May 2006 Archives

I hate to keep being so darn reflexive about all this blog stuff, but it seems like once again the less I blog, the less I blog. It seems that I've now formed a new habit, one of not-blogging, rather than blogging. I need to figure out a way to get the regular blogging (not to mention writing) habit back. Perhaps a will-write-for-sushi dare would work on me (I *do* love me the hamachi nigiri, oh yes I do), but really, perhaps all it would take is some sort of sign that anyone is still reading. There's something about an audience, no matter how humble, that cattle prods me into writing. Perhaps it's my usually pretty well hidden vain streak (vain vein?), along with a healthy fear of appearing in any way like unto an idiot. I think that's why having a writer's group generally works so well for me--I know I can count on at least an audience of two who reliably want to read what I write (or at least do so out of politeness and/or a sense of reciprocity). Knowing I have the audience, I feel like I have to write something so that I won't disappoint them or embarrass myself by seeming (overly) flaky. But unfortunately even in my beloved writer's group the "accountability/audience effect" seems to be fading, as we seem to have shifted more into long-term friends rather than professional colleagues (not that I'm complaining, mind you, and even if I was I would never do so on my blog, because duh, those gals are probably a good 30% of my blog's readership right now as well. Hi gals!) Hmmmm. Maybe I just need a good old dose of them deadline/consequences blues. Anyone want to give me some?

Aw hell, I don't really mean it. The last thing I need right now is more deadlines and more Things To Get Done (see previous entry). I barely have the energy to sit around and complain about how tired and generally overwhelmed I am. But I do wish that my creative fire would come back for a visit. It's getting cold around here. Maybe my muse has relocated to that tropical hammock + frosty drink + cabana boy vacation spot again. Maybe I should too...nope, I think I'll just go to bed so I can be well rested for my usual 6am wake up call to noisy birds and a too-bright bedroom and kid wrangling. And then a full day of workworkworkworkwork. Sounds lovely, eh?

I really hate that if I don't post often enough, my front page becomes a blank, boring grey billboard advertising my slacknitude. ("Hey look! I'm a flaky blogger!") That itself is good motivation for posting *something*, I suppose. It's not that I have anything all that earth-shattering or heartwarming to say at the moment--it is, as usual, uncomfortably close to (if not past) my bedtime and it's been a tiring day, which pretty much always fubars my blogging even when I've got something I want to say.

The last few weeks (actually more like the last month or two) have been a whirlwind of work, both paid and unpaid. I get up in the morning and do the kid wrangle and then zoom off to work (where I am often late, which is driving me slowly crazy because I can't stand the tension that builds up, waiting for my boss to say something about it). When I get to work, I find myself spinning around and around from task to task, moving faster and feeling the pressure increasing as the day goes on until suddenly boom, it's time to go and I didn't finish this that and the other thing but it's on to more kid wrangling (and occasionally a social event) and dinner and bedtime and going to bed too late and then getting up earlier than I want to in order to do it all over again. And to make things harder, Josh is getting the work whammy too--now we both find ourselves with too much work and not enough time and patience. Normally I can withstand the "second shift" whirlwind pretty well, but the increased pressure that's been going on during my paid work hours is starting to really wear me down. (I liken it to Bilbo's "butter scraped over too much bread" feeling.) Tomorrow I'm leaving for a brutally compressed 3 day business trip to New York, and I haven't packed yet. I'm probably not going to until tomorrow, although I'm on duty in the morning and we have a buddy of Eli's sleeping over tonight so it promises to be an especially hectic morning.

But I'll miss the kid stuff and even the house chores when I'm in New York--I always feel so lonely and adrift when I'm traveling, so cut off from my grounding routine and the people I care about. Funny, isn't it? That quiet, clean, empty hotel room will feel like a fabulous luxury for about 15 minutes, and then I'll spend the rest of the trip pining for home and the familiar irritation of having to pick up other people's socks every day.

All right, time to be stern with myself and start getting ready for bed…

Ok, I'm throwing modesty out the window here: today was one of those days where I just kicked ASS in the fine science of domestic engineering. I mean, I *totally* got the gold medal. In addition to the usual morning wrangle of getting both kids ready to get out of the house, I did about a zillion housewife-y things. In my minivan, no less. Tres bourgeoisie! I'm going to miss these Fridays off when they're gone…

But really, it was quite a busy day, and I am justifiably proud of myself for having accomplished so much. Check it out: After dropping Eli off at school, I took the baby and we went to Petco and Target, then back home to pick up the lunch I'd forgotten for Eli, then back to Eli's school for a special moms' tea party in honor of Mother's Day. After spending about an hour there, fussing over Eli and his buddies and chasing after Isaac (who loved being at preschool with all the toys and kids, and who happily consumed nearly my entire portion of angel food cake and strawberries), we left Eli there and went to Safeway for grocery shopping.

