Here's what's going right:

I am loved.

I'm healthy, my kids are healthy, Brian is healthy, my mother is doing just fine after her pacemaker implant and angiogram.*

I'm not going hungry. I don't have much cash for food right now, but I'm eating, the kids are eating, we all seem to be getting fed.

I have a roof over my head, the gas and electric and water bills have been paid, I have clothing as do my children.

The amazing director of the new child care is pretty much going on absolute faith that someday, very soon, I will be able to pay.

Don't tell anyone, but I am currently enjoying pirated cable.

There seem to be more jobs available right now than there have been since I moved here in 09/01. The market feels healthier. This is not to say that I will find a job, especially in my current state of round tumminess, but still.


*Healthy is a relative term. But I basically mean, you know, not dying tomorrow from any diseases. That we know of.


I've been here before, and it's not a fun place to be. And there is no question that I spend the better part of many days beating myself up for not having a career/savings account full of cash/better plan/sugar daddy (just kidding on that last one). To be in this position is one thing, but to be in this position when there are children who depend on you, that is quite another. And it sucks. It can even be paralyzing some days. But of course paralysis only prolongs the problem, so I'm mostly managing to push through that numb, stunned experience and into action. I'd so much rather be eating potato chips and watching Rickie Lake than dealing with anything remotely like job hunting or house cleaning or my life in general. And some days that's pretty much what I do. But today I cleaned the kitchen and did some laundry and looked at the (horrible! lame! low paying! shitty!) job listings on line, and ate some eggs, and took care of my sick-ish baby, and got through it. Tonight I will indulge in more television, because right now television, as long as I'm careful not to overuse it, is saving my ass.

I Suck and That's Sad


you are the "you suck, and that's sad"
happy bunny. your truthful, but can be a bit
brutal.


which happy bunny are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

When in doubt, go to Quizilla.

I could tell you about the 5 stunned minutes I spent in the toothpaste section, staring at the vast array of possibilities, and saying to myself, "Crest? Colgate? Which toothpaste do I use?"

When I was a child we always used Crest. Just like we always bought Palmolive, and we always had Pepperidge Farm bread and Land O' Lakes butter and Hood milk. But, I'm thinking to myself, somewhere along the line I might have switched. It might even have been recently. Did I switch to Colgate? Did I do that for Brian? Or do I now prefer Colgate? I just don't know. Maybe I'm just imagining this, and it's really still Crest. But which one? There are so many options. Would it be the one with Scope? The special tartar removing Crest? Hmmm. No, there's something about the Crest packaging that just doesn't seem right. It must be Colgate. But wait, don't I prefer Crest? Have I been buying Colgate as some sort of concession? Shit, what should I do?

I could tell you that story, like I said, but that would be too original and possibly entertaining. So I give you the quiz instead.

By the way, I had switched to Colgate at some point, I'm still not sure when, but I came home with the Crest with Scope. And I'm not sorry. Although I guess I kind of miss the nifty Colgate flip top. But really, no, it always got clogged and nasty.

Happy Blogiversary to Me

It's been one year.

In other news, my mother is in the hospital after having a heart "event" and is now getting a pacemaker installed. It should be done by now, actually. She's had heart problems for years, and had major surgery about 10 years ago to have her aortic valve replaced. This is actually nothing compared to that surgery, which was just plain terrifying to wait through and the recovery was pretty rough. Still, she's 72 years old and starting to actually seem it, which is sobering.

Oh, and I quit my job after the business blew up financially and I was lied to. But hey, it was only the first decent job I've been able to land since arriving in this town in September '01. No big deal.

So, right now, my life pretty much sucks. I'm job hunting, and penniless, and pretty fucking depressed.

OK, but focusing on the positive. We spent last weekend at the ranch and it was entirely livable. When everyone sits down at the table for a lovely meal of pasta with a chicken and artichoke heart sauce, fresh herb salad and some wine, I declare a place livable. I think we're going back this weekend.

And yesterday we went to the midwife and heard that whoosh-whoosh that is the heartbeat. So. That was delightful and made me feel a little bit woozy. Baby! Only 6 more months...

Random

I'm pregnant. Don't ask me to collect my thoughts any better than this.

