reallyginnyf

A very, very happy birthday to my sweet, sweet snokat !! I hope your special day brings you laughter and joy and lots of drunken good times tonight with good friends! Wish I could be there!

This video made me think of you. It carries a message that you've learned through some painful life lessons. It's also for anyone who labors under the misconception that you are a delicate, entitled, girly princess. I know how strong and determined you really are. You're a princess with a core of steel.

All my love and kisses and snorfles and smooches!



(I don't think the video is embedding. :-( So follow this link instead:
Stronger Woman video - smooch!)

Overheard and observed in the drugstore today; as snokat said, "You can't make this stuff up."

Observed: Dorky guy wearing athletic shorts, a wife-beater, tennis shoes with no socks, uncombed hair and thick-lensed glasses. He approaches a cute woman standing in the aisle next to me. He stares at her until she glances up, and then he smiles in an unsettling way.

Dorky Guy: "Hey there!" (gesturing towards the two tubes of hemorrhoid cream she is holding) "Does it run in the family?"

Woman: (With a nervous look towards me and then back at DG) "Excuse me?"

Dorky Guy: "Does it run in the family? I mean, does your HUSBAND have hemorrhoids, too?" (meaningful and hopeful pause) "Or are you single?"

Woman: "I'm not...I mean, I, uh, I'm married. Ha ha!"

Dorky Guy: "Ha ha! Well, that's just my luck! The beautiful women are always taken. It's so hard to meet a nice woman these days! Ha ha! Do you have a sister?"

Woman: "No. Uhm, I don't. I have to go now." (flees the aisle, clutching her hemorrhoid cream)

Dorky Guy: (Yelling) "GOOD LUCK WITH THOSE HEMORRHOIDS!!"


There's nothing I can add to this. Truly. And thank goodness he didn't try to pick me up, because I had maxi-pads in my basket. No telling what kind of suave line he might have tried to use on me.

Thanks everyone for your positive thoughts and good wishes and prayers for my mom! I visited her today and she looks good; maybe a little thinner, but not ill or wasted, and she's in great spirits and funny as always. I got to the house just after she woke up, so I ran back to the bedroom and snuggled into bed with her. Sometimes you just need some mommy love, you know?


This morning, while I was reading my friends page, I was excited to see an update from Lisa Yee. (She's the author of one of my favorite novels, "Absolutely Maybe.") Today Lisa announced the winners of her annual contest. This year readers were invited to submit a six-word summary of a well-known children's book. I received an honorable mention for my summary of "Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret." (My summary: "Dear Margaret. Leave a message. God.") I also had the honor of receiving the "Teen and Son" pick, chosen by Lisa's kids, for "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie." (My summary: Don't give a mouse a cookie.) But my favorite entry, and one of the prize winners, was the summary for "Love You Forever" which was, "Mom's at the window! Help! Police!" If you've ever read this schmaltzy kid's book, you'll understand why it's so funny. I was really hoping for the signed copy of "Absolutely Maybe" or even the petrified orange, but it was still fun to be mentioned.


I'm hosting Thanksgiving dinner for my family this year and I couldn't be happier about it! When I was living with my parents, we very seldom spent Thanksgiving in our own home. Every year we'd pack the car and make the 90-minute trip to Illinois to celebrate with my grandparents. I have few memories of the actual Thanksgiving dinners because by the time we gathered around the table after a round of fighting and back-biting and tense silences, my delicate nervous system was overloaded and I would escape to the cool and quiet of the basement to read old Reader's Digests until it was time to leave. Now that I'm an adult, I still hate the smell of turkey because of associated memories, and I hate traveling on Thanksgiving. This year I don't have to!


I spent a peaceful hour at a local antique mall this afternoon hoping to find table linens and glassware and coffee cups for the holiday meal. I have this thing for vintage, mismatched table settings and serving dishes. I have no idea why. There were two store cats, one a beautiful little calico, and she followed me throughout the shop while I browsed. I found a tablecloth and runner in a nice autumnal print, a glass serving dish, four sweet little coffee cups, and two lovely footed glass bowls. Some of the items were from the "free" box, so I ended up spending only $35 for everything, plus I got to flirt with the calico cat. I would have taken pictures for you, but oh, wait! The replacement camera I bought from Ebay was a complete and utter piece of junk!! But the seller has already refunded the purchase price and the cost of shipping, so it didn't ruin my happy day after all.


And in a final happy note, I was walking through the living room tonight while Russ was watching some kind of baseball thing, and the Cy Young Award winner, Tim Lincecum, was being interviewed. I glanced at the television and then stopped dead in my tracks, my mouth hanging open. Russ caught the expression on my face, gave me an exasperated look and said. "Don't even say it. I know exactly what you're thinking. Exactly."



Yeah, I kinda was thinking that. Sorry, hon.

