Little Read Hen

NEWS

2009-06-16T17:47:00.001-08:00

So, it is wildly unlikely that anyone on earth is still checking in over hear, but in case you are there is news.

I have retooled a bit, made it through some stuff, and have commenced blogging again here:

www.redomesticationproject.blogspot.com

Come, Read, Enjoy.

Little Read Hen

2009-05-06T20:45:00.002-08:00

Once again it has been awhile.

The real estate deal is still an ongoing ordeal. Maybe culminating in a closing next week, maybe who knows. Oh my hell.

Daughter is getting to be extremely hilarious and I really need to take better notes.

We are all excited about getting our dog in a couple of weeks.

I would rather have the house before the dog.

We had a friend in town last night and today. We went to the best resturant in town for dinner last night. It was good all around. Although, I was just plain HUNGRY all day today and just kept snacking and snacking until I wound up eating (gf) ziti for dinner at 5:30 pm.

Daughter and I made black and white cookies (sugar cookies dipped in chocolate) and then pizza from scratch. We maybe over ate chocolate throughout the day. Damn it was good though.

---

I biked to and from work Monday and Tuesday this week. I was sorrowfully sore, but felt generally awesome for having done it. I have been wanting to start biking since I took this job and the weather has finally relented. Now I think I am really going to bite the bullet and buy some fancy bike pedals and shoes this summer.

We had some nice weather (nice be REAL WORLD standards, seventies and cloudless) last week and weekend. It was my first weekend in months and months and months with no school, no kiddo, literally no responsibilities.

We bought a lawnmower with my dad and mowed his lawn. And cleaned out all the flower pots and turned the dirt. It rained today. Hopefully everything will blow up green this weekend.

---

I have a radio interview in the morning and a second one at the same time Friday. That is cool. We have a big event for work this weekend. Hence, the interviews.

--

Ok. Time for bed. That is all.

Done. Just. Let. It. Be. Done.

2009-04-20T21:29:00.002-08:00

So, back two months and five days ago I wrote a post about looking at a house. Two months and three days ago we made an offer on a different house. Yada yada you SERIOUSLY do not want the details, but we are still in the process of buying said house, two weeks past the closing date, no end in sight, and I, well I am still LIVING WITH MY MOTHER.

IN ALL CAPS!

My mother is also the REALTOR!

And the whole thing is a mess! AND I LIVE WITH MY MOTHER, THE REALTOR.

I seem to spend a lot of time SPEAKING IN ALL CAPS TOO.

My coworkers notice. Which is undeniably embarassing.

I have given my coworker very specific instructions about which mental hospital hospital to send me to if I have a visible nervous breakdown while at work. And which one to make sure I DO NOT WIND UP IN NO MATTER WHAT.

I think she thought I was joking.

I hope she was paying attention.

Today really iced the damn cake. Today Boyfriend was im-ing with me while talking to the loan processor, loan officer, back to the loan processor who was setting the closing date for later this week when BING we get an email from the realtor announcing the sellers have YET ANOTHER DAMN PROBLEM and we are delayed. AT LEAST TWENTY DAYS. The fuckers.

Anyway. Boo. Boohoo. Blah blah blah.
---
I haven't listened to Leonard Cohen in a long time. I didn't even know who Leonard Cohen was when Boyfriend and I got together.

We dubbed the 'apartment' where he lived then the Chelsea Hotel. Because it would drive someone to do heroin if they lived there long enough I think.

I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel,
you were talking so brave and so sweet,

Because it was old and small and we had a lot of sex there.

And drank tequila. And other stuff. And cooked dinner on hot plates.

A friend called me in the middle of the night there once. She is better now.

I smoked cigarettes inside for the only time in my life there.

I quit being a vegetarian there. By roasting a chicken for Thanksgiving dinner. In a toaster oven.

For a few weeks, when we were just getting together, I slept there. Like a normal person. Who sleeps. For multiple hours on end and then wakes up with enough energy to have sex, go running, and then go to work.

And that was called love for the workers in song
probably still is for those of them left.

That was a LONG time ago.

We talked a lot then. We didn't make our relationship public for a long time and we didn't go out and there was no space or furniture or television, so we talked. And we like each other. And we like talking to one another. We would fall asleep and wake up at four just to start talking again.

It was different then.

Although we still eat sushi more than is fiscally practicable.

I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel
you were famous, your heart was a legend.*
---
Tomorrow I have to write a statement of professional objectives.

That is intimidating.

My objective is mostly to have a profession. Because I need one. I am pretty convinced that I will have one of those professions that wind up being sucessful and yield a reasonably sizeable 401k. I am ambitious. I am competitive. I like being able to buy stuff and I am tired of stressing out about money. I'll just do it. Whatever "it" is.

Breaking rocks out here on the chain gang

Breaking rocks and serving my time

I will undoubtably spend a large part of that time wishing I could be living a whole different life. I wouldn't much mind a trust fund. Or a rich husband. Or my own winery in the fall with a small cafe that serves gorgeous food out indoors but with big open window walls where you can feel warm fresh air all the time.

I heard the judge say five years

On chain-gang you gonna go

I heard the judge say five years labor

Yeah, but I don't live in Southern California. And I don't go outside that much where I do live. And you can't make wine here or have resturants where window open.

been

working and working

but I still got so terribly far to go**

---

I resent faith. I resent people who have faith. Not just in Jesus. Just Faith. Blind belief of good in the universe, that it comes out in the wash, that the right thing happens in the end.

I wish I had that I guess.

Maybe not.

Maybe I used to know how to do that. To let go.

Now I fret and spend my nights memorizing the ceiling, or the insides of my eyelids, or listening to my baby sleep when I am so privalidged to be able to hear her snores. Or some combination of the three. Or I read. Or I crack out on the internet or Jon and Kate Plus 8 or bad television in general. Or I just lay in bed because I'm so tired that my whole body aches all the time and laying down is better than sitting up.

Maybe its because I still don't understand the how or the why.

You had and lost the one thing

you kept in a safe place

Maybe its the guilt.

remember the face, the girl who had made you her own

and how you left her alone

Maybe its the fear.

and if you burn the road that'll lead you back to her in time

I'll watch you turn to stone

I really hate three a.m.

*Leonard Cohen, Chelsea Hotel #2

**Nina Simone, Work Song

***Joshua Radin, Star Mile

A place to hang the dishes.

2009-02-15T18:49:00.003-09:00

I have been looking at a house.

We went twice this weekend.

Daughter loves said house. Has declared it the "NEW MOMMY HOUSE" despite the fact that it is not "lellow" like the last Mommy House.

There is enough room for all four of us (Daughter, Boyfriend, and Boyfriend's Son should he choose to spend any amount of time with us which we are all hoping that he will choose to do.)

Its pretty 80's which isn't a major complement in this town. It needs some work, but some of the big upgrades have been done...the kitchen is very stainless and steely.

Dear, sweet, compassionate Boyfriend who has never in his life bought so much as a decent car, has pretty much signed on to buying this place having only seen a steady stream of photos in an effort to keep me moderately sane. Things have not been going very well in the Current Living Situation/Sanity Department. Not very well at all.

In September, Daughter and I relocated back here. Since that time I have been staying at my parents' house and she has been splitting her time between her Dad's House and here. I think (hope?) that it is challenging for people who have a positive, well-boundaried relationship with their children's grandparents to reside in the same place. We do not have such a relationship and it is more or less hell. Mostly for me. Daughter likes it here, but even she has been asking more and more and more and more about When! there will be! a New. Mommy. House?

There was an incident this past week that really put the last nail in the coffin (pulled the last nail out of the coffin?) of my ability to stay here. It involved my sister and her husband and a bunch of people hiding from me the fact that they were coming for a ten day long visit. Which was difficult. My relationship with those two people was more or less sacrificed on the alter of my divorce and I'm ok with that. We don't like each other. We don't see the world even REMOTELY similarly and we can not find a common, civil ground, but so long as I am staying in this house with my child I feel that I have a right to know who else will be here so that I can judge whether or not I need to make alternative plans for my child and I to maximize our time together and to minimize emotion! and stress! that she may be subjected to if there are people in the house who refuse to look at/speak to/acknowledge the presence of her mother in a room (just for example).

I feel like I was intentionally deceived and that I have no reason to trust my parents. Period. For the last time. So, despite the fact that Boyfriend isn't here yet (will be at the end of April) and that shopping for a house would be a new, interesting thing for him, we have decided that we need to get out of this environment and into something else as quickly as possible.

Hence the house hunting. Please send good karma our way. We really need a break in the weather and a light at the end of the tunnel. At least I do. I need something in my life to tell me that I can hold my shit together. That my long, three year adventure of living in boxes while attempting to raise a well adjusted child will soon be coming to an end. That at long last we can look at each other and say that we are moved into a life with a set course and a real path to follow. (And also a place to hang all my beautiful pots and pans that have been wasting away in storage for months and months and months and months and months and months and months...

Well, hellllooo...

2009-02-12T14:38:00.003-09:00

Hello Internet.

It has been awhile.

I'm not sure I anything interesting to say and I didn't want to use this exclusively as my own personal bitchandmoan space.

Things are not going so well. I suppose they are more or less fine or that this is what it means to make your bed and lay in it or something.

Daughter turned three last month. She remains perfectly delightful and wonderful and is very much looking forward to our trip to Disneyland next month.

Boyfriend moved here (sort of) and then took a new job in the Legislature, so he technically "lives" here but spends the Legislative Session in the Capital City...so he is gone three months of the year. It has been a tough transition. Espicially for me. Patience isn't really a virtue I claim to have perfected and I just keep waiting and waiting and waiting in a fairly toxic environment.

When he gets back in May we are going to go about the process of buying a house. Until then I remain at my parents' house. Which is killing me and not at all particularly slowly.

Also, I got a job.

Its a good job.

It works well for my life.

It is half-time. I work on the days when Daughter is at her Dad's House and am home on the days when she is with me.

I started up my Master's Degree again and am taking two classes. One of which is Microeconomics. Algebra and I do not have a good working relationship. We broke up in the 10th grade and we are not happy to be thrown together again.

I also have a perma-cold. Of the chest and sinus variety. Before she was in pre-school I had one of those more or less magical children who really only rarely had so much as a cough. She and her step-brother started at separate pre-schools the same week in September. We have all been pretty much sick ever since. Between the two of them I feel like I must spend most of my life licking every other child in town. Its disgusting.

Anyway, I am really worn down. I'm having a hard time focusing and getting excited and being in the moment. Or making the most of it. Or just being happy. I get teary reading stories to Daughter. Children's books are not supposed to make you cry in the middle of the day in a coffee shop.

Last weekend was a "Dad Weekend" and I had to be in the Capital for work on Monday and Tuesday, so after I dropped Daughter off at her Dad's House I got on a plane and went to spend the weekend with Boyfriend. I upgraded to first class because I really Could Not Deal with coach and the ticket had been paid for by work. I had a couple of little airplane bloody mary's and proceeded to make it to the hotel room only minutes before competely LOOSING. MY. SHIT. for no fewer than two and a half hours. Just painful, racking, sobbing. Nonstop. For hours. And then I feel asleep for awhile. And then we went out with some friends until later than I had done anything in well over a year.

I am really too old for going out.

It was actually a nice break from all this. The time with Boyfriend was good. We got along and really enjoyed being together and the work stuff was more or less productive and it was good to see what few friends I have. And I love it there.

And here I am.

Tomorrow I am going to write about Daughter watching the DVD that Disneyland sent us. She is supremely excited about the upcoming trip. I got excited for awhile too, watching her light up with anticipation. Now I am just sort of dreading the whole thing though. My parents are taking us all on the trip and I am pretty raw with my parents right now. Yes, yes, that deserves something of an explination as well.

I am going to try an pick this back up again. I think that writing is good for me and having a creative outlet is good for me too. After a facebook/exhusband related incident I am going to try somewhat harder to remain anon here and will not be posting photos. Which really is a shame because I got a helluva great camera for Christmas and I am taking some seriously MommyBlog worthy photos lately.

Also, I have been reading. A Lot. And I want to start writing more about what I am reading. And what Daughter and I are reading...we do A LOT of that too.

Cheers for now.
LRH

oh weekend

2008-11-23T14:17:00.001-09:00

It is gorgeous here. Boyfriend stayed over an extra day. We are going to dinner somewhere at some point. We went running today.

I wish I lived at Green Lake.

I think I might take a nap now.

Happy Sunday.

it is a steel magnolias sort of a day

2008-11-21T13:28:00.003-09:00

I am having a Steel Magnolias sort of a day. I am certain that plenty of people know what that means. All I want to do is curl up under a blanket, put in Steel Magnolias and loose my shit for awhile.

Didn't see that one coming.

I am in Seattle. Staying downtown. I have a car and no plans for hours and zero modivation to do ANYTHING.

I called Daughter, which was, perhaps an err in judgement. She is not happy and so...GUILT!

Christ, you know what it is. Daughter and I would be having so much fun if we were here together. So I feel like an asshole for leaving her at home and I feel like an asshole for not doing anything while I'm here since I'm here and I have no schedule.

Oh! But I've had about six arguments with Boyfriend in the 18 hours that I've been here. Sweeeeeeeeet.

I did go to the Elliot Bay Bookstore. Which is one of my favorite places. I bought this.

And I went to Sephora, because it is delicious.

And I went to Whole Foods because it is also delicious, although the hand roll that I bought for lunch was a little more complicated than I was anticipating.

Ok. We have dinner reservations here and are going running at one of my all time favorite places on earth tomorrow.

I'm enjoying this and looking forward to shopping for this.

That is all.

Boyfriend is better than aveda.

2008-11-20T22:32:00.003-09:00

Um. Boyfriend sort of hates me right now. It has to do with potato chips. Whoops.

Boyfriend is awesome.

As are the Aveda products that are springing from every available surface in this hotel room. Yum.

Boyfriend is better than Aveda. Swear to god. Aveda is, presumably, calorie free and totally unwilling to seek out food for me at 11:30pm when all I've eaten for the day is thai noodles at noon.

Thank you.

That is all.

live blogging from MOVIE NIGHT!

2008-11-19T19:31:00.003-09:00

We are watching Wall-e on dvd, Daughter and I.

Wall-e was the first movie she saw in the theater. I think that was a good choice.

(Yes, I realize we watch a lot of movies...or I talk about the movies we watch a lot...or something.)

I have a haircut tomorrow. I am highly excited about that and tomorrow evening I am flying to Seattle (again) for the weekend plus a couple of days).

I am sore from running three days in a row (on a treadmill nonetheless) and also doing crunches. I think I am mostly sore from the cruches. Oh, sad, sad state of my abdominal muscles. So, so pathetic am I.

This also "happened" in the world of the mommyblogs today http://dooce.com/. Call me a cynic, but I do not think that if I announced that I was pregnant on the internet that the news would render 2,313 comments.

That would be cool though.

Also, Congratulations to the Armstrongs.

Damn, Wall-e really is a good movie.

Live Blogging from MOVIENIGHT! Wow, I am so supremely exciting.

In other (only mildly related) news, I am reading this and very much looking forward to the upcoming movie about the same subject matter. I can't tell you how insensed I am about the Prop8 business in California and by insensed I mean really profoundly disappointed. I think the book is spurring me on a bit. I really genuinely do not understand why gay rights are so slow in coming in this country. I do not understand why homophobia is so condoned. I blame the churches and all the small minds contained within their walls.

I think that this is one of the better discussions of the issue. Please watch with an open mind.

this post is in no way a defense of sarah palin

2008-11-18T09:45:00.002-09:00

A few years ago, just a few weeks pre-pregnancy as it would turn out, I found myself in the baggage claim area at Dulles International Airport in D.C. It was late-ish maybe 9pm. My friend Alex and I had been traveling ALL. DAY. across four time zones and through three airports. We were going to attend a weekend long conference. The conference was amazing, I met Gloria Steinem and Steve from Sex in the City... That is not the point of this post.

At the airport I saw this woman. She was all decked out in posh professional wear and four inch high heels. Full make up. Perfect hair. Big jewelry. She was also about 11 months pregnant. Picking up her husband from the airport. I thought she looked ridiculous. SO. Overdone for so late at night. Alex and I commented that given the same circumstances we would totally be in pajamas and flip flops in the car. I gave the woman enough benefit of the doubt to acknowledge that perhaps pjs and 2 dollar sandals were not really socially appropriate in D.C.

Things are just different in Alaska. More casual. More parkas. More dressing for survival, less dressing for success (or fashion or fun).

Sarah Palin got lambasted for her campaign attire. For her spending habits when confronted with real stores and nice stuff. Now, I was RIGHT up there with the lambasting and spending donated money on her (or her husbands or her kids or her damn dog's who knows!) wardrobe. It was inappropriate. She needed new stuff and she should have purchased it on her own dime. Campaigns are costly affairs and the candidate has to be willing to put up some dough. Period. That is my opinion. She should have known that that would be part of the deal. Now, she is a candidate who charged her Gubernatorial campaign for the gas she spent transporting herself to and from her house two years ago...so, you know, she's FRUGAL. End Rant.

Yesterday evening, I went to Target. It was about 5pm. It was already getting dark outside. you never know how low a thing you will find when you go out in the winter in Alaska. No matter where you are. There can be some freaky socially unconscious fashion faux pas. Here case in point is what I saw when I was walking in the door.

A woman, mid to late forties, somewhat heavyset, sort of half running half shuffling her way into the new mecca. I noticed right off that she was wearing over sized ratty grey with a black stipe up the side basketball shorts. Yes, shorts. No, it was not unseasonably warm. It was all of 15 degrees out. Max. She paired the shorts with a black leather jacket and tee-shirt. Perhaps she had just come from the gym. Her hair was clearly unwashed as she hustled around with a cart in front of me. Clearly she was in a hurry. Maybe just running in for a prescription or something. And then I noticed her shoes. Or, I should say lack there of. This woman was wearing fuzzy bedroom slippers. SLIPPERS!. Fuzzy, no heel, house slippers. OMG.

AND THEN... I kept seeing her all around the store. For like an hour! It was so unsightly. So Wasilla.

so, i finally broke down and went to the gym

2008-11-17T13:42:00.003-09:00

So, I finally broke down and went to the gym. I have been waiting (in vein) for my running motivation to return as the temperature steadily drops. I blamed the stress of the election, which will not conclude here until this week. I blamed the goddamned cold and the snow and the ice and the dark and the goddamned cold. I blamed well my own laziness and not wanting to be apart from Daughter for a whole hour and readjusting to living in the same house as my Boyfriend and well then I decided that this was happening a few days ago (Update: It is SO. NOT. Whew! Curious concern: What's up with the plethora of symptoms? Huh? Huh, body, don't start screwing with me now...)

I have had a gym membership for just about exactly two years now. Daughter and I use it to go to the pool. I mostly use it for tanning. On Election Day I went straight to the steam room after two hours of subzero sign waving. I Love The Steam Room.

I have been a very lousy gym member since I discovered that I actually enjoy running out of doors. Treadmills are kind of a bore after that. Also, the gym nearest my parents' house, the one with the pool that Daughter and I use, is my least favorite for anything but swimming. The room with the cardio stuff is not as well ventilated as it could be and is hot and has three rows of televisions which means that I always wind up running underneath a television which make me uneasy. Also, its full of housewives. Southside housewives. Who are kind of, in my opinion, the Stripmallville variety of The Housewives of Orange County. Really obnoxious oil company exec spouses who can kind of bite me. They also sort of stink eye me. I think they think I'm a trophy wife. Since I am about 15 years younger than they are and there with a young kid and really no one my age who has a kid lives in this part of town because it is damned expensive, etc. etc. etc. Anyway, according to my theory, the fact that CLEARLY I have stolen someones husband makes me their natural enemy so they get all clique-e and don't talk to me or my kid and they can bite my divorced and living with my parents single mother ass...(which, thanks to all the running is way hotter than theirs. So there.)

