The Oddest Things...

...happen when I'm not home.

Bear

It's funny, isn't it, the lasting impact a person can have on one's life?

I don't have any childhood friends.  I had friends as a child, though few, but none of them made it to this point in my life.  A lot of moving about will do that.

I keep loosely in touch with some people from my boarding school days...and I thought of them as friends then, but as some sort of curious, limbo relationship now.  I believe that if any of them should tell me they need me to come and help them, I would.

I have no contact with anyone from high school.  Again, I had a few friends, but our lives took us in vastly different directions, and whatever we had then, it was not strong or elastic enough to get to now.

College?  Best let that go.

A short time after college, I met Patrick.  Patrick and his lover Fred were the first gay men I ever knew as gay, open, living their lives together.  I adored them.  Once, Fred made me breakfast on my birthday.  He was a marvelous cook, was Fred.  About a week later, he died.

We combined his ashes with an ex-lovers's and scattered him somewhere I won't name for legal reasons.

Through Patrick, I met Bear.  His name wasn't Bear, but that's what I called him almost from the start.  We played ExCom, UFO Defense until all hours, sometimes all night and into the day.  His boyfriend didn't appreciate it.  Neither did Mum, with whom I lived at the time.  We soaked in the hot tub and laughed like loons together.  We played D&D.  Mum tolerated it better than the lover did.

When I moved out of Mum's house, it was into an apartment with Bear and his lover M (who, it turns out, really didn't like the idea but had no say because he didn't pay the bills)(and resented me deeply).  We would often go not-so-skinny dipping in the complex's pool.  When I moved out from that apartment and into my own place, it was within walking distance, and Bear and I spent many days and nights together, friends always.  Through Bear I met JS, Otter, and K2, as well as Joelicious.  When I hurt my back and couldn't move my legs, it was Bear and Joelicious who picked me up, straightened me out, folded me into a vehicle and drove me to the hospital.

These became my net, my web, my Tribe.  Because of them I met PJ, Butterfly (who died on my birthday, drifting from this world on the notes of the songs we sang him), Straws, Sexy E, and a host of others.

We made music together.  When some of us wanted to get more serious, we split our band in two.  They kept the name, we kept the original music (mostly because I wrote it and wasn't going to give up my right to sing what I wrote).  In many ways, it was a bitter parting.  Bear had hard words over it, and we drifted apart for a time.

Not long ago, we struck up a sporadic thread of a conversation...an e-mail here and there, a friend request on Facebook.

I kept track of him through others, always hoping he was happy, had a loving partner (he was not an easy Bear to live with, and good partners are thin on the ground, you know).

I had hopes that we would reconnect, silly old Bear and I, that he would meet my children and, rightly, adore them...and that they would climb him (he was quite large) and hug him and tease him, pull his beard, love him as Mama's friends are loved.

He died today.  On April 7, Shayne Michael Patrick, silly old Bear, the one person with whom I could do tandem Tarot/Rune readings, the man I once told I would carry a baby for as soon as he could keep a houseplant alive for more than a year, the man who helped transform me from the scared, scarred, introvert in the corner to the woman on the stage, the man with the sometimes gross, often earthy, usually loud sense of humor stepped through the veil and left a large, empty place in this world that will not soon be filled.

I will be looking for you to return, Bear...a spirit so large, loud, and hilarious can't possibly linger long on the other side.  I'll be waiting...

Thoughtfetti

Started recording Friday at Root Cellar Music Studio.  Good times, well run, productive - we may get this done in time for our first event, after all.
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Sprout has been sick - vomiting, diarrhea, fever...poor little thing...she acts chipper and happy, then she'll get listless, vomit, and nap on Mama for a bit in the morning...afternoons, she seems okay except for wanting a little more love and nap time.
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Recording again Monday and Tuesday, a marathon for us, but I have hope it will see us finish...and well worth it.
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I'll be in Gatlinburg on the sixteenth, guest-recording for Tuatha Dea on their new CD.  I am so excited - I adore them, and was mighty chuffed to be asked!
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Despite recording and feeling like I am DOING SOMETHING...I am battling an ugly depression and feel myself losing ground.  Being "Mom" means I can't hide or sleep or just take off and lose myself for a few days, which is a blessing and a curse.  This feeling of futility and constant weariness can go away any time, fine with me.
~~~~~
I'm tired of politics.  I am tired of politicians.  I am tired of people constantly battling it out with cartoons and quips and cooked statistics on Facebook and implying that anyone who doesn't agree with THEM is either evil or stupid.  I am neither (on a good day) and resent the implication.
~~~~~
I will muddle through, somehow, but if I keep crying this much I am going to be dehydrated...
~~~~~
Did I mention I am looking forward to recording with Tuatha Dea?  'Cause I am.  Added to the fun, K2 and Otter will be coming, too, so we'll get to have some time together like we used to get before we all got married or employed and life kinda took over.
~~~~
Someone did a serious clean-up of our bathroom, and now there's no more kitty litter in the tub (falls off their paws when they jump in and up onto the window sill) so I am thinking there's a nice, long soak in my near future.  Sweet!
~~~~~
What're you up to these days?

The Beat Goes On

We begin recording our eighth CD on Friday.  Thursday is our final full rehearsal day.  This weekend we'll take a break, then it's back to the studio for Monday and Tuesday.  We have high hopes we'll finish in three days.  If we don't, it's going to be fun finding more time - April is jam packed for all of us in one way or another.

Here's hoping...

They're Such High-Maintenance Critters

I am keeping some Peeves as pets.

They start out small, almost unnoticeable, but with time and attention they grow quite large.  Each Peeve has its own special diet and housing needs, a challenge when you have an entire herd of 'em roaming about the grounds.

There are indoor Peeves and outdoor Peeves, and they don't mingle.  They're a little anti-social, Peeves.  They don't often interact with each other, preferring to remain aloof in their individual demesnes.  Oh, sure, the kitchen Peeves will interact with each other if they must, as will the living room, bathroom, and closet Peeves - mingling with their own kind isn't as trying for them as is socializing with other types of Peeves.  They are constantly mumbling and buzzing and reminding a body that they're about, even when they can't be seen.  They don't like to languish, preferring to be the center of attention, much to the consternation of all the other Peeves who feel the same way.  Indoor Peeves are a variety of shapes and sizes, but they all excel at being present without being seen, and feeding them requires a little effort, diet being determined by their location within the home.  Try to feed a kitchen Peeve the hall Peeve's lunch and you'll have one angry Peeve.

Outdoor Peeves are wild and woolly looking.  Their care and feeding is simple enough - just let them alone and they'll find plenty of fodder in the yard and garden.  They like to hide and leap out at unsuspecting folk, roaring and gnashing their teeth.  They're capricious, those outdoor Peeves, sometimes docile, sometimes ferocious, and never a hint what they're going to be like today until they're upon you.

Lately, I've been thinking I should thin the herd a little.  Trouble is, finding homes for Peeves isn't exactly easy.  It's not like I can advertise on Craig's List or sell 'em on eBay.  People want their own Peeves, and generally aren't looking to take on an adopted one.  Fostering is right out - Peeves don't thrive on uncertainty.

I could, I suppose, just set them out in the wild and let them sink or swim, as it were.  Quite a few of them are fully mature and ought to be able to fend for themselves if only they would.  They're lazy, though - domestic Peeves are spoiled and will fail to thrive if removed from their accustomed nests, perches, or burrows.

Perhaps you, dear reader, could use a few extra Peeves around the joint?  You know, just to liven things up a little?  Do let me know - I'll even pay the freight.

Important PSA - No, Really, You Should Watch This

Got this via Mum's Facebook page.  Oh, my.  It turns out I can drool and laugh at the same time!

Source: youtube.com via Megan on Pinterest

Thoughtfetti

All of a sudden, my April is jam-packed with days that do not involve curling up on the lounge with the kids, watching movies, and not going out into the world.  May is beginning to look the same way.  I am trying not to look at the calendar because it's making me itch.
~~~~~
My band did it...we managed to garner $10,000 in pledges on Kickstarter, so we can make out new CD.  Recording begins next week.  Whew.
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Sprout is enamored of Yo Gaba Gaba.  If I don't pay too much attention, it is bearable.  She got ahold of the remote one day and found Barney.  I wasn't home, so Someone had to bear the brunt of it for two minutes before she got bored with it and he could change the channel.  We both allow as how Gaba is preferable, if only just...
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Shaun the sheep, however, is not only bearable but a favorite among children and adults alike in Casa de Crazy.  The felines have not voiced an opinion.
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The man on Yo Gaba Gaba who does the drawings?  I want to punch him repeatedly in the face.  I'm sure he's perfectly nice when he isn't on the show...
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After my band is done recording, I will be going to Tennessee to guest-record for another band that I adore...I can't decide which of us is more excited...
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I was extravagant and bought myself a little speaker for my phone, so I can listen to music.  It lights up, and the light changes colors.  It delights me.  Small things...
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I wonder about this whole marriage equality thing.  Principally, I wonder why it is such a big deal in the legal world.  Marriage is a religious institution.  If a church doesn't want to permit it to certain people, it's that church's right.  For the record, I think such a church is being an ass.  The government has nothing to do with it.  Laws should not be made about it.  No one should benefit from or be punished for marriage or not-marriage.  If the government is going to make laws about marriage or any kind of coupling, then those laws must apply to everyone.  No exceptions.  You can't just go making laws for SOME of the populace and not ALL of the populace.  Also, hello, separation of church and state, anyone?
~~~~~
I am an ordained minister.  Stop laughing, you'll hurt yourself.  I have performed several gay marriages.  The world did not end.
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I find it odd that the Jehovah's Witnesses invited me to a celebration of Jesus's death.  Morbid and weird.  They won't celebrate his alleged birth, but his death?  Party on!!!
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Sprout is fearless and likes to climb things.  This does not bode well for her early years...
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What's on your mind?

Which Way Did She Go, George?

Sometimes I get the feeling that I was supposed to turn out differently, and the me I was supposed to be is wandering around trying to find the me that I am so she can get her life back.

Sometimes I am struck with the feeling that I am living other lives concurrent with this one, and they are aware of me in the moments I'm aware of them, and maybe during one of those aware moments we accidentally switched places and now we're trying to figure out how we got HERE when we should be THERE.

Often I feel that, whatever else the case may be, part of me is lost out there in the great Beyond, and if I could only find that piece of me, I could figure out what I am supposed to be doing, because I am not myself, I am not as I should be, I am not where I should be...but I have no idea how to get to that place...

What happened?

Who Wants Music On Monday?

Because I am tired, it's late, and I'm feeling a little...I dunno...  And because today (I was going to say "tomorrow" but "tomorrow" turned into "today" while I was typing, and does anyone else ever get a little dizzy when dealing with time and tense like that?) I am spending the day with Mum since I have double rehearsals and recording, and weekend work to boot, for the next few weeks so I won't be able to go up and spend they day with her again for almost a month (gah!)...  Here's a piece of music that I enjoyed from a movie that I still enjoy when I can watch it...

What are some of your favorite movie soundtrack gems?

Four, Like a Clover

Fourth time I'm posting this, but why mess with perfection, eh? Why do I hear crickets...?
~~~~~
 I'll be cooking corned beef and cabbage on Sunday, much to my family's delight - a double lot of the beef will ensure we all have a surfeit and hash the next day. I'll try to remember to take some up to Mum next time I see her...if there's any left... Bird likes the meat fine, but not the cabbage, and he doesn't want the potatoes, which leads me to wonder if any of the scant Irish in my veins made it to him. I get not liking cabbage, but potatoes? Something's not right with the child. Someone will happily scarf the lot, because he's a good Irish lad.

