Was not Engulfed in Flames

I think I've forgotten how to write. My finger joints are stiff. My brain hurts. Ouch.

I'm:

fat again! Hooray.

disappointed because I didn't get to see David Sedaris at Powell's today after spending lots of time being excited that I was going to get to see him.

disappointed that the previous sentence was so unwieldy.

confused as to why so many human bodies react violently to otherwise harmless substances known as "allergens."

sporting a new, coppery hair color. My righteous stance against covering gray (go natural, be proud!) finally evaporated after my last hateful hair-induced mirror-gaze.

disappointed that I missed David Sedaris's lecture at Powell's today.

a little more pleased with this previous sentence.

Too happy to blog?

I'm taking Lexapro, see? My life has stabilized because of it. I don't spend the whole day with butterflies of anticipation in my stomach. My side effects are few. However, one of them seems to be a new lack of interest in writing. As a result, the old blog takes a hit.

We spent the weekend in Eugene to visit family for Easter. My mom asked me how my writing was going. I could only answer... I'm not doing it. I'm too happy to write. Writing has been an outlet during my struggle with depression and anxiety. Now my medication has left me content. I'm okay now. I realize things could go horrible at any moment. In fact, I've been reading a couple of blogs where moms have recently lost their little children: one to chronic issues, and one from a surprise illness that started out as a simple ear infection and sore throat. Awful... unthinkable. It could happen to anyone. It could happen to me! I understand that. I realize that! But I don't spend every hour of every day preparing for it. That's how I lived my life before. I was hyper-aware of the fragility of life, and it was hard to enjoy what I had because of it. Now, I continue to understand that anything could happen at anytime, but I don't spend my hours and minutes paralyzed because of it.

But has it left me without creativity? Must I be on edge to be interesting?

Should I write about how happy I am to have a new car that gives me joy, and a tall healthy son who makes me giddy as well as fighting mad, all within the same hour? Should I bother to record the fact that my husband is not only adorable, but he adores me? Will people care that he is tall and handsome and smart and he always calls the new car he bought me, "your car?" Should I mention that I hit the jackpot and beyond when I married him? Does anyone want to know that all my nephews (I have no nieces!) are sweet and hug-able, and if they're beyond the age of three, they seem to be as fond of me as I am of them? And that the infant nephew is beautiful and healthy and I can't wait to watch him grow up and I can't wait for us to get to know each other? And that I'm so thrilled for his parents to have two sweet beautiful children? And that another nephew who plays piano so skillfully (and is a teenager!) wants to work with me on piano because he likes that I'm learning piano from my dear neighbor who thinks I have a natural affinity?

Who would care that I'm not working and I'm taking an online class at my leisure and husband supports me financially and emotionally and I can pick my son up from school on time?

And... hey! My bleeding hearts from the grocery store are waking up and starting to bloom again. Life is good, interesting, exciting. I'm so thrilled and honored to be living it.

Getting in the game

My son's first real basketball game last Saturday. He's number 20. He's with a bunch of boys his age. Do you see he's about head taller than all of them? There's one other tall boy on his team, and I thought that boy might be taller. But then I saw Son next to him. They're the same size. My kid's shorter than NO ONE! I tried his new basketball shoes on, the ones he's wearing in the photo here. They are roomy on my size 10 feet. Good God, this kid just turned nine!

He held his own playing basketball, but clearly some of these kids have been playing awhile. Some of them were simply amazing out there on the court. Fast, wily, and great shots. I couldn't believe it. I thought we were getting Son in early by starting him in 3rd grade, but he's officially "behind" compared to some of the others. I should look for basketball sports camp for him this summer. He's good and he seems interested in the game. If he hated it, I wouldn't pursue it, but he looks forward to practice and the games. He seems excited to get in the game when he's on the sidelines. If he can learn some skills necessary for being competitive in the game, it might keep being interesting for him.


So,

Hi Grandma, Hi Weeder.

Both of you (possibly the only two who haven't bailed due to my extremely boring and inactive blog) are wondering why I'm not here much anymore. I'm wondering that too. It may be because I'm feeling too fine. Are people who blog about their personal lives a depressed bunch in general? Maybe not a correct generalization, but I was, anyway. Now I'm okay. Why am I not feeling the need to post about my good days and my interest in life? I'm not always delighted. I get negative emotions, but it's not every day and all the time.

I'm staying home and keeping the house in great condition. In fact, I bought a new and nicer vacuum cleaner yesterday and I'm almost far too excited about that. I'm taking the online indexing class with interest, and I can stay home and pick son up at the end of his school day. My across-the-street neighbor is teaching me to play the piano, and I love it. The music I'm learning to play is simple for now, but it still sounds nice and I'm reading notes! My neighbor/teacher thinks I'm very musically-inclined, not to mention and I've got some really long fingers. Good for reaching across the keyboard.

About the house cleaning: I've become the biggest fan of BBC's How Clean is Your House. The ladies who host the show traipse about with their cleaning supplies, looking all over their native Britain and around the U.S. for messy homes to clean up. They find some dank holes that people call home and they proceed to walk around, exclaiming and sniffing. The faces they make... priceless. Then they give the inhabitants a good dressing-down and proceed to clean and to show the dirty folk how to do it and keep it that way. Along the way, the viewer picks up some good tips and learns just how dirty dirt really is. Then the viewer taps into their inner OCD and wonders how Kim and Aggie would feel about their house, and then they start picking up and vacuuming and paying attention to previously-ignored filthy nooks and crannies.

