What REALLY annoys me?

Yes indeed. What really annoys the ever loving bananas out of me? Stupid people. That's right. Especially stupid people who are too stupid to realize how freakin stoopid they is. Extra-specially if said stupid idiots have, in their own minds, vaulted themselves to a position of authority for heaven only knows WHAT reason.

MUSICAL INTERMISSION BROUGHT TO YOU BY FAILURE TO EXCOMMUNICATE, by Relient K

But what really, really chaps my hide is the fact that the laws of politesse dictate that we (who are sentient) do not point out the proper lack of qualification of these individuals. How those laws have found their way into cyberspace in order to handcuff my own writing, I will never know. I don't believe I will write anymore on the specifics, nonetheless, for fear that through the six degrees of Kevin Bacon our dear stoops would hear of this and hate me. AND if there's one thing my dear readers are sure I hate, SURTOUT, it is to be hated. My final chuckle in this matter, a sort of pensive after-laugh, comes from the thought of you morons agreeing with every word I've typed. Oh, Alanis, the sweet, sweet irony.

Red Stroller Secret

Yes, Santa Clarita, that's me. I am the one pushing that red double-decker stroller straight up that hill on Valencia Blvd loaded up with two kids surrounded by two other scootering dervishes. That's me you see. Those are my legs striding along, seeming strong. Those are my arms powering two, sometimes three if Jake gets his way, passengers up the street. It might look pretty heroic on the outside and you may ascribe to me some sort of super-woman status. But perhaps I should draw you in closer, to see what you are missing.

Those are my lips you may or preferably may not notice moving, forming shamefully nasty threats meant for whichever child of mine happens to be whining about how hot it is (and it is after all 110'F) or how tired their legs are, etc...There is so much more that you don't know because you can't see. You can't see the bitter disdain in my heart against all parties who have conspired to deprive me of a vehicle lo these many...weeks? Months? Years, has it been? I have actually lost track. You don't see the secret shame I bear in the midst of one of the most affluent neighborhoods in California, because despite my protestations to the contrary and my sincere desire to march to the beat of my own drum, in some dark recess of my heart I, too, desire to keep up with the Joneses.


Nonetheless, I soldier on. I smile and laugh, sing and play with my children and you see what you see and it is as real as it appears to be. But here's the secret:


I would have broken long ago if it weren't for my Creator, Sustainer, Master, Savior...A God who is mystical, even magical, spiritual and practical...Whose ways are unfathomable, unspeakable and unwaiveringly perfect. SO you may see me, and think that I am strong. But it is not my strength, you see. I am not being humble when I say it. The strength you see belongs to the One who is all around us, flowing through me, who gave me breath and provides me with daily bread. And while He is almost always invisible, and sometimes even amidst His great work we do not feel or even notice Him - as Antoine de Saint-Exupery so eloquently put it, "On ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux."

Oh the Wells Fargo Wagon is a Coming ...

For those of you who knew my dearly departed mother, you know her life was a song (and the song was exciting) and you know for every occasion she had a song and you know how much...muchier...her soundtrack made your life. For those of us who are her children, whether by genetics or tutelage, we - all nine of us (although I probably shouldn't speak for Ben, as he's been gone for forever and a day) to varying degrees - find ourselves compelled to belt out a chorus inspired by or meant as accompaniment to the moments of our lives. In my humble opinion (OK not so humble) I have received the lion's share of this talent. Not only do I have a song for every occasion, and a mental lyric set off by nearly every word I hear, but the song is always the perfect song.

This week, all I can hear is (with GUSTO) "Oh the Wells Fargo Wagon is a Comin' down the street..." over and over interrupting and overwhelming my inner monologue. This, in turn, sets off the entire soundtrack from the 1962 musical "The Music Man." On so many levels, several of them unconscious, this is dreadfully en pointe. Because, OH we got trouble, right here in (or just out side of - and that's an important distinction) Los Angeles City.

Why is the Wells Fargo Wagon coming down my street? I'll tell you why. My family has been renting the home that we currently occupy for three and a half years. We have been paying rent to a landlord who has seen fit to NOT fulfill their financial obligation to Wells Fargo Mortgage for the past two years. Through hook or by crook they managed to stay out of the foreclosure process for quite some time, despite their non-payment of their mortgage. Now, don't get me wrong, I am in no way innocent of failing to keep current on some of my financial obligations. I do intend to fix that problem. And don't get me wrong, I am not oblivious to the nationwide financial crisis that has beset all of us, similar to how my mother's song and dance routine has visited itself upon all of her children. But these landlords were purposefully running a scam on both tenant and Wells Fargo bank to turn a profit on a home they had long since financially abandoned.

Several quitclaim deeds and quid pro se bankruptcies later, Wells Fargo had, sensibly enough, had enough. The property at last, despite assurances from the landlord that it wouldn't, sold at auction. Or, more properly, the property was repossessed by the bank. O-ho the Wells Fargo Wagon is a Comin down the street, I hope it has something for MEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!

Indeed it did. A week after the foreclosure sale occurred and the house transferred ownership from my landlord to the mortgagee a sweet-seeming young real estate agent appeared at my door. He informed me that Wells Fargo Bank wanted to know what date we would be willing to vacate the property, essentially forfeiting our right to 90 days notice to quit the premises, and a dollar amount associated with that willingness. President Obama has afforded me the right ot live in this home for 90 dyas, rent free, until I can find appropriate replacement arrangements for my family of SIX! I know, if Wells Fargo, or my former landlord had wanted me to have these four kids they would have issued them to me. But as this gent informed me that I could come up with any date I wanted "like August 15th" and any HUGE dollar amount I wanted "you could ask for $4000 and the bank might come back with $2500" panic mixed with white hot RAGE set in. For Brett (names have been changed to protect the identity of "the Man") I was willing to play the silly, stupid, somewhat desperate housewife. I informed him that I would take all this information to my husband and he would ultimately make the decision.

I am not a shy, retiring, submissive or uninformed person, but I can play that part. *I kinda stole this from Richard Russo, and I discuss my new penchant for stealing from him in my last blog entry - which I have yet to finish or publish.*

I shut the door on Brett, went to the pool with my four kids, my sister-in-law and her daughter, met some good girlfriends and spent the next three hours discussing with myself, inside my mind, what I might suggest the bank ought to offer to me for my quiet forfeiture of my rights. Thanks to all these ladies for allowing me to be totally insanely self-centered and thereby a bad friend.

That night my husband and I came up with what 90 days meant to us. "Seventy six trombones led the big parade, with one hundred and ten coronets close at hand." Thank you, muth, only our litany read more like: first and last month rent, our lost security deposit, short order movers, the aggravation of moving out of the neighborhood and the emotional toll switching schools may have on my boys. Wells Fargo Wagon, if you aren't bringing a bleep-load of benjamins, we are going to have to take our 90 days and save what we need to run.


"Pick a little, talk a little, pick a little, talk a little
Cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep"

Our former landlord called and left a message saying that we were given wrong information and the home had not sold at auction to the lender and because of this we needed to discuss rent payment options. I called the real estate agent who represents the lender and asked him for proof of the transaction. Upon hanging up the phone, I visited the trustee's website where I procured these documents: Notice to Sale and Trustee's Deed Upon Sale which proved the persons with whom we had signed a lease were no longer the legal owners of our residence. My husband provided the so-called landlord with copies of these documents. The BALLS on this guy - he is lucky we don't sue him for our security deposit.

"Professor, her kind of woman doesn't belong on any committee.
Of course, I shouldn't tell you this but she advocates dirty books.

Dirty books!

Chaucer!
Rabelais!
Balzac!"

Here's the thing, our landlords have been preying on and banking on the tendency for the people they deal with to be less educated, less informed with respect to the law than they are. Which isn't saying much, as they are no legal eagles themselves. (BTW So are the banks and the real estate agents who represent them, but at least they have formal documents and attorneys whose legalese makes them seem like there might be something behind all that bullying. But it's still just bravura.)

"And the worst thing
Of course, I shouldn't tell you this but-
I'll tell.
The man lived on my street, let me tell.
Stop! I'll tell.
She made brazen overtures to a man who never had a friend
In this town till she came here."

Despite this they called again and asserted we still owed them.
The real estate agent for the bank chided us for having paid them rent at all, despite the legal fact that their failure to pay on their obligations has no bearing on our obligation to make good on our contract with the landlord.

"Oh, yes, that woman made brazen overtures
With a gilt-edged guarantee
She had a golden glint in her eye
And a silver voice with a counterfeit ring
Just melt her down and you'll reveal
A lump of lead as cold as steel
Here, where a woman's heart should be!

He left River City the library building
But he left all the books to her
Chaucer!
Rabelais!
Balzac!

{Refrain}

Pick a little, talk a little, pick a little, talk a little
Goodnight ladies
Cheep cheep cheep, talk a lot, pick a little more
Pick a little, talk a little, pick a little, talk a little
Goodnight ladies
Cheep cheep cheep, talk a lot, pick a little more
Pick a little, talk a little, pick a little, talk a little
Goodnight ladies
Cheep cheep cheep, talk a lot, pick a little more
Pick a little, talk a little, pick a little, talk a little
We're going to leave you now
Cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep

Pick a little, talk a little, pick a little, talk a little
Farewell ladies
Cheep cheep cheep, talk a lot, pick a little more
Pick a little, talk a little, pick a little, talk a little
Farewell ladies
Cheep cheep cheep, talk a lot, pick a little more
Pick a little, talk a little, pick a little, talk a little
Farewell ladies
Cheep cheep cheep, talk a lot, pick a little more
Pick a little, talk a little, pick a little, talk a little
We're going to leave you now
Pick a little, talk a little, pick a little, talk a little
Cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep
Cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep
Cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep
Pick a little, talk a little, Cheep!"




