Blowing Chunks and Other Nice Things

A confession: I washed my hair this morning, swept it into a ponytail, and now, at 7:35 (it feels like 9 at least), it's still not brushed. That's due to my house-boundedness; Bea blew chunks (tossed her cookies, puked, etc.) last night at some point (she apparently slept through the ordeal and I didn't realize until after breakfast that she reeked). . .and I spent a day enjoying the sunshine flooding our playroom, Dr. Suess, laundry, stroking the back of a very tired little girl. . . .

I'm trying to figure out when I will get my column written this week, when I will be able to drive out and interview someone, when I will actually brush my hair. And so it goes.

Here's a funny bit: Martin was playing tea party with Bea. She set a tiny green and pink pot to boil on her pretend stove, held up two fingers, drew together her little eyebrows, and warned Martin: "It's HOT. You touch, you dead."

I have warned the children of the possibility of death in other circumstances, but never have I been quite that dire about the kettle. Losing fingers, hands, and other various body parts, eye skewering, "big owies that will make you cry and cry--" those I hold out as possibilities fairly often. As my Dad says, Hell is the place where everything your mother warned would happen to you, finally does. Think about it. Your eyes would get stuck crossed, you would trip over your lower lip, your hands would get consumed by snakes when you stuck them down a hole, a dog would rip you to shreds because you teased him, you'd get flattened by numerous cars, you'd trip about a thousand times over your shoelaces, fall down the stairs, cut your fingers off with the paring knife, your hair would get so tangled you'd have to cut it all off, your teeth would fall out from lack of flossing, even rot right out of your head because you ate that JubeJube. . .the possibilities are endless, varied, and truly horrible. Good thing I listened to my mother.

The Muse and the Fool

Tonight I am bundled up in a blanket, huddling in a detrimental posture over the keyboard while Martin makes tea. I thought maybe he'd like to take advantage of the new disc of Glee I received in a cheery red Netflix envelope. But no, he wants to be a writer and huddle in a detrimental posture in bed and type away on his laptop. I can't complain too loudly because a. I respect his tete a tete with the muse, though, geez, she is really hanging around lately; and b. I do love the man, and c. I'm also supposed to be a writer. But I like to veg once and a while and turn in my brain for an evening with the hot man in the baggy grey sweatpants and slippers. Is that so wrong?

Last week, Martin's muse put on her own slippers, cozied into a flannel robe, and got so comfortable she would not leave. I respect her but I don't always like her. For instance, last Thursday night I was so fried that I could not figure out where my father was. I'd just received a e-mail from him that read, "It's Thursday night in Santa Cruz. . ." which, by the way, would be an excellent first line in a short story, if I had any idea where in the world it was. I typed into the old Googler: "Santa Cruz." Pages of California. Now, my Dad doesn't hang in places like California--more likely he'll be in Haiti or Cambodia (I thought he was in the latter, but I knew for sure S. Cruz was NOT in Asia). So then I typed in: "Santa Cruz not California." How stupid is that? And came up with--surprise, surprise! More sunshine state. FINALLY I figured out where he was. Do YOU know? It starts with a B and it's in South America. Bingo! (It's not actually "Bingo." There is no such place).

Anyway, I thought this whole cyberspace journey was hee-larious and I tried to tell Martin, but he was going like gangbusters with his poem and muttered, "I'm not listening to you. I'm writing," after which I gave up, put on headphones, and watched some BBC and laughed so much that Martin's Muse went all in a huff and dragged him out into the hallway where he continued typing on his knees.

Go, Martin! Muse, stupid Muse. You know what they say: Dead fish and Muses began to stink after two days.

