Almost!

We were close to on time for Sam's school this morning, and I was a bit late to pick Sydney up at daycare this evening, but not by much. Tomorrow, I think Sam may need to be at school 30 minutes early, so I know he will at least be on time for class...

I also spoke to Carol, and have made preliminary arrangements to pick up her kids and bring them here on Friday after school.

I still need to finalize plans with Carol, and get up and out on time tomorrow, but my comfort zone pushing has begun, in little increments.

The goings on, and an out-of-my-comfort-zone challenge

Rob's not been feeling well - 2 days now of being really sorta pitiful. Maybe it was the mussels, which nobody else ate, on account of their being nasty little things. Our Sunday clean up was even more necessary because "Rob the invalid" had not been doing his usual stirling job of keeping things clean and organized. We’d absolutely fall apart without that man. 

The kids (all 4 of them, plus an overnight houseguest of Sam's) were all corralled into attending to their chore chart duties - I might as well have been asking them to eat dung for the amount of protesting I got. In the end, the house got to look alright, even in the kitchen. Since the kitchen is Rob's purview, the kids complained mightily about the “extra” chore, but I managed to explain that a kitchen piled high with 2 days worth of detritus, dishes and debris was going to make supper a non-event. They all pitched in, and the kitchen looked half way decent when we left to go out for supper (as if I was actually gonna cook; I cleaned - isn’t that enough?). I left Rob wrapped in a kid’s blanket in a sorry bundle on the love seat- I think he was grateful for the reduction in volume at home. Poor guy- at least he

 seemed okay on his birthday the day before.

We did 3 birthday parties this weekend- I guess we’re into that season again. Sometimes I wish Sam wasn’t such an easy-going, likable kid; maybe we’d have to deal with fewer birthday party invitations then.

Sam’s overnight guest (because what Rob really wanted on his birthday was another child- not!) was Evan, who’s a likable kid. He and Sam do pretty well together. They met at after-school care a couple of years ago; we see less of Evan since he moved to another school. Evan's mum called me last minute to arrange a play date, which is a good way to arrange things with me, ‘cause if they’re arranged too far

 in advance, I’ll likely forget, or double book or something; in an aside, she let me know that she and her husband, Evan's dad, are separating. She says it’s mutual and amicable and that they have just fizzled out. Over the rest of the summer, they are going to take turns living in a suite, alternating with living in the house with the kids. I'm shocked and saddened about the whole turn of events- they seemed like a particularly “together” couple- enjoying each other’s company, doing interesting things together. I am having trouble wrapping my head around the idea that two people who are still “good friends” would choose to split up- I just don’t get it. I'm sure there’s more to the story, and it’s not my place to judge, and if I ever have a relationship (other than with Pentax) that lasts more than 3.5 years, maybe I’ll understand, too. but still...

Sunday's birthday party was for Jacob. His mum Carol is a beautiful person, inside and out. She’s one of my favourite people. Jacob's dad is also gorgeous, so Jacob and his younger sister are gorgeous kids, too. Tragedy struck this family when Jacob was 10 months old. His dad was a semi-pro soccer player, and while leaping up to head the ball, was headed in the head by an opponent. Brain injury ensued, and at points during his subsequent hospitalization, he wasn’t expected to survive. He has survived, and in some ways has made a miraculous recovery, but he is definitely brain-injured. Carol had been finding her husband’s increasingly erratic and abusive behaviour more and more difficult to deal with, and she could see how damaging the abuse was for the kids. Eventually, this past winter, she made the heart-breaking decision to have her husband moved back to his mother’s house, which has been viewed as a betrayal of sorts by most of his family. Apparently, life is less stressful at home, but Carol still struggles with the guilt, logistics and ongoing trauma of the original injury, and how it has brought such a brutal disruption to all their lives. I have the barest glimmer of how painful her life has been, and I wish I could do more for her. She was first in line with support when Willis died, and I feel a kinship with her, in a way, and I love her and her kids, and her husband, too, although I don’t know him well. Carol did okay at the birthday party- gracious and gentle, as always. She, like a widow, is coming from a place not so much of “you’re so strong and brave”, but of sheer necessity. She absolutely has no choice but to keep her ship afloat, because her kids are on that ship. Necessity doesn’t preclude desperation, and I see that in her, too. I am going to have to challenge myself to make an absolute commitment to have her kids out here soon, so she can get some down time of some sort.

Maybe this’ll be my opportunity to push myself out of my comfort zone: I really do avoid making and keeping commitments. I absolutely “fly by the seat of my pants” in social situations, household habits, parenting, at work. It’s easier, more familiar, more comfortable this way. Rob is astonishingly regular. I doubt that natural disaster (and certainly not a disaster of a wife) could put him off his regular routine. This is both inspirational and annoying. Alright, there it is, out there in public: my goal for the next week(?) (maybe a day; I’m scared already about this idea) is to make commitments and stick to them, and to make and stick to a routine. Specifically, how about if I get up on time for the rest of the week, get out of the house on time, get Sam to school on time and make a date with Carol to have her kids over here- all this week. That seems doable to me. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Here’s something a little more light-hearted to finish up with:


My kids are so totally adorable!










