Happy Birthday, Baby Who Is Not A Baby

Sometimes words just can't get it right. Perhaps a very amateur picture slideshow can attempt to tell you how blown away with how big my boy is.


The Kid's first 9 years from Molly G on Vimeo.

I think she might be trying to tell me something...

This is my cat, Daisy.

I really love her. She's soft and cute and she meows and purrs when she comes to tell me to feed her.

However, I'm pretty sure she hates me. She's been trying to leave me hints about her disdain for me for a while now. She never lets me pet her soft fur, she wakes me up before the sun rises by crawling up under my covers and attacking my feet. In fact, she takes her early morning waking duty so seriously, she cut out the competition by chewing through the power cord of my alarm clock. She attacks my feet every time I walk by. She really hates me. I mean look at that picture there. She's thinking about how if she ate my foot I might leave her alone.

And yet, I continue to try. I play with her, I coo at her, I still try to pick her up to revel in her softness.

She clearly decided that subtle hints were no longer working. She's taken to attacking my arms, and I realized today, that perhaps she's trying to carve me a little skin message:

How much do you want to bet the next letter is "U"?

ha ha heh

So, annually, I try to match my bff in birthday posts as her birthday falls just four days after mine. She's much better than I. She could write a birthday post for Pol Pot: she'd tell you about how he actually loved puppies and could make a mean curry and you'd want him to come over for dinner tomorrow, and babysit your kids, and you would so sincerely wish that you had your own friend like Mr. Lady's friend Pol Pot.

I can tell you that I think about Mr. Lady all the time, especially now that she's living so far away from me, and I miss her so sincerely it hurts. Driving to work this morning, I was thinking out the most beautiful post, where I would write about the random ways that I think about Mr. Lady every day, the things I wish I could tell her that would crack her up (and Mas Younon is so right, it's all about her laugh), the ways that she has touched my life and made my life better, well, you'd be sitting in a puddle of your own tears. You would be moved beyond words, the beauty of our friendship would blow you into heaven, you'd reach enlightenment, touch the sublime.

In regards to my literate, touching post, you would ask me,

"Be you an angel?"
And I'd Say, "Nay. I am but woman."

But, this is just a tribute. This is not the greatest birthday post in the world.

Just a matter of opinion.

I love you dude. Happy birthday. Thanks for sticking with me for these years, thanks for holding me up. I can only hope that I return the favor, because I only know the enormous difference you've made in my life.

It's amazing how quickly life can change.

On January 6, my mom had retinal detachment surgery. This was her seventh surgery of this kind, five having been done on her right eye, which was eventually lost completely to blindness. This surgery was successful, but at some point, shortly after the surgery, she told us that everything was dark, that this time was different from all of the other recoveries from this kind of surgery that she's been through, that something was not right. Her gut feeling was right: on the back of her eye, her retina, a blood clot had formed, blew, and has rendered her almost completely blind. She can only see a little bit of periphery, just around the edges of her retina that was not effected by the blood clot.

As a result, The Kid and I are moving in. It's not a hardship to do this, but it is an enormous change. I've been busy getting ready to move, cleaning out spaces in the house to fit my stuff, cleaning out my house to hopefully free myself from the five years of crap I've accumulated in my house. The Kid is having a harder time, struggling with the rules of my home being imposed in the usual lap of luxury that is, by definition, the way a grandmother's home is run.

So, I don't feel like writing much lately. Go figure.

I have, however, had a blast looking through my old stuff, my mom's stuff, my family's stuff. And so, in attempt to get me back to writing more often, as it is a kind of therapuetic thing for me, I want to show you all the stuff I've been finding... It's great fun.

First up?

A Postcard.

I picked this postcard up in a bar in Dublin in 1996. I decided to make this quote my mantra for all of the things I chose to do that year: break up with my boyfriend of 3 years, finish of that second bottle of wine, make out with that British boy at that party in Wales, travel throughout Europe, drink it in, live deep, suck marrow, carpe diem.

12 years in, I not only don't regret a thing, I'm incredibly grateful that I did have a big, wide open life. Because now, I have a small life. Home and hearth, taking care of family. It's what I do now. And like that Italy/Holland poem, it's not a bad place to be, "it's just a different place." I'm glad I've had it both ways.

Okay, Okay, I'm done being done.

Kind of. I can't promise anything.

Because I'm a corporate drone, let's update with bullet points. I've been a citizen of a corporation so long, that when I am in a hurry, I just naturally gravitate towards the bullet point. This is officially the death of the grad student inside of me. Goodbye, longwinded narrative prose. Goodbye soul.

