March 28, 2008

Dear Male Narrators of Audio Books:

When narrating a book that contains dialogue by female characters, do not use falsetto. It's ridiculous and distracting.

Thank you,

Audio Book audiences everywhere

The town I live in is old. Industrial Revolution old. Its gorgeous Victorian architecture is in disrepair, there's little new business, the neighborhoods are in desperate need of revitalization. I propose that we turn it over to the artists. Let the landscape designers, the decorators, the painters, the woodworkers, the sidewalk artists come and at least make it beautiful. I have an abandoned house across the street from me...why shouldn't it house a gallery, free space for artists to exhibit? Any reason why the unused playground 3 blocks down shouldn't become a community garden, or a sculpture garden, or something I can't even conceive of? The artists may have to bring their own materials, or find other funding to actually create the work, but in our town we have an overabundance of unused, underused, forgotten and abandoned space, both indoors and out.

The way I see it, everyone wins. We bring new life to our sad old town, the artists have a place to play and work, and the residents get to see something beautiful and creative happening right in their neighborhoods. It's not a big place...we could turn it into a town of artists and art. Instead of asphalt lots, there could be wild imaginings, fantastical interactive sculpture, performance space.

Maybe if the people who live here really loved their town, they would decide that it's up to them to protect it, take care of it, and teach their children to love it, too. Pennsylvania is so rife with history and beauty, it seems a shame to let it all slip away with the passage of time rather than at least making an effort to dance with it into the future.

Since buying our house 2 1/2 years ago, we have had our attic ceiling fall in due to roof damage, had to reline the furnace chimney to the tune of $1000+ and now need to replace the roof on the apartment above the garage and fix the kitchen ceiling. The damn home inspector should have had some clue that these things were pending, particularly since the HVAC guy that did the furnace chimney (only a few months after we bought the house, thank you very much) said you could see from the bricks on the outside of the structhre that there was an issue. His report also states that the roof is "well sealed" against the rain, which is odd, since it's been raining in my library, attic and daughters room on and off since our first year there.

Been f-ing sick since I went on a business trip to Dallas and cannot get rid of this cold. My mother, all superior this past week, gives me the usual advice - "get rid of all your hand towels, spray every doorknob with Lysol all the time and just clean, clean, clean and you will stop getting sick." Uh huh. She has, apparently, forgotten that when you raise small children, it is absolutely inevitable that you will either inhale, ingest or otherwise take in something from their body that contains many many germs. Particularly when you have one child in school, osmosing all sorts of other people's spit, snot, dirt, whatever. Also, she seems to forget that when you are raising small children, you can maybe manage to wash your hands after you pee, but that there isn't really a whole lot of opportunity during a typical day to follow everyone around with Clorox wipes and sanitize them. Oh, and my kids eat off the floor, then kiss you, all sweet and slimy-like. Sooooo, yeah. Isn't it amazing how people who are not going through the same phase of life you are have the world's most useless advice? I find that folks with no kids of their own, or whose children have gone on to successful lives, tend to offer advice of the most ridiculous quality.

Really, I do get that my 3-year-old son really should have given up his binkie by now. If you would like to come to my house and stay up all night while he cries, yells, gets out of bed, comes to pester you for his binkie and otherwise prevents all 5 of us from sleeping, please feel free. Until then, I'm going to let him keep it for awhile. At least until his baby sister is sleeping through the night so I can keep the sleep disturbances to two kids at a time (our oldest is almost 5 and plagued with nightmares, enhanced by a general desire to sleep in our bed).

Our very tired Ms. G is in bed after a very fun impromptu playdate with her siblings and the fabulous Tamsin. Jack has just gone upstairs, answering my protest that the baby is night-night with "needs. my. Thomas." very slowly and carefully as if I'm an idiot or a foreigner. Laine comes to me cradling animal snacks in one hand and says, "I'm giving the cat treats, so when you hear the door, don't freak out." I must seem to them like a crazed, distracted, somewhat slow person prone to losing my shit about minor things like not letting sleeping babies lie and toddlers wandering out into the street. I guess I can just retire and let them run their own exciting lives full of dress-ups and yogurt drinks (which, Laine has just informed me, are in the 'fridge if I want something good when I get up tomorrow. I suppose means that she'll be out with her people for a breakfast meeting or something).

