My niece is upstairs communicating with her mother via Skype/phone/headphone/microphone 21st Century convenience technology. My parents, after my father made off with my brand new copy of Planetary (which I'm still reading, by the way), went to the grocery store because for some reason, we are out of sage.
I would use this time wisely and watch Castle online or read Lamb (again) or write letters or fiction or something interesting about the coming together of mountain goats on hillsides and wandering layered dreams of storytelling and houseguesting and friendship, if I were less distracted by the smell of cupcakes cooling on the stove.
This is one of those holidays that seems to bring out the most in people. Not the best, not the worst, just the most. I notice it more at Thanksgiving because I am not a huge fan of what goes on around Christmas and so avoid it as much as possible. Also, Thanksgiving is more important in our family, so I pay closer attention. To what? To the excess.
I see an excess of food, of nostalgia, of disillusionment and my absolute least favorite thing of the holiday: cleverly bitter snipes about history and myth-making that are intended to somehow relieve the sniper from any responsibility to act on the anger that fuels the bitterness in the first place. It is one of those weird privileged person things: happy smallpox day, happy steal the land day, happy oppress people day. Cracks like that do nothing to change the situation, which is very likely the whole point. I take issue with them because they do not remove culpability, they merely assuage guilt in order to make room for temporary gratitude.
But it's not temporary - most of the people that I hear making snide remarks are people that I've also heard be verbally grateful to people in their lives on days that have nothing to do with the fucking Mayflower. Is it too much to think that perhaps the guilt is the problem, that and an educational system that does not acknowledge how destructive the anger that comes from disillusionment really is? I am forever confused at the strength of demonstrably false myths of history.
Today, as every day, I live loving and beloved and for that I am grateful. The people that I love make good decisions and stay safe, and I am grateful. We have food to eat and good company to keep, and I am grateful.
And maybe, just maybe, it will be the same in March when the winter is too much, the house is too small, the world is too big and all of these contradictory celebrations and long-held traditions are nothing more than fodder for a bitter heart. Perhaps something like the warmth of today's sunshine the sound of my nieces' laughter and the smell of baking chocolate will live in a layer of memory that reminds me of the power of loving people with integrity, and slow cooked food.
This will be the story of this year, of this holiday, when we were all to be in one place, and could not because of blizzards and other circumstances. When my niece had to nap because the world invaded her head and pounded for no reason. When my parents when to the store for sage and I smiled on their return.
Happy Thanksgiving, you guys...
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Thursday, 25 November 2010
Friday, 5 November 2010
Poet, heal thyself, with chocolate.
It's a lovely fall day in Maryville, MO. Leaves are finally falling off trees in acceptable numbers, my mother can't leave the house without a hat, and all of the mouth-breathers in town are much easier to spot as they have yet to change into pants and jackets, thereby assuring that their baby-making bits will shrivel up and cease functioning.
I love autumn. I love a season that is so fantastic that it has two names. I love knowing that in less than two days, it will be pitch black night at 1 in the afternoon because of the time change, and that by the time March rolls around, I will have lost the will to live in the sunlight entirely and have to be dragged screaming and inebriated into the light.
Because this is the season that is the setup for my springtime krazy fest. It's awesome to know me during April when I can't stop the lucid dreams or make complete sentences or keep from drooling at the sight of anyone without a shirt on. My friends totally earn their bribe money that month.
It is also the season of The Cold. The Cold that inflames your throat just enough to keep you from actually enjoying that cigarette, or wine or whiskey, or whisky, or pretty much anything that you would really like to be enjoying because the weather is on crack and there's nothing you can do about it. This one has also laid an egg just below my right eye and slightly out of reach of my right nostril. It's going to be disgusting when that hatches.
And so, on a trip out of doors and to the grocery store with my mother, I casually tossed in a bag of the only thing in the world that I know will make me feel better: Peanut M&M's.
Yeah, there's a story there. It goes like this: Summer Youth Group retreat thing leads to strep developing in my young throat while we head, as a family, to Isle Royale in Lake Superior where the only doctor on the island was on the other side of it tending to a hiker with a broken arm. (Later we learned that everyone breathing at the retreat got strep (because teenagers are germ-factories-without-hygiene) and all of them but me went to the doctor Right Away) I got on a ferry with my family, got to the island, went to the doctor's office (minus the doctor, of course) and then went to the c-store at the hotel to find something to help me feel better. I was 13 and chose to medicate myself thusly: Orange Gatorade, Peanut M&M's (the bigbig bag) and a work of unparalleled literature called something like Midnight Affair by someone called something like Alberta Nunn. (I found it! Midnight Affair by Nan Ryan!)(It's a terrible book - no one read it)(Really, I'm completely serious. The sexual stereotypes alone are awful, add to them the cultural, ethnic and socio-economic ones and it's just a fucking mess of bad.)
That book stayed with me for the next 7 or so years, and I read it every time I got sick, sometimes more than once. Every page, every time. It was the touching and stereotypically horrifying story of a young woman half-bastard-pirate who falls in love with a slick Rhett Butler type named, no seriously this is one thing I remember perfectly: Hilton Courteen. Yep. Named after a hotel. *head shake*
Anyway, the thing was set in some mythically idyllic New Orleans and there was a costume ball and lots of random sweaty sex and a lottery and a storm and people died and the only gay character was also made of pond slime and driftwood, but you know, it was something to read.
Until. Until my father threw it away. The bastard. (He also threw away the jean shorts that were made of safety pins holding seams in place and the tennis shoes that were little more than the suggestion of uppers with soles made of squeaky mold, and okay so I get the point Now, but That's not where I'm going with this, so just stop reading here and get on with it!)
So. My Novel That I Read When I Feel Like Dingle Slime got tossed. Sad.