Friday found me very down-in-the-dumps. The autumn is always terribly busy, and though I start the semester bright-eyed and full of hope, vim, and vigor for my career, my triumphant life as a mother of three who also writes and bakes and cooks and skims through it all as if I am on some kind of spiritual and emotional speed, I get a bit bedraggled toward November. So I dragged my sorry self over to my friend, Sally's house, where I melted into a puddle and said, not in a fit of melodrama, as it might appear, but it a moment where I expressed the exact emotion I felt at that point in time: My life is so unexciting. There's nothing to look forward to. My mother would have thrown back her head and laughed uproariously. Sally did laugh, out of sympathy, and warmed me up by her very presence and understanding, and then she made me sweat on her treadmill, made me a really good salad, and took Elspeth for the afternoon so I could write. My friend Tonya fed me tea and gingersnaps that afternoon by a roaring fire and then we hung out with Sally and her husband Kevin, who came over wearing the single most ugly boutonniere I have ever seen. It was a cactus flower, a lily, and a fake autumn leaf wrapped up in green floral tape. It was utterly hideous. And an excellent conversation piece.

At the end of the day I felt like a new person. I mused over it all that night: I had received no particularly good news about my writing that week; I'd spent much of my time with children; I'd lost my temper more than once; I'd cried more than once; I'd written one, and I fear, rather mediocre, short story and mopped various runny noses--and I felt so good. I'd been loved, and loved, and loved again, by people who will love me whether I succeed or not. I'd been showered in crazy, openhearted love--it was just raining down on me and I was soaked to the skin. Some days when I am really a fool this doesn't feel like enough--I sit in self-induced misery, waiting for my better future, for the next good thing. But always, this life of mine is more, and more and more than I deserve, and I feel richer than a queen.

Happy Birthday to My Mother

What do you loony Facebook folks call this--a status update? Well, here's one for you: the new column is available now online on the Observer-Reporter; I'm listening to The Weepies Little Bird; I just ate, easily, a third of a loaf of homemade bread. . .and,

most importantly, it's MY MOTHER'S BIRTHDAY! Those of you who know this woman who loves the ocean and travelling and her grandchildren and good, thick books and new words (poplollies), this woman who gets lost and bungles idioms and laughs the whole time, who uses words like 'pure magic' and gets away with it--please wish her many happy returns of her day! I've been approached by Melancholy a few times today, Mama, who wanted me to be sad that I'm so far away from you on this day, but I explained you were never good friends with him and I wouldn't invite him to stay for tea. I have good people to drink tea with me, my own small family here, and isn't that what you always taught us? To acknowledge sadness but stride on into joy. Be brave, Kimberly, and so I try to be. As I was watching Elspeth and Bea dance in the living room this evening, I thought of the many times you watched me dance when I was a little girl. I felt, in your gaze, the love of warm oceans, bottomless and stretching forever. Many happy returns, Mommy.

November's Icy

Outside, the clouds are banking thickly into a wall. The wind that swept across the country days ago stripped the trees on the mountain outside my window bare, and now they're dark against the sky's white pile, like bristles on a scrubbing brush. One of our aspen trees still clings to a dozen dry yellow leaves; a single bird flies low through a brown forest of brittle cosmos and a black cat picks her way through delicately on white paws down the forlorn path littered with tomatoes never picked.

Merry came in the door steaming yesterday: "The neighbors cut down their pear tree!" she said, her eyes large and angry. "They cut down a living thing." I suddenly realized why their front yard looked so vacant and swept--they'd been talking about cutting their rather gangly, heavily-producing tree down for the past year, but I never really believed they would. A lone yellow pear lies in the gutter in front of their house. Merry and Martin gathered the only fruit that was ever enjoyed from their tree--the neighbors grumpily loaded every pear in black trash bags and dumped them behind their house in a tangle of brush. Now the road lies bare and grey to our right; we can see cars coming for a good half-mile, and the last of our pear-sauce freezes in the downstairs ice-chest. All because of a great lack of imagination on our neighbor's part, because their pears did not taste like the soft, plastic-wrapped fruit in the styrofoam containers at the grocery store.

But here in my little make-shift office, one geranium blossom opens toward the muted sunlight, ten petals, like the swirling skirt of a dancer. I saved the geranium from three days of frost; it will bring me much joy throughout the coming sleet and snow, which, by the by, apparently starts tomorrow. A pear tree lost; a geranium saved. And so October passed and here comes November's icy winds.