Alex is off getting wine for me and Rescue Remedy for the damn dog...both of which will help me not have to kill him (the dog, not Alex). He needs to stop barking or I'm going to need to insist that he bark in someone else's house. Permanently. He barks when he's in, out, hungry, full, bored, excited, happy, sad, melancholic and when his candidate doesn't win the Presidential nomination. He barks in his crate, in the kitchen, in the yard. He barks with and without rawhide, with and without treats, when we leave and when we come home and at random times despite all of our best efforts to break him of it.

As the mother of two daughters, this scares the shit out of me. There are teenagers and young women all over the world meeting online in secret to trade tips on how to be anorexic or cultivate other eating disorders. They are so desperate to be thin that they openly suggest eating fewer than 500 calories a day, curling up in a ball to deal with hunger pangs and telling your family that you're going to a friend's house to eat so they don't realize you're starving yourself. They cheer one another on to weight goals of sometimes 100 pounds or less and idolize celebrities known for being unhealthily thin.

I feel so desperately sad for these women and girls that they find their own beautiful, feminine, powerful and sacred bodies disgusting and fat. We've got to do something proactive to make sure our own little expressions of deity don't end up there, too. Anyone have a suggestion? I sort of feel like I'm up against the entire American society here, the same way I do when I think about the impact that the conservative agenda, big corporations and consumerism are having on our lives.

There has to be a way, short of holing up inside a compound or running away to the Amish, to reclaim a healthy way of living that doesn't eat up our money, our time, our souls, our health, our love and our families.

After a 3-hour tour of the Dallas world aquarium and rainforst yesterday, followed by a futile attempt to find a decent coffeehouse within walking distance of the arts district, I have decided today to just relax. Woke up in the wee hours with fever sweats and a brand-new cough, so today is laundry, reading, jewelry design, cookbook work and knitting (I'm working on a shawl with ribbon yarn and ginormous needles, so it's slow going...I can only do a row or two at a time; I'm also learning a new skill, knitting into the front and back of a stitch, and this yarn is so NOT the one to on which to try out new skills).

It's a beautiful warm day and the windows in the hotel actually OPEN. Just got back from a walk to pick up some fallen sticks to make my Imbolc wish tree (a little late). I could tell the women at the front desk were exceedingly curious as to why I was coming through the lobby clutching a bouquet of dead wood, but no one said a thing. The sticks that were on the lawn across the street were perfect and curve in a way that will make a little tripod base for the tree itself once the sticks are tied together.

I've been listening to John Kabat Zinn on my iPod and thinking a lot about mindfulness and getting to know your Way; I need to spend some time with myself figuring out exactly what my hopes for this year are. My first thoughts are "get in shape" "get out of debt" "publish my cookbook" - but I think what I really mean is "love my body and live in it joyously," "take control of my finances," and "become involved in the hiking community again, specifically with other vegetarian and vegan hikers."

I miss Alex and the kids; my Mom was there over this weekend to help him out and he sounds much better than he did last week (I suspect the adjustment in his medication dose as well as spending today with his buddy doing the brakes on my car have helped his mental state).

I'm hoping to get to the Cosmic Cafe for a meal this week. I found it on the way to the Kroger for OJ and Tylenol and it was so colorful and exuberant, I nearly went in, germs and all, except that it was only about 7:15 in the morning. I have finally discovered the fun part of Dallas and am looking forward to happy hour at least one night this week at the gay cowboy bar and saloon :-D

I've been in Dallas for a week and I'm scared shitless to cross the street. Here is what I imagine the test for a license in Texas looks like:

1. Are you:
a) blind
b) comatose
c) blind and comatose
d) legally dead

2. When coming to a crosswalk, you should:
a) drive faster
b) honk
c) run the redlight
d) close your eyes and drive faster

3. The little yellow lines and the little white lines on the road mean:
a) bupkis
b) nothing
c) nada
d) lines?

4. When attempting to change lanes, it is important to:
a) Swerve at the last minute
b) Bully your way into line in front of a smaller vehicle
c) Flip someone off
d) Honk, then honk again, then do a) b) or c)