This will be quick. First of all, to everyone who responded to my post yesterday, THANK YOU!! Your advice was carefully considered and tactfully worded and so incredibly helpful to a floundering mother. I <3 you all. Zack and I had a long talk after school yesterday and he said he thought Mass would be easier for him if I was not there. I could tell he didn't want to hurt my feelings and seemed very relieved when I agreed with him. I am taking verlindahenning 's wonderful advice and sending a little note and treat to school with him on Friday, with instructions that he is not to open it until after Mass. Honestly, I don't know what I'd do without all of you. *squeezes*

Whether it was the stress from yesterday or just a random virus, I've been sick all day. As my mother put it so succinctly, I've felt like "crap on crap toast with a generous helping of crap sauce." Unfortunately she was also describing her own condition.

She hasn't been feeling well for months now, with intermittent nausea and vomiting and abdominal pain and a nearly 10-pound weight loss. A recent CT scan showed "something" on her liver and she is going in for additional tests the day before Thanksgiving. Her physicians suspect it could be a harmless cyst, but my mom is also an 11-year breast cancer survivor and they want to rule out any metastatic disease. My whole body went cold typing those words.

When presented with two possibilities, one harmless and one catastrophic, my anxious mind will automatically go skittering toward the more alarming one, so of course I'm worried, but I also realize that losing my head won't change the situation. Still, I would appreciate any spare positive thoughts you might have lying around.

What a morning. Which is why I'm posting early today instead of my usual right-before-I-go-to-bed post. Anyone have a lap handy that I can crawl into for a while? Or does someone want to fix me some hot tea and maybe rub my temples and murmur soothing words? Anyone? How about some advice instead while I go make my own damn tea? Anyone up for giving me some advice? I'll set the scene for you:

Anyone who reads my LJ knows all about my wonderful son, Zack. He's smart and funny and sweet, but has unfortunately inherited his mother's anxious and nervous temperament. Poor thing. He attends Catholic school because in an extremely over-crowded school district, the student-teacher ratio at his school is outstanding (averaging 13 to 1), and we have the advantage of living right next door to the school. All of the staff and students know him and accept him with his quirks. He gets fantastic grades, has a nice group of friends and looks forward to going to school every day. The only problem is church. Now that he's in first grade, he attends a school mass twice a week, and oh, how he dreads it. He once got overheated during a service and felt like he was going to be sick and we hustled him outside so he could get some fresh air. I brought him home and let him rest for a few hours and then took him back to school. It happens to everyone, no big deal, and I thought that would be the end of it. But it wasn't. Now he's reached a point where he expects to feel ill in church and if he thinks about it long enough, he genuinely starts feeling ill. It's a panic reaction, plain and simple. I know all about those. *sigh*

Here's what's complicating matters. When Zack is at mass with just the other students and teachers, he uses his own form of cognitive-behavioral therapy to cope. He tells me he thinks of happy places and funny jokes to take his mind off of being scared. He tells me that he talks to himself and reminds himself that nothing bad happened last time and nothing bad is going to happen this time. I'm proud of him for having the ability to think rationally and use his intelligence to help himself. When he uses his coping techniques he can make it through twice-weekly Mass with no incidents...unless I happen to be there.

When Zack has something special to do, like reading the petitions or presenting the gifts, I make it a point to attend the school mass. He's very well-behaved and reads well and because of this, he is asked to participate in the mass at least every other week. I've gone to every one of those masses and each and every time I've had to cart him out when he starts feeling ill. Let me tell you, the first time it happens, the teachers and other parents and the priest are very sympathetic. The fourth time it happens, you get no sympathy at all, just disgusted looks. He burst into huge wrenching sobs this morning because I was FIVE MINUTES LATE and then he started feeling sick and once again, we did the march out the side door so he could calm down. Once church was over and I took him back to the classroom, he was feeling like himself again.

My first instinct this morning was to scream and run out the door, which I didn't do. My second instinct was to call Russ at work and get his level-headed perspective, because my usual good humor completely deserted me today. Russ sympathized, expressed puzzlement over Zack's behavior and told me I had done everything I could possibly do...which is really all I needed to hear. My final instinct was to run home and pour everything out on my LJ...so, HI EVERYONE!

F-listies, I don't know what to do...I truly don't. I want to be there to show my support but I think Zack does much better if I'm not there. I don't know why my presence would make him fall to pieces, but it seems to. Does it mean I'm a horrible, overbearing mother and I make him so nervous that he gets ill? Or does he just get nervous about participating in the mass and excited because I'm there and the nerves/excitement combo overwhelms him? I stay involved as much as I can...I volunteer in his class and at the library and in the Cub Scout troop. I'm a stay-at-home mom so he has all my attention when he gets home from school. But I don't think I can do those school masses again...I truly don't. I have panic attacks myself and I'm an emetophobe and it's too damn hard on me emotionally to have to escort a pale, trembling, nauseous child out the door every single time I go to a mass. I feel so weak admitting it, but I really don't think I can handle another morning like this morning.

