Momomama
Ah blessed vacation, how I have missed ye...I spent all weekend reading the new(ish) Donna Tartt and practicing my knots. Tomorrow I fly with my Dad to Denver and begin the Annual (but not last year) Father/Daughter Fishing/Hiking/Horseback Riding Trip. I'll be back on the 4th of August, as I doubt I will be blogging whilst in the Rockies and at the Ranch...
Last night for dinner I had sushi and queso, wasnhed down with a lemonade and a beer. Dessert alternated between handfuls of wasabi peas and popsicles. This is indicative of my mood. I can't stick to one thing. I can't put together a coherent sentence or a logical meal. I am leaving for vacation tomorrow at one, and I plan on returned tanned and lithe, skin cancer be damned. I gave up smoking, for crying out loud, I'm allowed to get a tan. My mom is a sewing genius and I love that she is so serious about getting the dress perfect, even though I don't really get why the zipper can't be off center so the buttons can beright down the middle. I am mad because everybody gets to go to Alaska but me (I know Briar and Bill and my co-workers grandson aren't everyone, but it feels that way.) I hate that I have been almost all alone in the office, with the exception of the coworker with the grandson, and she makes life harder, sometimes, not easier. I wish my hair were blonder and that I had figured out the subjunctivo years ago. I still can't remember Gina's last name, and when I got in from my walk last night, the name of someone I have not talked to in 10 years was on my caller id and she did not leave a message. Tonights dinner will be queso (again) and cold sesame noodles.
Today,
Pamie has an entry about her early adventures in breakdancing. It brought back a flood of 5th grade memories, all of them slightly surreal - Eric Cyr in parachute pants, Paula Komanetsky poppin' and lockin' in her backyard, Shay Smith challending Chris Lesiak to a "dance off" on the playground. Polish and Italian and French Canadian kids from suburban Connecticut completely fascinated by the idea of breakdancing. (Which was an improvement over the previous year's obsession with ninjas.) I won't say I wasn't equally drawn in. I had dreams of breakdancing, too, from the day I watched
Breakin' (One, not
2: Electic Boogaloo) with a crowd of my mom's friend's foster kids one afternoon. But I recognized my inability, my lack of flexibility and my fear of broken bones and pavement burns. So I decided to make my own breakdancing magazine for the "Communications" unit in EPIC, my gifted and talented program. I wrote profiles of breakers real and imagined, I drew pictures, I included directions on backspinning. I reviewed
Breakin'. When I shared my creation with the non-gifted and un-talented from my normal classroom, I became instantly (and only for that instant) cool. That afternoon Chris Lesiak (swoon) called me on the phone to talk about turtles. But by the next day my fame as a cultural analyst was forgotten, and once again everybody gathered around Shay as she spun on her head on square of cardboard next to the baseball backstop.
I'm the one who does all the remembering. I am really proud of this ability. At work, my boss often yells through the wall questions about people..."Who was the host of the seminar in Denver three years ago? What's Susan's sister's name? Who is the class correspondent for 1938?" I just know. And I also remember funny tidbits about the people, so I answer, "Mary Jenkins, who works for dance company. Eileen, and their other sister is Francesca. Well, it used to be Ernestine Gallo, but she died last year. Her old roommate, Laurel Kinderbotten has volunteered, though." And it's not just at work. I knew Bill for less than two months before I had memorized the names of his siblings, nieces and nephews, favorite cousins and thrid grade teacher. He still stumbles on my grandmother's name (if you see him, remind him that it is Jane.) For me to remember all these names and useless facts, though, it really helps if I have never met the people involved. For some reason, I tend to forget things about people I know so I can make room for information about strangers. And this drives me crazy. I bring all this up, because yesterday, I intended to blog about how my graduate school classmate, Gina, and I used to spend Tuesday nights at the gay country bar in Austin taking two step lessons. After the first couple of classes, we started staying for the line dancing class that followed. Gina was totally straight. So straight that she sometimes forgot there could be a gay. I don't think she ever quite got that Alana and I were a couple. And a couple of times I caught her seriously flirting with the gorgeous gay cowboys at the bar. But she was a total sport about the dancing. We decided we needed lessons after we spent an evening as wallflowers at the Broken Spoke. Some of the other country bars in town offered lessons, but she thoght people might think it funny that we were dance partners so she suggested the Rainbow Cattle Company. We went out and bought boots one afternoon and the next Tuesday we started lessons. We were always the only female/female couple. Even the lesbians brought men to dance with (which made us very popular for the cutting in...) One night, three-quarters of the regulars didn't show up for the lessons. We asked Dave, one of the regulars, where his partner was. Dave sighed a little and said, "There's a lockdown up at Ft. Hood, because they might be getting deployed to the middle east. So none of the guys could get away." I never spent much time around army bases, so I found it odd that the biggest crowd of soldiers I have ever been around was at a gay country bar. So this is what I was going to blog about yesterday, but I got totally obsessed with the fact the I can not remember Gina's last name. At all. I keep thinking it's Torricelli, but I KNOW that's not right. It starts with a T though, and I think it's Italian. I think. Aaargh. It's driving me crazy!