I'm planning on baking soda bread, too, because we like it and any leftovers can be used to make a nice doorstop or stone axe.

Seeing as I'm Pagan, you wouldn't think I'd celebrate St. Patrick's Day. Better than most, I know what St. Patrick did to get famous and earn his sainthood. However, I'm also part Irish, and I happen to love corned beef and cabbage. Also, I consider it a reclaiming of the day for Pagans, or some junk.

A bit of slightly bent history (that has, I'll grant you, been mangled in my head over the years and is rather truncated because I'm not writing a book, here)(I'm writing a book somewhere else). When I was a child, we were told that St. Patrick's day was to celebrate his chasing all the snakes out of Ireland. It is an historically serpent-free bit of earth, and the church attributed this to Paddy and his efforts...kind of overlooking that there weren't any of the slithery things on the island to begin with, if you ask me. Which they didn't, because I was a kid and most grown-ups weren't prepared for my staggering logic and keen grasp of history but rather appalling lack of respect for theology.

 Many years later, people were saying St. Patrick's Day was a celebration of all things Irish, like green beer (wait, isn't beer German??) and green clothes, and green hair, and green mashed potatoes (which I won't eat on a dare because, really...green potatoes???), and rivers dyed green (I'm sure the fish are all so very thankful to be included...like Fridays and Lent weren't enough for them!)(that might only be funny if you're Catholic)(or not) and exclusionary parades, and funny little men waving their shillelaghs about (look it up you pervs!!) and that sort of thing.

 In none of the many different explanations for this seemingly random holiday did anyone mention pagans. A most curious oversight of you know what St. Patrick, who was just Patrick at the time (not really, I have no idea what his real name was. For all I know, it was Fred), was actually doing on the Emerald Isle.

He was born and lived sometime between 490 and 461 AD, give or take. Around age sixteen, he was either sent or stolen and taken to Ireland where he spent some time hanging out with sheep and being lonely. He talked to God a lot. You may notice that lots of shepherds do that. You would too if all you had for company all day was a bunch of mutton-heads. I'm sure the Pope understands...

Christianity was rolling along like a snowball in those days, spreading out all over the dang place. Good grief, it was getting so that a simple Pagan/Heathen (there's a difference between the two, not that the church cared much) couldn't get any peace any more. Everywhere they turned, there was a church being built where a sacred grove used to be, from the trees that used to be the sacred grove, or a church going up on a sacred hill, or someone bathing their dirty feet in a sacred stream. To be fair, there was a lot of real estate lumped under that "sacred" heading in the pagan world. We're like that - we just love our planet so. Plus, you know, all those gods needed housing, and they don't do the roommate thing very well. So the pagans were running out of places to have sex on the ground, in the woods, up a tree - they were big on the sex, those little devils - and to read entrails in their spare time.

I digressed. Sorry.

So there was this lonely kid, Patrick Whatsisname, hanging out with sheep and pondering life, the Universe, and everything. He got the idea, somewhere along the way, that maybe other folks should share his God. He got out of his contract (OK, probably slavery) and went around telling folks how terrific his God was, and how he reckoned they should convert. It seems that polite conversation wasn't doing it for the pagans, who tended to stare at him, or point and laugh. Rude beggars, huh? Now young Patrick (or middle aged Patrick, or old Patrick, I have no idea) decided he needed to be a bit more...persuasive. He had noticed something common among the pagan big-wigs. The guys at the top of the food-chain, magic/spirituality wise speaking tended to have a symbol on them somewhere...usually around their wrist. On the wrist that indicated their "hand of power", or the hand which they believed their "magic" flowed from. If it wasn't a tattoo, it was a torque. Guess what the tattoo/torque was? A critter called the oroborus. For them as what doesn't ken what that critter is, it's a snake eating its tail, and often represents eternity.
Pat realized that if he took away this "power", he took away their mystique and leadership ability. So he removed the snakes - often with something edged and unpleasant. Yes, he whacked off their hands. Or branded their skin. Or took their trinkets. Converting Heathens is such messy work!! It was for their own good, of course.