The gym I like is on the other side of town. It is conveniently located close to Daughter's school. So today, I got off my ass and after I dropped Boyfriend at the airport went to the good gym with the friendly, educated, less obnoxious and way more athletic people. Where, at 10:45 is filled primarily with retirees and a couple of housewives who are only five-ten years older than me. It only has one row of televisions all located at the front of the well ventilated treadmill room and the treadmills are much better as all the good runners in town work out there.

I did 45 minutes on the treadmill. I really don't like treadmill running. I used to. I'm better at pacing myself now and according to the treadmill I run a lot slower than I think that I do on trails. Which sort of bums me out, but I'm trying to work through it. I even did some crunches on a ball and some pilates push ups on a mat after I ran. And I took a glorious, glorious steam. So, I am resigning myself to get back into the gym routine. I am flirting with the idea of adding a twice weekly Pilates class and a couple of spin classes into my routine for the winter because, seriously, I can only do so much treadmill running before I ache more than I should. We are adding Boyfriend onto my membership after the new year and I think that spin would be good for him too. Although he hates group exercise and is reluctant to even run in public. Which I think is weird.

I also am going to force FORCE myself to run outside once a week through the winter. But only when it is above 20 degrees. Below twenty is freaking crazy stupid and painful.

Ok. So there it is. I went to the gym. I ran for the first time in two weeks. (Oh? Did I forget to mention I have been LAME?). I did not freeze my lungs. I did not fall on ice and break my bones. These are nice things. I DID fantasize about being in Seattle for four days and getting to run at Greenlake in 50 degree weather. I really can't wait for that.

Monsters and Pandas and KungFu...Oh My!

2008-11-16T10:40:00.002-09:00

Daughter goes back to her Dad's House tonight, back to the normal schedule. It has been a fun week.

Last night, for Movie Night, we watched Kung Fu Panda at my friend SF's suggestion. It is an instant favorite. We watched it again this morning. Daughter is pretty determined to become a Kung Fu Master by the age of three. She stands in front of the gigundus television and acts out all the action sequences. Which was pretty awesome looking last night when it was pitch black in the house.

This morning she added all the running like a cat sequences and created obstacles courses for herself.

Here are the things I liked about the movie:

It was artistic. The action sequences and the intro and stuff were pretty kick ass.

There were no damsels/princess/fair maidens/barbie dolls/care bears/or my little ponies.

The food looked really good and there were some fun special features including one about how to use chopsticks.

Daughter was so tired out from all the late night (we didn't start the movie until 7:30) Kung Fu that she fell asleep in about two minutes flat (after we finished the fourth daily reading of The Grunch!).

--
We also took Daughter sledding for the first time on a 'real' sledding hill. She had a blast. It was the perfect time of day (around noon) so it was as warm and sunny as it was going to get, but with the exception of four high school girls, there were only little kids around and not that many of them.

She got pretty tired out after about ten runs (and hikes back up the hill), but had a blast and looked extra adorable in her hot pink snow pants.
--
The rest of this month is going to be pretty hectic. Hell, the rest of the YEAR is going to be pretty hectic, but I'm determined to carve out some more sledding time.

Right now I am basking in the squeals of laughter erupting from downstairs and Boyfriend and Daughter are deeply involved in a game of CATERPILLAR MONSTER with the cat. I don't quite understand all of the rules, but there is laughter and tickling involved and some effort, it seems, to get the 18 pound cat into a cocoon so they can tickle her into a butterfly.

Good luck with that. The cat is the real MONSTER. And, unlike Boyfriend or Daughter, she isn't afraid to bite. . .

14 November 2008

2008-11-15T09:38:00.003-09:00

See, I didn't miss a day. Really, it says 14 November right there in the header. You can not possibly argue with the HEADER for christsakes.

Ok. So, I did not forget to post yesterday. I planned to post just as soon as I could sit down to a computer. Which worked out to be about 9:30pm. By 9:30pm I was sound asleep. So there. There is my excuse.

I apologize.

Not sure to whom I am apologizing, since NaBloPoMo is really a self imposed challenge.

At any rate, we have a busy day ahead. Errands and maybe some sledding and DAMN I really want to go for a run since it has. been. awhile.

Daughter goes back to her Dad's tomorrow night and the next three weeks are going to be pretty discombobulated. I'll be in Seattle again next weekend for a few days. Boyfriend is going to be gone from Monday-Sunday. I'm going to be gone from Thursday night-Tuesday night. Daughter will be with her Dad for the next three weekends, which I think sort of sucks, but ah well.

Ok. Real Saturday Post later today. Happy Weekend.

Oh What the Hell?

2008-11-13T17:11:00.003-09:00

I feel was tired today. So tired by 11:30 that I fell asleep around one and was either out or just barely hanging on until 3.

Huh. That is strange.

And, it must be said, that my boobs have been oddly sore for the past couple of days.

Double huh. With a side of head scratching.

And I have some weird feeling of just off-ness, but I have been traveling and I live with a toddler and all the germs from her school and from her Dad's House and her brother's school and everything else that both of them get into on a regular basis. So. That is not so strange. There are a lot of bugs flying around out there. Especially in the frigid arctic.

Then, today for lunch, at the beginning of my fit of overwhelming tiredness, I wanted nothing for lunch except tuna with nasoya, salt, pepper, and tortilla chips. Well, fuck all. Perhaps THAT should have been a sign.

There are about 43,000 reasons why it is totally impossible that I'm well, you know.

Like, I have an IUD.

And, until a week ago I hadn't been having any sex.

And, the post election twelve hours of hotel sex not withstanding, I haven't really had much more sex in the past week.

And, I have an IUD.

And it was only a damn week ago.

And. The fact that all the little stupid things that I was thinking about earlier in this post WERE technically things that were all simultaneously pregnant throughout my pregnancy three years ago, there is NO. DAMN. REASON. to believe that they were anything more than merely coincidental today. What with the IUD, etc.

I am calming my clearly hypocrondrical nerves with a glass of wine. Because, well, what the hell else am I supposed to do? Play in the yard? No thank you. Daughter is doing that with Boyfriend who is hanging Christmas lights on a tree.

Fuck all. There is NO. DAMN. WAY.

I will further my rebellion against the obvious impossibility by eating sushi for dinner. TAKE THAT IMPOSSIBILITY.

814, god, when will it end?

2008-11-12T20:46:00.003-09:00

Mark Begich pulled ahead by 814 votes by the close of Division of Elections business today.

My election day had been going on for 8 days now.

And I hate election day.

We have felon as a senator and I hate felons.

Of the two big races in Alaska I would be thrilled to win one of them, but I wanted the other!

GOD. Go Mark, Go.

The first yard sign Daughter ever waved (wove?) was for Begich. She was about three months old and in a Bjiorn.

Don't exhale quite yet. . . Like for at LEAST another week.

GAWD.

BALTO! *UPDATE! EDITION

2008-11-11T15:52:00.004-09:00

We are all sorts of a twitter around here. No good reason. Boyfriend is hanging Christmas lights on a tree in the front yard. I think this has something to do with it. . . also, it is snowing and Boyfriend got the day off on account of it being Veteran's Day and he works for the government at all. I'm halfway surprised he doesn't get the whole week off since we all know how much Sarah LURVES herself some military.

Right now I am thinking about how absurd it would be for me to call this a 'job'. No matter how much I would like to transform this little blog (god, I have always REALLY hated that word) into a paying gig, I currently find myself on a borrowed computer, sitting on a stool at my parents' kitchen table while my child and my father watch BALTO and I get ready to figure out once again what the hell to make everyone for dinner. (I'm feeling like the leftover lasagna and a Cesar salad...did I mention the SNOW?) At any rate, to say that I'm 'working' right at this moment seems a fairly ridiculous thing to claim.

Here is what I did today and got paid equally poorly for:

2:30am Wake up.

4:00am Wake up, finish argument with Boyfriend. More or less resolve argument. More or less.

5:00am Still awake. Make up with Boyfriend.

6:30am Daughter awake...everyone awake.

7:30am Get Daughter dressed for school, get Father ready to leave for work, get as much damn coffee down my throat as is humanly possibly while every fiber of my being begs to go back to bed.

8:00am Explain one last time to Boyfriend how to get to Father's office (via the espresso bar). Boyfriend does not understand exactly. Also does not loose my car so everyone arrives at coffee and office in tact.

8:15am Explain to Boyfriend how to get from Father's office to Daughter's Pre-School. Boyfriend does not understand exactly and raises his voice. I drive off. He does not get lost.

8:30am Drop Daughter at school. Am again amazed that The Glorious Pre-School Teacher is so together and calm and awake at 8:30am.

8:50am Arrive at Service Center. Deposit Father's truck for service (leaking wiper fluid, no functional horn, needs oil change).

9:something-10something am Eat breakfast downtown with Boyfriend. Realize that Father's credit card is missing. Fret and argue a bit about this. Run into my favorite congressional candidate of all time. Am so sad that he he is loosing and that it will take another month before anyone knows anything that I donate another fifty bucks to his campaign when I arrive home later in the day.

10:45am Talk to Father who has missing credit card (which is his in the first place). Drive back to Father's Office. Get card. Boyfriend is introduced all over office as "Our Daughter's Friend". Awesome.

11:00am get car washed. Go to Sears to find the little emergency key for the treadmill which has magically disappeared. Awesome, redux.

11:something Go to Barnes and Nobel with Boyfriend to track down some Joesph Campbell books that his son has requested for his birthday. Find BALTO on dvd for Daughter who has been begging for movie. Should probably be a better parent and save it for Christmas.

12:20pm Pick up Daughter from Pre-School. Immediately tell her that we purchased BALTO.*

12:45-1:30pm Shop at Costco with Daughter and Boyfriend. Try very hard to not kill Boyfriend for his entirely adorable if they were all alone in the store cart derby antics.

2:15pm Unloading groceries. Snow falling heavily.

2:45pm Pack everyone back into car to pick up Father from Doctor Appointment.

3:30-Present Watch/very slightly assist or attempt to assist Boyfriend as he hangs aforementioned Christmas lights. Am snapped at for being critical. Awesome to the fifth goodandgoddamned degree.

Snow continues to fall.

Tempers continue to flair.

Fuck yeah.

Leftovers it is!

On top of all of this I have to watch BALTO. So Awesome I can no longer contain myself and am going to pour a glass of wine. Its a holiday!
___
UPDATE!*
Because, I am sure you wanted this day to continue just as much as I did.

UPDATE!**
In which I caught the house on fire!

UPDATE!***
Just Ugh. Seriously. Ugh.

*
I did reheat the lasagna (which I spent three hours preparing last night. It is one of those primo lasagnas. Okay? We aren't talking Stouffer's, OKAY?)

Boyfriend hung all the Christmas lights on the big tree outside, in the snow. And they look lovely and he got cold. And the damn tree has GROWN and we need more lights.

That is all I have to say about that at the moment.

**
In addition to the lasagna, I made a salad. It was really good. Green leaf lettuce, leeks, yellow bell pepper, three roma tomatoes, goat cheese, and Newman's Own Light Italian Dressing.

Well, there was this leftover sourdough bread from original lasagna dinner last night. And I can't eat it, but I didn't want it to go to waste, so I did what I have done literally 200 damn times and made croutons. cubed it, tossed it with EVOO, a couple of spices, some parm, some salt and pepper. When I pulled the reheated lasagna out of the oven, I tossed the croutons in. I set it to Broil and went to toss the salad. Now, in the 200 damn times I have done this previously, in the time it takes the oven to heat from 425 to 500 the salad gets tossed, the lasagna gets cooled, and the croutons get toasted perfectly.

Today, when the buzzer went off and I turned around, well, the oven was ON FIRE. FIRE! FLAMES! And then I opened the door and it was like fucking BACKDRAFT or something. and then we all did that like three times or something before I hit the whole thing with the fire extinguisher. Which, I'm pretty sure, more or less ruined the oven. Sweet Christ! Also, the entire house filled with smoke and not a single smoke alarm in the house went off. Not one. Like a cloud of smoke in the house and NO ALARM. That is comforting.

So, I blasted the flames while Daughter was dancing around singing I Love Fire! I Love Fire! Boyfriend was going on about how it would die out. Father was just progressively more agitated.

Which leads directly to ...

***
Ugh. Just. Ugh. Is this damn day over yet?

You don't even want to know about Dinner. Or Post Dinner. I promise you. You don't want to know.

h&m baby...also, the glory that is white house/black market

2008-11-10T19:13:00.003-09:00

My weekend was great.

Long, lots of flying, meeting overload, tons of walking in not the best possible shoes, but when all was said and done it was really energizing. I even went to see a movie that I wouldn't have chosen and found it pretty hilarious.

I sit on a board of directors. I have since 2005. We've just expanded and all is very exciting. Lots of work and travel to come. Lots of opportunity to further our mission. Also tons of work. Tons of meetings and travel and conferences.

Also, I just love going to Seattle. I was born there. Its the big city in which I am the most comfortable. I love the funk and the neighborhoods and the walk-ability. I love that there is a TARGET, an Anthropology, and NOW! Featuring! An H&M! I love, love, LOVE the restaurants. I love the skyline and the grit of a city, and oh god, but how I love the coffee (and now of course Washington is wine country and they are very INTO their wines which, well, is only MORE fun to be had!

--

I bought a cute hat and some tee shirts and one of those 'neck pillows' for myself. I got Daughter a 'simba' neck pillow for our Christmas Trip, a kid safe (albeit likely entirely cancerous) SEATTLE mug, her 2008 Christmas Ornament which is, oh my hell, so adorable and a very nifty lego silverware set that will be totally handy and entirely entertaining in restaurants. I got this for Boyfriend

Ooooh, I also bought a totally fabulous sweater dress from the newly christened H&M on Pike. It was 25 bucks. I haven't owned a sweater dress since I was in the second grade. I lurve it.

I also had my inaugural experience (see where this is going?) at White House/Black Market. All I can say about this is that I am thoroughly infatuated (SWOON!) and that I am so, so pleased to the core of my want to be fashionable being that someone like Michelle Obama who is tall like me and not a twig like me and cool and glamorous but in a not really working that far out of the box sort of way is going to be my reasonably affordable fashion ICON forever? Well, as I said, SWOON.

---
And now, back to your regularly scheduled holiday meltdown.

I finished reading this book. And read most of the current issue of Food and Wine magazine on the plane. I think I found two dishes to introduce into the mix this year. I still don't have a set line up. Granted, it is only my tenth year at this and I punted a couple of them.

I think I may have come up with something resembling a solution for the Holiday Cards. . . At least so far as my list is concerned.

I think I may also have come up with a solution for the Boyfriend's Son's Birthday Gift from yours truly. I think it is good enough for this year at any rate.
---
Ok, this is dissolving into nothingness. I will bid the Internet adieu and go find some mindless television to watch for the twenty minutes until I fall fast asleep. Daughter conked out at 740pm. TIRED.

Goodnight.

oh seattle

2008-11-09T15:17:00.000-09:00

Heading to airport early. May get a voucher seat. Sweet.

ha! i totally didn't miss the deadline!

2008-11-08T20:26:00.002-09:00

I sort of thought I was going to flake tonight. My friend and fellow board member and current "roommate" who have spent the past several hours shopping and eating at a place called the Pink Door (Or Pink Room?) were talking about going to a movie, but got out of the Gap with and hour to kill and decided to walk home at 9:30 instead of 1am.

So, I'm chillin' in the Business Room at the hotel with a strange computer and my blog. And I wasn't wearing great walking shoes. I will never understand why the ergo shoe totally gives me a nasty set of blisters if I walk around in them all day. Damn.

Meetings went great. Lots of work to do in the next year. Lots of travel too. I'll be going to Seattle three times, Boise, and Houston in addition to family trips for Christmas (Seattle, Oregon, Chicago, South Bend...what the hell is wrong with me?) and Spring Break in SoCal (Disneyland, SeaWorld, SanDiego Zoo, Temecula with my parents, my three year old, my boyfriend and probably his kid).

I heart a travel budget. Espicially one that comes with cool people, good work, food, and sweet hotel rooms.

Seriously. I mean, S E R I O U S L Y.

Ok. The computer room is an in demand area and there is a whole. lot. of. cable. tv upstairs.

Cheerio.

yum flying fish

2008-11-07T21:42:00.002-09:00

Ate at awesome Seattle resturant.

Then came back to hotel and "snuck" out with mom friend and 'roomate' to the bar where my cousins took me me on Captiol Hill.

I have much to post.

Swear.

Wrote a whole three pages (longhand) on the plane.

I have been awake since 4am.

I have to be somewhere at 8am.

The rest will have to wait until tomorrow.

I heart C.C.

Seriously. Major girlcrush.

flying out at 434 in the morning tomorrow

2008-11-06T17:21:00.003-09:00

En Route to Seattle painfully early in the morning tomorrow and haven't stopped moving all day (or, for that matter, STARTED packing).

I promise to write a nice, thoughtful, long post on the plane.

For now, however, there is this:

(Stolen shamelessly from Friday Playdate )

I still can't believe it.

It is a pretty mixed back in these parts. We lost two big races for Congress and Senate. Well, maybe not LOST, but are waiting on 50,000 uncounted votes. I am looking forward to going to America for a few days just to get really pumped up about things.

Also, as I said before, I live in one of the only places on the planet that is going to have to continue to deal with The Reign of The Palins. Barf.

TTFN,
LRH

44.

2008-11-05T18:20:00.003-09:00

Whoot!

That is just about all I can say. Whoot!

We have a couple of contested big races up here and my in person early absentee ballot has not yet been counted, but Yes. We. DID! Holy hell.

Boyfriend and I were lounging around in bed this morning (Ha! I woke up, in a bed, with a man!) and talking about how he never thought he would see this in his life time and what a hell of a thing it is and I am far more struck by the fact that my child will never live in a country where it is a break from the norm for a person who's skin doesn't look like yours to hold the highest office in the land.

Proudest moment of my day? Daughter listening to the news on the radio in the car and without any prompting whatsoever saying very emphatically..."That is Barack Obama. He is our President now." And then disolving into a fit of giggles.

Hope won. Change has begun anew in America. I'm a proud American today. I don't say that all that often.

Whoot!

(Also, that woman I can't stand got kicked to the curb and by 'curb' I mean back to my backyard and that sucks, but I'll gladly take one for Team America today. And yes, those Alaskan Grown sweatshirts are a real thing and yes everyone including my kid has one. They are, to be fair, a fundraising effort for a local farmer's asssociation, but ewwwwwwwwwww. I can definatly never wear one now and they are mostly all green and damn that blue is ugly.)

on feeling jinxy

2008-11-03T10:26:00.002-09:00

So, tomorrow, there is something happening tomorrow...I can't quite put my finger on it, but I know there is like an event or a thing or OH! WAIT! The ELECTION!

