I am normally a hot coffee kinda gal. I don't go in for the frozen whipped cream topped thingys you can buy at the coffee shops. Gimme a nice 2% latte and I am happy. Usually. And since I've been decaffeinated since October, I have mostly been drinking hot tea. I had a bit of an aversion to coffee smell there for a while (which was awful for such a coffee lover as me. I mean, I would have been glad to not drink it, but wanted to at least enjoy the smell!!) But recently, I've been able to stand decaf coffee beverages. Andrew roasts his own coffee beans, and he made me some decaf espresso blend, and I've had a few of them lately. I can still sort of take them or leave them-- the habit is broken right now so it's not a big loss. I most likely will stay mostly decaffeinated till after the breastfeeding is all over. I may then go to "half caff"-- we'll see. BUT today we just finished driving up to Shreveport; it's hot; I was really thirsty. I chugged a glass of ice water as soon as I got to the coffee shop after dropping Andrew at work and it just sounded soooo good to get one of those frozen coffee beverages. So I got a frozen frappe thingy. DECAF thank you very much (although I think that the one lady who works here keeps giving me the evil eye ANYway. Whatever).
Man was that thing tasty!!! MMMMMM. I am content now. I'll be heading off to pick up some groceries for tonight, and Andrew and I will lollygag around the base quarters hotel-like room and watch a movie or something. Anyhoo. I'm here, and the drive wasn't too bad. On the drive I thought of a scene in my novel-to-be that is important to include-- I have the whole plot of it pretty well worked out; it's one of the first novels I've ever gotten the ENTIRE thing of in my head. And mostly from a dream! :) It starts like this: "I'm a ghost. No, not the way you’re thinking; I don’t go around rattling chains and making spooky noises in someone’s house, dripping blood and warnings of Hellfire on the walls." I have about 7 single spaced pages written and it's just about to get to the part where the narrator becomes a ghost. I have some description to write that I thought of in the car. Fun, huh?
That does not keep me from having a terrible need of -- shall I say the word -- religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars. -- Vincent Van Gogh in a letter to his brother
The town does not exist except where one black-haired tree slips up like a drowned woman into the hot sky. The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars. Oh starry night! This is how I want to die.
It moves. They are all alive. Even the moon bulges in its orange irons to push children, like a god, from its eye. The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars. Oh starry starry night! This is how I want to die:
into that rushing beast of the night, sucked up by that great dragon, to split from my life with no flag, no belly, no cry. -- All My Pretty Ones, 1962
Anne Sexton is one of my all-time favorite poets. When I read her poetry, it makes me want to write better, to think in those patterns. Granted, I don't want Sexton's fate-- an agorophobe most of her life, she began writing poetry at the suggestion of her shrink, and eventually succeeded in one of her suicide attempts. But man, would I love to write one poem as good as hers.
This poem, clearly, is written about Vincent Van Gogh's painting Starry Night-- which is one of my favorite pieces of art. I don't know if I would like it as much if it weren't for Sexton's poem, which I read before I saw the painting (or maybe concurrently-- it may have been reproduced in an anthology together.) When Andrew & I first got married, I had a print of this painting that hung in our living room. Yes, it is the cliche of the college student to get a Klimt, or a Van Gogh painting. But it's mostly because these paintings express so much about how you feel when you're first discovering yourself, learning about the world.
Today, I read on Google, is Van Gogh's birthday-- he was born in 1853. It's also the day that, in 1987, his painting "Sunflowers" sold at auction by Christie?s for £24.75 million. Not a bad birthday present-- even if it did come a bit late. :)
I like the google art they put up some days to announce a special day. It's a very clever marketing thing. If you haven't seen it today, pop over there and check it out. It's quite fun.
So on my own news of the day, it was a fairly busy morning. We did a bunch of work over at the new house we're buying to rent out. A dog had lived there before and the carpet smelled a bit doggy. So vacuum, air freshener. The house was owned by an elderly lady, and she apparently had not cleaned her light fixtures in ages- -they were all coated with a thick residue of yellowed grease. When we showed the house, people would go "gosh, it's kind of dark in here". The grease over the lightbulb covers plus the fact that all the bulbs were no higher than 40 watts made for a dim room. So I cleaned the bulb covers-- amazing! What I thought were gold-toned glass, which I thought I'd have to replace, turned out to be white. Ugh! :) But the house is now much better to show to try to rent out. I've seen that show on one of those home improvement channels-- Sell This House! where they fix up a place cause people viewing a house don't have enough imagination to picture a place with their own furniture, and instead of looking at the house, critique the decor. So I knew it makes a huge difference to do small things in a place that isn't going. (We do have the rent a little too high, too, I think, which is being remedied.)
Tomorrow, we're going up to Shreveport. It'll most likely be the last time I go up there with Andrew for a long time. I'm not going on that long of a road trip with him until after the babies are born, and then it'll be a while too. They won't be good for long car trips for a while, with the whole "feeding every two hours" thing. But we're planning on leaving very early in the morning, so you may not hear from me tomorrow. I may have the energy after the car trip to go to the coffee shop in town and post, but don't hold your breath. :)
Robotnik pointed out that my little countdown calendar shows less than 100 days now till the twins' due date! So we're into the last quarter of the game, folks. I just pray that they wait at least till June 10, which puts them at the average arrival for twins, which is about 3 1/2 weeks early. Any day after June 10th will count as gravy as far as I'm concerned. Keep those toes and fingers crossed, dearies.
Then, finally, since someone asked about this. Yes, I do have a baby registry. I don't feel completely comfortable putting it up on the blog, because I really do NOT expect any of my readers, unless they know me otherwise, to send me anything. But on the very remote chance that you were dying to buy my babies a bag of "onesies," I am registered at babies r us. I also have a baby-oriented wishlist on amazon.com. Don't feel pressured-- I am not at all at a loss for people to shower me with gifts, and what I don't get from family members will be cheerfully shopped for. :) I won't mention this again, and my shower is April 9, so if you want to get a cheerful thank you card you're welcome. But you're quite welcome to completely ignore this part of the post, too. This is why I'm burying it here at the end, so it's not an obvious plea. I've seen other blogs post wishlists, though, and respond to presents sent them, so apparently it's something some people like to do. If that's you, make sure you include your address in your contribution so I can send you a thank you note. Mustn't make Emily Post too upset with me (although I'm sure she wouldn't approve of wishlists in the first place....).
Sleeping in Yesterday's Clothes: a semi-autobiographical fiction sketch
She wakes muzzy headed and hungry in a room that she's never been before. The room is brown-toned-- the walls used to be white but now claim that sepia tone left by ancient nicotine and dust. The bed is lumpy, the sheets smell clean but the bedspread is itchy black wool. When it was clear that the night was going to be a late one, her mother sent her up here the night before, to sleep, since it was a school night. There was no babysitter, so the girl had to come to work with her mother, who bartended at the dark smokey bar nestled beneath a walk-up hotel filled with drunks and hookers.
There is a window with a flipping torn gauzy curtain that looks out over the street, red-brick facaded buildings that have seen better days, some with old five and dime stores and dirty windows, others a funeral parlor, the goodwill store where you could pick through piles of musty clothes while the "slow" always-young man at the counter stared aimlessly at you. Most of the buildings are empty, with crude graffiti sketched in dust on the boarded up, sometimes broken windows. Just past the building across the street you could, if you were high enough up, see hints of the beach that waited a few blocks down, salt air and seawater making its presence known by smell and taste. This room is not high enough to see the beach.
At some time during the night, her mother had joined her in the hotel room, sleeping in her clothes, smelling of the bar and cigarettes. The little girl woke to see it was morning, time to go to school. How would she get there? Maybe she wouldn't go today; she relished the thought of a day off when other kids had to learn about dinosaurs and practice cursive writing on lined grey paper that tore easily.
Her mom wakes to tell her to brush her hair and get ready to go to school. The girl still wears the jeans and t-shirt from yesterday, wrinkled from sleeping. There is no toothbrush, and the bathroom is down the hall. Her tummy rumbles. What about breakfast?
You'll get breakfast on the way to school. You're going with Tiny in his cab. Any other time, riding in the yellow cab hearing the radio squawk directions on which fare needed picking up next, dirty seats filled with newspaper and crossword puzzle books would be fun for her. But the little girl visualizes arriving in the line of other cars dropping off kids, brown station wagons and grey-blue pickup trucks vying for space with the bright yellow of the taxi for hire. She knows eyes will look to her curiously. Why is she in a taxi? The will wonder. She doesn't know, exactly, that having slept in her clothes in a cheap walkup hotel is sort of sleezy, but she senses there is something not quite normal about it.
On the way to school, they stop at a convenience store and Tiny buys her a cinnamon bun and milk in a carton with money her mother thrust into his hand before he drove away. Mother has to work another shift at the bar, cleaning and getting ready for the afternoon, but for a while, she will sleep in the hotel room that the girl has, mostly alone, spent the night.
Her dirty-penny copper colored hair is still sort of ratty from the ineffectual brushing she did that morning, and she spends the day frowning over her letters, hands tangled in the knots of her shoulder length bob. They work on capital cursives, and her eraser bores a hole in the page filled with "L". She can't get the loop on the top of the "L" right-- it's too big, too empty. It doesn't look sleek and flat like the examples.