If Zack is going to attend SFBGS, attending mass is not optional for him. As much as I would like to make this problem go away for him, I can't. We always have the choice of sending him to public school, but I don't want to pull him out of a familiar school that he loves just because he freaks out in church. He obviously has the coping skills to deal with panic attacks as long as I'm not around and that makes me feel both happy for him and completely horrible at the same time.

Any advice? It doesn't matter if you have kids or not, truly. What would you do?

*feels a migraine coming on*

I've spent my entire evening putting together a craft for Zack's Cub Scout den. I've been shaping turkey toes out of Fimo clay and baking them, cutting out tail feathers and wattles and trying to wrap *&^%$! floral wire around clothespins with two of my fingers buddy-taped together. But it's such a cute project...a little stand-up turkey that can hold a message card in its beak. I was making a list of suggestions for what the boys could write on their cards ("Happy Thanksgiving!" or "I am thankful for ______!") and then Russ and Zack had to get in on the act and started making little cards that read "Try the green bean casserole!" and "Eat more vegetables!" and "I think the turkey is undercooked!" I suppose this is a long way of saying that I've had more than my share of creative activity tonight, so it's going to be a short NaBloPoMo post.

Except I do have a quick story to tell you. Remember back in June when my dad was so sick and I lost my favorite fountain pen? The one that I used to write all my stories in longhand? I took its loss as a sign from the universe that I was wasting my time writing and I swore I wouldn't write again unless I found the pen. It was painful to give up my stories, but I'm superstitious. Still, I kept hoping the pen would turn up and I searched everywhere in my house - cleaned out closets and drawers and cabinets - all with no luck.

Last night I was thinking about my stories and characters again and feeling a little sad and almost missing everyone in a way even though they're all fictional and most of them aren't even mine. Then I put it out of my mind and went to my desk to do some paperwork. Next to my desk I have a file box for hanging folders where I keep household records and bills to be paid and action items. I check the "Action Items" folder every few days so I don't forget any checks that have to be signed or forms that need to be mailed, etc. So I took the folder from the file box and was shuffling through it, my mind elsewhere, and then I felt and heard something fall from the folder into the file box. I pushed all the files out of the way and THERE WAS MY PEN. Spooky.

On a last NaBloPoMo note, I have a replacement camera arriving soon and I hope to get back to my original posting ideas instead of blathering on about the mundanities of my life. Let's hope the Ebay seller ships the camera quickly before everyone stops reading my journal altogether.

If you live in the States and had one of the Scouting for Food bags delivered to your house today, please consider filling it with even one or two items and leaving it out on your porch next Saturday. Zack is a Tiger Cub Scout and we helped distribute the Scouting for Food bags this morning. We covered six blocks with 175 bags and within those six blocks I came across 18 rotting jack-o-lanterns on various porches, was nearly chased out of a yard by a shirtless, half-deaf older gentleman, was barked at by eight different dogs from St. Bernard-size down to chihuahua, and was invited to view a freshly-killed deer, an opportunity that I declined but Zack eagerly accepted.

After two hours of tromping up and down streets, we were all exhausted and only a Dairy Queen mini Blizzard (purely experimental, of course) managed to revive us. For anyone keeping score, currently the Oreo Blizzard is 4/5 spoons, the Tagalong Blizzard is 2/5 spoons and the Extreme Chocolate Blizzard is 10,000,000/5 spoons. I'll need to have another Extreme Chocolate Blizzard next week just for scientific accuracy.

There are few things sweeter than watching a long-distance, high, arcing jump shot sweep through the net without touching the rim...unless it's playing one-on-one with Russ for the first time in five years on a gorgeous fall day.

I'm reading a wonderful YA novel written by Sue Limb, "Girl, 15, Charming but Insane..." and I'm a little in love with Jess Jordan, the main character. It's the first of four novels featuring Jess and I have to figure out how to get my hands on the last three because my library doesn't have them. And "plonker" is one of the greatest terms ever and should be adopted internationally.

I'm starting to lose some steam on this whole NaBloPoMo thing, can you tell? It was a lovely day for us. How is the weekend going for everyone else?

It was Friday the 13th today. Normally I'm not superstitious, but here's a list of what befell me today:

• Opened up the bathroom cabinet, bent to retrieve my robe from the floor, stood up and bashed my head into the corner of the door. Ow.
• Sent Zack off to school without his lunch, his homework folder and a permission slip for art class.
• While delivering lunch, homework folder and permission slip to the school, managed to slam the third finger of my right hand in the entrance door. One exam and x-ray later, discovered I had fractured my fingertip. Double ow.
• Dropped off recyclables and was stung by a disgruntled bee who didn't appreciate having aluminum cans thrown on top of him.
• Strolled by the school playground during afternoon recess to say hi to Zack. While standing at the fence, saw a blur headed in my direction. Only the chain-link fence kept me from being bashed in the face with high-velocity kickball.
• Went back home and hid.

