Archive | September, 2009

Notes I cannot send

by Mir on September 30, 2009 in Offspring: ecstasy and agony

When I was younger I kept a journal for years and years, and about 80% of it was grumbling and angst and violent fantasies about things I would do and say if the world was a different kind of place. (Why waste energy dreaming of a world where my angst didn’t exist? So much more satisfying to imagine telling my German teacher to stop looking down my blouse, you perverted creep!)

Nowadays I try to focus on the finding the joy in things which are real, rather than wishing for things which are not. Nonetheless, once an active imaginer… well, you know the rest. [Why does my spell check believe imaginer isn't a word? Isn't an imaginer a person who imagines?]

Nevertheless, today my fingers are itching to give in, and if you can’t indulge and bitch a bit on a Wednesday, well, what is Wednesday good for? Nothing, that’s what. (more…)

Comments { 55 }

Faster and faster

by Mir on September 29, 2009 in Haven't been hit by lightning yet!, Ottomatic For the People

A fairly standard thing for Otto and me to say to one another is: “You love me. But you have no idea why.” He says it to me when he’s just come up with a scheme for another clunker of a car he simply must have, or I say it to him when I’ve just finished completely taking out on him any number of things that aren’t in any way his fault. It’s a little lovebird ritual of ours. Afterward, we stare deeply into each other’s eyes and argue about whose turn it is to go upstairs and yell at the kids.

(Ahhhh, romance. Don’t be jealous.)

But I actually know why Otto loves me. Otto loves a CHALLENGE. And he clearly hit the jackpot with me, no? He loves teaching for much the same reason. And one of the things he loves to tell his students is that they need to “fail faster” (I’m sure someone knows who he’s quoting, but I am too lazy to look it up) because failing is part of the learning process and gets them to the successes. (more…)

Comments { 30 }

Lazy

by Mir on September 28, 2009 in It's not a regret, it's an "experience", Offspring: ecstasy and agony

One of the (few) things I miss about the winter weather in New England is the handy excuse to stay in and do nothing for an entire day. The kids and I used to do “blizzard days” where everyone was allowed to stay in their jammies, watch as much television as they liked, and generally withdraw from polite society for the day.

Cheerios by the handful? Sure! Build a giant couch fort? Why not! Learn to be a hermit like your mother? OKAY!

We don’t have weather like that, here. Plus I have this husband who believes in accomplishing things and hanging out with people and stuff, so lazy days can be hard to come by.

Fortunately this weekend the stars aligned. (more…)

Comments { 39 }

She doesn’t mind

by Mir on September 25, 2009 in It's not a regret, it's an "experience"

I’m trying really hard not to turn this into a place where all I ever do is talk about how smitten I am with my dog. I mean, I know she’s the cutest animal ever to grace the planet and everything, but there comes a point where even fellow animal lovers start to go: “We get it. She’s adorable and you like her. Congratulations! You DO realize that she can’t walk on water but can and does lick her own ass every chance she gets, right?”

There has to be a line, is what I guess I’m saying.

On the other hand:
1) MAH NEW BABY!
and
2) She’s the only family member I can write about with abandon and never stop to worry that she’ll be upset with me about it.

Heck, I didn’t even bother giving her a pseudonym. I probably should’ve. Ummmm… did I say her name is Licorice? I meant to say her name is… uhhhh… Fuzzy Foofibottom. Obviously. (more…)

Comments { 28 }

The things you tell me

by Mir on September 23, 2009 in Detritus

I used to regularly post about the search terms that brought people to the site, and somewhere along the way I stopped doing it. Probably because 1) I stopped actually checking my stats all that often, because once you’ve passed the “Hey, I think people other than my parents and my best friend are actually visiting my blog!” point, it just isn’t all that exciting, and 2) it’s entirely possible that I realized it was uninteresting.

Today, however, I’ve got nothing. Well, nothing other than my dog decided to cry and howl at midnight for no discernible reason and I was immediately catapulted back to those horrible first-time-mother newborn days when I spent a lot of time wondering if maybe my baby was in terrible pain and I was the world’s worst mother for not knowing how to fix it.