At lunch, standing in line along the hallway, pressing her cheek against the cold green institutional tile, she talks to her "friend." The friend points out the crust of sleep along the girl's eyelashes. Since the bathroom mirror was so high above the dirty rust-stained sink, the girl has not seen herself all day. She scrubs the sleep from her eyelashes and wishes for a warm washcloth. After lunch, standing again in the hallway, the girl's class is passed by the "special" class kids. She sees one kid wearing a blue, battle scarred bike helmet. He stops for a moment and bangs his head against the tile where the girl had lain her cheek earlier. She feels a tummy-ache, and the vegetable soup tries to come up a little bit.
The class returns to their desks, in a room that smells of the paste little kids like to eat, sweet, but drying crusted and cracked. For much of the afternoon, they listen to a recording about dinosaurs: "The Tyrannosaurus Rex was a very mean king, he terrified the countryside and made the giant reptiles hide. Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom."
They go to the library, and the little girl checks out a book that has a short, three-lined poem on the first page. She loves the poem. Memorizes it, running the sound of the words over her tongue.
Very soon I shall be gone, For I am just a morning glory, A fading flower at dawn.
There is a picture on the last page of this book of a spider in a web.
When the day is over, Tiny picks her up in the dirty yellow taxi. His bulky stomach protrudes over the steering wheel, and after a day of driving around, the taxi smells like sweat and stale french fries. He drives her home, where her teenaged sister is home from her day at Job Corps, and waits to babysit. Her sister gives her a Snickers bar, but begs a huge bite out of it. Her mom does not come home until after she is in bed, dreaming of dinosaurs with pointy crowns.
Our little suburb has redone the major street that goes through the city, widening it a bit and adding a bike lane. They're also adding trees to the median area between the sidewalk and the street. While this is annoying in that the guys who are putting the trees in park their truck in the far right lane (why don't you pull into the parking lot, guys?) and traffic backs up behind it, I can also see how cool it will be in a few years having all these trees lining the street. Many of them are the kinds of trees that won't grow very tall-- but they are flowering trees, so they'll have nice pink, white, or purple flowers at various times of the year.
When I lived in Pensacola (it's still there, I'm not) there was this one street that I loved to drive down because it had this green arch of trees over the center of it. On each side were planted oaks that reached cathedral-like towards each other. You would drive through the green-tinted sunshine and it felt like you were someplace magical. It really made you not notice the somewhat run-down brick ranch houses and sleezy bar to the sides of you. I always enjoyed this stretch of road. I know that the road in my little suburb will not get quite that pretty-- the trees won't grow that tall, for one, the lanes are too wide to get the touching in the middle for two.... but it still will be so much nicer than the urban blight of pawn shop signs and fast food parking lots. It's really nice to see a community planning something purely aesthetic to make the place we live moderately better. Of course, who the heck can guess how much this probably cost, taxpayer wise. I'd prefer to not know; it would most likely spoil it for me.
I am feeling kind of icky today. Not in a major way, just that "blah" a little tired a little groggy way you feel sometimes when you might be getting a little bit of a cold, or seasonal allergies are going to start in on you (and I'm betting it's this one-- allergies. It always happens this time of the year, especially after a rain like we had Saturday.) I woke up and thought maybe a good breakfast would help, but so far, I still feel icky. So today I might just do my "cat" impersonation and stay in bed sleeping all day. I do have, as usual, lots of work to do, but if I'm sick, I'm just going to rest.
How incredible this cake/bread smells while cooking right now. I usually make cakes from scratch, but I consider my brilliance at shopping at Williams Sonoma as good as making it from scratch, so don't tell anyone it wasn't home-made. And get yourself a packet or two for in emergencies, when someone unexpected is on their way-- this cake is soooooo yummy.
Not Entirely Sure How I Feel About This One........
You are Clark Griswold (from National Lampoon's Vacation)! You're full of optimism and boundless energy, and no one loves a good family trip more. No one else can swear a blue streak like you either, Sparky!
When I was in college as a "first-year" biology student, I had this crazy professor who used to harp on about how bad the world was going to get in the next few years, energy consumption, cancer from a weakening ozone. Etc. etc. The stuff about climate change wasn't why he was crazy-- he used to harp on about lots of his theories. Seriously, he had retired, but they asked him to keep teaching a few courses. He really needed to not teach anymore.
But one of the things he talked about was what a drain on the environment malls are. They suck a lot of energy, and they're this big pit of heat and consumption. He was pretty much right.
That doesn't mean I don't still love a good mall.
Yesterday, as part of my exercise campaign, I walked twice around the largest mall in town (which is pretty big). It's a good place to exercise in bad weather-- no rain, no excessive heat or cold. I did shop a little after the rapid scan around the whole place. Bought some stuff from Williams-Sonoma, which is an evil money-sucking store. :)
Last night, dinner party with "Easter style" menu-- it was very nice, but most likely the last such party till after the babies are born. I am still a little sore from overdoing it yesterday. Tired, and needing a nap already.
Today, Easter Sunday with Andrew's folks out at the lake. I'm going to bake a Meyer Lemon cake, and take some good home made guacamole. Yum. Texas style Easter consists of taco salad & brisket. If you've never had Texas brisket, you have not had the best way it's cooked. MMMM.
Anyway, sorry for no post yesterday then a boring one today. It happens. :)
If you don't normally read my blogroll, and haven't perused my friend Brando's blog One Child Left Behind (cause, really, the title is a teeny bit scary) you should read it today. He has a lovely post which reminded me of how much I still love dandelions, in spite of (and perhaps because of) their wicked weedy ways.
Not at all like the song, because the only thing Ironic about it, Alannis, is that there's not a single example of irony in the song.
And I'm not coming out either way on how I feel about the issue, although you can probably guess.
In most of the news reports on the "right/conservative" side of the Terry S. feeding tube thing, people insist that she's an innocent victim of a cruel and malicious system, as well as her husband's lack of concern over her chances to improve (and I ask, how much will she really ever improve, even given a perfect therapist & treatment?)
Innocent victim. The ironic part about her situation is what a lot of people don't know about how she ended up in her PVS. She was either anorexic or bulimic, to such an extreme case that the lack of nutrients caused her heart to stop. Like Karen Carpenter. When her heart stopped, she had the brain damage that caused her situation.
So she was depriving herself of food, deliberately. Yes, because she had a mental illness. And I'm not at all mocking the difficulty of eating disorders.
But that is truly the ironic part of this whole case-- a woman who had "issues" with food, who starved herself to be thin, and had it kill her brain if not yet her body, who is now the center of a firestorm of controversy about removing a tube from her bellybutton that feeds her.
This morning as I was waking up I heard thumping noises on my deck outside. They even grabbed an interested ear twist out of the cat (but not enough to inspire the lazy thing to go do her cat-ly job and investigate). So on waddling into the kitchen, peering out over the sliding glass doors onto the deck, I saw who the culprit is who has been digging in my flower pots and uprooting several plants (the mint was terribly mauled, but has survived, with only a little PTSD). It was, ladies and gents, a squirrel. Digging in the pots. Scattering dirt all over the place. I had thought it must be a cat, interested in the mint (cause I know there's some kinds of mint that cats like). Or perhaps using the pots as a quick outhouse. But no-- it was another animal defining the word "squirrelly" for us.
What the hell is a squirrel doing digging in container pots? Surely not hiding acorns there. Surely not looking for acorns. Surely they're smart enough to know better than that? Apparently not, though. It was funny to look out there and see dirt flying past the squirrel's fluffy little tail. I gave him his time and didn't go out and chase him off. The plants will survive, and I got a good laugh out of the image of my gardening rodent.
Why It's Really COOOOL to be a freakin' nerd or, How to Use "42" to Astound and Astonish Passersby
At the grocery store, looking for a steak to use in tonight's dinner (a yummy noodle dish from Wagamama* Noodle Bar in London....) the meat-lady was putting out freshly cut steaks. She was kind of in my way, and said "Can I help you find anything?" once she realized it. I had just spied the NY Strips. I said "Nope. I just found what I was lookin' for." She said: "Yes, mumble mumble ::laugh:: The meaning of life!" (I didn't get the first part). So I said "It's 42." She looked slightly stunned and said, "Ma'am?" I said "You know. 42. The Meaning of Life" ::waving my hand a little embarrassed, dismissive of myself cause she clearly doesn't get the joke:: "It's silly stuff. Just a book thing". As I'm turning to leave she says "OH! Cause that's how old I am, and I wondered how you knew!?" I said, smiling, "Magic." And headed up the baking supplies aisle as she continued putting away her steaks.
I love my hammock at this time of the year. In Texas in the summer, you have a very narrow window of temperature that you can hang around outside without being roasted like Peking duck in a shop window, your skin crispy and fats glistening hot, buttery. But in the spring, my backyard is a perfect place to be. The trees are the exact distance apart for hammock stretching, and the dappled shade as you lie in the hammock is punctuated by frequent cool breezes. Today, the trees (live oaks) are shedding their leaves. They do this about twice a year, and as I lie in the hammock, brown and sometimes wrinkled green leaves pelt me now and then. Squirrels race along the fence line between our various properties-- consummate diplomats, they straddle the fence and occasionally scold a passing cat for its neglect of proper boundaries. The trees above are filled with grackles. They make a noise that fits their name perfectly-- a combo of a crackling grate and buzzing whistle. I think that their frequent calls are probably what dinosaurs would have sounded like (only, of course, much louder). They challenge each other, swoop down on an unlucky grasshopper who has drawn too much attention to himself.