Not that the whole day was bad. There is a tea parlor that just opened in Washington called SerendipiTea. I stopped in today and met the owner who is a lovely and charming woman and a fellow Lapsang Souchong tea drinker. I bought an ounce of Lapsang, a beautiful tea strainer and chatted with her for a while. Besides being lovely and charming, the owner is loquacious and in twenty minutes I learned:

• She used to live in a mansion on a lake in Arizona.
• She adopted three daughters from Russia.
• She is the director of a Serbian choir somewhere in St. Louis.
• She once had all of her jewelry stolen, which her husband forgot to insure although he insured his computer equipment, and she went out and bought diamonds and emeralds to make up for it.
• There is such a thing as a Glamkat, which are decorative cat dolls. She knows the creator of Glamkats personally and the ballerina cat, Galina Ballerina, is modeled after her daughter Galina.
• She is acquiring the space next door to her tea parlor and is hoping to open a Victorian Trading Company franchise along with a larger tea room.
• She once visited all the tea rooms in France on an extended stay.
• The president of the local junior college has a daughter named "Devon" after Devonshire Cream.
• She uses words like "behemoth" and "festoon."
• She is making mole poblano crepes for the "Chocolat" movie viewing dinner and I should definitely make a reservation to attend.
• Her parlor offers high tea, cream tea, chocolate tea and caviar tea daily. (snokat, we are *so* going to a cream tea as soon as you can clear some time on your schedule to meet me!)

A quote on the SerendipiTea menu read, "there is no trouble so great or grave that cannot be much diminished by a nice cup of tea." I couldn't agree more. I'm off for a final cup of Lapsang, a handful of ibuprofen and a good book. Hugs, everyone. Enjoy your weekend!

Although more people voted to read about the strange contents of my jewelry box, I decided to post my awful teenage poetry instead because writing about my jewelry box will require photos. I'm not being lazy. My camera died today after I dropped it off our second-floor balcony (it's a long story).

Between the ages of fifteen and nineteen, I somehow convinced myself I was a poet. I read poetry voraciously, tried to view the world through the eyes of a poet, and on one memorable occasion told my boyfriend, "You don't understand me because I have the soul of a poet." Although I now believe that statement was grounds for an immediate breakup or at least a good smack across the head, to his credit he did neither.

For your enjoyment and derisive laughter, I give you two poems written during my angsty teenage years:

( I-44 )

( Reflections )

And there is so much more! But I know my f-list and I suspect you all have angsty teenage poetry written down somewhere. So, who's next? Who'll be brave enough to share their writing in the Terrible Teenage Poetery Slam? And if by chance (or talent) you've won awards with your poetry (snokat ) then no need to rub it in our faces. Terrible poets unite!

Poll #1484239 NaBloPoMo Topics
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 26

What should I write about next?

Yeah, one of THOSE days.  A day where I stand up and walk through a room and think I'm walking straight but instead I'm tacking off to the left and then I crash into a wall or a sturdy piece of furniture.  So far I've slammed into two doorways, the dining room table, a bookcase and the playground fence. 

I stretched out on the couch after dinner, closed my eyes and felt everything beginning to rotate.  While I was struggling back to a sitting position, I heard EEEEEEeeeeeee in my right ear and then it went completely dead.  Most of my hearing is back, but the fullness remains.  This all adds up an impending attack of vertigo and the only thing for it is to take a hearty dose of meclizine and try to sleep it off.  No post tonight, and I had so much to post about, too!  Here's hoping I'm back to myself tomorrow. 

By the way, did you know another harbinger of vertigo (in my case at least) is lack of concentration?  I was clipping coupons from a circular earlier today and on one page was an ad for some incredibly unflattering mens' trousers.  The brand name, Casual Joe, was in a fancy cursive font and set off in a text box, and I swear to god I thought it read "Camel Toe."  And all I could think was, who in the world would buy Camel Toe pants?

Going to bed now.  *waves*

So, who's ready for Christmas?  Let's see a show of hands!!

What do you mean you're not in the spirit yet?  C'mon.  There are Christmas lights and displays all over town and Christmas advertising on television and Christmas catalogs arriving every day and even radio stations that are already playing Christmas carols!  Ho, ho, ho!  Yeah, it makes me sick, too.  Zack's been poring through the toy catalogs and it's bringing back Christmas memories.  Not necessarily good memories, but memories nonetheless. 

As a girl, I didn't like dresses or jewelry or frilly things.  I could usually be found outside, wearing jeans and flannel shirts, chasing frogs or digging in mud or climbing trees.  Every year my Christmas list was heavy on craft supplies and stuffed animals and lighter on baby dolls and Barbies, but that never stopped Santa from bringing me girly toys.  It also didn't stop me from destroying them most of the time.  I'll be honest.  I was very hard on my toys, even the ones I liked:

THE CASUALTY LIST

Barbie, Ken, Skipper and the Barbie Country Camper

I thought the Country Camper was awesome and just the thing for sending Barbie and friends on an African safari.  But I also reasoned that Barbie would have trouble maintaining her time-consuming beauty regimen in Tanzania.  Thanks to my mom's pinking shears and a package of barely-diluted grape Kool-Aid, I gave Barbie a punk purple hairstyle.  Except to dye her hair I had to turn her upside down, dunk her into a glass of Kool-Aid and leave her there for a while, so the upper half of her head turned out purple, too.  Ken was a douche and wimped out on the safari.  Skipper and Barbie came to a gruesome end when they made the tragic mistake of parking the Country Camper directly behind the back wheels of our family car.  My brother and I learned some creative new curse words and Ken, in his grief, joined my older brother's WWF: Extreme Mutilation Tour, wrestling the likes of the Six Million Dollar Man, the Lone Ranger, and G.I. Joe, ultimately losing one leg and both arms.