Orange Gatorade. It has no flavor. It is, in fact, utterly unredeemable and made entirely out of plastic (the bottle is just less liquidy). I am unrepentant about changing my consumer and consumption habits to fit my personal belief system and so have quit the Gatorade. It will always hold a place in my heart, along with Ultra-Strength Rave Hairspray and Pseudo Echo, as something that was good to have, but really there were better options.
The Peanut M&Ms are all the remain of that first terrible moment of ill. All that I can hold on to as part of my I Have No Insurance And So Must Heal Myself medical plan. Everything else of that trip has gone. Well, okay, so the Lake is still there and so is the island and the hotel, and Gatorade still exists, but Dammit! I slept for 36 hours while my family wandered about the wilderness and ooo'd and ah'd and oh'd at nature. Sleep and showers and the healing power of sugar-coated mediocrity got me through until we were back on the mainland and in a doctor's office getting diagnosed and then not running over the drunk guy lying across our path on Axe Murderer Highway.
Now the M&Ms are gone, and everything that I was going to write about today instead of this personal wandering has poit!-ed itself to a future date. There is tepid tea and the comfort of sleep. Oh! and something a little creepy and wonderful also:
Come Into My Parlour from Moog on Vimeo.
I love autumn. I love a season that is so fantastic that it has two names. I love knowing that in less than two days, it will be pitch black night at 1 in the afternoon because of the time change, and that by the time March rolls around, I will have lost the will to live in the sunlight entirely and have to be dragged screaming and inebriated into the light.
Because this is the season that is the setup for my springtime krazy fest. It's awesome to know me during April when I can't stop the lucid dreams or make complete sentences or keep from drooling at the sight of anyone without a shirt on. My friends totally earn their bribe money that month.
It is also the season of The Cold. The Cold that inflames your throat just enough to keep you from actually enjoying that cigarette, or wine or whiskey, or whisky, or pretty much anything that you would really like to be enjoying because the weather is on crack and there's nothing you can do about it. This one has also laid an egg just below my right eye and slightly out of reach of my right nostril. It's going to be disgusting when that hatches.
And so, on a trip out of doors and to the grocery store with my mother, I casually tossed in a bag of the only thing in the world that I know will make me feel better: Peanut M&M's.
Yeah, there's a story there. It goes like this: Summer Youth Group retreat thing leads to strep developing in my young throat while we head, as a family, to Isle Royale in Lake Superior where the only doctor on the island was on the other side of it tending to a hiker with a broken arm. (Later we learned that everyone breathing at the retreat got strep (because teenagers are germ-factories-without-hygiene) and all of them but me went to the doctor Right Away) I got on a ferry with my family, got to the island, went to the doctor's office (minus the doctor, of course) and then went to the c-store at the hotel to find something to help me feel better. I was 13 and chose to medicate myself thusly: Orange Gatorade, Peanut M&M's (the bigbig bag) and a work of unparalleled literature called something like Midnight Affair by someone called something like Alberta Nunn. (I found it! Midnight Affair by Nan Ryan!)(It's a terrible book - no one read it)(Really, I'm completely serious. The sexual stereotypes alone are awful, add to them the cultural, ethnic and socio-economic ones and it's just a fucking mess of bad.)
That book stayed with me for the next 7 or so years, and I read it every time I got sick, sometimes more than once. Every page, every time. It was the touching and stereotypically horrifying story of a young woman half-bastard-pirate who falls in love with a slick Rhett Butler type named, no seriously this is one thing I remember perfectly: Hilton Courteen. Yep. Named after a hotel. *head shake*
Anyway, the thing was set in some mythically idyllic New Orleans and there was a costume ball and lots of random sweaty sex and a lottery and a storm and people died and the only gay character was also made of pond slime and driftwood, but you know, it was something to read.
Until. Until my father threw it away. The bastard. (He also threw away the jean shorts that were made of safety pins holding seams in place and the tennis shoes that were little more than the suggestion of uppers with soles made of squeaky mold, and okay so I get the point Now, but That's not where I'm going with this, so just stop reading here and get on with it!)
So. My Novel That I Read When I Feel Like Dingle Slime got tossed. Sad.
Orange Gatorade. It has no flavor. It is, in fact, utterly unredeemable and made entirely out of plastic (the bottle is just less liquidy). I am unrepentant about changing my consumer and consumption habits to fit my personal belief system and so have quit the Gatorade. It will always hold a place in my heart, along with Ultra-Strength Rave Hairspray and Pseudo Echo, as something that was good to have, but really there were better options.
The Peanut M&Ms are all the remain of that first terrible moment of ill. All that I can hold on to as part of my I Have No Insurance And So Must Heal Myself medical plan. Everything else of that trip has gone. Well, okay, so the Lake is still there and so is the island and the hotel, and Gatorade still exists, but Dammit! I slept for 36 hours while my family wandered about the wilderness and ooo'd and ah'd and oh'd at nature. Sleep and showers and the healing power of sugar-coated mediocrity got me through until we were back on the mainland and in a doctor's office getting diagnosed and then not running over the drunk guy lying across our path on Axe Murderer Highway.
Now the M&Ms are gone, and everything that I was going to write about today instead of this personal wandering has poit!-ed itself to a future date. There is tepid tea and the comfort of sleep. Oh! and something a little creepy and wonderful also:
Come Into My Parlour from Moog on Vimeo.
Monday, 11 October 2010
The connectedness of things
I have never really experienced the world as a place that is getting smaller. To me, it is a place that is surprisingly large and entirely unconcerned with me and my actions. I have always lived in one relatively tidy community or other, with never more than four degrees of separation between me and everyone known by everyone I know. Lincoln was fantastic for that - there are about 2.5 degrees there - the .5 is the coffee shop that serves as your social network hub.
One of the things that we, as a family, did this weekend was pick up a dining room table from an antique store in Brownville. We put it up, my father polished it, and we borrowed the kitchen table chairs to sit at for dinner with a guest last evening. My parents even pulled out the Spode for flatware. It was lovely.
