January 2006 Archives
God there's so much going on, so much in my head that wants out. But the sheer volume of Stuff To Write About is plugging me up with some mighty bad writerly constipation. Therefore, I will at least try a "What's Been Happening Lately" smorgasblog in hopes that it will ungum the works. (Keep in mind that while the first few things are probably top of mind type news, the rest are in no particular order of importance.)
So, what's been happening lately?
-Oreo the boo-boo kitty has taken a turn for the worse: her kidneys appear to be failing. She was getting skinnier and skinnier and then stopped eating even the wet food we'd been giving her (after she stopped eating the dry food) and seemed quite "blah." So on Friday I took her into the vet only to find she was severely dehydrated and had to have subcutaneous fluids administered right away before we could even do bloodwork to find out what was going on with her kidneys. So this weekend has been a whole lot of kitty-IV...which is a weird, uncomfortable process (both for me, the one who has to stick Oreo with a needle and for Oreo, the stickee). We'll get bloodwork results tomorrow, hopefully. See Josh's blog for some of the issues that this has brought up--I'm too tired and frankly somewhat numb to get into it right now. But suffice to say, I'll do what it takes to keep her comfortable for now--I feel I owe her that much. And we'll see what happens.
-On a totally more superficial but at least happier note, we bought a new car! I am both delighted and appalled, if that makes any sense. Why? you ask. Well, it's a minivan. A tricked-out, bells-n-whistles, over-the-top supercomputer of a minivan (a Honda Odyssey EX-L with Navigation and Rear Entertainment Systems, in case you're curious), but I still have uncomfortable visions of my sudden descent into soccer momhood dancing in my head every time I get behind the wheel. I'm only 37. How has it come to this? At least with the wagon I could sooooooort of fool myself into thinking it wasn't a complete mom-mobile. But this? This is the epitome of family car. You just don't get much more family-mobile than this. But I love it. Love, love, love it. It's fun to drive, it has more storage space than the wagon, and it takes voice commands like "find nearest Thai restaurant". Heaven. More on the identity issues later.
-At the tender age of 10 and a half months, Busy Izzy, aka Mr. Plumpy, is walking! Ohhhhh yes. Here comes toddler trouble. He's still in the "walk a few steps/plop down and crawl" phase, but he's definitely on his way towards full vertical mobility. And he's tall, and he can reach the countertops and tabletops. Despite our general lackadaisical "second child parenting", perhaps it truly is time for some more childproofing here.
-I just went to pick up paperwork to register Eli for kindergarten. Oh. My. God. On the one hand, I can't believe he's already about to hurtle past this milestone (where has the time gone? she says stereotypically, with hand to brow), but on the other hand, there really has been a sea change lately--he's so much more a complex, unique person every day now, and he's so ready for a new phase, a new challenge in his life. I can't wait to see him launch into it.
-Things are starting to return to normal in San Anselmo. I'd say about a third (?) of the stores on the Avenue have reopened (especially the restaurants, oddly enough), and although there are many still in the throes of reconstruction, it's beginning to feel less depressing and more "back soon".
-I just finished doing a mixed CD for a CD exchange project set up by a friend, and I have to say I had a lot of fun doing the mix. It was hard to squeeze everything onto one CD, but isn't that sort of arbitrary boundary-setting part of the art? (Well, I think so anyway. That's one of the reasons I find myself repeating the same forms over and over in my painting, for example.) My concept for the mix was to do a sort of personal musical history, from the different eras of my life. And interestingly enough, I found that there certainly have been similarities (like a preference for bouncy rhythms) that have carried through in my musical explorations, whether I was aware of them at the time or not.
-The novel, it is ever so slowly moving ahead, even if the writing motivation is scarce these days (obviously, since I'm not even blogging). I am determined to finish it someday, just out of sheer stubbornness and to say I've done it, if nothing else. But this whole writing a page or two every two weeks is putting me on track for finishing it some time after I retire. Ah well.
-I've been meaning to finish updating the Parentheticals links (and fix some of the aesthetics--I especially dislike that weird teal background color and how small the main title is), really I have--I just have to corner Mr. Webmaster and get him to help me with some of it. I will pay more attention to this poor blog soon (and yes, write more entries more often too). I promise. No need for any dares, okay?
