An Affirmation:

Because I am who I am no one will be so shocked that at four a.m. I was breaking into a window while being cheered on by a 70 year old limo driver and a Jamaican record producer.  I bet if I told my mom she would start telling me what she was going to have for dinner before I even finished…

…BUT I know that things like this really only happen to me and maybe its because no other girl ruins an ankle length wool skirt like I can!

ho

Wow, I am so not naturally cut out for holiday stuff.  I took a 10 year break from any sort of observance of any kind (unless you count pigging out with some Muslim friends at 3 in the morning for like half of one Ramadan).  This Christmas thing is not a strength of mine.  I totally blame my parents.

Yesterday was a lovely day.  It was my son’s third birthday.  Joe the bigger took the day off and we were having such a lovely morning loafing off until the landlord brought a plumber by.  We ended up sitting around observing plumbing so I suggested we take the birthday boy out to lunch.  Very few places are suitable for a comfortable toddler lunch so we chose one of the Pat’s Pizzas in the area.  Everything went better than expected.  Apparently my son really digs going out for pizza.  He also enjoyed watching the Celtics-Cavaliers game being replayed on the television there.  See?  I can be regular people.  I was feeling pretty good about this.

We returned home to presents in the mail for the little guy.  I put him down for nap and the hubby and I did nothing important whatsoever.  We basically checked out YouTube videos: Australia’s Prime Minister elect Kevin Rudd eating earwax, a Snoop Dogg video for a song called “Sensual Seduction”- uhm, you know the stuff I should totally be admitting to in a public forum.  The point is: yesterday had a sort of relaxed, hanging with the fam’ feel that let me believe I was ready to start with this “Christmas” thing.

When the smaller Joe woke up I said good-bye to both Joes and headed out to buy stuff that would make the inside of our apartment somewhat holiday like.  My trip started at the bank where I simply asked for blank deposit slips.  All the teller had to do was give me some.  Nope! She had to ask why I needed them. I told her I was finally getting my name legally changed and we still had tons of checks, etc.  She told me I should have had that done ages ago, I told her I wasn’t sure I was even going to do it., she told me that I should have decided these things before I ordered my last checks- suddenly I realized this was all no one’s business and that she just needed to give me the damn deposit slips.  I tried to be assertive and asked again for “just blank deposit slips, please”.  You would not believe the look she gave me!!! This is the thing I fear about holidays!  It is something hard to put into words: that tone in a voice, that look in the eye….

I moved on to my next errand: tree.  I won’t go into much detail because I was truly traumatized with choosing a tree.  I will never feel confident I did the right thing.  Never.  Let us just say I have a tree of some sort in my home.  We will leave it at that.

I then had to return a birthday present at a giant, scary, mega-store I never go to.  The troubles started in the line for returns/customer service.  An elderly employee was CLEARLY on his break and snacking on a bag of bugles.  The impatient elderly women in line behind me started verbally assaulting him.  I say ‘verbally assaulting’ and I mean ‘verbally assaulting’.  It was terrible!! I wanted to whisk him away to some private break room in paradise where his many years lived would not be rewarded with snide remarks.  These women were brutal! It did not get any easier when I was shopping around in the store proper.  Christmas is weeks away and yet people are already in cart assault mode (or so it would seem to a person who never shops and is very sensitive in matters of cart etiquette).  The cashier line was hands down the worst.  Only 3 registers were open though the store was obviously very busy.  I waited patiently until I was the next person to pay.  The woman in front of me had (I am not making this up) about 6 identical velor track suits (more likely retirement appropriate stay at home togs).  The moment the cashier started ringing them up she remembered she had forgotten something and bolted, leaving everything and saying she would be right back.  I understand why the cashier waited: the woman was oldish and somehow put together in a way that made walking difficult and seemed really, really mean.  She finally returned with a cartload of adult diapers and informed everyone within ear shot that if she doesn’t “get these for Margie herself the woman will mess herself every day until someone does.”  I guess I will end my store story there.

Traffic getting out of there was scary.  I am asking all you people dazzled with Christmas cheer: do you see this?  Are you aware of the misery and the drive to kill on the faces of your holiday ‘loving’ ilk WEEKS away from the big day?  Am I just paranoid?

