This might come across like reading my twitter, if I had a twitter, but here goes anyway.

I absolutely loved reading your comments and I am not just saying that. I always get very excited when you lovely people comment and I read my comments over and over. Feel free to diagnose me accordingly ; today I am feeling rather good. I had my first appointment with my new psychiatrist yesterday. In case I didn’t mention it, or you forgot, my primary care physician insisted I see someone and then told me she would no longer prescribe psychiatric medications for me, just to give me some “I’m out of Klonopin!” nerves and “I’m running low on Paroxetine! Side effects of withdrawal will be hell!” jitters. I was surprisingly not angry with her for this. I know she knew it was the only way I would go and she used it and I say well played, if her intentions were good, and I think they were. Anyway, I was originally unhappy because there were so few psychiatrists accepting new patients so I got stuck with a man when I had asked for a woman. Now, I love men. I usually get along with them better than women, truth be told. But I have had male doctors in the past and I thought I would be more comfortable with a woman. Plus, this guy’s office is far away from my house and after I wrote down his name and the appointment time Alex googled him and he got his degree from the University of They Have Universities in That Country!?!? I know that sounds horrible, but if I named the country you would know what I mean, as it’s associated with dire poverty, starvation, and death. Angelina Jolie is expected to swoop down in her private jet and adopt a child from that country any minute just because it’s that bad there. Plus, I was worried that he would have an accent I wouldn’t understand and then I’d have to either tell him, “I’m sorry. I am only catching every third word here.” or I’d have to shoot for context and just nod and hope my responses were correct. I don’t have the best hearing and it has become increasingly clear that I need to get a hearing aid or at least a Miracle Ear implanted but I haven’t even wanted to deal with any of that.

I spent yesterday morning fretting and filling out the forms they sent weeks ago. I actually had to attach another sheet of paper to list all of the medications I take. When I got to the family history part I was worried because the first thing on there were the questions about my parents, their ages, are they living, and if not, cause of death. I actually considered lying about my Dad. I feared that as soon as I wrote “Father, Death in 1985 at age 57, Cause: Suicide” that would be the primary focus of the appointment.i went ahead and told the truth, figuring it would be in my medical records anyway. My mom offered to drive me. At first I resisted, but she had a compelling argument; she’s only seen me once since she returned from Australia, and she knew I was going to be taking a bus to a hospital I am not familiar with and she has been there several times. I agreed and when she insisted she would wait until my one hour appointment was over and drive me back home I asked if she would like to go out to lunch, my treat, and then maybe visit a plant nursery. She was excited about the nursery idea, and she knew one that she thought I would like in the vicinity of the hospital.

When we arrived at the hospital and found the wing that contained the doctor’s office I started to have a panic attack in the elevator up. I didn’t say anything but I was considering reaching for my last few Klonopin and popping a couple when my mom reached out and squeezed my hand and smiled. I knew then that she wasn’t there because I was unfamiliar with that part of town, or that hospital. I felt like a big, dopey kid trapped in the body of a thirty five year old woman. I decided against the pills, partly because I thought it might be beneficial for the doctor to see me in the panic state I live in most of the time, but mostly because I was almost out and what if he didn’t give me any prescriptions?

My mom lead the way off of the elevator, knowing somehow the exact ways to turn, as I followed carrying racing heart, churning tummy, and a dizzy head. After I’d checked in with the receptionist I looked through the stacks of magazines and pulled out some that I knew my mom would enjoy. I stared down at my dirty clogs and realized that I should have cleaned the dried flour off of them before I came, but I hadn’t thought of it. My mom read bits and pieces aloud from a magazine, some article about saving thousands at the grocery store. A dark skinned man in a well cut suit entered and walked through the waiting room and through the door. My mom was excited like a school girl, bouncing in her seat, “That’s him! That’s your doctor! He’s so cute! Isn’t he handsome? Oh my!” I felt awkward sitting there in jeans and a T shirt, clogs still dirty from baking at work, my face free of makeup, my hair pulled into a ponytail with bobby pins slipped onto the sides of my head to catch those wisps of hair that always slip out and curl around my face.

