no such equipment. She suggested I mail it, but she said also said the application I'd mailed two months before had "just arrived" this week, so I had little faith in the postage stamp, or her in-box which was the more likely detainer (I'm looking at mine now, over there, behind my laptop. Full. Sitting. Sitting.). So we decided it would be best for me to drop it off so she could give me the code and the dog park tags in person.

We drove by many times without the sheet in hand, and then we had the sheet in hand many other times when we took the wrong way home. And finally, this perfect sunny, 23 degree Sunday morning arrived and we decided a bike-ride-slash-dog-walk concluding in dog park play was in order. So we suited up in several layers--mittens, hats, helmets, scarves, "do we have to wear the heavy coats, mom"--and pulled out the tiny, training wheeled bikes from the shed ("There's our plastic bowling ball and pins, mom!"), attached the dog to his leash and set off on our 2 mile journey to the very busy dogpark gatekeeper lady's house.

All went fine on the trip there, with only the occasional whine or tipped bike. They were so suited up that the falls were merely padded rolls with bike wheels spinning in the air for several seconds before they were able to weeble themselves upright again. And finally, we arrived at the very busy dogpark gatekeeper lady's house.

She came to the door with her dog, Mischa, who was literally flipping, trying to squeeze past us all in order to reach my dog, Cash who was tethered to her lower porch rail. I handed very busy dogpark gatekeeper lady the paperwork, introduced my children, and awaited further instructions regarding the code.

Now the VBDPGKL likes to chat. When I'd asked her in a past phone call for the quickest way to clear up this red tape that was keeping us from dogpark play (we'd paid our dues in December, and the clock was ticking), she managed to keep me on the phone for approximately 17 minutes to answer. So I was a little worried when she stepped out onto the porch and tucked her dog behind the partly closed door so she could stand upright instead of taking that stance we large dog owners refer to as "holding the collar at knee level to keep my giant maniac of a puppy off of your head." And with Mischa properly tucked behind the barely open door, very busy dogpark gatekeeper lady began to settle into small talk position, arms crossed in the chilly air, one foot forward. Now, I had three small beings to deliver to a dog park today and none of the three would put up with a long winded discussion about the weather. Just give me the code. Give me the code.

Suddenly Mischa took one giant leap at the inside of the front door. It seemed more as if a giant being had tossed Mischa AT the front door, but it was confirmed immediately that Mischa was the only being inside at the time. And the door was locked.

Her husband had just left for a jog in the park, and she had left something cooking on her stove, she told me in a panic. I glanced up at her beautiful home. I considered offering to help her break in (as I had in my own house once or twice before by way of fire escape and old bathroom windows). But I thought better of it. We might still be on dog park probation, and if she was contemplating whether we were appropriate dog park material, we might not want to mention our breaking and entering expertise just yet. I handed her my cell phone and suggested she call someone. Maybe her husband had his phone with him in the park? Maybe she had a neighbor with an extra key? Not so lucky. Nope. What's with the absence of technology in this house?

Oh well. We took the long way home after very busy dogpark gatekeeper lady chased down a neighbor on the sidewalk who would drive her through the park looking for her husband (who might have had a key). It was apparent we were not going to get into the dog park today.

I wonder if she got into her house. Maybe I'll mail a note to a locksmith for her.

Saturday Morning

2006-02-04T20:48:00.000-08:00

Awoken at 8AM by this from the bathroom down the hall:

MOM!! MOMMMMEEEEE!!! Abby peepeed on the floor in here and she's jumping in it like rain puddles!

My world...Welcome.

Plop, plop, fizz, fizz. Tums and vodka?

2006-02-03T17:58:00.000-08:00

I'm tired. Just home from work. It's 7:30 and CAB (the fabulous Cook And Bartender I married a few years ago) picked up dinner from El Maguey tonight. I didn't have lunch except the espresso I got from the bookstore on my way home at 7.