Au revoir les enfents! Today an attorney representing Wells Fargo served our family with a three day notice to quit the premises or PROVE we are the bona fide tenants of this property. THESE MUTHA F_____S just attempted to play hardball with the wrong woman. THEY DON'T KNOW 'BOUT ME, I'm Jessica D. I'm FROM NEW YAWK (yep I sorta stole that from my nephew johnny d.). I will leave here the day Obama says it is lawful for me to do so, and not a day sooner. I have abided by the law and now the law will stand by and for me.

Oh the Wells Fargo Wagon it a came down the street and it had NOTHING of interest for me.

AKA My Stalker

Let me pick up where we left off. Halfway through my glass of honeysuckle wine, which had been preceded by a share of the bottle of red that the five of us split, the alcohol in combination with my penchant for telling (or at least attempting to tell) a hilarious (and by hilarious I often mean horrible) story led me to tell the Moms who were there to celebrate another year of Moms' Club and discuss their memories of the past year about my stalker. Lane change.

Across the street, four houses down from where I live, there lives a sixty year old man. On any given day you may find his fire engine red, Ford F-One Billion, complete with hydraulics and contractor rack (though it appears to never have been used to do a lick of work in its life) parked on the street. He is there, air lat's and leathery fake-n-bake tan in full effect, clad in nothing but euro-shorts (too short, but not quite short enough to be daisy dukes) the same blue wife-beater, as ever (does he have a closet full of these uniform items?) gently, lovingly, painstakingly washing, drying, waxing and inspecting "big red". On the off-chance "big red" has already passed inspection, he may instead be giving his boat or jet skis or even his driveway a spa day.

I have lived here for over three years. He has lived there for at least that long. Whether for exercise or for lack of other transportation, I frequently walk around the neighborhood. A girl's got to get to Starbucks, the parks, the pool, after all, and sometimes the only way to properly tire out your four sons is to make them walk a few miles a day. So, as you can imagine, I walk right past this guy on many an occasion. At first he gave an appropriately timid, yet neighborly, "hi" as I strolled my then three children along the sidewalk. But my craze-dar is always on, and he pegged that meter all the way to eleven from the get-go. There was just something not quite right about him. Initially, I couldn't decide if it was scary creepy or just socially awkward euro-trash weird. As time went on I tended to think he was just socially awkward, definitely a loner (what with his only companions being the four wheeled variety) and certainly without the understanding of traditional American suburban boundaries: specifically the one that says don't hit on the mom of young children, especially not when she is ten months pregnant.

Yes, as time went on "hi" turned into "you look pretty today" along with its less polite cousins and while I like to think of myself as relatively hot stuff, I don't want THAT old dude (any old dude, really, but in particular THAT ONE, on this occasion) telling me about it. I wanted to shout at him, "WHAT about being 40 weeks pregnant and attempting to walk myself into labor for the fourth time, as if you CAN'T see the three children under 6 walking along with me says hot to you? Or is this some sort of testosterone fueled vestige of animal instinct at work here. What I look fertile? Might as well plant in that field as well?" I know it sounds vulgar, but given my pregnant mind, raging hormones and short fuse for old lecherous neighbors that was the PG version of what I was ACTUALLY thinking.

None of that, as annoying as it was, had yet catapulted him to stalker status. He gained that illustrious title only a few weeks ago. I was on my way home from Starbucks, with a pit stop at the little park, when I saw him doing a new chore-sweeping the sidewalk. I was tempted to give him high marks for cleanliness and diligence, when I realized - a moment too late- this was only a prop to give him an excuse to be on the sidewalk concurrently with my little group.

As he blocked our passage with his "sweeping" he asked, "You going to the pool today?" "No, not today," I replied. "Oh, really, I was hoping you were." He said it as if in saying it he might convince me to reconsider and go to the pool so that his hopes would not have been in vain. Preying on the human tendency to desire to be liked, to be perceived as nice, pleasant, pleasing...that tendency which is all too often far too present and prominent in women.

"Not going, got to get ALL these tired KIDS home." I started walking again, and while it was hard to get the double-wide MacLaren past his air lat's and broom, I managed to walk by with only one set of stroller wheels on the sidewalk - the other set suspended in air. He followed. "Are they both going to go sleep?" BOTH!!!!! DO YOU NOT SEE FOUR CHILDREN HERE? ARE YOUR THOUGHTS SO COMPLETELY EMANATING FROM YOUR little head THAT YOU CANNOT COUNT?????!!!!!!!!!!!!

I said goodbye out loud and walked faster but was stopped by my kids who have picked the wrong time to exercise safety first and were looking both ways for cars. "Is anyone else at your house? Are you alone?" came the friendly, Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka voice from behind me. And sheer dread swept after me. "I have to get home, I am expecting friends!!!"

I ran home, hoping that in the last three years he had not yet ascertained my specific address, ran in via the back terrace and called two girlfriends and begged them to come over. They did. We played outside with the neighborhood kids, making plenty of noise. At least it felt like we had strength in numbers. To this day I will not go to the pool unless I know another mom will be there, so he can't catch me all on my own.

Just as I finished telling this hilariously horrible story some guy we didn't know approached our group, informed us he was depressed because his team had just been eliminated from the World Cup, and asked if he could buy us a drink. Never the ones to turn down a free drink, we did not tell the waitress to return the drinks to the bar when she came out with a full tray. What we didn't suspect was that he was about to sit down, call his two self-important, auto-texting friends over and hijack our evening. But that is a story for another day.

The moral of this story arrives by way of my friend whose radar may be broken (and I say that in as loving a way as is possible, because she truly is super sweet and a wonderful friend). She was in a bible study with him some years back, and by her recollection he was just a sweet, genuinely nice older man. And the "nice" voice inside me begged me to stop being such a judgmental b-i. Despite knowing better, and in the face of this story I JUST TOLD, despite the fact that my instincts have never been wrong about anyone, I hear my outside voice saying something intended to paint me into a nice corner. Something like, "yeah, I guess he could just be a nice old weirdo." Coincidentally his ex-wife, who is one of this friend's good friends, came over her house the following day. Ex for a good reason as it turns out. He is a serious creep. A serious danger. Not to be underestimated as a threat. So ... for the record, sometimes nice is just overrated. Way overrated.

Travel

I changed my blog template. I don't know how much I like it. I figure I will try it on for size, see how it fits and, most likely, return to my "classic" layout.

I may try on many templates - at least that will give me a reason to post something on this blog. Seeing as I don't have anything to write about. Or, more accurately, I have very little that I still feel like writing about once I finally get a chance to sit down and write, and most of that gets left on the cutting floor because I imagine it isn't appropriate for the audience.

The background of this template was filed under travel. I'm not sure why, I guess it is thanks to its cottage dans le pays look. My own travels have taken me to Santa Clarita, Cali, baby and last ... excuse me i took a twelve day break from writing this entry...Monday, in particular, my travels took me to Lee's Wine Bistro for the Westridge Mom's Club "Mom's Night Out." Feel free to file this one under turns I never expected my life to take.

For those of you who know me like that, I am not much of what you would call a "joiner." Don't get me wrong, I still love people to love me and I want to be the most popular girl in town (although at 33 i SUPPOSE girl is used QUITE a bit loosely) I just want to march to the beat of my own drum while being admired and beloved for my enviable individuality and moral fortitude. Ironic?

Instead of chasing my tail, tale, (hare, hair) down that rabbit hole, I'll bring you back to Lee's Wine Bistro on Town Centre Drive in Valencia. Because, thanks to the excellent salesmanship of my good friend JB, I was prevailed upon to join the Mom's Club.

And, speaking of rabbit (rabid, no really, I'm sorry, I 'll stop) holes let me tell you about the Voignier I drank that night, and why I drank it. I picked up the much neglected - thanks to five recently free of a cumulative eleven (sorry girls, it might be ten or twelve, you'll have to forgive the iffy math) children, kvetching about said children and leurs autres genetic donors - wine menu. At a glance, halfway down the menu, the word honeysuckle jumped, literally leapt, out at me. Images of the privet hedge between our home and the neighboring Streits' rental cottage flooded my brain, drowning out the otherwise captivating conversation bandying about me. Darting in and about, at once parasitically stealing prized nutrients from the carefully manicured boundary plantings and surreptitiously making off with the would-be viticulturist's instinct to pluck the invader by its roots, weaved a fragrance so unforgettable, so beguiling, so fresh, so pure, so innocent, and yet anciently complex. As the fragrance drew you in, it led you, inevitably to its source, the sweet nectar at the base of the corolla. I remember, as if time travel (backwards, of course, by about 25 years) were possible, and I was there at this very moment, pulling the blooms off the vine to reveal only a drop of the nectar, licking it off the honeysuckle and running down the "no right of way" toward the Great South Bay. A ceremonial kiss to greet the summer day.

Now that I live in California, I so NEARLY relive those moments every time I smell Jasmine...so nearly, and yet so far. In the first fraction of a second, upon smelling the white, lesser, cousin of the honeysuckle of my childhood...BOOM!...and fast on the heels of that report is the knowledge that something is missing, wrong, incomplete, one-off if you will. That knowledge brings with it some sense of loss that I never have the time or energy to fully define. So when I read that this glass of Viognier would taste of honeysuckle, I closed the menu, read no more and determined to spend my night drinking from that cup.

It was delicious. In the immortal words of my all too mortal mother - "deloushe lautrec."

...stay tuned for the next installment of this evening entitled "On Why Being Nice Is Overrated, and In Fact, Is Not Nice At All."...

Near Death Experience

I almost died last night.

There is an urban legend that Mama Cass, the larger than life face of the Mamas and the Papas and arguably the voice that propelled them from relative obscurity to being one of the most iconic vocal bands of the 60's (without her would they ever have achieved their blend of four harmonies that somehow tricked your ear into hearing a fifth-now here is a place where the overused word synergy is a actually appropriate) died, poetically, choking on a ham sandwich. That she died both at the hands of and in the arms of her truest love. The boring truth is that she died, quite un-glamorously, of an apparent heart attack in her home (join the club).

