Playdate

My Cat is Dying

At least it seems so.  I picked her up this morning and she's lost about 99% of her body weight.  She won't eat.  She drank some water.  She's lying under my dining room table and won't move.  She's had episodes like this in the past couple of months - bad day, then good week.  I don't know why - this seems like the end.

For those of you who know the Smurf Cat, you know I have a love/hate relationship with her.  I never really wanted her, but took her in for a friend for what was supposed to be a couple of weeks.  This was 1991!  But, you know, I am a little bit sad (OK, I'm crying.)  that she's going to be leaving me.  Seventeen years is a really really long time to live with someone.  Other than my mom and siblings, there's nobody I've lived with longer.  And, just like a family member, who you really don't choose but you learn to live with anyway, I love her.   I can replay the moments of my life based on where she was, where she puked, how bad she was pissing me off at the time.   She  (read: I)  has weathered all my storms, and has come out okay.  I was 24 when she came into my life - I didn't know what was ahead of me.  I still don't.   But that pain in the ass cat was always there.

One time I went out of town and Bill's family came to visit (Which, WAS A COMPLETE COINCIDENCE.).  I was on my way home - Murphy, being a cat, had no idea when I was going to be getting in.  I'm told that about 10 minutes before I arrived she plunked herself at the back door and started meowing and wouldn't budge until I walked in.  How does a cat know you are 15 minutes away on the interstate?   I don't know!  How does a cat know that NOTHING will piss you off more than if she screams outside your newborn's bedroom at 5AM after a night of no sleep?  I don't know!  They are mysterious...

She's sort of not understanding that it's me who is trying to give her a towel right now to snuggle with.  She's all, "Who are YOU?"  Which is probably for the best - she doesn't need to have the image of me screaming "GET THE FUCK OFF THE COUNTER!" in her head as she goes gently into that good night.  Better that she doesn't remember me and our good times together.  Sorry, Smurf.  You REALLY were a royal pain, but I do love you, and will miss you, terribly.

(P.S.  If she happens to live I TAKE ALL OF THIS BACK!)

Hey, you! Look at my ASS! I'm a virgin!

OK, thank Mother Jones for pointing me in the direction of, yes, you guessed it: Abstinence Pants!

For just $16.99 you too can head to your nearest K-Mart and buy these comfy, cropped sweats that proclaim in big bold letters -- right next to your crotch and across your butt -- "True Love Waits."

Because, of course, if you want to remain chaste, what you want to do is draw the attention of teen boys right to your butt ... you know, to let them know, once and for all, that they won't be gettin' in your pants!

Notice there are no "his and hers" outfits. Just hers.

I LOVE t-ball

...actually, no, I don't.

But I'm taking one for the team.

No question, a 5 year old in a baseball uniform wearing a helmet the size of a hybrid car is cuter than all the puppies in the world combined.  Absolutely, it's a great sport for the kids to learn teamwork, get eye-hand/feet coordination, and have fun.  And yes, I am loving the Kodak moments.  But when my husband signed up to be an assistant coach, that automatically signed me up for this commitment.  Let me tell you that running around getting to practice, games, photo shoots, I don't know - championship tournaments, with both kids and gear is not fun.  I don't even get to watch the games cuz I'm making sure Owen's not getting into trouble.  Sure I'm chatting with other parents but they are also watching the younger siblings of players. 

Rob and Ethan are having great fun together.  So if anyone asks, I will say through gritted teeth, "I love T-ball."

      

A Good Patient

We had to schedule an emergency surgery today.

In a bizarre accident an ear was severed from Max, Ethan's animal friend.

Without anethesia, he was mended.  What a trooper. 

Our good patient is recovering nicely.

 

What was I thinking?

I knew it was going to be hard. But I didn't know I'd be ready to throw in the towel so soon.

Joseph and Hannah are both on Spring break from school all week. And today, just Monday, just mid-day Monday ... I'm already over it.

