Remember pagers? Oh, I’ve been paged! Now I need to get to a phone.

***

With summer nearing its end my teens seem to want to spend every last second doing either nothing, or hanging out with friends. I feel a rush inside, things to get ready for that probably have already been taken care of. Polly is starting her first year of high school. She was originally excited about the school she will be attending, but the friend who was going there as well up and moved over the summer. Now it’s as if her life is ending, she has been crying at random moments, exclaiming that she won’t go, no matter what, slamming her door, yelling at me for not giving her any choice, for ruining her entire life. I reminded her a couple of times that it was she who selected that we apply to this school, she begged to go there, but really, in the face of her at times extreme angst, it’s best for me to say nothing. She has always been resistant to any change of school and I remember the tears when she started at the junior high she quickly grew to love. I hope that she settles in comfortably to this school as well. Alex and I have asked her to give it a chance.

Nathan is back to school soon as well. At 17 he is about as calm as he could be. I think back on the rough years with him, the times when I never admitted it to anyone, but I feared he’d end up dead or in jail. Every once in a while I remember those years, if only to be grateful for how far he has come and to remember that this too shall pass with Polly.

I am recognizing the power of my own thoughts. I am acknowledging my fears over what the future holds for me, for us, as well as trying to keep a mental list of my hopes, my dreams, and all that I have to be thankful for.

I know that I feel better when I take a walk everyday. I know that gardening feels so right. I know that no matter what I can pick up my phone and call my Mom, or my sister Maria. Most of the time just knowing that is enough. In the middle of the night, gripped by panic, sadness, anything, I could call either one of them and they would be here for me. Having that is a gift.

I can’t ask too much from Alex. I can remember a time years ago when I was sick and I reached out for him. He said, “What do you want me to do, lay my magic hands on you and cure you?” The response stung at the time, but I realize now that he had given all that he could at that particular time. It was time for me to ride out the rest of that virus alone, for the most part, resting in bed. Mental illness is much different than a flu of course. I notice my ups and downs more now that I am not working. Before I was able to throw myself into baking and it kept me occupied enough that I could push a lot of my negative thoughts out because I was focused on the different doughs and what stage they were at. I was always counting, making sure there was enough of every product for the next day. I was trying to think ahead with the dessert work, making sure that nothing ran out. It was an escape. I miss it sometimes, as well as the camaraderie I had with my coworkers.

I have some seedlings to transfer into the ground now.  I am excited that they grew and happy to be trying to grow several different vegetables I’ve never grown before.  I am lucky to have my dog, Maggie. She loves to be by my side and I can chatter away to her all day if I feel so inclined.  It’s a beautiful day today. I’m headed out to get my hands dirty.

In the days since I last posted here, boy have I slipped back down.  It seems like one thing after another. The washing machine broke; we were able to scrounge up the money to buy a used one, and then the dryer broke. Our kids asked when we were going to get a new one and I just shrugged and continued to hang clothes on the line and on the drying racks. Fuck a dryer. It’s been hot here. Our stove is down to one working burner. I just hope that burner keeps going. I have cancelled cable, netflix, and greatly reduced our grocery budget. I have cut down on the cigarettes substantially. I have been baking and cooking from scratch and Alex has been sewing ripped clothes instead of looking for new ones. We have been through worse than this.

I just feel so drained. I feel as if I am just going through the motions. I honestly don’t think I would have lived through this without Alex and my Mom. My Mom stops by and checks in on me. Last weekend I was showing her what I felt like was a pathetic attempt at a garden, my few zucchini plants, a few tomato plants, acorn squash and several different herbs. “Remember Tammy, Fall is coming, and your Fall garden will be great.” I had somehow forgotten about Fall. I started broccoli seeds this week, as well as chard and collard greens. I keep going. I made a lovely pesto out of my huge basil plant, substituting walnuts I had in the freezer for the pine nuts.It was delicious.

Alex is watching me. I know this. Sometimes he reminds me to take my medication, or checks to see if I’ve eaten, as I often forget. He will gently suggest that I get some rest when I am in one of my manic modes and I feel as if I must stay upright to keep doing things around the house or we won’t make it. He tells me to calm down, to lie down, to watch a dumb TV show with him. He knows the exact spot on his chest where I like to cuddle up and press my face against him, listening to his heart beating, his slow, regular heartbeat such a contrast to my own.  I know he is not much for snuggling, especially when it’s so hot, but he doesn’t complain. I wonder why he has stayed beside me for 21 years. I am afraid to ask.