It's Bad for You

Elspeth and her friend, Ben, played all afternoon. Mostly they play "Mommy and Daddy," towing stuffed animals and dolls around in various baskets and cooking food. Elspeth puncuates these games with interesting diversions, such as changing her clothes, pulling her arms into her dress and making her head disappear. I try to keep half an eye on them, since Elspeth is crazy enough to lead even a level-headed boy like Ben astray. One day a few weeks ago I found a pumpkin in the play kitchen alongside orange fragments, a butter knife, and my huge, Wustof Chef's knife. "I told Elspeth not to do it," Ben said. There was the period in which they liked to mix real soups with unooked pasta, raw beans, dried rice, and water. I picked out all the unsoaked beans (just starting to swell) and cooked the soup for dinner. It was fair.

A few minutes ago Elspeth waylaid me in the kitchen and said, "Mommy, can we have a Lifesaver?"

"Let's just look at them, not eat them," suggested Ben.

"Are you hungry?" I asked.

"Yes. But we feel like something sweet," Elspeth said.

"There are fruit and vegetables on the table," I redirected.

"Oooo," Ben purred, reaching for a baby carrot.

Elspeth was unimpressed. "We feel like something sweet like candy," she pressed.

"I don't think we should eat candy," Ben said. "It's bad for me. It's bad for my nose." He continued (and I'm not entirely sure how this bit fits in:) "When I drink, it comes out my nose."

Perhaps he was talking about fizzy soda drinks? Or what has his mother been telling him? Whatever stories she's been weaving, they seem to have worked. Ben thinks candy is a very, very bad idea.

How in heaven's name did we amass so much stuff? The pit is bottomless. I clear one layer, and there's another. I honestly think I could fill a dump-truck with the amount of sheer razzle we have in this home of ours. It's dazzling. When we moved every year for that first half-decade or so of our marriage, I purged at regular intervals. And now--after only five or six years in one house, I feel utterly ashamed, enraged, (and now cold and calm) over the state of things. I'm done, people. I mean business.
But
first, a cup of tea. A childhood in East Africa taught me that business of any kind, serious or pleasant, is better with tea and with a friend.
Martin is my friend. He loves tea. I'll go and find him.

Skulking

Mama's doing some skulking. Snuck off to Barnes & Butts this morning for a latte with the handsome boy who lives in my house (there's only one). Chewed on a bagel and a long listing of literary magazines.

And this afternoon I slunk around, getting rid of loads of stuff. Buried children's artwork and "treasures" under scraps of paper. And hid the Halloween candy.

Mama. Mistress of magnificence. Master of subterfuge.


Sal took the pic. Not me. I'm not that good.

Too Many Treats, Not Enough Tricks

It is that time of year again. . .the one holiday that gets Americans from every walk of life out and moving as a community, and they're filling huge sacks with candy. There's something strange about that. I have to admit that I turn the lights off and clear the whole family out of the house. We gave treats one year but I find the mix of happy people--some in sweet outfits, grinning as they hold open their bags, alongside the sour-faced, too-old, ghoulish, frowning out of downright disturbing masks--stressful. I do not come back until Trick or Treating is over.

I keep thinking, as I'm out on my porch collecting mail or putting away the stroller, that my neighbors are out on their porch--and then I glance over and realize that it's just the witch and the skeleton. As we sat on the swing in the sun today, Elspeth told me, "They [the witch and the skeleton] don't talk except when you're not watching."

"Maybe they're just sad they don't have any friends," I said. "Maybe they feel sad inside."

"No, Mommy," she said, "They're mean. And they don't have anything inside."

Our neighbors also seem to have buried some relatives in the front yard. Merry skipped over to their small front lawn the other day to collect wind-fall pears from among gravestones and skeletons rising out of the ground.

This is my nod to Halloween: I baked up two huge pans of extra chocolately brownies from scratch, iced them, and sprinkled them in orange and purple and black for two school parties tomorrow. They are so gooey that I'll have to spoon them out. Elspeth brought home a huge pink ghoul head filled with candy that I sorted out while she was busy eating a lollipop: the emergency car bag, the Martin-take-to-college bag (which included a white jelly mouse in a jar of clear corn syrup and three spider rings), and the very paltry left-overs, which I hid in the sauces/oils cabinet above the stove. And I may still steal the snack-size KitKat tonight when the kids are finally all in bed sleeping. I have to say I get immense satisfaction from dumping out the kids' candy and sorting through it--a childhood, post Trick-or-Treat feeling. Ah. Look at this loot. Of course most of it goes to the college students, but I take a charitable donation on our taxes for that.