As I have already noted (here) I voted a couple of weeks ago, so tomorrow is more about doing some volunteer stuff, hanging out with Daughter, and getting my hair done than actual work for the first time in a looooooooong time. Also, Boyfriend arrives late tomorrow night and we are staying in a hotel for the night downtown on the off chance that we decide to stay up ridiculously late and socialize with other hyped up political types until far to late in the evening/morning.

I've got to tell you, I don't really feel like it. I don't really want to go wave signs tomorrow morning (at 7am). I don't really want to go to the party and watch the first returns come in with my favorite congressional candidate of all time and his loyal supporters. I really don't want to go to Election Central and see everyone. I really, really, really don't feel up to heading over to the bar after Election Central to watch the rundown on the televisions there. I really don't feel up to it.

I do feel like getting my haircut.

I do feel like dropping off my kid, picking up some sushi, and curling up in that hotel room with a remote control and eventually a man I haven't seen in a month.

I don't feel like I have a place out and about tomorrow night. I don't feel like I've earned a spot at the party or a seat at the bar. I haven't actually DONE anything this time around. I put up some yard signs and staffed some tables and a couple of events last summer. I've consulted on a race for the past year in Sitka. I gave a lot of money I didn't really have available to a bunch of candidates, but I haven't been busting my ass to try and get anyone elected. I haven't been putting in the unbelievable amount of time that all these others have and I'm embarrassed. I don't want to have to talk to anyone.

I don't want to stumble over what it is I am DOING with myself these days.

The truth is, I'm not doing much and it is really hard to come up with an answer that doesn't make me sound like a total drop out from society.

I encounter this problem fairly routinely. At the grocery store, at the gym, at the coffee bar, at wherever it is I find myself where I run into someone I know/have known/went to school with/is friends or acquaintances or colleges of one of my parents... I'm really not doing anything. I'm living at my parents' house. I'm taking care of my kid. I'm serving as my parents' personal shopper, chauffeur, and caterer. I'm waiting around to see when and if my Boyfriend will arrive. I'm totally out of money. Totally. I'm freaking out about money. And about having to get a job. And about the time sacrifice that is going to mean to my Daughter. And about how much she really truly needs me around right now and more than that WANTS me around right now. And how even though she sleeps at her Dad's house three nights a week I'm with her everyday for at least a part of the day except every other Sunday. I sacrificed a lot of time with her for the first two years of her life. It wasn't exactly voluntary, but I made choices and those choices did not often allow for us to see each other everyday of the week. I don't think I could survive that again and I know it would be hard on her. I know that, at this point, any "Mom Time" that falls by the wayside because of a job is going to affect her and not for the better.

The guilt of knowing that something is going to have to change soon is overwhelming and paralytic.

There are some bright spots.

Boyfriend's job has been transferred up here for the rest of the year, so he will be here, living here after tomorrow. That was a major obstacle that I've been waiting out since last summer and I'm relieved that its over now. Of course, the next step is just as hard; now we all have to reintegrate back into the relationship and its been a couple of months and it is never easy. But, he came through. He stepped up and is relocating his life to be here with us (IN. MY. PARENTS. HOUSE. nonetheless...at least for the time being) and he even made it five days prior to my emotionally distraught deadline, so, there is hope.

We have tickets to travel at Christmas. Boyfriend, his Son, Daughter, and I.

The damn election is almost over and Sarah damn Palin might just loose and that would be such a sweet, sweet victory.

I get to go to Seattle at least once and maybe twice this month. That pleases me to no end.

Daughter will be here, with us, for all of next week as Her Dad is going to be away on a business trip.

These are all good things. These are all hope filled things.

Goddamn, I don't want to jinx anything, (Internet, you have no IDEA how TERRIFIED I am of jinxing this thing) but there is a really good chance we could elect Barack Obama President of the United States tomorrow. Tomorrow! I think that would be enough to carry me through for awhile. I need something to believe in, something to have a little faith in, something to point to and say Hot Damn! Everyone does not in fact suck. And so, I sit here typing with fingers crossed and vote cast. Trying to squelch my inner cynic. Trying to give myself until Wednesday to figure out what to do with my life.

It is snowing outside. Just a little. Maybe it will keep coming down and everything will look pretty again. Maybe come Wednesday the world will actually be a little bit prettier of a place.

i am a little in love with keith olberman

2008-11-02T17:30:00.002-09:00

I really am. I know that's wierd.

I think perhaps his is the person in the world more cynical than me.

I guess that should frighten me as he's got twenty years on me, but, well, I've had to deal with Sarah Palin longer and that ages you. Seriously. It does. I transcribed her professionally. Oh. The horror...the HORROR!

P.S. Also, I admit to having had a pretty good high school girl crush on one Ben Affleck back in the day. Pre-J.Lo. The J.Lo Bently business really wrecked it for me. Sigh.

enough with the winter already

2008-11-02T11:45:00.004-09:00

Good morning Day 2! The sun is shining! We got an extra hour of sleep! The Election will be OVER in one less day!

Its 11 degrees outside! Seriously. Come on weather. You suck. Soooooooooo cold.

Today Daughter goes home a few hours early because her little brother turned two yesterday and today is his party. For whatever reason, I decided that we should take a treat as well as a gift, so we made rice crispies with leftover Halloween M&Ms in them. I'm questioning (a little) whether this is a good idea or a slightly passive aggressive sugar overdrive tactic. I can't tell. I am guessing the fact that I question my own motives is possible not the best of signs. Ah well, Daughter is very proud of her treats (we cut them in circles and put them in cupcake papers and packaged them in a cute box with tissue paper...I may not 'craft' but this I can do.)

I'm going to hit the gym after I drop her at the party and then I have to get actually motivated to get my room cleaned and laundry done before boyfriend arrives Tuesday Night. I think we are going to spring for a hotel room downtown. I have several reasons for this. . . above and beyond the obvious.
1) He doesn't arrive until nearly 11pm at which point I will not be driving to the airport to retrieve him.
2) The logistics of parking the car somewhere downtown that he can easily find in a cab AND leaving the car unlocked so that he can drop his bags AND find his way to whatever bar I am residing in seems like a lot of hassle (especially since he does not know the town very well and I'm not really interested in shouting directions on my cellphone either in the street or from a loud place full of people.
3) Well, um, we haven't seen each other in over a month and will be living WITH. MY. PARENTS. until at least the end of the year, so, um, well, a hotel seems "logical".
4) I'm just naturally assuming that I'm going to be somewhat to severely hungover come Wednesday morning and I'd really rather not share said hangover with my mother who drinks about half a glass of white wine every other decade.

So, there you are. I've just talked myself into the 100 dollar hotel room. Done. TaDa! Fun. Fun. Fun.

Well, that concludes this edition of NaBloPoMo for Sunday, November 2nd.

Paula Radcliff won the New York City Marathon. Boyfriend's sister is also running.

Senator John McCain tried really, really hard not to make too much fun of his running mate on SNL last night.

And I don't have to share Election night with my mother. Good Times!

Thanks for tuning in. . . See you tomorrow.

NaBloPoWhoa!

2008-11-01T08:48:00.003-08:00

November 1st is here and here I am posting my first (of thirty. whoa.) straight posts to celebrate NaBloPoMo.

I'm sure a fair amount of this week will be dedicated to the upcoming election. I'll probably be loosing my mind all over the Internet on Tuesday as that is how I typically spend the doom and gloom downtime that generally absorbs my election days. Maybe it will be different this year. I'm not "working" on a campaign for the first time in SIX years, so all I have to do is wave a sign for a couple hours in the morning then I'm getting my haircut and have Daughter all afternoon. Then I'm going to an Election Night party and Election Central and then, almost inevitably, to Election Central 2.0 (aka the bar across the street from Election Central where we all end up because it is full of televisions).

Boyfriend arrives on a flight just before 11pm on Election Night too. (Yay!)

Which leads to what you can expect here Wednesday: A Hungover Post Election Post. I can almost guarantee this as a) well, I remember last day after election day...well, I vaguely remember it. . . b) I haven't been to a bar since, probably, April. Oh, no, that's a lie. I went out after the Primary last summer and well...as I don't have scotch at home well...hangover... and finally c) I've never, ever, won big on Election Night. I typically endure a pretty painful loss (or six) and I'm still freaking out about the fact that of the 6 races that I'm really interested and/or involved in I am pretty confident about taking at least three and there is a possibility that they may ALL go my way and I really don't think that I can survive that having some sort of an aneurysm.

After that, Thursday and Friday are kind of foggy. I'll either be moving on, elated, or well, pretty seriously depressed and blaming Boyfriend for all of it. (Yes, Internet, here is a confession. . . Boyfriend works for Her. And I choose to hold him personally responsible when it comes to all things Sarah that annoy the holy living shit out of me.)

At any rate. I'm excited to be here. I was pretty pumped when I discovered NaBlo last year. A whole month with TONS to read! It was about six months after I came upon the glorious world of the mommyblogs, a twist of online fate for which I will be eternally grateful and undoubtedly expounding upon this month.

Ok! Feeling Good! Day one is done! Whoot!

file this under things that will break your heart and make you cry uncle

2008-10-30T12:54:00.003-08:00

When Daughter and I returned to Stripmallville from where we had been living she jumped headfirst into an entirely new family. Her Dad and his Girlfriend have two little boys. Her son is going to be two this weekend and they had a baby together in September about a week before we arrived.

On the whole, Daughter has been handling the whole thing like a superstar. No big fits. No big DRAMA! No open resentment towards her Baby Brother or her Little Brother. The two toddlers have had a little give and take and adjustments to living together in a house that she used to share solely with her father.

She has had two tell tale signs of early big sisterhood though. Number one, she has almost completely stopped using the potty. Even at my house. Which is annoying to me since we spent SO. MUCH. TIME. THIS. SUMMER. Doing the whole potty training thing.

Number two is the bottle. She wants to have a bottle all the time instead of sippy cups or big cups. We still have a bottle laying around that has, for months and months, been reserved for EMERGENCY COMFORT PURPOSES ONLY.

Today, she was bargaining for the bottle. Promising to use the potty for the rest of the day if she could have her soy milk in a bottle. And she's tired. And I'm a pretty easy pushover. And, so, I agreed.

And after I handed her the bottle she tucked it under her arm and lifted her arm up to me and said "Up Mommy. Pick me up." Which I did and then she instructed me "Now we sit in Papa's rocker. Now I get MY snuggle time just like Baby Brother." And she nuzzled in like a nursing baby and laid there in my lap while I rocked us back and forth for three straight bottles.

And my heart swelled and broke for her.

But I enjoyed the snuggle.

so, there is that.

2008-10-30T09:38:00.003-08:00

Its Thursday and Daughter and I are both beat. I continue to not sleep well and Daughter was not ready to get up this morning. She was weepy and wandering when I arrived at her Dad's House at 8 to pick her up.

It is 9:30 as I sit here writing this and we are camped out on the couch, half asleep, covered in blankets, watching Aladdin. I am such a lazy mother. I'm on shots 5 and 6 of espresso this morning and they don't seem to be making much of a dent.

Note(s) to self: must cut back on coffee. Must figure out how to get more sleep. Also, must be more reliable about getting laundry done in a timely fashion. I really suck at all three of those things. FAIL.

I'm ready for the election to be O V E R. I don't do particularly well with uncertainty and there is a lot of that floating around everywhere these days. If nothing else, Election Day (good god, let it be decided on Election Day) will bring some unknowns to an end.

Daughter and I have to make a ton of Macaroni and Cheese (adapted from my Grandmother's recipe) today. That might help my overall outlook on life.

NaBloPoMo starts on Sunday. I'm really looking forward to that too. I think that some sort of new structure will be good for me as well.

And I'm getting my hair cut on Tuesday, because when you are only a campaign VOLUNTEER, you can do indulgent things on Election Day like get you hair done so you look totally hot for Election Night Festivities.

And I'm going to Seattle for a few days next week for a meeting. I'm really looking forward to the trip and to the work we are going to get done and hanging out with my friends R.S. & S.F.

Daughter is with me the entire week after I get back, too. Her dad will be away at a work conference. So that is awesome.

And we have a Target. And I was there again yesterday. And its such a treat to have our very own Target that has cute things like this and this and is right here instead of all the way in Seattle like Trader Joe's and Whole Foods and all the other cool places like this.

AND I've finally booked all the travel arrangements for our Christmas Trip. Which is a whole new set of stresses, but at least we are all committed now. So, there is that.

and the winner....will be decided in a couple of weeks.

2008-10-24T14:30:00.006-08:00

I voted today.

I usually vote early and I had to vote absentee anyway, so we just knocked it off the list while we were downtown.

Now, I have been voting for only two years longer than I have been working professionally in politics. You might say it is sort of important to me.

Daughter has been voting three times that she can remember and a couple more times when she was a baby. I have a picture of her when she was three months old with an I Voted Today sticker on her onesie and a pacifier in her mouth.

We voted again today. She understands that we fill in the circles next to the name of the person we want to elect. She personally knows three of the four people that we voted for. We were at a fundraiser for one of them last night. She goes to preschool with his kids. Two years ago I ate Thanksgiving dinner at his house.

I think you all know how she feels about Barack OMAMA! His was the only name on the ballot that she couldn't say she had held hands with or waved signs with or visited in their office.

As soon as we left the polling place (in City Hall) she said. "Mom, we need to put are buttons back ON NOW. " And then she proceeded to tell everyone she saw, including the former Lt. Governor and the President of the University of Alaska that she voted for Barack Obama today and voted for Ethan Berkowitz (Whoa-oooo-oh!) and for Mark Begich and for "Bethtulla".

I am wildly optimistic this year. It sort of freaks me out. I think I might take at least two of the candidates I voted for. For major offices. I don't quite know what to say about that. I'm a democrat in a red, red state. A state so red that we produced this monster. And yes, I am very, very sorry. I worked my ass off (quite literally) two years ago to keep her out of office, so it is less my fault than those dumb bastards who voted for her, but still. I apologize.

I also don't quite know what to say when I find myself identifying with the depiction of my political self written by the bow tie guy.

Politics in this state are fucked. Have been for a long, long time. The governor got elected promising ethics reform. She got a new ethics law passed without much effort and then proceeded to BREAK HER OWN ETHICS LAW. The current governor was found guilty of abuse of power by an independant investigator hired after a unanimous vote by the bi-partisan legislative governing body. A second investigation in on going. On going by a bunch of people she also has the power to fire.

The current governor, is of course also the current GOP Vice Presidential Nominee. I can proudly say that I have never, nor will I ever, vote for her. I could give you about a thousand reasons why, but I think this says it about as well (and far more humerously) as I could. Enjoy!

hi ho, hi ho

2008-10-23T09:08:00.003-08:00

Yesterday I went to work. In an actual office. With actual make up on my face at 7:45 in the morning and then I sat in front of a computer that was on a desk (rather than my lap) and wore my glasses and didn't read any (ok, many) blogs. I even managed, somewhat magically, to stay out of the constantly popping up political conversations about that governor who bought a house's worth of clothes on someone else's dime.

No, I didn't get a job.

Ha!

Its funny that you thought that.

I have been applying for jobs, but nothing has stuck yet.

I was at my dad's office. Hammering out his expense report that he has failed to get done since February when they changed the system.

It was kind of nice to be around adults all day. No one asked me to help them go potty or cut their food for them and at no point did I have to get down on my hands and knees and pick up blocks. And to top it all off, I got to wear my cute shoes.

I could deal with a little office time. I'd like a part time gig. Like in the mornings when Daughter is at pre-school. In my fantasy life you can get a job where you get to dress like a grown up and only work M-W from 8am-Noon.

I'm sure that job will be falling in my lap any day now. Any. Day. Now.

But for now its back to Clifford and blocks and yoga pants.

Daughter is with her Dad this weekend and I will be finishing up the report for my father.
Perhaps I will even get to socialize with people my own age. Like go to dinner, with a friend. How novel. I've also got to seriously figure out how to make her Halloween costume. I'm thinking Velcro and super glue. Damn, I wish I was crafty.

Also, I went and signed up for NaBloPoMo. So I need to figure out what I'm going to write about for 30 days straigt. Or go find a bunch of memes that I can use as filler. . .

A little bit brutal, a little bit rock and roll

2008-10-20T18:26:00.004-08:00

Today was a little bit brutal, a little bit rock and roll.

Daughter had a really rough handover at Dad's House. Half and hour of clingy "I want Mommy-ness" that ended in a tear and holler fest. Which left me, in tears, in the car. Because there wasn't really anything I could do to make it better. And I don't live there. And I had to leave. And she wasn't going to stop crying as long as I was there. And I desperately didn't want her dad and I to start snapping at each other. And I it all just felt like shit.

With a side of FAIL.

We were a little bit early (ten minutes I think) and Daughter had fallen asleep in the car. She woke up when we arrived, but was in good spirits until we got into the entry way where she tossed her jacket on the floor and refused to remove her arms from around my neck while starting to whimper. I did not want to leave her dad's girlfriend with two kids of her own, dinner in the works, and my kid freaking out, so I offered to stay until she was comfortable. Her dad didn't get home until almost 5:30. I was there for about 25 minutes. It was ok. We mom chatted a little. The little boy is adorable. The baby is HUGE, in the most gorgeous 6 week old, fifteen pound baby sort of a way.

(I want to go on record as saying how lovely it was to spend 20 minutes watching her "mother" today. She's a pro and so calm and confident and able to seamlessly break away in all the ways that I struggle with. I just wanted to say, we can talk "Mom" and she is a genuinely fabulous mother. If ever comes the day when they are reading this most random of random websites. I wanted to say that. In all of its pith and anonymity.)

It feels a lot like a no win situation for me over there. Its just weird. I know my eyes catch on stuff that used to belong to me or remembering the painting or the toy that I bought that is sitting outside with a 12pack of beer on the porch or how hot it is. Maybe its just my personal discomfort.

Anyway Daughter, who I thought would be thrilled as usual to see her dad and get over the clingy weapiness in pieces when I passed her off to Dad. She was crying and hollering and just in despair. And it was awful. And painful. And she was still totally loosing her shit when I passed her off to Dad. And she was still totally loosing her shit when I put on my shoes and said goodbye to her most adorable, nearly two year old brother, and she was still loosing her shit her shit when on the porch and the other side of the door I felt the tears well up in my eye.

I drove around the corner before really loosing my own personal shit because my car was parked where she could see it from her bedroom window.

I spent five hours with Daughter today and we had a blast. We danced and did art and played blocks and decided that she would dress up as a Bella Kitty* for Halloween.

She is at the most adorable point where she can hear a song once and know all the words. She danced (DANCED!) her heart out to all the Enchanted songs while picking up her blocks and tool truck toys from the living room floor.

Good god. I just love her so much and am so devastated by her genuine wanting tonight. I spent five hours with Daughter today and have spent six hours writing this post.

And I'm just so sorry.

I'm just so profoundly sorry that she has to juggle two houses and Mom Day and Dad Days and School Days and Girlfriend and Boyfriend and brothers and everything all in one life.

And, Daughter, I'm just so sorry. Its not so bad really. There are all of these people who love you so much, but I'm sorry that the simple story, the easy choice, wasn't a feasible option. Its not worse, the choices that we made. It wouldn't be better to go through a divorce now, or five years from now. It was the right choice. It was the right choice. It was. And most days everyone is happy. And everyone loves you. I love you more than you will ever, ever know. And I am so deeply sorry for all of your tears. I am so very cut to the core. You, my perfect, darling baby are my one true thing and someday you will realize that your mother has truly failed you in a whole lot of ways and I will never, ever forgive myself for any single one of them, but I do honestly believe that you will thrive in your life and goddamn, I'm not going anywhere. I won't break that promise.