I almost died in a manner after her urban legend last night.

After I blogged about LOST (a sort of pot calling the kettle black-ishly lazy effort if I do say so myself) I decided to stay up to watch Saturday Night Live with my husband. He is a huge fan and tries to watch as often as possible. I, as the mother of four, just can't afford to miss out on the sleep and usually shuffle off to Buffalo after our Saturday sampling from Netflix. I guess I was in rare form last night, movie watching, blogging etc...so I figured what the heck, break out the crackers, cheeses and salami and watch Tina Fey thank her fake entourage, including Chaka Khan as interpreted by the black guy on SNL who plays every black woman exactly the same-without attempting to look or act anything like her.

About ten buttery crackers topped with slices of cheddar (not just any old cheddar but some fancy award winning stuff) and dry, Italian Salami, I felt something scrape the back of my throat. I tried clearing it, but it seemed to just lodge itself behind my tonsil. A small flap of thin sliced salami had created a synthetic epiglottis, which was evidently permanently sealing off my trachea. I tried to cough it loose and felt like it was having the desired effect, but every time I tried to breathe in I simply sucked the flap back into place and could get no air. As I panicked in the realization that there was nothing I could do to prevent my death by asphyxiation that night, part of my mind was using humor in an attempt to deflect from the seriousness of the situation. It became clear that a wormhole had been created in the fabric of the universe connecting the fictional LOST character Desmond Hume (circa the Swan hatch era) and myself via the solo effort written and performed by Cass Elliot after the Mamas and the Papas had split due to creative and personal differences - "Make Your Own Kind of Music." As I heard the lyrics "Nobody can tell ya there's only one song worth singin'. They may try and sell ya,'cause it hangs them up to see someone like you" in my head, a warmth washed over me along with something that seemed like inner peace, at the time, but in retrospect was probably just some kind of hypoxic euphoria. I hoped that one day, long after I was gone, when they made the movie of the story of my life that this song would play as the soundtrack to my death. That was soon replaced, as if in concert with the climax of the refrain...

But you've gotta make your own kind of music
sing your own special song,
make your own kind of music even if nobody
else sings along.

...by a sudden violent gag. I ran to the bathroom and threw up. Luckily I had been drinking a lot of lime seltzer to wash down those crackers so it all came back up rather easily. And somewhere in the stream of liquid regurge the flap came loose and I lived to see a few more minutes of Liz Lemon's fictional alter ego Tina Fey make fun of Sarah Palin and Tiger Woods' lady loves.

Just thought I would share.

Open Memo for the creators of LOST

Dear, dear writers, thinkers, learned readers, great minds behind television's greatest series ever...on this day, less than 24 hours from your finale, I have some final thoughts for you.

First, I know you are weary of writing and that you have set an unachievable goal of finishing (properly) this series in six seasons. I admire you for sticking to a timeline, but at this point it seems like you either should have made a beeline for the finish, or given yourselves a season or two more to flesh out the theories suggested by past seasons rather than abandoning them and opting for an either lazy or cowardly line of story telling. Nonetheless I still have faith in your intelligence, your vast literary knowledge and somewhere mixed up in there an inkling of the truth.

Second, I know that LOST is all about the long con. My sincerest hope is that this is all part of the long, LONG con and the reveal will be as mind blowing for us, the viewers, as the same is for the object of a con once the confidence man has had his way with her. Otherwise, I shudder to think, but, in the words of Dr. Seuss (with some liberties taken) goodbye LOST you con too long.

Finally, I truly believe that there is a convergence of truth and genius at the heart of this series. I will probably have more to say on this topic after the finale...but for now, my imaginary friends (for indeed I do imagine we would get along most famously ever the twain our paths should cross) BRING IT!

Monday after Mother's Day

My oldest son turns seven this week. I am terrified. How do I let this boy spread his little wings and take a few flaps? How do I instruct and correct him in such a way as to encourage growth toward manhood rather than emasculating with reactionary, punitive cruelty perfected by generations of paying it forward? How do I love him enough to cover the multitude of mothering missteps that I feel doomed to commit along the way? It is time to revisit the parenting books to find some answers.

And what of the questions the books don't address? How can I help him find where his talents lie and if he has any at all? How do I expect and educe excellence without being demanding? How do I balance honoring who he is and preparing him for success in a world that may not be so kind?

I am so in love with my first born child, so proud of his kind heart and fiercely protective when others wound him. My greatest fear is that I am the one whose actions are blighting his life. I WANT him to grow up and simply be himself and along the way if I could nudge him here and there to help him be the best version of himself then I would be happy. But I don't even know what that means.

What I do know is that I am going to make this week the best, funnest, seven-est week ever...and then we'll see about figuring out what to do with the next 51.

Long Island Nostalgia

The other day I was driving around, running errands with the windows of my tres chic minivan rolled down, wind whipping my hair, itunes blaring - when I was caught off guard by Your Name Here (Sunrise Highway) by Straylight Run. As he sang the lyics "Go east on Sunrise Highway" I was unexpectedly clobbered by what can only be defined by the dictionary's second entry for the word nostalgia: a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition. A sensation I feel obliged to attribute to the fact that I am my older brother's sister.

After an early morning dream about being a member of a surprise roller skating fried chicken delivery team whose most recent assignment was a school for children with Down Syndrome where there was a little boy who looked like a mash-up of my third son and my youngest brother, I was considering blogging about this very topic and had all but decided against it. Then I was pushed right back over the edge by a Facebook status that a friend from Long Island had joined a group for those who grew up on Long Island in the 60's and 70's. As I browsed through their memories of places I could vaguely recall as if through a Monet painted veil of fog, I felt an old familiar wave wash over me and decided not to abandon this post.

I have only been back to Long Island twice in the past 18 years, most recently, ten years ago for my mother's funeral. For fourteen years I have been doing the west coast swing, first college in Colorado and then ten years split between California and Arizona. After so many years of arid air and caustic tap water, I have of late been haunted by the little East Coast seaside village in which I grew up. I would attempt to exorcise this line of thought through writing if there were words to give shape to this phantom, but it is so distant and obscured I can't quite make it out and when I look directly at it, it disappears completely. It is a proper haunting.

There is something there, some story that with a little (maybe a lot) of hard work, eager pursuit, careful study, sketching and returning to add detail again and again could begin to reveal its form...but for now I will enjoy this siren's song from a distance, ignore her directions because I have a shower to take, kids to take to the park and a stack of the weekend's unattended dishes to wash.

For all you Long Islanders out there, leave a comment. Aw, what the heck leave a comment if you are from anywhere on the East Coast, or if you have enough good sense to wish you were!

The Invention of Keeping Your Inner Monologue Inside

I just watched the Invention of Lying last night. While I find Ricky Gervais, Eloise Hawking, half the cast from the funniest canceled sitcom in America, Arrested Development, and Jennifer Garner (despite her unity with that devil, Ben Affleck) to be quite amusing; I must take issue with the use of the word lying. According to my old friends, Merriam and Webster - remind me to introduce you to them sometime, if you aren't yet besties with them - to lie is to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive. According to this movie not to lie is to say the first, and hopefully rudest, thing that pops into your mind, without weighing the merit of the statement or its necessity in the conversation.

This is, in fact, the same misconception employed by the average misanthrope who wishes to protect their cruelty toward others with the famous "I cannot tell a lie" defense. The implication given by both the movie and these honest to a fault folks is that propriety, kindness and measured silence (enjoy it) are dishonest and therefore not worthy of taking up the space they might occupy in the proverbial tool belt and as such are cast off and trampled under foot.


If someone doesn't ask you a question and the information is not germane to the discussion then, dear writer of The Invention of Lying, failing to publicize the details of YOUR constant inner monologue is not a lie. And should someone ask you a question that would elicit the outing of your thoughts, having a brain-to-mouth filter is not lying either. Just because you think it, doesn't make it true; and just because you don't say it doesn't make you deceitful.

I am a big fan of honesty, and by and large I do not espouse lying. But what about this one: Tell the truth in Love. You don't have to tell your friend their cooking sucks (well, it's the TRUTH), especially if they don't ask, just thank them for their generosity and hospitality - because that is both kind and true. You can remain silent during a disagreement rather than blurting out the hurtful (and TRUE) things that you want to say without compromising your integrity. And if and ONLY if, it is absolutely necessary to tell a person something that has the potential to hurt said person 1. Make sure you are the appropriate person to say it 2. Check your motivation 3. Use gentle words so that you stand a chance of being heard. Otherwise, let's just be honest with ourselves, we're just venting, and while it feels good and we all do it, let's not attempt to render our actions noble by saying not to do so would be lying. Cuz that just ain't true, y'all.

Bla Blah Blog About Writing...

I have, at long last, made it to the library and have managed to check out a couple of books that qualify as proper adult reading, previously unread by yours truly. I have not, however, made it past page ten of the first book. Now that I think of it, I never did finish "The Dome" by Stephen King, so maybe I should go back and finish that before taking on anything new. Regardless of the book I am reading, there is always a reason to put it down and do something more important: change a diaper, break up a fight, move the clothes from washer to the dryer, or (and this is my personal favorite) attempt (most futilely) to convince my four year old that writing upside down and backward is not going to fly when he gets to Kindergarten in August. By the time I find the book again, find the place I left off reading - because, no I do not believe in or own any bookmarks - and finally start reading, I am interrupted anew. This happens when I'm blogging, too. In order to avoid Einstein's definition of insanity, I inevitably quit trying to read, and as proved by the queue of yet unfinished blog entries (some of which are about quite interesting topics) saved on my dashboard, quit trying to write.

