Thursday, January 28, 2010

I received a text yesterday instructing me to meet at Miss Universe's apartment at 6:30, Fria Chica received this same text. We both assumed something was up and she wanted to talk. In reality she had stumbled onto some weed. Not much in my lifestyle would suggest that my next few moves involved sitting on the floor, rolling around laughing, and eating way too much chocolate, but that is what I did.

I do not remember much of what I found ridiculously funny but the snippets of conversation that do keep popping into my head have made me smile all day. I could have done without the part of the evening that involved me trying to walk into my house without letting the children know what I had been up to. I felt like a sneaky teenager again.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Conversations

Two conversations have struck me lately. Here they are.

"Look what I am sending off to the governor." An older man said. "I think Sarah and Todd will get a kick out of this."

"Oh, that is neat." A lady answers. "My brother sent my mom a copy of her book that they have both signed."

"Have you read her book yet?" The man asks her.

"Not yet, I'll borrow my mother's when she is finished, but I told my brother I was really jealous."

"She starts her tour with Fox News today."

"I am so excited for her."

What makes this conversation odd is that neither of these people have met Sarah. They have the same access to information that the rest of the world does, why then do they still speak in awed tones, why is he still calling her the govenor? What would make this conversation scary would be knowing that people all over the country are talking like this, I hope that is not the case.

The next one is not odd or scary, it just made me think about how much we try to shelter people we love, and how stilted that can make conversations.

Fria Chica, Miss Universe and I were all sitting in a gym watching the kids play basketball. Miss Universe stood up and pulled a cigarette and lighter out of her bag. She turned to Fria Chica and asked if she was coming with her. Fria Chica looked almost sheepish. "Have you quit again?" Miss Universe asked her. I laughed.

"She looked at you with such derision." I said to Fria Chica.
"Quitters never win, winners never quit." She pointed her cigarette at Fria Chica to add emphasis.

"What am I quitting except for a higher chance of cancer?" Fria Chica tensed up as the word cancer left her lips. She was frozen with regret at what she had said.

I turned to Miss Universe and said. "You have been inhaling way too deep."

Young people often try to say nothing offensive at all. Sometimes I forget that there is a nine year age gap between Fria Chica and myself. She has not yet learned that being treated abnormally makes people more uncomfortable than the occasional thoughtless remark. Miss Universe and I were young when a former teacher taught us this lesson with true class. Here husband had died less than a month before. It was in the middle of July; M.U. and I were walking down the middle of the street. She was doing yard work and stood to greet us. We stopped to talk about little things like yard work and weather. M.U. said that trying to work out in the middle of the heat would make her feel like dying. We all felt her tense up. She could not believe she had just said that. Our former teacher went on to agree that the heat would just kill her. She used the words kill or death several times in the next few minutes.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

All in all it wasn't that bad

Most of the time my life feels extremely blessed. I do not know what I have done to deserve such a great life, but I am enjoying it while it lasts. However, somedays it feels like the other shoes has just dropped into my lap and squashed the nice piece of cake I had balanced there. Yesterday was one of those days.
With all of my whining though I must point out that most of the crap was not happening to me. I just felt bad for my lack of control in the fortunes of others. First, I had major cramping while I was rebooting my ovarian system. I was extremely tired;I could not sleep the night before and was way overloaded at work. Drama Queen is homeless after a series of mismanaged events. Which means my baby girls lives are unstable again. Not being able to just scoop them up and bring them home is the hardest part. Then the worst news of all is that Miss Universe is being tested because the doctors fear she has bladder cancer, on top of her ms. I just started laughing yesterday evening when reading Lee's rejection letter from the honors program at K.U.
So far today had been going fine, although I still have not been able to sleep.

Monday, January 18, 2010

Books I have read in 2009

On a year when I have only posted nine times I am sure I left out several books. This is the only place I keep a list, since I am way to lazy to keep more than one.

* *Scent of Magic
* *Gods of Aberdeen
* *Your Loyal and Loving Son:The Letters of Tank Gunner Karl Fuchs, 1937-41
* *Jenne
* *The Ladies of Llangollen
* *A Wrinkle In Time
* *The Clocks
* *The Third Girl
* *Northanger Abbey (re-read)
* *Sense and Sensibility (re-read)
* *Pride and Prejudice (re-read)
* *Lolita
* *Reading Lolita in Tehran
* *A Thousand Splendid Suns
* *The Half Blood Prince (re-read)
* *The Deathly Hallows (re-read)
* *A Room Of One's Own
* *Getting Stoned with Savages
* *The Ballod of Reading Gaol and other poems
* *Xinran Sky Burial
* *The House That Jill Built
* *Blood Sucking Fiends
* *The Pearl
* *The Fellowship Of The Ring (re-read)
* *Lord Peter Views The Body
* *The Last Lecture
* *The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
* *Aunt Erma's Cope Book

Time is moving too quickly again

My last post made it sound like finishing my nano novel was out of the question. I did finish on 11/30 with forty-five minutes to spare. My roof still is not finished. The weather turned cold and for the most part has stayed that way. I did get it to a waterproof stage before it snowed, but I need to add the dirt to hold the pond liner in place. Every time we get a strong wind it curls up and I have to climb up and straighten it out. Today I have the day off and it is supposed to be warm;I hope to get some work done.
I was planning on working on it yesterday too, but I put off my work to fix chocolate chip pancakes and play croquet with my family. My work ethic has not changed much since school.
Last night I stayed up until three a.m. finishing the book Ursula Under. It quickly leaped to my list of favorite books. It was chocked full of interesting stories that traversed history and geography in a meandering path. I sound like a gushing school girl, if so this book is the captain of the football team.