Ethnically Delicious

2008-10-18T15:18:00.005-08:00

Last night we had a Thai noodle soup for dinner at Daughter's request. Next to sushi, chicken soup with rice, and my grandmother's macaroni and cheese, thai food is her favorite.

One of my parents described it a "so colorful and ethnic, but still delicious."

Pot roast is way more their speed.

So tonight, I am making a pot roast for the first time in ten years. Probably only the second time ever. The last one wasn't great. I don't remember much else about it. Just Blah. Also, it was produced in a crock pot. I am not, as a rule, a big fan of crock pot cookery.

I enjoy cooking too much to dump stuff together and leave it for 12 hours. I like the cooking time. The chopping and mincing and seasoning and stirring. I am particularly fond of hammering the shit out of stuff with the mallet after a long day. We had some extremely tender chicken after some of the torrential - rain - inside - all - day - with - a - two - year - old days last summer.

For whatever reason, I decided to give pot roast another try. This time sans crock pot. I am using this recipe compliments of Epicurious.com and cooking the whole thing on the stove top in a dutch oven. Not the dutch oven of my wildest dreams (here) but, the one that my mother has had forever and that only I ever use. I hold out high hopes for this one. In addition to the lack of crock pot and some excellent reviews on the website this recipe has one keen difference from the last one I prepared...two separate forms of red wine and root vegetables rather than potatoes. Yum.

Daughter also magically managed to fall asleep during the prep time and so I am treating myself to a dvd (this one) while I clean up the prep, figure out a side, and flip the roast over in another hour.

***
Update:
***
Well, dinner, in a word, ROCKED. Yum would be another word. I'll do a double update with my personal modifications tomorrow.

Delisch.

Toddler Hilariousnes, Campaign Edition 2008

2008-10-15T18:46:00.006-08:00

This post is going to be brief and say that I have been up waving yard signs for two hours in 16 degree weather at 6:30 this morning then running all over with my favorite congressional candidate and his family and my kid and the press guy.

Daughter and I are off for more sign waving in a couple of hours. Then I drop her at Her Dad's and head downtown for party set up and actual party.

Here is a little randomness for you.

GOBAMA! GO BEGICH! GO BERKOWITZ!!!

At Costco to a random african american man in the christmas toy aisle:

Daughter: Hmmm, you are NOT Barack Obama!
NotBarack: Well, no I'm not, but I'm voting for him.
Daughter: Me too! Mommy YOU vote for Barack Obama too!
Me: Absolutly.
Daughter (head thrown back, fist pumped in the air): Yay! Barack OMAMA!

--

Oh, Winter. . .

2008-10-15T10:11:00.002-08:00

I am not ready for real winter to be here. I realize that I have mentioned this before. It seems that we are really in for it this year.

Daughter and I had a good time with the new saucer sled in the backyard yesterday. She was better decked out in winter wear than I was and would have stayed out a lot longer if she had been given the option.

I swear, I really am trying to make the best of it. Seriously. I am. I had a very in depth discussion last night (by discussion, I mean gchat) with a friend of mine who is a serious skier (here, which I did not know is not in Vermont) and got some good tips on getting skis and who to talk to at REI to get cheep stuff that will work for my beginner self. I already have boots. That's a step in a direction if I do say so myself.

It isn't as though I haven't done winter before. I've lived in Alaska for 17 years. (Whoa.) Winter keeps coming back around every six months or so. Its the way it works. I understand this. I'm not surprised by it.

I just do not enjoy it very much.

And this year it is much, much earlier than it has been in quite sometime. Which means that we are in for a long haul and I am trying to make peace with that. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying.

I think that, in addition to the winter being early there are a lot (A LOT!) of loose ends and much uncertainty floating around in my life at the moment which is making me crabby and anxious. What is that, Internet, you would like an accounting of the things that are making me buggy. Well, if you insist:

1. I am living at my parents' house for starters. I'm not just 'staying' here. I'm LIVING here. Which I swore (SWORE) I would not ever do ever again. It looks like Daughter and I will be here well into 2009. I am daunted by this prospect. I am disheartened by this prospect. I am really tired of my parents having a great deal of power over my life and being oh so generous with their opinions. Yes, I sound like an ungrateful ass. Noted.

2. In addition to living at my parents' house, I am driving my dad's car. Which means I am doing a lot of chauffeuring and asking permission to go places.

3. Boyfriend is still living where we used to live, instead of here. He has to get a job here before he can move. The apartment where we lived is in a building that has been sold and the new owners are moving into his place on November 1st. Which means that he will still be there, but doesn't have a place to stay. Its all very up in the air and stress inducing and frustrating and really frightening. I'm really concerned about the level of stress that we are operating under, long distance, indefinitely. Its not good. We have spent a tremendous amount of time apart since we got together. We were seeing each other for about 3 months before I left town. Then apart for three months. Then I was staying with him, but out of town a LOT for four months. Then my dad got sick and I was here for three months. Then we moved into the apartment together in May and Daughter and I moved back here the first week of September. I would say we have spent as much time apart in our relationship as we have spent together. And that sucks. And I'm really, really tired of it. And really, really ready to settle into a life together. And I have a really, really short fuse when it comes to a lot of these things and that is not at all helpful.

4. It is campaign season. This generally increases my mental stress load tenfold. Of course this happened. So I would say my blood pressure is right up there with Dick Cheny's these days.

5. I don't have a job and I need to get one and getting one means that I am going to have to sacrifice time with Daughter and that breaks my heart into 47 pieces (I've counted them) and I just don't know what to do.

6. I am not sleeping well.

7. It is possible that I have a lingering medical condition that I am choosing to ignore which is based in part due to my lack of medical insurance and in part because I don't want to deal with it.

8. There is six inches of snow on the ground. I mean, seriously.

I think that eight is enough, don't you?

Look at what I just did...

2008-10-14T16:12:00.000-08:00

Visit NaBloPoMo

Yup, all signed up! Wish me luck!

Toddler Hilariousness, Vol. 1

2008-10-14T15:36:00.004-08:00

Hilarious things Daughter has said in the past 24 Hours:

Me: "Where should we take Papa for lunch today?"
Daughter: "Mom, let's take him to the sushi (suuuue-she) place. Do you like sushi, Papa?"
Papa: "Uhhh, no."
Daughter: "Oh, but Papa! You are BIG!" You should like sushi! It is very Sophisticated. I do not like sashimi (sash-eeeemeee) now, but I will when I am BIG!"*

--
After pouring her hot chocolate:
Me: "Here you go. May I have some of your hot chocolate, too?"
Daughter: "Just be patient dear. Mommy, you are a dear."

After spilling her hot chocolate from her teeny tiny tea cup onto the counter and then being caught finger painting:

Daughter: "Whoops-e-daisy!"
Me: "It's not a whoops-e-daisy if you pour it on purpose."
Daughter: "Oh, you're right, its interpretive dance."**

*She considers "getting sushi" to include a bowl of miso soup, a cup of rice with 'spicy (soy) sauce' and maybe a bite of fried bit from a roll.

**We are BIG into LILLY BOOKS around here.

Snow! Snow! And More SNOW!

2008-10-13T10:16:00.004-08:00

It snowed the entire time that I was awake yesterday. All morning, Snow. All afternoon? Snow. All evening? Yes, you guessed it...SNOW!

Now, I realize that I live in ALASKA (no, I can't see Russia OR Canada from my house...neither can Sarah Palin, but I'm pretty sure she doesn't know that). And that this is the ARCTIC. And that it is winter in the arctic Most of The Damn Time, but I am not really a snow person per se. I totally understand why millions and millions of people live in Southern California. 72. Sunny. 99% of the time. I get that. I would love that. I don't care if it means sharing my space with 20 million like minded people.

Of course, that won't be happening.

Instead I am resolved to take up a winter sport in earnest. I started running outside last winter and have the grippers for my shoes and everything. They make all the difference in the world when it comes to running on snow and ice. I also own a pair of ice skates (Boyfriend is from Canada. Apparently, hockey is sport or something there.) and a pair of cross country ski boots. And polls I think. I probably don't have the polls anymore. Or the skis (which weren't really mine, they were hand-me-downs from my ex-sister-in-law and were too short or something at any rate.) I never really took much to skiing. I didn't have the right gear (snow/wind pants for starters) and I got on skis for the first time when I was 22, so. Ugh.

I would like to learn how to X-Country ski. I've been enjoying trail running a lot this fall. Daughter is to young for lessons for a few more years, but it would be good if I knew what I was doing by the time she gets really into it. Also, everyone in her Dad's Family skis, so I don't want to be the odd man out of her winter activity.

Plus, its good for you. Its easier on your knees than running which, in the long run, will probably extend my running 'career'.

Which means....ta da!...that in addition to a new computer, a better camera, a house, and a car, I also need Cross Country Skis, Polls, Snow Pants, and Lessons. The hat that I need for winter running to keep my ears from freezing and falling off (don't laugh, that has happened to people), will double for skiing. That is something. See, I am practically THRIFTY!

Seriously, Internet, I need a job. If only for the stuff it can buy.

on dressing from my past

2008-10-12T13:48:00.002-08:00

I bit the bullet and bought these jeans yesterday. I haven't owned a pair of these particular jeans since I was in high school. WAAAAAAAAAAY back in the day before they 'redesigned' them to be all cool and stretchy and therefore (duh!) cost $11.45 more. Also, I bought them three sizes smaller yesterday that I have ever purchased them before. This was exciting, of course, and I really like the cut. And pulling them on was a little like getting together with an old friend. Oh! LOOK! These pants still make me look like I have an ass that I don't really! Cool!

I have been really struggling with jeans lately. I like wide leg pants, but not in denim and there is a great abundance of wide leg (bell leg, flare leg, take your pick) jeans out there at the moment.

While shopping, I came across this other little disturbance courtesy of the Gap. I swear to god. I owned this EXACT SAME JACKET in 1989. When I was in the second grade. Maybe it was 1990 and the third grade. Regardless. I feel very fortunate to have skirted many of the '80s fashion disasters. Equally pleased to be able to write off the ones that I fell prey to under the heading of "YOU CAN'T HOLD NEON BIKE SHORTS (Side Pone/LA Gear High Tops with the Fringe Around the Top/Leggings/Mis-Matched Keds with Mis-Matched Socks/ High Waisted, Abundantly colorful jeans with tapped ankles, etc) AGAINST ME...I WAS A CHILD!"

Open Letter to the Gap and all other Gap-ish Retailers:
Dear Gap,
I would really like to not fall victim to your new found obsession with odd 80's wear. Please stop with the bomber jackets and skinny jeans.
Sincerely,
LRH

It is snowing here. I am needing non-ugly boots. I already have ugly, clunky, heavy, one whole size to big boots for driving around. They look a lot like this. I also own these, which were perfectly functional as winter (and by that I mean year round, rain country, wore them frequently this summer) boots when I lived in that other place, but now I am back to real winters and winters shared with a toddler who likes to PLAY! OUTSIDE! IN THE SNOW! For HOURS. ON. END. Especially at playgrounds and sledding hills where you have to socialize (or in my case try to avoid contact with the other mothers for no apparent reason). It is for me, an awful lot like high school. Except I look cuter now than I did in High School and I need boots that reflect that. If only for myself. I am not having much luck. I think I might like these, but I haven't seen them in real life and I am not sold on the fake fur. But I like the height and the general look of non-clunky-ness.

It is also lotion season. I am experimenting with some options. Perhaps there is a post in there somewhere.

the plague, the weekend, and snow

2008-10-06T14:33:00.002-08:00

Not much by way of a post today. I have a fundraising letter to write and am still not entirely recovered from the very long weekend of very little sleep. Daughter is, on the whole, recovered from The Plague-Fall 2008, but not before she shared it with everyone and relapsed a handful of times. Saturday night she was up at 1:20 and then about every 20 minutes there after until six am at which point we both fell asleep, sitting bolt upright, on the couch.

Needless to say, it feels like Boyfriend and I spent very little time together while he was in town.

And yesterday it started. Winter started. It snowed. It snowed HUGE, FAT, MARSHMALLOW SIZED FLAKES. And the snow STUCK. And ugh. I am NOT ready for winter. Or moving in the winter. Or. Just. UGH. Fucking winter. Sigh.

More tomorrow.

it is not often that i appreciate what sarah palin has to say

2008-10-04T09:11:00.002-08:00

Zinc and vapors

2008-10-03T15:06:00.003-08:00

Daughter is almost over the plague. She has passed it along to everyone else though, myself included. I have cracked myself out on triple extra strength mucinex elephant pills (seriously...they are HUGE) and ColdEaze and after two cups of coffee and a quad-shot americano I still managed to fall asleep on the couch while Daughter was watching Caillou or Aladdin or something this morning. (I know...Best. Mother. EVER. Is what you are thinking, right? Me too.)

At any rate, I woke up this morning feeling like my face was going to EXPLODE and I couldn't even blame Sarah Palin! Although, on second thought, I'm sure all the stress and anxiety of her bid for ultimate power have wrecked my immune system and that led directly to my getting sick and oozing mucus. I will amend my will to read, "And to Governor Sarah Six Pack I hereby also bequeath also all my used Kleenex and Popsicle sticks, also. May they give you the plague also and a splinter or two. Ya betcha!"

Seriously, I am surviving on a diet of All Fruit Popsicles. I think I have had at least half a dozen today. I haven't eaten this many Popsicles since I was pregnant. Which, obviously, I am not.

I am sure Boyfriend is just THRILLED to be here with my sick ass and loony, sick parents, and adorable carrier monkey of a child in the house that seems to permanently smell of Vicks Vapor Rub...or maybe that is just me. Hawt.

At any rate, dear Internets, I am off for a weekend of who knows what and will am hoping beyond hope to have zinc-ed this thing in the bud and be up and around tomorrow.

T.T.F.N

P.S. Yes, I did watch the debate last night. No, I was not shocked by La Gova's performance. I was, on some level, deeply offended by her openly flirting with the camera. The freaking winking. And the hair down. and the hooker heels. Not surprised by any of it, but offended again, also.

59:59

2008-09-29T16:08:00.005-08:00

Well, I'll be damned.

I ran a full hour yesterday. Voluntarily and everything. I am bursting with pride in myself. Sorry, but I totally am. I didn't know that I could do that. I totally kicked ass.

I out ran the stopwatch function on my running watch, which only goes to 59:59.

I went running on Saturday on the trails behind my high school do do a little hill work and got lost. I wound up running for 55 minutes, rather than my usual 40 and I felt pretty good at the end of it, so I decided that I would shoot for upping the ante to 60 minutes for my Monday, Pre-preschool pick up run.
(Reader's Note: I was not a runner in high school. I used to hang out on the side of the old gym at the head of this trail system and smoke cigarettes in the dark before school, so I know where the START, but not where the GO exactly.)

My weekday runs here are almost all exclusively on this trail. It is pretty and not super hard. It is fairly well populated, so I am not nervous about running alone, but it is not overcrowded when I run as pick up is 12:30. I mostly get to run there because of its proximity to pre-school. I can get back in the car and be at the front door in anywhere between 30 seconds and 5 minutes depending on where I am parked along the trail.

In preparation for the NEW! LONG! RUN! I decided to treat myself to an updated iPod play list and new earphones. The ones that I bought last summer have been royally sucking lately and requiring significant mid stride readjustments to keep them in place. To much hassle. I settled on these and they ROCKED.

Running is just about the only time I get to rock out to loud music anymore and I cherish that about the time. I'm a little afraid that I can be seen mouthing the words to The Boss by most everyone I pass by, but I can't really be bothered with those types of details.

Anyway, I parked perfectly and added exactly ten minutes to my outbound time. Which meant that I hit the 30 minute mark at my turn around point rather than 20.

I am pretty slow and have become a fairly steady runner. Thirty minutes out means 30 minutes back. I was concentrating on going slow too, so as not to burn out before I hit my goal. Anyway, long story short and with much help from Bruce and the Badlands (repeated three times between minutes 42 and 52) I totally hit my time and I overshot just a bit at the end. I also had the pleasure of passing a bunch of people including no fewer than six other runners (well, three and a group of three) and seeing two sets of walkers twice. The new headphones were a smash success and although I should have had the sense to wear gloves when it was still frosty out at 11:20 when I set out, I did not get too cold.

I have no real idea of how far I went, but I would figure it at about 8 minute miles which would make for a 7.5 mile run.

I had an actual appetite for the first time in a long time.

I feel better today after the much longer run than I usually feel after the 40 minute runs. Perhaps I was going slower? Or I got into a better stride over the longer distance? I don't really know what the deal is. Feels good though. Strong.

I want to be able to run 10 miles by my birthday (Dec. 14th. . . you can send me a Wii or an iPhone if you insist...or a house...or a new car...you know, its the little things that count.) And I want to run a half marathon while we are on vacation in March in SoCal. (Yes, yes, I KNOW about the Disney Princess Half. No, no, I will NOT be doing that one.)

Anyway, it is not often that I am bursting with personal pride. So I relished this one a little.
---
In Other News:

I was hauled out to a fundraiser this morning at seven am. Seriously, seven am. No, I don't know why I agreed to go. Yes, it was sort of nice to see some of those people. Also, I got a lead on a job that I would possibly enjoy very much.
-
Daughter is still sick and did not go to pre-school today. She is still surviving on a diet primarily composed of popcicles, 'taco chips' (READ: Half a hard taco shell. We were out of tortilla chips.) , storybooks, and The Lion King.
-
Also! Boyfriend has meetings in town Thursday and Friday so he is flying up tomorrow and staying until Sunday night. Sweet!

Happy Tuesday!

Cough, Cough, Gag, Barf., Repeat . . . Otherwise known as Good Morning, Mom!

2008-09-27T10:19:00.005-08:00

You know that scene from Jurassic Park where the girl gets sneezed on by the sick dinosaur and gets covered in slime?

That is more or less how my day started.

Daughter is sick.

Her step-brother at Dad's house was sick last week. We thought she had skirted the bug, but that appears to have been an optimistic assessment.

She's been sort of sniffily for a couple days. Then came coughing. Then the barfing started this morning. When I picked her up out of bed. Which means that she puked all over me. It was less than glorious.

She is now camped out on the couch with her soft blanket, soft pillow, special bear, cup of ice water, and second video of the day.

Poor thing.

Although she is particularly snuggly. Which you won't catch me complaining about.

I do, however, need more coffee. So if that could magically appear in my hand right now, that would be super. Thanks.

**UPDATE**
As of 12:55pm, with five fruit juice popcicles, some baby asprin, and gummy bear vitamens in her stomach, Daughter is walking under her own power. Also, sliding on her indoor slide. Thill, twaking dike dith, though.

***UPDATE, Redux***
Daughter continued to improve. Her Dad got out of his meeting early and came over to pick her up. Early. She was worn out, but is looking forward to spending tomorrow with his parents. I hate the hand off. It gets harder, not easier. Espicially when she is sick and small. I have no real responsibilities until Monday at 12:30 when I pick her up from pre-school. I mean, I've already done the laundry and everything.

My Very Own Mcdream Come True...

2008-09-26T20:37:00.004-08:00

Last Thursday, after I picked her up from a coffee bar at 8am, Daughter and I went on a road trip. We rocked out to some B-I-N-G-O and a lot of Bruce Springsteen. We ate salad bar and "Neemeneeems*" (!!!) in the car.

