Moving Day!

As of today, I’m moving this blog to its permanent home at thursdaydrive.com

I hope you will all visit me in my new home!

Currents

The past has a way of rising up sometimes, like an old stone foundation somewhere in the woods that is revealed one spring after a few days of hard rain. One week, on a walk through the woods, it isn’t there. The next, it is.

Though, at times we expect the past to tip its hand. At family gatherings that have a history of tension. A funeral, with people at odds. We brace ourselves for it, and shoulder against it, ready to push back. But sometimes. Sometimes, without any warning, it’s right there in the path ahead of us, against our toes before we even see it, and we stumble.

Yesterday, I came up against just such a thing. Something from far, far back, all the way back to late childhood. Something I thought was particular to my family– a punishment– because it was so singular in nature. Or so I thought. Learning that it happened to someone else was so sad to me. Startling, and sad.

I can’t help thinking about how, at any time, a memory or an event can come up through us, unbidden. Just like that. It reminded me of something I wrote for my book a couple of weeks ago, and I’ll share it here. It’s just a paragraph or two, and it’s still rough, but here it is:

Maybe that is how it is after all, for all of us. Are we not just skimming across the surface of all that has gone before? All of our history beneath us, not behind us. How tempting it is to think of things the other way, on a timeline of the years, to put things behind where they cannot catch up to us. When the truth is, anything we have experienced lies beneath, where it can pull at us like the tides, yank us down with its undertow, or split the earth beneath us.

Or. If we are really lucky, something from our past–something good–will carry us along in its current and deliver us, maybe just once, safely to shore.

I’m hoping that the good currents, the ones that come to us with the force of something  happy and sweet, will be the strongest in the end. I have hope.

Bugs, bats and other animals

If anyone noticed that I haven’t posted in a couple of days, it’s because we were hit with a ferocious stomach bug on Thursday night that kept the Girl and I up all night Thursday, and then hit the Boy yesterday. I was too weak even to blog. Startling, I know.

Our time in the sickbed has not been without its highlights, though.

1. I lost 6 pounds. (I don’t really need to go on. What could be better?)

2. In the very wee hours of Friday morning, around 3:30, after being up all night with the Girl, she was momentarily feeling better after having just been sick. She’s in bed with me and I’m dying to just fall asleep, and she pipes up, “Mommy, what can we do now? I’m bored.” I might have laughed if I wasn’t so tired, and I answered “For the love of god, are you insane? Just try to go back to sleep.”

3. Last night, the Boy (apropos of nothing), asked, “Did you know that besides bats, there are other animals that eat blood?”

Interesting. “Oh, really?” I answer.

“Yes. Europeans.”

“Um, honey, do you know what European means?”

“People who live in Europe.” Duh, Mommy.

“Are you thinking of  people in England who eat blood puddding?” (Not a menu item one wants to think about when ill. Or otherwise.)

“And blood sausage!”

He was very proud of himself. Bats, and other animals, like Europeans. Good stuff.

My first meme

The lovely and kind HRH has tagged me for this meme. Thanks for including me and for mentioning my little blog! In turn, I’m tagging my blogcrack dealer and dear friend. I hope I’m doing this right.

1. Name one thing you do every day: Hug my kids. And on school days we have snuggle time after we get home and run through the best/worst/funniest thing that happened at school.

2. Name two things you wish you could learn: I would like to learn to be comfortable riding horses and would like to learn speak another language, probably Italian.

3. Name three things that remind you of your childhood: Bonne Bell LipSmackers (especially Dr. Pepper flavor); the original Bionic Woman and the Six Million Dollar Man; Chatty Cathy doll.

4. Name four things you love to eat but rarely do: creme brulee, fondue, risotto, pecan pie

5. Name five things or people that make you feel good: my daughter’s enthusiastic hugs and my son’s sweet longer ones; making my kids laugh (live for it); meeting friends for a drink or a movie, eating the four things from #4; winning at poker

The size of things

A couple of years ago, at the movies with my kids, I took my daughter (who was 4) into the bathroom with me. We went into one of the large stalls, in the days before she wanted one of her own. A couple of movies had just finished, so the bathroom was pretty full, which turned out great for the Girl, since it’s important to have an audience for moments like this. She took her turn first, then I went. As I stood and started to reassemble myself, the Girl said in a cheerful and loud voice, “Mommy, your butt is soooo BIG!”