Sigh.

Doesn't bode well for the rest of the week, huh?

Next year, I'm definitely going on vacation.

Signs

Signs that I’m turning into my parents:

1) I turn off lights all around the house…even when my kids are sitting in the room.

2) I’m constantly cold and having to put on a sweater/scarf/extra socks…that is, when I’m not sweating like a pig.

3) I tell my kids that they are also cold.

4) I steal Sugar in the Raw packets feeling justified because my coffee cost $3.80 versus the $0.99 coffees I used to get.  (Unlike my parents, I bought the Equal and Splenda.)

5) I quote the costs of things from “the good ol’ days”.  Like gasoline and coffee.

6) I blame my kids for my gray hair (cuz it couldn’t be age!).

7) I say things like:

“I will stop this car RIGHT NOW if you don’t…”

“Well, if your friends wanted to jump off a bridge…”

“Because I JUST said so!”

"What did I say?  What did I JUST say?!"

“There are children who don’t have ANY food! Now eat what’s on your plate!”

8) I have to ask Ethan to read fine print for me.

9) I cut napkins and paper towels in half.

10) I save the rubber bands that the postman uses to bundle my mail, Whole Foods wraps around my berries container and the ones art projects are rolled with.  And I make a nice ball with them.

Let the ridicule begin...

Magic lives here

I know that there are more and more parents these days who are reluctant to play up Santa, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. I've even read that people refer to it as lying. Well they should avoid my house. Because Santa et al are all welcome here and they should bring along their other friends the fairies, wood-sprites and Man in the Moon.

My grandparents gave me a magic genie lantern when I was 5 years old. You may have seen it on my mantle. It's the oldest thing I own. And on special occasions we would hear it rattle in the other room. I'd run down their pink carpeted hallway and sure enough...the genie would have left me something. Not necessarily a toy, but always something special or unique. Often it would be left in the open hands of their Buddha statue. I can remember everything about the moment I received a handful of polished stones from the Magic Genie Lantern. How had these beautiful stones whizzed through time and space to me of all people? It was treasure. Magic meant that anything is possible.

Lucia and I went to the reservation last week into the woods to build a fairy house. I watched her diligently gather sticks, pile up rocks, yank up moss and create a cozy nook for the fairies to live in. She ran around and found 12 acorns that she turned into miniature cups. The final touch was a leaf for their bed.

And on Easter morning (after finding all the big guy had left for us including the chewed up remains of a very large bunch of carrots) she wanted to take the whole family back to the woods to visit her house. So we did. And when we found it, the cups had been moved. Proof!

I hope she remembers that moment the rest of her life.

High Tea

When Hannah bought a teeny tiny tea set "for me" for Christmas, and then proceeded to make me play with it every day, I knew what to do for her third birthday. Little girl needed a tea party!

Tea parties require tea sets, of course, so I spent hours pouring over eBay listings for vintage child-sized tea sets. I bid on and lost several before finally winning one very cute little lustreware tea set with a floral pattern.

I also spent hours researching and planning the menu:

Tea Sandwiches: cucumber on pumpernickel; pineapple cream cheese; ham spread
Fresh scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam (my mother's homemade, of course)
Fresh berries
Birthday cake: Coffee Cream Torte from the Blueberry Hill Menu Cookbook
Tea served with sugar cubes and  cream

Everything was delicious, but some things were a big hit with the adults, but not so much the kids. For example, here's a picture of Hannah looking for somewhere to spit her cucumber sandwich:

Other things, like the Blueberry Rooibos tea, were a much bigger hit with the kids than the adults.

But I could have made three times as many scones and still not had enough.

What was fun for me was how much fun everyone had, even my sister who seemed dubious at the beginning and my ten-year-old nephew who sneered "Boys don't drink tea."

And especially my Hannah Bean.

Find your happy Zen place

Maybe I never had it, but I've misplaced my Zen.  I must have had some sort of Zen.  My parents are Buddhist so they have Zen.  But, I don't meditate so mine is definitely lost.