• Have you ever seen that Office where Michael tells the office that they are getting laid off, make fabulous plans for the future, are excited about the change, and then find out they aren't getting laid off in the end and feel totally deflated as a result? That was me last week. I still have my job. Whoopee.
• I fully realize how whiny that statement is. A lot of people would like to have jobs.
• My boss's last day, however, is December 31. I am incredibly sad about this fact. He is one of the few things I truly love about my job.
• The Kid's down-titration of meds is causing some major behavior issues. Or perhaps it is the fact that he's really obsessed with Christmas and isn't sleeping.
• The Kid's doctor is still certain that we drop meds without adding anything else. Issues will sort themselves out.
• I very reasonably and calmly informed the school of what's going on with the meds, and although they were initially very against the dropping of meds, I've gotten them to understand the impetus to do so, and how very vital it is to the health of The Kid to do so, although they still don't see that we had periods like this with the meds too, because we all think in frameworks and cause and effect of the easiest identifiable thing.
• We meet tomorrow afternoon to discuss how best to handle the behaviors we're seeing.
• They assure me they are not talking about a change of placement. I realize how fucked in the head I am still from the previous school's inability to create behavior plans and follow IEP's, because I find it hard to believe that they are this professional and willing to work with me to keep The Kid in school, to keep him safe, and to get him learning instead of spending time outside of the classroom calming down from anger.

Okay, I have to go to work. It also snowed like crazy this week and remained below freezing so driving sucks right now. I really hate snow. I'm not over last winter. I am dreaming of Hawaii.

Simple day

I'm not feeling very reflective tonight, maybe I should have posted before I filled my tummy. We had a good holiday. No tempers, no foul words. I have a great family. The Kid was in fine form except this morning when he was convinced he could wash my car with a small saucepan and a wash cloth, even though it was 30 degrees outside. It took a while for him to accept my ABSOLUTELY YOU MAY NOT WASH MY CAR.

I am fundamentally grateful that I have a small life. I work with good people. My friends are good people. My family is my center, and we are good to each other. Apart from The Kid's drama, I have an amazingly stable life. It's simple. I know nothing else.

That's a simple, but fundamental thing to be thankful for. And I really am. It's perfect.

When is Tuesday like Friday?

When you close your office on Weds! I LOVE Thanksgiving. It's my total fave holiday. Five-day weekend and all.

So, in preparation for the big holiday, I thought I'd share how I get ready for a turkey day with my family:

1. Discuss with your mom and sisters who is making what for Thanksgiving. Your sister who has recently moved back to the area will be making pies, and has totally usurped your position as pie maker.
2. Resent her for 5 minutes.
3. Volunteer to bring jello and salad.
4. Search the internet for crazily good salads you can make. Find difficult and extravagant salads and home made dressings on Food.com. Dream a little about candying almonds and develop a craving for beets.
5. Because you are all about fiber, decide you must make something with spinach and beets. Beets beets beets beets.
6. Your mom reminds you that you have picky eaters in the mix.
7. Eat the beets on your own goddamn time. Pickle a few for mom so she will love you best.
8. Go back to step 4. Settle on fancy thing with arugula and blue cheese and dressing made out of clementines.
9. Go to the grocery store with everyone else in Denver on Tuesday night because the snow's a-coming tomorrow.
10. Throw out fancy salad idea and settle on the old standby. But buy the fancy bacon, it's a holiday for cripe's sake.

I have a really amazing support system of friends, family, medical professionals, but all of that starts and ends with my mom. She is kind, and funny, and warm. She has saved my life on a number of occassions, but never so much as she has in the last year and a half. She has served as my son's second home, his afterschool neighborhood, with snacks and activities and help with homework. She's the reason I can still churn away at it all.

Today is her birthday. When I was little, I gave her a card that I made all by myself that said, did you know that if you spell MOM upside down it spells WOW?

Do you know what WOWs me now? How my relationship with my mom has been one of the cornerstones of my life. I couldn't be more grateful for her.

Did you hug/call/thank/remember a veteran today?

My Uncle Harry joined ROTC in college, around 1939. He graduated from Santa Clara University with a BA in education in 1943, and joined the Reserves as American troops were dying in droves in Europe and in the South Pacific during World War II. This was roughly less than a year after Pearl Harbor, and two years before the war would be won. My uncle had no idea what he was getting into.