Some pagans today go on "snake crawls", a sort of pub crawl where they wear snakes and proclaim their paganism. I'm not quite that...er...proactive. I also don't necessarily think old Pat went around mauling everyone he met in an effort to build church membership and win a nifty prize. But it's the bloody aspect of what he did that earned his name in Christendom and for which his holiday is celebrated.

So again, why would I celebrate the day? Well, I'm all for a day when families get together and discuss history, theology, spirituality, and the like. Traditions are important - they give us a foundation on which to build our lives. People should discuss their history so they don't repeat it - whatever side of the issue they're on. Also, as I mentioned, I am part Irish. I can celebrate that heritage even as I acknowledge its imperfection. And I am Pagan - and I am celebrating the fact that I can be pagan today without (much) fear of having my (largely not visible when I'm clothed) tattoos painfully removed and other unpleasantness (except for the odd zealot who thinks I'm fair game, but I'm used to that. I live in the Bible belt, after all). Precisely because we didn't get wiped out, I celebrate. And have you ever had a really nice corned beef and cabbage dinner? I mean, yum! Oh, but I won't be wearing green. I wear blue. Don't even think about pinching me.

Clouds In My Coffee, Clouds In My Coffee

I was at this concert with my Dad.  On of my few memories of time we spent together.  I love this song.


Bonus points if you know who this song is about...

And Then She Laughs

Unselfconscious, yet so very aware of her pull, aware that somehow, mysteriously, her presence shifts the tides, she hurtles through space, flings herself into the air, and knows without doubt that arms will stretch to catch her before flight turns to fall.

She caroms from place to place, wee juggernaut with a maniacal giggle and feral grin, she knows without knowing that tears are not supposed to fall so often, and with a tenderness belying her scant years, she reaches to wipe them away before whirling back into her dance-of-the-rooms.

Irresistible, she pulls her brother into her pattern, making him her landing zone, her tormentor, her plaything, her conspirator.

In the midst of it all, in the chaos and confusion, in the place of the lost, it can seem like too much.

And then...she laughs...

SLAMmed

Sad.
Lonely.
Angry.
Mom.

SLAM.

Yup.

That about sums up what I feel defining me, lately.

Sad.  Sorrowful.  Full of sorrow.  Yeah.  Wearing thin, this depression thing.  Looking back at the years I can remember of my life (does anyone recall their first year?  their second?  third?), I am sometimes stunned at how long I've carried this particular stone.  Looking forward, wondering how many years I have remaining  to my span, I wonder if I will simply carry it to the veil.  Surely not beyond...death is supposed to be an end, a respite, isn't it?  I certainly hope so.  This stone gets so heavy, I get so tired, I just want to rest, to sleep for days on end.  Of course, I can't - there are cats and kids and laundry and dishes and life in general to contend with, and none of those things really allow for the self-indulgent lay-up I sometimes yearn for.  Napping with Sprout will have to suffice.  Already, I miss so much, am so behind in cleaning and nurturing and just getting things done...sigh...  I'm tired of crying.

Lonely.  How on earth do I manage that, with two kids, four cats, Someone, and scads of friends?  Maybe lost would be a better word...but no...I am not lost.  I know right where I am, know just how I got here.  I am lonely.  I feel empty, devoid of some basic, soul-nurturing thing that seems abundant in people around me but absent from my own life.  It's not the lack of God - one of the most reassuring, bracing things in my life is my connection to the divine that I call "Goddess".  There's not as much music, and I miss that...and not as much art, which I also miss.  There is almost no laughter or joy, and what there is comes strained, with furtive glances to be sure it's not too intrusive.  I often feel silenced, as if my voice, my expression of Self, is just not welcome.  I get scoffed at a lot, and chastised, and downright yelled at, and it is difficult to feel as though I am heard, or wanted, when it seems everything I do is just...wrong.  As if everything I was and am are...wrong.  If only I could do or be something different, learnt to do or be another way...  If only I could transform into what Someone thinks I should be rather than remaining so very wrong that disapprobation overwhelms me...

Angry.  Oh, my, so very angry.  I have absorbed and absorbed and absorbed so much anger, I cannot filter it all.  I am steeped in it, and it oozes out of me and taints everything I touch.  Small things madden me, so that I want to scream and rage and say and do ugly things to make it all reflect the ugliness within me.  I breathe in, breathe out, try to ground, try to center, but the ground is gone in a whirling, hateful mess and wherever I am, it is so far from center that I can't see center from here.  I need...I don't know what I need...but I need...something..and I can't seem to have it.  Whatever the elusive balm is, it slips away with the flutter of moth's wings just as I reach for it.  The harder I look for balance, the less I seem to find.  Frustrated, I swallow it all, because there is no room in my world for my feelings...not where anyone else has to face them or deal with them.

Mom.  I am a mother.  That is sacred.  It is enormous.  It is marvelous and awesome and terrifying.  It is exhausting.  There is no manual.  We can't even know how to do it right, but there are plenty of people who will tell us we're doing it wrong.  Seems anyone with an opinion feels entitled to tell us how wrong we are, how we should be doing it.  I am supposed to put my kids' need before my own, but I haven't been and I know it.  I am being selfish, and it's damaging them, and I know just how horrible I am for doing it, and I know that any damage that may be done to them is my fault and no one else's.  Guilt eats at me, and doubt, and I wonder every day when I will do the right thing, but I shrink away from it every day because I am weak, I am a coward.  Being Mother is perhaps the biggest thing I have been or ever will be...and I hate that sometimes I simply want to go be alone somewhere quiet and let someone else take care of these amazing children in my absence.  I am convinced anyone else can do it neater, sweeter, kinder and more compassionate than I am capable of...that maybe these children would be better off without my ineptitude fumbling their childhood into the muck and mire that surrounds me.

So, yeah, slammed...shaken and shattered and just damned tired...but life goes on...and on...and on...

Thoughtfetti

I'm going to the dentists tomorrow.  I haven't been in...umm...maybe not quite a decade?  Yeah, this'll be fun...
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My children are trying to kill each other in the living room.  I hope they put the cushions back when they're done.
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I hand-fed Gimpy the ring-neck snake today.  It is both gross and cool - gross because I have to chop earthworm into tiny bits that he can manage, and cool because, well...just cool.  Also, I put a few drops of water on my finger and he drank, which is just too nifty.  I think the other two snakes are jealous...they keep gliding along the glass of their shared tank, staring at me...but they can hunt on their own, so I don't feel too bad about it.
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I am surfing waves of depression right now - it comes over me in a rush, a sense of futility, uselessness, sorrow, and frustration, and I grab my board and ride.  So far, no wipe out.  After 25 years of it, I can hang ten, but I still wonder why I bother.  Sigh.
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I am tired of anger.  Mine.  Other people's.  There is so much anger in the world, these days.  It is a heavy stone to carry, but every time I try to put it down, I am handed a new one, and I still haven't learned not to accept the load.  Double sigh.
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My band is trying to raise the money to record another CD, in a more formal studio setting.  We are looking for folks to pledge/sponsor/fund our project.  Would you check us out, please?  Feel free to share...
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A swept floor attracts dirt faster than a dirty one.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it...and the floor...
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What's on your mind?

