Smorgasblog: The Writer's Prune Juice

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.