Conversation turned, as it inevitably does when dining with a family, to stories of that family's history. We talked about my father's now deceased horrifying aunts. And we talked about my youthful collisions driving my parents' boat of a car. We clarified family myth that we could not possibly be descended from Samuel Johnson, as he has no issue. Turns out the real family myth is descent from Ben Jonson. Mythical genealogy turned to more researched information including the highly suspect reality that my sister and I are very likely qualified to be members of The Daughters of the American Revolution. It is an honor I would not normally pursue, but that I have a niece, and that niece may, in fact, benefit from membership in such a weird organization. I keep hoping that we were royalists, not because I am not a patriot, but because it would save so much paperwork.
Bozo Sapiens recognizes that today is the day of The DAR's formation, and reminds readers that for all of their helmet hair and traditionalist fundamentalism, they have done important things for women. (not excluding providing yet another excellent example that sex does not determine ability to be a bone head)
When I graduated from the 8th grade, I was given an award for good citizenship from the DAR. The award was given to a boy and a girl, and the young man who received it was someone who was just a really nice person. Genuinely a nice person to be around. They didn't tell us we were to get the award, and I have no idea where it is now. I never really thought of it as legitimate, not in my case anyway - because I wasn't very popular, I didn't participate whenever I could get away with it, I never did my homework and was kind of creepy, in that way that highly (almost pathologically) individual adolescents are.
The world is not any smaller than it was before.
One of the things that we, as a family, did this weekend was pick up a dining room table from an antique store in Brownville. We put it up, my father polished it, and we borrowed the kitchen table chairs to sit at for dinner with a guest last evening. My parents even pulled out the Spode for flatware. It was lovely.
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Bozo Sapiens recognizes that today is the day of The DAR's formation, and reminds readers that for all of their helmet hair and traditionalist fundamentalism, they have done important things for women. (not excluding providing yet another excellent example that sex does not determine ability to be a bone head)
When I graduated from the 8th grade, I was given an award for good citizenship from the DAR. The award was given to a boy and a girl, and the young man who received it was someone who was just a really nice person. Genuinely a nice person to be around. They didn't tell us we were to get the award, and I have no idea where it is now. I never really thought of it as legitimate, not in my case anyway - because I wasn't very popular, I didn't participate whenever I could get away with it, I never did my homework and was kind of creepy, in that way that highly (almost pathologically) individual adolescents are.
Thursday, 31 July 2008
On the verge of angry
I spent the majority of my morning working with my past blogs and the organization of them via this very cute little spreadsheet that I had a good time developing - if 'developing' is a small enough word for what I did.
There were words of winter and the crunch of frozen rain and apples and walking alone and I could smell the contentment coming off of everything and I smiled for joy. Ethel slept between my feet under the desk for an hour or more as my mind drifted into and out of conversations I haven't had out loud, but which answered questions I hadn't even known I was asking myself. My solitude was complete and creative and good.
And then I came to a place where the internet was opened and I read my emails and took one look at my Reader and am now completely irritated and disgusted with humanity and how easily we forget that on the other end of all these tubes and wires and codes are human beings. Human beings who have as much right to be offensive and awful as they do to be thoughtful and considerate. Human beings who are supposed to be able to make decisions for themselves that do not rely on validation from others for their overgrown egos and the sense that there is Power with admiration because leadership is not about Power unless you want it to end in some disgusting loss of humanity - physical or spiritual. Leadership is about service, it is about being the best person to organize or motivate a group of people in service of a larger goal, that goal being the maintenance and perpetuation of said group.
I am disgusted at the need to be a dick for the sake of being a dick, or being wounded for the sake of making a Big Pronouncement that serves nothing but the purpose of someone's ego.
Egos are good, they allow us to understand our strengths and our possibilities and to sense when we have not done well. Life is not best lived when it is lived in service of our egos for they are flighty moody things subject to the will of none and the whim of all when they are not bounded.
Today I would like nothing more than to say that I am done. That I have enough friends and they are wonderful and my life is fulfilling enough and I am done with the rest of the world because they are acting like petulant children with no perspective, no respect and no sense of the consequences of their actions.
However. There is more inspiration, motivation, creativity and joy to be found within the world than without it.
It is not a finite answer. This will happen again. And again I will be angry, though perhaps not so likely to think of turning my back.
My father has given me ears to hear my voice. The anger abates and I am left with only focus and a desire for laughter and song and my project. The cats will purr when I come home and I will find joy in their warmth. My friends will laugh at my silliness and I will find comfort in that.
Everyone else can choke on their own choices, I have better things to do.
There were words of winter and the crunch of frozen rain and apples and walking alone and I could smell the contentment coming off of everything and I smiled for joy. Ethel slept between my feet under the desk for an hour or more as my mind drifted into and out of conversations I haven't had out loud, but which answered questions I hadn't even known I was asking myself. My solitude was complete and creative and good.
And then I came to a place where the internet was opened and I read my emails and took one look at my Reader and am now completely irritated and disgusted with humanity and how easily we forget that on the other end of all these tubes and wires and codes are human beings. Human beings who have as much right to be offensive and awful as they do to be thoughtful and considerate. Human beings who are supposed to be able to make decisions for themselves that do not rely on validation from others for their overgrown egos and the sense that there is Power with admiration because leadership is not about Power unless you want it to end in some disgusting loss of humanity - physical or spiritual. Leadership is about service, it is about being the best person to organize or motivate a group of people in service of a larger goal, that goal being the maintenance and perpetuation of said group.
I am disgusted at the need to be a dick for the sake of being a dick, or being wounded for the sake of making a Big Pronouncement that serves nothing but the purpose of someone's ego.
Egos are good, they allow us to understand our strengths and our possibilities and to sense when we have not done well. Life is not best lived when it is lived in service of our egos for they are flighty moody things subject to the will of none and the whim of all when they are not bounded.