I'm unsure where he completed his training, where his troops trained, but I believe it was in the South. He was shipped off to England as a First Lieutentant of the 106th Artillery Division in September of 1944. From southern England the division was sent to Belguim on December 1st, replacements for the main line in Holland, Belguim and France. My uncle's division was stationed squarely in the Ardennes forest, a lightly guarded and very quiet part of that western front, for a slow orientation into combat. On December 16th, 1944, German Panzer divisions, the very last of Hitler's army staffed by old men and children, crushed the silence in the Ardennes, lambasting the unprepared and underprotected troops. Over the next month, the Germans progressed through the American line, producing a lethal 'bulge' in their line, cutting off supplies and causing confusion. It took more than a month before the allies succeeded in surrounding the Germans, and the Battle of the Bulge was over by January 25, 1945. In all, nearly 81,000 allied troops were killed in action and over 24,000 were captured*.

Somewhere between the initial onset of the battle and Christmas, 1944, my uncle was captured. Our best guess is that he was transported to a prisoner of war camp for officers called Oflag XIII-B in Hammelburg, Germany. Transported is a kind word. Most first hand reports by veterans of Oflag XIII-B and Battle of the Bulge captured state that they were marched through the cold of Germany to reach the camp. They were fed a diet of 1200 calories a day at first, cutting back to only 1000 calories a day by the time they were liberated. Malnutrition was the cause of disease (from the most simple infections, unable to heal without proper nutrition, to the more serious, like dysentery) and of course, death.

My uncle was always very quiet about his experiences in this camp. I know that he developed an appendicitis, or at the very least an inflamed appendix, while in this camp. A guard offered the medic a butter knife, and said, operate. I know that he was very proud that his camp was personally liberated by General Patton, although it is likely, but I don't know the whole story, that he, along with almost everyone Patton's army liberated from Hammelburg, were the victims of an ill-planned liberation, and were recaptured.

He did make it home. Skinny as hell, but alive, he returned to his family home in Trinidad, Co. His first question of my dad, his kid brother, was "what are your favorite songs right now?" My dad's answer? Bing Crosby's "Don't Fence Me In."

***

I don't care where you stand on war or peace or Iraq or Vietnam or Right or Left, I think we do stand united on this: We are singularly in awe of men who saw the worst things a man can see, and even moreso at their ability to come back home, to reintegrate, and to live lives without the horrors. My heart goes out incredibly to the sufferers of PTSD, even for the men who suffered from it before we called it that. My wish for veterans day is that the men and women who served our country are being served now, by us. That they receive good medical care, that their war wounds, physical and psychological, are healed. And that they never, ever feel unappreciated for their sacrifice, regardless of war or cause or president.



*Just because this blows my mind: 40 days, 81,000 dead. Not that either one is 'better' or more or less brutal, or more or less morally acceptable: compared to our current war in Iraq, that is 2,000% more dead in just 2% of the time our troops have currently been in Iraq. (source for Iraq number here)

Dear Universe,

Thank you.



A year ago, The Kid was struggling with sanity, going into the hospital, and I was in survival mode such that I had a million emotions all at once, and yet none at all (which is to say I cried all the time but I couldn't tell you what I was thinking, at all). Never in a million years did I think that exactly a year later, I would have a new person in my life to put so much hope and love and receive so much joy and optimism. My baby neice was born yesterday, a perfect 6lbs 5oz of babydoll bliss and soft skin and coos and sweet baby head-smell. She is my sister's, of course, my sister who also happens to be my best friend and finest confidant. The joy, the optimism, the hope of a new baby. I couldn't ask for more.

And as far as my message to Baby Q goes, I must say, Thank you. Thank you for choosing my sister and my brother in law and my neice and nephew. Thank you for coming. Oh, and as The Kid and Kurt Vonnegut like to say, "Welcome to Earth." You know all of the secrets of the universe right now, and will for about three more days. Can you please tell me some of them?

Things I'd Love to Write About Right Now

I'm in that place where I'm thinking a lot, up late, but completely and totally unable to coherently write anything. I want to write. If I could only hone this craft, I believe I could be a writer. I'm okay at this. But, I've had this lifelong issue with actually getting things written. In 6th grade, I won this mystery short story contest put on by a local talk radio station. I was the proud winner of two autographed novels by a couple of mystery novel writers, I have no idea who they were or the first clue what the books were about as I never ever even tried to read them, but I got to go on the radio and talk about writing, which was a really cool experience. I remember telling my parents that day that it was going to be the best day of my life. I remember my mom telling me that she honestly hoped I would have better ones that that. And Mom? I so totally have.

Anyway, the story was about how I lost my creativity. I can't quite remember the particulars about this story, and I'm sure we could locate it somewhere in the labyrithine basement of my mom's house, but I know it involved some kind of neurotransmitters acting as private detectives for my poor, forlorn brain stem robbed of it's creativity. I believe the neurotransmitters located the creativity somewhere in my gut, where some evil bacteria was planning to have me poop it out with last night's dinner. The lesson in that story? Take Acidophilus. Also, this writer's block shit I have had again and again and again (does anyone who was my friend through the evil horrible writer's block that was my last semester in college, when I had to write my honor's thesis, still read this blog and care to comment on my propensity to sit at a computer and not have the first clue how to write down all that I've been talking about incessantly for 18 months care to attest to this fact?) is something of which I've been painfully aware from a very young age.

