I am not obsolete

Those of you who have kids (this applies to The Mister too, by the way) know they can't find their ass with both hands and a flashlight.

I can't tell you how many times i've responded to a frantic Em by walking into her room and saying, "Look, it's right here!"

Some things never change. Witness this IM exchange:

em: MOMMY :-( I can't find my black dress pants.
meno: uh oh!
meno: are they on the floor of the closet? slipped off the hanger
meno: ?
em: I've looked all over the stupid floor. :-(
meno: under the bed?
meno: behind the hamper?
meno: on the shelves above the closet?
em: I don't think so... :/
em: This means I have nothing to wear to matriculation or for Halloween.
meno: uh oh
meno: did they accidently get mixed into Roommate’s things?
meno: the last time you wore them was that stupid convocation thing i think
em: Yeah it was.
em: So they must be here. But... D:
em: I have no idea. ;_____; I know they're here. I just have no idea where and I can't find them. ._.
meno: in a drawer?
em: Nope. >_< meno: sorry, wish i could help, that's all the places i can think of
meno: i think you hung them back up, so either they are hiding on a hanger, or they fell off
em: But I can't find them anywhere.
meno: i believe you
em: ;___________;
em: What do I do? I can't go naked to matriculation, even if I have to skip out on dressing up for Halloween.
meno: did you look carefully on EVERY hanger? To make sure they aren't hidden half folded?
em: AHA!!!!!
em: PANTS
em: Under one of my coats. :D: You're a genius.
meno: who's your buddy???
em: YOU! <3

Nice to know i still have the power to find things in her room when she can't, even from 2000 miles away.

I need some cheese to go with this whine.

I wrote the following a few days ago. Thank god i hit save instead of publish.

But now i am going to publish it anyway because it made me laugh at myself and to understand where my daughter might have gotten her propensity for drama. I mean "living death???" That might be overstating it just a bit. :)

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Hot flashes.

You have no idea how unpleasant they are, unless you do know.

Every day, 15 times a day, a reminder that you are OLD. That things in your body are not where they were for the last 30 years. That you are done. That you are HOT, and sweaty, and ugly, and old.

In the middle of the night. 2:15. 3:45. 4:20. 4:50. 5:25. Cats on your hip. Hot. Sweaty. Shit. 5:45. 6:10. 6:25. 6:55.

Sleep.

Alarm.

Another day of living death awaits.

Hijacked by your agenda

There is this woman i know, someone i thought might become a friend.

I have made plans with her a few times to do something, which she agreed to enthusiastically at the time.

And each time, her agenda begins to creep in, altering the plans so she can fit in other events.

"Oh, i made an appointment to take the car in on Tuesday morning, so can we start hiking later in the day?"

"Of course," i say.

Then a few days later,

"Is it okay if we just go for a short walk? One of my neighbors is having a party at her house and i should go."

And so on. If this had happened only to one of our plans, no big deal, but that it happens every time annoys me.

So i'm done making plans and adjusting them to suit her. Too much work. I'll just stick to the one set time we meet with a group and leave it at that.

The lesson is, don't do this. If you say you're going to be there, be there. If you say you're going to do it, do it. Don't jerk people around.

The beginning of a beautful relationship

It's been awhile huh? How is everyone?

Today i'm going to tell you a story.

Scene: My parent's living room, in the winter of 1981.

Cast: My parents, The Mister's parents, The Mister and me.

Background information: The Mister and i had been living in the deepest of sin for about two years when we decided we would get married. Since we were both graduating from college and The Mister had accepted a job in San Jose, it was either marry, or break up. I say that because my mother had drilled it into my head that i should never "place myself in a position of dependence on a man without being married." There's all kinds of wrong with that statement, but i was much younger then and believed it.

After announcing that we were to be joined in wedded bliss, my mother waited in vain for an invitation from The Mister's parents for an occasion to meet. (According to my mother, who knows these sorts of rules, it's the job of the groom's parents to initiate the first meeting.)

Such invitation was not forthcoming, so my mother decided to (gasp) ignore convention and invite The Mister's parents over for dinner.

Character development: The Mister's dad was a health food nut back before it was popular. He used to make these loaves of bread that we really, really good......for you. They could also substitute for bricks in a pinch. So dinner at their house was accompanied by a discussion of why we were eating skinless chicken and organic kale salad dressed with apple cider vinegar. After dinner he would prepare what i called The Bowel Bomb, a concoction of plain homemade yogurt, wheat bran and lecithin. (Have you ever seen lecithin? It's the consistency of honey, but tastes like motor oil.)

My family is all very tall, and The Mister's family are all very short. The Mister comments that hanging out with my family is The Land of the Giants. I believe i may have mentioned hobbits when visiting with his parents.

During the day that preceded this dinner, The Mister and i had taken our beloved cat Al to the vets as he was very ill. We found out about 30 minutes before dinner that Al had kitty leukemia and would not live very long.

Action: The Mister and i arrived at my parent's house with red eyes, still sniffling over poor Al. (We love our kitties!)

The Mister's parents were late, beyond fashionably.

My mother had prepared her special guest dinner of standing rib roast, mashed potatoes with gravy, salad with blue cheese, french bread with butter, and cheesecake for dessert. Oh, and coffee. I thought The Mister's dad was going to have a coronary right there.

So he picked over his salad, ignoring the rest of the meal. The rest of us, including The Mister's mother, drank steadily.