In my short return to reading (non-children's) books, a few things have occurred to me about writing. I am sure you'll recall my delusion of grandeur post and the fact that I'd like to write a book. The more I think about it, the more I like the idea. Maybe a novel about some profound truism of the human condition that evinces my more than passing interest in science. I could be 21st century Madeleine L'Engle (oooh my fascination with Maddy since childhood and my no longer secret desire to be her and belong to her family, and have interesting friends like hers-and oh the impossibility of it all...I could blog about that, maybe I will). I mentioned the LITTLE problem of what I would write about in the first place. This problem became even bigger as I was reading the prologue to "Straight Man" by Richard Russo (recommended to me by my brother-to whom I do not listen and therefore did not get the book at the time, and re-recommended to me by my sister-whom I copy in all things except liking tuna-fish sandwiches...INDIVIDUALITY VICTORY...and therefore I am now reading it). I realized that whatever story I think of that might make a good book is really only an anecdote that might be used within a larger story-line in a REAL book. Additionally, and even more depressingly, every subsequent story-line I drum up in response to this realization carries the same fatal flaw.

And then, in reading the several paragraphs used to describe the physical appearance of the protagonist's friend, I became overwhelmed by the amount of work that must go into developing each and every character. What does each character look like, what is he (or, she) wearing, what does that say about the person's personality and what are the things we cannot know about the person at the outset and what has to be conferred by writing between the lines...and who can just dream all of this up.

Lastly, because as it is with decorating and celebrity deaths my realizations come in threes, as I was transported to the very snow-covered hill William H. Devereaux, Jr. and his car were careening down, tail first, I couldn't even imagine how I would set the scenes in which my story would take place. Supposing the story takes place somewhere that actually exists, how would I remember all the sights, smells and subtleties of each endroit necessary to take the reader to my hometown, the "redrum" house of my teens or my college campus. My answer is that I would have to return to each place, experience it again, attempt to conjure the memories of how it was then, and then write about it there.

In that case, I have to conclude that for me writing a novel would mean years of character sketching and locational research. Then taking these muscles, organs, sinew, and skin and layering them one upon another in order for the story itself to take shape. Layered on what? On a skeleton, on the idea, the substantial well structured support system of the novel, protecting and guiding the characters along their way-and we've already established that is a rib or two at best.

Even as I think, OK-I can do this. Write it down bit by bit. When I think of the un-showering Professor Doofenschmirtz-esque man sporting wide wale, high-water, corduroy pants in the heat of Indian summer as if he hadn't recognized fall's temporary retreat and a peed on poodle color fisherman's cableknit sweater...and how the sweater is nearly the same color as his wild mane of would-be white if not for the aforementioned distaste for daily ablutions crowning glory...and how all of this was announced moments before he entered the room by a cacophonous orchestra of smells-coffee, oil, greasiness not to be confused with oil and a hint of wet dog (whence we know not, as it has been years since we had a dog), write it down. Put it away. Save it for another day, to edit, to weave into a larger tapestry that could become a character to place on a wall of the greater story that will one day become my novel. Even as I think this, the sneaking suspicion that writing is supposed to be an organic, ex-nihilo (well almost) sort of process and all of these contrivances are further proof that I am not at all a writer assails me and I feel like giving up before I've even started.

And such has been my constant inner monologue since starting this foray into literacy...and as such it is yet another reason not to read ever again. Well played, Jessica, truly well played.

Editor's Note: Since the editor sees fit to do NO editing, she thinks it only fair that once in a while she makes herself useful by writing a note. To those of you who take exception to the description herein because you imagine you know who is described thereby, my sincerest apologies. But fear not! You, too, will be featured, in no more glorious terms, in my novel, should my novel ever be written.

Yeah, I am bloggin about American Idol

This week's American Idol results show sent me into a bit of a tailspin of inner blabbing. I've actually been able to edit my own inner monologue these days, thanks largely to this blog. I have a basic two bin thought process of late...I start thinking a thought, I stop myself and ask whether or not I would want to blog about this thought, essentially rating its inherent bloggability - inventing your own words is perfectly kosher, ask Lewis Carrol. If it is blog-worthy, I continue with that line of thought, if not I chuck it in the do not think on such things bin. AKA the garbage can of my mind.

Somehow tonight's American Idol has managed to stay out of the mental trash and thoughts about it are running, sprinting even, through my brain. I must get these thoughts out, so I am forced to write about American Idol.

First of all: Reuben Studdard (I probably should google that spelling-but I won't for now) was a snoozefest. Despite the fact that i strongly dislike morbid obesity, I don't think it is appropriate for the formerly properly appelled "Velvet Teddy Bear" to lose weight. He now, inappropriately, looks like the tortured Velveteen Rabbit. Plus his singing was booooooooooooorrrrrring...zzzzzzzzz, oh, good it's over.

Luckily, Ryan came on the scene and by way of acting like he LOST his mind took the spotlight quite off Reuben's less than exciting singing. Seriously, though, Ryan Seacrest has gone off the deep end of polite behavior. I am no fan of Simon Cowell, to be sure, I cringe when I find myself agreeing with him, but I in NO WAY condone Ryan gettting all up in Simon's personal space. I am a firm believer in the bubble, demarcated by an invisible arc whose radius is no less than an entire arm's length from one's center. Take two steps back and continue your speech, on second thought, nix that, and shut it.

The real highlight of the night came from none other than U-S-H-E-R. I love Usher, and I realize that many of you, especially those of you who are older than I, will demur (yeah that's right, I SAID DEMUR, and I used that word CORRECTLY, look it up...excuse me, almost fell down a rabbit hole there) but I love Usher. I guess he is cute in a clockwork orange meets R and B sort of way. And he can sing (despite some slightly off, due to breathlessness, thanks to singing and dancing moments) and he can dance. Plus he reminds me of my younger, carefree, day(s?) or a romantic notion I have of those days. What I loved most about Usher tonight was his use of the euphemism gosh. Well played, Usher. Way to use, and make your back-up singers use, and EVEN Will-I-am use the phrase Oh My gosh. It was so endearing to hear him use that phrase over an over. Perhaps to fully understand why, I will have to explain Jessica's hierarchy of filthy language. At the very top of the worst words is the do not utter name of G_d unless you are praying to Him. Second is the c word-and I'm guessing you all know why. Next is damn, because it is not our place to try to condemn our brother or sister to hell (followed closely on its heels by dang and dag because those words just SOUND SILLY). The low men on the curse totem pole (mostly cuz I LOVE using them) are the s word (which is not stupid, as my children think it is), the f word (because of its wonderful versatility - it could easily be my favorite word, despite the fact that it is extraordinarily naughty) and ass (because there are just so many opinions out there).

Then in a surprise, and seemingly desperate for attention twist, Diddy came out to perform. Really? Because I wasn't originally expecting a third performance, and then when I realized there would be one, I figured it would be another selection from Raymond V Raymond. Alas, no such luck, my ears were about to be full frontal assaulted by the non singing, non rapping stylizations of the D the I the D ... oh yea you guessed it, the megalomaniac Diddy. It seemed strange because Puff is so full of himself and performing on American Idol seems a little needy. Mostly, I just wasn't looking for a white clad seizure when I turned on the TV this evening, so when I found my self at the receiving end of a spasm inducing strobe light firing squad, I had to question the whole scene. After some consideration, I am just going to have to force this bunch of thoughts into the garbage bin, because it has already taken up too much of my time.

Finally, Kara DioG's apparent disconnect with the human condition as evidenced by her sad inability to comprehend the simple psychology behind Tim Urban smiling and laughing through week after week of hilariously vicious commentary and criticism put the final nail in my thought coffin and buried me alive with a heaping garbage pile of multi-directional mental discourse centered around American Idol. I really refuse to believe she is that stupid. You really don't understand why he is uncomfortably laughing at the insanely funny and yet devastatingly hurtful things you guys say to him, week in and week out, despite his sincere attempts to take in and obey your so called "constructive" criticism? Really? I don't buy it. You really think he doesn't understand what you are saying? Because your intellect is so lofty and your wordmsithing so devastatingly clever that his puny brain cannot fully wrap itself around your meaning? Because he is three years old and not twenty so his vocabulary and grasp of the English language has not yet developed properly? OK KARA you keep telling yourself that, because as it turns out, the joke is on you.

Despite all of this, I will tune in next week.

Little Musings and Delusions of Grandeur

I watch a lot of TV. At night, and so as it is with drinking, it is OK. I was watching FlashForward last night, and I got to thinking about physics, and time travel and great works of fiction. The first thing that struck me is that I need to start reading again. Good books, reread the oldies, read some of the oldies that, likely due to their banishment from our home for espousing witchcraft or something of that nature, I never read, read some newbies, read some differenties, read some bad books-because sometimes you really can't judge a book by its cover. The very act of reading makes a person smarter, sharpens the mind. Plus, reading expands vocabulary, informs, teaches, entertains and is all-around good for you.

The next thing I thought of is how much I have always harbored a secret desire to write a great American novel. Something on the order of East of Eden or The Great Gatsby or Fahrenheit 451. (Yes, this is where the delusions of grandeur come in.) In my mind I am a great writer. In the minds of most of my English teachers throughout the years, I am a C student. My writing is too stream of consciousness, too poorly researched and lazily put together, too fraught with spelling mistakes, too whatever it was they didn't like about it. It hurt, and colored the way I thought about writing-I began to hate writing and think I was a bad writer (and perhaps I am, and yet again maybe it is all subjective, feel free to REFRAIN from commenting on this line of thought). Their destructive words colluded with my tendency toward laziness to rob me of more than a few good years of writing.

More recently, someone near and dear to me wrote an amazing novel that, for several reasons, chased me away from the idea of writing anything of my own. The first reason is pretty straight forward, its sheer awesomeness made me think "ugh I could NEVER write anything this good, I couldn't even try." The second is a little more convoluted, and quite honestly, insane. Because this unnamed person is so close to me, the simple fact that she wrote a novel in light of the Pauli Exclusion Principle (no two electrons may occupy the same quantum state-from which we get the idea that no two objects can occupy the same space at the same time)means I may not write a novel. Insane, I know. IIIIIIIIII KNOOOOOOOOOOOW.