-The cherry trees have juuuust begun to bloom. Green season is well underway. The acacia trees always bloom for my birthday, and this year they've been right on schedule. The magnolia trees are doing their thing right now too--we have a couple of particularly old (well, for the Bay Area) and gorgeous specimens on our street that are lovely right now. But it's the cherry trees that really herald the coming of Spring to me. I can't wait!
-I just blew far too much disposable income on balls and balls of fabulous yarn so that my own personal "knitten" can make me three new scarves. They may not be done in time to wear this season, but oh how exquisite they will be for next year! Mmmmm fuzzy…
Ay de me, how did it suddenly get to be an hour past my bedtime? I am SO gonna regret this tomorrow. Off to le snoozeland for me.
Yeah, it's my birthday, my 37th anniversary of my debut on this planet, and my 14th anniversary of being told that I might be leaving it (which is my dramatic way of saying "the day I was diagnosed with cancer?"). And there's so much to say, so much going on, and yet…as always, that whole sleep (or serious lack thereof) issue is bogging me down. So I'm just pre-emptively apologizing right up front here: whatever I do manage to get down tonight is going to be sketchy at best. But here goes.
I'm finally getting some distance, and concurrently, some perspective on my life. I can look back a pretty far ways (despite a notoriously bad long term memory, I can actually recall some things that happened 20 or 30 years ago), and see how the person I was and the circumstances I lived through have shaped the person I understand myself to be today. Some amazingly great things have happened to me (meeting my husband, the love of my life; moving back to my hometown and building a good life here; bearing and nurturing my two incredible children); some horribly bad things have happened to me (see above re: cancer). Some things (interests, relationships, personality traits) have dropped out of my life; some have continued through the years; some laid dormant for awhile and then came back, some have been overlaid with history until their original seedlings are barely recognizable. Roads have been taken; roads have been not taken. More roads are opening up in front of me all the time (and I wish I had the time and the energy to pursue them all--or hell, any of them), and yet I feel fairly settled right now, more like a frontier farmwoman who is finally harvesting a well-tended crop and less like Johnny Appleseed, always on the move, busily sowing wild seeds wherever the wind might take them.
Generally, I like where I am, who I've become, and what I do with my days. There's more to hope for, more to explore, more to accomplish--but I'm thankful for every day, oh yes I am. No matter how much I whine and blather and bumble, and no matter how bleak the cocoa--it's better to be here than to be fading away, or pushing up the daisies.
But speaking of bleak cocoa and fading away, it's uncomfortably close to midnight and I really do have to quit and continue this another night. But hey, at least I finally blogged. Happy birthday to me!
^ Me celebrating my birthday with friends at the Melting Pot last night. Melty! Chocolate! Fondue! (With extra added bonus chocolate martini!) It just doesn't get much better than this, people.
The new look to Parentheticals (including those fancy new sidebar widgets) is due to my beloved webmaster's attention finally having lighted on the issue of upgrading our version of Movable Type to something that supports fancy plug-ins. I'm still fiddling with the design and putting all the info back in, but though the look has changed (and will still probably change a bit further before I'm done), rest assured that your usual load of parenthetical asides, tortured extended metaphors, solipsistic navel-gazing and general whingeing about life's overwhelm will continue unchanged. No, don't thank me, I'm happy to be of service. Please pardon our dust while we remodel.
And speaking of remodeling, and of change, for those of you who might care, the post-flood cleanup of my mom's store is going well. She is shooting to reopen on the 20th--and the store will be even better looking than it was before, with new paint, lighting, fixtures, etc (those of us who are unstoppable optimists such as myself choose to see this as a silver lining). There has been a really heartwarming outpouring of support from the local community (which is another silver lining result that you often get after a disaster) and from friends as well. People have helped clean, schlep, pack, and move; people have brought food, water, coffee and treats; people keep stopping by to give moral support and encouragement. It's really moving. I love San Anselmo.
And speaking of things staying the same, I'm up way too late (AGAIN) and really need to catch up on some sleep so I stop feeling like I have lead weights attached to my shoulders, arms and eyelids all the time. So I'm sayin' Gracie for now ("Goodnight, Gracie!").
