Space

The kids went back to school this week: to middle school, fifth grade, and second. It was funny, the way they adjusted to the bulkiness of their backpacks; with super tweaked senses of space, they bumped into each other like those colorful balls in the Fisher Price popper.

While my three bouncing babies learned class rules and met a few friends and tried to accommodate their new dimensions, I was intending to fill my empty hours with household duties that had backed up over the last, oh, since June 7.

Instead, I listened to my own kind of music and read my own kind of stuff and ate my own kind of food. I opened my course syllabus file with a serious shot at rewriting it, but closed it immediately. Then I went to breakfast.

I should have cleaned. I should have queried. I should have written, or revised, or something.

But it was delicious, this freedom: an open abyss of time and possibility. Which I did absolutely nothing with. And am so looking forward to doing again all of next week.

All I Want To Do Is Have Some Fun

I have no idea which was the best song at the Sheryl Crow concert the other night. I mean, I was dancing. In the Skybox. After the catered dinner. With Dave and Linda and a whole bunch of great people.

There were truffles.

And magic lemonade. Spiderman's mom brought it to me in mass quantities.

The lead singer from the opening band, "16 Frames" ditched his backstage party to whoop it up with us.

Oh yeah, and there was music.

Un-Vegetarian

It had been just over two years of Rees' self-imposed vegetarianism when he stood in the kitchen last night, watching me cut up a roasted Cornish game hen.

"That looks so good!" he said, wiping the drool from his chin. "I want some of it so bad!"

"Would you like a bite?" I asked him.

"A drumstick," he said.

And two years ended, just like that.

Fire, Water, Paper, and People

This weekend, my brother Steven came through on his way from Portland to a houseboat on Lake Shastsa. Steven is the family hero. All the brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles love him. My kids love him. So do I.

He brought his girlfriend Marie, and we all hit up Yogurt Hut, for our least expensive purchase ever there at $12 for 6 people. I don't know how that happened. Usually, the five of us go and it's over 20 bucks.

Then I left everyone here and zipped up to Eugene where my aunt was at a scrapbooking conference with her friends. There were stickers and papers and serious chocolates. While the women worked their craft, I watched a show in my room on scorpion infestation. Then I went down and watched the girls cut and glue and laugh. They are a wonderful group of women: wise and funny, open and kind.

When I got in my clean, fresh hotel bed that night, it smelled and felt so good, I cried.

The next day, I came home to a fancy dinner the kids had arranged. They'd picked flowers and made placecards.

They went through all the fun things my generous aunt had bought them for school, opening up everything and unzipping and showing me and their daddy and each other.

Yesterday, Dave and I went on a date. We had lunch out and saw "Inglourious Basterds." (Which I'll post about next). It was five relaxing hours of hand-holding and no one asking if they could have a Popsicle.

Steven and Marie came back through last night. The kids sat in silence at their feet, listening to the houseboat tales. Like how their pillows fell into the lake, and how a baby on another boat toppled over on the floor and rolled around a bit.

My dad had evacuated his house near Sacramento, because of a raging fire that had destroyed about 60 homes and structures. He was staying at my sister's, but seemed more concerned about the cat getting into the salsa when we talked to him on the phone.

Yes, it's been a struggle here lately. It seems like it's been a struggle many places for many folks. But the human resource is a valuable one; there's nothing like being surrounded by just good people to give you a huge boost.

That's why I'm having over a billion kids today. To give it all back.

Innovation

This morning I woke up thinking about chocolate. How good it is. But how flat. How what we need is a new shape of the gooey sweet stuff.

Like, what if chocolate was poured into mini muffin tins.

And then another kind of delicious other flavor was dropped inside. Cherry? No. Mint? Not quite. But maybe...Skippy or something.

Like Reese's peanut butter cups. Invented by a former Hershey's employee. Almost a hundred years ago.

At 6 AM today, I'm already a little behind.

The Girls

"Sometimes I'm sad I'm a man. We're just so far behind," Dominic told me the other day.

I told him that even at almost twelve, at least he knows that, so he has somewhat of a leg up.

I love men.

There are oodles of amazing ones in my life: my husband, my two sons, my dad, my four brothers, all kinds of firefighters. I'd take a bullet for any of them.

But when the $#!+ hits the fan and the cards are down, it's the girls who save me.

I was tired. Worn out. It's August, right, you know what I mean: we've had the kids around all summer. Every day. All day long. The kids are restless. And bored. It's hot.

This is where empathy only from other moms comes in.

I found it when I snapped. Well, almost snapped. But snapped enough.

And while my man was out rescuing victims of smoke inahlation, and motor vehicle accidents, and cardiac arrests, my girls were rescuing me.

I'll tell you: I've never gotten such great support. From my best friend since kindergarten, who lives in Davis and offered to come up if I wanted to take off for the weekend with some of my other girls. From my friend since second grade who lives in the Bay Area and took one look at me and really saw me. From my three sisters who took my side and straightened my hair and sent me back into the world. From my aunts who have shared their struggles and successes, and my daughter who made my bed and picked me sunflowers. From my girlfriends here in Oregon who have made me go swimming, and walking, and to Costco. Who have made me laugh. And have let me cry.

And then there's my doctor. A woman. Who listened for an hour and a half to the tragedy I've put up with for the last eleven years, since my mom died, through six surgeries and the death of Dave's mom, and Reesie's quirky birth, and Dave's knee blowout and year out of work, to how I've been unable to get a good grip after Daney's seizures last winter. To how I'd had enough.

Things are changing, getting better. I'm working on it.

This is an honest blog. A place you might not always find a deep belly laugh, but a place where you will find reality, however that exists in cyberspace. And there's someone here to tell it like it is, the good and the bad, and to spill it all with a woman's heart.

Doctors and B.A.s

It seems like it'd be a crazy thing, my addiction to "Inked," A&E's reality show based on Hart and Huntington Tattoo Company, the first tattoo shop to open in a Las Vegas casino.

I mean, the "body artists" and the "receptionists" are fooling around with squirt bottles one minute, and at each other's inked throats the next.

There are catfights and hook ups and a lot of drinking...out of coffee cups. Oh, and there's some tattooing.

This show makes me sentimental. It reminds me of my (short lived) PhD program at Northern Arizona University, where the bottom line was totally the same. Where both are the centers of their universes. The people involved are the most important people, as is the dialogue, and the day-to-day goings on, not to mention the mission.

Both worlds take themselves very seriously.

They have no idea the other, or any other, exists.

When I watch "Inked," I relive my doctoral days, relieved to have left them behind. And speaking of "behind," thanks to the show, I'm thinking about getting a little monarch butterfly...