Also, there is no Trader Joe's in Dallas, and no place except the lunchroom on the 12th floor of the Wells Fargo building, to recycle aluminum or plastic. I have had to put the Zzzzzzz sign on the door of my hotel every morning before going to work so that the hyperactive cleaning services doesn't empty my trash when there's one Luna bar wrapper in it, run my dishwasher to clean that single coffee mug & spoon, leave me 6 more clean towels and shove a USA Today that I have repeatedly asked them to withhold under my door. I was hoping to get the hell out of here this weekend and go to Austin, but my associate went home yesterday with strep and until I know I'm not contagious, I don't want to go anywhere.

Fortunately, I have wine. When I put the corkscrew from the kitchenette into the bottle and pushed down on the little arms, all they did was grind against the gears, so I had to go to the front desk with my little "problem" and have them open my chardonnay.

How cool is that? I get to spend TWO WHOLE WEEKS in Dallas, working 7-hour days and then having an ENTIRE HOTEL SUITE to myself. I can get two weeks worth of uninterrupted sleep, actually finish a novel (SO bummed I didn't buy my Kindle before now since they're sold out and I'm broke), walk around in the 70-degree-weather, knit, and just generally enjoy the hell out of myself. Alex accused me of going on vacation and I didn't contradict him. The work we're going to do is not particularly exciting, but shouldn't be particularly difficult either (nothing worse than tough AND tedious). I get to meet two new people from the firm and I may find a way to get to Austin to see my cousin. I may also find a way to spend the weekend I'm there doing absofreakinglutely nothing. *sigh* It's like a spa, but better, since I don't have to watch what I eat (other than making sure it didn't once have a face on it) and there are no mandatory activities like daybreak meditation or yoga. My Noanie has offered to do general Daddy-rescue while I'm gone. Of course, Jack begs me daily, "Peeese, Mommy, no go to work. PEEEEESE!!!" This ought to really do him in. By the time I get back, I expect my 9-month-old walking daughter will be riding a Harley and smoking.

Current Mood: giddy

As soon as one makes some progress getting a house repaired and ready to sell, it's absolutely inevitable that one or another of the resident children will do something to F it up even further. We had finally gotten our upstairs library painted, including trim, and were on the verge of finally organizing the supplies when our 5-year-old and our 3-year-old got into a tussle about something, resulting in one of them pushing the bathroom door the wrong way and completely off the hinges(it's been missing the latch & strike plate for months while we repair trim) . We heard an awful CRACK and ran upstairs to find our oldest standing in the empty doorway with her mouth hanging open. *sigh* Maybe we can get one of them to climb up to the roof and finish that off, too.

I decided, very much against my nature, to take a nap around 2pm today. I had an enchilada pie thingy in the crockpot and some black bean soup simmering on the stove (both of which, as I made perfectly clear to EVERYONE, would NOT be done/ready/in need of further attention until dinner time). At 4:15, oldest daughter appeared at the bedside with a seemingly urgent message that I "had" to get up for something to do with the food on the stove.

Envisioning flaming appliances, boiling-over black bean lava and other unpleasantries, I got out of my beautiful cozy (and, but for me, blissfully empty) bed and went downstairs. The truth of the situation was that my husband had sent the small girl to wake me up because he thought "something" "might" need to be done about the food. The food that I had explicitly SAID would just need to cook UNTIL DINNER TIME. We are not my grandparents and dinner is not at 4:15.

In addition, my darling husband was, himself, asleep on the couch. I got vengeful and started pestering him to get up. He, predictably, got pissy and stomped upstairs, first muttering, then loundly insisting, that he had just been trying to be HELPFUL.

Helpful? Helpful? That, in my book, I told him, would have been 1) to let me freaking sleep. I NEVER ask to nap during the day or to go to be early, so one would have thought it was an indication I might be unnaturally tired. Helpful could also have taken the form of 2) checking on the food himself 3) quietly coming up himself and asking me if anything needed to be done to it, or 4) actually remembering what I had said and leaving the whole situation ALONE. By my count that's four different, helpful scenarios, none of which would have necessitated that I get up and be bitchy.