Not that I even have an idea WHAT I would write this chef d'ouevre about, nor that I have any real idea how one would go about writing a novel. Research and discipline and editing and rejection-I'm sure-all stuff I am really not interested in. I just have this delusion of grandeur. Well, at least I have this blog, and practice writing less than once a week. There's a step in the right direction, right? Although, by the same token, how many millions out there will be writing a book as a natural progression from their blog. Speaking of millions, there are millions of literal morons who have written books, and QUITE a few of them have done so with great success. And so goes the see saw, tug-o-war, back and forth inside my mind.

Lemme take you back to the subject...Reading. A good place to start all this (or stop it) novel writing would be to get back on the horse and read, because reading is FUN-damental.

PS: I would probably have to come up with some original material. Mostly, I would have to overcome a lot of deep-seated laziness (I had originally planned on blogging about a couple of other delusions I have, but I've tired of writing - QED) so the world is safe for now.

Summer Skin

Of late, I have been revisiting a favorite album from a few years back, Plans by Death Cab for Cutie. The melancholy tunes of all the songs and the lyrics of Summer Skin in particular make me both nostalgic for the sun and sea soaked ete's (how do you put an accent aigu on your "e" fraincais on this puppy?) of my preteen years on Long Island's Fire Island and mournful over an adolescence that I romantically fantasized about during those years, which, when it came and went, turned out to be quite less romantic.

This isn't going to be a blog (should I end up posting it, which perhaps I won't, we shall see) about what-ifs and what might-have-beens. You could become imprisoned in a dank, death-filled, windowless cell much like Edmond Dantes (one of my favorite literary characters during that time in my life) in the Count of Monte Cristo in that Chateau d'IF, if you let yourself. And to what end? So, coming as a surprise to even myself, this is the end of this entry. Walk on.

Down on McBean

I think we all can agree that few things are funnier than someone inadvertently performing a split. So put down your coffee, unless you like the feeling of blowing coffee out through your nostrils (which is sometimes even funnier than accidental splits) because that's the kind of story this is going to be.

My two year old, regular readers may recall, recently had an incident wherein he broke his teeth requiring thousands of dollars worth of dental work. This same child had been diagnosed with a VSD, ventricular septal defect, which is just scary medical speak for a relatively innocent and fairly common (as defects go) hole in the muscle wall between the two lower chambers of the heart. So, with dental surgery looming on the horizon, all parties involved (parents, pediatrician and dentist alike) thought it prudent to determine whether or not this hole was still present and if prophylactic administration of antibiotics would be necessary.

Beware the ides of March. Little did I know the soothsayer's warning was for me as well as Julius Caesar when I left the house for the pediatric cardiologist's office this morning. We got to the beautiful Santa Clarita Medical Plaza on McBean Parkway and rode the elevator all the way to the second floor, got out and proceeded to suite 200. We waited in the perfectly minimally decorated lobby for less than a minute and were led back to a bright, antiseptic examination room. The kid was a champ and the exam was over in five minutes flat. The doctor told us the hole had indeed closed and all he heard was an innocent extra heart sound which was no cause for concern, and if he hadn't been an experienced cardiologist he probably wouldn't have even heard that. Excellent all is well. Now off to Starbucks across McBean to meet my friend for her birthday coffee.

My mind was more on this friend than anything else - because she, like me, places great expectations upon the event of her birthday, but knowing the soothsayers warning, and Julius Caesar's ultimate prophecy-fulfilling demise, she is wary of the day letting her down as it inevitably does year after year. I walked to the curbside, two year old holding my right hand, six week old cradled in my left arm. Sidebar: I haven't been using my sling the past couple of days because one of the ladies from church told me she saw a bit on the news about babies suffocating inside the sling, and because I haven't had a chance to research any of this, better safe than sorry. We press the button and await the green walk sign.

The green man lights up and we begin our traverse of the ten lane parkway. Are ten lanes really necessary and how am I expected to get the three of us across in less than 25 seconds? Off we go. About half way across McBean I begin to feel pride welling up. Here I am walking at a pretty brisk pace and my two year old (formerly known as hole in the heart man) is really keeping up, and the baby is sound asleep, well done, mom. Ah, yes, here's another true saying: Pride goeth before the fall. I notice that the truck in the right turn lane, the last lane before the safety of the other curb, is really creeping up into the crosswalk. Desiring to beat both big bad construction man in his white truck and the flashing red hand's countdown from 5, 4, 3...I speed up a little. I have about five steps left, four, three...I put my left foot out. My skinny, fancy, bejeweled Judas flip-flop slips out from under me. My left leg goes FLYING out both in front of me and slightly to my left. My right foot slips behind and under me, folded in a perfect hurdlers stretch position. My rear end falls STRAIGHT down onto my right leg and foot. Instinct holds my baby tight in my arm, and raises my right hand high so as not to drag the two year old down with me. Muscle memory, from long lost athletic days of yore, presses me INSTANTLY back up on my feet and ...two, one, I reach the curb just in time to beat the red don't walk sign. Success. Unlike Lot's wife, I do not allow myself the much desired rearward glance. I do not let myself look to see who witnessed my humiliation, and who is deserving of future mental arguments against their inability to stop and help a mother out.

Instead I soldier on. I have a coffee to drink and a birthday to celebrate. I round the corner between Corner Baker and Starbucks and think to myself that could have been MUCH worse, I am so glad that white truck didn't run me over. I am so glad I was able to land perfectly on my but and pop straight up. I am soooo relieved that the two year old somehow was so focused on hurrying across the street he didn't even notice I fell, much less fall himself! And I am uber-grateful that the baby slept through it all. Push the glasses back up the nose, run a hand through my hair and walk up to Starbucks. About a minute later, searing pain starts shooting through my right big toe. And throbbing. And now I can't walk. I look down at my foot and see this:



Well not that...it didn't look like an injury, yet. It looked black, so I figured it was just a stain from the street. Moments later, while ordering my coffee (extra shot of espresso today, because I deserve it after that bit of insanity on McBean) I look down and realize the foot is swelling and I can't exactly move my big toe. In fact I should probably be at the doctor right now, but I don't really need pain meds (I mean, I would like them, and I am in a LOT of pain, but pain meds and being the mom of four active boys don't really mix) and they probably don't brace a broken toe (if it even is broken, which I am guessing it is not) plus I really needed to come home and blog about it.

I'm not sure if it is the caffeine, or the memory of what happened, or the foot injury itself, but I feel shaky and exhausted. Beware the ides of March, you may just end up down on McBean in a half split.

Homage to the Ladies of Hollywood

I would blog about the Oscars, specifically the fashion of the Oscars, but the girls at gofugyourself.com have that all wrapped up. I COULD blog about something original (or something I think is original) scurrying around in my brain. But it feels like a lazy Monday. And thanks to a terrible, non-redemptive movie about the great Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas I was recently TRICKED into watching combined with Oscar's vast array of red carpet ladies each with (as Tina Fey so wittily put it) "gollum arms" hanging onto their respective youths, I feel inspired to bring you a bit of pirated and revamped poetry:

A Parody of Do Not Go Gentle By Dylan Thomas
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and shave away under an acid peel;
Rage! rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise women at their end know wrinkles are right,
Because their skin had been pulled and tortured they
Do not go graceful into that good night.

Good women, the last wave by, crying how tight
Their gollum arms might have clung to their youth,
Raaaaaage! rage against signs of their proper age.

Wild women who caught their first featherlift just right,
And learn, too late, they grieved (by overuse) it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave women, near death, who see with blinded sight
Through slanted slits the emotionless faces of their peers,
Rage, rage against those young ladies who may still smile and frown and cry.

And you, my mother, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fine lines and mousey grays
But you, Hollywood mavens, Do not go graceful into old age
Rage, rage against the notion that you can't be 27 forever.

This made me laugh...it was also funnier in my head, before I forgot half of my edits during the morning shuffle.

My Dark Night of the Soul

With my apologies to those of you who aren't interested in this topic, now on to a little "heavier fare." For a little less than a year, I have been experiencing what the ancient mystics would have referred to as a "Dark Night of the Soul." A time where my mortal veil, this flesh through which I experience my life, feels distant from God. A time in which I no longer feel God. It is not to say that I don't love God, because I do. It is also not to say that I do not want to know Him, because I do. I love God, who He is, what He has done, the beauty of His creation and the unfathomable depths of His Mystery. It is, rather, the absence of any feeling in the practice of my faith.

I have no desire to read the Bible, as sometimes we all don't...but this time it is different. It is a tired disinterest. A blase, ehh, kind of "I'm not even going to walk across the room to the bookcase to pick that book up." When I do read, I feel (and maybe that is the problem word) like I don't get anything from it. Where is the newness that I crave? Where is the revelation? The wow-factor...the aha moment...the light bulb switching on...are all gone. I read it, and I know it is all true, and it is even good, and I can find comfort in it. The Word seems to come through muffled and fuzzy and my reactions to it are dull, even deadened. I feel like an arm that has fallen asleep, emotionally, all over. This malaise extends to books and studies and even secular books. Sure, every now and then I can get into a good novel, read it in a couple of days and be done, but that is it.

Church services seem "old hat." The sermons are all too familiar: didn't you preach this same thing last year, wrapped up in a different title? And maybe it IS true, the pastors are all drawing from the same well of "WikiSermons" and counting on the flock to either be: A. so forgetful (and stupid, thanks for that vote of confidence in our collective intellect) that they don't remember, B. so complacent that they don't really care or C. completely new thanks to high turnover rates that they just keep (lazily) recycling old sermons-but that used to be OK by me. Now, not so much (remember how Paul from "Mad About You" used to say that whenever he wasn't really interested in something...that's how I feel).

