My dear friend Ruth---a survivor in her own right---sent me a lovely necklace with a charm that says "Just keep swimming." I laughed out loud when I opened it, and then I cried a little, because that's sort of what I do, these days. But yes, I'm trying to keep swimming. We visited with Chickadee this weekend and somehow the subject of my overdue mammogram came up (don't ask me how, I don't remember) and Chickie's eyes got big and she grabbed my arm. "MOM! You have to go do that. I have enough stuff going on, I can't have you being sick! Promise me you'll schedule it this week." And instead...
We have reached the part of our program where people who love me place a gentle hand on my arm and say things like, "What are you doing for you?" This always makes me want to laugh (inappropriately). Oh, I'm just eating bonbons and kicking back, you know. Because why not? It feels like the sky is falling, sure, but I'M WORTH IT. Generally I stammer something about how OH I am managing, you know, and Otto always makes sure we have some ice cream in the freezer, and not to worry, I'm just fine. Or, you know, not fine at all, but it's okay. There's a twisted part of my brain that feels like if...
I'm trying to keep up with my garden, but I keep stumbling across zucchinis that managed to hide until this happened: It's good, I guess, because once they're that big the only thing they're good for is baking, and that means every time someone takes Monkey for us while we go Tend To Things, they get a bonus bag of zucchini muffins. Our lives may be completely upside down, but dammit, if you're part of our village, you're getting some goddamn baked goods.
The best thing to do when you've spent a week in a different time zone and you're still adjusting to that giant Time Hangover where you never want to go to bed at night but you're dragging around exhausted in the morning is to pack up again and go camping. Well, no; that is absolutely NOT the best thing to do, but Otto apparently doesn't realize that. Heh. Kidding! I kid. I totally wanted to go camping. Kind of. Right after I take a nap. Anyway, we decided to drag Mario's family to one of our favorite campgrounds, and the way it worked out was that Mario got dropped at our place and came up...
As longtime readers know, this is the part of the year when I become completely enamored of my garden, as if I, personally, invented the tomato plant. I got to thinking about it, and realized my gardening zeal isn't really about the garden at all. It's about what it makes me have in common with ducks. No, really. Come on over to Off Our Chests today and I'll explain; I think everyone should have at least one thing that makes them forget everything else for a little while.
It feels like there should be a tie-it-all-up-nicely conclusion to the Arizona trip, but of course that's never really how it happens. It was a wonderful trip and the week went by too quickly, and now we're home and suffering the after-effects of all that wine camaraderie and late-night gaming. Plus the time change coming back feels a lot like a hangover all on its own. No one told me that my stepbrother is a game FIEND. During a lull one afternoon, the kids started going through the games they found on one of the rental house's massive built-in bookshelves and decided that we could all play...
I am not really sure how to tell this, so I guess I'll start back at the beginning. The first thing you need to know is that when my dad and stepmom decided to get married on our trip, they were thinking we would all just go to the Grand Canyon and then we'd find a pretty place and then my stepbrother (who is an experienced Dude Who Can Perform Marriages, Ordained By The Internet) would do a quick ceremony and we'd all continue on our hike or whatever. Apparently the last time they were there, they saw a couple being married there and thought it would be picturesque. Nice idea, yes? Well, it...
I am a great big giant baby when it comes to jetlag. This is, of course, because I am a delicate flower in general, and when you take a delicate flower and plunk her down someplace where time is magically 3 hours different, no amount of "oh, there's no such thing as jetlag going west!" and "three hours is practically nothing!" staves off the all-encompassing fatigue which I then feel for the next two days, because I've woken up at 3:00 in the morning (6:00! time to pack lunches!) and around the time that everyone else is having breakfast, all I want is a 4-hour nap. So: I was not entirely...
It seems like I should have more to say about the end of middle school, but I've been a little too verklempt to manage it. [Talk amongst yourselves! Here, I'll give you a topic: Attendance awards; universally annoying or only to bitter parents of chronically ill children who feel like other kids getting medals and certificates for having good immune systems is bullshit? Discuss.] In the end, it was sort of anti-climactic. Chickadee hasn't been feeling great, and in the post-moving-on-no-we-are-most-certainly-not-calling-it-a-graduation-ceremony hubbub as I tried to corral her and some...