Really, those two ladies live on my shoulder now. You could walk into my house at almost any time and smell fresh air and see lots of floor. And I've decided the cleaner your house looks, the wealthier you look. Forget about big houses and fancy-shmancy cars. If you have a little house in beautiful pristine condition, people will wonder where you're hiding all your money. Maybe now I can put on airs. See it, feel it, be it! Ahhhhh....

Also I'm dumping so much clutter. My mom has been on that kick, too. No more stuff to collect dust and take up valuable living space. Spare is beautiful. Forget shabby chic. It's too hard to keep clean, and you can't find your keys in it anyway. I'm clean shic. Oh, yes I am.

So there you go. I'm okay, so maybe fewer blog postings. Good news/bad news perhaps. I like writing so much, though. Perhaps I need to make myself get online and write a few words just to keep up. This is just another stage in my life. I should journal this stage too.

No matter how fine I feel.

Ode to Pause

More of Son's cat photography. He and Casey the Cat are a lot alike: Young men. Curious. Crazy. Friendly, lovable and cute but with some mean claws and pointy teeth.

If many of my photos have been reflecting the indoors lately, it is because I am inside a lot. I'm experiencing a quiet time in my life. Things are in a pause. I'm very okay and content after being on this Lexapro for awhile. I'm trying a very healthy diet to go along with it. It's astounding to me not to feel fear all day long, every day. Even if the fear was quelled, it was only quelled. I always ran through with an undercurrent of anxiety and unease when it wasn't exposed and raw. Maybe I'm too content, but damn. After spending so many days living on the very tips of pins, this is a sweet release.

I'm waiting for my indexing class packet in the mail. During the wait I am researching volunteer opportunities at Son's school. I'm going to the organically-sympathetic grocery store to keep our fruits and vegetable supply fresh. I'm keeping our house in some order. I'm learning to play piano! I think I actually like it. I've almost mastered fingering the scales and I can plink out a mean "Ode to Joy."

I'm feeling a need to get back to the Japanese Garden and do some more pausing. I guess you could call this time... hurry up. Then wait.

P.S. Ahhh, the indexing class information just arrived via FedEx. Here goes...!

I can haz brown-haired lady!

No, Casey the Cat and Rosie the Cat are not friends. Casey, the yellow cat, likes to sit on my lap when I'm at the computer from time to time. Rosie, the dark one, likes to sit on my lap whenever I'm under the same roof as her. Rosie likes to stay away from Casey, but when he's on my lap she will often jump up, walk over him and bring herself close, very close to my face. Much closer than that other kitty. It's her rightful place. So Casey be damned, she will get on top of me.

I'm scratching Casey's ears so that he knows I still care even though he's been usurped. See Rosie staring with almost painful love at my nose? She will be kissing it soon in that photo.

Actually she is on my lap right now as I type this. I've got to say: it's heartwarming to have this otherwise skittish little kitty (she was used to the hard life as a young single mother on the streets) love and adore me to such an extreme. I don't usually say things like that, but she really thinks I'm the bee's knees. I'm the best thing since an open can of tuna.

Husband usually has to remove her if he wants attention. Actually, if anybody wants attention from me, Rosie must be removed.

Son took this picture. He also took the photo of Casey sticking out his tongue. He's sort of the cat photo chronicler around here.

a.m. Dentist

Well, the molar is gone. The valium worked like magic. Son was pure goo under its spell. Even the dentist was surprised. He felt insecure about this working at all since Son was so resistant to getting any work done at all last time. If I had known the dentist didn't really think the valium was going to work, I would have been a lot more worried that I was. But it did. Son actually fell asleep in the chair at one point (or so I was told, I was in the waiting room) and he didn't realize that the dentist pulled the tooth when he did.

Son asked the dentist if he really had to pull the tooth, and the dentist said, "I already did!" Smooth... The only hard part was afterwards. Son was mighty angry about his mouth being numb, so he was unpleasant for about an hour.

The tooth look bad. The filling cut through the center, and at the edge on the side of the tooth a little hole had rotted out. One of the roots had rotted all the way down and the other root had a hole in it as well. I'm so glad that thing is out of his head. I'm so glad it's finished.

Now on to the more difficult task: Trying to convince him to finish his homework. Yes, I think it's easier pulling teeth.

Keep going, wormies

My red wiggler worms have been doing their hard work in the vermicomposter I received for Mother's Day last year. I finally decided that they've done real quality work, so it's time to increase their apartment's square footage. I've added level #2. First layer: rubbery carrots with dry brown tips, soft mottled bananas, bendable celery, apples with pruney skin and squishy spots, and some stale nan bread. All cuisinarted to make Red Worms' Favorite Salsa. Second layer: leaf litter from my compost pile in the back yard under the Douglas Fir. Third layer: wet shredded junk mail. Fourth layer: three layers of wet newspaper.

Now the worms are supposed to realize there's something yummier on the ceiling. They will supposedly stretch their little worm bodies or climb up the wall and enter the second tier through the little holes. Then when enough wormies fill the second layer, I can use the first layer as needed. Eventually it will get to three layers, with the first layer always being the "working tray."

Here it is, my worms' new larger home. Notice the plastic container under the spigot, there. That's the "worm juice," or compost tea. I let that drain and then give it to my houseplants in a diluted form.


Very exciting. Oooh, boy! I'm peeling off the top layer to see if my worms have migrated to the top floor yet.


Well, I don't see anybody. Just a lot of grated rotten carrots, leaves and shredded junk mail.


I know they'll get there in their own good time. So, close the top and wait for the little soil-producers to get in there and do their work.


I'm amazed at how stink-less this whole project has been. Those red wigglers really work through the old food fast, and turn it into beautiful black soil. It's like watching the earth do its work.