And so, I have all of these fabulous posts in this brain of mine, while some evil bacteria is instigating bowel movements imbued with my precious, precious gifts of gab (that guy in Dr. Strangelove was so right, it is all about the bodily fluids), and I can't seem to get them out on time if at all, and so, in short:

1. I can't stop thinking about The Sopranos finale. It's been three weeks now. I may need to find a support group.

Do any of you watch the Sopranos? Because dude. It ended with the most magnificent mindfuck of any and all mindfucks I've ever been, um, victimized (?) by. I BAWLED when that last scene started. I knew, since forever ago (Entertainment Weekly obsession, thanks), that the final scene had been filmed at Holsten's (which sounds like the world's best place for a Sundae Sunday), and as it started, I said, "It's Ending!" The last scene was all anticipation and anxiety, that first time, and as it cut to black, I thought, wow. David Chase is an asshole. He just refuses to end this story. But how beautiful, how fitting, how ambiguous, how just like the hours and hours of film already devoted to these characters:



I watched the entire episode again, immediately. And I noticed Tony peeling the orange. And that orange cat obsessed with the picture of Christophuh. And the guy in the Member's Only jacket going into the bathroom, as if following the script from The Godfather. Also, Onion Rings which are Best in the State are to The Sopranos are what Veal that is Best in the City is to The Godfather.

The intervening weeks have only made me crazier. I read that the color scheme of the final scene is only grays and blacks and oranges (it is), Member's Only is the title of the episode in which Tony is shot, previously, and the man in the diner is wearing a Member's Only jacket. Episodes prior to the last, Tony talks to his brother in law, and this conversation is alluded to moments before this last scene, that you wouldn't probably hear a gunshot, that everything would fade to black. And Meadow. She can't parallel park. But she tries twice, unsuccessfully. That third time? Bingo. Tony? First time he's shot, unidentified black males, bottle of orange juice in his hands, not killed. Second time... In the gut, doesn't die. Third time? Perhaps?

So, now I'm kind of thinking Tony is whacked in that scene. But how beautiful and horrific and torturous of David Chase to make us figure it out.

Buon Anima Sopranos. Thanks for fucking with my brain, still.

2. Camp. The Kid has been going to a special needs day camp for the last two weeks, his final week is coming up. It's been FANTASTIC. I'm completely humbled, as I've now met kids and parents of kids that have challenges that so far outweigh our own, that I feel like I can never ever complain again for the rest of my life. I wish every child could go to camp with these kids, get some perspective, learn some empathy, and learn that a child with autism, or cerebal palsy, or any other of the myriad disabilities that exist in this world, are children, are funny, get grumpy, have great days, have bad days, eat food, love swimming, like challenges, and jokes, just like any child, I don't know. I think the world would be a better place if more people gained that perspective.

Also, The Kid is in such a great environment at this camp. He benefits from the people employed there. He still has some tough moments, needs guidance and could definitely not function in a 'camp' or daycare that didn't have staff trained to cater to his needs, but the overall prognosis is AWESOMENESS. Overall, awesome. He is having fun, he is working SO HARD to stay calm, to work the social skills and calming skills that he's learned in the last year in his various therapuetic settings, I seriously could not be more proud of him.

3. My best friend forever is moving back to Canada. I have this entirely beautiful post planned, not specifically about Shannon and her marriage, but about marriage in general, how it mystifies me. How marriage must be so preferable to singlehood, that so many people make the choice to not be single. But I have no concept of that whatsoever. I can't imagine, at all, having another person in my life (other than The Kid) so important, that I would change my course for him. I simply don't own that handbook. What's the deal with that?

But also, Shannon, specifically, is moving back to fucking Canada. Land of socialised health care (and British spelling). I know the distance won't hurt our friendship, I'm not worried about that at all. She's got me for life, and she knows that. She's pulled me into her her incidious web of love and friendship, and I will never be able to escape the pull of being a friend to such an interesting, intelligent and, well, hot woman. But I won't be able to babysit for her from Canada, and that makes me sad. As does the prospect of memorial day weekends without her.

4. Wilco's new album is fantastic. It makes me think of The Beatles. And hot days. And hot days when I used to be able to drink 8 beers on a Thursday afternoon. How is it that an album released in 2007 can make me nostalgic for 1997?