When he came to the door and called my name I stood on wobbly legs and followed him. We made out introductions but he didn’t shake hands. He led me into the smallest office I have ever seen in my life. It looked like a closet, seriously. There was enough room for a desk and two chairs and that’s it. I had brought a water bottle with me and when I asked if it was OK if I sat it down on the corner of his desk he said, “Yes, it’s OK, I will be drinking my coffee”, and then motioned to his Starbucks cup. I realized that he thought I was asking permission to drink and I smiled and said that I didn’t want to leave a white ring because of the condensation and he just waved that worry off, not the type to bother with coasters I suppose.

He asked for the history of the meds I have taken in the past and believe me, I had to pull out notes for that one. So many years, so many different pills. He asked the history of my depression and anxiety and a few other general questions. Happy marriage? Good kids? Work history? Etc. The only things that gave him pause to question me further were the facts that I admitted I have no friends, the fact that I don’t know how to drive, (he thought that to be absolutely stunning and questioned me in depth about how I’d managed that), and the fact that I admitted to worrying more about my daughter than my son, (he said he felt like I was projecting something from my own childhood onto my daughter). I imagine that I am not the only one who worries more about my teenage daughter than my teenage son (people help me out here, have you experienced this?) but I didn’t argue with him about it. He questioned the fact that my Mom was in the waiting room and took notes about the fact that she drove me there, but whatever.

There was a moment in that hour somewhere where he let an uncomfortable silence hang in the air. I wondered if it was a test to see how I’d react. I sat in silence for some time as I looked around the closet room and then I finally asked him, “So, I am guessing you don’t treat many claustrophobics ?” He looked confused for a few moments until he looked around his office and laughed large. I felt better because I always try to make my doctors laugh at least once and for damn near 200 dollars an hour he’d better find me funny every so often, or at least fake it.

Mostly he talked about anxiety and how much harder it is to treat than depression because anxiety is a normal human emotion and then he went into medications and an in depth account of how they work and although I have done a lot of reading about this myself over the years I didn’t want to interrupt him. He said that he would be happy to provide me with my prescriptions and wrote them out and told me to make a follow up appointment with the receptionist. Basically it was much easier than I had worried about and he gets mad props for not making me tell the whole story of child abuse and my dad’s suicide because I didn’t want to and I was afraid he would say he needed to see me three times a week but nope, just once a month.

Afterwards my mom and I went out for Mexican food even though my mom has this “If it’s wrapped in a tortilla it’s crap” opinion. She selected the restaurant. I ignored the margaritas even though I really wanted oneand we had a nice talk. When we were finished we went to a nursery where I bought a bunch of plants for my garden. When I got home Polly and Nathan came out and helped me plant them, and that my friends was the best therapy of all.

“We are stardust, we are golden,
We are billion year old carbon,
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.”
Joni Mitchell

I highly recommend the gardening method set forth by Mel Bartholomew. In addition to the aforementioned website, his book is available on Amazon. When we first bought this house, I had visions of turning the backyard into a beautiful garden. After struggling with the rockiest, crappiest soil I have ever encountered in my life, I was ready to give up. Using the square foot method I was able to grow herbs and vegetables without breaking my back. I only wish I’d known about it sooner.

For those who want to garden but think they can’t with no yard, I recommend The Bountiful Container. Even if you just have room for one pot this book can help you learn to grow some of your own food. I know that I personally find gardening to be extremely therapeutic.

A lot of people have asked me how I manage to get my children to eat so many vegetables. One of the things I’ve done has been involving them in the process of selecting seeds or starts and planting their own food. Something about the tending of their very own plants helps to encourage them to eat vegetables. I also allow both of them to be a part of the selection process in the produce department and before meal times. Now that they are older I am teaching them to cook. Even as they struggle with some of the more complex procedures I try hard to encourage them. When they make something all by themselves they are very proud, even my fifteen year old son, who has no trouble putting on an apron and joining me in the kitchen.

One more thing, don’t be afraid to continue to serve things that your kids have previously said that they hate. Sometimes it takes numerous attempts before they become accustomed to a new food.

Oh, and if you can, start when they are very young. I feel as a mother that food battles are not something I choose to have in my house. There have been times when my kids have refused to eat, or when they have declared that they will only each such and such… When they were small we had a policy that they had to at least try one bite. Now that they are older (12 and 15) I don’t push food issues. I try to keep the house stocked with healthy foods and sometimes treats and remember that they will not starve to death.