I certainly feel lost lately.  Perhaps it is the January blues and my throat cold/infecion isn't helping matters.  It very well could be the state of limbo many women experience between careers that is a direct result of motherhood.  Yeah, it's the third one.

Since I was twelve years old, I knew exactly what I wanted to be.  I started drawing plans of houses that I designed on any little note paper I could find.  By Junior High, I was pumping out mechanical drawings and doing axonometrics.  By High School, I was in a drafting class and making scale models for college credits.  There was no question.  I was going to be an Architect. 

I earned my professional degree, I nailed a job right after gradulation and I LOVED my clients and projects.  I even married an Architect.  On paper, it sounds so glamourous...so why, after 24 years, am I questioning my path?

The answer is kids.  What worked before doesn't always work under different conditions.  Women (and men) make such difficult decisions for the sake of their families.  Circumstances change yet again, and more decisions must be made.  Balance...flexiblity...limbo.  What I didn't know at 12 years of age is that my career would not be definite.  It's so hard.   

Zen (ˈzen) noun: Japanese, religious meditation: a Japanese sect of Mahayana Buddhism that aims at enlightenment by direct intuition through meditation.

I need to find some Zen.  Enlightenment.

Our kids love getting books from the library.  A recent find is this book by Jon J. Muth called Zen Shorts.  You must read it to your kids.  Hell, read it for yourself. 

I got such an amazing reaction from Rob after he read it to the kids.  One of the stories REALLY hit home for him.  Essentially, there is a young monk and an old monk.  They come across a woman in a sedan being held up by her servants.  They were stuck in mud and had packages in their hands, therefore could not help her down.  The young monk walked past them but the old monk walk through the mud and carried the woman on his back.  She complained and didn't even thank the monk.  Several hours later, the young monk couldn't contain himself.  He asked the older monk why he helped that awful woman.  The older monk replied, "I put her down hours ago.  Why are you still carrying her around?"  There are two more stories in the same book.  They are equally wonderful.  Any children's book that has a life lesson to be applied to an adult gets my praise.

Coincidentally, Rob just bought this book for me based on a recommendation from a fellow blogger.

So far I've just read the first chapter and although I had to put the book down momentarily to yell at my son, I did it calmly.  Maybe my Zen isn't that far away... 

Maybe I should order one of these...a Sad Lamp...to en-lighten me.  Sorry couldn't resist.  Until my lamp arrives, I mean, in the meantime,  I'll keep searching for my happy place. 

Oh, and I'll get my daily Zen here!

A week of amazing things...

Well, I wasn't home much yesterday, as we went to the Big Apple Circus.  So I didn't get around to posting.

The circus was fun -- today I keep hearing about "that man on the rope" (that's the guy below, if you're interested).

He was pretty amazing.

Also amazing in a different way (if you're not offended by lots and lots of curse words) is this totally fake rant from Jimmy Carter from one of my favorite places, The Onion:  I Got What America Needs Right Here.

And finally, one more amazing thing:  I just got off the phone with my mom, who is on the deck of her first cruise.  I keep asking her if she is going to the Lido Deck and if Zsa Zsa Gabor is going to be there, because, seriously, she's on the Love Boat.  They're even stopping at Puerto Vallarta, whereever THAT is...

UPDATE:  Oh!  I forgot the most amazing thing of all -- me posting on my new RED computer.  Despite one of my geeky computer friends telling me he loved this computer except for the reflective screen (cos, as he said, "I already have a shaving mirror, I don't need another"), I am really happy with it.   It no longer takes me 15 minutes to boot up, which is nice.  And I can log on with a swipe of my finger!  No, really, it recognizes my fingerprint.  No more passwords for me.  Oh, and did I mention it's red? 

I think it has lots of memory and fancy features and stuff, but mostly I like it cos it's red. 

Gah, I'm such a girl...