The Hold Steady is the best band in America right now. They make me think of Bruce Springsteen, but I never ever really thought about Bruce Springsteen before, because I'm of the generation sandwiched one layer too young to 'get' him. They are making me reconsider Bruce Springsteen.

Amy Winehouse makes me want to drink to excess in a way that Cat Power does not.

5. There's the fabulous academic shitstorm going on about the diagnosis of bipolar in children. It begins, I guess, with the death of Rebecca Riley, about whom I've written on this blog. The Boston Globe has been a hotbed of this coverage, as has the NY Times.

First up, one Dr. Biederman of Mass General in Boston is challenged on the bipolar child paradigm.

Next, some doctor from Walnut Creek, CA calls Dr. Biederman a murderer.

I believe, as I've said before, there will be some refining of what constitutes "bipolar" and what does not, in children, that will hopefully come out of this. And perhaps, doctors will consider options other than medication (or along with) to help treat the behaviors. We've been doing incredibly well lately on a slew of supplements and very slight dietary changes (this could be item #6, but I'm not quite ready for that yet).

Then, the NY Times cannot be outdone. Of all doctors making money from pharmaceutical companies, psychiatrists rank number one. This could be due to the fact that it is difficult to have large fund raisers for research of mental illness, simply for the fact that there is such a cultural stigma on it (Susan G. Komen Foundation being and established charity for a disease--breast cancer-- which is largely accepted and commiserated with in our country, which what I'm thinking about here[in no attempt to devalue the great things they've done or the importance of cancer research!!!]), but also, numbers this large, it's hard to imagine that there would be no influence on the research. Like, who is funding research on schools and mental illness in children (environments that are more helpful vs medicating and then fitting square pegs into round holes). I've been battling this bipolar child shit for three years now, and have not found a single doc who knows the first thing about natural supplements until our current psychiatrist did say that Omega 3 is beneficial. No changes to diet suggested. No vitamins, no testing of the rest of his body (specifically his digestive tract!!!).

Anyway, as a spectator, it's been interesting, and if you are interested, you may also want to follow the sport from Furious Seasons, a psyciatric-establishment-dubious website, and a great resource for the latest and greatest in the field.

6. I wish I could blog about my sisters. They are fascinating.

Maybe if I could ever figure out how to write, I could write the best novel of all time based on those three women.

So, yes, I've managed to keep Daisy the kitty alive for a full eleven days. Well, there was a close call there in an incident involving a three inch wedge heel and a tail, and I'll tell you, I pulled through that one, barely. The cat? She ran away just in time for my faceplant into the couch.

So other than that, not much is going on here. Did you know that you can watch a kitten grow?

Last week:

This week:
Alright, I realize this may be something only I can see, but seriously, bitch is porking out on the kibbles (okay, I used a bad word there strictly to move from the PG rating I got so I can be more "adult" like her and her and him).

Did you know that a kitty will always need to take some 'personal space' as soon as you decide it's time to clean out her litter box? And that you will never, ever tire of watching a kitten run full speed down a hallway to make a 90 degree turn on hardwood?

In a week, this kitty has gone from angel lover baby to gonzo mischief maker and impulsive killer of any and all moving (or not moving) limbs (or extremities, or clothing, or hair, or noses) on any individual human in her vicinity. In short, she is a kitten.



Also, did you know that if a cat is befouled by falling into a tub being emptied of bathwater, she will return to the scene of the crime to investigate, as if the place had offended her, and you better believe she is going sort this shit out here and now and if there are any loose toes on the way she will definitely be violently pouncing, biting and attacking them with her wet self because, what are you looking at?

In non-kitty news, the sunsets in Denver have been sublime this week. The Kid and I have become connoiseurs.


He's also huge. You can watch him grow as well, like Bamboo. Or Kitties.

What Will the Rockstar Scare Sound Like?

You know, the band that The Kid and Mr. Lady's kids will be starting in about 10 years? Haven't you wondered what kind of music our kids will be listening to (and in my case, making) in the future? Here's my theory...

I know that B likes his indie rock and/or nerd rock, like Weezer. The Kid has recently been exploring his country roots, but still just wants to scream into microphones and be famous. His hard rock growl has already been perfected. Like, seriously. L is going to bring the sweet pop sounds, and she'll totally end up pulling a Stefani and be more famous and successful working on her own projects. And T. Well, something makes me think (bad connotations be damned) that he might bring a little old school Michael Jackson flava:

She's Baaaack....

Mr. Lady, you know, my bff, has hit the blogosphere again, this time in green.

ha ha heh

Tuesday is Shannon's birthday. I kind of love the woman to death... We first met about 15 years ago, and we've wove in and out our each others lives ever since. So, what can I say about her that I haven't already said?

