Peace

As the kids were leaving they asked what I was going to do with myself. Here I was all alone, the possibilities were endless, would I read, write, watch tv, do yoga? I locked the door in case somebody stopped by I did not want to waste my free time on. I put on the tea kettle, watered some plants, started a load of laundry. I through the skirt I had been wearing into the wash. I noticed Fria chica walking up the drive at the same time the phone started to ring. Running to unlock the door I looked around for  the cordless phone, which is the only one with caller id, I could not find it so I grabbed the wall phone.
It was Drama Queen. She was crying. Drunk again she asked me to check her in to a rehab, a different one than the one she has walked out of three times since April, a better one, that she would enjoy herself in. I explained that Disney hadn't made a rehab center yet. She cried and reminded me that she is suicidal. There was a knock at the door. I hollered for Fria Chica to come in. Drama Queen kept talking. There was a constant, insistent knock on the door. I interrupted the conversation and ran to find pants. At the door I found two of Jason's friends. They left. I ran back to the phone. We talked for  a while longer then I talked to both of the girls. They are staying the summer with me, but are visiting their mom this week. We decided to make jam and french bread next week when they are back.
I decided to come here to update with my free time. My mom called. The reception was bad, because she was outside in the wind, I could hear enough to know she wanted me to drive to Wichita to get the girls. I hung up as soon as the reception became bad enough to warrant it. Dh came home he told me how depressed he has been over losing his top teeth and getting a plate, which he rarely wears, then we decided to watch a movie. My mom came to the door. She told me Beezus wanted to come home right now. I told her I had just talked to her and she seemed okay for the night. She wanted to talk about how unfit a mother Drama Queen is, but I could not do it. Dh seemed happy to join in. I stated that I was not going to speculate about it now. I was ready to watch a movie and would call Drama Queen tomorrow to make arrangements for the girls. My mom left. We started the movie. The phone rang. It was Ramona. She said grandma told her to call and tell me they were ready to come home. When I asked if she wanted to come home tonight. She said that grandma told her to call and tell me Beezus was ready. So much for  a peaceful night.
Tonight I wish that I had not arranged my life so that there was no one for me to lean on. I have spent most of my adult life trying to keep my family together. I have planned holidays and steered through many family emergencies. Of course maybe I am exaggerating my role and the family itself has not changed course by the force of my energy. Either way I am sensing a different type of crisis. A slow moving storm that I can not keep us together through. I feel myself cutting them loose and holding only my immediate family on the raft. I worry that  it will not even be enough for the five of us, yet I am pulling the girls on with us. Is this the point where I stand back and let my family choose its own course? I am tired of constant manipulation, and am in the hopes that writing a note in the void will be a form of catharsis.

So far so good

I was worried about the temptation to drink at events. These are days when I know I am going to have a drink or two because everybody around me will be drinking too. Two have passed by so far and they have been easy. Two graduation parties on the same weekend flew by with me having no problem saying no. A softball tournament came and went without the thought of beer crossing my mind. This year may be harder than I expected.
You see it was the big events that I expected to give me trouble. Mentally I had prepared myself for them and was ready. Surprisingly it has been normal spring evenings that have been tempting me. After a long day of hauling dirt up ladders to finish my living roof I had a pounding heat headache. The thought of a cold beer seemed lovely. After a evening of planting herbs the red sunset brought to mind a glass of Merlot with Anna. I find myself socializing less. The ritual of a drink or two always called for a friend, now when I dismiss the plot of relaxing over alcohol I also toss away the idea of sitting with a friend. I am going to have to do something about that.

Luckily the years are flying by

The Friday before Mother's day dh asked if I wanted to go out for Chinese food for Mother's day. I agreed. Then he added that first we had to drive to Woods to pick up a lawn mower, and that another couple were going to join us. While driving back towards the restaurant Anna called to ask if I was coming to her party that evening. I had forgot about the damn thing. She was hosting a party for some scented product for the home. My home always smells like dirty teenage feet, no matter how many products I use. I told her I would be there, but that I would be late. After we ate I informed the other lady, who I do not know very well yet, that I was taking her with me to drink. And drink we did. She had to run/walk a 3k the next morning and I hear that her question as she collapsed at the finish line was "Do I smell like vodka?"
I woke the next morning and while still lying in bed I felt pretty good. I felt at peace like I had gotten a reprieve from the stress of everyday life. Going over the night before in my head it occurred to me that  I was beginning to have an unhealthy relationship with alcohol. Like many teenagers I drank too much on the weekends, then I went shifted to rarely drinking when my children were young. Now that they are older I drink once or twice a month and that hasn't changed. What has changed is the way I drink.  My rule had always been drink my first one at a normal speed, nurse my second one, then have a glass of water, repeat through the night. Somewhere along the way I have dropped that rule. I have been speed drinking with the intent of drunkenness. Dressed and ready for my day I feel ok. I arrived at work early. Five minutes later I was throwing up and felt like I might die. Somehow I struggle through the work day and then retire to my room for the rest of the day. Sunday morning I drove to Liberal to do my grocery shopping. Smiling and cheerful I walked through stores greeting everyone I met. Humanity looked lovely to me, beauty was evident in every rough face I found. For some inexplicable reason I am happier and feel better about life on Earth after a night of excess.
That was the problem with my drinking habit, I was using it for stress relief. Had it been working I would just stick with it, but I was feeling more stressed than ever these days, so it was time for a change. I am sticking with my promise to abstain from drinking until next mothers day. In this year I plan to find better ways of dealing with the stress of everyday life.