We were staying at a lodge in Homer, where my dad had been all week for work. We wound up having the whole beautiful seaside place to ourselves.

We went to the deep water dock and Daughter got a tour of "Papa's Tug Bot", including the buckets of freshly baked cookies in the galley. She decided she needed one for herself and 'Oh! Wait! My Paaaaapa needs a cookie too..."

We had a "fancy dinner" at the "special" restaurant and we sat at a table in the (gasp. hide. shame.) bar, because it was empty, smoke-free, and the tables are elevated which is exponentially easier for my father.

Daughter ran around in the beautiful yard overlooking the ocean for the better part of an hour after we got back to the lodge. She cawed at the ravens that were perched on the roof next door. She flapped her arms and flew around the yard CawCawCAAAAAWing away. She chased off a sea gull. She wanted to go down to the beach, but we put it off until the morning.

We had a bath in the huge tub, red books, curled up in the huge! great! bed! and come eight o'clock she was still wide awake. Huh. Didn't see that one coming. Damn.

She wanted to watch a movie. No movies. She wanted to jump up and down. NO jumping. She wanted to run around exploring the house up and down the stairs, over and over and over again. NO Exploring.

I on the other hand wanted to watch the season premiere of Grey's Anatomy. Like basically everyone else in the world, I have a thing for medical shows. The fake ones, not the Discovery Channel variety. I'm pretty out of touch with ER, but I'm a loyal Grey's fan. I actually watch it on tv on a regular basis, which is saying a lot for me. I've been watching Grey's since before EVERYONE was watching. Since the winter of 2005 when it appeared out of nowhere to make me want to move to Seattle. I was working on an ill-fated campaign that kicked my ass for months on end. I was swimming with a Master's team at 5:30 in the morning on Monday/Wednesday/Friday and it was an 8pm show. My ex-husband was in grad school and pretty consumed upstairs.

I watched it when it premiered for the full season the next fall. When I was pregnant and we were moving and staying at my parents' house while we remodeled the new place and I frantically finished college before the baby was born. And I watched it through the winter while I was home with a new baby. And I watched it the next fall in random places with cable when I was separated and miserable and having my ass kicked daily by life and a awful campaign. Then that winter I would go to the gym and run while it was on and listen on headphones. Last fall I watched on boyfriend's computer on Saturdays because I was in school when it was on in real time. I watch. I'm a fan. Its a train wreck and I like that too.

So. What the hell? She'll probably get bored and fall asleep. She won't be to scared by blood and the guts. I can just turn it on, she won't even pay attention.

But she did. She demanded to snuggle on the other side of the bed, closer to the television so she could see better. "Look! Mommy! Those are his brains and his guts!" She stayed up for an hour and a half. And spent most of the drive home the next day operating on her bears and dinosaurs in the backseat.

There have been a thousand moments (or days and weeks and months) in the past three and a half years when watching Grey's Anatomy in a the most comfortable bed ever curled up with my daughter and her two favorite bears seemed like an impossible fantasy. I am well aware of how ridiculous a thing it is to say, but if I could have frozen that moment in time and just relived it every day from here until forever, I would. It was one of the most hard won and cherished memories I will ever have. So, thank you Meredeth and Derek. Thank you, Christina and stapled ass army guy. Thank you, Bernadette Peters and Kathy Baker. I'll never forget it.

Dum, dah, dum

2008-09-24T10:31:00.002-08:00

Today is my mother's birthday.

I just realized that it is 10:32 in the morning and I have not yet wished her a Happy Birthday. Whoops. I fail as a daughter.

Nothing new there.

I guess this would not be such an egregious offense under normal circumstances, but I'm living at my parents' house at the moment and have seen my mother several times today.

Oh, and we have already argued. We have, as a matter of fact, had at least one argument per day since Friday or Saturday. It is hard to keep track. Sigh.

I choose not to go into great detail about my relationships with extended family members here as they may someday discover this blog and I'm not really up for the shit storm that would be unleashed upon my life if I had shared all my true feelings about some of those people with with entirety of the Internet.

One time, in college, my mother found this essay that I had written about a particular incident in my youth and she basically called me a liar and a fraud and a whole bunch of other things. And then proceeded to bring up said essay routinely for years. Up until...well, when she stops mentioning it I'll let you know. (For the record: the essay was a work of Creative Nonfiction for a Memoir class that I was taking. Creative liberties, therefore, being the object of the exercise. This was more or less lost on my mother. Again, sigh.)

I digress.

My mother and I do not really get along so well. This is due in large part to our radically divergent world views and my having more or less shunned everything she wanted me to accept in and about the universe. Also, she doesn't like that my sister and I don't get along. And that I got divorced. And that before I got divorced I was a twenty year old college sophomore who was having sex with my boyfriend. Or that I am having sex with my boyfriend now and am more or less flatly opposed to getting married. Ever again.

My mother means well. I'm sure that is the case.

She also loves Jesus. A LOT. And that defines her view of the world and makes me crazy.

Anyway, today is my mother's birthday. I got her some pictures of Daughter and framed them as a gift. I also procured her gift from my dad and have to wrap them. I also got stuff to bake a cake and will make dinner. I also have to go get her flowers from my father and I got her CARD from my father and well .....

Yeah, I know. I should have wished her Happy Birthday when I got up. Shit.

Happy Birthday Mom!

I didn't even tell the entire Internet that you are 64.

Whoops.

Radio Interference

2008-09-23T09:33:00.003-08:00

I am living in the town where I grew up. Well, where I finished elementary school, survived junior high, made it out of high school more or less in one piece, went to college, got married, had a baby, got divorced, fell to pieces.

For the moment, I am staying with my parents. In my high school bedroom. Driving my kid around town in my Dad's giant suburban.

There is a lot that is seriously cracked about this situation. And I think things will ease up a bit after Boyfriend relocates and we get a real house of our own and into a daily routine that does not involve me asking my parents permission to go places.

I'm sure this is the case, however, I still don't know what to do about the radio.

It seems that no one in the radio industry here has discovered that the nineties are over. Every other damn son is some ballad that debuted sometime between 1995 and 1998. I swear.

I think this is adding to my anxiety. It is making me seriously angsty. And, well, more or less pissed off whenever I am in the car. Even music that I LIKE is making me nutty, because it just drives home that this is a place that I don't like filled with memories and people that I am not supposed to have to face everyday as a grown up. As someone's mother.

To make matters even more 'fun', I can't seem to go ANYWHERE without running into people that I know, or recognize, or vaguely dislike. Yesterday, I went to Nordstroms to by some eye creme because there is no humidity here and I'm starting to look old and the girl behind the counter was from my 9th grade French Class. I don't think she recognized me. She kept referring to me as Ma'am. Wha? Seriously? I got "Ma'am-d" by someone MY OWN AGE? That's hawt.

This morning, Daughter and I stopped for coffee on the way to pre-school and the girl behind us in line and I had shared a locker in 9th grade. Ugh. The girl behind the counter is good friends with a good friend of mine and used to date (or who knows is presently dating) the son of the former Lt. Governor who was the first campaign (for Governor) that I ever worked on.

My best friend in the whole world is back in town too. We are spending a significant amount of time watching videos on my parents' couch, driving around in our parents' vehicles, and trying to figure out our next moves.

I am feeling like a teenage mother. An angsty, angry, tired teenage mother who is living with her parents and still has to follow the rules, even as she is enforcing rules (that OH! Do her own parents break) for her own child.

No wonder the sales girl from french class was pushing the anti-aging serums. Ouch.

Alone. Alonealonealone.

2008-09-20T10:44:00.003-08:00

This is my first Saturday alone in about as long as I can remember. Well over a year. I think that just about exactly one year ago Boyfriend was visiting his family and I was all alone for a whole weekend.

Today I find myself in very different circumstances. I am sitting, under a blanket (well, under what was the comfortor on my bed when I was in junior high and now serves as a tv watching blanket in the perpetually underheated room where my parents keep the good tv). at 10:47 on Saturday morning. In my parents' house. Alone. I am on my second cup of coffee. I am thinking that my glasses need to be tightened or fitted or something. I am still wearing pajamas. The tv is turned off. No Nemo, No CNN, nothing, not even some random sporting event that needs to be watched BECAUSE IT IS ON TV.

It feels a little surreal. All this quiet. All the toys in their proper resting places. Not even enough laundry to constitute a real load.

So, here I sit, in all my alone-ness. Trying not to make contact with the toys that are all put away because I am missing Daughter a whole aweful lot and won't see her until Monday afternoon.

I am on the couch in my parents' house. With no car which would provide transportation away from my parents' house, but the lack of vehicles is also indicitive of both parents being gone at the same time which is pretty sweet in its own right.

Boyfriend is back in the apartment that we three made into a home this summer. It is not looking very homelike now as all of our stuff was hauled up the highway and now resides in a storage unit up the street from my favorite coffee place. Boyfriend is spending the day at a high school cross country meet. Which I know is going to bring him immense joy. Just the act of being there. Or having a really good reason to attend at anyrate.

I feel like I am more or less in Limbo these days. Or high school (so, purgatory?). I am opporating under the assumption that this will pass. Daughter's Father and I hashed out a new working custody agreement which is friendly and equitable and workable so long as no one gets all possesive and egotisical. The apartment that is now nearly vacant has to be all the way vacant by Halloween, as the building was sold and the new owners decided they wanted to move into said apartment. Which means that Boyfriend will be joining us (oh god AT MY PARENTS' HOUSE) no later than November 1st.

Then we will get on with things. New jobs, new place to live, new town (for him). New life together. The three of us. I keep telling myself that we can make a go of it here. That moving here was the right thing for Daughter. That she needs to have constant access to both of her parents at all times. And I am convinced that those things are all true. None of those things, for one second make me any more excited about sitting on the couch in my parents' house under my junior high school comforter all alone on Saturday morning.

And Oh! Christ! Sarah Palin is the freaking republican nominee for Vice F*#king President. WTF is the world coming to?

From Cecile Richards...

2008-08-30T10:27:00.002-08:00

The following is the copy of an email that I recieved this morning from Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. I think she sums up, as best anyone who has respect for women and the choices they make, the case against Sarah Palin. It is one thing to put a person with her experiance in a position to answer that three am phone call. It is something else entirely to give a person with her politics the platform and opportunity to take away our rights. I for one will be proudly and confidently voting for Barack Obama and Joe Biden on November 4th.
---
"Yesterday morning, on my way back from the high of the Democratic National Convention, I learned that Sen. John McCain chose Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential pick.

What might have been encouraging news for women was just the opposite — somehow McCain had managed to find a woman running mate even more conservative than he is on women's rights.

It was heartbreaking news, especially on the heels of such an inspiring week. Right now there is so much shameless rhetoric from the Republicans about breaking the glass ceiling, especially from McCain and his running mate. What good does it do to break a glass ceiling with a woman who wants government to control women's reproductive health? That isn't the world I want for my two daughters.

A day later, and I'm still having trouble expressing the depth of my anger about McCain's choice of a running mate. This shameless pandering to women — with a woman who doesn't trust other women to make their own decisions about childbearing — has really got me going.

My dear friends and supporters, the stakes in this election just got unbelievably higher. More than ever before, the November 4 election is the most important vote for women's rights of my generation. And our actions in the next eight weeks — yours, mine, the Planned Parenthood Action Fund's — have never been more critical. Believe me, I don't say that lightly. It's time to get to work — and hard.

If you can only do one thing, it should be to tell every woman you meet that McCain and Palin are the most anti-choice, anti-women pair imaginable. Don't stop at just telling your friends. You can bet that I'll be telling strangers in the checkout line at the grocery store, the women I see at the gym, parents at my kids' schools.

Women trust other women to tell them the straight truth — and the straight truth is that McCain and Palin would take us back to a time when women had absolutely no right to decide whether or not to have a child ... zero. It's been widely reported that Palin is against abortion even in the cases of rape and incest! ...

Times like these, it's hard not to hear my mother's voice in my head. I can tell you that my mother, the former governor of Texas and a remarkable feminist leader of her time, would have been downright outraged right now. What would have offended her most about McCain's decision to put Sarah Palin on the ticket is how utterly calculated, how awfully pandering it is to women. It is the worst kind of politics. Mom would have said, "Women voting for this ticket is just like chickens voting for Colonel Sanders."

We have the opportunity in Barack Obama and Joe Biden to elect a team that have always stood strong with us for women's health — end of story. I'm so excited coming back from Denver — but with this decision by John McCain, I recognize that everything for us is at stake.

Thank you, as always, for standing up with the Planned Parenthood Action Fund and the women Planned Parenthood health centers serve. We are quite a force, aren't we?

Cecile Richards, President
Planned Parenthood Action Fund

Red States, Blue States.

2008-08-28T20:11:00.002-08:00

The speech. It was good. It was not, red/blue remarkable, but it was a moment. A moment that I am proud to have shared with my child, her "O-Mama Flag" and a plate full of tacos. She sat through the whole thing. All 47 minutes (albeit with a Popsicle break). She cheered and said weird little out of the blue two year old things like....that's our Prezzzzzzzdent. He is RES-Pons-ABLE."

I, for on, did not miss the balloons.

Best. Election Day. Ever.

2008-08-26T14:36:00.004-08:00

I am having a very lovely Election Day. Election Days are not, typically, good times for me. They are generally UBER busy and ultimately supremely disappointing. I have had numerous soul crushing Election Nights (followed by post-election day jack daniels hangover...even better!) and I think they have soured me on the process.

Today, so far, has been quite different.

Yes, I was up at six and on a street corner by seven am in the freaking rain to orchestrate sign waving at morning commuters. Yes, I loath yard signs and yes, it was raining, but the group of people I was with were great (best representative EVER) and we cut out after only an hour and 20 minutes.

Then, instead of heading to a campaign office to freak out and watch news and call voters and drive people hither an yarn and run for food and coffee and coffee (and that starbuck's irish cream stuff) I took the day to be with my kid. I came home at 8:30, made breakfast, we went to get her haircut at 10. We made a run to Fred Meyer's.

We decided to be "Very grown UP." and go for sushi lunch. We sat at the Sushi Bar and she commented on the curtains and the lanterns and the different types of fish in the display. She asked the Sushi Chef (who's name is Gary) about the Sushi Boats and Sushi Bridges and pointed out that the bridges were smaller than the boats and was curious as to how the boats could sail under bridges that were smaller than they were....damn, but she pays attention to things.

She proceeded to eat an entire serving of rice with soy sauce four grains at a time with her chop sticks and a bowl of miso soup with all the seaweed. She drank water out of her tea cup. We 'cheers-ed' our classes frequently. She ate two cookies on the way out. Her fortunes were sweet.

So sweet, in fact, that after voting for my favorite congressional candidate of all time, re-electing my really lovely representative, voting for that other guy I like a lot, and some ballot initiatives (one of which I did some work to get on the ballot last year) we went for ice cream. Strawberry. Really good strawberry.

We are back out to wave signs (together, for the first time) in another hour. Daughter has a whole song and dance routine to go with her sign waving. A good time should be had by all.

Then there is a celebratory party this evening. And I know the person who is hosting the party is going to win. Which is awesome to know before hand. And my guy is going to win. And that is awesome too.

Granted, this is just the primary. But, come November I get to vote for Barack Obama too and my love for all that is Obama was only reaffirmed last night listening to Michelle Obama's Convention speech. Oh. Blast if this week isn't reaffirming my interest in politics. Seriously. Blast.

Listmaking? Check. Productivity? Not so much.

2008-08-25T13:19:00.004-08:00

I am dumbfounded to realize that August is almost over, my credit card bill is due, and I will be moving (AGAIN) in a week and a half.

Today I have to do laundry and write the packing list and I really should start to actually put things in actual boxes and Rubbermaid tubs.

Instead, Daughter and I are eating lunch (grilled cheese sandwich for her, tomato soup for both of us) on a picnic blanket on the floor and watching Finding Nemo. She is running in place on the BoSu and doing her signature flying leaps into the bean bag chair. We both have a mild case of the sniffles and I am due to wave yard signs for my favorite congressional candidate bright and early in the sheeting rain tomorrow.

I am excelling in chewing my nails down to nubs and drinking coffee until I have the jitters. Also, blog reading, online job searching, and conducting scary conversations in my head...playing both roles, natch.

There is not enough room on my C Drive to download the new episode of Mad Men. I do not know how to remedy this exactly. Something wants to clean something, but I'm pretty confident that I would loose stuff I want to keep. I seem to be just that sort of useless. I might have to risk it though...I really want to watch the Mad Men.

Ok. Packing list. . . focus. . . here I come.

Good taste starts early

2008-08-15T14:04:00.004-08:00

There are two (non-disney) people that Daughter can identify when they flash onto the tv screen.

"Daughter, who is that?"

Answer: "Barack O-Mahma!"

And while watching the Olympics every night this week she picked up on this one...

"Hey Guys, there's My Phelps! He's at the Gulyimpics! He swims in The Wah-ter CUUUBE."

6am! Oh, how you mock me. . .

2008-08-10T09:51:00.004-08:00

We were up early in our house after a late night, go figure. 6 am should not exist on Sundays. New rule. Agreed?

Daughter and I had a fantastic dinner date with our friends F&L and their baby, The Godfather. We ate some awesome, awesome food and watched some Olympics. I could insert my rant about beach volleyball and their quote-un-quote uniforms (cough, cough...brought to you by Victoria's Secret...ahem), but I'm going to let it go. I guess. I get a little to emotionally involved with the swimming for my taste, but its only once every four years. No big thing.

Boyfriend didn't make it to dinner. He came down with something yesterday afternoon. Something nasty. He is still down for the count. Damn tourists and their noroviruses. Yuck.

No big plans for the rest of our weekend. I think we will make and appearance at the pool in a couple of hours. If boyfriend is up for it, I want to go for a run in an hour or so pre-swim.

-----

Daughter is very into her dresses now. She calls them her BEAUTY Dresses (ala Beauty and the Beast). We are spending a lot of time in twirly dresses this week.

I broke down and bought her a baby stroller. Which she L-O-V-E-S with the fire of a thousand suns. It goes everywhere she goes. We walk with it downtown. She takes it to the bathroom. She spins it round and round the apartment. She fills it with her bear or her baby or her stuffed kittens and goes for "adventures". She takes them 'running'. It is a very versatile stroller. Can't figure why that one that cost five bucks is so much more functional than the four frazillion dollars that I have spent on child transport devices that are not nearly so awesome. C'est la vie.

I have this post brewing in my mind about how I'm souring on how my feminism has affected my open mindedness when it comes to raising a girl. Haven't quite worked it all out just yet though.

Damn, we have just had a good summer. Despite the craptastic weather.

We are having very long and drawn out conversations now. Lots of questions. Lots of 'I want Maaaaaaamy!" Which is just about the greatest thing I've ever heard in my life. It seems like I waited an awfully long time to hear it.

-----

Also, I hate my hair. I have an emergency appointment Tuesday evening to deal with it, but I don't know what I want him to do. Just over it. All the swimming/coloring/growing out has rendered my super think/super fine hair a ratty, snarly, mess that I never do anything with other than pull up in a ponytail or bun or something. Its gross. It looks pretty good if I fill it with product and straighten it out, but that is an hour long process at this point and has happened a grand total of once in the past month and a half. I'm pretty useless when it comes to my hair. I loose upkeep motivation far too quickly.