I'm on the cusp of the first trimester, about to head into Phase II, and the official "what are we going to name the baby" conversations have begun. Holy shit, I'm having a baby. I'm going to be the mother of FOUR. Someone please tell Brian that Rupert is a terrible name. Because I'm tired of telling him myself.

I'm prouder than proud to be an Episcopalian right now. Although every time they said "first gay bishop" on the radio I have to shout out "openly! openly!" Because, God knows (and plenty of other people too), that Gene is not the first gay bishop. Some of us, wink wink, may even have been confirmed by a *gasp*gay bishop.

Flash mobs: your 15 minutes are up. Playing duck duck goose and walking around like Mary Poppins? OK. I guess I'm too old for flash mobs. And, plus, I didn't get invited. Not that I'm jealous or anything. Not that I would have time to go downtown with a black umbrella and walk around like Mary Poppins. I'm all grown up now, I have a job and stuff. So I DON'T CARE that I didn't get an email, OK?

Enormous Changes at the Last Minute

But first an earring update: found, just a couple hours ago, on the living room floor. Praise Jesus. I'm going to have the things surgically attached to my ear lobes. Thanks for any and all prayers/dancing/spiritual practices.

So:

* The house is going on the market (please God let it sell).
* Jack is starting kindergarten in his dad's neighborhood - a friendly urban mostly Hispanic school with questionable test scores but certainly more culture than the horrid suburban block of concrete that sits 5 miles to my north.
* The 2 little ones are moving to a new day care across the street from my work.
* We are moving to a very small house on a very big ranch where scorpions inhabit the bathtubs and goats wander around in the back yard. we're talking cacti and vegetable gardens and dirt roads and creek beds -- and no guest room for my mother to stay in. Too bad. Heheh.
* Javi, my little baby, is crawling and eating cheerios and has 4 teeth and just slays me with his grins.
* I am just a couple weeks away from being undeniably visibly pregnant.

I'm having moving anxiety. As in, what am I going to do with all my stuff, what am I going to be able to take with me, how am I going to be able to fit my clothes in that tiny fucking closet, how is it that no matter how much I pare down I still, always, seem to have more stuff than space...And I hate moving. I really loathe it. I've rarely spent more than 2 years in any single place, especially as an adult, but even as a child, and I'm tired of it. I don't like packing, I don't like loading things on and off trucks, I don't like all the cleaning and the sorting and the unpacking and the dust and the heat and the lifting and the stress, and it always seems to happen in August or September, the hottest time of year. And. This move means getting out from under a mortgage I can't afford, and away from a house in a community I don't particularly like, but I'm losing the only house I ever owned (if you can call it that), and with that I feel like I'm losing some of my independence. Don't get me wrong, this move is saving my ass, the house on the ranch is really sweet, being able to live out there means being able to actually pay my bills and even (gasp) save money and possibly (gasp) be able to afford things like health insurance and car repairs. For all of that I am truly grateful. And to be able to finally share a home with Brian -- I'm excited. Certainly nervous. But excited. It just feels a little bit like a step down, too. I'm losing all the money I ever had saved up by selling this house now. And I'm losing some serious storage space, too.

Hopefully I'll have my digital camera working soon. Today I wanted to snap a picture of the truck in front of me sporting "Get off My Ass" and "Bite Me" stickers on either side of its rear window. Sort of hard to choose between those two options. And then there was the guy driving north on I 35 in rush hour traffic this morning, center lane, going maybe 59 mph, with "go ahead and honk" and "keep honking" stickers on the back of his car. I shake my head in wonderment. So, someday hopefully soon the camera will be up and running again and I can share the wonderful stickers of the greater Austin area with you, as well as pictures of the ranch.

Since your earring prayers were so successful, I'd appreciate some incense burning/chanting/peyote eating/speaking in tongues on behalf of this house selling. Thanks again, you guys are the best.

Pirates and Missing Treasure

Finally, a movie worth seeing in the movie theater. And on a nice, big screen, too. Johnny Depp is delightful, and remains among my favorite actors (along with Sean Penn) of his/my generation. The dialogue is funny, the sets are beautiful, the whole thing is marvelously coherent, which used to be something you take for granted in a movie but now seems to be a rare and notable exception, at least in a big budget Hollywood production. It's produced by Disney (gah) so it's extremely "clean" which, I'm almost embarrassed to admit, I sort of appreciated. Now the previews for Peter Pan, on the other hand, were positively terrifying. I'll be skipping that one. In fact, there wasn't one single enticing trailer, even though we sat through at least 5.