Now, there was no judgment in her voice, and like I said, her voice was cheerful. Even congratulatory. It wasn’t an indictment of any sort. She had stated a fact, one that I could not dispute. Of course, I’m laughing to the point of tears, and I hear a wave of suppressed laughter move down the row of stalls. And you know how things echo in those long bathrooms, anyway. Yep, everyone heard. When she realized the effect she had, which became clear to her when we got to the sinks, that was the proud moment for her. If she ever wins an acting award, I’m fairly certain this moment will make it into her acceptance speech as the seed of her love to perform. (Note: I won’t be in the crowd unless, at that time, my butt is not sooo big. Instead, I will send flowers and wish her well.)

Now, all this time later, the size of my backside (and this beast of a tummy on the frontside) are on my mind a lot. You’d think a moment like that would have put me off french fries forever. Alas, my mind doesn’t work so efficiently. But I really really really want this to be the year that I get back to my fighting weight, to which I have to count backward by tens. Quite a few of them. My 40th birthday is coming up in November. I know, it’s just a year. But I just have this feeling that if I haven’t done anything toward the goal of reaching a healthy weight by then, then I won’t enjoy that birthday so much. (Though for most other reasons, 40 seems like a relief to me, to have the 30s behind me. And, apparently, they’re actually attached to my behind.)

So I’m just putting it out there that this is the year. I’ve declared my intention to a couple of close friends, and I expect them to hound me. I even cleaned off the treadmill and made a rule that nothing goes on it, no clothes, etc. Just me.

The ideal piece of exercise equipment would be one that generates energy to power a computer. I could be online at the same time as I’m exercising, but only if I keep a certain level of activity going. Someone, please work on that.

On a sad note: I have to say, I am unreasonably sad about Heath Ledger’s death. Which feels strange and out of place, since if you’d asked me two days ago who my favorite actors were, I wouldn’t have thought to name him. Still, I’m sad. Maybe it’s because he was the one, in Brokeback Mountain, to speak these words, “If you can’t fix it, you gotta stand it.” I could not have been the only one to hear that sentence and feel it fall down through me like a stone.

My sassy little girl

In my kitchen, we have an island. Well, it might not be just an island. It has special magnetic powers that draw bits of everything to it. And not just one particular form of matter. It invites everything, from baskets to batteries, bills to school papers, hair accessories, crayons, markers, party invitations, pieces of my son’s Bionicles. The list goes on. Though you’d have to dig for it under a big pile of, well, crap. And, yes, I’m ashamed of this counter. Ashamed and also oblivious much of the time. Most of the time, even. When I notice it, I think I really ought to get to that. I really ought to organize it somehow. The inevitable questions after are But how? and Where the hell do I start?

So. Today my 6 year old daughter was looking for the scotch tape. I suggested that she look in the 2 or 3 likely places she may have left it. She was grumpy already, and didn’t feel much like looking for the tape herself. I asked her if she had looked yet on the kitchen island (where I could swear I saw it not long before, near the edge of the counter. Probably getting up the nerve to jump.). Her answer? A sing-song, hip thrust out, hand on her hip, taunt: “You mean the LAZY MOMMY COUNTER?”

Oh, girl.

To her benefit, she was standing at least 10 feet away from me. It saved her from being scooted to her room, heels dug in, with me nudging (yeah, nudging…let’s go for the euphemism) her toward a good long spell in her room. So I gasp: “(insert her name here, with a lot of these: !!!!!!!)” She wasn’t done. Guess I didn’t see the one-two punch coming. “Well, YOU never. Ever. Clean it!”Lucky for her, the universe intervened on her behalf, and she was allowed to transport her own little backside to her room, unaided by me, unless you count sonic force.

If FlyL*dy, whoever she is, is reading this, yeah, I know it shouldn’t be that hard to keep one kitchen counter clean. But it is. At least for me. The reasons for this are imbedded in my personality somewhere, and they are stubborn, thorny sons of bitches. And, according to new research conducted by my VBF and lovingly passed on, my chakras may be blocked or out of balance. Or just a big damn mess altogether. There’s a book I need to read (and I will) and work I need to do (I will…?).

Over the next hour or so, I felt guilty about the messy counter and plotted how I might go about organizing it. (I also have to laugh at my girl’s clever nature–pretty quick thinking to come up with Lazy Mommy counter on the fly.) Then I thought, Ya know, what does it say if I just go and clean the counter after B sassed me like that? So I’m going to wait, maybe 2 to 3 days. Weeks? No, days. I’m planning a trip to T*rget, where they have some organizing stuff. Well, I’ve heard that anyway. THEN I’ll clean the counter. Happiness will ring throughout the land. My husband will think I’m evolving as a person. I suppose we’ll all be happier, just like the people on Clean Sweep, et al. Maybe I will even post before and after photos.

If I could just find the damn camera.