So picture this, The future Mister and i are huddled miserably in a corner, lightly weeping, The Mister's dad is looking like he smells something bad, my parent's are trying to make polite conversation, and The Mister's mother is getting blasted.

Good times. The evening ended rather early.

Epilogue: My mother waited, again in vain, for a thank you note. She thought that as a military wife The Mister's mother should know that this is required. A few years later, The Mister's mother told me that she had written one, but it had never been mailed as it had gotten lost in her car.

Yeah, i didn't believe her either.

College Bound

The Mister and i are getting up at o'fuck thirty tomorrow morning and flying to Ohio to attend something known as "Family Weekend" at Em's college.

After having looked over the agenda i have broken the events down into three categories:

1.) Sessions telling parents how to butt the hell out while your child attends college and grows up.
2.) Sessions for soliciting money from parents, complete with opportunities to join committees. Wheeee. I LOVE committees!!!
3.) General foolishness; e.g. hot dog eating contests, choir concerts, campus tours, plays and arts-n-crafts exhibitions (I swear if i am asked to weave a lanyard out of cicada skins, i will explode!)

We received a "Welcome to the *insert name of institute of higher learning here* family". Excuse me? Did i go off to college with my kid? Yes, i realize it's a marketing ploy to make me feel all warm and fuzzy so that i will make free with my money. HA!

What we will probably do is skip all that, take Em away with us and spend the weekend eating good food and watching stupid movies. YEAH!

I took the kitties off to kitty jail this afternoon. They spent the entire drive loudly discussing their feelings and criticising my driving. I found this annoying because my driving really isn't that bad, plus i don't know how they could even tell from inside their carriers.

On the job training

I stopped at a Tully's store this morning (a Starbucks clone for those of you wondering what a Tully's is) to get some tea and a bagel with cream cheese. I asked the young girl working there to please cut my bagel in half.

She looked a bit confused, but said "sure" because the customer is always right.

Here is what i got:

I looked down at my bagel and then looked back into the soft bovine-like eyes of my bagel cutter. "How long have you worked here?" i queried.

"Three days!"

This is why i carry my camera around with me.

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Scenes from a kayak:

The Mister and i took advantage of a calm afternoon yesterday to take the kayaks out for a long ride. My big feet pedaling away. Look how glassy the water is.

We stayed out later than we should. It was nearly dark when we returned home.

This pier needs some repair work:

NaDruPoNi

Sometimes we do things that don't make us happy. Things we do that make other people happy. Things we do that only make them happy, but do not make us happy. Things that stress us out and make us feel gross. Things that make us feel like we don't matter. Things that follow the patterns that were set out decades ago. Things we can do nothing to change. But things we should probably do because we are a bigger person than the people that do not make us happy. At least we can feel like we are bigger people, but are we?

Enough with the generalities. I did a good thing tonight. But it did not make me feel good. It made other people feel good, but not me.

Patterns. Old patterns. Patterns that will never change, until the people with the patterns are dead.

Do you get it? Do you do these things? If you do, good for you. Good for me. Because tonight, someone is happy, but that someone is not me.

I SEE WHAT YOU DID THAR!

A rodent has been exploring my virtual underwear drawer. (Thank you to Ms. Chica for the description.) I think it's time to tip the contents of the drawer onto the floor and expose the mouse.

Someone who thinks i don't know she is doing it, even though she promised she wouldn't, is reading my blog.

Say hi to my daughter y'all.

At first she didn't know. Then she knew, but i didn't know she knew. Then i knew she knew, but she didn't know that i knew that she knew. Now she knows. I know she knows, and with this, she knows that i know that she knows. Got that?

I discovered this mouse in my underwear drawer a while ago. I've been pondering what to do and how i feel about it for a while too. I still don't know how i feel about it. It's a little odd, but i can think of no actual harm done to me. Bemused might be the best description. Such are the risks of public blogging.

With growing up, comes new levels of relationships. Wonder if she'll be brave enough to say hi back??

Love you Fishie, you little stinker. See you in about a week. And if there's anything you've read here that you don't like, too bad. <3

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Confidential to person standing next to me on the bus; Even though you can't hear it over your ipod, the rest of us can still hear you fart.

I need glasses

At her request, i went over to my mother's house a few days ago in order to help her throw things away. My parents are preparing to move into smaller accomodations and thus need to cram 7 rooms of shit into a 3 room bag.

It was kind of fun, in an 'i need earplugs' sort of a way. (My mother's middle name is Prolix.) I pulled stuff off her kitchen shelves, some of which she hadn't been able to reach for years, put it on the counter and stepped back. She looked at the 14 adorable little pitchers she has collected over the years and declared she needed them all.

But i am made of stronger stuff than that. I told her to "pick three of them. I'm putting the rest into the Goodwill box." And she did, after pleading with me for a few minutes.

Then it was on to the dishes. I am not making this up, i counted 57 drinking glasses, from 7 different sets. (This does not include the wine glasses, flutes, cordial glasses, shot glasses, martini glasses, DOF glasses, margarita glasses or brandy snifters. My parents like to drink.) Now she has 16 drinking glasses from two sets.

I have to admit, i get a thrill from ordering her around.

It's because my mother is now afraid of me, when for years she had no problem saying shitty things or exerting her power over my seven/nine/thirteen year old self.

My only consolation for admitting to that little thrill is i am much nicer than she was when she held the power.