Christmas isn’t all fear for me.  I do appreciate many parts.  Actually, I appreciate most of the parts that don’t involve driving and shopping.  Today the little guy and I will decorate the tree with strings of beads and snowflakes (we will be making them from construction paper today).  We will listen to some Christmas music on the radio and I will not make the mistake my parents made.  I will not let on about any of the parts of the holiday that I do not like.  I will let him have his fun and try to have fun with him…

…and, most importantly, I will try to forget  that Snoop video I saw.  Check it out, I dare you.

jck3 is 3!

I am due for two tribute posts.  My hubby’s kind words are overdue and will have to wait another day or so.  He has not yet told or even hinted that my icky illness has wrecked his week and any fun anniversary plans we may have had.  I guess that in itself is testimony to what a stand-up guy JCK2 really is.

It is JCK3’s day.  I can’t believe he is already three!  I mean, I sort of can, because a lot has happened since they finally ended up snipping him out of my abdomen.  He has gone from a tiny, staring little thing to an intense and plotting little package of fun.  I could go on forever and I never know where the line is when it comes to bragging about one’s kids.  I would brag and brag and brag if I was sure it wouldn’t offend anyone but since I know people tire easily of such things I will give you a list of five ‘fun facts’ about the boy of the hour: the one and only JCK3 (don’t let his 3ness fool you, he is indeed a ‘one and only’).

1-He is an intense lover of fruit.  Given the choice of a pear vs. any other sort of food he will ALWAYS choose the pear.  I can’t think of a fruit that he will not eat.  There are many sorts of cookies he will not eat.  He is not always a fan of pasta or pizza.  I have seen him turn away many pieces of cake.  The kid will always eat fruit.  Good for him.

2- It is a good thing he does not have much to work with when it comes to cursing.  The child is a born cusser.  Currently he has only ‘cwap’(crap) and “ma’am”(man) to work with as far as expletives but he uses them astonishingly well.  Example: he was watching JCK2 play a video game.  He encountered a particularly menacing bad-guy.  JCK3 whispered a very serious “cwaaaap”.  When he gets mad he storms off mumbling “I don’t ablieve it… oooh ma’am, cwap, cwap, cwap.”.   We have been trying to work on this “cwap thing”.

3-Probably common knowledge but his first word was “gourd”.  It was his first and only word for about 6 months.  “Gourd” is a pretty cool word for a first word.

4- He is a bit of a teeny-tiny academic.  He spends a large portion of his days viewing  pages and pages of  encyclopedias of sorts with his grandfather’s old camera phone.  He can already count as high as anyone probably will ever need to, he can read more than we know and likes to spook people with random reading of words in public and has had all of the solar system as well as an impressive amount of geography under his belt for some time.  This is the part that makes me uneasy when it comes to other people.  This sort of just happened.  He has his own ideas about what is worth knowing and what is not.  He has his own agenda.  We haven’t been preening him for anything, I swear.

5- His favorite song so far is Ben E. King’s “Stand by Me”.  Runners up include Otis Redding’s “Dock of the Bay”, The Beatles “Hey Jude”, Wire’s “the 15th”(that is sort of a family anthem, actually, don’t judge us), Bjork’s “Human Behaviour”, The White Stripes “Seven Nation Army” (he digs riffs) and any excruciating depressing Moby song.  We learned this when we had an extremely random selection on the mp3 player for a while.   He won’t do kids songs.  Mostly because he seems to go for over the top emotional stuff- he likes Yann Tierson (sp? sorry) Amelie soundtrack sort of thing, etc.  or stuff like Led Zeppelin.  Dan Zanes isn’t offering much in the way of “Whole Lotta Love” now, is he?  Gosh, I am sure we are terrible parents somehow….

So there we go.  A post about some stuff that is our birthday boy.  He has already enjoyed himself some “Strawberry CakePie” as he called it and some ice cream.  He got a pretty good stash of stuff this year.  He seems to get the whole birthday gig this time around.  So much so that he has suggested doing the ‘Happy Birthday’ thing on more than one occasion since the big celebration on Saturday night.

If he were to have resolutions for his third year I would suggest the following-

-wear a hat without a tantrum!

-USE THE POTTY

-stop chewing your clothes

mortal

I should say first that I had not had anything even remotely like a cold since the summer of 2005 when we moved into this apartment.  That is two years ago and I guess I have been totally spoiled… I HATE THIS.

Seriously, I know I am being a baby.  How is one supposed to tolerate having all airways swollen and gooey?  This sucks!! I was up every hour last night trying to blow my nose and wiping down my teary-for-no-reason face. My husband (who has terrible seasonal allergies) is in a little bit of shock.  I guess I used to be a very long-suffering sort of sick person.