The grackles make lewd comments, whistling, as I struggle up and down into the hammock. I am not graceful. But once settled, I am comfortable, content, with my blue and green afghan (the grandma made blanket I wrap around myself when I'm cold or sick and lying on the couch), my soft chenille wrapped pillows under my head. My book is academic, dry theory for the most part. But I diligently pay attention, underline relevant passages. The cordless phone waits next to me for any important calls-- I silence the ringer when it is a telemarketer or charity begging.
My deck daisies nod yellowly in the wind, and the rosemary bush that has been sculpted to look like a Christmas tree occasionally sends its sharp green perfume I associate with Easter roasts and deviled eggs my way.
We live a block away from a neighborhood elementary school, and the kids are outside for recess. I can hear them yell, laughing, chasing. They will be in small groups and large, wheeling like flocks of birds, shifting directions, the occasional nonconformist making a separate "V" of identity before falling back into line behind the leader. My babies kick as if in response to the distant voices of play. They will someday attend that school; I will walk with them the 2 blocks to the front door, them carrying book bags and pencils, perhaps in separate classrooms, perhaps the same. Then, if I am lucky enough to spend a spring day in a hammock, some of those recess voices raised in running, making sweaty spots at the nape of their neck that smell like wet dog or dirty grass after a rainstorm, two of those voices will be ones I love. I will try to pick them out over their peers-- who are somewhere kicking a mother right now, too. I will believe I can hear the timbre of Sean's laugh above the others, of Maia's probably slightly know-it-all, bossy orders to do it this way. If I listen really hard now, I almost know that day already. And perhaps, on that day, I will remember this one, filled with potential and hope and green leaves falling in the wind.
I've written a teeny bit about dreams and pregnancy already, but I was thinking about this just this morning as I lollygagged in bed. Since Andrew got back from Guam, I've tried to get up in the morning with him, to spend a little time with him before he works all day. He used to not work quite as much, but lately, it's been lots of long days, so any time I can spend with him is a bonus. But the last few days I've been petering out too early, needing a nap at about 9 in the morning, which interferes substantially with getting anything productive done. So, late sleeper today.
But also, it meant a longer period of lucid dreams. Do you know the difference between a lucid dream and regular dreams? Lucid dreams are dreams you remember, and you often can influence the events of the dream while dreaming. You're variously aware that you're dreaming. Often, if you can be a lucid dreamer, you can do cool things in your dreams like do magic (sometimes I can) or fly (same-- sometimes I can do both magic & fly). They're the coolest feeling dreams; you wake up feeling rested, but energized in a way that regular old muddy dreams don't do. Often, you work out "issues" in these dreams. If you've been thinking about something really hard, perhaps trying to solve a problem or anticipating a special event, you'll dream about it and the dream will help suggest a solution. I'm not saying, as a lot of folks do, that they are psychic dreams that can predict the future. But they are possibly another level of consciousness in which you can see a bigger picture of your life and therefore use more of your brain's power to see solutions. I have gotten over blocks in my writing by thinking hard about the subject just before sleeping and then dreamt about it-- you have a freedom of ideas when you're asleep that your conscious mind doesn't allow. Sometimes you wake up and still think it's a stupid idea, but sometimes it helps you work on ideas.
Anyway. This morning I had a few dreams that almost cracked the lucid dreaming boundaries. These dreams are part of a pattern of dreams I often have about the town I grew up in/went to high school in. They often feature the people I knew then; I'm visiting them, or planning to visit them. The dreams this morning were very vivid, and I was me in the dreams, and I was dealing with issues that I have thought a little bit about lately. But I was also getting my hair done. :) That was a fun part-- doing the hair, makeup thing. I was going to go visit an old friend. My mom didn't approve, but in the dream, I thought it was none of her business and told her so. In real life, I wouldn't visit this person. But it's possible that the dream is suggesting a need to think about the relationship I had with said person-- and I can see why it would come up lately. Some sort of resolution will come of the dream's issues, someday. It doesn't make me anxious, or sad, or even happy. I just sort of know that the issue will resolve.
But after actually waking and lying in bed for a few minutes thinking about the dreams, rested on cool comfortable sheets with pillows cocooned around me and the dim morning light soothing me into more and more wakefulness, I thought about dreams. Sometimes when you're really drunk you have bizarre dreams, too. And pregnancy seems to bring on, at least for a lot of folks, (sometimes me, too) a wide range of naughty sex dreams. So it's a good thing you can't be both drunk & pregnant (well, you could, I suppose, but it's just not a good idea.) You might have dreams of a totally different variety then.
Anyway. If you think you don't have dreams (everyone does-- you just don't remember yours) and you'd like to work on that, there's a website I found while writing this post that might interest you. It has some suggestions on how to lucid dream, or to improve your lucidity. It looks a little "new agey" but interesting at the same time. It's really a cool feeling to have lucid dreams, and it doesn't have to be tied up into deep philosophy and stuff. I view it a lot like the way I view the way I read Tarot cards-- as a way of focusing thoughts you have but aren't really aware of having, of getting in touch with your own subconscious. Like good therapy is supposed to do. It's not magic, or religion, but it can really change the way you think about yourself, and make you more aware of your world.
So what liquor are you? I, apparently, am the one that always makes me puke. Bacardi 151 Congratulations! You're 139 proof, with specific scores in beer (100) , wine (133), and liquor (86).
All right. No more messing around. Your knowledge of alcohol is so high that you have drinking and getting plastered down to a science. Sure, you could get wasted drinking beer, but who needs all those trips to the bathroom? You head straight for the bar and pick up that which is most efficient.
My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 79% on proof You scored higher than 97% on beer index You scored higher than 97% on wine index You scored higher than 91% on liquor index Link: The Alcohol Knowledge Test written by hoppersplit on Ok Cupid
You know what's fun about blogging? It's the same thing that made being a waitress fun back when I was young. You get immediate gratification. You make a comment, and someone notices, and often rewards you with a comment themselves. It's not always one that agrees with you, but it's always one that you like to see. But sometimes I get mad because I don't see myself on blogrolls where I belong. Like the people on those blogs ought to know about me. I've been doing this stupid blog thing for like two years now. (Yes. I missed my anniversary. Again. Should I do a post about that? Probably.)
Anyway. Immediate. Gratification. Unlike reading this book about Literature after feminism. Good writing, interesting, but how does it apply to ME?!?
Yesterday's anticipated sonogram did not happen. Apparently, my doctor scheduled my sonogram at a time when they don't do sonograms. And they figured it would be okay to not let me know this till my appointment. Casually saying "oh, we rescheduled that for your next visit" as I asked wasn't I supposed to?. So here I am naked, with a blank videotape in my purse and nothing interesting to record. (Just like my single days). The visit itself was uneventful, for the most part. I'm having, thus far and knock on wood, a very uneventful pregnancy. I hope that continues for a long time yet... nothing interesting ought to happen. (Sure baby kicks are interesting but not interesting.) So the sonogram will be in two weeks. I know you're dying to see more pictures of my internal workings and of the babies' cute little fetal positions. You'll just have to wait. :)
Is it just me, though, or does being in a doctor's office have a way of making you forget all those questions you had during the two weeks you were waiting to see the doctor again? Assertive, well-spoken me becomes happily unquestioning, in spite of my knowledge that sometimes there are questions I will ask. In spite of not at all being willing to be a "patient" but instead personally looking to insure the best health care I can get, by asking those "important questions." Which never seem to come up.
I wonder if they train doctors in that slightly harried, I'm too busy to chat vibe that makes anything you have to ask seem silly, and time-wasting? They combine it with a competing "I'll answer any question you have" expression on their face that still seems somewhat distracted-- you know they're thinking of the next waiting room, the next test ordered, and not really listening to you. I know, I know, doctors SAY you're supposed to ask them stuff. The books say "bring a list of questions you want to ask".... (but writing down every little question on a piece of paper seems sort of hypochondriac)... And books always say "find a doctor who you feel comfortable asking questions of who answers your questions in a way you feel satisfied with." But I've never met a doctor like that. I'm not completely convinced they exist. I think it's all a conspiracy, like the moon landing. Sure, there are doctors out there who take every second to answer your questions without you feeling hurried, or like the question is stupid. Yeah. And there was wind on the moon ruffling the flag.* :)
My questions actually weren't all that big. Some issues many pregnant women deal with (and you don't wanna know what they are, trust me). I am probably better informed than most people, thanks to my use of the internet and ability to even access the official hard-to-understand medical journals through the university, if I so choose (which I have, a little). And yes, the doctor did answer them. But I am always left feeling vaguely like there was something else I meant to ask about. What was that again? Hmmmmm. And usually, it can wait. I have three more months of baby-baking till they're fully cooked and ready to come out of the oven, anyway.
The funnier thing is that when someone calls me asking me if I have any questions (this nurse in the "family support" group at the base) I really just don't want to talk to her. I vaguely suspect her of being part of the same system that riddled my single-mother with odd questions when I was a child, and made ominous pronouncements about her ability to take care of her kids (I have an inherent distrust of certain kinds of social work-- sorry Niss. It was caused by an "innocent" comment I made in second grade about how we picked up soda bottles to return for the 5 cent deposit, to get money to buy food with.... it brought the family services folks down on our heads. But strangely enough, although presumably concerned about this lack of money, we didn't qualify for food stamps or any other assistance....). And I suspect that if I ask the wrong question, say it wrong, some flag in some system will pop up and wrongly think that I need even MORE help, in things that I don't need. Like I have to think hard to make sure to word my question carefully or else they will say "what do you really mean by that?" We took this questionnaire on which you had to answer things like "I feel safe in my home" (disagree---agree). And is it just me, or does everyone know how to answer those things the "right" way? (And honestly, my answers were the right ones, cause I am actually a very happy, lucky, safe and comfortable person.....)