Falcon

If I could fly like that
cutting across the face of the wind
unruffled
If I could fly like that
wheeling, climbing, diving
as if gravity was for those more
earthbound
If I could fly like that
flinging myself earthward
until with a
snap
I stop the mad rush
If I could fly like that

Would I wonder what it was to walk?

Or...would I be so caught in the screeching freedom of the skies,
that I would simply soar oblivious
to the dreamers below?

Oh, Boy!

The kids and I got up early this morning and hauled our yawning selves down to the city for a doctor's appointment.  The Evil Genius had a date with a specialist regarding his gentleman parts (the Evil Genius's, not the doctor's, because really...), and I guess my fervent request for something after ten in the morning was misinterpreted as "Oh, please, make sure we have to get up early and slog through morning traffic!"

Luckily it was a fairly clean drive, and the few accidents that could have been along our way were handily avoided by the judicious use of back roads.  I swear I think it's a local ordinance that there must be no fewer than three small but highly traffic snarling accidents for every fifty miles of highway in the state, and at least one "Oh, wow!" incident each rush hour.

It took two and one-half hours out of our day, of which only about 30 minutes were spent in the doctor's office.  We will be scheduling a "procedure" in the near future to correct what I have dubbed a "shy ball", but which the medical community refer to as an "acquired undescended testis".  Acquired?  That makes it sound like we went to an auction, or shoplifted it or something.  My name's better.

It's not a huge deal and will take maybe an hour, but the recovery time will not be fun for the kid, because he won't be able to run, climb, ride his bike, or do anything overly active or strenuous for two weeks.  Two.  Weeks.

I'll pause here and let you digest that thought. A ten year old boy, quiescent for a fortnight.

One of us is going to need Valium for fourteen days.

In the end it will be worth the trouble, because uncorrected?  This condition has a higher incidence of cancer, and can lead to difficulties with..er...function...and reproduction.

The Evil Genius opined he'd rather spend two weeks not having any fun than have a higher cancer risk later in life, because cancer sucks.  Smart kid, him.

As an aside, never, ever look something like "undescended testis" on the Internet if you don't have a strong stomach, a strong heart, and are well fueled with lots of caffeine and some serious nerve tonic.  Thank goodness I didn't need anything visual...I shudder to think...

The rest of today was dedicated to the baking of banana bread, cooking corned beef and getting ready for a three day stint at the track.  Poor Someone...on his way home right now, he'll have this evening to unpack and settle in, then three days of relentless Sprout to contend with!  Welcome home, Papa...

So...what'd you do with your day, today?

Clean(ish) Sweep

One of the things I planned to do during Someone's absence was clean the Evil Genius's room.  I think I managed it...mostly...but only with the help of an incredibly good friend who rode herd on Sprout while the Evil Genius went and stayed at his dad's for a couple of days.  Without Angie's assistance, I would still be at it...or sitting in the corner, weeping...holy wow, she did Yeoman's duty for sure!

It took more than twenty hours over four days.

Here it is an hour after I began, when I remembered I wanted some "before" shots, which I usually forget:

 The bed hasn't had actual sheets on it for...umm...please don't alert the authorities...more than a year.  I could not get to it to make it, and the boy didn't mind nesting in blankets camp-style.  I know, I know...

 No wonder most of his clean laundry wound up on the floor - who could reach the dresser in there?

 Here it is a few hours in:

 Hey, there's a floor under there!

 I realized today that it has been more than two years since I cleaned in his room.  The mess began, as many messes do, with some visiting friends and some enthusiastic playing with Legos, K'Nex, and various other toys.  How many Legos?  A shop's worth.  I plan to photograph the bins another day.  They were dumped on the floor for play, then the friends left, and the mess stayed.  It was daunting to clean up, and after a while the Evil Genius gave up and just started piling things up, and...well...  Why didn't I do it?  Could be I am a Slacker Mom.  Could be there was a battle of wills,  Or...and I'm being honest, here...most likely it was that when I looked in there and contemplated cleaning it all up, I felt ill and had to lie down until the nausea passed.

The Legos, K'nex, and other tiny things were what took so long - sifting through dust and trash and bits of this 'n that took time.  He knows he's lucky I didn't just sweep the lot up and toss it.

Here it is at 11:00 Monday night:

 The bins under the bed and the basket by the door are the toys and games that survived the cleaning.  I was tough but fair - if it was broken, torn, missing parts, or had clearly been lost in that disaster for so long it wasn't even a memory, it was bagged.  Five large black trash bags are bulging to the limit.  I will slowly sort through the bins and put things away.  For now, though, I need to be done - my back aches, I am listing to starboard, and I itch from stem to stern.

Look to the right of the bed - that is Stuffed Critter Mountain.  He clearly needs more.

 The book shelf may have surpassed its load limit.

Still to do:  sort through the bins, wash, dry, and put away (conservatively) ten loads of laundry, and clean the closet.  The closet?  Oy, vey, I dont have the strength right now.  The closet will have to wait another day!  For now, I am happy that I could zip on a new mattress cover and make the bed.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I need a hot shower and twelve hours of sleep.  I'll get the shower, anyway...

I'm A Little Bit Country...

...the Rock 'n' Roll will come some other time...right now, I'm sharing a few of the songs that make me smile when I hear 'em.

 Ain't this the truth?

 The Evil Genius used to sing along with this...its still one of our grinning songs.

I know it's wrong...I do...but the Evil Genius used to sing along with this when he was five and I laughed so hard I...well, never mind what I did...

There are many things I enjoy about his song, but the tight harmony tops the list.

What're you listening to these days?

Ten Days

Someone is away visiting a friend and attending a Heathen Moot, so for the next ten days I am solo Mama.  I have plans for those ten days...we'll see if I manage to follow through.

What plans?

Well...I'd like to say I'll be losing eighty pounds, winning the lottery, and curing cancer, but...no...

Today I got a little sewing done, then took the kids to a place where they could jump, bounce, slide, run, and generally exhaust themselves have a blast.  We met friends there, and then went out to dinner en masse to a local joint that lets kids eat free on Tuesday night.

Tomorrow is band practice, then home for more sewing.  While I sew, the Evil Genius watches/plays with Sprout.  He's grand - she thinks he's the best toy ever.

For the rest of this week, we'll be working on getting the boy's room cleaned up.  Hopefully this time I'll take before photos, but trust me when I tell you it's...well...wow...

This weekend a friend is coming to stay and distract the kids wile I work in the Evil Genius's room, and then we're celebrating her birthday next Tuesday.  Another rehearsal Wednesday and then...well, Someone will be home!

Whew, I'm tired just thinking about it!

What do you do when your partner/roommate/parents are out of town?

Comme Ci, Comme Ca

So I'm officially a year older as of last Friday.

Funny.

I feel about the same.

Oh, well.

Comme ci comme ca about sums up how I feel about everything right now.

Huh, I guess I still have use for the little soupcon of Francais that hasn't gone down the rabbit hole of memory and become lost in all the clutter down there.

How're you feeling?

I've Been A-Searchin'

Looking something up on the Internet is something of a crapshoot.

Search The Blue Nowhere and you'll find all sorts of things, from medical journals to crackpots in caves posting the ephemera of their dreams as fact.  The unwary seeker could find themselves mired in a morass of misinformation at the click of a mouse.

Researching a medical condition ups the ante considerably.

If the denizens of Blogopolis, Wikiworld, and all points between are to be believed, everything leads to cancer, death, and unsightly body hair growth.

One almost needs to know about what one is researching before beginning, which somewhat defeats the purpose.