'Nuf Said

2008-08-07T11:59:00.001-08:00

by Sarah McLachlan

Hold on
Hold on to yourself
for this is gonna hurt like hell.

Hold on
Hold on to yourself.
You know that only time can tell

what is it in me that refuses to believe
this isn't easier than the real thing.

My love
you know that you're my best friend.
You know that I'd do anything for you
and my love
let nothing come between us
my love for you is strong and true.

Am I in heaven here or
am I...
At the crossroads I am standing.

So now you're sleeping peaceful
I lie awake and pray
that you'll be strong tomorrow
and will see another day
and we will praise it
and love the light that brings a smile
across your face.

Oh god
if you're out there won't you hear me.
I know we're never talked before

and oh god
the man I love is leaving
won't you take him when he comes to your door.

Am I in heaven here or
am I in hell
at the crossroads I am standing.

So now you're sleeping peaceful
I lie awake and pray
that you'll be strong tomorrow
and we will see another day
and we will praise it
and love the light that brings a smile
across your face

Hold on
hold on to yourself
for this is gonna hurt like hell.

Lists, Lists, Lists. Weekend Edition

2008-08-01T11:20:00.002-08:00

This weekend I want to:
1. Sleep all the way through one whole night.
2. Make tortillas with Daughter (and the new tortilla press).
3. Go for a bike ride, now that my bike is out of the box and reassembled.
4. Make plans for a camping trip.
5. Paint my fingers and toes with the new polish I bought yesterday.

Have a good weekend...

Annivorcery

2008-07-31T14:41:00.003-08:00

Yesterday was the first anniversary of my divorce.

Tomorrow is the second anniversary of my separation.

Good times!

I didn't get any sleep last night. Not unlike the night before my appearance in divorce court last year. Or the night(s) prior to my moving out of my ex-husband's house two years ago.

There is a post that has been on my mind a lot in the past couple of days. Snickollet wrote a really touching piece about babies and memory and all of the things she wants for her children to remember about their father who died of cancer when they were babies. Her hope is that they keep tangible memories of the time that they had with him, of their infancy, of the time when their family what nuclear and whole. It was very poignant and haunting for me.

I wish just about the polar opposite for my own child. I'm thankful that she has no memories (real or otherwise) of her family the way we intended it to be. Of her mother and father as a couple who lived together and were married. Of a time when her 'Daddy House' was shared by the three of us. When we bought a new car to replace the one that she now refers to as 'Ours'. The days we spent as brand new parents in the hospital. The slow, scary, drive home in the bitter cold going all of 8 miles an hour with an actual PERSON in the car seat. Of the weekends with family visiting. The endless laundry and cloth diapers. The stories we read to her in bed together before she was even a month old.

I'm glad she did not keep those memories because of all the ugly ones she would have brought along with them. Of a fight so loud it woke the baby. Of my being locked out of my own home by my own husband. Of all the alienation. The separation. The sadness. The head games and power plays. Of all the time it took to battle our way back to a place where we can act casually with one another.

Friendly.

Cordial.

Cooperative.

As I write this I am in the midst of a great internal turmoil. I am wanting very much to talk to Daughter's father about amending our custody agreement so that she has more evenly divided time between the two of us.

This would put a lot of balls back in the air. Even broaching the subject is full of uncertainties and I am terrified of testing the waters of our hard won 'friendship'. I am terrified of creating ugly memories for my child that she would carry with her into her adult life. I want what I have always wanted for my baby, a peaceful life. A happy family, whatever that may look like.

I do not want her's to be a life of conflict or sadness or confusion.

I do not want her to be the subject of lawyers and trials and all those terrible things.

She asked me today if I could come live at her 'Daddy House'. She suggested that we get bunk beds and share her room.

I think I actually felt my heart break when I had to tell her that no, that would not be possible and could not promise her anything positive in return.

Happy Annivorcery to me. The first of many to come.

Experiments in Pedestrianism

2008-07-30T09:20:00.003-08:00

A friend of mine is borrowing the car seat for the next ten days for some friends who are visiting from Australia.

This means that Daughter and I won't be using the car for the next ten days.

We live right downtown. There are grocery stores and parks, the pool, and friends all within walking distance. We have a bike and a bike trailer.

Honestly, we don't use the car all that often. We don't have much need.

Here is the thing. The weather here has sucked ALL summer. It is raining like crazy day after day after day after day. We drive more than we maybe NEED to because of the weather. We make outings to Fred Meyer's because it something that we can do to kill an hour on a rainy afternoon.

So here we are. The great ten day Experiment in Pedestrianism. Without regard for the weather.

Yesterday, because it wasn't raining, we walked all the way to the other end of town to buy a teeshirt for Daughter's cousin. She did most of the walking herself, but was tired out by the time we hit the uphill home and needed to be carried about the last quarter-mile home. Not bad, really. She was a trooper. Who claimed that she was "just almost ready for bed now" by the time we walked in the door to make dinner.

Maybe lots more sleep will be the pay off of all this. Sweeeeeeeet.

I think at the end of it we should celebrate with a trip somewhere. . .

Maaaaaaaad for Mad Men

2008-07-29T17:56:00.002-08:00

I will grant you that I am late to this party, but oooooh, Mad Men.

Does anyone else sorrowfully remember when Don Draper was that hot firefighter on Providence?

C'mon. I'm not the ONLY one who watched that piece o' crap all those years ago.

Anyway. I'm adoring Mad Men. We did the first two episodes last night.

I heart Elizabeth Moss. Can we start a fan club?

Inspirational Payoff

2008-07-28T09:24:00.005-08:00

So, last night I made dinner.

This in and of itself is not even remotely out of the ordinary. I make the dinner. I love to cook. Its my fun thing. My creative thing.

Its just that lately, dinner has been pretty uninspired. I'm cooking and cleaning keeping the clutter at bay all day, everyday. By the time dinner gets around it feels like another round on the same old cycle after a day of swimming and block playing and stories and turning off the lights and vacuuming the dirt that spilled out of the ficus plant...again.

Daughter is getting hungry and tired. Boyfriend is home from work and hungry and ready to chill out for a bit. Cooking a big, elaborate meal (or even a non-elaborate, but slightly out of the box creation) is just too much effort.

Dinner has become the chore in between all the daytime activities and the nighttime bath, books, bed routine.

We eat healthy, hearty (gluten-free) food. We eat a lot of vegetables and organic food. The weather has not been terribly conducive to summer cooking, so even the barbecuing has been cut down to a minimum. Of course, we are also eating with a two year old, a two year old who eats just about ANYTHING you put in front of her, but will eat more if you cater to her tastes.

We have eaten out about three times in the past two months and always when we have guests in town. Hell, we've had SUSHI twice in the past two months! Sushi is a staple of our busy lives diet when Daughter is with her dad.

We are just eating a lot of the same. A lot of roast or grilled chicken. A lot of pasta. A lot of potatoes. Honestly, a fair amount of my grandmother's macaroni and cheese because we all love it and the weather has been so awful and perpetually calling for comfort food.

Neither Daughter nor Boyfriend are very good at having opinions about what they would like for dinner. Questions about preferences are generally met with either complete disregard/requests that are never going to be granted...."BROWNIES! ICE CREAM! " (Daughter) or "Whatever would be great" (Boyfriend). Haha! Tacos it is!

I'm just in a rut.

So yesterday, after some cleaning and sorting through of the overflowing magazine basket, the unearthing of the Food & Wine Magazines that I have been saving for months paid off in the first original culinary thought that I have had in months:

Thai Seafood and Noodle Salad!

We even made a late afternoon run to Fred Meyer's to pick up supplies.

Daughter had a grilled cheese before Boyfriend and I sat down to eat.

I altered the recipe only a bit and served it warm. We paired it with Barefoot Pinot Grigio because that be what we had in the fridge. Also, I forgot the peanuts which will definitely be making an appearance on the leftovers.

It was delicious. I had forgotten how much I like Thai food. I had forgotten how much fun it was to have something totally new.

Yum.....

It was so much fun that I let Daughter skip her nighttime bath and finish the video she was watching.

Then this morning they turned off the water to our building again. Sigh.

Things I Never Thought I'd Want to Hear

2008-07-25T19:03:00.003-08:00

Daughter(from bathroom...yeah, you see where this is going): "Mommy!"

Moi: "Yes, baby?"

Daughter: "Come look at my POOOOOPS! They are in the potty! (In a sing-song voice) I put poops in the potty! I put poops in the potty!"

Moi: "Rock on Babaloo! Bump."

Daughter: "Bump, mama."

Then there was some silly white girl fist-to-fist action and a dance fest in the living room to some Paul Simon.

We love ourselves some Paul Simon. That is how we roll here.

IN OTHER NEWS:

Daughter swam (voluntarily) solo today at the pool today. Granted, it was mostly in an effort to avoid having to leave the pool and take a shower, but there is that and it was FABULOUS.

Bitch, Bitch, Bitch, Moan, Rant!: A list in three parts.

2008-07-23T09:23:00.008-08:00

Stuff that is making me smile:
1. Daughter's ever growing vocabulary in all its hilarious glory.
2. The fact that Daughter slept through the whole night in her own bed.
3. Daughter's insistence on being referred to as "Baby Bunny", calling me "Mommy Bunny" and having a grand ol' time creating "Bunny Houses" for herself under blankets and comforters and the bean bag chair.
4. The progress that is being made on a project that I am working on with really smart, motivated people.
5. Running is going pretty well and I am definitely getting stronger.
6. FINALLY got Daughter's haircut (8 INCHES!) and it looks adorable.
7. Daughter is making progress with the potty training.*
8. All of my houseplants are still alive! They even appear to be, dare I say it (?!?!) growing.

Stuff that is troubling me:
1. I am really having trouble sleeping through the night.**
2. I'm sort of at a stand still in my life and I do not yet know which direction to take.***
3. I am totally and completely out of money.
4. Boyfriend's siblings seem to think of me as a young little strumpet or something equally troublesome and unflattering.
5. I think I complain to much.
6. I am pretty sure I am turning Daughter into a tv crack addict this week since we have been totally stuck inside our apartment.****
7. I don't have any alone time except for running. I am ON all the time. I don't think I am very good at this.
8. I am a crappy housewife. . .albeit an un-married one. Housework is way to stressful for me.
9. Bestfriend seems to be AWOL. Again.

Stuff that is pissing me the eff off:
1. The FUCKING WEATHER.*****
2. The case of swimmer's ear that I can't kick is perpetually annoying.
3. Boyfriend and I are having one or two issues with communication which is causing tensions to run a little hot around here.
4. The knowledge that Daughter is going back to her father's house in September.
5. The Berenstain Bears openly love Jesus now. WHA?******
6. Numbers 3 and 4 from the Troubling list.
7. The Landlady has decided to turn the house where we live into a perpetual construction zone. Which has more or less eliminated Daughter's ability to nap.
7. Seriously, Internet, I can't sleep for shit and it is making me cranky and nuts.

Clarifications:
*Which is to say, she hasn't pee-ed on the couch all week.
**I can get to sleep, I just can't stay that way much past 3am.
***Which is to say that I don't even know what I WANT my options to be. Hmm, I wonder if this could be at all tied to the previous complaint.
****At least she is limited to Caillou, Berenstain Bears, and the Magic School Bus. That is something, right? RIGHT?!?!
*****One day of sunshine this month! We can not even See The Sky.
******Seriously, what in the holy is this shit?

If you made it this far, you deserve a reward. Here you go:

Daughter, experimenting with her new hair accessories.

Update: Recessitate...You thought it was going to be something great didn't you? Like Hey! Check out my New Car!

2008-07-21T08:38:00.002-08:00

No such luck.

I told the mechanic to replace the clutch. I am now the reluctant owner of a Rhino Clutch and the same old car that I have had for a loooooooooooong time now.

Internet, hold me to this one...that is the LAST time I do more than change the oil on that old nag.

IN OTHER NEWS:
Spent the weekend kicking around town with Daughter, Boyfriend, and Daughter's Father (otherwise known as EX-Husband) who came for a visit. He stayed at a hotel and borrowed the newly reconstructed car. I drove the new clutch (all $1036.47 of it) for about seven blocks before turning it over to him for the weekend. Yes, apparently, this really is my life.

Daughter and I dropped him at the airport about five pm yesterday. It was a lot less dramatic than I anticipated. No tears, no drama, no wailing chorus's of 'I WANT DAAAAAAAADY'. We must be making progress. The four of us had breakfast Saturday and Sunday and all went swimming yesterday at noon. They did their own thing the rest of the time, which sounds, thanks to the weather, like it mostly included hanging out in the hotel. Daughter slept at home. They went to the beach and made an appearance at her favorite toy shop yesterday afternoon. I think it was good for both of them to spend the weekend together. All the adults were on their very best (and most emotionally generous) manner. It was a little hyper-friendly, which is a vast improvement over last winter... to say nothing of THAT SUMMER WE SPLIT UP AND THE YEAR BEFORE THE DIVORCE WAS FINAL.

Boyfriend was the least interested in having Daughter's Father around. Understandable, if not somewhat annoying. Of course it is stressful for the adults to be around one another, but shouldn't the goal of the weekend be to minimize the stress on the little one, rather than bask in the stress for everyone else? Um, yeah. So there was that.

It was still nice to hang out with Boyfriend solo for an afternoon or two. We even went to a movie. In the theater. A dark, violent, movie with no robots. It was pretty great. Heath Ledger was pretty creepy.

All told, I am pretty glad that it is Monday. That is a strange place to find one's self, isn't it?

Would you pull the plug?

2008-07-17T13:47:00.002-08:00

My car is in a coma.

The clutch went out.

In the middle of a major intersection. On the way to Fred Meyer's. Because we were out of toilet paper. And I need to get razor blades to shave my legs.

My kid was in the car.

The clutch joins the battery. The speedometer. The fan belt. The fuel pump. Two sets of tires. The original clutch. The engine. The windshield wiper motor and a 75 cent bolt that cost 100 bucks in CHECK ENGINE LIGHT diagnostics.

Fuck this fucking day.

That car has some fucked up karma.

Even if it is a Subaru.

My boyfriend and I bought it six years ago from his parents. It was three years old then and had 70,000 miles on it. They were the original owners.

Its got about 150,000 miles now.

That boyfriend is now my ex-husband.

We moved to California (and back) in that car. We drove our baby home from the hospital in that car when it was 28 below zero.

We replaced it with a new car which he kept in the divorce. I bought a new engine for the old car because I was in self flagellation mode. Also, I had the cash for a new engine and I didn't want to take out any debt.

The car is the only real THING that I still have from the marriage.

I really want to get rid of it.

It is in a coma at the mechanic's.

I could pull the plug and get rid of it and get about a grand for the shell.

Or I could resuscitate it for a thousand bucks and not have to buy a new car with all those piles of money that I don't have.

ARGH.

#51 With a Bullet

2008-07-14T09:13:00.002-08:00

There has been a bear roaming my neighborhood for the past week or so. Its a black bear. This is black bear country. I had heard tell of the bear being in our backyard and stealing our neighbor's trash, but hadn't had the 'pleasure' of seeing the thing for myself

I got my chance last night.

Strange noises began about 3:45 this morning. It was more or less light out by then. Sure enough, crouching behind a tree next to the picnic table was a black bear eating the shit out of a bag of trash. Boyfriend and I hung out on the back porch and watched the bear for ten minutes or so. He ate some trash, cleaned himself off, drank some water out of bucket that had collected rain on the downstairs neighbor's porch. Stared at us from the bottom of the steps, then he moseyed off down the path that leads out to the street

Like he owned the joint.

Garbage day should be interesting tomorrow.

Starfish

2008-07-09T16:30:00.002-08:00

I had an ass dragger of a run today. No good explanation for this. Boyfriend came home at lunch and assumed childcare duties while I hit the trail. This was very kind of him. Generally, on my solo run days, I go out after he gets home from work. This evening I have to call into a meeting from 6 until who knows when. I am somewhat spoiled and overly accommodated. I know this. On my better days I am eternally grateful.

Today was the first day of the 35 minute runs. Two days on, one day rest. I made it the full time, but felt like hammered hell until about the 20 minute mark. Still, I didn't walk at all and I had to over shoot the house and run through the cemetery to make the time. That is rewarding.

I am fairly sure that the ass-drag factor has a lot to do with the general lack of sleep I have been getting of late. Well, not 'of late' exactly. More like in general since I got pregnant.

There was this very blissful period when Boyfriend and I first got together when I was sleeping better then I had slept in as long as I can remember.

Yeah, that was nice.

The problem right now seems to be focused on the sleeping arrangements in our house. Darling, lovable, adorable daughter has been deciding to pop on into bed with me on a more or less nightly basis since she got set up here at the "Mommy House" last month.

I have very mixed feelings about Co-Sleeping and Bed sharing and the whole phenomenon of the Family Bed in general and it is just damn complicated now. I know this is a pretty hot topic in the general world of parent chatter, especially of the anonymous (or semi anonymous) Internet variety. Mom-101 is dealing with it. So is Snickolett and Jenn over at Breed-Em-And-Weep. It was a frequent topic at DoctorMama for a while there too. There are books and articles and thesis's all over the place. There are pros and cons and all that jazz.

When Daughter was born I was all for Co-Sleeping (as opposed to bed sharing, which just sort of freaks me out, I am, as I have already mentioned a "nervous" sleeper...in the way that people are "nervous flyers"...except Valium isn't really a legitimate option when you are responsible for a little person. Its all just a little bit too fifties.). To digress, we had a Co-Sleeper and I was nursing full time. Daughter has always been pretty fussy when going down but a champion sleeper once her lights are out. She was one of those babies who was pretty much making it through the night when she was well under six months old. I blame the cloth diapers for that. I think if I had backed off and wrapped her up in a Huggie for the overnights that she would have been sleeping through the night before she hit four months. I think that C0-Sleeping is fine if it works for you.

If I had it to do over again, I wouldn't bother with the fancy pantsy Co-Sleeper though. I would just stick to the Pack-N-Play and I think I would put the baby to bed in their crib in their own room and move them in to 'bed' to nurse and finish off the night.

Bed sharing is a different thing. I was never comfortable having the baby physically in bed with me. It freaked me out. There were plenty of times when we both feel asleep while she was nursing and that is ok, just makes me anxious. There were times when we fell asleep while she was nursing and I woke up with the baby totally under the covers. Such a wiggle worm.

Plus, well, I have this particularly adorable child and she is absolutely mesmerizing whilst sleeping. And I mostly just lay there in awe and amazement getting stoned by her beauty and wonder all night long and never do get to sleep. This has been a problem since her first night out of the womb. Bother.

So, now, the whole thing is EVEN MORE COMPLICATED ...yawn... by the divorce and the new family arrangements. The best book on divorced parenting that I have read is very anti-sleeping with child post divorce. For a lot of really legitimate reasons. Like parents who are going through a separation are pretty emotionally fragile and cry just ever so often. Which could be traumatizing for a wee one. Also there are cling-y factors. And jealousy that could bubble up in kids who USED to share a bed with a single parent and who loose that place when a new partner comes on the scene. Also, they are highly critical of non-biological partners sharing a bed with children. All of this gives me great pause and nerves and ooodles and oodles of concerns.