She's the absolute package, people. She is a looker, that's one. Also, she's funny. No, like really. And if only she still had a blog I could link to, I would prove that one... But seriously, she's a true and honest friend, a really loyal person. She's one of the smartest people I know, and she's gloriously self aware. She makes good babies. She knows her whiskey, and her favorite book is Prayer for Owen Meany. I hear she also likes long walks on the beach, and pina coladas. And yes, getting caught in the rain. Although, if she's got the baby in the stroller with her and the groceries to bring in, she actually doesn't like rain persay. Anyway, if you want to date her, just let me know. She's hot. But like, I'm her BFF, and well, don't mess with her.

So, Soapy Water dating service aside, what do you give the woman who has it all?

I've outsourced blogging about my son...

I have no energy to post on this blog apparently. So, Mr. Lady wrote a really lovely little snippet of what life is like with The Kid. Please go read it and remember how I used to write with gusto about how much I love him. I still do love him, it's the writing with gusto part that is hard for me.

See, I'm writing this from my mom's house. Things had been going reasonably well for The Kid at hospital school, and still are. But life is always ready to throw a curve ball.

My mom, my awesome sweetheart of a mom, had surgery to repair a detached retina two weeks ago. It's really not the worlds worst thing that can happen to a body, as long as it is caught early and is repaired well. However, this happened to her before, when The Kid was a baby. We lived here then, too.

A retinal detachment is repaired by inserting a bubble of gas into the eyeball. After the procedure, the recovering eyeball needs to have the pressure of the gas against the effected area. Usually that effected area is at the back of your eyeball. Quickly do the science experiment (use a snow globe with a little bit of air in it perhaps?) in your mind... To have the gas bubble touching the back of a person's eyeball that person must have their face down. When my mom had this happen the first time, she was face-down for about three months. She had the surgery, I think, three times. But the retina never re-attached, and she is now blind in that eye.

But the good news about this time is that she caught it within days of the detachment, the surgery was almost immediate, and it was successful. But she has had to do the face-down thing again.

For a few days there, she was almost completely blind. Every day since, however, she sees more as the gas bubble 'resolves' (that's what the doctors call it), and she is able to be more independent.

The Kid and I have been staying with her since the night of her surgery. We have basically moved in. I like it here for the nice washer and dryer, and the big kitchen. The Kid likes the multiple televisions. I hope that my mom likes us here for the home cooked meals and the company. What I don't feel like I can do here, though, is my blogging habits. And so, a little drought creatively as well as in quantity.

I think we'll go home tomorrow, as she's pretty much back to kicking this thing, and we really need to get a Christmas tree put up in our probably very dusty and sad little dark home of our own. And so, hopefully, we'll get back to our routine, and I'll be back to blogging about the wonderful things that come out of The Kid's mouth, although Mr. Lady is so very good at it.

Happy Turkey

My sister, who recently arrived for the holiday from Boston, has brought me my very first Sudoku book. I'm afraid I will not be posting for a few days as I am now frantically obsessed.

I, for one, am thankful for Sudoku. For bringing the idiotic obsession that I have not known since tetris back to my life.

I'm thankful for a few other things too, like clean water, good family, my sunshine of a child, but mostly Sudoku.

Wherein I Write Haikus and Write About Really Sad Stuff

I'm in the strangest mood tonight, let's get that out of the way right here.

See, I've not been in the mood to write much lately. But fueled by creative cooking (I made really yummy pork chops brined in saltwater and maple syrup with a very inventive Fat Tire gravy... Did you know you could deglaze a pan with beer? It's great!), as well as a medicinal amount of beer while I cooked and ate, I find myself again in the mood to write a thing or two about the state I am in.

See, prior to the creative cooking experiment, this week has looked a lot like this: wake up, go to work, pick up The Kid, go home, work, feed self and Kid, attend to other random needs of Kid and self, bed. Repeat. See? No where in that previous description do you see "write pithy blogpost about heartbreaking struggle on internet." Nope, no place for it.

Instead, I've done a lot of thinking internally. There is plenty of room in the aforementioned schedule for navel gazing and self-doubt. I look back, I can say with all honesty that each week since somewhere in July has been progressively worse than the one prior to it. Prior to the start of first grade for The Kid, my biggest problem was that the daycare annoyed me.

Remember? Summer?
Bickering With Other Kids.
Damn. Good times, indeed.

Then, school started and The Kid started going slightly nutty with the running away from teachers and kicking chairs and breaking the really nice school secretary's pencil caddy. And I wanted to help them help him, and was playing the role of super involved parent, writing long emails and calling daily and setting meetings and stuff. But then I lost all faith in them because instead of working with me to help The Kid, they broke all kinds of laws and failed to do all of that 'parent notification' stuff that the pesky disability laws protect against. I can't lie and say I'm over all of it, but I can say that I've learned a little bit about being the obstinate party on the bad side of bad news. Sometimes you have to suck it up and take it.