I have found plenty of wonderful resources regarding fish tanks, snakes, recipes using water chestnuts, and a host of other trifles.  I have found plenty of dubious results when mining for informative nuggets.  Sometimes it is not easy to discern fact from fantasy.  I like to think I have a good filter, a keen sense of (although I'm not terribly attached to) reality, and my wits about me, and I find it easy to get lost on the information highway, make a wrong turn, and wind up in some backwater burg where eye of newt is still the most popular panacea for what ails ya.

Again, I feel as though I am well equipped to research - I have a nominally good head on my shoulders, a small but sturdy foundation in medical fooferaw (that is TOO a word, spell check!), and a steady disposition when it comes to things that ook normal folks out.  Ask anyone who knows me and they'll likely say "Who are you and why are you talking to me?", but then they'll tell you I am not prone to panic or faint when there's blood or weirdness happening.  I don't weep and wail when told that I or someone I love has something unpronounceable and entirely new to my medical lexicon.  I buckle down and look it up, learn the ropes, arm myself with knowledge, and face the enemy with fair confidence that I know how to vanquish it, or at least say its name without sounding like I have an affliction of an entirely different sort.

Something unremarkable, like, say, finding a cold remedy, can be amusing, occasionally enlightening, and not terribly unpleasant.  Looking up something less common, though...perhaps a condition your child had been diagnosed with...that's a whole other story.  Posts passing themselves off as expertise are written by the cousin of a friend who heard about the condition from their hair dresser's grandmother's veterinarian while stomping grapes ten years ago.  Posts that could be truly informative are two-hundred pages along on the list because hey!  Who needs real information, anyway, when we have The Internets to entertain and distract  us?

Search results should come with a warning, something along the lines of "Caution:  results contain 80% doom and gloom, 15% BS, and 5% grammatical errors and may cause cranial swelling, lacrimal eruptions, and spontaneous combustion."

Traveler beware, here there be dragons.  No, really, there are whole pages dedicated to proving the existence of dragons - I saw it on the Internet, so it must be true!

Who Wants Music on Monday?

I know these folks - they are firecrackers, for sure!

I think I'll go get my drum on...

Little Things That Bring A Smile

Two of my favorite little poems, by Emily Dickenson.

Because, that's why.

HOPE is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;	5
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I ’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;	10
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I ’M nobody! Who are you? Are you nobody, too? Then there ’s a pair of us—don’t tell! They ’d banish us, you know.    How dreary to be somebody!         5 How public, like a frog To tell your name the livelong day To an admiring bog!

~~~~~~~~

Have you a beloved verse?  Which one(s), and by whom?

Boycott*

Mum and I both take a dim view of February.  People we love die in February.  Things break in expensive ways in February.  February is when I am officially older by the calendar.  For a short month, it packs a big wallop on our lives, and we don't like it.

To combat February's effect, Mum goes on a cruise to warmer, sunnier, places.  She's off, now, on her annual adventure, leaving her cat to rule the roost and me to invade her house when no one's looking (which I do from time to time with and without the family, because I don't thinks it's a good idea for a house to be empty for so long).

We joke about boycotting February.  In a way, that's what her cruise is about - getting out of Dodge until the month is mostly, or entirely, gone.  

Me?  I'd love to join her, but it's not feasible.  There are the cats, and the kids, and now fish, snakes, and snails.  There's Someone. There's the expense.  There's the idea of wearing a bathing suit in public.

So I stay here and muddle through varying shades of beige until the month is over.  With any luck, no one will die on my birthday again, or anywhere in the month.  With any luck nothing will break (too late, but that's another story), or blow up, or fall apart, or melt, or otherwise cause messy, expensive mayhem in our lives, at least for these few weeks.  With any luck this sinus thing that's hammering me will not get into my lungs and leave me useless for weeks on end.  With any luck, the daffodils out back will bloom all sunny and cheerful and I can shoot some photos and smile.

And it's not all bad - K2 was born in February, and our friend A, and T, and Abraham Lincoln and Galileo  so I'm in pretty good company, right?

No, sorry...February still sucks out loud.  I'm crawling in bed and I'm not coming out until the iris bloom.  What's the number for room service?

*Have a great trip, Mum...take lots of pictures, get tan, and bring me back some of the Caribbean, please!

If Only I Was a 'Bean*

Sometimes I wish I was a lesbian.

Hear me out.

I like men.  I love men.  I enjoy masculine energy.  I like the way men smell (well, most of the time), the way they sound (although sometimes the noises emanating from their hindquarters can be a little...distressing), and the way they feel (rough, smooth, firm, soft, warm, cool, delightful).  I like when a man looks at me like he thinks I'm okay.  It makes me feel warm and happy when Someone looks at me like he doesn't want to look at anyone else in the moment, like he thinks I am marvelous.  I like lying in his arms at night, warm and safe in his circle.  I wouldn't trade that for anything.

That said, do sometimes wish I was a lesbian.

Why?

Because I know some beautiful, amazing women, that's why.

I know some sexy, intelligent, funny, daring, bold, witty, compassionate, kind, strong, brave, adventurous, creative, thoughtful, caring, wonderful women.  Some of them prefer women, some prefer men, and some are happy to dip in both pools.  If I was inclined towards the feminine I'd have one heck of an array to delight in.  The idea of loving, and being loved by, these incredible women is a provocative one.

I like talking to other women.  I like cuddling with other women (hey, I'm cheap, I'll share a bed in a motel if it means I don't have to pay for a whole room).  I dig female energy.  I'm just not attracted in THAT way, which sometimes is a pity because, again, I know some brilliant ladies.  Presuming they were into me, I'd be only lucky lassie!

I don't suppose same sex relationships are any less work, any less complicated, than heterosexual relationships.  I don't suppose they are better or worse.  I do wonder if women (or men) can relate better to each other than do the different sexes.  I wonder if we are more capable of empathy with our own.  I know that I am more comfortable addressing certain issues with my female friends than with the men in my life, things I think my gender community is better suited to understand than is the opposite sex.  It's a bias I am comfortable with.

So I sometimes think I am missing out on something pretty good, not being a 'bean...but I am what I am, so I will simply keep on loving my ladies in a sororal kind of way and let that suffice.

Have you ever felt that way?

*In my youthj, I lived with a gay man who called lesbians "beans", for short, and for some reason it sticks in my head...

Something to Think About

Is it better to put your children in a car and drive home drunk, or to sit out the drunk or spend the night in someone else's house until you're sober?  Do you listen to your pride and leave so your hosts don't see you drunk, or do you listen to your good sense and stay where you are so you're not endangering yourself, your kids, and everyone else on the road?

What kind of world, what kind of society, do we live in that anyone would feel the need to make such a choice? 

Ain't That a Kickstarter in the Pants?

In a blatant bit of self-promotion, I am posting this link:  Spiral Rhythm, Let the Magic Begin.

Clicky, clicky, if you care to help a band get another album produced.  C'mon, support the arts!!

Thanks.

Tuesdays With Mum

I have a weekly date with Mum.

We spend Tuesdays together.

For a while, I brought the kids up to her place and we would spend the day harassing her cat and generally invading her home so that Someone could have a quiet day.  For the last few months, however, he's been keeping the kids at home and giving Mum and I a day to do whatever it is we do without the kids around.

Thank you, Someone, for a day to breathe!

Mostly, we talk.  We do things while we talk - knit, crochet, visit her local yarn shop, attend quilt guild, run errands - but always, we talk.

We talk about the past, the present, what we think the future holds.  We tell out stories a few hours at a time, hers, mine, the tales of the people we know.  We gossip and laugh and get serious.

I would love to say we are secretly international jewel thieves or rock stars, or that we don costumes and fight crime with slick moves and pithy catch phrases, but...nah.

Sometimes we go somewhere, do something.  Almost always, Mum buys me lunch.

I love these Tuesdays with Mum.  I think of it as banking memories against the inevitable days when I will want to have such a savings, when there will be nothing more to deposit and I will want something to help fill what will be a tremendous void.

Don't get me wrong, we're not exactly ordering sackcloth yet...although Mum DID have a conversation with a cremation society last week, which I would have loved to have heard because we both have something of an irreverence regarding death.  It's just that we both know no one lives forever.  No one.

So while we're living, we're making sure we sift through the sands of time for whatever shining gems we can find, polish them up, and set them in the crown of memory.

We Shall Eat Cake!

I made a six-flavor pound cake for Sprout's birthday.  I love this cake.  When we visited Someone's mother two years ago, she made this cake and I declared it unfit for human consumption, and said that I would dispose of it properly - by eating it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner until it was gone.

Gramma B was kind enough to give me the recipe.  Did you ever read an old book and see a recipe called a receipt?  Anyway, she gave me the recipe AND her vintage bundt pan, and I made if for Sprout's first birthday (tasted great, looked a mess) and then for my birthday (came out terrific), and now I've made it again.

I don't dare make it too often, or I'll need new trousers.  Two sizes larger.

I thought I would share the recipe so you can avoid making it too often, too.  I warn you, it's a little costly at first, because of all the flavorings, but after the first bite, you won't mind.

The players
~~~~~
For the cake:
2 sticks of butter.  Butter.  Nothing else will do.  No, it won't.  Butter, I tell you!  Ahem.
1/2 cup shortening.  Crisco makes it in bars, now, with easy-measure lines so you can just cut it.  I adore them, they make my kitchen life so much easier.
3 cups sugar.  Do your teeth ache?  Mine do every time I read that.
5 eggs, well beaten.
3 cups all purpose flour - none of that specialized stuff for us, we want the handy-man of the flour world for this!
1/2 teaspoon baking powder.  I didn't realize until a few years ago that some baking powder has aluminum in it.  I don't buy that kind, any more.  I like my aluminum outside me, like covering a delicious cake...
1 cup milk.  Now, some folks say skim is as good as whole, and if you're one of 'em that's fine, but I use whole milk.
1 teaspoon each coconut, rum, butter, lemon, vanilla, and almond flavors.  I pre-measure them and use pure extracts where I can.  I dig how the lemon makes the liquid cloudy - reminds me of chemistry class.