Where's the lamb?

A couple of months ago on a cold Sunday afternoon I sat down with my family and watched Julie and Julia. It reminded me of how much I love cooking. In my life I cook almost daily, and I enjoy it, however, it has been a long time since I have tried anything more involved than risotto. After the movie I decided to try cooking a more difficult meal each week. That never happened. I did do eggs benedict one Sunday morning, I'll count that as one meal in two months. Now that I have five children in my home,and one of them in that dreaded senior year in which the time it takes is only outpaced by the amount of money it costs, I spend a good part of my time in the kitchen. Did I really want to try anything too taxing?
On a feild trip to Topeka last week I read an article in Food & Wine that included three Morrocan recipes. Surely I could do these. Sunday night while on my bimonthly shopping trip I picked up the few ingredients I needed. Everything I would need, except for the main ingredient for my Lamb and Noodle stew. The week before Easter I had bought a beautiful lamb roast at Dillons, so I had not expected any trouble. I had roasted the lamb right away with a simple garlic and salt paste rubbed on it, why hadn't I saved it? Sunday at 11:00 pm there was no lamb to be found in Liberal. Not to be detered I pulled a beef arm roast out of my deep freeze to make Beef and Noodle Stew.
Wednesday was to be the day. The weather was forcasted to be cool and windy, so I would not want to be outdoors, and I had nothing else planned. Of course work got in the way. I worked a half an hour late in the Elk office and needed to put in a couple of hours at our local office. I made it back into town at five and decided to put off the local office until I had put the girls to bed. I didn't read the recipes thoroughly before I started, which is unusual for me, normally I visualize the whole thing to help make a plan. Diving right in I did not notice that the noodles were to go through a longer process than simply boiling them. I started with the eggplant dish since it seemed to take more time. While the eggplant was charring in a stainless steel pot, not the cast iron cassarole, I started the beef dish. The recipe called for a cilantro bundle. For a second I stared at the cilantro thinking it would just be easier to chop it and toss it in. "Are you going to do this or not?" I asked myself. Had I really become such a lazy cook that walking into the next room and cutting a piece of string was too much for me? I tied the cilantro and tossed it in the pan. It was not difficult. I put the saffron into a skillet to toast for ten seconds. I pressed it with a wooden spoon and started counting. Miss Universe walked in with Huggy bear. I grabbed my tea and walked to the sofa to talk with her a second. While we were talking the fire alarm went off. The saffron was black. I started over with a new batch. The eggplant dish was finished earlier than I expected. I put it in the oven which was still warm from toasing the almonds. It was then that I noticed that the noodles required two forty minute steaming sessions before they went into the water. As I reached the point where the lamb was almost done I stressed out and started to think about skipping one of the steaming sessions. It was already after seven-thirty, I needed to get the girls in the shower by eight-thirty. They were outside jumping on the trampoline with Huggy bear and Sebastion. I decided not to skip on the noodles. I started the pear desert and made myself another cup of tea. By the time I sat down to drink my tea I realized that I was almost done. The noodles would need a two minute boil and the pears could poach while we ate.

The dinner was delicious. It took three hours for me to cook it, but I think I can cut that down to one and a half next time. The girls did not get into bed until ten, which meant that I didn't finish up at the local office until midnight. It was good though, and it made great leftovers on Thursday.

Here we go again.

Just when I quit expecting it Drama Queen had a crisis. She is in rehab, and the girls are back living with me. It is always amazing to me how we manage to fit two more kids in our three bedroom home, but kids are like tupperware, they stack.I was worried about how hard it was going to be to bring them back at the end of the school year. I was afraid it would be especially hard since it was a promotion year for Beezus and she would have to miss her field trip and the ceremony. They are troopers though and have not complained at all. In fact they seem cheerful about the whole situation. Yesterday I was up on my roof working while they ran around the yard in their swimming suits playing in the numerous mud puddles. Ramona said 'her first day of school was excellent, thanks for asking' before anyone could think to ask her how school was. She added that the food was better here than it was in Wichita. I will have to tell Anna that. since she is cook at our school.