Even songs don't thrill me the way they used to. Somehow the combination of a true lyric with a decent melody has a way of tugging at my heart by way of my tear ducts. Only, these days, they can't seem to find a way to my heart. There is a Keith Green song that goes like this, "my eyes are dry, my faith is old, my heart is hard, my prayers are cold..." and here comes the kicker..."and I know how I ought to be, alive to You and dead to me." Perhaps that is just the conundrum that the dark night of the soul is meant to resolve-how, when we experience our lives through hour senses, through our flesh, through our SELVES, how can we be "dead to me." (You'll have to excuse the disagreement between we and me.)

As the song continues "But what can be done, with a cold heart like mine? Please, soften it up, with oil and wine. The oil is You, Your Spirit of Love. Please wash me anew with the Wine of Your blood." Hello God, Are you there? It's me, Jessica. I like to use the words of other people because it has already been said, and been said so well. And while I may have elegant thoughts in my head, when I search for the words to translate those thoughts to paper, they seem so clumsy and ill fit for what I am trying to convey. I have been praying that prayer, singing that song, for a year. I haven't ever seen God with my eyes, or heard Him speak to me out loud...He has, however, always spoken to me through His creation, through song, through dance, through movies, through books and TV and the still small voice that echoes in my heart, louder that all the noise of the world. According to San Juan de la Cruz, who wrote Dark Night of the Soul, I may be asking for the wrong reason. He says the novice stumbles on this journey through the night, where God is calling them from glory to glory, from breastmilk to solid food, from a mother/child relationship to a relationship between true lovers. The novice stumbles on this instance because of pride, because her eyes are on herself, because she is asking for her own peace of mind rather than asking for the sake of God. I'm not sure how I feel about this...but I bet there is at least some wisdom to be learned, I am sure I could benefit from getting the focus off of myself (oh how much easier said than done, no?).

Intermission: If you are expecting a resolution to this problem, I should warn you. There is none. I am just writing this in hope that this could be a literary catharsis and "break up the fallow ground" surrounding my heart and expose a soft heart that can somehow, someway, find it's way back to the Lord.


What is a Dark Night of the Soul? Well according to the EVER trustworthy Wikipedia, it is "is a metaphor used to describe a phase in a person's spiritual life, marked by a sense of loneliness and desolation" Wiki goes on to say: "Typically for a believer in the dark night of the soul, spiritual disciplines (such as prayer and consistent devotion to God) suddenly seem to lose all their experiential value; traditional prayer extremely difficult and unrewarding for an extended period of time during this dark night." Yep, that's me, that's why I am calling this a dark night. MY response to this loss of sensual reward for devotion to God has to become less devoted, in practice. Inside, in my mind, in the secret place, I am (although the heart IS deceitful above all things) still just as devoted to God as ever. Outside, as made evident by an absent prayer life and a shelved Bible along with all her accoutrements and studies, I have no devotion.

As Tyler Durden would say, "how's that workin out for ya?" Well, Tyler not so well. I indulge in fits of rage against my husband and children more often, I avoid responsiblity, I watch too much TV, I have lost the passion for charity I once had, and once thought might be a calling. When I finally turn to God, it is to rail against Him and ask Him "how and why" He could let all this happen, as if I am some mere bystander in my own life and that my choices and actions have had no affect on where my life has wandered. When I don't hear anything back, or when Bible Bingo doesn't provide a prophetic insight into my life, my rant continues, "WHERE ARE YOU!" Evidently mine is not a unique situation. In my research into this term I am using to label the past year of my life, I came across the treatise that Saint John of the Cross (referenced by his given Spanish name, above) wrote on the topic. He explains in poetic, 16th century language that "when the savour and relish in spiritual things is at an end, they naturally find themselves wihtout force and spirit, and this uneasiness makes them bring all their ill humor into their ordinary occupations, and wax angry at trifles, and even, at times, become insufferable." Big time, San Juan, Big Time.

When I think about it objectively, I might as well just roll with it and see what God has in store for me. I ought to just embrace it and press onward. But, I stubbornly refuse to do so. What would be the harm in continuing to read the Bible out of obedience and praising God for the mundane-because some of His miracles involve the mundane...like a new job at just the right time, a well negotiated 25% off dentistry I can't afford, a new motor in the washing machine (and with that - clean laundry) sunrise, sunset, breathe in, breathe out-I could choose to see the glory in all this. I suppose. I could even embrace this dark night as just the thing that San Juan claims it is. I could decide that this is God calling me from the infancy of my relationship with Him to something greater. Then my pride chimes in, I have been a christian for my whole life, what infancy??? Next, I can hear myself asking the childhood favorites: how and why? How are You going to use this to change me, as if by understanding how I could assert my control over the situation or participate more readily. Why? In an annoying whiny voice, WHY? I don't even know what I am asking. Why what? Who knows, Just WHY? Plus I'm not even SURE that is what this is, and if I am not sure I am not taking a step.

So for now, I pull further away from the traditional practices of the faith. I have found that nearly the only way I feel connected to God is through the TV show LOST. There is something so sweet about the character Jacob, touching, healing, seeking and loving the Lost character that just sings Jesus to me. He makes me wish that Jacob (really Jesus) would just come to me and tell me what to do, what is coming next in my life and how to get my "feelings" back. But as Jacob tells Hurley regarding his different treatment of Jack vs Hurley "Sometimes you can just hop in the back of someone's cab and tell them what they're supposed to do. Other times, you have to let them look out into the ocean for a while." While I am extraordinarily loath to identify with Jack, one of my LEAST favorite of the whole cast, I feel a bit like I've been left to look out into the ocean for a while. JUMP IN MY CAB!!!

Long Time No Blog

I need people to love me. No seriously, I have some sort of abnormal psychology (don't worry you have some sort of abnormal psychology of your own, so don't feel sorry for me, it's part of the human condition) that makes me want people to genuinely like me for who I am. I don't want them to like me because I do great things, I want them to admire the things I do for their intrinsic awesomeness. I guess what I am saying is: love me, but I won't change a thing for you.

Let me give you an example so as to clear this all up (or muddy the waters even further, who knows where this will take us-that's the fun of it). Today I went to the dentist. Well, lets back up a little and give you some background.

Last Thursday, after a long morning of being cooped up in the house trying to do chores and driving my kids insane, and vice versa, I threw the kids' shoes on, got their scooters and went for a walk. They wanted to scoot to the "big park" a mile and a half away, but cooler heads (mine) prevailed and we went to the "little park" about half a mile away. The trip to the park is mostly uphill, and both my 2 year old and 4 year old are out of practice and were complaining more than a little. Needless to say, I was frustrated. Hellooooo! I am taking this walk for YOU! Eventually, after several stops, we got to the park. They played for about 45 minutes (and lets face it, it was lucky they played that long, because the little park SUCKS) and then decided they needed water-which I, being the genius that I am, had forgotten.

So my little ducklings and I began our downhill march home. We had not even gotten 100 yards when my 2 year old slipped off his scooter and bit, literally bit, his handlebars. It didn't look like much, so I was getting ready to march right on. Then I saw the blood coming from his mouth and thought I'd better have a closer look. His right front tooth looked to be bent back at the gum line. "Phew, NOT broken, good." I thought. You should know before we go any further that I did not have my three week old in his sling, as I usually do when we go out...instead I was holding him in my arms. My 2 year old could not continue riding his scooter. I picked him up in my right arm and held the baby in my left. Then I picked up the scooter with my "free" right hand. If you can imagine the scene, please do. A crying two year old, a BIG crying two year old, boogers streaming from his nose, tears pouring from his eyes and all meeting and mixing with the blood coming from his mouth and then falling to the ground, leaving a Hansel and Gretl-esque trail in case anyone needed to find us. My 4 year old leading the way, checking back on us and urging us to "c'mon, guys." And me. Holding bleeding crying baby, holding littler, thankfully not crying, baby and holding the scooter. It was a sight to see. Halfway home I decided to check his mouth and ditch the scooter. To my surprise, there was no longer a tooth there. Because of all the blood, I couldn't tell if it had fallen out, or if it had broken off neer the gumline. Either way, it was not lookin' good for Ollie.

Fast-forward to this morning. I went to the pediatric dentist with my toothless wonder. He is the most cooperative child ever. He sat perfectly still in the chair as the dentist took several x-rays, poked and prodded his teeth and gums and discussed the whole mess withe me. His teeth were already losing enamel, due to (according to the oral surgeon we saw on Thursday) high fever during infancy or in me during pregnancy. "Nothing you could have done about it, sometimes these things just happen." Oral Surgeon's words, not mine. The pediatric dentist was not about to cut me such slack. FIrst he asked me if we were giving him a bottle, currently, to put him to sleep. I told him, no, nor had he EVER had a bottle. Next he wanted to know how long I breastfed, and instead of thinking that I was a champ for nursing as a long as I did, he started in on his diatribe about how the breast milk pools around the top teeth and rots them out and we KNOW you aren't brushing in the middle of the night, so that's how the decay starts...blablabla. He informed me that I had BETTER START brushing the poor kid's teeth twice a day, after breakfast and before bed (thanks for being so specific) and that I NEED to start flossing his teeth. The way I heard it, the implication was that I don't already brush and floss his teeth. I wanted to inform him, so that he would love me and think I was a great dental hygienist/ mother, that I have, since his first tooth appeared at the tender age of three months, been brushing his teeth twice a day-religiously. Not only that but since his canines came in closing some of the gaps that had been in his infant mouth, I have been flossing between those. I didn't say anything, mostly because when I thought about saying it in my head it sounded like a little kid giving an excuse that no one wants to hear. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have changed his mind about me anyway.

I left the dental office with a treatment plan that will set me back about 5 G's and my tail between my legs. I sat in my car and cried. Every time, I have a few bucks in the bank something comes up that demands not only those few bucks but several more! AND WHAT IS WRONG with that dentist, he didn't even ASK me if I brush his teeth and floss, he just ASSUMED that if there is decay, I must be doing a bad job. UGH! This is why I don't go to the dentist as often as I should. I would rather avoid you than hear how much I suck, Oh yeah and pay OUT OF MY YOU KNOW WHERE to hear it!