Schools: Don't break the law
Bitches. Yea! The A.D.A!
You stick up for us!

or alternatively:

Should have known better.
The school couldn't handle it.
The Kid needed help.

So we tried another school, but then the hospital. The hospital which I tried to contact first, but we got talked out of it. Oh well, another missed opportunity to provide timely care to The Kid. It happens every day. But anyway, we DID end up at the hospital, in their school program, and damnit if they couldn't even handle it. He was admitted to the psych ward.

Bring on Sedation!
Drug him 'til his eyes water.
That will fix him, right?

Except, that was not it, not it at all:

Wow, the crazy kids
They're a lot like us. Cute, too!
The Kid belonged here.

The staff at this hospital was sooooo good. They did have to give him "extra" doses of certain meds to keep him safe for the first few days. After that, though, the non-extra doses of meds kicked in, and he began to function, he began to be my darling Kid again. See, he was a mess before that. He was anxious, and unsleeping. He was tirelessly angry, and itchy. Also restless and sad. He didn't function. Living with that was a lot harder than seeing him on psychiatric medicines in a hospital, believe me. After 10 days inpatient with significant gains in mood stabilization, he was discharged.

He came home Monday
pizza and macaroni
joyous reunion

But then, but then... Do you know how life has a way of letting you know that you are not the center of the universe?

We went to my mom's house for a family dinner when he came home. My mom and I were bitching about political solicitations via telephone, and her phone rang, so I answered it, expecting another of these November nuisances. Instead of a recording of Bill Clinton or John McCain, it was a real person. And not only that, something and someone much much more.

It was my aunt, and my uncle had died. Suddenly. Shockingly. No one was prepared for this. My uncle was a quiet guy. He loved his wife, his kids, and his dogs. He wrote out the Christmas cards and birthday greetings and all of the letters to the family for as long as I can remember. He was strong and silent, and good. Good as can be. The very definition of Good Man. He was a hunter, and trained black labs for hunting trials. He was a man of few words. Our last great and very typical conversation took place right around the time of the great Chaney-Shooting-His-Buddy-In-The-Face incident. I asked him if he could understand what happened there, to see if that was "something that could happen," like the stories you hear other random accidents that you think, 'that SO could have happened to me.' He said, "No. And I'm not saying that because I'm a democrat." I often thought of him as the kind of guy who preferred the kind of communication that exists between a man and his [extremely well trained and beautiful] dogs. Not complicated, lots of unspoken understanding and great amounts of peace.

Don, you and your dogs
are hunting in the duck blind
together, Heaven.

Other things have been going on, too. Midterm elections. Whoopee. I'm feeling so underwhelmed and cynical about it all. Perhaps it's because Colorado elected all sorts of blue in all sorts of places, but then still decided to put into our constitution an amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman . I guess I'm an underrepresented extremely liberal democrat, and I want the sun and the moon and the stars and I've only been given the moon and I'd really like that sun and stars, too. Also, I read an article which cited the last time congress changed hands as dramatically, in the year of Gingrich's contract for America, 12 years ago.

12 years ago? For reals? I remember that Wednesday morning so well. Honor Scholar seminar, freshman year. DePauw University, where the students are 9814% more conservative than the professors, where the majority of the students come from affluent suburbs of Indianapolis, St. Louis and Chicago, where the majority of the students never saw diversity in color and ethnicity until Pell Grants and affirmative action made them see it (and they've probably not seen it since, for the most part). And the fucking gloating on my friend Kevin's face when he walked into seminar that morning. So, I freaked out quickly in thinking that that was only 12 years ago and holy shit I'm getting old that I was an "adult" 12 years ago (but that fixed the freak out, because I was exactly 18 years old in 1994, so yo, I'm really not very old at all), but then I returned to Kevin's gloating. I will not be a Kevin in the light of this change. I'm in Wait-And-See mode. But also, don't think for a minute that I've not done the math to figure out that we've got a woman third in line to the presidency. And a woman from San Fransisco, at that. Cheers, girls! (But I'm totally not gloating, it's just about the girl power. Oh, and Impeach Bush AND Chaney. Somehow)

Midterm Elections
Steering us toward center
I want to go left

I think this post has to end someday. I can't think of how to end this, but in Haiku:

Soapy Water, yo
The Kid, Dripping With Crazy
The Mom, Drinking Suds.