The baby is spending the night for the first time at his dad's house...I slept until 9:30 this morning. I can't remember the last time I slept past 7. Lovely. Hopefully all is well for my little guy. I'll pick him up this afternoon.

Yesterday was Polly's birthday and I wanted very much to post a picture of her, but my scanner just wouldn't work for me. My BRAND NEW scanner. She would have been 57. Last night at the restaurant I suddenly realize that I'm missing an earring. Polly had diamond stud earrings made for Airin, Alex and me, and a ring made from the center stone of a pin that was her mother's for Katherine as gifts to be given on the eve of K's wedding two summers ago. She brought the stones to the jeweler the day before she went into the hospital. I'm hoping it's at home somewhere (I'm at Brian's). If it's lost forever I will be absolutely despondent. So if you're reading say a little prayer/do a little dance/insert your spiritual practice here for me to be reunited with my missing earring.

Thanks.

Bill Mueller, My New Hero

Yeah, it's good to be from Boston, home of the Red Sox and player extraordinaire Bill Mueller. I sorely miss going to the games. My friend Joe has weeknight tickets and spoiled me to death one year taking me on an almost a weekly basis to the park. There's just something about coming up the steps and seeing that wide, bright stretch of technicolor green grass under a black sky. The guys would be out on the field throwing the ball around, warming up. And you would settle into your plastic seat with a pencil and a scorecard for a nice long night of pitches and hits, strikeouts and runs...nothing like it.

I'm far from home now, and I don't have cable, so I admit I'm not really paying attention to baseball, but Bill Mueller's history-making grand slams from both sides of the plate, and against the Texas Rangers no less, sure did catch my attention. Even though I hadn't heard of him before. Because, like I said, I haven't been paying attention. Apparently we are only 1 1/2 games behind the Yankees in the AL East. Where have I BEEN? I am a bad, bad fan. But a happy fan.

Go Sox!

Poetic License

I've been running into a whole smorgasbord of humorous poetry lately, too humorous not to share.

First there was Karen Zipdrive of Pulp Friction with Bush Writes Haiku:

I am so tired
I think I'll call Jenna up
to score me some crank

And then we had Sarah B from Que Sera Sera, with Happy Birthday Poems for an Ex Boyfriend:

Happy Birthday!
Do I want to hear another song you wrote on the guitar?
For the love of God
NO.

And then Jodi sent me these links to Dan's Aborted Limericks:

When making banana cream pie
You need neither to broil nor to fry
But remember you must
That the secret to crust
Is to add enough butter to make it nice and flaky

And still MORE aborted limericks:

A butterfly out on a branch
Caused an awfully big avalanche
Just by flapping his wings
He set motion to things
And that's how simple people explain chaos theory

I believe some POETIC COMMENTING is in order.

It's a Thin Line

There is one topic in particular which is decidedly off limits on this blog, laundry I'm unwilling to air publicly, but when things are happening in that department I find myself unable to switch gears and write about something else. And so it's been almost a week.

I can tell you, however, that I attended a party on Friday night with a Love/Hate theme, and came appropriately accessorized:


(it is very difficult to write upside down in Sharpie with your non-dominant hand, but I think I did an OK job)

You can just barely make out the ghastly necklace given to me one mother's day with birthstone charms (synthetic of course) of my two oldest children. It's just about the worst piece of jewelry anyone could possibly give me, and until Friday it had never seen the light of day. But this was a love/hate party, and we were instructed to dress appropriately. Jodi will be pleased to know that I wore my little black dress (with a lot of belly, I might add, showing through) and strappy shoes to counterbalance the necklace. I also brought succotash, because I love lima beans, but I know there are many of you out there who find lima beans revolting. (Little known fact: lima beans are full of cyanide! What's not to love?) Food featured at the party included anchovy pizza, sardines, rhubarb soup, black licorice, goat cheese, pate, brussels sprouts and vegemite. Brian mixed dirty martinis, we all wore nametags and there was some karaoke singing and truth or dare Jenga. AND I left the kids at home with a sitter and came home to find my kitchen cleaned (including succotash dishes), the high chair completely cleared of Cheerios, the stovetop scrubbed, and she had bathed all of my children. The woman definitely earned her pay. All in all, an excellent party.