Anyway. This is becoming an embarrassingly silly ramble. I should just nip it in the bud. Move back to working on the interminable dissertation work. Pffffhhhht! And again: Pffffhhhht!
************************* *For the record, I do believe we landed on the moon-- I'm just using that as an example of a conspiracy theory to gently mock myself here.
Today I have a doctor's appointment for a big sonogram-- the "growth scan." This will see how big the babies are now, whether they're both growing at the same rate, etc, etc. I'm taking a video tape with me because supposedly you can get them to record it for you. That'll be very cool if so. I can drag it out when the kids are 16 and bring over their first boy/girl friend. Look-- there's little Sean's testicles-- see how they're descending at this age? I expect this to be the only view you have of them till marriage.... And look at Maia, she's got her daddy's overbite already... how much do you think we spent at the orthodontist? awwwwwww....
I'm also going shopping. Whee! Maternity shops tell you to "buy your pre-pregnancy size." Which has generally worked till now, but my pants are getting pretty uncomfortable. So I need some new ones. And I have yet to find a pair of maternity jeans that wasn't awful. The one pair I have slides down and I have to hike them up every three seconds. I look like a crazy person. Last time I forgot and wore them, I ended up keeping one hand in my pocket trying to keep the pants from descending to my knees. It was awkward, very hard to grocery shop. I'm sure people thought "Oh, look, the mentally disturbed are reproducing. How lovely."
There's leftovers for lunch-- chicken cacciatore that I made last night. Yum. And then a trip to the hospital (which is 40 miles away-- argh! but at least I get to see downtown San Antonio!)
I'll try to think of something clever & intellectual to write tomorrow. But most likely you'll just get stuck with sonogram scans and a gushy pregnant person's description of the babies wiggling on camera. Lucky you. :)
OOh, and thanks to a friend's idea, I am putting together weekly "menus" which plan out my week's recipes and generate a shopping list so that I can try to teach myself to go to the grocery store once a week, instead of my daily trips now. I know that will be really really hard to do with twins, so I am trying to learn how normal people do it. But if you should be interested in receiving a copy of said menu, in Adobe PDF format, let me know and I'll send you week one in an email. It's all "light" recipes-- but not diet. It just means you use lowfat milk instead of heavy cream and stuff like that.
You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be Chocolat by Joanne Harris. But really, in Fahrenheit 451, would you really want to be a book?! In the end, there's this cult of people who remember books, to "save" those books that are all being burned, but still....
Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character? Hmmm. I don't think--- oooh, wait, just remembered one. I used to really dig the vampire in the Anita Blake books-- Jean Claude. But that was when Hamilton was still being subtle and not writing soft-core porn.
The last book you bought is: Twin to Twin by: Margaret O'Hair, Thierry Courtin (Illustrator) It's a baby book featuring red-headed fraternal boy/girl twins. I had to have it. :)
The last book you read: Divine Comedies: Here Comes the Sun and Odds and Gods by Tom Holt. I actually only read Odds and Gods thus far, but will read the other soonish. Tom Holt is REALLY funny. (Like a cross between Neil Gaiman and Douglas Adams).
What are you currently reading? Fool's Errand, by Robin Hobb, (for fun) and for work, Literature after Feminism by Rita Felski and The Home Plot: Women Writers and Domestic Ritual by Ann Romines
Five books you would take to a deserted island: Collected Poems of Anne Sexton Mockingbird by Sean Stewart Women of Wonder, Pamela Sargent, Editor Little Women, Louisa May Alcott I guess one of those "surviving desert island" books, too. :)
Three people I choose to "stick this" to and why: I decided to NOT actually stick this to anyone. It's a pretty cool meme, but I don't want to force anyone to answer it.... if you want to share, you can answer it in the comments. (I don't pass on those chain emails either). :)
Boy I hate the news. We rarely (if ever) watch local news, although when you watch CNN, you get a 30 second or so bit of it every 30 minutes. Local news can be worse, but all of it is the same thing. Andrew is a bit of a news hound-- he needs to watch several stations and listen to the radio (switching back and forth from Rush Limbaugh to NPR) but I hate the news.
I usually try to get up in the morning and catch up with the big stuff, and it seems that when I started the habit, there was more news and less tabloid.* Lately it seems like everything is about some poor kid being killed, or the Michael Jackson trial, or people making a federal issue about a private family medical thing.
It's really disgusting. Local news this morning featured a car accident where a little kid was hurt, a drowned little boy** (who isn't even all that local!), and an announcement of a road closure. Which thing is the actual news? The road closure. That's something people need to know. Not the private grief of a family with a loss or a play by play about someone who has clearly been messed up for years and who shouldn't have been left alone with children anyway. The rest of it is put there for people to be "looky loos" who want to see what happened.
*I admit that I started the habit partly in response to the 9/11 coverage-- for a while after that event, I just couldn't bear to not see if something else horrible had happened. Once we got around to it being less likely, the habit was developed.
**And I guess the story gets bigger play if a child is involved... which makes it even more repulsive for me.
I've been threatening promising to put up pictures of my big fat pregnant belly. This, then, is that promise fulfilled. These were taken just today out on the deck in our backyard, and other various locales around the house. Clicking the picture will get you a bigger version. (Like you really want a BIGGER version?!?
Today, while gardening (I told you before I suck at gardening. I was pulling crab grass out of my mostly low-maintenance flower bed to make it look a little bit better. I pulled up quite a few flowers accidentally too. So be it. They were in the freakin' way.) I needed something to wear that would fit my burgeoning belly and be cool but not too fancy. All I have in the way of maternity clothing is not really gardening appropriate. So I wore some of Andrew's shorts and a t-shirt.
They were quite comfy, and did the job admirably. But while weeding, I realized something interesting: I could smell the clean husband smell of the clothes. It made me feel hugged and loved and cozy.
Now, we both use the same exact laundry detergent, so why should his clothes smell any different from mine? Yet, somehow, they do. They smell like Andrew. Deep breaths of the t-shirt confirmed my feeling that I was being hugged all over by my loving boy (who was out jogging).
So, is it possible that heterosexual folks who like to dress in their opposite's clothing do it for this same reason? I've always loved wearing "boy shirts" that were owned first by the boy. If you wear them a few times, they'll still smell like said boy. After a few washes, though, they smell like you again. So is this where fetishes are born? Maybe a little.
It's not as obvious as it once was (back when my maiden name was Murphy) but I am about 1/4 to 1/2 Irish (depending on who you ask) on my Dad's side. So St. Patrick's Day was always a special holiday in my family. My mom made the Irish-American dish Corned Beef & Cabbage (with new potatoes & carrots and crusty dark pumpernickel bread). My dad converted to Lutheranism when mom & dad got married, so we didn't spend a long day at church as some folks do. In school, I always loved this day because it was one day a year when I could brag about my heritage and feel different in a good way.
I mostly grew up where there weren't a lot of Irish folks-- Louisiana being one of those places that made the biggest impact on me. There are not a lot of redheads with freckles in Louisiana. (or at least there weren't in the early seventies). Being so fair and radically different from the olive complexion and dark haired Cajuns helped make me a target, but on St. Patrick's day, I could brag about being cooler than everyone else. Cajuns love a good excuse for a party, and there I was, able to claim for myself the main reason for this day's festivities and the shamrock-laden bulletin board in our classroom. (Kids will find a reason to pick on other kids--no matter what. I know that now. But listening to my mom say they were jealous didn't ring true to me. I won't tell my kids that. I will just say the kids that pick on them are little jerks who will one day pump their gas, because they are.)
One year, I wrote a paper on how I was descended from royalty. In a way, you could say yes, because of the Murphy surname and Irish chieftanism. But in another way, probably not, in that any immigrant from Ireland risked getting re-tagged Murphy, even if that wasn't his/her name in the first place. The U.S. Irish equivalent, basically, of Smith or Jones.) But that didn't matter to a poor kid in a school where I was very low on the pecking order. When my English teacher read that essay aloud, other kids looked at me with interest, for a second at least. Till they remembered they could pick on me again, later. It was a moment of good, at least. I wish I knew more about my father's family-- since Grandpa Murphy ran off when my dad was a teen, and my dad hasn't really been a big part of my life, either, what I know is basically my mom's secondhand details. And those are pretty fuzzy. It makes me feel like calling up Dad and asking him to tell me stuff. But he's not a very big talker.... I think too many regrets shuts you up when you get older.
No one ever believes me when I say that because I'm Irish, I don't haveto wear green on St. Patrick's Day to avoid being pinched. I've tried it all my life and I still get pinched. I don't know if it's true; I'm pretty sure my mom told me this (maybe to shut me up if I didn't have anything green to wear... who knows?) So now I'm wearing a green (not the right color green, which I will remedy later today when I pop down to buy cat food and a better green shirt. I can't believe I've gotten rid of all my good green clothes!!!!) I've got Corned Beef waiting in the fridge to make a yummy dinner later tonight (I don't eat cabbage a lot but I watched Alton Brown prepare it last night on Good Eats and think I learned how to make it better. By the way-- did you know broccoli is basically a cultivated cabbage? Who knew?) Maybe some friends over to share the good stuff, but if not, more for us! There will also be this incredible bread pudding* and Black & Tans for the drinkers amongst us, and it will be fun. No green beer, though. That's NOT St. Patrick's day-- it's just another reason to make drunk people puke and get nasty green dye all over themselves (shudder).