There has been a whole lot of construction going on in our neighborhood the past couple of weeks. We knew this construction was coming, and we considered selling our house like many of our neighbors did, but we ultimately decided to stay here. When the work is completed property values will rise. Right now it’s a noisy pain in the ass, just as we thought it would be. The one thing I never thought of when I was considering whether we should stick it out here was that our utilities would be turned off frequently. Our water has been shut off four days out of the last seven. Usually they turn it off from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. Our electricity has been off for two days out of the last week. We are truly roughing it right at home. I told Alex we should pitch a tent in the living room and tell the kids this is their summer camping vacation. I thought that the power being off would bug me more than the water, but aside from the worry over the food in the fridge and freezer going bad, I miss water more. I like being able to flush the toilet, thank you very much. I like washing my hands. The last day the water was off I was ready for it. I had bottled water; I filled the kettle; I filled buckets with water; I did all of the dishes and laundry; I watered the garden; I placed hand sanitizer by each sink. Still I mourned the loss of water. Oh indoor plumbing, why did I ever take you for granted? I hope that they won’t need to turn the utilities off again anytime soon.

I have been working a lot on June’s garden. It is looking so beautiful that I get garden envy and spend too much of the money I am earning on plants for my yard. Yesterday I planted the lupines and delphiniums that I had bought. I was so excited about my new flowers that I mistakenly thought that Alex and the kids would be excited too. I sang the lupine song from Monty Python. Alex didn’t remember seeing it, but he smiled anyway. Who have I married? I was raised on Monty Python. I asked him where he thought I should plant the new flowers and he admitted that he really didn’t care. He said I could plant whatever I wanted anywhere I wanted, so I told him that I was going to dig a hole in the middle of the front lawn and plant a zucchini plant there. Ha! Now he’ll regret his words. June gave me some plants that she no longer wanted. She gave me a lilac and a red rose bush. She hates red roses and wants to replace all of hers with yellow roses. I am gardening on a budget here; I appreciate the free plants. A friend of my mom’s gave me so many bearded irises that I don’t know what to do with them all. I have been a little overzealous in my digging and planting. My back has been hurting badly the past few days. It’s difficult to stay in the same position for any stretch of time so I haven’t been on the computer as much.

Nathan and Polly are doing well. It is getting difficult to find things that they both like to do. Part of me believes that it isn’t my job to entertain them, and then another part of me feels bad when they whine about being bored. I spoke with them about it last night and they both agreed that they would like to go swimming. It looks as if I will be squeezing my white as snow body into a bathing suit once again. The last time that we went swimming we went with my sister Monica and her two daughters. When I arrived at the pool my niece Erin stared at me for awhile before saying, “You look funny, Aunty Tammy.” I had just bought a new suit and you all know the horror of the first time you wear the new suit in public, right? I froze for a second. Erin grinned up at me and said, “I’ve never seen you without any pants.”

One of the (dis) advantages of working for someone who doesn’t know me very well is that she assumes that I can do just about anything. Take yesterday, for instance. When I arrived she showed me where she wanted a brick wall built, and then three separate brick flower boxes all at different levels. I looked with horror as she pointed and then I said, “There’s no way I can do that without mortar.”
She had already thought of that and bought mortar over the weekend.Curses, foiled again. I figured that she deserved fair warning so I said, “Uh, I’ve never done this before.”

“That’s O.K., there are instructions on the package” she replied and walked away.

For years now I’ve seen Alex do just about anything he wanted to do, and do it very well, even if he had never been taught. It’s infuriating. My Mom claims I am visual, maybe I am just slow. I seem to remember seeing something on TV where a man was placing bricks down, spreading mortar, and then placing more bricks down. I decide what the hell? I’m winging it baby; I am winging it. And I did. I was rather pleased with the finished result, even if it was far from perfect, but I did it with my own two hands. When June came out to take a look she looked for a long time. I was afraid what the words would be when they came, but she nodded, smiled, and said, “I like it. It looks rustic, just the way that I wanted it to.” Then she tells me to come in and wash up for lunch. It always cracks me up the way that she tells me to wash my hands before I eat, as if I am a little kid. As I was washing my hands I started to wonder what she meant by rustic. Is rustic even a compliment? Here I go again, picking conversations apart, word by word. Why do I torture myself in this way?