So I think I might either have PMS or my husband was acting like a jerk. Or both.

So for the one person who actually read my LJ (and you know who you are), I've posted a blog at blogger.com for my vegan backpacking cookbook called The Campy Vegan. I'm currently watching the Barrett-Jackson auction, fiddling around with some jewelry design ideas and considering going to Texas for two weeks starting January 28th, although that would mean missing February's Baby Loves Disco. However, it's a good career op for a guy that has the power to MAKE THINGS HAPPEN, so I think I have to go. Upside is that the place I have to be is only a few hours from the Louisiana tribe so we may make it a whole family roadtrip. In the minivan this time - I will never again travel more than 30 miles from home in the Corolla, gas mileage be damned. I've also got friends in Texas that I could pester when they kick me out of the EPA offices at 4:30 every day.

Current Mood: creative

We are now in the “why?” phase, so most of our conversations go like this (you will see from the dialogue that she is also a miniature movie buff):

Small Daughter: “Why Wallace turns into a rabbit?”

Me: “Because he got a rabbit stuck to his head.”

Small Daughter: “Why?”

Me: “Because his invention went bad.”

Small Daughter: “Why he’s invention?”

Me: “I don’t know.”

Small Daughter: “Why Peter Parker Spiderman?”

Me: “Because he got bit by a spider.”

Small Daughter: “Why he got bit?”

Me: “Because he was in the same room with the spider.”

Small Daughter: “Why spiders bite some people?”

Me: “To protect themselves from bigger animals and people.”

Small Daughter: “Why that man throw that car?”

Me: “What man?”

Small Daughter: “Why the Iron Giant in the woods?”

Me: “I don’t know. Why?”

Small Daughter: “He just did.”

Me: “No, there’s a reason. You tell me why.”

Small Daughter: “Why Sully waked up?”

Me: ”We’re not talking about movies anymore.”

Small Daughter: “Why?”

Apparently the combination of migraine meds and strong coffee makes my lips numb and my frontal lobe vibrate. I think I could contact the Hubble right now with just the power of my mind...Wonder if the chocolate frosted donut I'm currently cramming down on top of all that will make things better or significantly worse. I'll report my findings later.

We had something of a creepy morning - my dead father's cell phone, which we have somehow ended up with, turned itself on and started ringing with a reminder that he had a doctors' appointment scheduled for today. I'm sure that feature is a benefit to the living, but it was just a little much for me at 6 this morning.

The good news is that my new employee starts on Monday so I can stop trying to do two jobs. This week has been mighty special at work. The Big Cheese tends to get a little scattered and a little pushy when the workload comes on fast & furious, so I've been simultaneously under pressure to get a client's job done AND to manage things like making sure there's enough coffee supplies out. Can you tell we're having a tiny bit of trouble with priorities?

My son has been completely transformed into Frankenstein's monster. At least, into Hollywood's interpretation of Frankenstein's monster... He turned 1 yesterday and we bought him his first shoes, which he hates. Now, in addition to pointing and grunting for what he wants, he walks stiff-legged, occasionally picking his feet up really high and banging them down. He also lurches a bit and falls over. That's when he's not staring at his feet and crying (not very monster-like, and quite heart-breaking).

This morning it took us 4 hours to get the kids to daycare, the car to the mechanic and me to work. 4. Hours. That's after we discovered that someone had stolen the bucket of rock salt from our porch. Who does that? I mean, if you're short on salt, all you have to do is ask. We routinely shovel our neighbor's walk, give away food...wtf? Like we wouldn't share the damn salt?

This week I'll be myself and my receptionist, who had her baby on Saturday and is out for 2 months. Her replacement will be here next week, thank the Goddess, but in the meantime, I get to do two jobs. Can you tell I've got wicked PMS and am in need of an Evening Primrose drip?

We've just had to cancel a joint birthday celebration for the SnackAttack and his Daddy...apparently we're going to get a b*tchin' snow storm starting tomorrow and I'd really rather all the great-grandparents and friends with small dependents weren't feeling obligated to come watch the Attack smash cake into his hair. Soooooo it'll prob'ly be next weekend. Two years ago we had to postpone the husband's party, then last year it was the SnackAttack's baby shower. Apparently being born in Pennsylvania in the middle of February pretty much guarantees that one's party will be snowed out 99-100% of the time. Give or take.