Last night, I dreamt of cooking corned beef, searing it well, then braising it for hours. The house filling with unaccustomed smells. The crusty brown bread dipped into the juices. This morning, cool and sunny, I woke with that special feeling of knowing I have a rich cultural history filled with poets (and drunks-- is that redundant?), warriors, and regular folks alike. An ancestral gorgeous green island that I'd really love to visit someday. Some fabulous pagan goddesses to think about. And freckles and red hair to be hugely proud of. Sure, I don't tan, but wait till we're all in our sixties and see who looks better-- the tanners, or the frecklers who wore sunscreen. :)
Anyway. A long rambly post to say that wherever you are, whether there are snakes to be driven out of your life (metaphorically speaking) or just a good excuse to eat something you normally don't, or wear a color that doesn't get a lot of good press (Mr. Green Jeans aside) have a Happy St. Patrick's Day.
*If you want the recipe let me know-- I can't link to it cause it's a subscription only link. But I'll send you a copy. It's REALLY good. I don't normally like bread pudding but this stuff is heavenly.
My cocoon tightens, colors tease, I’m feeling for the air; A dim capacity for wings Degrades the dress I wear.
A power of butterfly must be The aptitude to fly, Meadows of majesty concedes And easy sweeps of sky.
So I must baffle at the hint And cipher at the sign, And make much blunder, if at last I take the clew divine. ---Emily Dickinson*
For Christmas, I got a spa package that included an hour of Swedish Massage. I've never really had a professional massage (there was the time a couple of years ago when our kooky friend the massage therapist gave us all massages for Christmas, but those were a little weird due to his having just broken up with this chick and being a little bit drunk, and I don't think they count).
Prenatal massages are a bit different. You can't, after all, lie on a tummy as glorious as this one. (Pictures will come soonish. Maybe after this weekend.) So you get all undressed and lie frontways on the table, covered in a floral sheet, with pillows under your knees, in the "mood lighting" darkness with new age music whistling flutes and waves crashing ambient noise in the background. Candles burning. Waiting for the young woman who is your massage person to come back in the room. It feels strangely like a combination of waiting for a lover and waiting for a doctor to come in for an exam. I giggled a little bit.
The therapist was very nice-- she was all excited about my tummy. The babies kicked in protest-- they always are active if I'm lying on my back. It probably squishes them or something. She thought my tummy's little Vesuvian mound was cute. I do too, actually.
She massaged me discretely-- under the sheet. Is that how they do it when you're on your tummy? Lift the sheet off of the part of the body currently being massaged? I felt a little bit like Emily Dickinson seeing her doctor. Legend has it she wouldn't let the doctor come too close, stood in the door with him across the room and said "you may examine me from there." No point in touching to make any diagnosis.... the lady was nuts. (But the nuts always write great poems.) I also have never seen a massage where the therapist was chatty. I didn't mind, but it did sort of distract me from thinking about the massage. That's about when it started to feel more like a haircut; gossipy, but still fun.
It was, I think, a great massage. Most of me was relaxed and noodle-y afterwards. My shoulders, though, which she worked on, digging her fingers into for a while, feel sore today. They felt even more sore last night while I was trying to settle down for sleep. Sort of the way I feel when I've done too many military presses with too much weight. But also a little bruised. I mentioned this to Andrew, who has never had a professional massage either, and he said "That's good, though, right?" I laughed and said "I dunno!"
So that's good, right? It means my formerly tense shoulders will be all relaxed and happy once they get used to being unknotted?
Next round in the spa day will be the European Facial. I feel a little like Samantha Brown, from Great Hotels, whose job I envy with a fervor that would surely land me in Hell for the strength of my covetousness were there any chance that I could ever be her.
*And no, the poem doesn't really have any relevance to the post. YOU try searching Dickinson for a poem about massage. I still like it, though. It's staying.
The boy who lives two houses down and across the street is steps away from manhood. Somber black shirt that hangs below his belt, untucked, deeply blue jeans (no fading there), and an old-fashioned bowler-style hat on his bushy, almost afro-like hair.
He walks slowly to the mailbox, hands in his pockets. Kicks a rock with black shoes that do not look like the tennis shoes most teens wear today. He seems to step out of one of those sepia tinted photos you often find on the walls of Italian restaurants-- here are our founders-- those photos say--Our authentic history. He has paper fair skin, dark black hair and eyes that peer out from under the hat, serious dark ink blots.
He does not stop to examine his mail before heading back up the hilly driveway and into the garage door, which he closes after himself. Private acts are not for the sidewalk, his now more brisk pace says.
This boy soon man has undoubtedly lived in this house across from mine for years. I have seen no moving truck, no car laden with new occupants. But he was, before, a child, barely there, slipping between cracks. Now, his thin shoulders under the weight of that black shirt, that black hat, anachronistically charming. Now, he draws the eye. A moment out of his Spring-Break day filled with what? Somehow, with that hat, you don't see him playing Don Madden NFL, or watching Nick. You wonder if he wears the hat indoors, or if someone makes him remove it, hang it on a hat rack (it would be a hatrack, not a hook--that hat belongs someplace formidable). Does he, before walking casually out the door into a day turned chilly Spring again, put it on, too formal for Spring, a moment out of a history book come to life?
Passing: (v) To be accepted as a member of a group by denying one's own ancestry or background. To serve as a barely acceptable substitute. Also: To gain passage despite obstacles: pass through difficult years. To move past in time; elapse: The days passed quickly.
When I was in high school, for the most part, people didn't know how poor I was. Sure, I "borrowed" 40 cents every day from David A. to buy a chocolate milk and a swiss roll for lunch (ugh!) but it wasn't because I had "forgotten" my lunch money-- it was because I had no money. I could have gotten free lunch, we were that poor, but there was this pride thing going on in my head where I refused to bring the forms home to my mom to fill out. It was stupid of me, but I was a kid. I dressed pretty well, but mostly it was because people tend to not notice outside their own worlds. I wore pretty much the same few outfits a lot. I was able to buy a few things because I worked as a cashier at K-Mart, or a busgirl at a local seafood restaurant, starting before I even was legally supposed to be working. Once, I got in trouble in band because I didn't have my band shirt-- other kids at first didn't, but called their parents to bring it to them. My mom and family couldn't bring mine to me because they were at work, and it wasn't the kind of workplace where you get a break. Other kids might have worked for a little "fun money" but most of my earnings went to support the family--paying the rent, the power bill, for some groceries. I did manage to squeeze a little now and then to buy myself a shirt or pair of pants. Basically, I "passed" as middle class so well that the people who should have known, say, my guidance counselors who could have told me I qualified for need-based grants and scholarships to go to college had no clue that I was dirt assed poor. So thanks to not looking poor, no one ever gave me a helping hand to get out of that poverty. (Thanks a lot guidance counselors-- what exactly was it that you did there, hmmm?)
Passing is usually used for color-- someone who is a light skinned black "passing" as white. It doesn't happen a whole lot nowadays; it was a lot more common during slavery, or during Jim Crow, since to pass as white gave a black person a lot more freedom. But it works for socio-economic class, too.
I was in a college class in my undgrad years and this professor, who taught 19th Century American Lit-- Walt Whitman, Thoreau-- was inspired one day by reading a book by Dorothy Allison called Skin. In it, Allison, who is a college professor and theorist of class studies now, who also wrote Bastard Out of Carolina (and she is no longer poor, so a "class rider" too) discusses (among other things) her upbringing. Apparently this was revolutionary to the watery-eyed prof wearing khaki Dockers and button down shirts, who got emotional over "Leaves of Grass" and Ginsberg poetry. He wanted to discuss this text as a way of, I guess, enlightening his clueless students. Here he'd had a revelation and it was important to pass it on. I was mostly with him, a little embarrassed by the title of the book and the brash, blond woman on the cover-- no one I knew ever bragged about being Trashy-- until he said "Cause let's face it, we're all middle class here"-- effectively wiping out my entire childhood of crappy low-rent slum houses, walls covered in mildew, ovens giving a shock every time you touch them cause they're not grounded properly, still rent barely paid for, the power turned off, picking up soda bottles to get the 5 cent deposit back and buy food with it. It was the first time I ever actually wanted to NOT pass, to claim my own history. My hand shot up and I argued with him. One other student in the class, this bohemian type who had a little soul patch and liked to carry a special cloth-bound hardcover of Walden around with him, also said later that he was not middle-class, but I don't really remember him arguing with the professor. He kept fairly silent-- I was the trashy one who got loud and argued. The professor hemmed and hawed-- "well" he said "getting a college education basically equalizes us to middle class." As if that was a good excuse for his thoughtless comment. And yes, I was no longer poor-- partly because I figured out about Pell Grants on my own, went to college for two years on them, and partly from marrying Andrew, but that's beside the point. You don't erase someone's entire history because you don't share it, and you assume you know them because of where they are NOW.
