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December 2003

I have a problem of

I have a problem of sorts. An issue, if you will. See, I've been giving the boys Honeycomb cereal for breakfast. Hey, they like it. I know, that alone should qualify as an issue in my life. After all, the main ingredients of Honeycomb cereal are...(checking the box)...sugar, preservatives, bad parenting choices, and more sugar. And sucrose.
Sadly, that's not my issue. I'm perfectly ok with serving them such horrible food for the most important meal of the day. Not proud of it, perhaps, but I can live with myself. After all, morning is not my best time. Recently Tre said to me, "Mama, you're the best!" I had just granted him some boon...GameBoy time or something, I don't remember. I raised an eyebrow at him and asked, "Would I still be 'the best' if I hadn't just given you what you want?" and he replied, "Oh, yeah! You're ALWAYS the best...except maybe a little bit in the morning. You're a little grumpy in the morning."
Like it's my fault morning comes so flippin' early.
Humph.
Off the point... or as someone says, thanks for playing.
No, my problem is that whenever I pull that big yellow box out of the cupboard I start singing, "Honeycomb's big - yeah, yeah, yeah! It's not small - no, no, no!" Remember that jingle from when we were kids? "Honeycomb's got a big, big taste! Big big..." Right about there my memory falters. Hey, I don't know how I know as much as I do. We didn't even own a TV for most of my childhood, and when we got one we were required to turn down the sound for the commercials.
But somehow that song lingers in the murky recesses of my brain. And I've passed this particular curse on to my boys. They are singing the jingle (or as much of it as I can remember) too. I feel guilt over that.
And yet, somehow, the fact that my loyal readers are going to be persecuted with that rattling through their minds all day...that doesn't bother me all that much.
Huh.


I was in the family

I was in the family room, picking up the same four million books I picked up yesterday and the day before and the day before and the day…
Wait. Off track there.
Anyhow.
From the kitchen I heard Raphi’s voice pipe up, registering great alarm.
“Oh no! Ah bwoke it!” I winced, but didn’t jump up immediately. “I broke it” can mean “I tore the tiny bit of paper from the band-aid wrapper I’ve been carrying around” or “I knocked over the stack of blocks I’ve been playing with” or “Watch Mama jump when I say this.”
Or sometimes it means “I broke it.”
He came running over to my side, a picture of concern. “Come here, Mama! Ah bwoke it!”
“What did you break, baby?”
“Ah bwoke…” he cast a desperate glance over his shoulder, searching for the word, “dat white one! Ah bwoke de one white one!” Ok, then. Possibly he actually broke something. I hauled my aging self up off the floor and took his proffered fat hand. He trotted me into the kitchen, where I found the “one white one” that he bwoke. That would be an egg. And apparently before becoming alarmed about it he danced about in it.
Big sigh.
Tre and Max came tearing into the kitchen. You know how dogs can smell fear? Boys can smell a mess. They were mightily impressed, and wondered if they might not get a turn with the eggs.
I said no and shooed them out. I scooped my wee angel Raphael up to sit on the counter so I could wash off his feet. Then I set him down, instructing him not to touch the eggs anymore. “Ok, Mama. Jus’ one egg?”
“No eggs. Do not touch the eggs or I will swat your bottom.” He was taken aback by my unreasonable stance on the issue, but agreed. As I mopped up the egg slime he watched intently. I tossed the last gooey paper towel in the trash and he nodded with satisfaction.
“Dis was a job for Shooperman,” he explained, and swaggered away.
Well, thank heaven for Shooperman.


Oh, the NaNo novel is

Oh, the NaNo novel is not going well. Not at all. Here it is, the tenth, and I’m at just over 7,000 words. This. Is. Not. A. Good. Thing.
And, I’ve decided, not my fault. See, I was going to catch up on a good chunk of writing today at Starbucks when I had my child-free Monday morning. And all was going well. Tre and Max were safely tucked into their classes at Hope. Raphael was in caring hands. I, well I’d taken a half hour out of my productive morning to go to the chiropractor, but this was a good thing. Trust me.
So there I was, kid-free and well adjusted (spinally, anyhow). I had a pumpkin scone and a cup of insanely strong coffee. I like to order the “bold” coffee of the day and sneer at them when they ask if I want room for cream. As if.
Anyhow, I sat my happily caffeinated little self down in the corner and pulled out my laptop. I pulled up the file and skimmed what I’d written so far. I frowned at it a moment, gave myself a little pep talk encouraging the prodigious writing of bad fiction. Don’t make it good, make it lengthy! I poised my fingers over the keys. I took a deep breath and typed “Eve was-“
“Hey, what kind of laptop is that?” Someone asked, clearly not noticing that great literature was happening. I glared at him, then made a show of looking at the big “DELL” written on it.
“Blue,” I said, “and grey.” He nodded, perhaps a bit confused. I went back to Eve.
“Are you on-line?” he persisted. I gave a deep sigh, blew my bangs out of my face, and looked at him.
“No.”
“Oh, because you know this is a T-Mobile hot spot,” he said helpfully.
“It’s a fairly distracting spot too, apparently.”
“Heh, heh. Do you come here a lot? I think you were here last Monday.” He clearly wasn’t taking the hint, so I smiled at him and pulled out my big ammo, the great man deflector.
“I come here on Mondays because it’s the only time I’m not with my three kids.” Sweet smile from me. Uncomfortable silence from him. And I went back to Eve.
So if I’m behind in my NaNo goal, I’m sure it’s the fault of that guy and the two minutes of my day he stole.
And I am not PMS’d.