It has ruined my whole day. I have been fighting with this dentist in my mind ever since I left his office at 9:30 this morning. Listen, dude, I don't know where you got your medical degree, OH WAIT, you didn't-you're just a dentist...well that explains it. Are you really suggesting that I nurse my children less because of your enamel wear hypothesis? Do you mean to tell me you think that EVERY other parent is brushing their kids teeth more often, more thoroughly, more effectively than I am? YOu really want to tell me that the kids in your "no cavities" pictures on your SUPER * wall are better than mine. Because they aren't. And I am way better than those moms, and you are STOOOOOPID if you don't recognize it. Oh and by the way, I SEE your teeth. I see your little skinny, but long, occupying the space of one front tooth weasel teeth. I see them crowding each other out...oh wait maybe that's just your poop tooth. NOW I know why you got into dentistry, your parents neglected some obviously needed orthodontics and you are getting back at them by punishing all other parents you deem to be similarly neglectful. Well that ain't me, bro, I'm a very attentive mom, not smothering, just perfectly attentive to my the needs of my children. and on. and on. It is mentally exhausting to keep up both ends of an argument, so I am spent. Being tired leads to being cranky and then eventually to poor parenting.

PS the anesthesiologist just called and I most likely will not have to pay for their services, as they are covered by my medical insurance...so, amidst my pity-party I have that to be thankful for!

Olympix Redux

What a great weekend. Four day weekend, can't argue with that. The weather was sunny and 75-still is, in fact. And, oh those Olympics were so very rewarding. So many of the stories got the happy ending I was hoping for! Shen and Zhang won a gold after 18 years of skating together and being so adorable on the ice that I'm pretty sure spectators and judges alike wanted them to win even if he threw her into the stands and they singled every triple jump. Alex Bilodeau winning the moguls for Frederic and Canada, breaking the "home soil gold medal drought." Wescott double golding in the snowboard cross - way to stay on your feet and come from behind.

I am most impressed by the graciousness of all those who didn't win gold. It was so nice to see the good sportsmanship of the likes of Apolo Ohno and Bode Miller, who seemed truly content with having done their best even if they came in second or third.

Oh yeah and on a more local level, shout out to my husband for a gorge bouquet of flowers and to my 6 year old son for taking a literal pounding from some 8-9 year olds in flag football and still playing really well the whole game. If I didn't think football players were by and large a group of dirt bags and therefore secretly hope my son doesn't want to continue playing, I would say he could be a pretty decent receiver...that boy can snatch a ball out the air!

Oh Canada! (warning, this blog entry is intended solely for the purpose of getting it out of my brain, you may want to reconsider before reading)

I love the Olympics. I loooooooove love love love LOVE them. I love the Summer Olympics the most, but because I am not a fan of favoritism I also love the Winter Olympics the most in a cold, cozy, intimate, Canadia (yes I meant to spell it that way- why? maybe that's a blog for another day) sort of way. Who can forget Jason Lezak stalking, and I mean S-T-A-L-K-I-N-G down the French (oh the special satisfaction from the braggadocio French getting snaked in the final seconds of America's relay) anchor? My neighbors certainly won't, windows open a little after midnight as I screeched (and evidently Michael Phelps and I felt the same way about it) my celebration at the top of my lungs - I can almost feel my heart pounding again. But enough about the Summer Olympics, lets talk about Vancouver 2010.

I love les Jeux Olympique. I love the way Apolo (Anton) Ohno scooted his foot across the finish line to snatch a silver medal from the jaws of certain defeat. I love the way he is satisfied with whatever place he comes in, despite constant manhandling from the Koreans.

I love the love story of Shen and Zhao. I love the way they skate as one. I love the way they look at eachother after each throw and side by side triple toe loop in triumph. I hate clowns and I even loved the sad clown routine of the German figure skating couple with the Russian names...could be the song, or the makeup, or the late hour, but it brought a tear to my eye.

I love Hannah Kearney's pigtails sticking out of her helmet, making me think she was half her actual age. I love the Canadiens, eh, finally breaking their no gold on home soil curse with that UNbelievable moguls run by Bilodeou. And I especially love the reaction of his brother Frederic, as he watched from the stands. (It made me a little nostalgic for my little brother Ben.)

I love the way the stories of these strangers so enrapture me that I will cry, laugh and exult in their experiences as if they are my own. To me, the olympics are my biennial chance to park my rear on the couch for two weeks and peek in on what is best in the world, not only athletically, but also on a "human" level.

But I HATE, with every ounce of me, every fiber of my being, I hate what happened last Friday. I hate the senselessness of it, I hate the media capitalizing on the story, playing it over and over again, its seeming glorification of it, I hate it...and I don't really ever use the word hate.

On Friday, I was minding my own business, checking out Facebook, when I noticed a weird post from one of my sisters. It said something like so sad about the luger. Several people commented as if they knew what she was talking about. Because I am the number one fan of the Olympics, I was stunned to hear that they had already started when I KNEW the opening ceremonies were not until 7PM that night. I was soon informed that a luger from Georgia, Nodar Kumaritashvilli had died. It sounded like a sad story, but I was relatively unaffected by it. I chalked my sister's reaction up to the fact that she has older children and the fact that they were that very weekend participating in winter sports. I put it out of my mind for the next several hours.

Until Bob (annoying) Costas came on the TV that night and emblazoned it in my mind forever. Forewarned that there would be images I did NOT want to see, I fast forwarded through the first showing of the accident...believing it would be the last. How wrong I was. They played it over and over again. With no warning the video would run again and I would rush to fast forward through the DVR'ed event that I had joined about fifteen minutes into its airing. They played the accident even when it didn't make any editorial sense to play it...it seemed, as my brother put it, to be "death porn." Which brings me to the thing I hate most about this whole thing. Death. I am not OK with it, even though I know it is a part of life. There is something about the sundering of the spirit from the body that I feel I am just not supposed to be witness to. I feel like there are too many consequences to the psyche that I do not want to have to deal with. I have to pray when I see an ambulance speeding up the road or a car accident on the highway that those people aren't dead. I can't, nor do I want to, imagine what my husband and other people who have watched their loved ones die right in front of them must feel, or how they can bear the impossible pain of it. I was not even OK with seeing the wax-figurine-like corpse of my mother in the funeral home as we (my sisters and I) "fixed" it up for her wake. I was certainly NOT alright with the glazed, absent, fevered stare from my brother Ben, serving as the last glance I would ever get from him. AND I AM NOT OK WITH THEM SHOWING SOMEONE DIE ON TV. NOT ONCE and ESPECIALLY NOT COUNTLESS TIMES OVER AGAIN.

I have either averted my mind's eye so as not to look directly upon that memory, or I successfully averted my anatomical eyes even the times when it snuck up on me, but what I did see seems indelibly inked on my brain. The horror of it, the unspeakable sadness that his parents must deal with for the rest of their lives, the vicious irony of sending your son to the pinnacle of athletic competition only to have him die during a training run, the agonizing survivors guilt for family and fellow lugers alike...these thought turn and burn and course through my mind. I wish to banish them forever. I wish I could rewind and never have had them in the first place.

The evening wore on there were more things I came to hate. I hate how there was the suggestion that he made a mistake, that well, it was his fault after all. No! You should not have to be PERFECT, the tolerance for lifting your head, or shoulders or whatever the thing he did WRONG was, should not be so small that it ends in death. I hate that a local news program didn't turn off the sound feed for the accident during the late night news. Really, you aren't paying a producer to make sure no one hears that? I hate that on Saturday they FINALLY decided they weren't producers of snuff vids and FINALLY stopped airing the accident. Finally stopped airing a boy's death. I hate that on Saturday they suspended practice runs so that they could build a wall-WHY wasn't it built already? I hate that on Saturday they moved the starting line down lower so that you couldn't possibly be taking that curve at 90 MPH - WHY wasn't that done after one of the 14 previous luge accidents happened that week?

I hate this. I hate it so much. It is too soon to tell, hopefully writing about it will scale down the noise about it in my head...

My only comfort comes in the hope (and because my life is a musical, there is a song Death Bed, by Relient K that is the soundtrack to this comfort) that he flew into the arms of Jesus and that when he closed his eyes on Friday, He carried him home.

My Much Maligned Baby

I woke up, nursed the baby, let him sleep the rest of the morning away. I got out of bed, took a shower, washed yesterday's madness off of me, brushed my hair, moisturized (it is dry out here in the SCV). I gave the middle two boys a bath, left them there to play - and inevitably fight, out of sight out of mind, though, right??? I let the oldest sleep in and skip a bath thanks to a post football, more accurately mudball, practice shower last night, went downstairs and got ready to blog.

Thanks to all the kind, sympathetic response I received to "...I lack the strength to stand," I have been overflowing with mind chatter about yesterday's blog, specifically, how I may have inadvertently given the wrong idea about the baby. Every time I woke up last night to feed the baby, my mind would teem with guilty thoughts about how easy he is, and how the only thing I have written for the world to see about him is that he kept me up all night, one night. One night out of the twelve he has been ex-utero. All eleven other nights he has slept straight through save the necessary feedings every 2-3 hours, for which I barely have to rouse myself, never mind fully awake. This boy is an angel, he hardly fusses. All out cries are reserved for truly horrible moments like circumcision and nasty heel pricks designed to let his blood in order to discover his bilirubin count once a day for almost a week.

Not that there is anything "wrong" with a fussy baby, believe me, I've had one of those. It's just a different personality type. I simply feel bad about giving the wrong impression about the most recent addition because it amuses me. Sometimes in writing things just for myself (and for dramatic effect), I forget that by publishing and advertising its existence that there may be an additional audience. In a way this has helped me understand son 1 and son 2 who do annoying things and then laugh and laugh and laugh at the secret joke, with no concern for the fact that no one else understands what is going on and everyone else wishes they would just stop!