Baby Alive

I cannot believe they are still manufacturing and selling Baby Alive.  Even now I  have nightmares about that doll.  One Christmas morning when I was about six or seven, I remember excitedly unwrapping a huge box; excitedly, that is, until I saw what it was.  Baby Alive.  I carefully removed her from the packaging and stared at her in utter horror:  The awful pink gingham dress and droopy diaper, the deformed-looking legs and cherubic little mouth and her dead, dead eyes.  Included with the doll was a little pink dish and spoon and paper packets of baby food.  My mom patiently explained that I was supposed to mix the food and feed it to Baby Alive and then it would come out in her diaper and I could change her!  And she actually used an excited tone of voice like I was supposed to be thrilled about a crapping little baby doll.  So I gave it a chance.  I mixed up a packet of banana baby food (I can still remember the horrid smell) and stuck the pink spoon in her mouth and was rewarded with a horrifying mechanical grinding NANG NANG NANG NANG noise as her jaws worked away at the mouthful of slime.  I nearly dropped her and ran from the room but I was curious to see what shape the banana slime would be in when it found its way to the diaper.  I was expecting turds.  Boy, was I disappointed.  It was the same slime, only now it was all over her diaper and butt.  My mom then said I should feed the doll some water to wash out the rest of the baby food.  I asked if she wanted to take over, but she declined.  Cleaning up banana slime and banana slime mixed with water got old very fast, so I started experimenting with other foods.  Applesauce worked well, as did pudding.  The peanut butter was a mistake.  It went a little way down her esophagus and then became completely stuck.  All of my efforts to remove the peanut butter blockage were fruitless.  After that, when I tried to feed Baby Alive her standard baby food, it would back up and come pouring out her mouth.  I'm one of the only people who ever killed a Baby Alive.

Snoopy Sno-Cone Maker

Now this was a toy I loved!  It was a hand-cranked snow cone maker that looked like Snoopy's doghouse and, if I'm remembering correctly, the base held a little snowman that dispensed snow cone syrup.  I had so much fun playing with my snow cone maker, even when the ice would get stuck on the grater and I'd peel off parts of my fingertips and knuckles trying to dislodge the ice cube.  I used Dixie bathroom cups instead of paper cones and when we ran out of syrup, we substituted super-sweet Kool-Aid.  All was well for about six months.  I would take out trusty old Snoopy a few times a week, make two or three snow cones and put it back on my dresser.  Then I made a fateful visit to the fancy-schmancy house of one of my school friends.  Her family was so wealthy they had a guest bathroom.  Two bathrooms in ONE HOUSE.  Luxurious!   In this guest bathroom, her mother had a dish of rose-scented soap sheets.  Soap in a sheet!   I picked up one delicate leaf and there was a lovely rose fragrance and the sheet dissolved in a handful of bubbles.  I'd never used anything so decadent and glamorous in my life and I wanted to recreate the experience in my own house where the standard soap was a yellow bar of Dial.   So I had the ingenious idea to take a bar of Ivory soap, add a few squirts of some rose-scented hand lotion and grind the whole mixture in my Snoopy snow cone maker.  I was going to take the resulting fine shavings and fashion them into soap sheets.  No need to tell you that it didn't exactly work out that way.  Once I cleaned the gunk out of the ice shaver and rinsed it (and rinsed it and rinsed it), it still tasted like Ivory soap and roses and I never made snow cones again.  *quiet sob* 

Can you believe I'm not finished?  I could still tell you about my Barbie makeup head and the Toss Across and the Love's Baby Soft gift set, and the absolute worst Christmas gift I ever received (an air freshener), but I want to hear your stories now.

I'd love to write a nice long post about my day today, but my computer has other ideas.  I don't know what's wrong with it, but it's been having seizures when confronted with any embedded Flash object, including LJ animated icons.  If I suddenly trail off and disappear in the middle of a sentence, you'll know why.

The weather was gorgeous today but annoying.  It's November.  I'm slowing down for the year.  I want to stay in the house and bake bread and wear big unflattering sweaters and curl up in a chair and read and yawn and nap.  That's hard to do when it's sunny and 75 degrees and everyone is out walking and cycling and jogging and raking leaves and being disgustingly cheerful.  Bah.  