Today I would like nothing more than to say that I am done. That I have enough friends and they are wonderful and my life is fulfilling enough and I am done with the rest of the world because they are acting like petulant children with no perspective, no respect and no sense of the consequences of their actions.
However. There is more inspiration, motivation, creativity and joy to be found within the world than without it.
It is not a finite answer. This will happen again. And again I will be angry, though perhaps not so likely to think of turning my back.
My father has given me ears to hear my voice. The anger abates and I am left with only focus and a desire for laughter and song and my project. The cats will purr when I come home and I will find joy in their warmth. My friends will laugh at my silliness and I will find comfort in that.
Everyone else can choke on their own choices, I have better things to do.
Wednesday, 26 December 2007
Evening adventures & a puzzle, to boot
For the day after the day after Christmas Eve, my family celebrated by doing the thing that all families are so good at doing: splitting up. My sister and mother have been appointed Pair Productive and my father and I have are Pair Out and About (technically 'pair' is a misnomer as we went along with my wonderful 9 year old niece, but she's in training, yet, so does not get to count as a whole member (no voting rights) of the pair and there is no single descriptive word for 2 and a half).
But, I am not going to tell you about the day. Not yet.
We regrouped this evening and my father and sister took the Christmas decorations out to the shed (productive, see) and I helped Mama in the kitchen by blathering on and making a pot of tea and doing some dishes while she made dinner and tried to keep the 2 year old from getting too much in the way (boiling water type stuff). Dinner ended and the puzzle was brought out. it's a mary engelbreit-brecht-brucetta-whatever. It is a round puzzle. Not a sphere, but round.
the 2 year old was dressed in his pajamas, laid down in his bed and left there. we knew there would be no sleep. we knew this. we sent my niece upstairs to lock all of the doors and the gate. she came back down, we chatted about Jorge's toilet playing habits, ha ha ha.
i began reading, as i had promised my wonderful 9 year old niece (i am learning on this trip more about the value of trust in relationships. mostly i am learning it because of Ethel and her presence on this vacation. she lets me drape her around my shoulders and will stay there for many moments only minimally supported and without complaint, until she is ready to hop down . she hasn't hurt me yet on her descent. yet.) and my family collected around the dining room table to put together the round puzzle of letters and bowls and cherries and a cute cat.
and then there was the sound of water falling on the kitchen floor. coming from the light in the ceiling.
what followed:
Papa ran upstairs to find my nephew stark naked in the bathroom surrounded by water flowing happily into and out of the bowl of the toilet.
my nephew found himself standing in the hallway crying in surprise and because he got swatted once on the butt to get him out of the bathroom where he had created this playland for himself.
my nephew then found himself in dry pajamas and a new diaper, in bed, with the door closed, much to his very loud chagrin.
my mother came upstairs to get big towels to help collect the water from the floor of the kitchen.
i worked kid magic and got doors open so that the dream of dry floors could be realized.
my sister put a bowl under the light through which the water was running which we then stood and watched until the flow had subsided to a drip and then to nothing (i believe that we truly could sit and watch paint dry if we felt it was the thing to do).
the plunger was applied with great vigor to the toilet upstairs, to no avail.
it was decided that though my nephew usually just clogs the toilet with toilet paper, this time he must have dropped something stubborn (but not feline, all the cats are accounted for) into his favorite play area.
very quietly we all agreed that it was really very funny.
the grumpy emergency maintenance man came and said that he'll have to be back tomorrow to really fix things, but that my sister shouldn't expect him before 3.
we all hate the emergency maintenance man.
the cats are fine.
oh, and my sister did turn off the light that became a fount of water not unlike a breast spewing a steady stream of slightly off-white milk.
and now?
everyone is in bed. the book i was reading out loud (remember that part?) is still unfinished and my nephew is still trying to get out of going to sleep.
the couch awaits me. i get to spend some time alone in DC tomorrow, and will have to sleep in my clothes again tonight.
oh, and we gave up on the puzzle about 5 minutes before i knelt down to write this. they will finish it tomorrow. i have faith.
But, I am not going to tell you about the day. Not yet.
We regrouped this evening and my father and sister took the Christmas decorations out to the shed (productive, see) and I helped Mama in the kitchen by blathering on and making a pot of tea and doing some dishes while she made dinner and tried to keep the 2 year old from getting too much in the way (boiling water type stuff). Dinner ended and the puzzle was brought out. it's a mary engelbreit-brecht-brucetta-whatever. It is a round puzzle. Not a sphere, but round.
the 2 year old was dressed in his pajamas, laid down in his bed and left there. we knew there would be no sleep. we knew this. we sent my niece upstairs to lock all of the doors and the gate. she came back down, we chatted about Jorge's toilet playing habits, ha ha ha.
i began reading, as i had promised my wonderful 9 year old niece (i am learning on this trip more about the value of trust in relationships. mostly i am learning it because of Ethel and her presence on this vacation. she lets me drape her around my shoulders and will stay there for many moments only minimally supported and without complaint, until she is ready to hop down . she hasn't hurt me yet on her descent. yet.) and my family collected around the dining room table to put together the round puzzle of letters and bowls and cherries and a cute cat.
and then there was the sound of water falling on the kitchen floor. coming from the light in the ceiling.
what followed:
Papa ran upstairs to find my nephew stark naked in the bathroom surrounded by water flowing happily into and out of the bowl of the toilet.
my nephew found himself standing in the hallway crying in surprise and because he got swatted once on the butt to get him out of the bathroom where he had created this playland for himself.
my nephew then found himself in dry pajamas and a new diaper, in bed, with the door closed, much to his very loud chagrin.
my mother came upstairs to get big towels to help collect the water from the floor of the kitchen.
i worked kid magic and got doors open so that the dream of dry floors could be realized.
my sister put a bowl under the light through which the water was running which we then stood and watched until the flow had subsided to a drip and then to nothing (i believe that we truly could sit and watch paint dry if we felt it was the thing to do).