For the record, Liam is super easy.
Ah, that's better.

...I lack the strength to stand

I apologize ahead of time for taking up so much room with non-original material. One of my all-time favorite quotes from one of my all-time favorite movies is the following "discussion" between Wesley, our hero, and a pale by comparison, weak rival (if you could even call him that) Prince Humperdink from Princess Bride:

Prince Humperdinck: First things first, to the death.
Westley: No. To the pain.
Prince Humperdinck: I don't think I'm quite familiar with that phrase.
Westley: I'll explain and I'll use small words so that you'll be sure to understand, you warthog faced buffoon.
Prince Humperdinck: That may be the first time in my life a man has dared insult me.
Westley: It won't be the last. To the pain means the first thing you will lose will be your feet below the ankles. Then your hands at the wrists. Next your nose.
Prince Humperdinck: And then my tongue I suppose, I killed you too quickly the last time. A mistake I don't mean to duplicate tonight.
Westley: I wasn't finished. The next thing you will lose will be your left eye followed by your right.
Prince Humperdinck: And then my ears, I understand let's get on with it.
Westley: WRONG. Your ears you keep and I'll tell you why. So that every shriek of every child at seeing your hideousness will be yours to cherish. Every babe that weeps at your approach, every woman who cries out, "Dear God! What is that thing," will echo in your perfect ears. That is what to the pain means. It means I leave you in anguish, wallowing in freakish misery forever.
Prince Humperdinck: I think you're bluffing.
Westley: It's possible, Pig, I might be bluffing. It's conceivable, you miserable, vomitous mass, that I'm only lying here because I lack the strength to stand. But, then again... perhaps I have the strength after all.
[slowly rises and points sword directly at the prince]
Westley: DROP... YOUR... SWORD!
Prince Humperdinck: [Humperdinck's mouth hangs open, drops sword to floor]

I suppose I didn't need to put the whole dialogue here. But when I saw it there, in all its glory, on IMDB, I couldn't resist.

I went to bed around 9 O'clock last night, pretty decent, right? Then I woke up half an hour later to a gassy baby. I held him one position til that no longer relieved that gas, then in another and yet another til at last he wanted to eat and sleep. For twenty minutes ... and the cycle began again, and again, and you get the picture. Suffice it to say, I am exhausted and am avoiding all the things I have to do today. One of those things is writing my son's first grade teacher and/or the principal regarding her ineptitude (at best) or sabotage of my son's education (at worst).

Now what would possess me to use such strong language about a first grade teacher? I am glad you asked. It all started back in August. Well, maybe it didn't really start until September...tomatoes, tomahtoes. A few weeks into the school year, I began receiving middle of the day phone calls from this teacher, during which she would tattle on my son for some silly infraction of her rules. She seemed frazzled so I told her I would speak to him about remembering the rules. And I did. And he seemed quite willing to remember and obey. Next thing I knew I was in her classroom after dismissal one day, getting an earful about how she wants to discourage the children. Surprised, I corrected her, "Well, we don't want to discourage the children, just their bad behavior." Oh no, she wants to discourage the children. She made that very clear. After that we agreed on a behavior report she could send home every day to me so I could keep an eye on his behavior and make sure to correct the places where he was falling short. In case you were wondering, he talks in class (although he stops when asked) and sometimes gets out of his seat to discuss things with his close friends who don't sit at his table.

Thinking we had come to a bit of a detente, I left feeling proud of keeping my composure and giving in on the non-essentials while keeping the main points in focus. The next day I got a call from the teacher saying the principal wanted a meeting with my husband and myself. In preparation I wrote a two page summary of all the crazy things that she had done, that I knew about, either from my personal experience, the report of my son, or what I learned from speaking to other parents in the class. On second thought, maybe I should let me husband take care of this-he has a way with situations like this one.

Results of meeting: 1. I was pissed off by a lying 65 year old woman (miserable, vomitous mass) with what seemed like a vendetta against my son. 2. A mild suggestion that my son (who does not, believe me) may have ADHD ... although we don't usually make such suggestions until six months of observation of symptomatic behavior and this is only week five or the school year. 3. A revised agreed upon behavior chart, which was never put into practice because the teacher called me the next day to declare my child's behavior had cleaned up and we wouldn't need any reports.

Good meeting, as meetings go.

Over the next several months she refused to give my son a test he showed up for 10 seconds late, due to no fault of his own-more than once, even though the class helpers are supposed to administer the make up tests in such a case. And let me tell you that the southern California housewife lives to volunteer in class, so there is never a shortage of helpers. She has repeatedly not put pages into his STAPLED homework packet, and when asked to send them home, apparently refused. She has most recently, and most egregiously, given him the wrong math test. In this system, the children have color coded "math keys." The first set is red and is made up of the plus 1 family, the next is orange-the plus 2 family and so on. My son was on dark blue two weeks ago. He got 100%, the required score for moving onto dark brown. On the following Monday, as is the usual practice, the teacher handed out the new keys. My son got his dark brown ones. He studied them all week and got 100% on his practice test. Unfortunately, for him, his teacher gave him the dark blue test on Friday-for the second time.

I must brag about my six year old for a minute. He stood up for himself. He told her Mrs. ____ I took that test last week and I got 100%, I am on dark brown this week. She told him, "I don't have time to make another copy of dark brown, so you'll have to take this test." He aced it for a second time. The next Monday she was absent. Tuesday she returned with dark brown keys and said, "I forgot to give these to you." My son said, "No, you gave them to me two weeks ago, but you wouldn't let me take the test last week." She threw them in the garbage. Well played, madame.

It is my belief that she needs to be confronted about this. But I know she is unwilling to change. So maybe it would be fruitless. I also believe that this sort of inability to do one's job ought to be reported to their superior, and that I really should write the principal...but I, like our recently undead hero Wesley, lack the strength to stand. And then again, perhaps I don't. Perhaps writing this all down has put me in just the frame of mind to put my mightier than the sword pen to paper and tell these "warthog faced buffoons" using small words, so they'll be sure to understand, what they so desperately need to hear.

Fair to Middling

Let me first start out with today's scoreboard: Blog-1, Constant Inner Monologue-way more annoying. I guess yesterday's blog while initially having the effect of silencing some of my mind babbling ended up creating a sort of thought vacuum into which was sucked a bevy of blog related self talk. After the cathartic cleanse of writing came the furious torrent of "ick why did I write that" and its various related ideas. Truthfully, I am not a fan of putting myself out there. Everytime I do, whatever the situation - book clubs, bible studies, English and philosophy classes, mom's groups, drinking groups, parties - I end up wishing I had never opened my mouth. Keep it secret, keep it safe. The realization that I misspelled more than a couple of words hits me. I am so pissed. I don't misspell words, I MOCK people who misspell words. I certainly don't PUBLISH something ONLINE for people to READ with misspelled words in it. (Hey didn't that program have spell check? How did they not catch those????) Oh, don't you worry, deary, no one's going to be reading your stupid blog. Why are you even writing a blog? Do you think someone cares. UGH and then the idea that some idiots are going to read the blog and have their idiotic comments to make assails me. Now, this is too much! By the way, thanks to all of you who did read and comment for not being THAT person.

Oh right. But I am just writing this as an exercise to "Let it all out, Get it all out." So all of the rest of it shouldn't matter. Because it does matter, I give it a paragraph and get IT out too.

Done.

Now, I'll move on to the real topic du jour. The perfect cup of coffee at home. For me, a cup or three of strong, but not bitter, hazelnut coffeemate sweetened, starbucks extra bold roast is a delight I have been looking forward to my whole pregnancy. It serves so many functions: wakes me up with its jolt of caffeine, warms me up (oh and HOW I have been having such troubles with being fu-ree-zing since I had Liam...in the hospital we had separate thermostats in each room. The first night I asked my nurse to turn it up. I had no idea how hot she had turned it until they wheeled me down the hall to go home two days later and a brisk Nor'easter blew across my face. I asked the orderly who was wheeling me to the elevator, "do they keep it pretty cold out here?" I could almost see her quizzical face as she answered, "nope, it's about 72 throughout the ward.") and is a pretty good laxative-and those ladies out there who have gone through childbirth know how important that is!

Nine months ago, I would have told you that I make a pretty mean pot of coffee. Somehow, in the attempts I've made over the last week or so I have missed the mark, big time. Too bitter, followed by too weak, then bitter and weak (really? is that a possible flavor combination with coffee?). How could things be going so wrong? I have a pretty decent Cuisinart coffee maker, not top of the line, but it'll do. I have the French Roast from Starbucks, and it is fresh thanks to a Starbucks run by Meghan last Wednesday. I even have a Starbucks coffee grinder...although that MAY be under a recall, and now that I think about it, I should probably look into that. So, what's going wrong?

I have given it a lot of thought. You'd probably be surprised by the space this line of thought takes up in my brain. I have even googled it. I google everything. I found out the bitterness comes from grinding the beans too small for the method of brewing you are using. I am using a traditional drip machine, so you need a good medium grind. 9.5 seconds of grinding should do the trick. I found through trial and error that you MUST strictly obey the suggested 2 tbsp of coffee per 1 six oz cup of water ratio. You must carefully measure and level out the tablespoons, and you must accurately measure out the water, to the ounce.

Finally this morning, after 5 or 6 failed days of attempts (yes, I drank that gross coffee, because bitter, weak or not, nothing is worse than wasting coffee) I made a delicious pot of coffee. Only to be thwarted in my drinking of it by running out of coffeemate after my first cup. Two more perfectly delicious cups of coffee sit, neglected, in my coffeepot as I write. Oh Murphy's Law. Eh, I probably only needed one cup.

Hey maybe I should readjust the scoreboard...Blog - 2, CIM - fair to middling.