This afternoon we met Russ's family at the Shaw Nature Reserve for a picnic and a day of hiking.  (After almost 20 years, I know Russ's family is my family, too, but that's just an easy way to say it.  Otherwise I'd be saying we met my mother-in-law, sister-in-law and two brothers-in-law; very complicated.)  My mother-in-law, who raised six kids, is a picnic veteran.  When we talked the previous night, she said we'd have a "snack" together.  When we settled ourselves in the picnic area, she brought out three coolers, two shopping bags and a cardboard box from which she removed cold fried chicken, coleslaw, biscuits, ham salad, potato chips, homemade bread, apple crumb pie, chocolate cake, vanilla ice cream, four different kinds of soda and a thermos of coffee.  I love her. 

After our light snack, I could barely waddle around but we did make it to the Bascom House and Whitmire Wildflower Garden.  We sent all the boys out for a nature hike while we found some comfortable Adirondack chairs and sat and admired the view and talked.  I took lots of pictures, laughed more than I've laughed in a while and had a wonderful, blessed day with people I love.  I can't ask for much more than that.  And before I end this post, I'll leave you with a small bit of wisdom I learned today:

If you're thinking about posing for a photo with a wooly worm clamped to your upper lip like a mustache, please reconsider.  The wooly worm will instinctively head for the nearest, darkest location which will be your left nostril.  No, I didn't get a picture of that and if by chance I did, I immediately deleted it.

First of all, a public service announcement that will only matter to a few of you:  If you called me or tried to send a text message in the past two days, there is a very good reason I haven't responded.  My cell phone was locked in my car trunk.  I realized this today when I was driving home from Union with no radio playing because I wanted to think, and I kept wondering why I was hearing faint electronica dance music emanating from the back of the car.   To the four people who left voice messages and the three who left text messages, I'm sorry.  I wasn't ignoring you.  I was just being my usual scatterbrained self.

Losing my cell phone in an awkward place isn't necessarily momentous; for me, it's more of a weekly occurrence.  No, I titled my post the way I did because of something else that happened to me today.  I met Kate Klise!!!  Kate Klise, the author!!!  Kate Klise, one of my writing idols!!!   When I heard she would be giving a presentation at the Scenic Regional Library, I went into my special file box, the one that contains all the writing that has ever inspired me, and I dug out one of the columns from her stint as a columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.  It's always been a dream of mine to meet her and have an opportunity to tell her what her writing means to me, because she taught me through her words that it's not only okay to laugh at yourself, sometimes it's the only way to cope.

When I made it to the library today, I walked toward the meeting room, my knees knocking, my mouth dry and the underarms of my shirt completely drenched, and there she was, standing in the front of the room!   We were a small group, so I had a chance right at the start to show her the column I had saved.  She laughed and told me she had actually been fired from that job and I did the inward wince/cringe because, you know, leave it to me to bring up what was most likely a painful memory.  But then she told me that not long afterward, when she was snowed in her house, she found an advertisement for a fountain designer and that little ad was the start of her first children's book, Regarding the Fountains.  She also told me that the editor who let her go from the Post later called her with questions about breaking into the childrens' book industry.  Although she ultimately took the high road, when I recognized the look of evil glee that crossed her face while she was relating this, I knew that my adoration for her had not been misplaced.  (And how can you not love an author who named one of her characters "Dick Tater?"  I mean, really.)

During her informative and entertaining presentation/writing workshop, I'm afraid I sat there with a big, goofy grin on my face, nodding my head enthusiastically like one of  those bobble-head car dogs. I couldn't help it.  So much of what she said resonated with me, from the disastrous barber shop haircut at a young age (although my look was more "Little Dutch Boy" than "Shaun Cassidy"), early critique of our work, the amazing ability of our minds to be distracted when we're trying to write, and the necessity of being willing to write badly.  During the question-answer session at the end, I babbled about Zack and the stories he writes and nurturing his creative spirit.  I also admitted, rather sheepishly, that I was a blogger.  I think what I actually said was "one of those annoying mommy bloggers - ha, ha."  And then her eyes kind of lit up.  She loves to read blogs, she said.  (!!!)  She'd like to check out my blog, she said.  (!!!!!!!!)

Now imagine this.  Imagine you're a baseball player.  Maybe a minor star for your podunk town league, batting about .200 at best.  Then you find out that Stan Musial is giving a presentation the next town over.  So you head over to soak up a little wisdom and somewhere during the course of his talk he says, 'Oh, you play ball?  Well, maybe I'll have to come watch you some time."  It was like that for me. 

At the end of the presentation, Kate graciously signed the yellowed column I brought along and signed a copy of her book, Over My Dead Body for Zack.  Then she wrote my LiveJournal user name in great big letters across a manila folder.  (!!!!!!!!) I'm sorry to say at that point I lost all decorum and tailed her around the room while she was packing up, blathering on (again!) about how much I Iove her writing and how we like to tell stories around the dining room table as a family and how I had a giant Barbie head makeup thing when I was a little girl and how much it looked like My Little Hooker when I was finished with it, and then, to my utter chagrin, I treated her to a re-enactment, complete with arm flapping and loud squealing, of my reaction to the news that she was giving a workshop in Union.   She had the good grace to smile politely and I had the good sense to leave before she had to beat me into submission with the power cord from her laptop.