the plunger was applied with great vigor to the toilet upstairs, to no avail.
it was decided that though my nephew usually just clogs the toilet with toilet paper, this time he must have dropped something stubborn (but not feline, all the cats are accounted for) into his favorite play area.
very quietly we all agreed that it was really very funny.
the grumpy emergency maintenance man came and said that he'll have to be back tomorrow to really fix things, but that my sister shouldn't expect him before 3.
we all hate the emergency maintenance man.
the cats are fine.
oh, and my sister did turn off the light that became a fount of water not unlike a breast spewing a steady stream of slightly off-white milk.
and now?
everyone is in bed. the book i was reading out loud (remember that part?) is still unfinished and my nephew is still trying to get out of going to sleep.
the couch awaits me. i get to spend some time alone in DC tomorrow, and will have to sleep in my clothes again tonight.
oh, and we gave up on the puzzle about 5 minutes before i knelt down to write this. they will finish it tomorrow. i have faith.
Saturday, 22 December 2007
The Great French Toast Negotiation
notes for later, because i cannot find my notebook right now...
Family road trip: 3 adults (plus or minus adulthood), 1 child, 1 kitten (usually asleep inconveniently) (the kitten plays no role in the action to follow. i just like talking about her because she came with and has been a wonderful traveler and is suffering from the snobbery and intolerance of my sister's cats)
Mindy's Corner Restaurant: Ohio somewhere. on the corner of one street and another, across from a gas station, on the other side of the bridge from the highway.
Round about 12:30pm ET
Mindy's is your run of the mill family run restaurant with a huge dining room, wood tables, paper placemats (with a word search) and meatloaf special for lunch.
9 year Sierra asked if it would be alright to have breakfast for lunch. it is a peculiar thing, having breakfast for some other meal than breakfast. makes the whole day feel decadent somehow, just because you had an omelette for supper. johnsons are all for daily decadence where food is involved, and her request was granted.
she wanted pancakes. i resisted, knowing that pancakes are merely a vehicle for syrup - liquid sugar - more potent than regular coffee, and said no. she wanted french toast. i reminded her that it was just for the syrup.
- I don't always have syrup on my french toast.
- no, sometimes you use sugar, and that's just the same thing.
- okay.
the waitress came by and it was clear that none of us, minus the 9 year old, knew what we wanted, but since the aunt (that's me for those of you not following along) was being stubborn and marginally health concious (mostly of my own). she left us to continue or negotiations.
i countered finally with one scrambled egg, 2 strips of bacon and one piece of white toast with grape jelly (she, like me, doesn't do strawberry jam). negotiating with me is really not a possibility. i decided what she was going to eat, and forewarning was pretty much all that she was getting.
the waitress returned.
- we have finished our negotiations, i said
- alright, so what're you having?
- if i get a slice of french toast, then -
- oh, no, that wasn't it -
we ordered the mostly protein and starch meal for her (tire her out, clog her arteries, make her sleep)
and the little shit just sat there and smirked at me.
when the waitress brought our meals, she handed over the egg and meat and bread saying "here's your french toast" and my neice had the decency and good humor to laugh.
later i will tell you of the Fog of Doom and the Mortification of the Felines, but for now, i have a book that is fucking with my head, and i am happy that almost everyone else is asleep.
Family road trip: 3 adults (plus or minus adulthood), 1 child, 1 kitten (usually asleep inconveniently) (the kitten plays no role in the action to follow. i just like talking about her because she came with and has been a wonderful traveler and is suffering from the snobbery and intolerance of my sister's cats)
Mindy's Corner Restaurant: Ohio somewhere. on the corner of one street and another, across from a gas station, on the other side of the bridge from the highway.
Round about 12:30pm ET
Mindy's is your run of the mill family run restaurant with a huge dining room, wood tables, paper placemats (with a word search) and meatloaf special for lunch.
9 year Sierra asked if it would be alright to have breakfast for lunch. it is a peculiar thing, having breakfast for some other meal than breakfast. makes the whole day feel decadent somehow, just because you had an omelette for supper. johnsons are all for daily decadence where food is involved, and her request was granted.
she wanted pancakes. i resisted, knowing that pancakes are merely a vehicle for syrup - liquid sugar - more potent than regular coffee, and said no. she wanted french toast. i reminded her that it was just for the syrup.
- I don't always have syrup on my french toast.
- no, sometimes you use sugar, and that's just the same thing.
- okay.
the waitress came by and it was clear that none of us, minus the 9 year old, knew what we wanted, but since the aunt (that's me for those of you not following along) was being stubborn and marginally health concious (mostly of my own). she left us to continue or negotiations.
i countered finally with one scrambled egg, 2 strips of bacon and one piece of white toast with grape jelly (she, like me, doesn't do strawberry jam). negotiating with me is really not a possibility. i decided what she was going to eat, and forewarning was pretty much all that she was getting.
the waitress returned.
- we have finished our negotiations, i said
- alright, so what're you having?
- if i get a slice of french toast, then -
- oh, no, that wasn't it -
we ordered the mostly protein and starch meal for her (tire her out, clog her arteries, make her sleep)
and the little shit just sat there and smirked at me.
when the waitress brought our meals, she handed over the egg and meat and bread saying "here's your french toast" and my neice had the decency and good humor to laugh.
later i will tell you of the Fog of Doom and the Mortification of the Felines, but for now, i have a book that is fucking with my head, and i am happy that almost everyone else is asleep.
Tuesday, 28 August 2007
Facing the future
It is almost impossible to think of tomorrow while stretched out on a hammock feeling the sun like a blanket and the breeze from all sides. It has been a lovely respite from attempting the impossible, being here. My mother mows in a straw hat with a black band around the crown. She has cleared something like 4 acres of yard and mows it in sections as often as she can. My father has potted plants and planted flowers all around the house. He bought mums for the pots on either side of the driveway. The cats give love and chats with very little meaning to me or any other human. The feral cats adore my mother and her gentle voice and manner. They stand still and let her pet them, rubbing against her ankles and throwing me dirty looks.
