Sometimes
Sometimes I feel like I’ve got this whole Aspie thing under control. I know what will knock Monkey for a loop. I prepare him ahead of time for trouble spots, or sense when things are about to get ugly and take him aside.
Sometimes I don’t realize or see what what will set him off, and I feel alternately inept and callous as I try to both get him in line and soothe him. Like, yes, honey, no one likes to wait an hour for the doctor, but that doesn’t actually mean it’s okay to answer his, “And how are you?” greeting with “I’m PRACTICALLY DEAD because we’ve been waiting here FOREVER and I’m BORED.” (Bonus: I apologized to the doctor, which only irritated Monkey further. “Why are YOU sorry? You’re not the one who made us wait!”)
Sometimes I forget things. And sometimes I have to make decisions on the fly before I have time to think about them. read more…
Phone wars
We bought Chickadee a new cell phone. (And by “bought” you understand I mean “picked her out a new purple one that was free on our plan.”) It was not long after she began texting more often that her phone starting having issues, so we figured we’d go ahead and upgrade her before that one broke entirely.
Now she texts all day long. She texts her friends. She texts me from the next room. She texts Otto the second he steps outside to ask what he’s doing. I’m pretty sure she’s developed callouses on her thumbs.
The only advantage is that she’s talking less, so if our phones are set to vibrate, the overall noise level is actually lower.
But I think we’ve discovered that just as driving and texting do not mix, neither do sugar and texting. read more…
Otto and Goliath
Longtime readers know that one of the joys of summer, for me, is my little backyard garden. What started years ago with a few containers on the deck has steadily expanded into a series of boxes where I spend half my July wrestling with vines that need to go UP THE TRELLIS, dammit, UP.
Some plants I grow from seeds. Zucchini, for example, is perfectly happy when you stick a seed in the soil and then completely ignore it for the next two months. Provided you do anything less traumatic than run it over with a car, zucchini will happily flourish until you have zucchini muffins coming out of your ears. (Or until you make zucchini fritters for dinner, like I did last night. Monkey’s comment: “YUM! These taste just like FRENCH FRIES!” It only took two cups of oil to find a way he likes zucchini, folks.)
Other plants, I go to the garden store and buy little ones, either because growing from seed is complicated or because I’m lazy. This year Otto was headed out to run some errands around Easter and I said, “Can you pick up a few tomato plants? I forgot to start seeds so we may as well.”
“Sure,” he said, because he is swell. “What kind do you want?” read more…
Still a slow learner
I have many virtues. Well, okay, I have SOME virtues. Probably. But patience is not one of them.
My feeling has pretty much always been that watching the pot is for suckers. People who are serious about boiling that water just go grab a blowtorch. As you might imagine, this hasn’t always worked out particularly well for me.
Still, it’s been a hard lesson for me to learn. Which is probably why I’ve been working on it for almost forty years.
Today I’m over at Off Our Chests thinking about patience, and my sometimes lack thereof. What can I say? I’m trying, I just wish it would hurry up. (Little impatience humor for you, there. Tip your waitress!)
Independence
I don’t know if I’ve mentioned how much I am enjoying this summer. I mean—The Saga Of The Fence aside—I feel like we’ve reached a good place as a family. The kids are old enough that they don’t need us every second but young enough that they still like hanging out with us. Otto and I have had time to nurture our relationship. (See, as a grownup I say “nurture our relationship” because I am fancy, rather than saying “be naked more often” because one, I’m a lady, and two, Otto would kill me if I said that.) (Oops!) I’m not going to claim to have that whole work/life balance thing down (haaaaaa!), but I think I’m getting a little bit better at it.
I suspect that having the specter of Impending Middle School DOOOOOOM hanging over our heads is contributing to making this summer feel like quality time, but I can live with that. Also, if I allow my brain too much free time, it also realizes ZOMG MY BAYBEE GIRL IS PRACTICALLY IN HIGH SCHOOL, and then the realization that my time is dwindling with both of them can be enough to take my breath away. Particularly when I think about how helpless they can be.
But today is Independence Day, man. If a whole country can do it, surely my kids will someday be independent, too, right? read more…
Love embellishes on the sly
I thought there was nothing I like better than when a reader so totally gets my family, they feel the need to call my attention to something that would make us happy.