There is a school of theory in academia called "White Trash" studies (because they see the inherent racism in the phrase white trash, some people call it working class, but there really is a big distinction between the terms-- which you can learn if you study the history). The first time I ever really heard about it was at a conference in California in graduate school where this professor gave a speech called "Horatio Alger was a Lying SOB"-- about her own class change when she went from a working class family to a professorship-- the class jump may have happened, went part of the speech, but inside, she didn't really fit in with her peers in college (only something like 1% of college graduates come from this background) and still felt some affinity with what she grew up and some awkwardness, as well, with the family she had left behind. As I think all of us "class jumpers" do. I don't mean class-jumpers like the idea of "gold-diggers" who use sex & beauty to marry well. (And that was one of the reasons I was pissed at what Professor Clueless was saying because I felt like I was being called a gold digger, a little). But people who, through talent and hard work, shift themselves out of poverty and into a different socio-economic class. But they still sometimes feel a little out of place.
Hearing her speech was, for me, like that song "Killing Me Softly"-- as I heard her speak, it seemed like she was talking about my life and it actually made me want to cry, to run away, to jump up and yell out my similarities. My face was hot, my stomach in knots. The awkwardness I felt in academic circles because I grew up the way I did (homeless for a while, always being evicted, food stamps, poverty) and the awkwardness I now sometimes felt around the working class roots I had because things were so different now. Of course, there is a huge difference in "working class" in the South where there are no union jobs, no jobs at manufacturing plants. You're a single mother-- you're a waitress or bartender, living off of tips, no insurance, no breaks, no vacations, barely any days off. At that same conference, this weirdo freak guy was giving a speech at lunch where he talked of how wonderfully radical his art was in trying to help the maquiladoras in Mexico, but when I asked him a question about unions in the US for low-wage workers like waitresses, he said "So What?!" I really wanted to smack that guy. He was so self-righteous about how he was "helping those the U.S. system oppressed" but he had no clue about people in the U.S. who are, in some ways, worse off.
Anyway. It's still weird for me sometimes. I know where I come from, and sometimes I write stories about it. I also feel weird when someone mentions how "poor" they were in college cause they had to eat macaroni and cheese since they spent the money their parents sent them on a new Mac, or tickets to see Phish. I'm not mocking the tight times college students have, but they are often self-imposed, and if you've ever had "bank of mom and dad" bail you out, you weren't dirt-assed poor. Cause in my family, there was no bank of mom and dad. I always feel like these folks may have had tight times; I'm not arguing that. But did they ever go days without eating? (Not eating something a little less tasty than they'd like-- literally NO FOOD in the house?) I don't want to erase the rough times other people had. I don't assume that just because someone is sitting next to me now, they have always been able to afford the privilege of paying money to sit in a classroom.
All of those definitions of "passing" above sort of fit me. It's something that is always kind of with me, and it's weird because my kids will not (barring very bad things, knock on wood) go through such a life. So it's a little like being an immigrant-- our kids will not really share the first-hand knowledge of where we came from-- they will be stories mom or dad told but not real, kind of annoying that mom or dad still insists on harping about what was so long ago....
But sometimes I think about where I came from, and I really want to smack someone who assumes too much about our "shared" history cause of who I am now. When I first married Andrew, some chick who was a fellow "Officer's Wife" asked me "what sorority did you belong to?" and looked disturbed by me saying none (I couldn't afford it-- not that I'm against them).
I know. Wanting to smack her was really trashy of me. So be it.
In spite of them calling it a domestic science, we knew when we signed up in junior high that Home Ec was a girl's course, nothing at all like science or math. Nothing to do with it. Boring, giggling, girls making cakes and learning to sew. Very few boys would sign up, preferring instead shop, or weight lifting. When we got to baking, the kitchens set up on the opposite side of the classroom were clean, shiny, unused.
Bananas go old and bruised so fast. Nothing to do with them but make baked goods or throw them out. You find this recipe, decide to wait till a break in studying, in writing about how the domestic in contemporary fiction is a political act of reclaiming power for women, to cook these with the old bananas that are lying brown and fragrant in the wire stainless steel basket next to the sink. You grab flour, oats, from the newly organized clean pantry. Baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda, salt from the cabinet, newly re-painted white by the annoying handyman who would never leave.
Assembled on countertop. You find the stainless steel measuring cups, measuring spoon. Leave the butter to soften a little, grab the bananas, measure out one banana to equal 1/2 cup. You remember the time you got into an argument with a college professor about how a cookbook could be considered technical writing. He swore for a short moment "no" but you reminded him that in writing the cookbook, it would be crucial to distinguish between 1 cup and 1 pound. When to cut in the cold butter to the flour. Whether it made a difference if the butter was salted or unsalted, or whether you melted it first. You know you were right; he agreed with you eventually. You start the oven warming, and think about women over centuries baking, knowing you have it so easy-- not having to worry about cold spots, or chopping wood, or stoking fire. Just press a button a few times to the digital beeping of your double oven's controls. The room starts to become slightly warmer, pleasantly so.
You are pleased with yourself because, remembering that most scone recipes require buttermilk, you bought a small quart of it the other day at the store. All your artistic supplies are ready to go and you begin measuring, precise at times, slightly over-abundant on the Ghiradelli chocolate chips (which you taste a handful of, their deep dark chocolate resting on your tounge as you stir the batter moist). The bananas and buttermilk make a lovely off-white mush that smells wonderful; you almost want to eat it raw. You think of the pot of tea you will brew with your scones; chai spice, with warm milk.
You feel like a character out of Like Water for Chocolate, or Chocolat, and you blend love and a hope for the future into your mixture. You visualize shining freckled faces waiting for bites of warm pastry in a future not so far off. Their hands will reach happily, freshly washed and pink, for the plates and glass of milk to accompany the fresh from the oven delights. There will be no salty tears mixed into the batter, but there will be the care of taking a few moments to mix flour with liquids. You're absurdly happy with the scone pan and cutting tool you bought at Williams Sonoma-- they make the process soooo much easier, and the product comes out looking evenly triangular and perfectly dense.
It takes you about half the recipe's cook time to clean up-- make cutting board fresh, place spoons and bowls in the dishwasher. The other half of time you spend writing and thinking of that class of girls, giggling over books that said you must consider the color arrangement of your food on the plate, making it visually appealing as well as tasty. The room fills with the smell of banana and oat and flour, and the oven calls you back with rapid beeps as the timer ends its countdown of minutes.
You think of Alice Walker's gardens,* and the women who could not take a few moments to write, instead practicing this art of the kitchen, art of love, art that grew bodies and hopes and dreams. No. It's not a science, although it has its scientific moments. Not really. But art? Yes.
You go to the kitchen where your scones wait, and brew your tea. A few moments of the day to rest and participate in the tradition of generations of women past. They stand with you as you enjoy the fruit of your art.
**********
*"In Search of Our Mother's Gardens"-- a wonderful essay on what black women who were artists did when the desire to create warred with their reality of having to work for others, as well as their own homes. Creating beautiful food, quilts, gardens as an expression of the same urges as the privledged (usually men, but sometimes women) could fulfill with what society regularly calls "art."
And the lawnmowers are buzzing, fat, gasoline-perfumed bees, harvesting the week's growth noisily. Up early, we have eggs, and biscuits and sausage-spiked country gravy with lots of black pepper. Half of one of the big sweet navel oranges each, sticky and sliced into quarters; espresso for him and Earl Grey decaf with milk for me. We watch the news and discuss how the world is turning into a Phillip K. Dick novel a little bit at a time.
No plans stretch out in front of me.
The hubby has to go to work, to slog away at a curriculum design for teaching fresh young wet-behind-the-ear aviators about electronic stuff while the young aviators*, newly out of college and believing they are the smartest, best-looking, most intelligent people to ever grace the world with their presence preen about like young roosters clucking over themselves. Not knowing they could be next week's fryer.
When he tells me about these students and their arrogance, I think back to my days as a young woman in Pensacola, where there are dozens of crops of these young aviators every year, all buying the same sports car and putting the same vanity license plate on it (it'll say "AV-8-OR" or some derivative). All believing in their own right to rule the world. And some girls selling that belief to them on the odd chance they'll take them with. And how I ignored those boys until I found one driving a beat up old rust-red truck with a door handle that didn't work and the strong belief that he might, at any time, end up back in Texas working on an MBA for job he didn't like doing............
Sunday blogging is quiet-- few people read and/or comment on the weekend. Blogging is most likely the province of people in cubicles during the week, who are taking a moment's respite from some TPS report to check in to what others are doing. Sunday and the sun shining means antiquing in a small town with elevated prices for someone's old junk. Sitting in a park watching people throw frisbees to dogs with a bandana around their neck. Crowding the Best Buy to see if the CD or computer game you've been wanting is out yet. Lining up at Starbuck's for slightly bitter coffee and dry scones. I look forward to doing absolutely none of those things. It's a great thought.
What did people do on Sunday in the past (other than church; I got that one.)? Before shopping malls, before cars could drag you hundreds of miles to other cities to go to old-fashioned, dustier shopping malls and the anticipation of finding a treasure some yokel doesn't realize is a golden egg? I guess there was church to get ready for, and breakfast, and sitting in a big room with a lot of other people, holding church bulletins and singing, shaking hands with the preacher who stands in the dust-dappled sun at the edge of the door, the last hurdle to jump.....and then lunch afterwards, and then sitting in a rocking chair or a swing on a porch or in a back yard, maybe with a glass of iced tea or lemonade, lulled into almost naptime by good food and contemplation, maybe a little gossip about someone from that church, and then belly laughs and smiles as the baby finds a dandelion in the yard and eats it. At least it wasn't the black bug trundling along the porch, importantly. And then dinner to cook and then later some reading or knitting by a lamp and laughing as the baby finds a piece of fluff on the floor and eats it. Scooping the baby up, wiggly, for a bath and powder and last dinner and kisses. Then getting ready for bed and Monday morning where someone did not go to a cubicle but did what? Worked in an office without cubicles, but without air conditioning too.