I walked out into the world of the trees last evening and watched the clouds rush in, changing and growing and billowing and going gray and white. The sound of the rain and the flashes of lightning filled the room in which I sleep. It is the room in which I slept when I lived here so many years ago. I thought it was green, maybe it was, now it is tan and the bed is much smaller and while I am not sure how well I will take to being in the world again, I miss my bed and my room.
I am dreaming oddly, the hospital dreams have stopped, but there are more people than I am accustomed to and last night there was a man on my arm, and it was good. And Brad was stocking up on water cooler jugs filled with wine and there were smoked turkeys and platters of fruit and I asked if he was throwing a party and said if he was I'd like to know so that I could not be there and he said something about how O'Neill was always saying how if anyone's hungry he's the one to feed them and Brad was pissed and decided he would feed the hungry for a while and see how O'Neill liked it. I thought he meant Thanksgiving and was even more confused as it is not yet September. Upon waking, I thought I would have to remember to ask Brad if he was talking about Jack O'Neill from Stargate or someone that I've never met. Then I fully woke up and realized that wouldn't make any sense at all.
As a younger person I always resented the reality of chores, the day-to-day crap of job and laundry and dishes and cleaning my room. Now it is going to be my life line. I do not know what has happened to my brain, but something is different, bound to show up at some point on the scanner. I have a guess, but I know too much about electrons to believe it can be all true.
Have decided to cut back on the ibuprofen. It works to cut my pain, but my pain is no longer great. I am tired and somewhat more stiff than I would like, but in no way incapacitated or stalled. The only real issue with me being tired is that I am now much more emotional than I am used to being. Still fragile. Not in the mood to fight it anymore.
It is odd to think that today next week I will be thinking of different things, sitting in a different place, using a different computer, reading different books (okay, maybe not), facing the future as me, still, but differently. Why that strikes me today so much more strongly than it has struck me in the past is quite beyond my comprehension, but then, right, there are many things which are.
I am looking forward to the world and the me that I am become, mostly because that's the way my feet are headed.
I walked out into the world of the trees last evening and watched the clouds rush in, changing and growing and billowing and going gray and white. The sound of the rain and the flashes of lightning filled the room in which I sleep. It is the room in which I slept when I lived here so many years ago. I thought it was green, maybe it was, now it is tan and the bed is much smaller and while I am not sure how well I will take to being in the world again, I miss my bed and my room.
I am dreaming oddly, the hospital dreams have stopped, but there are more people than I am accustomed to and last night there was a man on my arm, and it was good. And Brad was stocking up on water cooler jugs filled with wine and there were smoked turkeys and platters of fruit and I asked if he was throwing a party and said if he was I'd like to know so that I could not be there and he said something about how O'Neill was always saying how if anyone's hungry he's the one to feed them and Brad was pissed and decided he would feed the hungry for a while and see how O'Neill liked it. I thought he meant Thanksgiving and was even more confused as it is not yet September. Upon waking, I thought I would have to remember to ask Brad if he was talking about Jack O'Neill from Stargate or someone that I've never met. Then I fully woke up and realized that wouldn't make any sense at all.
As a younger person I always resented the reality of chores, the day-to-day crap of job and laundry and dishes and cleaning my room. Now it is going to be my life line. I do not know what has happened to my brain, but something is different, bound to show up at some point on the scanner. I have a guess, but I know too much about electrons to believe it can be all true.
Have decided to cut back on the ibuprofen. It works to cut my pain, but my pain is no longer great. I am tired and somewhat more stiff than I would like, but in no way incapacitated or stalled. The only real issue with me being tired is that I am now much more emotional than I am used to being. Still fragile. Not in the mood to fight it anymore.
It is odd to think that today next week I will be thinking of different things, sitting in a different place, using a different computer, reading different books (okay, maybe not), facing the future as me, still, but differently. Why that strikes me today so much more strongly than it has struck me in the past is quite beyond my comprehension, but then, right, there are many things which are.
I am looking forward to the world and the me that I am become, mostly because that's the way my feet are headed.
Monday, 27 August 2007
In honor of today’s adventures...
Old Style does go skunky. I know, I know, it seems a statement of the obvious condition of Old Style, but trust me, I know of what I speak.
After days of spending time wandering like Horace from one soft place to sit and read to another, finding the hammock again, getting run into by grasshoppers mistaking my skull for a bouncing board (maybe not mistaken, who knows?) and having quiet moments with the deer just beyond the fence, I ventured today into town with my mother. The objectives were simple enough: lunch with friends and then to the house to take care of some potentially loose ends in preparation for my eventual return.
Lunch was accomplished with grace and style and good conversation, followed immediately by plans for world domination and cheesecake. One of our number is not of age yet, so there was no rampant drinking to celebrate the event. Though we have been promised a Part II. I am hopeful. Full of hope.
Given my need to go to places I enjoy with frequency, I was fortunate to run into two of my acquaintance whereupon I was given hugs. I enjoy hugs from friends and will accept them with very little chagrin (most of the time) especially now as I have a reason to be hugged with abandon.
The time at spent at the library was filled with pleasant conversation with understanding folks. It's always a crapshoot when you go to the library hoping to see certain people, because you never know who will or won't be on the schedule for that day. Much like Lincoln bar life. There are certain people who are always out. And then there are the people you want to see. It's a crapshoot. Opportunities abound and it pays to listen to the people who know what and where they are. Received a gift of unexpected kindness. Still reeling from that, but I will recover.
And then there was the adventure of the key. I now have a copy of the key to the back door of the house. I am pleased about this on many levels. Except. The part where my mother's car decided that it didn't want to let her turn the key in the ignition. Many many phone calls were made. And then: the mechanic at the service station suggested that she hit the key with a shoe.
You can imagine the mirth. Particularly because it worked. The Shoe Solution.