I think my son is sick of me, too.  He clamped his little fists onto the back of his father’s coat when he left for work this morning and was pleading for him to stay.  I disappoint him.

I am making an honest effort to recover today.  First of all, I think a lot of my present symptoms are just residual freakiness from a constant intake of ‘tussin dm”.  I need to detox.  I took a long shower this morning.  Most mornings I take somewhat short and cold showers (I don’t want to be the one who is causing any of the energy crisis, btw).  This morning I took a hot shower that lasted more than ten minutes.  I brushed my teeth for like twenty minutes straight.  I am wearing REAL CLOTHES, not the sort of no attempt sort of rags I have been wallowing around in.

It is not raining at the moment so I am determined to pull it together and take the little guy out of the house this morning.  I need to restore his faith in me!  Just a few minutes ago I approached him to give him something he was looking for and he said “good night Mumum, go to sleep”.  Sigh.

Oh yeah, (this is unrelated to my present misery) I have made up my mind.  I am getting a Christmas tree this year.  It will be our first!  The tree and lights part is a snap but how are we magically going to produce a home-y collection of ornaments?  I would appreciate decoration suggestions from any person who happens to read this.  Comments please!

Off to act not sick!

102.3

I sort of failed at the entry-a-day thing but I am back at it. I have some decent excuses: three nights of no sleep, a very banged up and bruised right hand, a killer cough, a fever that lasted about 10 hours, and a lot of activities.

My parents were in town. I was so tired that they probably think I am a jerk now. I can’t really do much about that now, can I? I tried to sleep when I could but ended up getting like 45 minutes each day. That is ridiculously little sleep. A family member would start telling me something and perhaps I would start to look really annoyed/sleepy/out of it and then I would get a little speech on how I really shouldn’t ‘be like that’… man.

Work was actually alright considering that it took place between late night and early morning. I am befriending some unusual guests.

Saturday morning I finished up my super stretch of work and went with my mom to get my son’s birthday cake. It was a beautiful cake: whipped cream and glazed strawberries… so nice. I flipped it over accidentally and started to cry. Nothing is worse than three nights without sleep induced crying met with the laughter of others. I went home and got as much sleep as I could squeeze in before my son’s birthday party started. I think I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

Joseph’s birthday party went well. He didn’t mention the rumpled cake. He was so excited to eat it and exclaimed “I love cake!” and “I love ice cream!”. He actually got into the present opening in a big way. We tried hard to get him things he would like and not things we thought a kid his age should play with and it ended up going over really well. Lots of space stuff, robot books, a guitar… good times.

I fell asleep at 8 on Saturday and woke up at 7. I went to see my parents off and then to run some neglected errands. I knew something was off as I fell asleep Saturday night. On Sunday morning I woke with no voice and a heavy, woozy feeling. At Hannaford I pretty much felt like lying down in the produce section and taking a nap. I should mention this: half the lobsters in the lobster tank were dead. The other half were sort of feeding off of the dead ones. I thought that was rather ick.

Yesterday (Sunday) was our wedding anniversary. We had champagne and good times all set to go. Around 3p.m. I started to feel cold and achy. I took my temp… 102. 4pm: 102. 6pm: 102. Our anniversary had to be postponed to tomorrow night!!! Is there anything sadder than that? I fell asleep at 8 shivering and feeling very, very angry at the world. I woke up at 2 a.m and was still hovering around 102. Why??? Ug.

The fever has subsided and now the less serious but ever annoying standard nasal symptoms have set in. My right hand has a large dark bruise and hurts like hell if it touches anything. The fridge is full of other people’s food. I have library books due today. I still don’t really have my voice back…

misty and swollen

Two adjectives that have something to do with the past 24 hours.  I have worked a lot of hours.  I have eaten a lot of take-out.  I have had a couple of naps.  Thanksgiving was something like that.  We found a new fun tradition for our personalized Thanksgiving.  The Joes and I drove around residential areas and looked for houses with lots of cars parked around them.  We slowed down and peeked in at what the Thanksgiving people were doing.  This was a thing to do for some reason.  That was the misty portion of the day.

I bashed up my hand last night doing some work related task.  I was sure I would be at the emergency this morning but ibuprofen and ice worked their miracles and here I am typing with both hands.

Last night “Black Friday ” kicked off and I was there to  assist people to their coffee and listen to their anticipation (and hear a lot of comments on my busted hand).  A coworker and a guest and I watched a local station play and replay footage of people attacking the mall with wonder.