Except. Here is the thing. Daughter toddles in to the bedroom every other night or so at some point between 2:30 and 7 in the morning. She crawls into bed and is sound asleep again before anyone really gets a word in edgewise. She sleeps great and usually until about 9 in the morning which makes mama happy. As I am almost never sleeping at any point in this I get to witness her comfort with both me and Boyfriend. She will, pretty frequently be found sleeping with her head on his shoulder, the two of them snoring away.

This is the first time she has been expected to sleep in a Big Girl Bed. The 2-5 ages are the peak of the wanting to sleep with mom/dad/whomever fills that role. It would be decidedly easier if the 2-5s weren't the ages of sleeping like a starfish, splayed out to the maximum extent your little body will allow. This phenomenon doesn't do much to help with the desire to allow her to continue crashing in my bed much either, but I worry that walking her back to her bed and going through the whole routine again will disable her sleep mechanism.

I am in need of some guidance on this one. Or some support. Or something.

Also, I am afraid, a bigger bed.

Upping the Ante

2008-07-08T15:57:00.002-08:00

So...Running. Running is going pretty well. I am into the routine. I am logging in the time. It is, surprisingly rare that I miss a run.

There are stinky running clothes hanging off the back of the bathroom door.

I have a fancy running hat with a little pocket for my house key and a new watch.

I am all geared out again and getting opinionated about what I wear, eat, listen too, etc.

I am still not very pleased with the earphone situation, but I am enjoying my play list.

The new running bra rocks as well as anything possibly could, I give it a lot of credit for pushing the running to the next level, I should have bought three.

The only cotton in my workout wardrobe is found in my socks and I have found socks that I A-D-O-R-E. I am so passionate about the socks that I am doing laundry regularly in large part to make sure I do not have to wear back up socks on a run.

The quote un quote 'summer' weather here is sucking a lot of ass these days. Cold and raining almost every day. One day last week the sun forced its way out and we hit 70. That, sadly, was not a running day, but Daughter and I were outside from 9:30 in the morning until it was time to cook dinner at five. I am mostly running in 'tights' as a result of it being cold, and rainy, and windy most days. I am getting into the tights. No chafing, which is nice and less cold on the get go. Of course, I'm running faster and longer now, so I am starting to get superstitious.

I am fairly brand loyal. A couple of years ago I bought my first pair of Brooks shoes and don't imagine ever going back again. I have Nike shorts and socks (best damn socks EVER). An Enell bra. I'm not actually sure what the brand of the hat is (I found it at some chick athletic store at University Village in Seattle), Ironman watch, Ipod Shuffle, Scrunci fat hairbands. I have a selection of Under Amour and New Balance and Random other singlets and some old smelly Patagonia gear that has been sentenced to athletic gear only. I haven't found a singlet that I am particularly fond of yet.

So, here is the real news. I have been running, in accordance with DoctorMama's instructions, every other day for thirty minutes. I am no longer walking any parts of the run, not even the ugly uphill bits. I am overshooting the thirty minute minimum most days, especially when I run on my own.

Yesterday was my first day of running on my new schedule: two days on, one day off. Tomorrow I will go out for thirty five minutes. My next step is to add time. By the end of the summer, I want to be going out three days on, one day off for forty minutes at a stretch. When I have gotten into the time routine, then I want to work on distance until I am hitting five miles in forty minutes. That is the plan. I will keep you posted.

La Rochelle

2008-07-02T16:25:00.003-08:00

My girl and I are blissing out in the sun today.
I woke up feeling very zen after a couple of 'bad mommy' days.
The sun is out. It is in the seventies. I continue to be somewhat ashamed by what a huge difference the weather has on my mood, demeanor, and general level of mental illness.
Daughter has spent most of the day in little more than a diaper. We were at the beach by ten this morning. We had our breakfast there before the tide came in and we got pushed back to the little beach park. We didn't stick around much longer as a bunch of bigger boys (maybe ten year olds?) descended with all their aggression and violence, running around calling each other pussies. The little shits.

---

I worry that I am going to make Daughter a bit anti-social. We went home after the beach and camped out on a quilt in the back yard reading books and eating snacks and our signature EmergenC Popsicles for the rest of the day. We read through about twenty of her books.
I'd rather hang out with her all by ourselves then share her with playmates. I'm selfish that way these days.

---

She has, in the past couple of days, started calling me 'Mom'.
As in "Look at me, MOM! I'm a baby bird!" "Look at me, MOM! I'm coloring just like you! We are coloring TOGETHER, MOM!"

I tell her that I am writing a story about our day; our lovely, sunny day.

She says she is drawing SCARY DRAGONS!

---

I think I could live just about anywhere that was 70 and sunny a majority of the time. So long as we were near the water.
I wish we could have gone swimming in the ocean today. I want her to fell the pull of the tide and the buoyancy of salt water.

---

It was just about three years ago to the day, when I was just barely pregnant and in La Rochelle, France with my then-husband.
I would lay out on the beach all day, basking in the sun. Topless. (Yes, SO scandalous. Once I started with the topless...oh BABY...there was no going back.)
We ate the best fruit, delicious baguettes, and oh, sweet jesus...those eclairs.
When the tide came in, I would go out into the water, swim out far. Far enough to make my husband nervous. He does not much enjoy water.
It was not a sparkling, turquoise ocean. It was brown and dense. It was the Atlantic. Very salty. An age old fishing village and shipping port. But the water was splendid. Warm on the surface, cool underneath. Bright beautiful sun.

The 'baby' and I swam a lot. I talked to it about the ocean. About how much it was already loved. ---

When they splayed me out naked on the operating table and shone the huge surgical light over me during the C-Section, I took myself back in my head to that beach, the ocean in La Rochelle.
I think it was the place that I was happiest in my life.
Someday, I want to take Daughter there too. Again, I suppose. So that we can swim in that ocean together.
I hope she has the confidence to run around as naked as she had been today.

---

An awful, awful lot has happened in the past three years.
It all just fell apart.
There have been a lot of days when the future has seemed like a really frightening place. So much instability. So large a margin of error.
Days like today, blissing out in the yard with books and sunshine and my most deliriously, darling Daughter...Days like today make me believe that we may get back to that beach someday, but in the meantime, well, in the meantime we are having a good time right here in the now.
We even built a castle in the yard today. Just like the one in La Rochelle.

Mardi Gras

2008-06-30T14:41:00.004-08:00

Daughter has the requisite two year old dress up box filled with stuff that has somehow accumulated in my life over the course of the past year or so. There are a couple of wallets that didn't work very well, a hippie purse with a cellphone pocket that I bought in the Haight last summer because it struck me as hilarious, a red cowgirl hat that we got at the party store before her birthday, some of her old baby things that she puts on her baby doll or stuffed animals. And there are some Mardi Gras beads. I got them last year. In the town where I was working, which is just about as far away from New Orleans as possible. They are of the cheep, bauble-ly, multi-colored variety. She finds them to be gloriously glamorous. She comes chasing me down with them at least once a day.

'Wear the beeeeads, Mommy! Put. Them. ON. Ahhhhhh. Yes," she says with her finger to her mouth like a fashion designer, "Now you are ready."

"Ready for what?" I ask, though the answer is always the same.

"Now you are ready to get M-A-R-R-I-E-D, Silly Mommy."

I'm not sure where this fascination with marriage and weddings and brides has come from. I know she has been to some weddings with her dad. Maybe he and his girlfriend are planning on getting married. I guess she knows that her grandparents are all married and her aunt is also. Our neighbors got married this weekend. She thought that was neat, but we did not attend the wedding.

I am not getting married.

Not by a long shot.

I adore Boyfriend. We are living together. Daughter and Boyfriend and I are a little family. Three Musketeers.

We had a lovely weekend. The sort of weekend I have been waiting and longing for for years now. We had our first official 'Movie Night' with fresh popped, highly buttered popcorn and Enchanted.

We slept in late Saturday, Boyfriend was here to make the coffee in the morning, we all went for a run after pancakes. The weather didn't suck. We had friends for dinner. Track Trials were on TV.

Sunday was busy. We played at the park, went swimming together, had a good albeit short nap, and then took Daughter to her first movie in the theater. We saw Wall.E. She did great. Hunkered down with a HUGE tub of popcorn. Cooing occasionally about her love of butter. She needed to get up and stretch her legs a bit in the middle, but danced to Peter Gabriel all the way out to the car. To top it all off, the weather was rocking yesterday and we barbecued burgers for a late dinner after watching Track and Swimming Trails while cooking.

I read some magazine articles this weekend too. Lots of Angelina Jolie talking about babies and relationships. In one, I think it was Vanity Fair, she said something to the effect that its easy to get married, what's hard is to be a family and raise children together. She said that she and Brad Pitt 'feel married'. I don't know what marriage 'feels' like I guess. I know what divorce feels like. I don't think I 'felt' married until we had separated. I don't need that anymore.

Right now I feel happy and whole. I feel loved. I feel like my child's mother. That is all I need.

Where have you been Little Read Hen?

2008-06-20T09:41:00.003-08:00

Dear Internet,

Oh, how I have missed you! What a negligent poster I have been. After two weeks of traveling, meetings big and small, LOTS of restaurant food, a professional baseball game and a solo flight with a two-year-old I am settled in back at home with a fully moved in Daughter and a carpet that is slightly worse for the wear already.

I had some sketchy Internet access for part of the trip and just lots going on in my head. There are several partially written posts awaiting editing and publishing so stay tuned for more in the coming days.

Until then, here is a story from yesterday afternoon.

Daughter is enjoying her Mommy House and adjusting to the change with relative ease. Her walls are full of butterflies and she instantly recognized the chair, curtains and comforter that she had chosen last winter and spring. She loves the desk full of paper and crayons where she sits to "do important works." Twice yesterday she decided that she would put herself to bed. After snuggly story time she pulled up the covers and said "I go sleep myself, Mom. You go do you stuff. You don't neeeeed a nap, Mom." Repeat performance at bedtime. Apparently, we are "an all growed up girl" now.

Which, thankfully didn't keep Daughter from crawling into bed with me, wordlessly, about three am and sleeping clear through until after eight.

New pictures coming soon too. Happy Friday.

Spesh Sesh

2008-06-02T20:58:00.002-08:00

So, I live in my state's capital city.

The legislature is convening a special session tomorrow morning.

I used to work for the legislature.

Here is a funny story about a really funny (looking) man.

I live downtown and this evening I was walking to my local market to pick up some dinner supplies. I live pretty far north. It stays light here just about all night long these days.

Soooo, I was walking back from the store and was in the middle of a totally vacant neighborhood intersection when I had to JUMP out of the way of a big, gold, suburban. Being driven by a big, old, mubly, grumbly, republican legislator.

Who is my parents' representative.

Who once told me and another former staffer a story about his penis.

Um. Yes. It WAS THAT GROSS.

It was one of those moments when the other staffer and I walked away and looked at each other and did a "um, weird. seriously? Did THAT. SHIT. JUST. HAPPEN?"

Anyway. He unknowningly tried to run me down tonight. Which could have happened anyway. I'm so. not. a Republican.

I am not looking forward to the Special Session. Just so many politicos. Oh the drama. The silly, pointless drama. Oh, holy gasline!

Yes, I just barfed in my mouth a little bit too.

Philosophy, Mystery, Anarchy, All is 'Lost'

2008-05-29T19:36:00.003-08:00

Busy. Three glorious hours of LOST this evening.

Tomorrow I will blurb a bit about this afternoon's run.

Here are the high/lows:
Went further, a little longer, and a wee bit faster. Walked only a little bit and all up hill in the middle.
Also, the weather continues to ROCK. Hard.
Wore the old socks instead of the new socks. Re-affirmed the absolute suckage that is the old socks. Have multiple ugly toes as a result of egg sucking socks.

Additional odd and somewhat embarrassing detail:
There was fresh bear scat (read: big pile of steaming black bear shit) in the middle of the trail at the beginning of my run where no people were around. So, in an effort to avoid startling a large creature (or two, or three) that would find my maggoty slow self a delightful snack, I sort of sang along to my iPod. In the hopes that this would alert said near by bears to my presence and they would leave me effing alone. The only creatures who seemed to be alerted were a trio of long haired high school aged mountain bikers who found me to be hilarious. In a sad old scared lady sort of way. That's hot.

Also, read this. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/29/arts/television/29lost.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Lost finale coming up SOON! Hee hee!

Confessional Wednesday: Gratuitious Meme Edition

2008-05-28T21:33:00.005-08:00

Unknowingly courtesy of the thoughtful and ever effervescent Adryan.
Too whom I owe my Ani Addiction.
Thank her.
1) Whats the best way to get over someone?
Oh. I am such a cliche on this one. Fake-o relationship = alcohol. Serious thing? Well, let me say this. Half as much time has passed now since "THE MARRIAGE" and everything is so much easier. Half the time of the relationship and boom! Over it! Over each other! Over myself! Its delightful. Espicially since we talk just about ever day and have a lifetime of a kid to raise.
2) What fragrance do you wear on a daily basis?
Ummm. Depends on the day. Chlorine. Soap. Avalon Organics lotion in Lavender or Lemon.
3) If you could eat one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be?
No idea. I miss really good sourdough bread. And Ivar's Chowder. And real noodles.
Sushi maybe. Or Steak. Crap. I'm no good at this one. I really like food.
4)Where would you like to be right now?
With my daughter.
5) Anyone on your mind?
My daughter.
6) Ever told someone you loved them and not mean it?
Yes, but I stopped when I realized that was the case.
7) Ever been told you were loved by someone who didn't mean it?
Yes, but he stopped when he realized the same thing.
8) Most important thing in a relationship?
Honestly, I'm not sure yet. Communication? Honesty? Trust? Loyalty? Something like that.
9) Have you ever cheated/been cheated on?
Someone I was dating in a non-biblical way impregnated someone else while we were together.
Twice.
Does that count?
10) Is cheating acceptable in a relationship?
Flirting yes. Nudity? Not so much.
11) Who was the last person to call you?
A mayor. No joke. He calls here all the time.
12) What did you last drink?
Nursing a glass of Barefoot Pinot Grigio.
13) Do you know what dog food tastes like?
No, but my daughter had a fondness for cat food that made me nervous for awhile.
14) Last time you cried?
Today. Driving to Costco. No particular reason.
15) Reason for the last time you cried?
Haven't quite worked that out yet.
16) Ever done something really stupid?
Um. Yes. Also, you could add several reallys to this and I would still have to agree.
17) What can't you go a day without doing?
Talking to my daughter.
18) Do you miss anyone?
My daughter.
19) Do you think someone is thinking about you right now?
One can only hope.
20) Life?
I think I'm living a bit of a do-over life. That is something to be thankful for at least.
21) MySpace?
Boring. A lot of effing drama.
22) Winter?
Fun for a couple of weeks.
23) Friends?
Quality, not quantity.
25)What was the last movie you watched?
I am Legend. Yes. Seriously.
26) Have you ever cried in public?
Does my car count as 'public?'
27) Do you believe in love at first sight?
Lust, yes. Love? Don't be ridiculous.
28) Are you keeping a secret from someone that needs to know the truth?
Not currently, no.
29) Are your parents divorced?
Yes. Though not from one another.
However, I am someone's divorced parent.
30) Eye color?
Hazel. Pretty cool, if I do say so myself.
31) Winter or summer?
Summer. Summer. Summer. My personality is becoming progressively more weather dependant. Argh.
32) Night or day?
Hmmmm. I think 3-7pm is my time to shine.
33) Biggest mistake you have made recently?
I yell far too easily.
34) Are you currently wanting any piercings or tattoos?
I think I am pierced out. I WANT a tattoo, but couldn't tell you what or where.
35) Last time you were confident?
The last 90 seconds of my run yesterday.
36) Do you believe in kissing on the first date?
Sure.
37) Do you want to get married?
Been there, liked it fine up until the ugly. No, probably not up for a repeat performance.
38) Describe your life in one word?
Limbo.
39) Have you ever felt replaced?
My kid has a stay at home mom. It isn't me. Yeah, I understand that feeling.
40) Are you only friends with the rich?
No.
41) Who did you last shoot a dirty look at?
Boyfriend. Sorry.
42) Last person who you phoned, and what do you think about him/her?
Boyfriend. I adore him. Even when neither of us are quite sure why.
43) Has the opposite sex been in your room before?
I share a bed (and teeny, tiny closet) with a member of the opposite sex.
44) What do you do when you have a bad day?
Give in, gratuitously. Or loose my temper. I'm basically a toddler on a really, really bad day.
45) Do you believe ex's can really ever be "just friends"?
Define "ex". I believe you can be friends with an ex, sure, even friends with an ex-spouse, but you are never going to be "Just Friends!" Its not that simple. Sadly.
46) If you could pack up and leave your life now to move away, would you?
I've gotten pretty good at moving and I need more sunshine in my life.

Update

2008-05-28T09:55:00.002-08:00

Stiff this morning.

Probably need new shoes.

Plan to go out every other day. That seems manageable.

Still thinking about how much I enjoyed running solo outside.

Re-Running

2008-05-27T18:55:00.004-08:00

Ok. Today I went running.

I was gone forty five minutes. I think I went about three miles on the trail behind my house. We walk it a lot. It takes under an hour to walk. Yes, that's right...I went s-l-o-w-l-y. I walked a little bit too. The uphill part that was just about midway. I didn't start to feel any good until I was well into the return, I loosened up a bit, let myself speed things up and stretch out my stride, the stitch I had been battling abated. Interesting.

I haven't been running with any commitment or regularity in about a year.

I started running when I was 20 and dating the man who is now my ex-husband. He was a runner. His sister was a state champion runner. Running was sort of a foregone conclusion.

I actually had always wanted to be a runner. I am a swimmer. I swam competitively on and off from 8-20. I was on a Master's team the year before I got pregnant (and five a.m. practices became utterly ridiculous). I still swim on my own about once a week. My daughter and I hit the pool daily when she is with me. It is our thing. We "Go. To. The. POOL!" She is the cutest water creature ever with her over sized Speedo and the really big green goggles. Prancing around the kiddie pool. Singing Winnie the Pooh. Her favorite time to go is when the grandmas are doing water aerobics; shakin' it to nineties dance beats blasting in the giant tile room. 'We dance Mommy! We dance In. The. POOOOL!" She even submits to the shower pre and post swim as she has accepted that big girls get to go swimming and big girls who get to go swimming have to take showers.

Anyway. I like to swim. I'm In my element in the pool. Even for as much as I balked at it when I was 16. (To be fair, I threatened to quit about three times a year, every year from the ages of 1-16 when I did just quit, then went back, briefly a couple of times.)

So, I have a lot of mixed emotions about running. I am not in my element there. I like the gear, but don't much look like a hardcore runner. I'm tallish, 5'81/2" after the baby, and reasonably thin anymore, but I have yet to find a decent non-cotton sports bra that deals with the over movement on top. My right foot kicks out. I hunch my shoulders too much and run with my head mostly down. I usually wear a hat because I'm pretty photosensitive. Mostly, I think I am just self conscious.

I don't feel like a runner. I can't even projectile spit very effectively.

My self-consciousness leads pretty much to my utter lack of regularly scheduled motivation when it comes to picking up a running routine and sticking to it for any significant period of time.

We ran a lot the summer before I got pregnant. We ran a lot that whole year. Then I started working and my ex-husband was in grad school. I went back to the pool. He went to the gym with my sister. He still goes to the gym with my sister. Hmm.

I had a really low energy pregnancy. I spent my first trimester backpacking through Europe, when I got back to the states I mostly slept, went to class, swam some, rode a bike a bit, walked a lot. Remodeled a house, moved in, had a C-Section. Walked some more. Separated.