Some Pampas Grass, up close:





Can you identify this plant?





My sweetie, being hunky, adorable and capable- I do love this man!



This post has rambled all over the place, hasn't it? It rambled kind of unexpectedly into a post I'm gonna use for Julie Pippert's Hump Day Hmm- Comfort Zone. Writing can be such a funny thing.

Tee Hee Hee- iPhoto is sooo much fun...

I got these lilies as a thank you for driving the bus for a field trip for the kindergarten class at Sam's school.






They're beautiful, and I couldn't resist fiddling with the photos...








I DO enjoy the vaguely obscene look to them:

Date night musings

We went out for supper tonight. How? Well, the sitter called and said she wasn’t available on our regular date night, but was available tonight and were we interested? Um, maybe a little. We salivated a little at the unexpected opportunity. Why? When we get to face each other across a table, or snuggle up side-by-side, we get a renewed sense of our affection for each other and we get to share a little laughter, unencumbered by small children and blended family ribaldry. We get to feel like newlyweds, sort of, for a bit. It’s great to have uninterrupted adult conversation (okay, Rob would say that I interrupt myself more than any four children could, but that’s another day’s post).

Okay, so where was I? Oh yeah, dinner. We thought we would go to the Wheelhouse Pub- uh, no thanks, waaaay too Langford (hick town, belatedly trying to grow up and capitalize on the meteoric building boom out here; more-or-less here we live now) for us. We wondered whether Smoken’ Bones could fit us in, it bein’ a Wednesday and all. When we went there a while back, on a Friday night (our usual date night), they shrugged us out- reservations are generally needed about a week in advance. (Get ON with it, Sal- the story...). Okay, so we got in. Rob was not terribly impressed by the decor, but I thought it was okay. The tunes track was totally appropriate, particularly when the banjo duel piece from Deliverance came on.) Rob had a heavy duty Surly Blonde beer (he doesn’t usually drink, so this was kinda fun to watch). We ordered the house specialities (Michelle, close your eyes here), and it was stunningly delicious. The restaurant purchases and prepares local food, and has built a solid reputation on the excellence of their “down-home” cuisine.

Now that I have a captive (and relatively attentive) audience at these dinners, I get to share my constant commentary (and verbal diarrhea: I even used the word alacrity in a sentence...) on my surroundings with someone other than my imaginary friends. ;) I particularly enjoyed making up a story about the couple sitting behind Rob. They were Langford, but genteelly so- picture trailer park managers. He was short, red-faced, neckless, with an astonishingly round visage, and a quiet demeanor. She was bleached blonde, with short, tousled hair and overly dark roots. She was directly behind Rob, so my view was impaired, but she seemed large. He was a less unhappy character than she, and appeared a little younger, perhaps as a result of temperament, or maybe the round-facedness was “youthifying”. I’m imagining that they don’t enjoy each other much, but would be lost without each other. I wish them well, but hope I don’t end up so subdued and seemingly empty.

Another group was clearly from Metchosin (a rural, artsy community, just down the road a piece), on a family outing. Three girls and their parents really enjoyed their meal- I wondered whether they were local producers themselves, since they looked the part of “back-to-landers”. The hairstyles, footwear and clothing choices were absolutely spot-on, and Rob, originally skeptical of my assertion as to their probable hometown, had to agree that they clearly were from Metchosin.

I wonder whether I’ll ever get to confirm the veracity of any of my little stories- that might be a lot of fun, or maybe it would be entirely deflating. Probably better that I don’t get to choose...

It'd be great to be blogging for fun

I subscribe to 30 feeds on bloglines, and I love my daily reads there. I’d like to participate more. I have many ideas, often inspired by other writers. I have images, and I sometimes have the words to describe them. What I don’t seem to have is the patience to record and transcribe my ideas through a keyboard. I am an aural, verbal, intuitive type, and I am impatient with the sloth of my ability to articulate myself.

I also have a great deal of trouble focusing on a single task at a time (which makes me an erratic driver, at best). I am currently sort of watching The Andromeda Strain, while writing, listening for my daughter’s nightmares, providing a cushion for the cat (why don’t they make cat-top computers; who has a lap anymore?). I have a dozen thoughts vibrating through my head, all wanting to be heard.

I battle my latent insecurities on many fronts (tardiness, separation anxiety, relationship sabotage, overly permissive parenting, over-dependence on goodwill), and have come to realize that I will always have a core of insecurity. I spend too much unproductive time on the computer.