The end of the day involved a trip to the grocery store for wine and garlic (mother outside with the car running. just in case) and now the wait as meat and potatoes cook and we drink well-earned glasses of wine after a day that will be followed by two days of rest and light reading.
I define light reading as The Muqaddimah by Ibn Kahldun. An Introduction to History. He likes Bedouins. I do, too.
After days of spending time wandering like Horace from one soft place to sit and read to another, finding the hammock again, getting run into by grasshoppers mistaking my skull for a bouncing board (maybe not mistaken, who knows?) and having quiet moments with the deer just beyond the fence, I ventured today into town with my mother. The objectives were simple enough: lunch with friends and then to the house to take care of some potentially loose ends in preparation for my eventual return.
Lunch was accomplished with grace and style and good conversation, followed immediately by plans for world domination and cheesecake. One of our number is not of age yet, so there was no rampant drinking to celebrate the event. Though we have been promised a Part II. I am hopeful. Full of hope.
Given my need to go to places I enjoy with frequency, I was fortunate to run into two of my acquaintance whereupon I was given hugs. I enjoy hugs from friends and will accept them with very little chagrin (most of the time) especially now as I have a reason to be hugged with abandon.
The time at spent at the library was filled with pleasant conversation with understanding folks. It's always a crapshoot when you go to the library hoping to see certain people, because you never know who will or won't be on the schedule for that day. Much like Lincoln bar life. There are certain people who are always out. And then there are the people you want to see. It's a crapshoot. Opportunities abound and it pays to listen to the people who know what and where they are. Received a gift of unexpected kindness. Still reeling from that, but I will recover.
And then there was the adventure of the key. I now have a copy of the key to the back door of the house. I am pleased about this on many levels. Except. The part where my mother's car decided that it didn't want to let her turn the key in the ignition. Many many phone calls were made. And then: the mechanic at the service station suggested that she hit the key with a shoe.
You can imagine the mirth. Particularly because it worked. The Shoe Solution.
The end of the day involved a trip to the grocery store for wine and garlic (mother outside with the car running. just in case) and now the wait as meat and potatoes cook and we drink well-earned glasses of wine after a day that will be followed by two days of rest and light reading.
I define light reading as The Muqaddimah by Ibn Kahldun. An Introduction to History. He likes Bedouins. I do, too.
Saturday, 25 August 2007
Morning in Crete
The coffee I had this morning is all that's keeping me awake right now. I am not moving much - typing is not an intensive exersize (sp?)(Learning French totally screwed me up on that word - I haven't been able to spell it in any language since I was eleven. My second grade teacher couldn't spell spaghetti. She was okay with it. She had a home and a family and a career. It didn't ruin her forever, it was just something she had to admit to herself and everyone else. Forever. I think she must have been happy when we all started eating pasta.).
I was not all that familiar with Crete when I lived here, oh, 9 years ago, but I did shop in town and go to the movie theatre (alone! shock of shocks!) and ate at the local diner (PK Bach's, no longer extant) and drove around a lot. I had a car back then. It's the only car I've ever owned. Someday I will have to remedy that.
9 years ago the downtown area was losing businesses left and right, there were more empty store fronts than not, and the little 'mall' across from the library was empty but for one take-out Chinese place that I never tried.
It was kind of depressing to drive through.
Now it is a different town. Every store front along the main street is filled, and almost every store front on the streets crossing that one is filled also. There are people downtown, driving and walking around. Which creates no end of chaos as there is one stop light with no turn arrow and one 4-way stop sign and the rest is pretty much luck of the draw. Glad it's not me driving.
My mother knows everyone who works anywhere that she and my father spend money. Everyone. She knows about their kids and their vacation plans. We went to breakfast at the 9th Street Grill (assuming it's on 9th street, although lately my assumptions have been way off, so who knows? I blame the drugs, and the tireds, etc.) and she knew who was working and who was on vacation and why. It was a beautiful thing. She was explaining to us why there were only 2 people on as my father went up to grab our menu. I don't think they would have batted an eye if he'd got my cup of coffee at the time, but I didn't say anything. Didn't want folks thinking I was desperate for it, even though it had been over 2 weeks.
Been 2 weeks since I smoked, as well. I'm healing. I haven't quit. Don't go there with me.
Shopping with my parents was more than entertaining. Particularly the parts that involved driving across the street to go to the Pamida (boycott Wal-Mart) and then driving across the street to go to the Sun-Mart. We repeated the less than a block long drive from the post office to the gas station (that one I get) to the library, which has redone itself in the last 9 years and is much less standoffish than the one that I remember. To be honest, I don't think I could've made it, not after all that food in the morning time and then missing my 11 o'clock nap.
The library did not have the Bourne Identity, though it did have the Bourne Supremacy, and as I am feeling the need for espionage/spy type stuff, I went for it. Diving into the Ludlum. Save me from Tristram Shandy for a few hours!
Crete wouldn't be a bad town to live in, really. Particularly if they can keep Wal-Mart at bay and on the outskirts and maybe even gone away for lack of profit. I hope that they can, it's a nice little town that seems to be taking care of itself.
It does need a coffee shop.
I was not all that familiar with Crete when I lived here, oh, 9 years ago, but I did shop in town and go to the movie theatre (alone! shock of shocks!) and ate at the local diner (PK Bach's, no longer extant) and drove around a lot. I had a car back then. It's the only car I've ever owned. Someday I will have to remedy that.
9 years ago the downtown area was losing businesses left and right, there were more empty store fronts than not, and the little 'mall' across from the library was empty but for one take-out Chinese place that I never tried.
It was kind of depressing to drive through.
Now it is a different town. Every store front along the main street is filled, and almost every store front on the streets crossing that one is filled also. There are people downtown, driving and walking around. Which creates no end of chaos as there is one stop light with no turn arrow and one 4-way stop sign and the rest is pretty much luck of the draw. Glad it's not me driving.