I've promised myself and my writer's group to blog at least ten minutes each day (as writers we must write. right?) but I'm pretty sure I can't do it for ten today. My stomach is burning like there is a little pointy star inside. And not a flat one, but one of those round ball stars like you'd hang on a Christmas tree. And it feels like the star has burst through my stomach in several spots and it is shooting burning hot rays through toward my neck and my belly button and my back and my hips and my eyes. It hurts to breathe at the moment too because my jeans are squishing this starbelly of mine and I'd like to unbutton them but I try to avoid looking like Homer on most days. CAB has diagnosed the starbelly as a result of combining no food since 8AM with three shots of espresso at 7PM with chip-scoops of what appeared to be sloppy joes mixed with cheese from the Mexican restaurant, with vodka, cranberry juice and lime. He may be on to something.

I'm going to look for more Tums.

Ground Beef and Guilt Trips

2006-02-02T22:00:00.000-08:00

Hell of a week so far. Long days and mom guilt nights. I'm certain there's a field trip I've forgotten to pack a lunch for, or a daisy scout troop I've neglected to send in a healthy, school policy mandated pre-packaged store-bought snack for this week. I've worked too many hours and come home late and taken business calls in the middle of spaghetti and homemade meatballs one too many times in the past four days.

My husband cooks and tends a mean bar in my kitchen, though. Thank god one of us read that part of the parent handbook that said meals should be provided on a regular basis. Don't get me wrong. If he didn't feed them, I would. But we'd just eat a little more like college students than we do now. And frankly, they seem to like boiled eggs, sliced strawberries and toast for dinner now and then when daddy's at a bike race and mommy cooks dinner. They like pancakes. And oatmeal. Who doesn't? I would honestly eat a baked potato with broccoli and ranch dressing every night of the week if I lived alone. Happily.

It's not that I don't like cooking, or even that I can't. It's just that I hate when the kitchen gets all messed up so I don't move out of my comfort zone (microwave baked potato), or use any more than two pans for any meal before stopping to wash up.

I was at Schnucks Wednesdsay night to pick up some ground sirloin my husband, the good cook and bartender, requested for his meatballs. And when they were out of the meat on the one tray that said "ground sirloin" I stood there frozen and slightly panicked, looking around for help.

Now, I have no business even approaching a meat counter on any other day. I see no reason to eat red meat unless it is filet bernaise from Sidney Street. I'm not sure what to even SAY to a real live butcher, except thank you (if he hands you a cold hot dog and you're five, and you're perched in the front seat of the cart at Kash n Karry in St. Petersburg, Florida).

Um, do you guys have any more of that back there? i finally asked the tall black guy behind the counter who had just returned from flirting with the fish lady at the next counter down from his. She was still saying something like mmnnnnnnhhhhhmmmm with her eyebrows raised high and her eyes on a tiger prawn, as he casually strolled over and stood behind his meat.

Uhhhh, naw. We don't had no more a that. The machine thing is broken.

So i asked him which one of the other two identical meats on either side of the empty tray was closest to ground sirloin.

Uhhhh, you want this one. It's 86.

I have no idea what that means, I said, mostly defeated by this venture. In the restaurants I'd worked at in college it meant we were out of crab legs.

What, you don't cook? he asked me. It's 86 percent lean. The other is only 79, so you want this one. It's closest to that one.

And he began to scoop the 86 percent lean brownish goo into a little paper tray, and he wrapped it with paper and taped it up.

Here you go, he said.

And I said, But I work--really really hard. Pathetic that time.

And he said, Somebody got to.

And I think I heard the fish lady say mmmnnnhhhhnnnn again.

Cold feet and first blogs.

2006-02-02T00:20:00.000-08:00

There are not many things less romantic than having one's leg petted by another person's sweaty toes. They are coldish and dampish and a little bit sharp. For the first few minutes after he crawled into bed next to me, my husband swept his chilly, scratchy-nailed feet mindlessly up and down my right leg as he lay there chatting about an upcoming bike race while he settled into his pillow and warmed up his half of the bed. When I moved my leg he followed, scratching, smearing. Then he noticed the blog set-up screen I was staring at, and inserted a suggestion or two for blog names: Stuck in the Middle--a reference to my endless complaints about this land-locked city being smack-dab in the center of the country with no coast or mountain in site, and Hasapasakilu--the name I attended invitation-only art gallery openings under when I was in college and got the old apartment dweller's mail. Hasapasa had the coolest friends.

Temporary Digs just seems to fit. I can't stop thinking I should be someplace else. He's stopped with the toes thing, and I think he's sleeping. So I'm not quite as inclined to move out at the moment. But the coast still looks good from here.