I am tired.  This is an entry, right?   We are having a sort of Thanksgiving today with my parents.  I am working yet again, then after work (at 7 a.m.) I will go and do some shopping for Joseph’s birthday party… …which is tomorrow- I hope I get a nap in there somewhere.  Sunday is my ANNIVERSARY- more on that another time.  I guess I should go clean up and try to catch some seconds of sleep?

Happy Thanksgiving

It counts as a post….

 (2:22 a.m. from work… we plan to spend the holiday portion of the day eating take-out and sleeping so this is all I am sticking up here for today)

tired so a list again

this is a good default format when one is trying to get a blog in every day but is not really  in a wordy mood

listening: (I won’t say music because it is not) Book on cd- Toni Morrison, “Tar Baby”.  I read it when I was like 14 and really didn’t remember any of it.  I am one disc from finishing and will start “The Scarlet Letter”.  Thank you public library, thank you.

Watching: School House Rocks– a seemingly infinite number on shuffle.  It is a rainyish day and I am kinda tired and it makes my son love me more.  Tonight we will watch our favorite show: Chef Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares.  We are silly.

Wearing: I can’t lie- some awful old crushed velvet skirt with longjohns underneath and a misbuttoned cardigan and a scarf on my head.  I am not planning on going anywhere for hours.

Reading: Same as last time.  I don’t really have that much free time.

 Eating: generic health food store approximation of Honey Nut Cheerios

Anticipating: Three overnights of holiday travelers in a row.  I am practicing my syrupy sweet give-a-damn smile.

Regretting:  That Joe and I ate all things snacky last night.  I guess I have to stick to coffee.

I should add that I just brought this laptop back from the dead for a second time in a month.  I hate this damn thing.
Happy Thanksgiving

tuesday is my favorite day

Seriously- it is like my Saturday. I don’t have to be anywhere, I get to sleep at night, and the tot and I tend to take it easy. We will probably go for a walk and then spend the rest of the day in a pile of books and snacks. That is what Tuesday is like. We usually end our day with Wheel of Fortune. I know that may seem weird for a child who is not allowed much in the way of television but I would pick a game show over Barney any day. Lots of numbers and letters and clapping. The ads during those things are way less enticing than the ads during a kids’ show. I don’t think Joseph is shopping around for a Medicare supplement plan or looking for a retractable awning. Aaaah, Tuesdays.

I was impressed that my little city made Rush Limbaugh’s little morning blurb on the radio with a letter about Thanksgiving sent home to parents. Apparently he is offended at the notion that atrocities were committed against native peoples. I am so very happy to live in a community that offends him. It is a beautiful thing! He can hate us with our ‘birth control for 11 year olds’ and our policies against religious holidays in school and our, uhm, urgings for sympathy for the peoples who were massacred where this city was built. Yay for us.

Anyone who may be reading this may have realized by now that I don’t have much to say today. That is pretty much how this entry-a-day thing works: I just say stuff.

Stay tuned for more stuff I will say.

bonus post (to make up for yesterday)

listy time!!!

listening- (five things from the past hour on my mp3 player)
1- (some electronic remix of:) Marvin Gaye- Sexual Healing
2- CSS- Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death from Above
3- Prince- Raspberry Beret
4- Led Zeppelin- What Was and Never Should Be (I think that is the title anyway- I think I entered it wrong when I ripped my old cds)
5- Arcade Fire- Poupie de Cire, Poupie de Son

watching-
nothing right now but tonight we will most assuredly we will watch the
only drama that has found a way into our present lives: CSI Miami.
Its gold.

reading-
I am going to reread “Love in the Time of Cholera” and hope that when
I am through the movie will be on dvd, eh?

wearing-
these old jeans from the 90s- the high-waisted navy type that may be
back in? Now that they finally fit again?  A red tee-shirt and a hat I
made myself yesterday afternoon

eating-
I will eat a salad and a pear

anticipating-
It is the kick off of our big season!  Thanksgiving (when I will
working extra overnights!!), Son’s birthday and Thanksgiving observed,
anniversary (Sunday), Joseph’s real birthday (28th), everyone we are
related to and then some birthday season(First two weeks of December),
work related Christmas party season, friend related Christmas Party
season, Bruce Lee Day, Christmas, Christmas after Christmas (the
family Christmas), New Years, and that is that.  But today and
tomorrow are pretty much free:)

regretting:
That I haven’t cleaned the top of the fridge in ages.  I have to do it
now.  I just have to.