I just wanted to drop

I just wanted to drop in for a moment here to give you a wee snapshot of my life. I was standing in the kitchen, trying to load the dishwasher. I say trying because Raphael was helping me. He was not in a good mood, because his Appa had gone off with his Max, and left him at home. Plus, his Tre was downstairs, playing GameBoy, not entertaining the ShooperToddler. On top of all that, his Mama was just being annoying, with all these arbitrary rules like “Don’t stand on the washer door. Don’t throw glasses at the floor. No, you can’t have the knife.”
Life is hard for Raphael.
So he was getting between me and the dishwasher, pushing on my legs, whining, and generally making life difficult. When he meandered off and found a deck of Uno cards to play with, I didn’t object. When he took all the Uno cards out and scattered them on the floor, I didn’t mind one bit. He was content. He was out from under my feet. Peace reigned.
Well, he eventually got tired of the cards and wandered off. I, being the good mommy I am, picked the cards up. No sense leaving them there to get stepped on. I sorted them back into a neat little pile and tucked them back in their little basket, and went back to the dishwasher.
Four seconds later Raphael came into the kitchen, and spied the missing pile of cards.
“Wheh dey GO?” he shrieked.
“I picked them up,” I responded mildly. He scowled at me, crossing his fat little arms across his chest.
“Yoo mess it up!”
“No I didn’t! I cleaned it up.” He snatched the basket of cards off the counter and dumped the contents back on the floor. He meticulously scattered them, then stood up and glowered at me.
“Don’ mess it up.” And he marched out.
Just can’t win some days.


My sons have discovered “America’s

My sons have discovered “America’s Funniest Home Videos.” Remember that show? Bob Saget being cheesy, introducing video evidence of our decline as a culture? Many, many shots of pants being pulled down and men getting whacked in the groin? Well, it lives in all its rerun glory on Pax, and my sons think it’s pure genius. They like to imagine scenes that would make good AFHV fodder.
Tre’s fairly rational about what he thinks might make a good video. For instance, he thinks a clip of Claire at the sliding glass door might be funny. See, Claire has a cat door right next to the sliding glass door. If no one’s around, she goes in and out the cat door just fine. But if anyone is sitting at the table next to the door, she stands outside and gazes pitifully at them. If you ignore her, she will stand up and paw at the door until you stand up and open it for her. Well, until I open it for her. Mom prefers to glare at her and tell her repeatedly that she can go through the cat door if she wants in. Claire paws, Mom lectures, this can go on for some time. Sheesh, what a stubborn…um, cat.
Anyhow, Tre thinks this would make a funny video, complete with silly voice over. “You could do Claire’s voice, Mama, and be like, ‘Hey, let me in!’”
Max, on the other hand, has something more…elaborate in mind. His scenarios go something like this: “I’d be outside, right? And I’d be just lying there like this?” (Perches precariously on the arm of a chair, eyes closed, head lolling back) “And then there would be a bunch of…ketchup, like maybe a pool of ketchup, and someone would grab my foot and I’d go ‘Aaaaaaauuuggh!!!’ and SPLAT! Into the ketchup!” How the ketchup would get there is clearly not his problem.
Raphael, with his usual clarity, has homed in on the very heart of the show. After watching the show he marches around saying things like, “Mah booty! Heh, heh! Aaaaaah! Pbbbbth! You booty!”
Pretty much sums it up, don’t you think?


Ok, for all of you

Ok, for all of you who have been clamoring to hear about my NaNo progress, here it is, my NaNo Q and A session. Please understand, these Q’s are, for the most part, not actual questions I’ve been asked so much as questions I’m sure someone wants to ask. Except some of them are actual questions. It’s my blog, I get to play by my rules. So there.

Q: What the heck is NaNo?
A: Good Q. NaNo is short for NaNoWriMo.