It was in the midst of my separation that I started running again. Pretty seriously. After my campaign job ended I got a gym membership. I ran late at night. Late. Usually between 8:30 and 11pm. I didn't want to be around people. Certainly not anyone that I knew. I was appropriately miserable you might say. I had moved out of the house that I shared with my husband and six month old baby. They had stayed. To say it was awful would not do that time justice. It was unspeakable. I mostly stayed home during the day. Read books about surviving. Gorged on bad fiction and The Gilmore Girls.

After the post-work happy endorphin people had left the gym, I would make my way there. With the sad or odd or crazy scheduled people. It gave me the opportunity to watch prime time cable. That was a draw.

I ran and ran and ran then. Not fast or very consistently. On this build in to running in thirty days regimen. I would run and run and run while listening to Joni Mitchell and Aimee Mann. Yeah. I know, right?

After all the running I would cool down on a bike in the Spinning Studio! while listening to Jeff Buckley sing 'Hallelujah' and then spend about an hour in the steam room. Shower, go home, curl up around some tofu scramble or a beer or a martini or just some Knob Creek and wait to be released into sleep again.

I would sleep late in those days. Ten, eleven o'clock in the morning. And then later, after everyone had gone home to their lives, to their families, then I would go run.

So. Here is where I am. Today I ran for 45 minutes after. I'm giving myself credit for three miles. I returned home and layed in the grass and had some water I pushed out 100 crunches.

Oh, thank you so much Dr. Mama...I feel very maggot like.

I ate the shit out of some barbecued chicken. Yes, man. De-lisssssh.

I want to be running five miles in forty minutes and doing 500 crunches in a day. We shall see what happens. I want to do this big run in Oregon in August.

I'm sure I'll write more about running soon. I'm glad I got out there. I want to keep going. I really enjoyed running alone. I was always afraid to do that before. I think this is some sort of personal growth. Or strength. Or confidence. That can't be all bad.

Confessions of a List Maker Part Deux

2008-05-26T20:27:00.002-08:00

Things I adore about summer:

1. B.
B.
Q.

4. Hot, yummy, sun. Ohhhhmmmm....Melanoma. Ohhhmmm.

5. The new hibachi grill.

6. The taste of charcoal in my food. Now, I love me some Hank Hill, but I don't mind the taste of some heat in my meat. Or corn. Or tomatoes. Or, well. Anything. Yum Yuuuuuuuuuuuuummmm.

7. The fact that as I write this, my skin is no longer translucent.

8. The green of the trees, the smell of cut grass, the pine cones and pollen and well...nature sex.

9. Gazing at my boyfriend, across a table over oysters and salmon tacos and a bottle of cheep restaurant pinot gris. In the sun. SUN. Tan inducing sun. SUNSHINE. On Lynn Canal. De-lish.

10. Above and beyond the rest of it...All of the summer glory that is day in and day out of being with Daughter.

Soft Scrub....with Bleach!

2008-05-20T11:48:00.004-08:00

Conversation with Self

Clockwatching Conscience Self
(the one that remembers that house guests are arriving in less than 12 hours):
Get off your ass already.
Yeah, you.
Stop reading blogs and go clean the bathtub.
Doooooooooo iiiittt.
Do. It. Now.

Lazy Self:Um, just…five…more…hang on…five minutes.

CCS: Ok. You’ve had ten. Now GET OFF YOUR ASS AND CLEAN THE BATHROOM!
That’s right Lazy; you have graduated to the entire bathroom. Congratulations.

LS: Argh.
This is going to require some Macy Gray played loud.

One hour later:

CCS: Well done. Bathroom, kitchen, all clean. That extra cup of coffee really helped.
Oh, and as an added bonus I didn’t tell you this sparking pearl so that you could discover it on your own…two years of diapers would make cleaning the seem far less disgusting.

LS: Sweet!
I’m SO going to blog this now so the others will know. Even if that means they will also know about the voices. D'oh!

End Scene.

Sincerely, Anonymous

2008-05-19T12:22:00.003-08:00

Dear Internet,

I choose not to share with you my daughter’s first name. Although it is a very, very good one if I do say so myself.

Privacy issues are a topic of constant debate in the mommyblogosphere. Honestly, it was one of those debates that I was having with myself for months that inhibited me from writing my own stuff instead of just reading about other people’s lives.

Here is the thing. I do not actually believe that putting her face and/or name online, on my blog of all things, is going to put my daughter at any real risk.

I am not a celebrity or an heiress. No one really gives a damn. She doesn't carry a Prada purse. My car is ten years old. Like I said, no one GIVES a damn.

Here, then, is my reservation and it is part of a much larger ongoing aspect of her life and mine as her parent.

Her dad and I are divorced. We have similar parenting philosophies and are currently writing out the details of a long overdue ‘parenting plan’ for the child that we share we don’t raise together. We share custody. When she is with him, she is with him. When she is with me, she is with me.

I think this is a unique thing for single parents who are writing about their kids or about being parents. I don’t have anyone to ok things with. And oh lord, I don’t want to rock the boat or upset anyone. I don’t want to appear to be exploiting my daughter or her father or their new family which includes his girlfriend, her son, and the baby they are expecting in the fall.

Eventually this topic winds its way around in my brain back to the much larger topic of Family. What constitutes my family? My daughter’s family? What loyalties to I owe and to whom exactly? My daughter is clearly first and foremost in my decisions, but there are so many other people’s lives and opinions that must be factored into this process. There is her dad and his family. There is my boyfriend who has children and an ex of his own. There are sisters and parents and employers and ARGH! Where is the guidebook already? Hmm?

Hell, my mother still hasn’t quit contesting some of the facts in a story she found that that I had written for a memoir class in college and that was Seven Years Ago. Darling internet, can you feel my fear?

At any rate, for the time being I choose to stick with anonymity. At the very least, I choose to do so on this very global level. Those of you who know who I am because I invited you here also know my kid and her dad and the rest of it. For those of you who do not, please bear with me, I’m not trying to be a prima donna; I’m just attempting to navigate uncharted territory.

Family is the topic at hand here this week. What do we look like? Where we are going. And how , though we may not all look like the Berenstain Bears or Leave it to Beaver; we all deserve the same acceptance.

Please Stay tuned.

Sincerely, Anonymous

To Do List

2008-05-15T08:16:00.002-08:00

12 Things for 2008
(no particular order)

1. See best friend live and in person.

2. Get daughter potty-trained.

3. Receive money for something I have written.

4. Read one poem each day for a month.

5. Keep houseplant alive.

6. Read Mrs. Dalloway.

7. Get fully moved in to new apartment.

8. Attend a concert for which tickets must be purchased.

9. Swim with daughter in the ocean.

10. Find yogurt maker. Make yogurt.

11. Throw killer baby shower for LC.

12. Take at least one photo of daughter everyday she is with me.

My Motherhood, Myself

2008-05-11T12:30:00.004-08:00

I am not an overly emotional kind of girl. I’ve managed to keep it together pretty well over the past three years in particular. Three years that have been filled with pregnancy and the joint arrival of a new baby and a disintegrating marriage. Capital letter events like: Estrangement, Separation, NEW relationships, Divorce, new Babies, Illness, Toddler-dom, finally the beginnings of something resembling Reconciliation, a life separate, but still eternally connected.

And here it is, Mother’s Day again. An impossible time of year to not reflect upon my own motherhood and the unexpected twists and turns that have led to where we are today, my two year old daughter and I, watching Caillou in my parent’s living room.

Three years ago, while on an impromptu getaway weekend to visit friends up north, I got myself pregnant over Mother’s Day weekend. I didn’t realize this shocking fact until weeks later while traveling in Europe. The exhaustion and mental fatigue that this realization tossed into the mix made for a bit of a trying trip and a fair amount of resentment over the need for thirty five pound backpacks, camping on the ground, and a lot of barfing on a lot of trains.

The pregnancy went reasonably smoothly, I think that every bump and twist of a first pregnancy seems more dramatic than it probably is in reality. We spent most of the summer traveling through Europe, taking in New York City, visiting family in my hometown, and finally driving up the AlCan Highway in my little sister’s little truck v e r y s l o w l y with a very large trailer filled with all her belongings in tow.

In the fall we started back to school. I finished my B.A. in Literature. My husband went back to teaching and finishing his graduate thesis. I took naps on my yoga mat under the desk in his study carol in the library using my messenger bag as a pillow.

We sold our condo, bought, radically renovated, and moved into a bigger house on New Year’s Eve. Three weeks later our daughter was born, one week early, 8.5 pounds and 20 ½ inches long. She had lots of golden brown hair, long fingers, and eyes as sparklingly blue as the heart of a glacier which was fitting as the temperature read -28 as we drove to the hospital the morning she was born.

It was a long, cold, sleepless winter and spring. I started working a bit a couple of months after the baby was born because the combination of the giant new mortgage and the graduate teaching stipend scared the tar out of me. In June I was presented with a big, job opportunity that would last only six months. The school year was over and my husband was home most days with the baby who always seemed happier around him than she did me.

We decided to separate by August 1^st. My job required longer hours than my husband thought were reasonable, there was tension and strife in our home and we didn’t want our baby raised in an environment that we both felt pretty helpless to control.

I moved out and into a small apartment owned by a generous friend. Tensions flared as they often do, but everything was amplified by the ‘unusual situation’, the fact that it was the mother who had moved, the father who stayed home. When winter rolled around again and my second job, the one that helped to pay the mortgage on that new house where my child lived, took me to the State Capital for four months of the spring.

We resolved the issues of our separation and formally filed for divorce just after the fourth anniversary of our marriage. I met someone and reluctantly entered into a new relationship. I was diagnosed with Celiac’s Disease which answered a lot of questions, but caused radical shifts in my diet and overall health and demeanor.

My daughter, mother and I traveled for two weeks in June to California. I lived with generous friends at home that summer. Tensions ran high through the time we were divorced, the day before the anniversary of our separation.

By the arrival of fall I was exhausted and emotionally spent. I had some money in the bank and was no and no longer paying any part of a mortgage. I quit my job and enrolled in graduate school. The man I had been involved with since the spring invited me to live with him to save on overhead while attending school and to advance our relationship. It was an enormous leap of faith on both our parts as we each had a failed marriage in our pasts and a lot of predictable fears.

In January I packed a carry-on suitcase and returned to my parents’ house for a five day trip to celebrate my daughter’s second birthday. Immediately preceding my return, my father had been hospitalized for a shoulder removal surgery, the final attempt to rid his body of a MRSA infection that had been ravaging his body for over five years. Release from the hospital, we discovered, would require round the clock in home care and i.v. injections administered every eight hours, 24/7 for several months. It was decided that I would stay, in my high school bedroom, in my parents’ house for an indeterminate amount of time to help with his care.

The winter and spring in my parents’ house was not easy. It was exhausting and full of stress and rapid change. There have been positives though. Staying home with my father has meant that I have been able to stay home, full-time with my daughter for the first time since she was an infant. We have eaten meals together everyday and gone to the pool, baked cookies and raked the yard, gone for coffee, and shopped at the bookstore. Taken long bubble baths and big girl showers, braided hair, read stories, taken naps, potty trained, and practiced riding bikes on the sidewalk as the snow melted.

Her dad and I have started talking again, reading books about co-parenting, and eating lunch from time to time to make plans for our daughter for the coming months as she transitions into the role of big sister to two brothers.

Yesterday, my daughter and both her parents went together to visit the playschool she will begin attending in the fall.

Last night, my mostly non-emotional self bawled through the sappiest movie I have seen in recent memory. I am, on a normal day, way to cynical to shed tears over your run of the mill chick flick, but P.S. I Love You floored me. I cried and cried for hours.

I cried because my marriage had died. I cried because my life and my motherhood and my family is so radically different from what I had planned. Because this spring of being a stay at home mom will only last through the fall and then reality will have to set in again. I cried because we’ve all made it through the roller coaster of the past three years and the ride has come to an end. Friendship has started to settle into a relationship that I feared for a long time was poisoned beyond repair with pain, anger, and resentment.

I cried because its is Mother’s Day weekend and for the first time since I became pregnant, I will get to enjoy it fully with my daughter, planting flowers in my parent’s yard. I cried and cried and felt better when I recovered than I had felt in ages.

And then, yesterday morning, when my daughter came bounding in through laundry room of my parents’ house while I was making coffee, I groggily looked up to see her father holding flowers and a card for me, her mother. To say that flowers from my daughter and her father were unexpected is a colossal understatement, but I didn’t burst into tears. I did wrap my arms around my daughter’s father, almost involuntarily. It has been years since we had shared a hug. Our physical contact has been consciously limited to the passing back and forth of a baby or squirmy toddler since she was born.

This weekend we have lazed about and planted flowers and dressed up in party dresses to go out to dinner with my parents. In a few weeks we will pack up and head back to my new home and for the summer and in the fall she will return back to her “Daddy House” and her growing family.

It doesn’t look like I thought it would, but my daughter is a happy, thriving, active, independent little creature. She has a large family of people who love her and who she loves right back. Motherhood isn’t what I expected it to be, but in so many ways it is so much more than I ever anticipated and we all keep on growing every single day.

Jokes and Coffee

2008-05-08T21:13:00.004-08:00

After a successful venture to REI for a new sleeping bag and thermarest pad so that we may be properly equipped for a summer of camping in Southeast Alaska, La Chica and I decided to take a coffee break before meeting a friend downtown for lunch. We waited in line, oohed and ahead over the treats in the pastry display, ordered my coffee and an extra short cup for her.

While we waited for my Americano, La Chica chose some seats at the counter that were agreeable and I prepared her 'la-la-latte!' (half soy milk, half ice water). She chatted up the people at the counter, asked questions about the jugs of chai tea, marveled at the ice machine, and the barista with the multi-colored dreadlocks.

After she had finished her drink, cleaned up her drips, and tossed her cup and napkins in the trash we were headed for the door when she starts her faux giggle, the two year old kind when they are forcing a laugh for comedic effect.

"I joke you, Mommy!" she declares.

"What's so funny?" I inquire.

More laughter, two steps forward, and a full body wiggle reveals that somehow, without removing her jacket or fiddling with anything in any noticeable way, the ever modest creature that is my two year old daughter has managed to unhook both of her Oshkosh overall straps and is now standing in the middle of the coffee bar with her pants around her ankles laughing hysterically along with every person who is seated in a twenty foot radius.

Upon being re-dressed, amidst her doubled over laughter and chorus of "I joke you, Mommy! I JOKE YOU!!!" La Chica made her way for the door, suddenly over the hilarity, to announce that it was, 'Bookstore time!'.

Never a dull moment when you share the days in your life with a toddler.

And now, just to make things more interesting, there are JOKES!

Knock, knock...

The Little Red Hen (a folk-tale)

2008-05-04T20:17:00.004-08:00

One summer day the Little Red Hen found a grain of wheat.

"A grain of wheat!" said the Little Red Hen to herself. "I will plant it.

She asked the duck: "Will you help me plant this grain of wheat?"

"Not I!" said the duck.

She asked the goose: "Will you help me plant this grain of wheat?"

"Not I!" said the goose.

She asked the cat: "Will you help me plant this grain of wheat?"

"Not I!" said the cat.

She asked the pig: "Will you help me plant this grain of wheat?"

"Not I!" said the pig.

"Then I will plant it myself," said the Little Red Hen. And she did.

Soon the wheat grew tall, and the Little Red Hen knew it was time to reap it.

"Who will help me reap the wheat?" she asked.

"Not I!" said the duck.

"Not I!" said the goose.

"Not I!" said the cat.

"Not I!" said the pig.

"Then I will reap it myself," said the Little Read Hen. And she did.

She reaped the wheat, and it was ready to be taken to the mill and made into flour.

"Who will help me carry the wheat to the mill?" she asked.

"Not I!" said the duck.

"Not I!" said the goose.

"Not I!" said the cat.

"Not I!" said the pig.

"Then I will carry it myself," said the Little Red Hen. And she did. She carried the wheat to the mill and the miller made it into flour.

When she got home, she asked, "Who will help me make the flour into dough?"

"Not I!" said the duck.

"Not I!" said the goose.

"Not I!" said the cat.

"Not I!" said the pig.

"Then I will make the dough myself," said the Little Red Hen. And she did.

Soon the bread was ready to go into the oven.

"Who will help me bake the bread?" said the Little Red Hen.

"Not I!" said the duck.

"Not I!" said the goose.

"Not I!" said the cat.

"Not I!" said the pig.

"Then I will bake it myself, said the Little Red Hen. And she did.

After the loaf had been taken from the oven, it was set on the windowsill to cool.

"And now," said the Little Red Hen, "who will help me eat the bread?"

"I will!" said the duck.

"I will! said the goose.

"I will! said the cat.

"I will! said the pig.

"No, I will eat it myself!" said the Little Red Hen.

And she did.

Little Read Hen

NEWS

Done. Just. Let. It. Be. Done.

A place to hang the dishes.

Well, hellllooo...

oh weekend

it is a steel magnolias sort of a day

Boyfriend is better than aveda.

live blogging from MOVIE NIGHT!

this post is in no way a defense of sarah palin

so, i finally broke down and went to the gym

Monsters and Pandas and KungFu...Oh My!

14 November 2008

Oh What the Hell?

814, god, when will it end?

BALTO! *UPDATE! EDITION

h&m baby...also, the glory that is white house/black market

oh seattle

ha! i totally didn't miss the deadline!

yum flying fish

flying out at 434 in the morning tomorrow

44.

on feeling jinxy

i am a little in love with keith olberman

enough with the winter already

NaBloPoWhoa!

file this under things that will break your heart and make you cry uncle

so, there is that.

and the winner....will be decided in a couple of weeks.

hi ho, hi ho

A little bit brutal, a little bit rock and roll

Ethnically Delicious

Toddler Hilariousnes, Campaign Edition 2008

Oh, Winter. . .

Look at what I just did...

Toddler Hilariousness, Vol. 1

Snow! Snow! And More SNOW!

on dressing from my past

the plague, the weekend, and snow

it is not often that i appreciate what sarah palin has to say

Zinc and vapors

59:59

Cough, Cough, Gag, Barf., Repeat . . . Otherwise known as Good Morning, Mom!

My Very Own Mcdream Come True...

Dum, dah, dum

Radio Interference

Alone. Alonealonealone.

From Cecile Richards...

Red States, Blue States.

Best. Election Day. Ever.

Listmaking? Check. Productivity? Not so much.

Good taste starts early

6am! Oh, how you mock me. . .

'Nuf Said

Lists, Lists, Lists. Weekend Edition

Annivorcery

Experiments in Pedestrianism

Maaaaaaaad for Mad Men

Inspirational Payoff

Things I Never Thought I'd Want to Hear

Bitch, Bitch, Bitch, Moan, Rant!: A list in three parts.

Update: Recessitate...You thought it was going to be something great didn't you? Like Hey! Check out my New Car!

Would you pull the plug?

#51 With a Bullet

Starfish

Upping the Ante

La Rochelle

Mardi Gras

Where have you been Little Read Hen?

Spesh Sesh

Philosophy, Mystery, Anarchy, All is 'Lost'

Confessional Wednesday: Gratuitious Meme Edition

*Update*

Re-Running

Confessions of a List Maker Part Deux

Soft Scrub....with Bleach!

Sincerely, Anonymous

To Do List

My Motherhood, Myself

Jokes and Coffee

Update