Good lord, look at what I found when I was doing a search for rustic.

1. Of, relating to, or typical of country life or country people. See Synonyms at rural.

2. a. Lacking refinement or elegance; coarse.

b. Charmingly simple or unsophisticated.

3. Made of unfinished or roughly finished wood: rustic furniture.

4. Having a rough or textured appearance; rusticated. Used of masonry.

rustic - awkwardly simple and provincial; “bumpkinly country boys”; “rustic farmers”; “a hick town”; “the nightlife of Montmartre awed the unsophisticated tourists”

bumpkinly, hick, unsophisticated

provincial - characteristic of the provinces or their people; “deeply provincial and conformist”; “in that well-educated company I felt uncomfortably provincial”; “narrow provincial attitudes”

Oh well, hopefully it will all look better when the flowers get bigger. Tomorrow, who knows what she’ll have me do?

Maybe I’ll spin straw into gold.

I have been working a lot, which is good; it keeps my mind off of things. I was glad when June called and said that she had some things she wanted done around the house. I have shampooed all of her carpets, weeded and weeded some more, planted so many different flowers I couldn’t name them if someone put a gun to my head and what else? I can’t even remember.

I have worked everyday except for Monday, which is officially my “feel guilty for not going to visit my Dad’s grave” day. Sometimes my Mom asks if I would like to go with her on what would have been his birthday or on Father’s Day, but it’s always a Memorial Day request. I would like to say that it doesn’t bother me, going up there, but I’d be lying. My Dad is buried in the Veteran’s Cemetery (he was in the ARMY during the Korean War) and on Memorial Day they put a little flag on every grave. The cemetery is hundreds of acres and I guess it might be an enjoyable, peaceful place to visit, but I don’t want to go there with my Mother ever again. The last time that we went we took my kids, and Polly wanted to buy some flowers to put on my Dad’s grave. I asked my Mom four times if we could stop somewhere to buy flowers, but she just kept driving, ignoring me. When we got to the cemetery we had a hard time finding his grave because so many new people had been buried that everything looked different to me. When we finally did find it my Mom marched over to a garbage can, pulled some dead, slimy, withered flowers out, marched back over and threw them on the grave. “There”, she said, “now he has flowers on his grave.” I truly understand her issues with the man, hell, I am the queen of holding onto anger for years, but the way that she acted in front of my kids freaked them out. When we got home Polly cried because Grampa’s flowers were “yucky and gross” and it took me forever to calm her down. Plus, our friend, the one who recently died, is buried up there, and I would like to be alone when I go. I was relieved that my Mom called me to say she was too sick to go this year, we’d go later… But I am going to take the bus by myself. Alex has no desire to go; he doesn’t understand visiting people after they’re gone. I look at it as something for those left behind, a type of closure, a place to say goodbye.

That reminds me of the time my sister Maria was flipping through my phonebook and in the front I had written DAD’S GRAVE and the plot letters and numbers so that we would never get lost trying to find it again. My sister gave me a funny look and said, “Uh, Tammy, why do you have Dad’s grave in your phonebook?” I told her that I sent him a Christmas card every year and she totally believed me.

It is so hot today. When I got home I was so happy to see that Alex had cut the grass for me. He never cuts the grass. I was all ready to offer him sexual favors but he was curled up asleep. He hates fooling around when it’s this hot anyway. I had forgotten about that. I wonder if people with central air conditioning have more sex in the summer than those who don’t.

I could go on ad nauseam about the three hours I spent in my yard yesterday weeding and planting flowers, but that would probably be boring to read about. I will tell you that my lavender is blooming, and that always makes me happy. Speaking of weed, I found this link over at Dooce’s and laughed my head off watching it. It reminds me of the time a certain woman I know, who shall remain nameless in case she ever wants to run for public office, got stoned and freaked out because she thought her cat had eaten a poisonous plant. She picked up the phone to dial for help, but she couldn’t get through. Her husband found her dialing 991 over and over and wisely took the phone from her.