Q: Um…I’m still not clear on what that is.
A: You’re an idiot.

Q: And you’re ill-tempered and mean. Have you been writing too much?
A: Why yes, I have. See, I’m participating in NaNoWriMo, which is short for National Novel Writing Month. The NaNo challenge is to write a novel (50,000 words) during the month of November. I signed up for this, despite the fact that I write lousy fiction and have never finished so much as a short story, much less a novel.

Q: How’s it going?
A: You’re an idiot.

Q: No, really. How’s it going?
A: Not bad, actually. I mean, I have about half the word count I wanted to by now, but I find myself very involved in the actual story. I sit down, determined to crank out X number of words and instead find myself all involved in the next scene. And there keep being next scenes. I had this all planned out and already it’s gone off the course I’d planned – but I think that may be a good thing.

Q: How many words do you have?
A: I’m starting to really dislike you.

Q: Oh, come on, ya sissy.
A: Ok, as of this moment I have 5,106. Clearly not enough, especially since I’m having that eye surgery on the 25th, so I should probably be done by then. On the plus side, I am meeting my goal of one pretentious comment about my novel per day.

Q: Just one?
A: You know, I could probably beat you up.

Q: What’s your book about?
A: Well…it’s about a woman going through a divorce.

Q: Clever. Wonder where you EVER came up with that?
A: Look, it’s not about me! This woman has two kids, and one of them happens to be a girl. So there. Besides, it takes a…turn of sorts that clearly isn’t inspired by my life.

Q: A twist? What is it?
A: The divorced woman finds and kills her smart-mouthed Q asker. No, actually, it’s – do you REALLY think I’m gonna tell you the twist? Why would I take away the last reason for you to read it?

Q: That brings up a good point. Are you going to post excerpts from your work in progress like some of your brave and amazingly talented NaNo cohorts?
A: Nope.

Q: Why not?
A: I’m neither as brave nor as talented as they are. Plus, I find that scrutiny during the creative process inhibits the organic blossoming of the story. (In case you’re keeping track, there’s my pretentious comment of the day.)

Q: Is it a good novel?
A: No. Oh nooooooo. But that’s not really the point of NaNo. The point is to…I forget, but it’s ok to write a very bad novel. And I’m doing my level best.

There you go, loyal readers. If you have any more questions, feel free to submit them in the comments section. I, being consumed as I am by the creative process, can’t promise to answer any of them – but that’s life with an artist, I suppose. (Lookee, TWO pretentious comments today! Yay, me!)


I went to the eye

I went to the eye doctor today. This is not an unusual experience for me. I have the eyesight of some doughy underground dweller. Useless squinty myopic eyes, mine. I remember the day my mom realized I needed glasses. I was ten, and she was helping me make lemon aid for the stand I had with my brother. (Aside here, since I last wrote about the lemon aid stand I've discovered that my brother did not, as I thought, set up the stand on his own. Mom raced home from work to set it up for us. With typical childhood self-centeredness I came out of school to see Josh sitting there and assumed he did all the work. Thanks, Mom.)
Anyhow, that morning Mom was helping me make the lemon aid and we couldn't find the blue and white bag of sugar. I was hunting in the cabinets on one side of the kitchen when she found it on a shelf on the other side. "Is this it?" she asked, holding the bag up. I turned and squinted. "Can you see this?" she quizzed. I squinted harder. "Sure."
"I mean without squinting." I looked at her, baffled. How do you see things without squinting?
Well, it really wasn't a surprise that I was near-sighted. She was near-sighted, and this apple didn't fall far from that tree. What really bugged me is that my eyes turned out to be worse than hers. Not too many years into wearing glasses it turned out that I needed a stronger prescription. MUCH stronger. Not fair. I also wound up two inches shorter than her, which is a different subject but also an injustice that bothers me greatly. Don't ask me to explain it, I just don't think it's right.
Well, my eyesight's bad. Really bad. Bad enough that after the very first test today the tech at the office said to me cheerily, "Wow, you're one nearsighted little lady, aren't you?"
Yes. Yes I am.
BUT.
Only for three more weeks.
I'm getting them lasered. Lasik, actually - whatever the heck that means. The doctor tried to explain it to me, but I shivered and begged off on this particular educational experience. Call me a wimp, but I just don't want to hear about flaps being cut in a cornea. MY cornea. I trust he knows what he's doing. He comes very highly recommended. Gimme my valium and numbing drops and have at it, Doc.
At one point, as I was waiting in the exam room, I studied this poster. It showed a cross section of a healthy eye and then ones of eyes that don't function properly. In a normal eye the light passes through the cornea and is focused to a point that hits the optic nerve precisely. But in a myopic eye, like mine, that point doesn't quite reach the nerve. That wedge of light penetrates my eye and falls short, petering off into the fuzzy mess I see without my glasses. The fuzzy mess I've always seen.
And now they tell me they can change that. They can re-shape my very eye, so when I wake up in the middle of the night I can glance over and read a bedside clock. Wow, I'm gonna have to get a bedside clock.
Three weeks from today, and I'll have normal eyes. It's like magic, like going into an office and having the doctor tell me, "Sure, come in three weeks from now and we'll make you able to fly. Financing available."
I remember when I got my first pair of glasses. I was amazed by all the details the world held. The individual leaves shimmering on trees. Birds, SITTING on telephone wires. Heck, telephone wires! Who knew?
That was a miracle then. Then six years later came contacts. They ranged from mildly uncomfortable to blindingly painful, but the vision was better. No frames in the corner of my sight. That was a miracle.
Now this. I don't think I'll be able to really believe it until it's done.
I wonder if they can make me taller too.