For the glaze:
1 cup sugar (oh, my poor teeth!).
1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon each coconut, rum, butter, lemon, vanilla, and almond flavors.

Action
~~~~~
Cream butter, shortening, and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add eggs (which have been beaten until lemon colored).  Combine flour and baking powder.  Add dry ingredients to creamed mixture, alternating with milk.  Mix in the flavoring.  I use a stand mixer, and once the flavoring is in I let it run for a few minutes while I prepare my bundt pan.  I spray my pan liberally with Baker's Joy.  Very liberally.  Perhaps I am a bit crazed about it, but the first time I made this cake I used cooking spray alone and it did. Not. Work.  Baker's joy lives up to its name. So, while your batter is mixing, prepare your pan, preferable a bundt pan but you can use a regular cake pan if you like.

Spoon the batter into a 10-inch tube/bundt pan.  Bake at 375 for 1 hour, 15 minutes or until done.

You may have more than enough batter.  The bundt pan shouldn't be more than 2/3 full.  Any extra can go into another cake pan or (in my case) mini-bundts.  I usually get one regular and three minis from one batch.  The minis make good individual cakes for kids or distractions for me.

About twenty minutes before the cake is done, combine the glaze ingredients in a pan and bring to a boil and stir until the sugar is melted.

Pour half the glaze on the finished cake while it's in the pan.

Cool for ten minutes, remove from the pan, and pour the rest of the glaze over the top.

I dare you to resist eating this.
~~~~~
We are celebrating Sprout's birthday tomorrow when Mum and a friend come over.  I hate waiting.  Think anyone will notice if there's a bite or three missing?

What's your favorite cake?

Woo-Hoo, She's Two!

The Sprout is Two today.

Two!!

Wow.

She is 35 7/8 inches tall, so if the formula holds true (take their height at Two and double it), she'll be about 5' 10", which just happens to be how tall both Someone and I are.  She weighs 25 pounds, one ounce.

She's 50'th percentile for weight, 75'th for height, and 100% our little biscuit baby.  Toddler.  Gah!

Toddler!!!

She speaks clearly enough to be understood by non-family.  What her vocabulary lacks in scope she makes up for with enthusiasm - she knows names, knows Mama and Papa and Buddy (her name for the Evil Genius), cat, water, juice, cheese, eat, sit, sauce (apple sauce), outside, shoes, want, hat, Pooh, Pingu, Shaun (as in Shaun the Sheep, a claymation show that she recently decided was delightful), moon,ball, candy (groan), blow, slide, and fish, and some more that I can't recall because I am a terrible mommy and don't write down every little thing she says or does.  She has a  "No!!!" and isn't afraid to use it.

If I ask her where her cup, her jacket, her shoes, Pooh, or any number of things are, she can find them and bring them to me, even if they're in another room.

She will climb anything that doesn't move out from under her.

Like her Mama, she is somewhat immune to the cold (except when she's sleeping - if she's even slightly chilled, she wakes up and tells me about it!) and playing in water.  Like her Papa, she loves being out in the sun (unless it's in her eyes) and gardening.  She adores her Buddy, would follow him through Hell if that's where he was going.  She has figured out how to hiss at the cats and make them run, which amuses her very much, them not so much.  She can put her finger to her lips and say "Shhhhhh", but she still doesn't have much grasp of the concept of an indoor voice.

She purses her lips and turns them up at us when she wants kisses, and she will wrap her little arm around my neck and pat me when we hug.

Her smile.  Oh, how I love her smile.  She can be so solemn, looking at the world and sorting things out...and then she grins that little girl grin, the trouble grin, the smile that expresses her whole being, her delight at the world, her joy in being, just being, and she incandesces and I melt into a puddle on the floor which she will fetch a towel to clean up because she knows that's what we do when something spills.

Two.

Strange how someone can go from small, wriggly, helpless, to larger-than-life, full-tilt-boogie, and fiercely independent in such a short time.

Strange to thing what changes we will experience in the coming year, the coming years.

For now, she is two and that is enough, more than enough.

Les Mis, Hollywood Style (A Review of Sorts)

I once had the good fortune to see Les Miserables one stage at the Fox Theater in Atlanta.  Beautiful theater, The Fox.Worth a visit if you ever have the chance.  I have never had a bad experience or sat in a bad seat there, and I've been up in the rafters once or twice!

The production I saw was terrific - well played, well sung, incredible sets, beautifully done all around.

I have the recording done by the international cast, including a young Japanese woman who reportedly didn't speak a word of English but sang the part of Eponine flawlessly after learning it phonetically.  I have played it so often, were it a record I'd have worn through the grooves by now.  As it is, I can sing the play from start to finish in my sleep.

Yesterday, a couple of friends and I took a day for us.  We went to lunch, and then to the movies.  We chose Les Miserables because I didn't know any of the other movies showing (I live under a rock, remember, with little media input), and nothing else looked interesting.

I'll be honest, I was a little dubious of Les Mis on film...until I saw that Hugh Jackman was in it.  Then I was all for it.  Come on...Hugh Jackman...mmmmm...

Three hours.

It was every minute of three hours from opening to end of credits.

I'm glad I got the large popcorn and the super-mega-bladderbuster drink.