After I got done in the yard I was covered in mud so I decided to take a shower. The exact moment my clothes were off my cell phone started ringing. Yes, I bring my phone with me everywhere even into the bathroom; otherwise Polly will get a hold of it and send 400 text messages and place two or three calls to Bhutan as well. It was my Mom, who I could tell was driving because she literally screams into the phone when she’s in the car. “I am two blocks away from your house and I need to pee, can I come over?”

I can’t exactly say no, so I wrapped myself in a towel, and went to let her in. She opened her car door and motioned for me to come out. Front yard naked except for a towel action is one way to get to know my neighbors but I shook my head no.

Nathan went out there to help her because she had all of these bags in her hands and she needed help carrying them.

The bags ended up being everything she could collect from around her apartment that didn’t work properly.

I am, admittedly, a breaker of things. Alex is the fixer of said items. That’s just the way it is. I was, however, able to quickly deduce that everything she had brought was suffering from a case of the dead battery. She was so thrilled by my solution (!) to the problem that she wanted to go to the store at that very minute.

I pointed out that I needed to shower and she told me I looked great; I just needed to pull some clothes on. I am streaked with mud and there are those things that fall from the tree in our front yard (I have no idea what they are called) stuck in my hair.

So I get in the shower. When I get out she has paid each of my children five dollars to clean their rooms. Nathan got off easy because his room was already clean, but Polly’s room is never really clean unless I do it. She ended up giving Polly’s five dollars to me to hold until the room is finished.

As we were on our way to the store my mom mentions casually that she just placed an offer on a house. I am surprised because she always has me walk through the places she’s considering buying. It ends up being a house, with a guest house behind it, on a half acre. I smell something fishy when I hear the price and she reluctantly allows that it’s “a bit of a fixer”.

After the hell I just went through with her last house I made her promise me two things: That she would never, ever, buy another fixer upper, and that she would pay someone to move her stuff next time. Hold on a minute; I am going to enroll in college full time and I’ll be right back.

Anyway, after the store my mom asked me if I needed to go anywhere else, forgetting that it was her who needed batteries. I said no, but Nathan starts begging for McDonald’s from the backseat. I protested but my mom never listens to me so through the drive thru we went. Plus side, I didn’t have to cook dinner.

Boy this came out boring anyway, didn’t it? Sorry about that. Maybe tomorrow I’ll write out the story of the time I went out for a pizza and ended up with a gun held to my head.

Meanwhile, I’m off to see if I can finally master the fine art of folding fitted sheets. If I wasn’t married, I’d totally be actively pursuing Martha Stewart.

I finished reading “ Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” by Hunter S. Thompson and then quickly read “ Dress Your Family In Corduroy and Denim” By David Sedaris. I am currently reading “ The Rum Diaries” by Hunter S. Thompson. I liked Fear and Loathing, although I noticed that accounts of drug fueled trips tend to make me a bit panicky. Perhaps I am remembering the old days when I used to take acid. For the most part I always had a good time, but I had a couple of bad trips that were enough to scare me off psychedelics for life. David Sedaris delivered exactly what I wanted him to. I laughed at a few of the stories and even laughed out loud at a couple of them. The Rum Diaries is interesting to me because Thompson started it when he was only 22, I believe, and you can see the early development of what would become his signature style. Plus, the descriptions of San Juan in the 1950s paint such a vivid picture. I wish that I could do a better job with that in my writing.
I will soon need to find a new book to read. I have several around the house that I haven’t read yet and I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t get anymore until I had finished the ones I’ve not read. Easier said than done, because books are sometimes given to me as gifts, but those don’t count, right? If anyone has any suggestions please leave them in the comment section. I could always use my trusty library card.
Nathan is doing well. I got some textbooks and we are studying together at home. This is just a temporary solution until we can get him into another school, but for now it’s working fine. Polly is getting ready to finish up sixth grade. I can’t believe how fast this year has gone.

As I mentioned in my last entry, I watched The Pursuit of Happyness this weekend. Personally, I really liked it. Skip this paragraph if you haven’t seen it. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone. Anyway, that will to go on in the face of great adversity, I can relate to that. The intense love for your chil(ren), hell, they’re the only thing that keeps me going most of the time. It occurred to me while I was watching it that a great many people face challenges in life like the main character did, but it’s not often we hear their story unless they make it big or die in some bizarre way.