Blogland

Watching one relationship crash and burn in blogland, and another take its first baby steps, leaves me feeling just a little...weird. Guilty? Not exactly, they chose to make it public. But weird. Blogs are weird. But I'm crane-my-neck-at-a-car-wreck fascinated by it all. Maybe this is all just because I'm not paying for cable tv anymore, so I have to look somewhere else for my soap operas. Nice of the internet to provide.

On another blog-related tack, if I read one more post by some self-important self-proclaimed blogging old-timer about what he or she does and doesn't like to read on other peoples' blogs, well...I"ll continue to not bother to comment. But it does irritate me, these people who seek somehow to set themselves above everyone else by declaring the masses of bloggers to be link-hungry whores or boring pedantics or whatever. It is what it is. Write your own stuff, quit worrying about everyone else's fucking blog. Of course, by posting this I'm ignoring my own advice, but there ya go. You'll never hear me saying what I think blogging should and shouldn't be.

And, people? What happened to the commenting? I had a lovely little readership thing going here where you actually came by and said a few things, and that made me so happy. Do I need to be a link-hungry whore to get a little participation around here?

Weekend Highlights

We went to see Esther's Follies on Friday night. This is an Austin mainstay show -- political satire, magic tricks, juggling and general merry-making performed on a stage in front of floor-to-ceiling windows which look out on 6th Street so that all passers by can both watch and participate. Occasionally, mercifully, they drop some curtains down. Anyway, a good time was had by all thanks to Brian who won the tickets on the radio (answer: Hugo Weaving). We left the baby with a friend of Brian's and made our escape on the motorcycle, so all in all it was a pretty hot date. And cheap. Driving back to the babysitter's house through Austin at midnight on the back of the bike with my skirt hiked up made me feel precisely like a teenager. But in a good way.

Saturday was pozole, which always makes me happy. Then I spent the day working at Brian's house on the new, cute little computer he put together. Then a trip up to Fry's to buy accessories for my new, fabulous, shiny Tungsten T which I bought used from Brian just this week. And home to watch the DVD of 25th Hour, which was entirely worth watching. Of course almost anything with Philip Seymour Hoffman is entirely worth watching. Still, I think Spike has got his groove back, which is good, since he's young and it would be pitiful if he lost it already.

So many links! And we haven't even gotten to Sunday yet! Except, you know, Sunday was pretty much a total loss. I can't even remember if we left the house. There was an incident involving chicken broth and leftover chinese food that turned out rather badly. And, yes, at 9 pm we did manage to get out of the house to go to the local pub for dinner, but that was it. The locals were very impressed with Javi's general quietness and good nature at the pub. We explained that he had spent a good deal of time there in utero, so it was something of a second home for him. I'm raising my kids to be good little beer drinkers.

Things I Already Knew But Were Reconfirmed For Me Today After a Certain Un-Named Person Decided to Act Like a Total Dickhead. Again. You Can Connect The Dots Yourself.

1) I don't like to fight. This, actually, is not news to me. But the related insight that I so much don't like to fight that I am willing to beat myself up rather than fight back, that definitely shed some more light on the issue for me.

2) Singing helps. Even singing something really idiotic like "oh what a beautiful morning" helps. Even when your kids beg you to stop. Even when you only really know the first two lines. Singing it over and over again helps. Stressing the minor note in "morning" helps.

3) Things can be shit, and I can still be funny. Maybe you don't think I'm funny, but you don't know me that well.

4) My boyfriend rocks. He can talk to me, tell me straight up what he sees, even though it's not all so very pretty, and still be the sweetest guy on the planet. And when he shows up at the restaurant on his motorcycle? Fuggedaboutit. He is all that, I'm telling you, and a bag of fucking chips.

5) Pregnancy sucks. And when you're pregnant, you cry really, really easily.

6) In addition to singing, food really helps. Especially Cuban food. Topped off with some Tres Leches for dessert. You cannot help but feel better if you plunk yourself down in the middle of some Cuban culture, no matter how crappy your day was. I mean talk about a bunch of people who have to deal with shit every day and STILL eat the best food, make the best music, wear the brightest colors and are sexy as hell.

Lost and Found

Well, of course, the minute I posted about our newest addition, the phone rang. A woman in my neighborhood who knew about the dog saw a lost dog sign out on the road where I found her and called me with the number.