I walked out of the library today not a changed person, but with the understanding that I had just received a message I needed to hear.  The message went like this:  Kate Klise is a writer.  She is one of my favorite writers.  Everything she talked about today is something I've experienced or learned or can identify with.  Which means I'm a writer.  Not "I'm a writer, but I only write a blog."  Not "I'm a writer, but not a very good one."  Nope.  I'm a writer.  No qualifiers.  Holy crap.  And I will never look at the Leaning Tower of Pisa in quite the same way again.

Thanks, Kate.  Whether or not you ever visit my blog, it was a pleasure and an honor to meet you today. 

Hey everyone! It's been a busy week for all of us, so we had a restful, recuperative weekend planned. Notice I said "had." In the space of two phone calls over twenty minutes this evening, our restful weekend is now planned to the gills. And I'm very tired. So tonight instead of a real post, you get a picture essay with an inside look at all the exciting things Zack and I do on a school holiday. ( Can you stand the excitement? )

Good night all!

Anyone who reads my updates on Facebook knows what kind of day I had today.  And one "lucky" person whom I pester with text messages almost daily knows that I did everything while nauseous and dizzy.  But everything got done and now I'm in my cozy cat robe, sitting in front of the computer, all my chores are over for the day, there is no school tomorrow and Zack has reached the age where he likes to sleep in.  I'll be lucky if I see him before 10:00 a.m., so tomorrow promises to be a relaxing day off.

I worked a shift at the school's Scholastic book fair this afternoon.  Zack worked with me and bagged the customers' purchases and when it was slow, browsed the books.  I told him to make a stack of the books he wanted and we would narrow his choices down later.  Except he just couldn't seem to part with any of the books.   I was completely sympathetic to his plight because I do the same thing in bookstores.  When we added everything up, he had spent $90 out of his savings, but it's money he's put aside for a while and we don't tell him how to spend it.  When I came home later, I found him sprawled out on the couch, a bottle of water and a plate of cookies on the coffee table, with one book propped on his stomach and the others scattered around him.  I wish I could have that much fun with $90. 

The sale itself went smoothly, except when I inadvertently charged one hassled mother double what her total should have been.  Luckily I caught the error before she wrote out her check.  When she ripped the check out and handed it to me, she said, "Time to go home and pull some leaves off the money tree."   I feel her pain.  Oh, and I can't forget one very special customer!

Because we're a small school, the librarian said that if someone didn't have enough cash to cover their purchase, we could make a note of what was owed with the understanding that they could pay the money owed within two days.  I didn't have to do this until towards the end of my shift and I am still confused.

Me:  Your total is $34.56.
Customer:  Oh, darn.  I only have a twenty.
M:  That's fine.  I'll make a note that you still owe $14.56 and you can send the money to school with your daughter or bring it by the library.
C:  $14.56?  What's that?
M:  That's what you still owe on your purchase.
C:  But I have a twenty.
M:  Yes, and once you use that, you'll still need to pay $14.56.
C:  Okay, let's do that.  (She hands me the twenty, I enter $34.56 as the amount tendered, write a note for her that reads "Please pay $14.56 - amount owed on book purchase" and write a separate note and put it in the cash register.  She stares at the note for a long time and then looks up at me.)  Don't I get any change?
M:  Uhm, no, you don't.  You didn't have enough money to cover your purchase and the note I just gave you is to remind you what you still owe.
C:  Are you sure I owe this much?  How much did I spend?
M:  (I grit my teeth because there is a rapidly-growing line of people behind her.) You spent $34.56 and gave me $20, so the balance is $14.56.
C:  Let me see the register receipt.
M:  (I pull out the receipt and hand it to her, smiling sympathetically at the waiting customers and sending the subconscious message "Please don't yell at me when it's your turn.") 
C:  It says here that I paid for everything.
M:  Yes, I know that's confusing, but on this cash register, I had to enter the amount tendered as $34.56 to close out the transaction.  There's a note in the drawer that you still owe $14.56.
C:  Well, this doesn't seem right.
M:  LISTEN, YOU STUPID COW! YOU OWE $14.56 SO GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE BEFORE I TAKE IT OUT OF YOUR ASS PENNY BY PENNY!  AND I CERTAINLY HOPE THAT CRETINOUS DAUGHTER OF YOURS IS BETTER AT MATH THAN HER BRAIN-DAMAGED MOTHER!  (At this point I body slammed her to the floor and stuffed the note up one quivering nostril.)

Okay, that last part didn't really happen.