There are good things to be said about either practice. I like a day full of nothing ahead. Potential, possibilities. The neighborhood filled with the droning of those lawn mowers. And my yard, laden with weeds and scruffy, me pretending not to notice the wilderness of grass and flowers, at least for one more day.
It's Sunday.
*How many aviators does it take to change a lightbulb? Only one-- he holds the lightbulb, and the world revolves around him.
So, it's a lovely Spring Saturday. Right now it's a teeny bit on the cool side (at 58 degrees, according to faithful little Weatherbug), but it should warm up this afternoon into the low 80s. Blue skies, puffy clouds floating about as if to say "Now, what was it I was doing before? I know I meant to do something...." while the other clouds tease "oh, there goes Eddie, again, on about doing stuff. Just float, Ed. Float."
Andrew is working. I'm on my own and have cleaned up after last night's deck-warming gathering. (Not really a party, no, but a gathering.) So my decisions for what to do today range. Usually, I take weekends "off" from dissertation work. I allow myself to lollygag, somewhat like Eddie the cloud ought to be doing. But somewhat like Eddie, this morning, I feel compelled to do something productive. I could get all showered and dressed and wander down to the deck furniture shop to see if they have what we've generally outlined as wanting for our new big deck. :) Or I could write on the dissertation some.
I'm not generally feeling that inspired and scholarly today. I feel more on the float-y side. But then, a little guilty. (But also, guilt is the common state for the graduate student. Catholics got nothin' on an ABD who has taken several years past her self-imposed deadline for being done).
Besides, the cat doesn't want me on the computer. She keeps meowing petulantly and clawing at my chair. Who am I to argue with that kind of logic?
Last year did not count as far as this post goes. But most years, I get inspired at this time of the year to do "container gardening" on my deck. This year, thanks to the deck-project-that-never-seemed-to-end, the deck is about 3 times bigger than usual. We plan some landscaping in the yard to go with the new giant deck (Andrew needs a pin that says "Ask me about my big deck"). But there's this big empty space down at the end of it that needs:
Yep. You guessed it: container gardening plants.
The trouble is, it's easy at this time of the year. If you forget to water the many planters one day, they don't all instantly die. In Texas, in the heat of summer to come (late May will start it off) if you forget to water your container plants, they will croak and turn dried in what seems like a matter of hours. And usually, my enthusiasm for planting stuff will have waned a bit around late May. I'll have gotten complacent, and, shall we dare say, lazy?
As I said, last year I didn't bother. There was no particular reason, but the deck stayed fairly empty of pretty flowering planted pots. I think maybe it was because Andrew was gone and I spent many of my weekends visiting him up in La.
But this year. This year is different. (Or so the flowers have assured me).
Today, I had to go the nursery for some fertilizer plus weed killer for our lawn. Ah, suburbia!! We have this lovely weed called by the lady at the nursery "velcro." It does stick to anything it touches, and it's growing very well. I wish that roses would grow like that! At the nursery, lined up in happy little bunches, were yellow and red and pink and purple flowers, nodding their heads at me. They agreed that this year I would nurture them. This year, with my newfound motherly hormones, I couldn't let them down. A gorgeous lava orange hibuscus made its way into my basket, and some rosemary sculpted ever so cleverly into a tree shape joined it. Some yellow daisy flowers, some white something or other. Some mint, and a few other things.
They all happily consented to the idea that THIS YEAR I would have a lovely container garden resting at the back of the deck, drawing the eye there, de-emphasizing the huge expanse of Andrew's Big Deck that currently has nothing on it*. Making the deck and backyard look cozy again. Welcoming.
But you know, I have the sneaky suspicion that flowers are not very smart. All that flower head-nodding was very lulling to my sense that I have not only a black thumb but many black, plant-killing fingers. Nothing on these ten digits typing away looks remotely "Green". Those flowers convinced me, and it's on their little flowery heads when May rolls around and the hose stays coiled like a pale green snake on the lawn, so close but yet so far.
*Hey. Get your mind out of the gutter. Besides, I've been really tired. You try feeling sexy when you have a wiggling watermelon stuck to your midsection. :)
There was a girl in Paris Whom he sent a letter 2 Hoping she would answer back Now wasn't that a fool Hardy notion on the part of a Sometimes lonely musician Acting out a whim is only good 4 a condition of the heart. Prince-- Condition of the Heart
I found out last night that a friend of mine from high school died last Saturday. She was my age-- 35. She didn't have any kids of her own, but was a step mom, so there's a fifteen year old out there who has to deal with that loss.
I met Julie and the other girls in this post when we were about fifteen--girls in band with a lot of dreams and crushes on boys who never noticed us.
Julie had some sort of heart condition, apparently, and had a massive heart attack. It's terribly sad to hear something like this. I graduated in a fairly large class of kids at a pretty big school (I think we were 4A). So I'm sure that over the almost 15 years since graduation there have been other deaths that I haven't heard about, but Julie was a friend who I guess I always thought I'd see again in casual situations. The 20 year reunion maybe (if I go.) Someday when we're old and grey-haired old ladies comparing grandkid photos and laughing over the eyeshadow we were wearing in our senior photos.
I've been quite practical about it-- you know, if you have a congenital heart defect of some sort, age doesn't really have anything to do with your life-span. 18 year old great athletes sometimes keel over on the court from their heart just failing. It happens. But I do still keep thinking about the smiling girl I knew, who had a little brown mole on her face (I can't remember exactly where. I wish I had a picture, but my yearbooks are all lost to a flood in a bad storage shed long ago). I keep seeing her in the stands during the football games we were always forced to attend (as marching band members) but weren't forced to watch (as clarinet players.) Highlighted by the ultra bright lights of football stadiums. Always smiling.
We were all in band, clarinet players. Julie was one of the girls who practiced, and was as a result much higher ranked than me (I never practiced... lazy, good-for-nuthin' kids these days). Julie was blonde, with a curly short haircut, and very blue, sincere eyes. She had a little thing with her front teeth-- I can't remember now if it was a gap or just one of those slightly off-line things-- but it was very cute. I remember her teeth seeming so white compared to her skin tone--she was one of those Florida blondes that had such white blonde hair but could tan well. Tall, thin, and always very sweet. She was part of a group of friends that were my band friends-- Sandy, Jill, Julie, sometimes Karon (who was younger, and not a clarinet player). We would always line up next to each other when it didn't matter (most times it did-- if you're marching in formation, you have to go to "your spot.") But in parades, or informal things, we could stand together. Clusters of girls in red-toy-soldier uniforms. Our band, the Fort Walton Beach "Mighty Vikings," wore those hot in summer, cold in winter red toy-soldier-like uniforms with white criss-crossed belts, with a black "cowboy style" hat and a long white ostrich plume out the back. I remember I stole one of the plumes my senior year, stuck it under my jacket. I just wanted one. They smelled unaccountably like maple syrup.
The hats always crushed our late 80s hair dos, no matter how much grape-scented Aussie scrunch spray we put on it. We would say "How does my hair look" and squint at each other. Then, smart-assedly, we would begin to describe it: "Curly, blonde, about this short, on top of your head"..... We knew it looked hat-crushed and sweaty.
I saw Julie at the 10 year HS reunion back in 1998. I had just finished my MA, was thin, wearing my cute purple silk suit; I felt accomplished and happy (except when some chick I didn't know very well called me by the name of my arch rival.... aaaaaaigh! and Bill S. thought I was married to my high school evil ex!). But Andrew was there, looking as gorgeous as ever, and so tall. It was interesting to be back in Florida, meeting again these people who we spent so much time with when we were young. Some of them I didn't really want to see (they were just as mean as they'd been back then, picking on poor Mandy M., again).
My best friend J and her not-yet-then-but-now-husband C were there too. J's "chorus friends" weren't really turned out at the reunion, but I had a bunch of the band friends there and so they attached to our "band geek" group. Poor things. The band geek vibe can cause serious damage to those who aren't ready for it. :) We all sat at a big round table with Julie, Sandy, their husbands, as well as trombone player and happy new mom Cathy M, (whose husband wasn't there). There was a lot of laughing, and remembering. I think we asked each other how our hair looked, smiling.
Julie worked in middle-management for Kentucky Fried Chicken. She seemed really happy. Both Sandy & Julie lived in Florida, still, and I think they kept in pretty close contact. It was Sandy who let me know, through Jill, that Julie had died. The email news crept along, and she's been gone almost a week before I knew.
It made me wonder a bit, who else? I really did keep in touch with the people who were closest to me in high school. I wasn't a popular kid, but I had plenty of casual friends, people I had looked forward to seeing at the reunion (but most of them weren't there). But who out there of the casual friends I had hoped to see again, hoped to have a nice simple chat with at gatherings like this in the future, is gone? Irreplaceable? Leaving behind families, or hot and bright like gunpowder lit and smoky?
Jill said, in her email, that she was a little freaked out by it all. Jill, who has five kids and a smiling husband in her pictures. Two little girls who absolutely look just like the girl I met when we were both new to the junior high school, sitting in band. Jill, who was the first person I ever heard say the word "Killer" as an adjective. as in: That's killer! Ah, the eighties!
