Capacious

Red, Red Wine

I saw UB40 sing that song at Jones Beach a long, long time ago with my friend, Suzette.  Seems like another life.  Who was that frizzy-haired girl?

Heh heh.  I met Nina.  Just so you know.  Unfortunately, my camera was hidden under some crap on the car seat despite my taking such care to bring it so I didn't take any pictures.  At any rate, it was highly enjoyable and I think De should host bloggers all the time and invite me so I can drink a lot and talk even more.  It's really strange meeting someone you know so well and yet...you don't really know her.  The physicality of a person is really so much of their being, or is it less so than what they put on their blog?  I don't really know.  Anyway, she was highly entertaining and we talked to Liv on the phone and that was a riot too.  Just think of all the people one could meet...there's a whole world out there.  However, it's too big for me and I like this small one I have fashioned for myself.  You can come in if you ask politely. 

Not working is great.  I highly recommend it.  Quit your jobs now!  DO IT! 

The only problem I'm having is that there is not enough napping time.  Let's see, what have I done? 

I covered a chair in the living room.  Originally, my father and stepmother passed on to us a chair that had a burn hole on one side of the cushion (from a spark that jumped out of the woodstove).  It was nice when they gave it to us covered in a nice ticking but as you can see the kids did a real job on it.  I did a pretty lame job covering it in red, so now I have done it up in a black-and-white floral that I quite like:

Stephen and I painted the garage doors.  I don't know why we didn't do it years ago:

I've been painting the kitchen yellow and re-doing all the woodwork and cabinets in high-gloss white.  It looks nice.  I organized the cookbooks alphabetically.  I am encouraging him to go through the endless Saveur/Fine Cooking/Cooks Illustrated magazines so we can GET RID OF THEM.  I give him a week and then they go.  How's that for a threat?

I arranged all the books on our living room shelves by the colors on their spines.  I know.  Stephen couldn't figure out what was different when I asked him.  Neither could Tyson.  My friend Lisa sat in the room for 5 minutes and said, "You arranged the books by color."  Funny, that, hey?

We are planting a new flower garden.  It's very rocky and a lot of hard work.  I was going to do vegetables but one day I came home to 6 deer chowing down in the yard.  They just looked at me when I honked the horn and were mildly interested when I waved my arms and shouted at them.  Eventually, they sauntered casually away, as if they said to each other "Hey, Deery, you done here?  Did you get every single one of the 50 tulips she planted under that tree?  Okay, we can go now.  Bye, Crazy Lady.  Oh, and you can quit waving your stupid arms now."  I decided to put the herbs and vegetables in pots on the deck.  Oh, Deeries, why must you be such herbivorous mofos?  I'll kick your white-tailed hinders.  If I could only catch you. 

My Thursday walking partner just told me a story about a deer that picked up a little dog and shook it until it needed stitches.  Okay, Deery, just take the tulips and leave the yard quietly, okay?

Tiny Toe turned 8.  Would you like to see a picture of him when he was actually tiny?  Ow, the cuteness. 

He had a "Survivor" birthday party.  Stephen worked hard and then dressed up as Jeff Probst, although the resemblance was quite, um...NOT (must work on that for Ty's June Survivor party).  We did Tiki torches which scared the younger boys and threatened to burn down the woods.  We had not had any rain at that point (once Nina and Dave started hiking, we got two days of it, thanks so much for that).  After a few of the torches fell over, we put them out.  I told the boys that their torches represented their lives so it was a bit harsh when I snuffed them all out.  "Oh, you're all dead now.  Sorry."

They searched for eggs containing puzzle pieces and then raced to complete the puzzle.   Unfortunately, none of us could find one team's last piece because I "helped" hide the eggs and had no idea where I might have put them.  Finally, Stephen (I mean "Jeff") found it and told them where it was.  Then they competed to melt an ice cube in their tiny frozen hands without dropping it.  Because children should be tortured.  THEN we made them eat crazy food from the Asian market - many types of preserved fruit (bleah), mutant coconut candy (not bad, but the neighbor kid thought it was pretty gross).  Here is Toby enjoying the basil-honey drink that looks like fish eggs:

What's a birthday without fish egg juice?  He likes it, hey Toby!  He was quite enthusiastic and got some of it down, although I think his brother beat him in the end with quantity.  Then they tossed water balloons to each other and put them in a basket and the team who did it best won.  Then it was kill each other with the water balloons and get all wet.  Then there was the balance beam, which turned out to be the most fun thing ever.  Listen to me:  If you ever have a birthday party for 8-year-old boys, make a balance beam out of 2 x 4s and cinder blocks.  That's all you need.  They will probably severely injure themselves but make them sign a waiver first.  Trust me. 

There was much spraying of Silly String in there somewhere.  One of the kids said he didn't like to get messy so he sprayed the house because the house would not spray him back.  Our yard is now a crazy web of pink string but I think it will dissolve eventually, polluting the environment with pinkiosity.