In case the IRS reads blogs, I'm just kidding.

For Uncle A.J.

These pictures (all except the goon in the middle) were taken by my friend Sally during apple-picking at a local orchard. They go out with much love to my dear Uncle A.J. in North Carolina, who's not feeling too well at the moment. Wish we could send you one of the delicious, crisp winesaps or the sweet Macintosh. Much love from your grand-nieces, and many prayers to you and sweet Auntie.

Ten Things

Martin and I are about to start playing our Ten Things Game. Curiosity peaked? Well, at this point I could go so many ways: we sit down at night when the kids have gone to bed, and name ten things that drive us crazy about the other person OR we sit down and read ten poems to each other OR we eat ten pieces of chocolate or ten jalapenos OR we choose ten things we want to do with the rest of our lives. Ten freckles on the other's face. Ten nose hairs. Ten facial expressions.
Or none of the above.
Actually, the Ten Things Game gets instituted when the house feels as if it is closing in around us. I picked up a magazine this morning and flipped to a quote that was celebrating clutter, though the example of clutter cited in the article was a stack of books next to your bed. Wha? This person must not have children. Clutter in our house includes, but is not limited to, endless masterpieces created by the children at school and at home; stuffed dogs and cats and naked baby dolls; wooden vegetables; apple cores; "lost" toothbrushes; hair clips; endless articles of doll clothing; single socks; crayon stubs; treasures such as rocks, nails, pieces of glass, feathers, etc., etc. I even found a secret cache behind the children's poufe (large round sitting cushion) that consisted of, but was not limited to, a large hunk of stale white bread and an empty (sucked dry by the M.C.) plastic lime. (This is an aside, but I have to mention that the M.C. also painted the inside of our fridge the other day. Blue. She and I scrubbed for a while and then she sat in time out and pondered what a bad choice she had made).

So every night, Martin and I both have to find five things in the house that we will throw or give away. We put them in a pile, step back, and assess. If by chance one person really wants to keep that old picture frame that the other person chose, they may challenge the object only if they are willing to find two more things to give away as forfeit, bringing the total give-away total to eleven.

Martin and I played this game so well last year that we were almost down to essentials by the time we finished. Since then, our house has been eating with a voracious appetite, and is about to burst. It's time.

A couple of our friends are joining us in this game. Last night they freed themselves from the enslavement of ten clutterous items. Do you want to join?

We'll Always Have a Friend Wearing Big Red Shoes

It's a long story. It begins in Walmart. No, wait, it goes back further than that to a tiny skateboard with red wheels, a choking-hazard that Beatrix fell absolutely gaga for. She talked about it all the time. "Where my skateboard?" she'd say, at nap time, car rides, random moments throughout the day. "I think it's in Aunt Sally's car," I replied for two days, to which she said, "Oh, NO!" and burst into tears. Aunt Sally had to bribe her with an extra special treat to tide her over to the next day, when said skateboard was reunited with Beatrix. And then, Friday morning after the conclusion of my interview at a local bakery, it went missing.

This has caused great consternation at Wazoo Farm. This afternoon, the family finally drove out to Walmart to find a skateboard to make it all better. We found some, in plastic cases with wierd decals and extra wheels. There was even one with a skateboarder included, all in black with hair slanting over one eye. "No!" Bea said. "Little TINY skateboard." These offerings, at two inches long, were far too large.

Then I remembered that McDonalds had been giving out skateboards as the Boy Toy with Happy Meals, so our family turned our car that direction and we all piled out into a sticky parking lot.

"That ChickALay?" Beatrix queried, her whole body tense with excitement.

"Nope. It's McDonalds."

"McDONALDS!" she shouted, in a way that would have made our good friend with the big red shoes so very happy.

Inside, Martin almost shouted, "LOOK! The McRib! It's back!"