*I have picked new names for the girls now that they are not really babies anymore. You probably noticed from context they are Ramona and Beezus.

A second pro-choice post; I am getting predictable

Not one of the news stations I listen to have mentioned the school in Washington that allowed a fifteen year old student to leave school for a medical procedure, that happened to be an abortion, that is probably because they were covering acutal news. With a couple of wars, healthcare, and violence against legislators they have been a bit busy. However, their unthoughtfullness left me unprepared this morning when I was faced with this question, "Have you heard about the school in Washington that hauled a fourteen year old girl off campus for an abortion? Her mother had signed a consent form for them to take her child off campus for 'treatment' at the start of the school year, but it never mentioned abortion." I bet it did not mention stitches either.
Since I was unprepared my only two responses were, "She should have read that paper a little more closely; she should have looked into that better," (I will explain why I even said the second half of the sentence in a minute) and "If her daughter got pregnant, had a pregnancy test, and an abortion without consulting her maybe she should be looking at her parenting skills."
When a teenager in our area has a child the first response I hear is "That is another one of our babies," said in a snide tone. This is to point out that our tax dollars will go towards raising this child. If we do not want to pay for the child, or provide for family planning where do we expect teenagers who have made a mistake to go for help? Since it was a private clinic that made arrangements with the girl the only role the school played was letting her miss class without a note from home.
Teenage pregnancy is a sad situation with no great solutions, but the private clinic, not the school,stepped in and did what they thought was right. The girl made her decision. No laws were broken, and now the mother is spending her energy railing against the school. Will she still have energy left to go home and build a relationship with her daughter? Will it occur to her that she should?

As for that unexplained half of a sentence that looks a bit random I was just being an ass. Earlier this week we were talking about healthcare reform and the problems we as a nation are facing. We both agreed that malpractice insurance is a problem. Her solution was that people should not be allowed to sue doctors who make a mistake. "Not even if they cut off the wrong leg?" I asked. Her solution does not allow suing at all. It is the patients responsibilty to research the doctor, with a mistake like a wrongly cut off leg on the doctors record no one else is likely to choose that doctor. If they are not allowed to sue patients will do a better job of choosing doctors in the first place. Which is great except for that first unfortunate patient;he is still without a leg.

Freedom

In my line of work I occasionally have to look at conservative propaganda. A love of my sanity keeps me from reading whole articles, but I do argue with the headlines. Yesterday there was a cartoon on the front of a magazine that depicted Tim Tebow. The bubble said "My mom was advised to abort me and chose not to." On the next square was a baby's grave. The script read "And now a rebuttal from the opposing view." Being a strong believer in free speech I was not offended by the add at all.

The cartoon on the other hand annoyed me. There is a simple rebuttle to the add, the word chose. She chose to have a baby, because it was her choice. A different woman making a different choice, or the same one for that matter, will not make Pam Tebow's choice any more or less valid. Freedom is what is at stake. The conservative propoganda machine has hijacked and mis-used the word 'freedom'; Only by encouraging Americans to think for themselves will we get it back.

The good news, Miss Universe does not have cancer.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Peaceful building

My word count has been completely blown. I am not sad about it at all though. Finally, after way too long, I am on my way to roofing the bedroom I have been working on. We set all of the beams in on Sunday and cobbed up to them. Hopefully by the end of this week the roof will be finished. It is going to be a living roof and I can already see it. Lee worked on the finishing touches of a long built-in shelf when he had breaks from roofing. The shelf is simple and beautiful. I had forgotten how peaceful building with cob can be. It was a lovely weekend.

More rambling

Well I have been keeping up on my daily word count, so I am still just the same 1300 words behind. So far I am loving my story, that is the biggest trick to finishing by 11/30, loving what you are working on. I spend my days at work trying to schedule my after work chores so that I will have at least two hours to write in the evening. Today I just remembered that I have The Reader checked out from the library. It is due tomorrow. I am trying to fit watching it in to the schedule, but I am not sure if it will fit.

Nanowrimo is here!

I started my Nano novel yesterday. I am already around 1300 words behind. This is typically my month for whining about Nano. December is the month I recover from Nano. Every other month I eagerly anticipate November. This may be the definitive sign of my craziness.

If you haven't ever tried a nano novel check out nanowrimo.org then you can be crazy too.

logic clouded by hate

Again this morning I was working quietly when my boss found me. We had been talking about the flu earlier in the morning. She was convinced, by that infamous "news" channel, that H1N1 was just a government hoax. Now whenever somebody we know falls ill with it, and several people have, I make sure to tell her. Entertainment is hard to come by at work; I take it where I find it. This time she turned the corner and showed me a look of complete hurt. "Did you know fourteen soldiers died in Afghanistan last night?" No I hadn't heard that I responded. "Of course he is acting like nothing happened. He was on Letterman again. I think he is running for entertainer of the year." How do I respond to that? I went with my go to move of turning back to my work. Fortunately she wasn't waiting for a response. "I think we could solve this whole problem by loading up a missle with swine flu and blowing it up in the middle of Afghaninstan. We could just kill off the whole country that way." Apparently she doesn't think genocide is a goal to be shied away from. These type of comments always deserve a response. So I said. I just heard on the radio this morning that Afghanistan has one of the highest rates of death during childbirth in the world. No response from her. They have an undeveloped medical care system. I added. She turned and went back to work. How do you respond to a statement like that.