My health insurance company has the creepiest hold music I have ever heard. The tinkly piano tunes sound like the music for the opening credits on a 1980s made for tv movie about a child murdering nanny or a stalking ex-husband. The camera sweeps in over a field or a lake or a road. (tinkle tinkle) It is fall. (Tinkly tinklie tink) Late afternoon sunset. ( tink) The camera finally rests on a beautiful yet isolated Colonial, or a rustic lake-front cabin. (Tinkle tinkle tinkle.) So peaceful, yet so foreboding. (tinklie tinklie) You just know a dead body will be bobbing in the lake or a suicide will be hanging from a noose in the attic with in the first fifteen minutes. Just as I know that my policy will not cover the generic.
A wedding gown decision has been made. My mom and I are making
this dress. When I say "my mom and I", I really mean my mom. "We" made the bodice in muslin yesterday afternnon, which means my mom made the bodice. But I ironed some fabric (I realize now that was
totally busy work!) I also learned how to make a tailor's tack and why you would need one.
Elliott is a prince among dogs. He's always polite and upbeat even when Mo steps on him. Elliott prances his Maltese self up and down the courtyard, doing these jumpy flying turns through the air. Elliott's owners take him to dog camp every summer and Elliot gets to practice tracking and agility and the lady owner enrolled herself and Eliott in the Ballroom dancing class this year. She tells me that Elliott has mastered the box step and that she hops to have him fox trotting by year's end. Elliott's also a model and starred in an aminal rescue calendar this year. He's Mr. February, hovering in a field of red, his white coat brushed to shiny perfection, a quiver of arrows lashed across his teeny tiny body, and a computer generated bow and arrow in his paws. Even with the extraneous props his calendar picture resembles nothing so much as that famous picture of naked Marilyn Monroe stretched on a velvet background. Elliott's owners have been sorting through the eight hundred pictures taken over the course of Elliott's five years so they can get them to the videographer today so work can begin on Biography: Elliott the Maltese. I think it's all too much, but Mo takes it in stride. He can always knock Elliott down a few pegs by peeing on his head and snoving his (from Elliott's perspective) giant muzzle up Elliott's ass.
Bill owns no dress shoes and has only one tie. That tie is camoflage. He claims to have a jacket but I have never seen it. He's a low maintenance guy. He showers once every few days, doesn't own a comb, and shaves twice a year. I love this about him. He's easy going and doesn't care for the frills (though he does love the expensive fishing outfits...$400 for waders, at the discounted price) So when we had our first marriage discussion and he said he wanted to get me a fancy ring one day, I was pretty surprised. Of course I told him I don't care about the rings. When we decided we would get married, I reiterated my lack of need for a ring. Especially not a diamond ring. "If you really want to get me something, it could be a sapphire," I said. Since then the ring topic has come up only one other time, when he mentioned that he should have gotten something in the Virgin Islands this spring. I told him I really didn't need one. But I lied.
Maybe lied is the wrong word. Changed my mind is more like it. I have decided that I do want a ring. But how can I ask for it? The princess demands her jewels? If he asked me if I wanted a honeymoon or a ring, or a ring or something for the house, I would say honeymoon and house. But I don't think that's true. I know we don't have a lot of money. I always tell him we need to prioritize. And so, a ring would fall down the list. But I wish I didn't feel like I had to choose. And do I really? Can't I just tell him I want one? And why DO I want one?