Now, we adults were planning to get nothing but water, but Martin said, "You HAVE to get a McRib. It's the right thing to do." I never found out exactly why this was, but he ordered and the girls sat on swinging chairs which they worked with an intensity that was truly impressive. Beatrix almost fell off.

There was a woman sitting on a high table talking at great volume to a man in a McDonalds employee cap. "Look," she was saying, "They got their own life, I got mine. I'm single, right? So I got nobody I come home to and nobody I'm responsible for, and that's my privilege. And then they're driving by my house and saying, 'Your company stayed for three hours,' and they're saying, 'She had company in her house for three hours,' and I'm saying, 'What goes on behind closed doors is none of your business!" The man in the cap kept nodding and listening.

I shouted up to Martin who was at the cash register, "Boy Toy! Boy Toy!" I wasn't calling him my hot and handsome play thing--I was reminding him to request the skateboards instead of the scented, molded plastic Strawberry Shortcake dolls.

The single woman with privileges went out of the restaurant, flipped up her cell-phone, chatted for about two minutes, and came back in to continue her monologue with the same guy, though he'd moved toward the door by then. She seemed incapable of silence. Martin was back by then and he raised his cup of ice water to mine and said dryly, "Cheers."

By this time the children were chowing their pale chicken nuggets. "I just knew this would happen," Martin said, as he gnawed his McRib. "They're giving out these buckets instead of the skateboards." The girls were pulling their food from neon green buckets decorated with Halloween Potato Heads.

"I thought I remembered skateboards," I said.

Merry said, "They only have the same toy for a limited time." Or something knowledgeable like that. She ate a medium fries in a sad way, eyes downcast.

Beatrix was dunking her nuggets in her caramel sauce. Martin passed over his McRib so I could taste it. "This is the strangest menu offering ever," he said. "It's called a rib sandwich but there are no bones. Observe. It is a fillet."

I bit into it. It tasted, in consistency and texture, like scrambled eggs doused with barbecue sauce. I passed it back.

Beatrix requested a straw, stuck the end into her caramel sauce, and began sucking. Then she dunked the straw into her milk. And back into the caramel sauce.

"That's disgusting," Martin commented, and continued eating his McRib sandwich. (Please do not miss the delicious and unitended irony.)

Near the end of our meal, the table piled high with trash, Beatrix poured her entire cup of water on the floor. She was suddenly like a creature possessed; she would not stay in her seat; she ran about and threw her arms around a strange man's legs until she saw his face and realized it was not Martin.

"I think it's the caramel sauce," I said.

"It is pure sugar," Martin agreed. We watched her run. A man in hunting gear with his son stood by and waited for his order. The checker, holding a tray piled with large fries, searched for a party who had moved to the back by the restrooms.

Then Elspeth began to take on the characteristics of a rubber ball. I noted that her caramel sauce package was also empty, licked completely clean.

Suddenly I jumped up, began throwing empty burger wrappers and caramel packets on to the tray. "I think it's time to go!" I announced.

Elspeth began to jig. "I've got to go potty!" she said. It apparently could not wait until home so the girls disappeared into the bathroom. Martin and I stood in an aisle discussing how long they would take. "At the soccer game, they were in there for, like, a half hour," he said. I sipped my decaf coffee. There was a moment of peace.

Soon after Elspeth almost collided in the parking lot with a car, but then we unstuck our feet and rode home through the darkness. Martin listened to baseball and Elspeth yelled from the back. Then Merry yelped as Elspeth pinched her. We waited for lights to turn green. As we neared home, Beatrix said, "Where my skateboard?"

Told you it was a long story.

For more from the Onion News Network on our favorite golden arches, click here.

Rainy Day Activities

Zombie Dancing. New Wazoo favorite.

"Let's get in the autumn-mobile and leaf."

Last night, we romped about the College Parks.  This common green land was originally set aside for grazing.  I like to think of the ghosts of sheep and cattle and horses roaming about the place as the children run up and down the sidewalks, among the trees, around the fountain, stopping to pose with the statuary.

 Leaf-pile building with friend "little Will."

 Standing below Lady Justice and the Civil War Soldiers (not pictured :).

 And here's some leaves for the folks in Texas.  Wish you could be here--all of you.  It's a stunning autumn.