2008

Books I read in 2008

There may have been a few more. I quit updating my blog often around the end of '08.

# Clouds of Witness
# *Winston and Clementine
# *The Widow Of The South
# *The Last Summer of You and Me
# *The Perfect Storm
# *Goodbye again the Definitive Peter Cook and Dudley Moore
# *The Time Traveler's Wife
# *Kabul
# *My Booky Wook
# *Circle of Freinds
# *Dexter in the Dark
# *When Will Jesus Bring The Porkchops
# *Sweetwater Creek
# *The Amber Spyglass
# *Light On Snow
# *The Dante Club
# *The Subtle Knife
# *The Golden Compass*
# *The Tale Of Despereaux
# *In The Gloaming
# *Good Omens
# *When Madeline Was Young
# *Smoking, Drinking, and Screwing
# *The Secret River
# *The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette
# *Three Cups Of Tea
# *P.S. I Love You
# *Wide Sargasso Sea
# *Black and Blue
# *My Sister's Keeper
# *The Slaughter House Five
# *The Night of Rain and Stars
# *The Reluctant Tuscan
# *Hissyfit
# *Eats, Shoots, & Leaves
# *Middlesex
# *Things I Overheard While Talking To Myself
# *Best Friends
# *Africa in my Blood

Conservatives

I am not the only [I pause here because I don't know what to call myself, non-conservative is the best I can come up with] non-conservative in my area, but some days it feels like I am. Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. I am not sure how I feel about that because I am not sure who else was up for it or if there was a more deserving person out there. As President he should be working towards peace simply as part of his job. The specifics are not what has struck me today anyway;they are not what I want to talk about.
I was working quietly, as I do most days, when my boss came to tell me about the prize. I could tell she was shocked, and I knew how she would feel without her saying a word. She went ahead and told me anyway. I tried to change the conversation so I asked what he had won it for? She didn't know. "Surely not for his great speeches." She said in an angry, sarcastic tone. "Or just for being king of the world." She added. She was getting worked up now. "I heard the new dog made a mess in Air Force One that will cost us $500.00 to clean." I knew I couldn't take much more of this so I started laughing and said I could imagine that conversation at home. I mimicked my own childrens' 'please moms' and 'I promises' to show how it could have happened in any family. This parent just happened to be the President, and the vehicle was Air Force One. Not to be derailed she wondered how he could possible control (her word) the nation if he couldn't control his family. I started talking about having kids in the White house. I casually brought up Kessler's book. I mentioned, as if I were heading nowhere with the conversation, how he said Chelsea Clinton was supposed to have caused very little trouble. Then I brought up how much trouble the Bush children were said to have caused. She believes, at this point in the conversation, that it is hard to live in the White House when every little thing you do is going to be picked on by the press. She then started talking about how hard it would have to be to have the secret service always following you while you were growing up. How it would be hard to not rebel against it. She ended the conversation by saying she guessed how the child reacted would depend on the age of the child at the time. I let the conversation end, because that is what I really wanted anyway. I could have pointed out that Chelsea was also a teenager when her father was in the White House, or that her measure of 'controlling children' would make Bush a worse President than Obama or Clinton. Sometimes though I think that it is better to let people see their own hypocrisy slowly as they replay conversations in their head.

Technology

I am embarrassed. January, I haven't posted since January. That is about the time my part time job morphed into a 50 hour a week job. I obviously can't do it all. I am not one of those people who just manage to get everything done. I have the utmost respect for those people, but I am not one of them. My sister, Drama Queen, talked me into signing up for a facebook account two days ago. That seems to be a big time suck. I also am not geared towards that type of communication. Something inside of me is very old fashioned when it comes to communicating. Understand, I love technology. I love gadgets and science and wondering where we will go next. That is the part of dying that most scares me. I want to see flying cars and moon colonies. When we are skipping from planet to planet engaging with the aliens I want to be here. When I communicate though I want long conversations. Texting is great for a quick question, but it is not a conversation. Every time I visit one of the networking sites I am hit with how little substance there is. I may find out what type of drunk a person is, or which smurf they would be, but still know nothing of there personality. That is why I prefer blogs. Reading a few short paragraphs can give quite a bit of insight about a person. Not that I am against them. Let everyone use what bit of technology they like and leave the rest.