In this day and age, a musical...even an epic, famous, hugely popular Broadway musical...just isn't the thing for film (Chicago being a noted exception).  Also, Broadway doesn't often translate well to film, does it?  There's something about live people, on a stage in front of one, something about feeling more drawn in by physical presence, that doesn't usually make it into film.  A play?  I'm in the room with the characters.  A film?  I am observing from a distance.

Some thoughts about the movie:

The actors sang their own parts.  Yes.  They did.  I know!  They did quite well, I thought.  Not trained-Broadway-polished-pitch-perfect well, but well enough that my ears were not offended.  Kudos to anyone with the chutzpah to take one any of those rolls without a lifetime of voice coaching!  I AM a singer, classically trained, and I only sing along with the CD if no one's around.  Hey, I said I could sing it, but I didn't say I could sing it well.  The rough spots, the occasionally wobbling note, somehow made it more...real.

The music was not entirely the same.  There were things taken out, thing added in, which threw me.

A few pieces of plot were switched about.  I don't generally approve of that.  It didn't help the story line  and I think it took away from one important dynamic.

The casting was brilliant - Russell Crow, Hugh Jackman, Ann Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter, Sacha Baron Cohen...

The acting was excellent.

When one knows the play, knows the music, and still gets...weepy...then one knows the film is well done, indeed.

A few seats down, some girls were sobbing at the end.  Sobbing.  Served 'em right for spending some thirty minutes in the middle of the film wrestling with a candy wrapper made of extra loud, Kevlar strength cellophane.  And for having a cell phone on and receiving texts in a theater.  Who doesn't know that's rude? Who???

I always feel a little annoyed with Fantine and Cosette, and sorry for Javert.  Well written characters do that, snooker me into having feelings about them.  Hugh Jackman was a delicious Valjean.  Of course, he's a delicious anything.

The Thenardiers were delightfully horrid, as always.

If you haven't seen the play or movie, or at least heard the sound track, right now you are wondering what the hell I am talking about.  Sorry.

I had the thought that, if nothing else, the film brings an epic, lush, compelling bit of storytelling out of the somewhat less accessible theater and onto the more easily affordable big screen, staying true enough to the original that folks can say they've seen Les Mis without quibble, and for that I think the film maker deserves lauds - thank you, Tom Hooper!

Over all, I enjoyed it enough to be worth the full priced ticket ( Holy cats, when did it get so expensive?  Granted, I haven't been to a movie in a while...okay, in years...but wow!), and would go see it again.  I feel confident that anyone trotting off for a film would be, at the very least, entertained by it.  The only caveat?  This is a full-on, no holds barred musical, and if that's not your thing you may not enjoy it as much.

Here, a gratuitous movie poster for your amusement:

What's the latest movie you've seen, and how did you like it?

Mombies*

It's happening all over the world as I type.  Dark circled eyes staring emptily out at nothing.  Groans emanating from deep within at every motion.  Hands hanging slack, or outstretched and clawing for...something...  Heavy breathing, slurred speech.

All over the world, I tell you, and now at Casa de Crazy as well.

The Mombies have arisen.

We were up and down all night to rock, fetch water, frighten away bad dreams, grab a bucket to catch vomit, change sheets, whatever it was that the younger residents of our collective homes needed that couldn't wait until a more reasonable hour...say...maybe after ten?

We spend our days doing laundry, making meals, fetching groceries, taking out the trash, emptying the compost, cleaning rooms, and endlessly sweeping, mopping, or vacuuming floors that never seem to be clean.

What intelligence we once possessed is gone the way of the Dodo, and we have no idea what you are talking about, but we will happily smile, nod, and try to steal your coffee when you aren't looking, maybe deposit a child or two in your lap and run for the hills.

Our battle cry isn't "braaaaiiiiins", it's "draaaaaaiiiiiiinnnnnsss", as we hunt for the Liquid Drain Cleaner o' Doom to deal with whatever is stuck down the kids' tub drain before it gains sentience and demands a seat at the UN.

No, we can't carry on a coherent conversation, thank you.  We can't hear half of what you said, and can't make sense of the rest of it. 

Date?  What's that?  It's a fruit, right?  

Dinner out?  Not yet, it hasn't finished baking in the oven yet.  

Movie?  Isn't that something cows do?  

Free time?  Wait, when did we start having to pay for it?  

Uninterrupted sleep?  You made that up just now.

You have something on your face right there, let me spit on a napkin and get it off for you.

Did I have a point?  I can't remember...

~~~~~

The Evil Genius asked me why parents are weird.  I told him it's because we have kids - right up until then, we were perfectly normal.

~~~~~

This post brought to you by Sprout's nagging cough that woke her up every twenty to thirty minutes all. night. long.

*I totally thought of my post title before I found the picture.  Yuh huh, did too!

Umm...Okay...But Why Is It My Business?

Casa de Crazy doesn't have regular television.  No cable, no satellite, we rely on T's Netflix account for entertainment, so when things happen out there in the world I usually learn about it via Facebook or word of mouth.

Apparently one of my favorite actresses, Jodie Foster, received an award last weekend.  While making her acceptance speech, it seems she may have mentioned something about being...gay?

I must pause here to mention that I have not looked at one single moment of the many videos of her speech, nor have I read any transcripts from or full articles about it.  I have merely seen some headlines and some people's reactions to it.

So what I am wondering is twofold.

First, was there anyone who didn't know that she paddled on that side of the canoe, or at least rowed on both sides of the boat?

Second, umm, this matters why?

What business is it of mine with whom she sleeps or who she loves or takes up housekeepery with?  Providing she isn't doing anyone any harm, I don't honestly care.  I don't mean that in a angry, hurtful, mean kind of way - I wish her, as I do any being, a life of happiness and fulfillment.  My estimation of another person is not linked to their sex life.  Again, as long as no one is being hurt, I don't much care what kind of kink, vanilla, celibate or slutty lifestyle a body is living.

While I laud Mizz Foster for being herself, unabashedly, I just don't think it's my business.  Sexual activity is personal.  It is between the consenting participants.  It has nothing to do with whether I will watch a movie or read a book or listen to a song - THAT had everything to do with talent or lack thereof, and that I DO care deeply about.

Why have we become a culture that demands more than simply living one's life with honesty?  Why have we become a culture that demands that people, especially celebrities, announce publicly something so private?  Why does it matter?

Ouch

This is a Nintendo 3DS:

This is what happens when you leave your 3DS with Super Mario Kart 7 in it on the bumper of a neighbor's Jeep unbeknownst to them  and they go run an errand, and the 3DS falls off the bumper onto a highway and gets run over once or twice or however many times:

The 3DS is, in case you were wondering, worth more than the blue book value of my van.  I cannot replace it.  His father will not replace it.  The Evil Genius?  Is heartbroken.  Tears.  Many, many tears.  Copious, even.

Can you keep a secret?

I'm heartbroken, too.

I hate that he has to learn this lesson this way.  He loved that thing.  Loved.  He actually took it out of his pocket and put it on the bumper so he wouldn't break it while playing with his friend.  He didn't.  Want. To Break. It.

Hello, irony?

Yeah.

So...ouch.

So how did you learn the lesson to be careful with your precious things?  Or did you?

Gifted

My Mum is my staunchest supporter, literally and figuratively.

She is my cheerleader, my sympathetic ear, and more often than either of us would like, she's my wallet and erstwhile loan officer.

She keeps her mouth shut when she'd like to speak because she honors my alleged adulthood and my right to screw up my life however I choose.  She speaks when she'd rather stay silent because she'd rather lance the boil than let it fester, even when letting it fester would be less painful in the short run.

She will not let my children do without anything, even when it means she has to do without something herself.