The boys have been going

The boys have been going to Hope School for two months now. They’re doing very well. Tre took to it right away with characteristic purpose and good spirits. Today, when I asked how school went he replied with a hearty, “Great! I had a great day! In Art we learned how to draw Peter the Pumpkin Eater.” Max, true to form, took a while to warm up to it. The first few weeks he wasn’t sure he really wanted to go back. Then he said he wanted to go, but come home at lunch. Finally, today, when I asked him how his day was he answered, “It was GREAT. I liked everything about today.”
Raphael is the only one who doesn’t care for this whole school idea too much. He’s ok for the first half of the day, when he’s with my friend Heather, torturing her daughter Iona. That’s good clean fun. But when I come to get him at noon, he immediately wants to go get “da boys.” Enough playing around, it’s time for his brothers to come home.
Today, when I picked him up, he raced down the stairs and hopped in his car seat and announced, “We go get da boys now.”
“No, honey,” I said, “it’s not time to get the boys yet. Let’s go have lunch.” He sighed at my obstinacy and declined to respond to my inane suggestion of lunch. He did cheer up somewhat when I got him a cheeseburger, especially when I let him drink one of those disgusting Kool-aid squeeze bottles of toxic juice with it. That’s always good. We sat at the table, just Mama and son, enjoying our Sonic goodies. We shared ketchup and counted fries. It was good. He ate at least two tablespoons of food, and pushed the remainder away. “Ok, we go get da boys now.”
You may be getting a sense of what the rest of my afternoon was like. Finally, finally, the hour arrived. I sang out excitedly, “Hey, Raphi! Let’s go get the boys!” His eyes lit up, and he jumped down from the couch. “Well…OK! Ah can hop in!” And he trucked off to hop in (his car seat that is). The whole way to the school he chattered about da boys. “Ah can hug dem and git dem and tell dem ‘ah miss you’ and hug dem…”
We arrived and parked and Raphael was straining at his car seat. “Wet me OUT! Ah git da BOYS!” We hustled in, only to be forced to wait outside Max’s classroom for a torturous three minutes. But finally the door opened, and Max came bouncing out. Raphael rushed up to him, shrieking, “Hi, Mats! Mats! Hi!”
And then he punched him in the stomach.
Not too hard, because Max laughed and patted his head. “Hi, Raphi. Did you miss me?” Raphael turned on his heel and crossed his arms. “No. Ah’m Shooperman.” He looked at me. “Can ah go punch Twe?”
I said no, but he did anyhow.


I’ve tried to start this

I’ve tried to start this blog entry about six times now. I’m not sure what to do here, because today has been a huge and terribly emotional day. Yet I don’t know how to explain all of it…
I’m an Episcopalian. Or at least I was until today. Now, my fear is that there are people who will read that, and if you’re aware of what’s going on with the Episcopal Church you’re thinking, oh my. Kira’s homophobic. I’m not. I hate that word, by the way, because what it means is “afraid of sameness,” not at all what it’s intended to mean. But that’s not the point. The point is that I’m neither afraid of sameness nor anti-gay. But my church is now saying that the scripture I hold as sacred is disposable. Re-writable.
And I say it’s not.
I don’t want to debate this any more. I’ve discussed it and read about it and prayed over it…I’m sick of it. Suffice to say I found enough reason in the national church to leave my parish, a place I’ve called home for a decade.
Ten years.
The first time I worshipped there, I was a kid. Unmarried and stupid-young. I brought my new husband there, and then our son to be baptized. And the next one. And the next. The people there held my hand and held me up during my divorce. They’ve loved my kids and prayed for my ex. I love the people of that church.
I guess this is what an amicable divorce feels like. No one is mad, but we can’t go on together.
I think this hurts almost as much as my actual divorce.