We have to stop on the way home tonight and buy little boys who are almost walking some shoes and some snow boots. That is, if I can find such things in February. I believe that the winter retail season is officially over and we may only be able to purchase pool toys and sandals.

Have you ever typed a word and, even though you've looked it up and it's correct, your brain refuses to accept the spelling? I'm having that right now with the word "February." Every place I've typed it, I've had to re-read it and I'm still not convinced it's a real word. Huh...

I'm considering a crawfish tattoo in memory of my father, a full-blooded Cajun, who died on Christmas Eve. Of course, he never had one and would probably disapprove, but that just makes it all the more fitting since ours was a relationship laced with mutual tweakage and good-natured disagreement on many, many topics. My brother, a Navy man, is already well-tatted himself, but I may, upon finding suitable artwork, convince him next time we're together that we should have matching ones for this occasion. My lower back seems just pudgy enough to mitigate some pain and gives me the option of hiding it...well...pretty much always, since my mommy bod prevents me from wearing low-rise jeans and halter tops. Am I having an early mid-life crisis, since I find myself, at age 32, married with two kids and short one parent? Perhaps...

Five minutes before picking small son up from daycare for his 9-month checkup, the nice ladies in the infant room called my cell phone to inform me that he had a 101-degree fever. Damn handy we were already heading for the doc; as it turns out, he developed a wicked ear infection overnight. So rather than a well check with various innoculations, it became an antibiotics-dispensing adventure instead. Husb& took him home and every time he calls me at work, I can hear my little guy in the background growling and hooting and babbling. This illness would explain why he was awake and inconsolable at 3:00 this morning...only lying on my chest on the couch while I patted his butt, rubbed his leg and sang the same song over and over again could put him to something like sleep. Now we have to make an entirely different visit for flu shot and vaccines. 'Cause that's handy. I understand that you can't give shots to a kid who's already sick, but can't you just slip the thing in my pocket? I'll do it. Crap, after having to put eye ointment on my toddler's eyeball, I think I could probably handle any medical procedure up to and possibly including intubation. I was afraid they were going to be mad at me because we'd totally blown off the appointment we had in October for a flu shot. I know they're sort of scarce...maybe it's insulting to pass one up, like if you're offered a rare gift and you turn up your nose. Or maybe they figure it's one more for some kid who's mother can manage to remember his or her appointments. Whatever. My grand plan for the pending avian flu pandemic involves purchasing land in the mountains in the middle of Pennsyltucky and holing up there with my family and a year's supply of gourmet olives.

I am in love. With a new breakfast food...miso soup. Have never been a big one for breakfast sweets, so this little salty bowl is juuuuuust right. *sigh* While not big on cold baby octopus on a stick, I must give the Japanese culinary credit where credit is due. All hail fermented grain paste.

Husb& has recently proposed that I overhaul his diet so he can drop his extra weight and generally not feel like poop. I cannot resist trying to fix things, but I nearly choked on my coffee when he asked me to buy him "The Hip Chick's Guide to Macrobiotics." In the car he listened intently for an hour while I read him the 12 laws of Yin and Yang, occasionally interrupting me to make sure he'd gotten the essence of this esoterica.

The book suggests that you begin macrobiotic practice (which, by the way, is mostly vegan and frowns rather insistently upon ice cream and Cheetos) by just committing to eating one whole-grain meal a day. Sounds pretty easy, so the first night we made this Vegetarian Paella. Huh. Rice and white beans actually do have their own taste. We forgot to chew each mouthful 100 times, but we didn't hate it. Last night was rather a wash because we weren't home, but today for lunch I ate a bowl of steamed brown rice with a little soy sauce (far less than my usual drenching, but I'm sure enough to give a true macro signs of sympathetic dehydration), some carrot sticks and some hummus. I have never in my life chewed a mouthful of anything 100 times and it's amazing what happens to a forkful of rice...it actually becomes this lovely sweet liquid that sort of slides down your throat. Between this and the mindfulness practice I've started since listening to "The Power of Now," enlightenment could be just a pressure-cooker away...