I wanted to write something about Julie that would be poignant, but I find that I mostly have to write about all of us. Those fifteen-year-old girls who would yell out at football games the name of the football player boy I had a crush on, and then when he turned to look, point at me. The trips on a schoolbus at night after a late game, napping with our heads on the seat in front of us.
Mostly I remember a lot of smiles from a girl who had a great heart, no matter what the evidence ultimately proves.
When you walk in, the air seems different: comforting. Just the act of opening the door and going through the rooms, checking lights, looking to make sure nothing weird happened while you were gone is restful. You drag your luggage to its final resting place-- after it has been your lifeline for days of air travel, it's now abandoned to sit forlorn in a corner of your room till you get around to unpacking it. The cat comes out, rolls on the carpet, stretching to her full length and meowing her approval of your return. Moments later, she'll turn coy and pretend to be mad, or that she didn't notice you were gone in the first place. You check messages on the voice mail, glad that none of them are really important. Put on a pot of hot water for a cup of decaf Earl Grey tea, grab a couple of shortbread cookies and sit on the comfortable beige and tan couch in the front living room-- the room that has two big garden windows that look out onto your wildly growing garden. It's a little weedy, but the purple and white lantanas are blooming heartily with all the rain and there are butterflies touching down, resting wings in the new Spring sunlight. Lizards perch on top of the tall monkey grass, flex a neck gland bright orange, dart away before the mockingbirds take note.
You gaze at the purple glass beehive shaped hummingbird feeder, note that it needs a fresh batch of hummingbird elixer-- but then, few hummingbirds in Texas at this time of the year. The tea cools to the right temperature, and you slip your shoes off, resting on the soft cushions of the couch. The room, surrounded in the green of the outside trees and the diffused sunlight from the overhead skylight welcomes you.
The cat, having been fed while the tea was steaming, now comes from her dish and cleans first one paw, then the other, alternately scowling and looking lovingly at you. She rolls a few times on the Oriental rug, its gold and rust flowered tones setting off her black fur as she sits, regal. Green eyes squint at you, and you invite her to come for ear scratches and apologies for time away.
After the tea, which was decaf, you notice that perhaps a nap would be in order. The cat has already left for the bedroom; you find her curled up on the red silk comforter, looking at you as though you're late. You push her to the side and pull the blanket back, scrunching your faux feather pillow (cause it's hypoallergenic and you get a rash from goose down anymore) into its proper neck supporting shape. The cat curls up in the crook of your right arm and you fall into comfortable, home naptime.
All the irritations of days of lines, grumpy people cutting in front of you, public bathrooms with no paper towels, fasten your seatbelts, please have your ticket ready, too hot espresso, fattening muffins eaten while striding as fast as possible between gates. All of those things are gone, and the muscles of your back relax. The husband will come in later, kick his shoes off, kiss you hello and lie down for a nap next to you while you sleepily curl up into a ball next to him. The cat will abandon you and go to his side of the bed for more ear scratching. Later you will make dinner, or go see friends. Later you will unpack your bags and distribute souvenirs-- a shot glass, a special book bought on the street. But for now, you are simply....
Can you list movies (or TV) where you've seen a strong, assertive woman (she doesn't have to be identified as a feminist, although it helps) who is portrayed as being either an ambivalent, bad, or even hostile to cooking cook? What about a bad housekeeper? (As if to say you can't be a feminist and a good cook/housekeeper).
The best example I can think of is like Bette Midler's character is before-the-brain-flush in the newer Stepford Wives. I know I've seen tons of movies showing what would be called a "feminist" in a movie burning stuff in the kitchen, or faking it with takeout, or something similar. One or two names of movies would help. I need a memory jog, basically, and would appreciate any input you might have. (I'm making a claim in my dissertation about this)...
So far I have: The Stepford Wives (1975 & 2004); Sex and the City (1998-2004); Always (1989); Roseanne (1988-1997); She-Devil (1989); Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991); The Abyss (1989); Bridget Jones’ Diary (2001); Passion Fish (1992); Dr. T and the Women (2000); Joe Millionaire (2003);
That was in one of those jokey "forwards" I got this morning. It seems a valid question.
I went to a doctor's appointment as part of the twin study I'm participating in; they needed to measure my cervix. So it was a hoot-- a "special" kind of sonogram where the technician really should buy you dinner first. And maybe flowers the next day. :)
But while I was sitting in the waiting room, I thought about waiting. This particular doctor's office was very nice-- the chairs were all quite comfy, and larger than lots of doctor's chairs-- cause, you know, pregnant women. There were four wood and brown leather rockers, and two sage green soft faux suede ones (I was in one of those, and it wiggled a bit when I went to waddle my way to an "upright" position). The room was decorated in soft quilts and dried flowers on one side and on the other side, this bizarre collection of statuettes of doctors arranged in a small well-lit china/display case. One of the statues showed a skinny woman lying with her head up on a table, the doctor looming over her holding a baby (newly delivered, I presume) by its feet. All the figures were very thin-- kind of folk art like, and painted in a whitewash sort of paint. It just seemed strange. There was also one of a clown/snowman doctor, holding an oxygen tank. Perhaps it's just my phobia of clowns, brought on by a youthful reading of Stephen King's IT,* but that just sorta creeped me out.
After sitting in the waiting room for a while, this group of three folks (baby mamma, baby daddy, and baby gramma) came in. They spread out over the room, almost as though they were trying to pretend they "weren't" together. Basically, you know how some people take up more space than others? These three did. They energetically rocked their rocking chairs, squeaky clunk. They didn't talk too much, and they were reasonably volumed, but then the baby gramma offered up, after a lengthy spell of digging in her purse, gum to her partners in rocking. They rustled the wrapper for a while then chewed, smacking noisily. The baby gramma (who was probably in her fifties-- not a white haired lady you could picture making cookies but someone you'd expect to see fingering fabric at a wholesale shop, asking if she could get half off cause a button was missing) at one point made happy moaning sounds. I tell you, that gum must have had crack in it or something. I don't think gum has actually ever made me moan in pleasure. It's gum. But maybe I just don't have the right sort of gum.
I was so happy when they left to go do their thing. I assume they were getting a sonogram, and everyone wanted to see young baby do its little hustle. But the waiting room quieted down after they left. So I was pretty content till I was called for my special "date." .....except for that clown/snowman doctor statue. It kept eyeballing me.
*And really. Who ISN'T a little creeped out by clowns?, even if you've never read that book to learn what their secret is. Remind me to tell you sometime about my friend J and I and the clowns and touch lamps.... it's a vewy scawy stowy. (that last is in Elmer Fudd speak.... you got it).
When I wrote my MA thesis, I developed a bit of carpal tunnel syndrome. It isn't too bad most of the time-- I usually find it bothering me when I've done too much video gaming-- the "mouse click" hand gets sore.
Pregnant women apparently find an increased tendency to be bothered by it, too.
Writing my dissertation the last few weeks has caused my left hand's carpal tunnel to begin to flare up. Lucky me, I'm struggling today to write with a really really sore left arm, which I expect to only get worse. I can't "put it off" till the pain goes away. I have thing that are supposed to combat CTS-- the comfy wrist wrest, the chair at the right height. Etc. etc.
Crap. Maybe if I'm really lucky, some other situation which will add to the stress of trying to finish this thing will turn up. It reminds me a little of the moment in My Cousin Vinnie where after Marissa Tomei's character has yelled at Pesci's about her biological clock ticking away, he says something about adding another important thing to the outcome of this case.... and I don't even have a cool tux to wear to my future dissertation defense. :)
I don't really have "weekends" the way people who work at a "real job" do. Pretty much every day I should work--it's grad student guilt and actually, this weekend, I did work both Sat & Sunday. But because Andrew goes back to work on Monday, I still get the benefit of the Monday blues; getting up earlier, breakfast, then off to scurry about importantly doing things. Andrew, who has what I call "Rabbit-y" tendencies (after Rabbit in Winnie the Pooh, who always had VERY IMPORTANT THINGS to do) was very Rabbit-y this morning. It was 8:30, he wasn't getting an answer at the bank or this other call he was trying to make, and he was very impatient. It's cute.
But what makes this more than just a silly observation mundane blah point is that I was actually sort of trying to sleep in this morning. We drove back from Shreveport last night and a 7 hour drive wears me out nowadays-- it's hard work just sitting in a car that long when you weigh as much more as I do now (I won't tell you an actual weight... that would start the advice flowing and I'm not in the mood). Andrew came in the bedroom, the cat meowed her disapproval at him. This in itself would not normally have caused me to wake up. But I stirred a bit on that borderland between awake and asleep. At that moment, Sean, the baby that lives right under my bellybutton (Maia lives lower in the ab area) moved in such a way that it literally felt like someone had gently put a palm-open hand on my stomach. Just a pat. But it didn't really feel like it was from inside, and it was sort of startling. I had to open my eyes to see if someone was standing there touching my belly. He did it twice. I think he was hungry-- "Get Up MOM We want Raisin Bran!!"
But now, I got stuff to do. Agenda: read more articles for dissertation. Try to write a bit (I've been put off my stride again by comments from the muckety mucks. It happens. It's not a big deal). Do some errands. Go get lunch someplace cool (maybe the Greek place.) Annoy my cat. Be poked at various intervals by the banana twins. (I guess they're bigger than a banana now. Maybe plantain sized.)
So that's my general Monday plans...I hope you all have a productive day or a non-productive day, whichever is highest ranked on your to-do list.