Yesterday I got an email from one of my coworkers, saying that there would be a champagne toast today at eleven in honor of the engagement of head of our department. This boss was proposed to last week and has a HUGE diamond. My coworkers have know since April that I was getting married. They know we've set a date, that I have been shopping for dresses, that plans are being planned. And yet, people keep asking me if it's "official." When I say yes I have been asked (more than once...) "Where's the ring?" Is this why I want one? So I will feel validated? So it will feel real? (would it feel anymore real with a ring? Porbably not.) So people will throw me parties and give me a pence for my shoes and a blue ribbon garter? So I will be toasted? Sometimes, yes. I admit it. I want to be the center of attention. But I don't feel like I should ask for that or that I have earned that (like getting married is the goal in life and you should be rewarded for reaching that goal?) and so I told Bill I did not want a ring. And now I do. And I don't know how to ask for it, or even if I am allowed to.
Just when I consider going off the pill and exploring natural family planning,
this hits the news. And again I say, sometimes it's hard to be a woman.
The town of Keene Valley is looking for a school bus driver. I bet none of the applicants have read
The Sweet Hereafter . That'll put you off driving the bus in that town (or a fictionalized version of it, anyway...).
On Sunday night, Bill and I went to see T3. In said movie, Ah-nold's Terminator picks up the line "talk to the hand" from a male stripper. (Don't ask. It's T3!) All day yesterday, Bill was saying "Talk to the hand." To me, to various Bunkhouse guests, to random passersby. He was highly amused. We were sitting on the porch when he said it for the umpteenth time that day. To the dog. "That's the best line EVER! I have to remember it!" That's when I realized he had never heard it before. He was sorely disappointed to discover what he thought was the Terminator's most brilliant contribution to society since "I'll be baaaaaaaaaah-ck" was not only completely unoriginal, but also about five years out of date. Still, T3 rocked in that plastic cup of budweiser in one hand and a funnel cake in the other while watching demolition derby way.
Happy Birthday,
Momo! Three years ago yesterday, ugly, skinny, wormy, flea-bitten, bald spotted, giant balled Momo greeted me at my back door. Now he's all growed up.
And one year from today I will be getting married. So it's only fitting that I would have the first wedding anxiety dream last night. It went a little something like this. My mom and I are making finally preparations the night before the wedding, outside at the camp. We're checking out food, decorating, what have you. Twenty people arrive one day early for the wedding. But since they are bearing gifts, we let them eat all the food. The next day, my mom and I go to relax at the Smithsonian, which, contary to popular opinion, is NOT located in DC but rather sits on the deck of the Intrepid. It's not so incovenient afterall, though, as the Adirondacks are located on the Upper East Side. We enjoy the Fourth of July exhibit, but I just can't find Tovah Feldshuh's outfit from "Golda's Balcony," though she promised me it would be in the exhibit. At five o'clock I tell my mom we have fifteen minutes before we have to leave for the wedding, which is at six. We wonder deeper into the museum, when I realize that there is no food left, I am not dressed, and I'll NEVER get a cab from the SMITHSONIAN! I try to call Bill at the Bunkhouse (located someplace in Central Park) but he has already left for the wedding. I panick and start to run back through the museum, but it is all grand staircases, and swinging vines, and pole vaulting and I realize my grandma is with us and she can't keep up. I run ahead and am sprinting through mid-town when I realize I should wait formy mom and grandma, as we can't start without them. When I woke up I was in a panic. Not about getting married, but about the fact that i forgot to change the College website to reflect "Golda's Balcony's" move to Broadway.
I just changed the page on my calendar and saw
this (sans the words.) Now, the rest of the pictures are pretty nice, everymonths different bright colored flowers or fruits. But I have to say, I was overwhelmed with the feeling of being cheated by this month's picture. In fact, I am ANGRY about it.
But you know, I am not going to let this or sugar free muffins ruin my day, man. No way. I am stronger than this.
The grocery store carries muffins in packages of four. Each package has an assortment of different muffins. I know which are the poppy seed, and I can tell the bran and the blueberry apart, but what the hell is the green one? It's not March, there's no need for green muffins. Apparently, the only way to get four muffins of the same identifiable type is to buy the sugar free muffins. So I did. They are all the same flavor artficial sweetener with poppy seeds, now with 20% more chemical aftertaste. I am so disappointed.