My mother knows everyone who works anywhere that she and my father spend money. Everyone. She knows about their kids and their vacation plans. We went to breakfast at the 9th Street Grill (assuming it's on 9th street, although lately my assumptions have been way off, so who knows? I blame the drugs, and the tireds, etc.) and she knew who was working and who was on vacation and why. It was a beautiful thing. She was explaining to us why there were only 2 people on as my father went up to grab our menu. I don't think they would have batted an eye if he'd got my cup of coffee at the time, but I didn't say anything. Didn't want folks thinking I was desperate for it, even though it had been over 2 weeks.
Been 2 weeks since I smoked, as well. I'm healing. I haven't quit. Don't go there with me.
Shopping with my parents was more than entertaining. Particularly the parts that involved driving across the street to go to the Pamida (boycott Wal-Mart) and then driving across the street to go to the Sun-Mart. We repeated the less than a block long drive from the post office to the gas station (that one I get) to the library, which has redone itself in the last 9 years and is much less standoffish than the one that I remember. To be honest, I don't think I could've made it, not after all that food in the morning time and then missing my 11 o'clock nap.
The library did not have the Bourne Identity, though it did have the Bourne Supremacy, and as I am feeling the need for espionage/spy type stuff, I went for it. Diving into the Ludlum. Save me from Tristram Shandy for a few hours!
Crete wouldn't be a bad town to live in, really. Particularly if they can keep Wal-Mart at bay and on the outskirts and maybe even gone away for lack of profit. I hope that they can, it's a nice little town that seems to be taking care of itself.
It does need a coffee shop.
Thursday, 23 August 2007
What the Dr. Said
My incision is healing just fine, I get to take the tapes off as they start curling up. My scar will be very neat and tidy, I think, with a little tear drop at the bottom.
I am very tired, which is what my life will be for the next 5 weeks, I am told. Particularly given "what you went through." There are only so many times a person can hear that from members of the medical profession before wondering just how bad things were that I am not expected to be fully recuperated a week and a half after surgery - it's just an appendix, right? So, I asked:
"How bad was it?" (this from me)
(my doctor said) "It was bad. If you'd waited any longer, you might not have survived the surgery."
I keep remembering that the important thing is that I'm alive, and that everyone involved in making me not die was good at their job and available at the time. However: I'm an emotional, mental, spiritual and physical shadow of my former self, I cry at the drop of a hat, my temper is shorter than a bald man's hair and I miss my cat.
Today is one of those days when I really wanted a sweetie, someone to tell me that the important thing is that I'm still alive and loved. Just to keep me from dwelling on the melodrama of "how close was it?" you know.
I am told that this all takes time. I am unused to allowing for time. I nap all day and find that eating takes more energy than it gives. I feel that this is become whining, it is all new to me, I am uncomfortable with my present state.
I am allowed to go back to work in about a week. I will have to start looking for jobs again.
My father, the person to whom I am listening for the first time in my life, suggests that it is more important to focus on healing than on anything else. He offered me the chance to come out here to rest and recuperate in safety and relative silence. I think it didn't hurt that I was bawling at the time and needed more than I could articulate.
This is just not my way. I need to be taken care of. Not emotionally supported, not believed in, not anything nice and intangible and cheap like having people around who have faith in me. I mean actually taken care of, with the laundry and food and reminders to bathe and a room in which I can sleep that is removed from the rest of the house and gentle conversation and time, lots of time.
I don't need to tell you that I am reminded of the people in this world who do not have the friends and family that I do who have been available and who have been gentle with me and given me space and safety and silence. I cannot imagine what the lives of people who do not have time to recover from something like this must be, how tired and worn down they must feel. The bills will be bad enough, at least my day-to-day isn't piling up on me as well.
I am alive to complain and hurt and read and feel. One of these days it will sink in and then my temper will explode and the rest of my life with it.
I am very tired, which is what my life will be for the next 5 weeks, I am told. Particularly given "what you went through." There are only so many times a person can hear that from members of the medical profession before wondering just how bad things were that I am not expected to be fully recuperated a week and a half after surgery - it's just an appendix, right? So, I asked:
"How bad was it?" (this from me)
(my doctor said) "It was bad. If you'd waited any longer, you might not have survived the surgery."
I keep remembering that the important thing is that I'm alive, and that everyone involved in making me not die was good at their job and available at the time. However: I'm an emotional, mental, spiritual and physical shadow of my former self, I cry at the drop of a hat, my temper is shorter than a bald man's hair and I miss my cat.
Today is one of those days when I really wanted a sweetie, someone to tell me that the important thing is that I'm still alive and loved. Just to keep me from dwelling on the melodrama of "how close was it?" you know.
I am told that this all takes time. I am unused to allowing for time. I nap all day and find that eating takes more energy than it gives. I feel that this is become whining, it is all new to me, I am uncomfortable with my present state.
I am allowed to go back to work in about a week. I will have to start looking for jobs again.
My father, the person to whom I am listening for the first time in my life, suggests that it is more important to focus on healing than on anything else. He offered me the chance to come out here to rest and recuperate in safety and relative silence. I think it didn't hurt that I was bawling at the time and needed more than I could articulate.
This is just not my way. I need to be taken care of. Not emotionally supported, not believed in, not anything nice and intangible and cheap like having people around who have faith in me. I mean actually taken care of, with the laundry and food and reminders to bathe and a room in which I can sleep that is removed from the rest of the house and gentle conversation and time, lots of time.
I don't need to tell you that I am reminded of the people in this world who do not have the friends and family that I do who have been available and who have been gentle with me and given me space and safety and silence. I cannot imagine what the lives of people who do not have time to recover from something like this must be, how tired and worn down they must feel. The bills will be bad enough, at least my day-to-day isn't piling up on me as well.
I am alive to complain and hurt and read and feel. One of these days it will sink in and then my temper will explode and the rest of my life with it.
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