Hey. Hey! It's Otto's birthday today. I made his morning extra special by forgetting to make coffee before I had to run off to physical therapy, and telling him that I would see him tonight. Rawr! I will totally make it up to him later by... making coffee. (What did you think I was going to say? Oh, you.) Also, I'll be taking him out to dinner. And maybe I will reprise last night's hijinks where I totally sidled up to him and said in a husky voice, "I'm gonna go slip into something more comfortable," and then I went and put on a t-shirt and my fleece pajama pants. Anyway, this is the part...
I feel slightly ridiculous, updating on random minutiae when so many people I know and love are battening down the hatches in preparation for Sandy, but here I am. Nothing I can do from here can stop a hurricane, which seems unfair, really. That'd be a good superpower to have. My superpower, instead, is WRITE ABOUT NOTHING AS A DISTRACTION. It's not as flashy. [Sidebar: I wrote something on Facebook this morning about how, when weighing the pros and cons of letting Chickadee move away for the year, "life-threatening hurricane" hadn't even been on my list of concerns. As I wrote it I was...
I am 41 years old, and my experience with death of loved ones is remarkably scant. My parents are still alive. My grandparents' deaths were long ago and I was mostly shielded from whatever rituals were executed after their passing. I have a relatively small family and a small group of friends, and the fortune of not having lost anyone from those circles in adulthood. Until my ex's father died, I had never been to a funeral. (I tell people that and they think I'm exaggerating or joking. No, really. The first funeral I ever attended was for my then-father-in-law, and I had no idea what was...
My mother-in-law claimed not to like dogs, which was just about the only time I ever heard her claim to not like any living thing. But it turned out that Licorice absolutely adored her, and she loved Licorice right back. This was not a surprise to me, because 1) Licorice is adorable and 2) my mother-in-law was a gentle, loving soul. Even when she was so sick, this last time, whenever Otto called her, she would always ask first how Chickadee was doing, how Monkey and I were holding up, and then---if he was lucky, ha---how Otto himself was. This woman accepted me and my children into her...
The following is offered for your consideration, without further comment. * * * * * A voicemail received on my cell phone from a blocked number: Hey, I'm looking for a Ronald? And if I've found you, I just wanted to let you know that I found out some disturbing news. And, um, you need to tell the little bitch that yer livin' with that she better leave my man alone. Because I just found out they're seeing each other? And I don't fuckin' like it. Let me catch her ass out somewhere, she's mine. * * * * * The other night in bed, after yet another tearful discussion of the mess our lives have...
This week has, in a word, sucked. Oh, I know, this entire year has sucked, but this week sucked even compared to the rest, which is saying something. Tensions are running high and faith is being tested. Today Otto got up before me and made coffee. I know this because I woke up to BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP, the international signal for "it is now safe to get out of bed and proceed directly to the largest mug in the house." My darling, wonderful husband was in the shower by the time it beeped, and I all but ran into the kitchen. And there I found a lake of coffee on the floor. The coffeemaker was in...
This weekend Licorice and I had our birthdays. That's how I knew she was meant to be my dog, you know---the rescue had assigned her a birthdate, I guess, and it's the day after mine. She is now maybe-six (really, they're just guessing on her age) and I am now forty-none-of-your-damn-business-but-trust-me-I-feel-old. Or 41, if you insist. Otto and I ran away for the weekend and left the dog at the kennel. Because we're both so much older and more mature, now, this morning Licorice proceeded to prance around our bed a full hour before the alarm was set to go off, and later this morning---after...
I was thinking this morning---after I managed to stick my foot deep into my own mouth in front of a bunch of people, YAY!---about various cliches. Like, there should be something to describe the feeling of entering the third month of your kid's hospitalization and still not knowing 1) when she might be coming home, 2) if she's truly getting better, 3) if the #*&%^ Medicaid approval is ever coming, 4) if life will ever feel normal again. That's far too long and messy, and you know what? 90% of people do not want to hear about it, anyway. In the end (of the foot-in-mouth scenario) I had to...
I knew, of course, that yesterday would be a hard day. Days when we see Chickadee for family therapy are hard, because she is not exactly what you would call pro-therapy. Things are better---so much better---than they used to be there, really. There is no longer screaming and throwing things, for example. But I'm pretty sure that if she had the option of passing on this particular exercise, she would. Sadly, she's not in charge and we cruelly demand that she be tortured with our attempts to restore a workable family life (because we are monsters). The fact that we parted with her angry at us...