[In this case, apparently the dog had to pee, and then once we did that she just thought it might be a good time to play. I think. When I sent a panicked email about it all to the Dog Whisperer---now THERE's someone who's doubtless wishing she could un-know me right about now, with my Puppy Angst and hysterical middle-of-the-night emails---she suggested a squirt bottle full of battery acid to quell rowdiness if it happened again.] (more…)

Comments { 24 }

Is there an allergist in the house?

by Mir on September 22, 2009 in Health is overrated, It's not a regret, it's an "experience"

Every so often I get an email asking me if we’ve finally resolved Chickadee’s skin issues and seeing a specialist, and my response is generally “Ummm… mumble mumble oh look, something shiny! She’s fine, thanks,” because—just like last year—as soon as the weather started to cool off, her skin healed up. Just like that.

And I’m left trying to figure out if if makes sense to go see a specialist while she’s perfectly fine. I do gesture a lot when I talk, so maybe I can convey the full horror of the height of the Creeping Crud days, but still. I just don’t know whether that’s the thing to do. But I also know that come next spring it’s going to start all over again, sooooo… yeah.

In the meantime, apparently life was not exciting enough. So I decided to have my own medical mystery. Except that I didn’t so much “decide” as I just “came down with.” (more…)

Comments { 49 }

Train me

by Mir on September 21, 2009 in It's not a regret, it's an "experience"

I’m starting a training class tonight for Licorice, except that it’s really a class to train ME, which I know, but still strikes me as amusing. I mean, I’ve got this book all about training your pet and I’m still trying to decide if I want to train her to ring a bell to go outside, because it’s apparently a fairly easy thing to train and the idea cracks me up.

Not that I don’t totally enjoy her just dancing around and jumping on me when she remembers she has to pee….

Of course, the problem with the bell is that the dog may then ring just to go outside and play, which is fine and dandy, I suppose, except that right now she is Velcro Doggy and wants me with her all the time, and I don’t actually feel like going outside every ten minutes to eat grass.

Anyway, I shall start learning all about this and more, very soon. (more…)

Comments { 45 }

Lost in translation

by Mir on September 20, 2009 in Health is overrated, Offspring: ecstasy and agony

You would think that—after nine and three-quarters year with the child—I would know certain things right off the bat, even those that require a bit of interpretation.

Like, say, that, “I may need a little help here” = “I just spilled an entire gallon of milk.”

Or that, “I had kind of a bad day today” = “Did the principal call yet?”

Or, in the case of this morning, that “My head hurts” = “I have a fever that puts my head at roughly the same temperature as the surface of the sun.”

Sorry it took me an hour to get you that Advil, kid. I really did think you were just thirsty when you said it the first time….

Comments { 13 }

Sometimes love isn’t complicated

by Mir on September 17, 2009 in What do I do all day?

It’s been many, many years since I had a pet, and unfortunately a lot of my memories of the last dog I had are bound up in accusations from my ex that I didn’t really love him (the dog, though projection is a marvelous thing), and then, of course, the end of the dog’s tenure with me and the kids, when he (the dog, again) was pretty much crazy and wanted nothing more than to tear the UPS man limb from limb.

As much as I love my favorite humans, human relationships are anything but simple; we all have emotions and then opinions and loooong memories and before you know it, a discussion about who cleans up after dinner has blossomed into how you never let anyone have any fun ever. Not that I don’t love those sorts of things, too (um, love may be a strong word for that PARTICULAR interaction…), but it’s all just so laden with meaning, history, intention, selfhood struggles, etc.

But dogs. Dogs, man. The right dog is just love covered with fur. (more…)

Comments { 42 }

We need that money for dog food

by Mir on September 16, 2009 in Haven't been hit by lightning yet!, Offspring: ecstasy and agony

Both of my children were very excited to bring home the paperwork pertaining to some gifted enrichment program available in connection with the university. Happy little geeklets that they are, the idea of spending even MORE time doing math sounded pretty awesometastic to them, and they were absolutely crushed when I told them we wouldn’t be enrolling.

The cost is $350 for three months. APIECE. So, $700 if I wanted to enroll both kids. I’m sure it’s a wonderful program, but I explained that I just don’t love them that much. And besides, they’re already in the (free) gifted program at school! They don’t want to wear out their giftedness before they even have a chance to take the SAT!

Finally I had to tell them to quit their whining and get their extra learning the old-fashioned way that God intended—playing computer games. I’m pretty sure there was some muttering after that, but I’d stopped listening. (Probably because I never got to go to expensive enrichment programs when I was a kid, and I have the attention span of a gnat.)

Comments { 19 }
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