Untitled, or The Hospital Post

The Kid has been in the Inpatient Child Psychiatric Unit of the hospital since last Friday. I really haven't been finding much energy or time to post an update here, but as I've found myself with a slight window of time, I shall attempt to. I can't promise complete sentences or even coherent thoughts, but here goes:

Here are some adjectives that do NOT describe what it is like to hospitalize one's child because of psychiatric illness: easy, fun, and relaxing (as in, although there have been many times that I've wanted to ship The Kid off and see what it would be like to have a house to myself for one goddamned night, this was not one of those occasions).

Here are some adjectives that do describe what it is like to hospitalize one's child because of psychiatric illness: heartbreaking, tiring, lonely, alternatively encouraging. He's doing better. His first few days weren't good, but he was there because he so desperately needed stabilizing, and that is what they have endeavoured to do for the past 5 days. He completed an EEG (which The Kid told me he thought was a 'brain transplant') yesterday, which means I missed out on depriving The Kid of sleep for the test, so in a way, that was a good thing. Mengele G. is not my name, if you know what I mean. He had an MRI today. I should hear back about both of those things tomorrow.

He's slowly but surely getting more sparkle to his eyes, while simultaneously being calmer and less anxious. He can still get pretty pissed off, but it's really hard to tell what is pissed off because of inability to control anger vs. being sleep deprived and/or having been anesthetized, as he was for the MRI (he had to stay perfectly still, and anesthesia is the only way to do that with The Kid).

It's up in the air as to how long he'll be in there. They are hoping Friday as a discharge date, but it just depends. It's too long and hard to explain given that I have to leave for the hospital again in 10 minutes.

The only other thing I have time or energy to share right now is to put in writing how completely wonderful my family is. My mom is the most generous person I know, and I'm not talking about money. My sisters have been perfect supports for me and for The Kid. When I admitted him, they tried to say that only nuclear family should visit him for the first few days. I told them that just having me visit him would not be an option. During those tough first days of heavy medication and long rages, his only joy that I could see from him was in getting visits from his aunts and Meema. After the staff at the hospital has come to understand how our family rolls, they've agreed to one more very special relative. Tonight he gets to see his cousin, K. I am so excited to see his face when she walks up to him.

Grubmer's Sweet 16

My family got our first home computer when I was 14 years old. It was a Mac, and the screen was approximately the size of your big toe. My mom bought it in preparation for my entrance into high school, for the papers I'd write. Being a teacher, she knew that she could use it for all kinds of work-related documents, banners, signs, etc. What we didn't anticipate was the enormous gift to humanity that our first Mac provided my family: Tetris.

Some families refer to their calm, good times as the salad days. I like to think of the years 1991-1994 as The Tetris Days. It started small. My sister, Peggy, gave us a little floppy disk with the game and a few others, including this weird darts game that I could never master, entitled, "The Pleasure Palace." Once I started to play tetris, I saw the game long after I'd shut down the little Mac. I'd cut my dinner's steak up, and see the long four-squared piece, street signs and the geometric designs on the bathroom tiles all became a big, lifesized constant game of Tetris. The Mac became the center of the family*, as we all watched each other play tetris while making up words to the 'russianish' theme song played in the background: "Loser, loser, loser, you are a loser" were usually the components of any good tetris theme lyric.

But this was not meant to be a post about tetris, although it is quite possibly the best computer slack tool ever, except for the internet, which Al Gore hadn't even invented yet when we got the Mac.

The other good times we had on the mac were in Word Perfect. Ah, the fun we had before the internet. Our Word Perfect program came equipped with a "read it" tool, and the computer would read whatever we wrote. So, yes, we had good times making the computer saying antiestablishmentarianism and transubstantiation among other, less polite or erudite, words. But it was in particularly silly "read it" button in Word Perfect session where my sister, Peggy, and I created her alter ego, Grubmer. Peggy and I were just trying to crack each other up with the "read it" button, and she typed in the name that was to become her forever alias, her login name, I can only presume, for when she chats online with babes all day.

Grubmer is my silly sister, the sister who at 24 chose to stay home with her geeky little sister to watch tv over going out with her hip friends. The sister who would sleep in my bed when she came home from college to keep me company and have the truly life affirming coversations that my young brain needed to have in order to remain sane after the death of my father. I've always looked up to her, have always valued and loved beyond pretty much every other human being on this earth, because she can alternatively make me cry and make me laugh in about 30 seconds.

So, by my calculations, on August 29th, Peggy's Grubmer alias turned 16 years old. I hope she had a fabulous birthday. I wish I could buy her a car. But instead, I can only serenade her with the tune that made her a tetris legend on our old Mac.

"Loser, Loser, Loser, You are Loser."

I love you Pegs!!

*Hyperbole, people, for reals.