I made a vegan chocolate birthday cake, due to Toby's lactose intolerance.  It was very good and got eaten (with lactose free ice cream) much faster than a normal chocolate cake.  Go figure.  He seems much better after a few weeks without milk and I am adjusting to all the substitutes, but he still has stomach difficulties sometimes and I'm not really sure why.  I will ask the doctor.  He is still always deathly ill on Monday mornings, as usual.  Please let there be nothing wrong with my boy.

I wish you could see the sweet cat on my lap.  Oh wait, there's my camera:

I know, you're so glad I could share that with you.  Oh, and I'm really not that fat.  It's my painting t-shirt, it makes me look that way.  Really. 

Tomorrow Is the First Day of the Rest of My Life

I haven't worked in a week, but the kids were off from school so it didn't count.  Tomorrow is really the first day that I am "not working."  I have a list of projects a mile long and some of them are already done.  I no longer exercise or eat well so I am now fat again.  How much do I suck?  Oh no, none of that talk, Missy.  Shut your face and think positive, or else.

Okay!  Thinking positive!

We went to visit my Dad in beautiful Cape Cod.  My stepmother has a real way with decor and it was inspiring to be in their lovely, comfortable home.  The goal is to make our house as pretty - ha ha ha ha ha!

The boys had a sleepover with their friends and they were all so tired that they fell asleep at 11:30. 

Salamanders lived under the wood I was moving today.  Lots of them. 

The definition of happy is free flowers from the yard every day.

There must have been a privy in our woods as there is tons of 1930s glass back there.  I am currently obsessed with finding bottles and researching their origins.  It is fascinating and also wastes a good amount of time.  Why play catch with your kids when you can dig for buried treasure?  Ty helped me and found the best bottle ever without even trying. 

We took Toe to the doctor for his stomach troubles and his blood tests and stool samples came back fine.  Stephen and I then decided he was lactose intolerant.  I just wish I knew if he was just trying to get out of going to school.  Is he?  I don't know.  He seems fine, he seems sick, he seems not himself at all, he definitely has terrible diarrhea at times...I believe that he is actually ill when he says he is.  Most of the time.  Except Monday mornings.  It's such a stress.  I suppose we will have to take him for some kind of internal scan - I don't want to do it.  I'm so afraid that my little one will have something terrible wrong with him, but why delay?  Why delay?  Why am I delaying?  Do I believe that he was jealous of the attention given to his brother and is trying to gain some for himself?  Maybe.  But he wouldn't really go to all this trouble, and he really is sick, the poor kid.  I am really exhausted with worrying about the boys and their health and no longer trust my instincts. 

Ty's surgery is scheduled for June 27th.  He can come home the same day if it's done early enough, and then a two-week recovery time.  He is happy as a clam at the moment, healthy as a horse.  Neeeeiiiigh!

Capacious and Her Horrible, Rotten, Very Bad Day

Friday morning.  Woke up, got the kids ready for school (why won't they ever buy the school lunch, like, ever?), went out to the bus.  Normally I am the last one out and I unlock the door before closing it.  Toby and I went out first, leaving Tyson to search for the 20 things he forgot.  As he left, he shut the door behind him.  He never shuts the door behind him, mind you, not ever.  One thing I am always saying is, "Couldja pull that door shut behind you?"  So when I got back to the house I was locked out. 

The really stupid thing is that the day before, the same thing had happened.  Ty was late, he closed the door, I was locked out.  But the basement slider was unlocked and I had gone to the garage freezer for bread earlier so the door from the basement to the kitchen was also unlocked.  I reminded myself to hide a key, locked all the doors tight and promptly forgot all about it. 

There have been a couple of "home invasions" by recently-released violent offenders here in Connecticut so I thought it was a good idea to make sure the house was secure but I didn't really mean that it should be secure from ME.  I'm good, let me in.  It was pouring rain and I was wearing stupid too-big, too-long yoga pants that were dragging in the muck, along with my glasses that kept getting all raindroppy.  All the windows were locked.  I went from window to window, checking.  I was too afraid to climb on the wet shingles outside the kitchen window that was my best chance but it turned out later that it was locked so I'm glad I didn't risk death doing that (oh, the scenario of the kids arriving home to school to their mother dead or mortally injured on the driveway, not good not good, no no).  I saw an Easter egg that the kids missed just inside the downstairs bathroom window but I couldn't get it and eat the freaking gummy worms because IT WAS LOCKED.  I tried desperately to make the piece of metal locking the downstairs slider move out of place, to no avail.  I wandered around the outside of the house, willing it to make a magic portal for me to slip through.  It kept raining.

Finally, I remembered that the last time this happened (when I did child care and had a baby with me, ah, those were the days) my neighbor took the garage-to-basement door off its hinges.  So I set about doing that.  I was quite pleased with how easily the pins came out of the hinges but then I could not get the damn thing off the frame.  It seemed so stupidly simple, why wouldn't it come OFF?!?!?  I tried shovels, I tried leverage, finally I went to get my neighbor again but the house was empty, so I returned to my task.