My 22 year old nephew has a new job working as a bartender. I hadn’t seen him in ages so Sunday night I went down to see him. I thought that I knew where he worked as he had told me the street name and number. I walked into this smoky, dark dive bar half filled with 20 something year old hipsters who all seemed to have coordinated their outfits beforehand. I felt like an idiot but I sat down and ordered a gin and tonic. When the women handed me my drink I asked her if Daniel was working. “There’s no Daniel working here.”

My first thought was that my nephew had lied to me about having a job. I am a bad aunt. Then she added, “But there’s another bar next door, you might try there.” Another bar. I hadn’t noticed it. I finished my drink and walked back out into the sunlight blinking wildly after sitting in the dark. I peeked into the window next door and saw my nephew behind the bar. My heart leapt; I was so happy to see him.

I must’ve looked like I was crying because my eyes were all watery from the smoke filled bar. He walked over and gave me a hug and introduced me to all of his coworkers. “This is my Aunt Tammy!” Most of them didn’t believe him because I was only 12 when he was born but whatever. It felt good to have someone happy to see me and not embarrassed to introduce me. My kids are at that age where they would rather not have me around when they are acting oh so cool in front of their friends.

I sat at the bar and had a beer and we talked and talked. The place wasn’t very busy. It was good to catch up with him. He was telling me about college and his girlfriend and the music he’s been listening to. We talked about politics, the war, whether or not we feel gay marriage should be legal, all sorts of things. Usually when I see him it’s with a large group of family members so it was nice to have him all to myself. When I got up to leave I tried to pay but he wanted to buy the beer for me so I just over tipped him when he wasn’t looking. He has been a part of my life for so long. It has been such a joy watching him grow up and I feel so proud of his accomplishments. I am not supposed to have favorite nieces or nephews but the bond I have with him is different, stronger.

For the past two days I have been working in our garden pulling weeds and planting seeds. I have never been big on seeds. I am an instant gratification kind of person and I am not very patient when it comes to waiting. Usually what happens when I plant seeds is I water them daily to encourage them to sprout. I do this for a period of time until I decide that they won’t sprout and then I give up. Soon after that they do sprout and I am always surprised. I hope that they’ll sprout, but I don’t really think they will. And that, I think, is the difference between hope and faith. Hope I have. Faith, nada.

After having had a rough week last week with a panic attack that started Tuesday and hadn’t quite reached its final climax by Friday morning I decided to take advantage of the welcomed lack of rain to mow our lawn.

Before I could start I needed to go to the gas station to get fuel for the mower. Usually I take my one gallon can up to fill but my Mom had given me a larger one when she was preparing to sell her house and she found five gas cans in her basement.

As I’ve never been a driver and only recently did I buy the mower I am woefully ignorant about gas.

I looked at the side of the can and it read 5 gallons. At the station I approached the man with the kindest eyes and held out the can to him, “I’d like five gallons please.” His eyes were twinkly blue underneath his cap and he responded, “Don’t you mean four and a half?” I stammered, “I, uh, um…”

“Gas expands”, he explained to me. I, feeling stupid, allowed that I guessed I wanted 4 and a ½.

As I watched him carefully placing the nozzle into the can he looked up, smiled, and asked, “Did you have a breakdown?”

The sky began to fall down on me and I felt weak and dizzy, no doubt due to the state I have been in lately, riding a rollercoaster of anxiety, and the fact that I always breathe deeply at gas stations because I love the smell.

My mouth wouldn’t work. He had confirmed what I had long suspected. My mental instability has always been clearly written all over my face.

“Your car. Did it break down?”

“Oh, no. I am just getting some gas for my mower.”

“Well, I hope you live close by, this is very heavy.”

As I walked home I remembered that little rhyme I had learned as a baker, “A pint per pound the whole world ‘round except when measuring …”

I couldn’t remember the exclusions. Oil? Molasses? Honey? Certainly not gas?

After using the pint per pound method for years I later found out that the rhyme isn’t even correct. Actually, a pint of water weighs 1.04375 pounds.

So that means that four and one half gallons of gas weighs enough for me to at least get a good laugh out of myself.

I must have passed the test because June has called me back to work again today. It looks like there won’t be rain, so it should be a good day to be outside. I’ll write more later.