Dresses and boots

I’ve just been to see 27 Dresses with my friend L. Nice movie, entertaining. And a good opportunity to look at James Marsden and Ed Burns. It was just about how I thought it would be, but I didn’t really mind that. The best friend, whom I will have to Google, since I know I’ve seen her before, was my favorite. OH, I think she was in The Wedding Planner. My brain synced some info for once.

It’s a quiet day here. We made it to church a few minutes late, due to wardrobe difficulties (me) and a knock-down dragout fight (my kids). Actually it was just a little hair-pulling and a scuffle over brushing teeth. There were tears (theirs). I just cried on the inside. But had a miraculous recovery after dropping them off at Sunday School, then going to St*rbucks Church, as is my ritual. I’m counting on God realizing that I get much more out of that one quiet hour with a book and a latte (venti, skinny with hazelnut, 3 Spl*nda) than I might if I sat through the service. If He doesn’t, well, I’m all right with it.

This is just about a day of bliss for me, as Sundays go. St*rbucks, a mid-day movie with a friend, and then the return of the babysitter later this evening so that I can play the evening poker tournament at the casino. Throw in a couple of games of Sorry with my son here in a few minutes, and some other equivalent activity with my daughter, and it’s a pretty good day. Tomorrow will be a solid day of Mommy-ness, so I’m not feeling much guilt.

I have to write about my unreasonable attachment to my new Frye harness boots. I’ve wanted them for no less than 3 years, maybe longer, and finally ordered them a couple of weeks ago. They’re brown, and perfect. I’m not sure another pair of footwear has ever made me feel so like myself. (I told you it was an unreasonable attachment.) I find any excuse to wear them, and have maybe quadrupled the number of days on which I wear jeans, just so I can wear the boots. Pathetic, maybe, but it’s all I have. I have boots. I love them. Maybe someday, I’ll even wear them for their intended use (which, probably, isn’t so I can look kick-ass and capable). Maybe someday, I will slip one into a stirrup and hoist my large backside into a saddle (poor horse). Or muck stalls. Or ride a Harley. Maybe not, and I’m okay with that. ‘Cause for now, it’s all about the boots.

Glitches

Apologies to anyone who tried to post a comment. I’ve unchecked the box (a default setting) that required users to register before commenting.  While I would love for everyone to register, I’m happy just to have a few readers!

I’m still not at ease joining the blogging masses. Although, in general, I prefer to remove myself from masses of any sort. I’m inspired by a couple of friends who do it well, and I’m content to do it about half as well as they do. Over time, I will have to make clearer (to myself) what is the purpose of this blog. But not today. And probably not tomorrow. Bear with me.

Today I’m happy because I produced almost 1900 words of my novel, especially when my goal was just 500. It was a scene that I had not looked forward to writing, because it involved a new character and a whole new part of the book. But I got through it, and it’s not bad. It’s not lyrical or lovely, but it’s serviceable. For now, aside from simple edits, I am going to resist the urge to revise. Instead, I will just go forward to the next scene, and maybe even the next. A writer lives to revise, but I tell myself that part will come, too, soon enough.

It’s a three day weekend, so who knows if I can carve out more time over the weekend to write. Virginia Woolf left out one thing when she said “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write.” If she were alive today (and had children) she might include noise-blocking headphones on that list.

And an occasional Sunday drive…

Yesterday, the kids and I took a drive up to the dam at Roosevelt Lake. Turns out, it’s about 78-80 miles from home. Longer than I remembered, but an amazing drive. Aside from the intermittent fighting in the back seat. C and B were awed by the sight of the dam from below it. I got the “Wow!” from B that I was hoping for. C, a budding engineer, was busy evaluating the engineering aspects of the dam, looking for the ways in which they might release water to prevent a flood.The route to the lake is part of my weekly Thursday drive, though the last 22 miles are a diversion from my usual route to Payson. Every time I make the drive to Payson from my house, past Saguaro Lake, through the mountains, I can’t imagine moving from here. I realize I might not be able to prevent a move, but it will be really hard to leave this place. I’ve never lived anywhere that was so beautiful that it really could take one’s breath. I love that B is awed by the scenery. C is, also, but his sister is the one who seems to see it in the way I do.

As a child, I was the one who stayed awake in the backseat on long drives, while my sister and brother would often fall asleep. I never wanted to miss the view. And I still don’t.

On the way to Saguaro Lake, along the Salt River, there are some stunning rock formations called (I think) the Bulldog Cliffs. Near the top, in a crevice between two outcroppings of the cliffs, there is one saguaro cactus. High above anything that one would think might sustain it. There doesn’t seem to be anything but rock up there, or much sun most of the time. Yet it survives. In conditions that seem unfavorable, even hostile, it finds what it needs to survive and grow.

I love that. If I ever look and find that the saguaro is no longer there, I think it might break something small but significant in me.