It's been an out-of-sorts kind of day.  My mood has been volatile,  ranging from contentment to restlessness to happiness to sorrow to benevolence to impatience.  There's nothing wrong, not really.  It's just the monthly hormonal dance...one, two, bitch, bitch, bitch, and three, four, bloat, bloat, bloat and swing at your partner, do-si-do.  A package of mini peanut butter cups lightened my mood considerably, as did reviewing the results of an insightful test I took the other day.  I'm reproducing the test questions here for everyone (Dear Women's Health editors, please do not sue me.  Thank you.) because I love you all and we should recognize and celebrate our hidden strengths:

For each question, answer Never, Sometimes or Always, depending on how often you feel each statement is true about you.  Be totally honest!

1.  This world is so damn fascinating I could never be bored.
2.  No matter how things look, I don't jump to conclusions.
3.  I do what I think is right, even if it's difficult or unpopular.
4.  Taking time to help someone is a pleasure, not a chore.
5.  Working as part of a team is fun and rewarding.
6.  People use the term "cutting edge" to describe me or my work.
7.  I am blown away by art, technology or just looking at the sky.
8.  Every decision deserves careful consideration.
9.  I finish what I start.
10.  Compliments are embarrassing.  I prefer to praise others.
11.  When I say, "count me in," I mean 100 percent in.
12.  I seldom feel envious, because I'm already so lucky.
13.  I can do anything if I really set my mind to it.
14.  I don't easily get caught up in the details.
15.  Even if I can't stand someone, I treat them with respect.
16.  I believe I'm alive for an important reason.
17.  I say what I mean and I mean what I say.
18.  There are people who would sacrifice everything for me and for whom I would sacrifice everything.
19.  I'm good at getting diverse people to work together.
20.  No matter where I am, I can connect with the people around me.
21.  I jump at the chance to learn something - anything - new.
22.  I give people second and third chances.
23.  My emotions don't get the best of me.
24.  I crack myself up.

I'm placing the scoring section and explanation under a cut so you can't look ahead and skew the questions toward your assumptions about your own strengths.  You might be surprised.  I was.

( Read more... )

Now it's your turn!  Smooches to you all.  I'm taking my cranky old self to bed now where I am going to appreciate my beautiful, beautiful pillow.

I'm back for day three of NaBlo, having already utterly crapped out on NaNo. I searched myself thoroughly and came to the conclusion that I do not have a novel inside me. Some rambling blog entries, yes. But a novel?  No. Which means I will be spared the frustration of writing a manuscript, editing a manuscript , and collecting enough rejection slips to paper a wall.  I'd much rather be here babbling away to all of you. 

Since NaBlo 2009 is all about me, I've decided to bring you inside my sanctuary, my oasis of peace, my stuff-my-fingers-in-my-ears-and-scream spot.  And before I get started, you should know a little secret about my marriage:  Russ and I don't share a bedroom.  We haven't for years.  We love each other, twenty-one years' worth, but it's impossible to sleep in the same bed with him.  He moves his legs constantly and snores like a banshee.  (No, I'm not entirely sure how a banshee snores, but it's my mom's favorite metaphor.  By turns she's been mad as a banshee, sick as a banshee, has sweated like a banshee and felt crazy as a banshee.  She's so cute.)  Where was I?  Oh, yes.  By his report, Russ is also happy with our arrangement because, and here's another secret about me; for some reason, at night I'm kind of....uh....gassy.  I don't know why, but as soon as I'm horizontal, the fart machine fires up. Bottom line, if I sleep in the same room as Russ, neither of us sleeps well and we're much happier people when we've had a solid 7.5 hours. 

Having my own bedroom is a little like having my own apartment.  I have my privacy at night, I don't have to share my blankets, I can keep the room at the temperature I prefer, I can sneak away for nighttime (or morning) assignations and sneak back to my own comfortable bed afterward.  Now, before I take you on the tour, you should realize that I don't have a flair for decorating.  I'm beyond the stage where I'm trying to impress people with the latest textures, colors or objets d'art.  If it's in my house, it's either functional or has sentimental value or just tickles my fancy.  We have plaster walls so there is nothing, and I mean nothing, hanging on my walls.  As long as you realize this,  

( come and take a look! )

I can't believe I'm late for NaBloPoMo! I do have an excuse, though. I'm also trying to do NaNoWriMo and I fully expect by the end of November that I will have LoMyFuMi. (I won't translate but I will tell you that it's not a polite acronym at all. Shame on me.)

I won't be posting on my LJ every day in November, because I've already blown that. I'm also not going to try to wax philosophical and address the greater themes of birth and death and everything in between and the reason we're all here ™. No, for NaBloPoMo 2009, the Na is going to stand for NArcissism. That's right, I'm going to write about a subject of profound importance to me...namely, ME. My family, my friends, my town, my hopes and dreams and deepest fears. Or maybe I'll just write about what I had for breakfast every day. I haven't decided yet.

I'm going to start my belated month of posting with a salute to my fellow NaBloPoMo'er, snoopylover1967 , also known as the beautiful R, who has resigned herself to reading glasses and greying hair and the inexorable creep of time. Here's proof that aging doesn't mean you're no longer cute:

Because anyone can trick or treat as the Grim Reaper:

( Read more... )