I managed to get my San Anselmo flood pictures up, although the personal description of the whole experience will still have to wait a bit longer. I swiped a whole bunch of pictures (including the one above) from Bill O'Callaghan of Bill O'Callaghan Design (thanks Bill!)--he's the building manager for the Courtyard (where my office and my mom's store are) and he was there the morning of 12/31 when the floodwaters were actually running. He took some pretty astounding pictures. Go look.
Bill also took a couple Quicktime movies, which are below for those of you who are interested. (The first file is approximately 7 MB, the second is approximately 8 MB.) Here are two looks up and down San Anselmo Avenue.
First look. Taken from just inside the Courtyard doors.
Second look.Taken from just outside the Courtyard doors.
And for those of you who are local and who keep wondering what you can do to help, it's the same thing that I'm sure residents of New Orleans want us to do: wait a few weeks and then go spend your money in town. Patronize the local merchants and restaurants. Bring life back to the town.
Whew. What a messed-up couple of days this has been. We have certainly paid for our lovely weather a few weeks ago, oh yes. The whole damn Bay Area has been storming and flooding for the last few days, but San Anselmo (the town in which both my office and my mom's store are--although our offices are fortunately on the second floor) was particularly badly hit. It's the San Anselmo flood of 1982 all over again, 24 years later. So 2005 went out with a gloopy gurgle, not so much a bang. I was finally starting to relax into my vacation (well, as much as you can relax when you're still getting up at least once a night, not to mention when you're sharing a house with several crazy kids and it's raining outside) and I was all set to do one of those nice year-end wrap up posts, you know, post my resolutions for next year and all that. But then suddenly there were storms, the power went out, everything flooded, and we had to leave our vacation house at the beach 3 days early and come back home to help my poor mom clean out the mud and debris left behind in her store by 2 feet of floodwater. Happy New Year! Sigh.
That's the synopsis. Now for a quick cherries and pits breakdown of the last few days, pre- and post-flood:
Cherries:
-one day of sun (ok at least not rain) at the beach
-walking along the sand next to "the mighty mighty Pacific" (my personal nickname for the ocean) picking up "jewels" (sea glass) and watching the kids have their usual fabulous time with sand and surf
-sitting snug and warm in the window seat overlooking the mighty mighty Pacific and typing away on my chiclet while the rain and wind bluster outside
-I got about a thousand words of new writing done on the novel, on a new chapter
-a few moments stolen away to stand on the ocean overlook in our back yard with my honey, hugging and watching the waves crash (mmm negative ions)
-Eli and Jonah being sooooooooo happy to play with each other for hours on end (and we didn't have to constantly supervise them)
-spending a precious few "time off" minutes relaxing in a hot tub outside with my sister-in-law (she of mall-crawling fame)
-a random hug and an "I love you" from my nephew, who barely notices I'm around most of the time these days (I'm just a delivery system for his favorite cousin-buddy, Eli)
-adorable toddler-type conversations with my incredibly cute 2 year old niece
-getting to give Hanukkah presents that the recipients really really liked
-little moments of interaction/connection with each of my family members
-having random community folks and friends come into my mom's store all day long today asking "do you need any help?" and then staying and working like heroes
Pits:
-all the grumpiness and stress of packing up for a vacation, and of unexpectedly and frantically packing up to leave to go home
-you can call it a vacation, but when you're wrangling small children all day and waking up in the middle of the night and way too early in the morning, a vacation is not particularly relaxing
-having to cut short our so-called vacation halfway into it
-spilling water all over my chiclet's keyboard (but fortunately I think it's fine)
-spending a day cleaning up mud and damaged merchandise (physically draining) and trying to keep everyone's spirits up (emotionally draining)
-looking at beautiful handmade things, ruined by mud or water, and then throwing them into a junk pile in the street
-Eli getting sick with a fever today (no doubt from the general excitement and the not getting anywhere near enough sleep due to his favorite cousin's presence over the last few days)
-the baby falling down and bonking his head about a zillion times (that's what happens when you're learning to walk, but still)
Ok, that's probably not it, but it's already 11pm and I've got to go handwash a bunch of scarves and coats for my mom in an effort to salvage some things from the flood. Hopefully more commentary (and some pictures I took of the flooding) tomorrow. And I'll get around to posting those new year's resolutions eventually.