I have been able to spend time with both Nathan and Polly, time that I didn’t have when I was gone 16 hours a day. I can’t believe my babies are 17 and 14. I want to be here to watch them grow and learn. Alex and I certainly had so difficult times over the years, but our children are still excitedly planning about their futures. I long for happiness for them. Sometimes I fear that I may have passed my illnesses on to them. It is genetically linked. I wasn’t thinking of that when I was wanting babies.

I went to my psychiatrist recently for my monthly check in. This is just medication management and a brief 10 minute chat. He asked me about returning to work and I told him I have been going through the steps to attend college in the Fall. His brow furrowed briefly, “You’ve never mentioned any desire to do that in the past.” He flipped through the notes from our sessions. “So, you have a GED. You have a long way to go then. You are going to go for your Associates at a community college then?” That tiny little sliver inside that actually believes that I may have some type of potential answered, “Yes. And then I am going to university until I get my PhD.” He usually pushes me out the door after ten minutes (and then bills my insurance for a whole hour) but this time I stood up to leave. I am on the wait list for a new shrink but it’s a long wait.

I feel as if I can’t go on. I push myself everyday. I have no energy, no appetite. I feel as if everything is falling in around me, yet there is a huge part of me that has shut down, perhaps as a self defense mechanism.

I miss the structure of the daily therapy at the hospital. I sometimes look through the notes that I took while I was in that program for inspiration.

I try to remember my goals and the dreams that have stayed with me over the years. I am looking to hold onto that sliver of self esteem I still have that tells me that I can accomplish anything I set my mind to. Onward, forward mostly.

A bottle collection under a tree. I like to imagine the person who lives in this house.

Camel Filters I presume?

Danger! All animals in need of a home must come to me. I have a love hate relationship with pet stores. They break my heart, but I always have to stop and look when I pass by one. I can’t help but wonder what happens to the animals as they grow older and remain homeless.

I used to step on lots of things with no thought as I walked, now I stop and wonder. I feel as if someone slowed me down. I needed to slow down.

My mom painted this rock for me years ago. I always have it tucked in my garden no matter where I live, even if my garden is just a couple of pots on an apartment patio. My pet rock makes me smile.

My kitty is a big boy now, two years old. He sleeps with me, right up near my head. It amazes me how much room in the bed he can take up when he stretches out.

Some of the flowers and vegetables sprouted and grew, and some of them sprouted and died. I felt like I might be able to save them there for awhile, after all, they had looked so promising with their little green selves poking out of the peat pots. I continued to water the dead ones as well as the thriving ones until I realized that I could let the possibility go.

This last photo is the Central Library in downtown Portland, OR. Words cannot express my love for this building, the excitement I feel when I enter the heavy doors; the smell of thousands of books around me.

My Mom called to check on me today. I had a rough weekend as my prescription for Effexor wasn’t ready to be picked up Thursday and despite making numerous phone calls the communication between my doctor’s fax machine and the pharmacy wasn’t happening. I foolishly decided that I would just give up and tough it out until Monday morning. I did ok and we managed to have a nice family 4th of July. Sunday the side effects of withdrawal became so severe that Alex called the doctor on call, explained my situation, and managed to have a few pills called in to a pharmacy that is open 24/7. I don’t remember a lot about Sunday. I know that Alex was there beside me and he made sure I ate and drank water and took my medication and rested. That side of him isn’t one that I see often.

I had only one thing to tell my Mom when she called today, I told her that over and over again my gut is telling me to go to college. My body can’t handle another thirty odd years of baking and this might be crazy talk, but I want to get well and get a job where I can help others who are suffering.

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.”

]]> http://www.livedtotell.com/2007/06/20/like-camping-in-our-house/feed/ 0 http://www.livedtotell.com/2007/06/05/as-seen-on-tv/ http://www.livedtotell.com/2007/06/05/as-seen-on-tv/#comments Tue, 05 Jun 2007 15:09:02 +0000 Tammy http://www.livedtotell.com/2007/06/05/as-seen-on-tv/

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.

]]> http://www.livedtotell.com/2007/06/05/as-seen-on-tv/feed/ 4 http://www.livedtotell.com/2007/05/30/working-grieving-and-not-having-sex/ http://www.livedtotell.com/2007/05/30/working-grieving-and-not-having-sex/#comments Thu, 31 May 2007 01:05:35 +0000 Tammy http://www.livedtotell.com/2007/05/30/working-grieving-and-not-having-sex/

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.

]]> http://www.livedtotell.com/2007/05/30/working-grieving-and-not-having-sex/feed/ 3 http://www.livedtotell.com/2007/05/22/let-me-entertain-you/ http://www.livedtotell.com/2007/05/22/let-me-entertain-you/#comments Wed, 23 May 2007 04:11:53 +0000 Tammy http://www.livedtotell.com/2007/05/22/let-me-entertain-you/

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.