It's hard giving a dog up to a girl named Courtney, although she at least spells her name correctly. It's even harder when you learn she's named the dog "Ladybug" (Lady for short!). But she had a pretty reasonable story for how she lost the dog in the first place, and she has another dog (blind, rescued dog) at home who's missing the puppy. And there are 5 more pups from the litter available if we want one. And we have visitation rights. And honestly, a puppy right now is maybe piling on just a bit more on my plate than I care to handle. But still. Cutest puppy ever. We'll miss her.

Speaking of lost and found, r. and b. appear to have found love and happiness. She lives in Seattle, and he lives in Charlotte, so they have some things to work out, but as obstacles go, that's not such a terrible one. Go wish them well!

And????

OK r. and b., my little internet love birds, it's time to come up for air and give us a report. If I get any closer to the edge of my seat, I'll be on the floor.

It's A Girl!

Introducing...



This very sweet, very young puppy was on the side of the road on Friday as I drove home. Collar but no tags. I called the sheriff's department in case someone lost her, and spent the next three days praying the phone wouldn't ring. Ain't NO ONE taking her away now! She's now a happy member of our pack of beasts. We are all completely in love.

It seems her name is Dingo, a name I'm not overly fond of but it has great sticking power, and she IS an Australian Cattle Dog so it's not completely off base.

Is she CUTE? Or WHAT?

Best Google Search So Far

"frizzy jewish hair"

Whoever you are, welcome to my blog. Perhaps you are having a bad hair day? I'm ever so sorry.

Put on Your Red Black Dress, Baby...

...Cause we're goin' out tonight.

I'm going to my friend's divorce party this evening. Yes, that's right. So, what to wear? Sadly, this being Austin, everyone will be wearing the usual jeans/t-shirt combo or possibly shorts/t-shirt combo or if they're really feeling extra festive they might break out a vintage sundress. Casual is OK, to a point, but sometimes I like to get all glammed up, you know? At least Austinites have more style, and show more skin, than the folks in Madison did. The first time I went out to a party in Madison I almost cried to see the jeans-and-boots wearing crowd. Even at the best restaurant in the whole city I can remember a man who wore jeans, a pink Oxford shirt and sneakers to dinner. I wanted to ask him to leave, or at least leave my line of sight.

I refuse to let this all get me down, however, and still throw on my little black dress and strappy shoes every chance I get. Perhaps that will be the attire for tonight. After all, I won't be able to fit in that dress for much longer...

Lunch today, by the way, was a modest bowl of Udon noodles. Mid-afternoon snack was about half a pound of leftover beef brisket from the Salt Lick. Mmmmm.

I. Can't. Get. Out. Of. Bed.

The thing about being pregnant, or at least my thing about being pregnant, is that all I want to do is sleep. With interspersed periods of eating. (Did I use "interspersed" correctly? I'm too tired to look it up.) That's about it. This is certainly preferable to spending my entire first trimester hunched over a toilet bowl, like so many unfortunate pregnant creatures. So I won't complain too much.

In the eating category, I was inspired by Jodi's recent post to have some Indian food for lunch today. No, there are no take-out Indian restaurants in my little hamlet, but I did have the prescience to load up on decent frozen dinners the other day, so I was able to have my very own meal of Saag Paneer courtesy of Ethnic Gourmet.

I'm home alone with the baby, who, thankfully, seems to be almost as sleepy as I am.

That is all.

Fourth of Ju-BUY

Also, Mr. Insurance Salesman who stuck your plastic American flags complete with your business card into all of the lawns in my neighborhood? Two days ago? If I feel like decorating, I'll do it myself, thanks. This holiday is about INDEPENDENCE and GETTING DRUNK and FIREWORKS, it's not about advertising. I think the garbage man might have called Tom Ridge, though, after he saw me rip it out of the ground and throw it in the garbage can as they were coming around the corner. He definitely gave me a long, slow look as they were driving past my house. Maybe I should have burned it for extra effect. I hate the motherfucking suburbs.

Dear Mom and Dad, Guess What?

Would someone like to tell my parents that I'm pregnant for me? While I go hide under a rock? Because I'm SO not looking forward to those conversations. You see, if they'd just stayed married I'd only have to do this once.

They are going to flip out.

And I hate it that I'm 35 years old and I'm worried about what my parents will think.