Alert reader Jamie did just that: She emailed me earlier this week with this link to say she was thinking about me. In case you don’t feel like clicking, that leads to this little DIY gem:
Awesome, right? read more…
Catch us on “Top Chef: Whatever”
I always get a little twitchy when someone asks me for a recipe. I am not one of those “This is my secret recipe and if I tell you then I have to kill you” sorts, not by a long shot. I’m the person who brings a dish somewhere and if someone says, “Oh my gosh, this is amazing!” I’ve barely said “thank you” before I’m telling them how easy it is to make, let me tell you. So it’s not a secrecy thing.
It’s a… slob thing. I am not an exacting person when it comes to cooking. I love to cook; I love to eat; I can follow a recipe with no problem. But the reality is that once I’ve made something two or three times, I’ve internalized the nuts and bolts and then I cook it by feel. So when you wanted the veggie chili recipe, yesterday, it struck terror into my heart. Because… I’m pretty sure I had a recipe for it? Once upon a time? But now it’s just… whatever. I just make it. And it’s good.
But because I love you, I will attempt to give you the recipe, and also explain what food looks like around here. IT WILL BE THRILLING. read more…
Memories, plus bonus Otto
Yesterday I read Liz’s post about her step-grandfather and it got me thinking about MY step-grandfather. So today you get to read about him over at Off Our Chests, if you’re so inclined. He was a character.
Unrelated, here’s an actual, unretouched conversation that happened here yesterday:
Me: Honey, I love you SO MUCH.
Otto: I… love you, too…?
Chickadee: She wants something.
Me: No! I just LOVE YOU!
Otto: I know what she wants.
Me: You do?
Otto: You want me to stop at the store and pick up sweet potatoes.
Me: See? THIS IS WHY I LOVE YOU! You’re the GREATEST!
(I always said a big part of the reason I wanted to remarry was so that my children could grow up seeing what a healthy, loving marriage looks like. Now they can see that when two people really love each other, their love magically produces veggie chili EVEN WHEN they are unexpectedly out of sweet potatoes.)
All my chickens home to roost
The children are home! The children are home! This is what Paul Revere ran through the town yelling about to strike fear into the hearts of the British. Or possibly Otto. But as for me, I was positively giddy yesterday, because no matter how much of a pain in the butt they can sometimes be, two weeks is a LONG TIME for my babies to be gone.
Mind you, sometimes it was like they weren’t even gone at all. After an unfortunate incident earlier this year when Chickadee took the sometimes-her-cell-phone to a school event and proceeded to spend the entire time texting with a friend sitting a few seats away (the hell?)—resulting in a $40 overage on our texting allowance—after some negotiation we decided the sometimes-her-cell-phone could now become the really-her-cell-phone (with all the rights and privileges therein, such as us taking it away when she’s rotten), and we went to unlimited texting on our family plan (half of which she’s paying for, because we are mean and terrible parents). This meant that at random times throughout their absence, my cell phone would go BINGBING! and upon review I would discover that Chickadee had sent me a Very Important Text.
Of course, the 13-year-old version of Very Important is… somewhat different than the adult version. A typical conversation with my darling daughter via text message looks something like this: read more…
It’s the end of the fence as we know it
This morning as the fence guys banged away outside, I wrote out the final check. Then I took it upstairs to Otto’s office and handed it over. “I’m not talking to them, I’m not looking at them, I’m not discussing anything with anyone. When it’s done and you’re happy, give it to them. But I’m not here.” Otto chuckled and agreed, because he’s known me a very long time, and he knows that when I voluntarily remove myself from a situation like that, it means it’s really best for everyone concerned.
An hour later, it was done. DONE. Today is day 34, by the way—just in case you were keeping track. (Not that we were. OH HA HA HA! I crack myself up. Hee.)
It looks great. There were only a few times with this last crew that I wanted to rip someone’s eyebrows off. Plus they’ll be back next month to seal it for us for free (just a little bonus you get when your fence job is totally botched and takes over a month). And most importantly—let’s not forget—it’s DONE. Thank God. Oh, did you want to see it? read more…