She also understands that some things, while not essential to life, go a long way towards making life more bearable and even downright enjoyable.

That's why she gave me a new camera for Yule - can't be a photographer without a working camera, can I?

That's why she decided to give me an early birthday present.

Mum's laptop went kerflooey.  That is too a word.  It went kerflooey, leaving Mum with the need for a laptop.  She decided that I need a laptop, too, since Bob the Wonder Computer is long past retirement and has been largely unusable for the last year, leaving Casa de Crazy with the desktop and three computer-hungry people to use it.

Last week, we went on an outing and I came home with a new laptop.  It is a Gateway Somethingorother, with whiz-bangs, zoomers, and fooferaw to spare.  I have a deep and abiding affection for the keyboard, which is almost full sized  and only needs soft contact to type.  It fits my hands beautifully.  With it, I can once again blog at will.  I named it Albino Bob, because it is white and the name appeals to me.

It is not the original Bob, and will never replace him in my affections, but it is a mighty fine gizmo and has already become part of my morning routine.  I look forward to screwing up learning the ins and outs of Albino Bob's programming.

Welcome to the Casa, Albino Bob.

And thank you, Mum, for so much more...

Unclean

A friend of mine was recently disturbed to find that her children had lice.

They've been itchy for a while, but there was no sign of infestation until a few nights ago when her husband found proof of the critters in their daughter's hair.  The family was something less than thrilled.

My friend had the happy chore of calling everyone who had been to their house or had played with their kids to let them know.  I can understand the feelings that engendered, a little - no lice, here, but measles as a result of a reaction to immunizations, of course at a public event with lots of other kids.  It never happens when no one else is effected, does it?

So my poor friend has been having to treat her kids for lice, and the experience put me in mind of my childhood and lice.

To my recollection, I never had lice, but I remember louse checks at school, when the nurse would come into the classroom and use those disposable wooden chopstick tings to look through our hair for tell-tale signs of noggin-noshers.

Children with lice were removed from the classroom, banished until they were proven free of unwanted cranial crawlers.

To have lice meant one was unclean, untouchable, poor, somehow less than the other kids.  It was shameful and proof that one wasn't quite right.  It meant ostracism, hair combing, medicinal shampoos, lots of laundry, and unhappy days away from school.  Social groupings could change overnight.

We were sternly admonished to never share pillows, hats, coats, or scarves because one never knew when a louse might feel migratory.

Because of lice, we have "lousy", which used to mean crawling with lice but now means no good.  We also have "nit picking", which means detail oriented these days but was once an actual profession, wherein people would sit and comb through hair picking out lice and nits (the only way to delouse a person).  They had to be meticulous, and it was a lowly profession.

These days, we know that lice have nothing to do with one's social station or cleanliness - my friend's kids are quite clean - and there's less (if any) stigma involved.  They're just a fact of life in school - kids play, share clothing, and occasionally pass germs, rashes, and pesky parasites around the classroom.  Pragmatism reigns in dealing with all, happily replacing the hysteria of the past.

Sometimes, I like our social evolution.

What's your experience with louses, leeses, lice?

Birthday

So the Evil Genius is now ten.  We had a party for he and a friend yesterday at an indoor play-place/containment area, and then a friend's house for cake and nibblies.  I think everyone had a good time.

 The Evil Genius didn't know I was shooting his picture, so I actually got him looking like himself rather than wearing his big, goofy, you're-shooting-my-picture grin.  I love my new camera with the great big zoom!  I love my boy, who is growing up fast.

 Sprout, taking a much-needed juice break - those bounce houses are exhausting!

 The Evil Genius wanted an Oreo cake.  I had to press him to find out what that meant.  Lucky for me, in this case it meant cake/frosting with crushed Oreos in 'em, which made it easy on me.  I was afraid he wanted a cake that looked like an Oreo, which wasn't going to happen!

You can sort of see how the candles burned with colored flames.  They are a nifty idea, but I have to say they didn't impress me much.  The Evil Genius didn't much care - he just enjoyed blowing them out.

The friend with whom we shared the party turned four recently.  He had vanilla cupcakes with strawberry icing - his mother made them in silicon baking cups, so I got to see how those work out.  Turns out, they work just fine.

We had a nice number of kids of varying ages to play, some yummy snacks - K2 made what I dubbed Flying Spaghetti Monsters (cocktail wienies with spaghetti running through them like noodle-y legs) - and congenial adult company...and my boy is now a Tween.  A Tween!!  Ack!!!

Now I just have to survive Sprout turning two in a few weeks...holy wow...

How was your weekend?

Perfect Love, Perfect Trust

Repost.  Sorry.  Feeling low.
~~~~~
If you're pagan, especially one of the flavours of Wiccan, you hear this a lot: "In perfect love and perfect trust."

Several things have made "perfect love, perfect trust" run through my head lately.

My son...he brings to mind a mundane version of perfect love. He's a child and loves as a child does, without quantifying, without questioning, absolutely. All that matters to him is that he loves me and I love him, and that's just fine.

My ex-husband has not been very trusting. He wasn't while we were married, and he's still struggling with it now that we're not. I never gave him cause to distrust me, and had no idea the level to which the distrust went until we began the divorce and he was angry and saying things from a place of anger and uncertainty. He's trying very hard to let go of his distrust...and it's not easy. I am trying very hard not to take it personally and to be gentle with him in his process...and it's not easy.

I had a friend, some years back, whom I loved dearly. If not for him, I would not have met K, the sister of my heart, or any number of other folks who mean much to me and figure largely in my life...including the people I'm in the band with. We had a falling out. I had to take a stand on an issue, and he didn't like my position (neither did I, come to think of it, but it was necessary, if unpleasant)...so he chose to remove himself from my life. I still love him...but from a distance, because I must respect his feelings.

My friend Gypsy is a fairly recent addition to my life. She's beautiful, dynamic, and brilliant. I met Kit through Gypsy. Kit's another creative, bright, amazing woman. Gypsy and Kit have kids of varying ages, and between us we've got the whole range from infant to school-aged. I trust them with my child, would leave him with either of them (and have) without thought, without worry, absolutely certain that they'll look after him and do right by him.

I've asked many pagans to define perfect love and perfect trust for me. I usually wind up with an idealized definition, one that (to me) seems deeply flawed. In general, it seems, people actually think perfect love means perfect like, too - that the people with whom we share circle all get along and are nice and sweet and...er...gag... Perfect trust? Means no one makes mistakes and everyone behaves perfectly and...umm...barf...

Not that I think it's impossible to be perfect. But the few "perfect" people I've met in my life? Have been rotten at the core. They have a veneer of civility, or trustworthiness, that fools us all...until that one little slip.

I don't trust that kind of perfection.

Here's what I think (yep, I made you read through all that horse-puckey up there just for this - ain't I a stinker??): I love you for who you are and despite who you are. I love you with your flaws gloriously on display and your strengths there for me to wonder at. And I love you absolutely...even when I have to do it from a distance because that's the safest, healthiest place to be. I trust you to be yourself, utterly and honestly, without fear or shame or o'erweening pride. I trust you not to hide you fear and anger, your sorrow or hurt. I trust you not to hide your laughter and silliness, your whimsy and imagination. I trust you to be consistently who you are...even when that means you lie, cheat, and steal, because that's your nature. The person isn't the one who is perfect - the love, the trust are.

How about you? How do you define "perfect love and perfect trust"?

Challenge

I don't do resolutions, so here's a challenge:  for the next thirty days, go stand in front of a mirror twice a day.  Look yourself in the eye and sy "I accept myself unconditionally right now."

I'll let you know how it goes.  You do the same for me, m'kay?