I figured if I just tried hard enough I could do it.  I can do anything.  I'm very strong, I'm smart, come on, he did it and he weighs way less than I do (despite being crazy wiry strong).  I got very close to just axing the damn door to bits but made myself stop and breathe and think about it.  I was very aware that I wasn't in any danger, my children were safely at school.  However, my husband would start to worry soon, I couldn't call anyone because I had no phone and no car keys, so I was going to have to figure myself out of this stupid, stupid situation.  Ridiculous, really.  But then I tried again to get that damn door off the hinges and I felt so angry and frustrated and soggy that I just knelt on that dirty garage floor and cried my eyes out, like I haven't cried in a hundred years.  I really let loose.  It was a bit of a shock.  It was actually quite illuminating, my reaction under stress never really changes - I cry.

I visited all my neighbors, no one was home.  All these freaking worker bees, no one home at 8:30 in the morning, the bastards.  Maybe they just saw the crazy bedraggled lady outside and decided not to answer the door.  In the end, I decided to walk to the store on the corner, less than a half mile away, to use the phone.  On my dreary, wet, embarrassing way, a car pulled up to a stop sign in front of me and I waved my arms.  A man with two kids in the back put the window down and lent me his cell phone so I could call my sister, who has a set of our house keys.  She just started a new job and I knew I was completely messing up her day but I didn't know what else to do.  The anonymous stranger took me back to his house and his wife graciously said I could stay there for an hour while she got ready for work but I said I would go wait in my garage.

I took the opportunity to clean the garage a little.  It's a mess.  So that was a positive little thing.  I'll finish that soon.  Soon.  Hey, next week I have no job!  I'll have soooo much time to clean the garage.  Heh heh.  Heh.  It's just not even funny.

My sister came, she was cheerful and kind, the keys worked, I got in and called my job to tell them I'd be late, my boss was funny about how I had locked myself out of the office while he was in Boston once and his son had to come and let me back in on a Saturday.  I borrowed a stranger's cell phone in the lobby that time.  Maybe I enjoy something about the humiliation of locking myself out of places?  I dunno. 

Anyway, I get to work.  My stomach had been bothering me, making me think maybe my little one was not just lying about that stomachache so he could stay home from school.  Say the words "explosive diarrhea."  A lot of times.  Say it.  Doesn't that feel bad?  Yes, it does.  Oh Lordy, it does.  I went home early.  It never stopped, just one episode after the other, with no warning or time to get ready.  There was a lot of laundry involved.  (Sorry.)  Awful.  All afternoon.  I am always bragging about my stomach of steel.  No metal in there, not even a scrap.

The boys came home, Stephen came home, I stayed in bed but came down later because I was lonely.  We missed the school pasta dinner and Bingo night (gosh darn, oh gee willikers)  About 10:00 p.m., we all went up to bed.  As we were settling in, we heard a cat cry on our deck and a frightening growl from an animal that was definitely not domesticated.  Stephen and I looked at each other and Tyson ran in, "Did you hear that?"  Oh yeah, we heard it.  Panic mode.

When Stephen went out on the deck, there was a profusion of white fur.  He cried out in absolute horror, "BASSA!" and I knew. 

The night before, Tyson had come downstairs late, he had been reading as usual.  Cassie (we never call her that, sometimes I even forget that was ever her shelter name, she is the Bass, Momassa, MoBass, Fluffernutter) was snuggled up like an infant on my bosom, as always (I tell jealous Ty that the reason she doesn't snuggle on him is that he doesn't have a "bosom" and Toby just dies).  I told him that instead of the psycho-kitty I had when I lived alone (Spot, the calico from Tennessee who was just not right in the head), it would have been great to have a friend like Bassa, she is just so sweet and affectionate and entertaining and funny, the best cat in the world.  She weighs 9 pounds, just a big ball of white fluff, our girl.  She lets me carry her around like that girl with the cat in Peanuts.  I have never had a cat like her.  And I was a dog person, always.

Anyway, so the coyote had gone off with our precious baby right off our deck leaving a pile of her fluff and we all heard it.  The children were wracked with guilt and hysterical about it, having seen her at the basement slider twice and not having let her in.  Stephen was insane with grief, because he let her out and didn't check that she was in before he came upstairs - he disappeared outside with a flashlight and a fireplace poker.  I am known for saying, "Where are the kittens?  Did you check?"  But I couldn't blame anyone because how many times have the cats gone out and not wanted to come back in and then come in just fine - a thousand?  It was no one's fault.  She ran into a coyote and he chased her onto our deck and that was the end of our beloved girl.  I was still in shock and couldn't quite get my mind around it.  Everyone cried and cried and cried and talked and talked and talked.  There was no way we were sleeping so we left the boys reading in one bed and went downstairs. 

Stephen opened the front door and guess who was there?

We made so much noise that she hid under the couch and wouldn't come out.  We thought Stephen might have imagined her but she really was there, she came out and was absolutely fine, not even noticeably missing any fur. 

It's odd to feel so much intense emotion in such a short period of time.  Life seems to be throwing things at me recently, but I am calm.  Slightly off, but fairly calm.  Am I calm?  Writing that, I'm not sure.  I am not exercising, I am eating too much, I am drinking more than usual.  Keep an eye on yourself, don't let all your hard work go away.  Remember how good it feels to be in control of yourself.

On that note, goodnight all.  Tomorrow is another day.  Deep breath in.  Let it out.