Dangnabbit, this wasn’t meant as a piece of self-flagellation. I had intended to state my intention to write littler bits, snippits of journaling and diarizing, and post them more frequently. I don’t need to attend to the overwhelmingly big pieces of writing in my head; I (and my handful of readers too, perhaps) may be very well served by a frequent (daily?) expression of a few sentences of nothing much. Who knows? Maybe the therapy inherent in writing might actually move me along on my psychic, psychologic journey. That would be nice, wouldn’t it?

Why Not?

Annie published a "MeMe" called Gimme Five! today, and I (unusually) got inspired to follow suit, as did her husband Rob.

The meme is designed as a way to disclose information about ourselves, in a random, ink blot kinda way. You can use photos, links, songs or just respond in writing. Any order is fine.
1) evening wear
2) blue food
3) science fiction
4) sponges
5) plastics


Evening wear - O crap, I wonder whether anything in that mound of clean laundry still fits and is not so wrinkly that I can wear it and look half-way decent. Crap, can I find a needle and thread to repair that hem? O fiddle, can’t I just wear my smock and scrubs?

Blue food - I've been known to order brown food, warmed slightly. Blue food would be fine as long as someone else provides it for me, although I prefer that it not have passed too closely by the lips of my child first.

Sci fi -
Keith Hamilton Cobb

 from Andromeda.

Ditto Kevin Sorbo.







How about Discworld?







and Rincewind
.




Sigh. More of a sci fi geek than I want to admit to myself...







Sponges - Hate the texture of the real ones - like finger nails on a blackboard. Artificial ones would be great for cleaning the fish tank if I ever picked one up and applied it to the algae...


Plastics - Does everyone have a plastics cupboard? Why is it that I never have the same numbers of tops and bottoms? What happens to the matches - where do they go? Does Sydney use them all for projects and containers somewhere? Does Sam use them as Frisbees?

Anybody else want to share some nonsense amid the colossal tragedies unfolding around us?

Mother's Day Tribute to All Women

One Flaw In Women

By the time the Lord made woman,
He was into his sixth day of working overtime.
An angel appeared and said,
"Why are you spending so much time on this one?"
And the Lord answered,
"Have you seen my spec sheet on her?
She has to be completely washable, but not plastic,
have over 200 movable parts, all replaceable
and able to run on diet coke and leftovers,
have a lap that can hold four children at one time,
have a kiss that can cure anything from a scraped knee to a broken
heart -and she will do everything with only two hands."
The angel was astounded at the requirements.
"Only two hands!? No way!
And that's just on the standard model?
That's too much work for one day.
Wait until tomorrow to finish."
But I won't," the Lord protested.
"I am so close to finishing this creation that is so close to my own heart.
She already heals herself when she is sick
AND can work 18 hour days."
The angel moved closer and touched the woman.
"But you have made her so soft, Lord."
"She is soft," the Lord agreed,
"but I have also made her tough.
You have no idea what she can endure or accomplish."
"Will she be able to think?", asked the angel.
The Lord replied,"Not only will she be able to think,
she will be able to reason and negotiate."
The angel then noticed something,
and reaching out, touched the woman's cheek.
"Oops, it looks like you have a leak in this model.
I told you that you were trying to put too much into this one."
"That's not a leak, "the Lord corrected,
"that's a tear!"
"What's the tear for?" the angel asked.
The Lord said, "The tear is her way of expressing her joy,
her sorrow, her pain, her disappointment, her love,
her loneliness, her grief and her pride."
The angel was impressed.
"You are a genius, Lord.
You thought of everything!
Woman is truly amazing."
And she is!
Women have strengths that amaze men.
They bear hardships and they carry burdens,
but they hold happiness,
love and joy.
They smile when they want to scream.
They sing when they want to cry.
They cry when they are happy
and laugh when they are nervous.
They fight for what they believe in.
They stand up to injustice.
They don't take "no" for an answer
when they believe there is a better solution.
They go without so their family can have.
They go to the doctor with a frightened friend.
They love unconditionally.
They cry when their children excel
and cheer when their friends get awards.
They are happy when they hear about
a birth or a wedding.
Their hearts break when a friend dies.
They grieve at the loss of a family member,
yet they are strong when they think there is no strength left.
They know that a hug and a kiss
can heal a broken heart.
Women come in all shapes, sizes and colors.
They'll drive, fly, walk, run or e-mail you
to show how much they care about you.
The heart of a woman is what makes the world keep turning.
They bring joy, hope and love.
They have compassion and ideals.
They give moral support to their family and friends.
Women have vital things to say and everything to give.
HOWEVER, IF THERE IS ONE FLAW IN WOMEN,
IT IS THAT THEY FORGET THEIR WORTH.

Happy mother's day to all- please remember your worth and value in this world.

Love,

Sally