Then, just in time to avoid complete and utter toddler meltdown, we went back home for Isaac's nap. Once he was settled, I sorted, ran and folded two loads of laundry, baked, wrapped and priced a batch of Scottish Shortbread for a bake sale, and did dishes. I also managed to do some general house decluttering (which never sounds like a lot, but it takes forever to put all the little things back where they belong). Then after Isaac woke up (and thank god it was a nice, long, 2+ hour nap) I fed him a late lunch and did a bit more pick up and sweeping and setting the table for Shabbat, and suddenly it was 5 o'clock. But was my day over yet? Noooooooo, gentle readers, it was not. I turned the baby over to Daddy for a little while so I could go to the vet to pick up Oreo's meds (she's still hanging in there pretty well, for those of you who are interested), and then go pick up Eli and drop off my shortbread. After dragging Eli away from his buddies, he and I stopped off at Safeway (that's right, again) to pick up Shabbat dinner, then went back home. I fed the baby his dinner during our dinner, and then cleared and cleaned while Josh bathed the kids. Then I got Isaac into his jammies and put him to bed while Josh finished up Eli's bath and got him in his jammies. Then when that was all done it was time to have dessert (mmm cold sweet honeydew melon) and play King's Challenge with Eli until it was *his* bedtime. I cleaned up the bath toys, brushed and flossed Eli's teeth, read him a chapter of "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" and put him to bed while Josh unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher and then finally, *finally*, it was time to sit on the couch and go "whew". And not 5 minutes went by before I thought "I gotta blog this" and now here I am. And guess what? It's bedtime. And I still have to go give the cat her meds.

It was such a…housewife kind of day. I don't have those very often. (Not even on my Fridays, during which I often do chores but not quite this many.) It was the kind of day that gives me a whole new respect for the women who stay home and do this all the time. It's damn hard work: I'm wiped and my back is killing me. I know that everyone has it hard in some way: it's hard to be a working mom facing two shifts (paid and unpaid work); it's hard to be a stay-at-home mom whose work is truly never done and who never really has clearly delineated "time off". Keeping a home clean and running and children fed and healthy (physically and emotionally) is no small feat. It's days like this when I dream fondly of being one of those households who has "help"--what I wouldn't give for a housekeeper, a butler, a nanny, a laundress, a cook, a handyman (and of course, a personal trainer/masseur). Of course, having to oversee the staff probably wouldn't be that fun, but still…it sounds good to me right now.

Anyway, I'm starting to ramble so I think it *would* be smart of me to go finish up and go the heck to bed. Because I'll be up with the baby at 6:30 or so and there will be no rest for the weary after that. But in closing I would just like to reiterate: I am a domestic goddess. Go me!

After a slow and grumpy start to the day yesterday (in which our snappish, sleep-deprived heroine couldn't quite keep it together until coffee was applied and out-of-houseness was achieved), we wound up driving out to Inverness to go fetch oysters at Drake's Estero Oyster Farm (which used to be Johnson's Oyster Farm). We went with the intent of not only bringing them home and barbequing them up for dinner, but of starting a new family tradition. Eli had shown a startling (well, startling to us anyway) enthusiasm for eating oysters at a recent family dinner at a Chinese restaurant, so we thought we'd strike while the iron was hot and see if we could get him used to the barbequed version. Plus both Josh and I love oysters and we've always liked the idea that we could go fetch them and make them ourselves. So we took advantage of the gorgeous weather (and our general lack of desire to stay home and do house chores) and just went.

It was a truly beautiful drive. The constant rain during the months of March and April left behind not a silver lining but a green one--the hills and meadows are incredibly lush with all kinds of grasses, weeds and wildflowers, and the trees are just now bursting out with their new green hairdos. It's my absolute favorite time of year in Marin, even if it did come a month or two later this year. (I will always remember doing a similar outing in similar perfect weather last year, the day before Isaac was born.)

And just like last year, while we were out there, we also stopped off at another West Marin favorite, Cowgirl Creamery in Pt. Reyes, and then at Big Rock, at the top of Lucas Valley, for a wee walk in the wildflowers. Eli had a great time looking for lizards, and didn't want to leave, but we had oysters to 'que, so we wrenched him away and drove back home, where he got to spend some good Daddy-son time helping to scrub oyster shells (he declared that he was going to keep all the shells for his "collection") and assist in the barbequing. And much to our amazement, he gobbled up something like 5 huge oysters in addition to his San Francisco sourdough slathered in butter. Color us shocked but very, very pleased. Josh and I had another 3.5 dozen oysters between us, which I'm both proud and a little disgusted to report that we gobbled down completely. (Mmmm hot off the grill…nothing like it.) It was so delicious and fun that we're going to try it again next weekend for mother's day dinner with my parents. God, I love Marin, especially the hills and coast of West Marin and the bounty of both flora and fauna we are lucky enough to be so close to, and I have to say that days like this one remind me how blessed we are to live here.

One last thing: because I just can't spend a picture-perfect day without wanting to record it in, well, pictures, here's the story of the day again, in photos this time. The full photo story with more, more detailed, and larger photos can be found here on our family photos gallery, for the curious.

^ Eli and Daddy checking out the shell storage area in back of the oyster farm.

^ Buying the oysters at the counter.

^ Stopping to smell (well, pick) the poppies outside the Cowgirl Creamery.

^ At the beginning of the Big Rock hike. (And they don't call it "Big Rock" for nothin'...)

^ Eli helping Daddy scrub down the grubby monster oysters.

^ Daddy does his bbq magic while Eli cheers him on with great enthusiasm.

^ Proof Eli actually did eat the oysters (and enjoyed them, despite the look on his face in this particular picture). Can you believe it???

So taking a tangential cue from Dork Tower, the really quite funny gamer/geek comic which I've recently finished reading (I got the whole set of graphic novels as a freebie from work…woo! Sometimes my job does have unexpected perks), I was thinking about myself in D&D terms tonight. Yeah, that's D&D as in "Dungeons & Dragons", thankyouverymuch. Those of you who either don't know or don't care about D&D can just stop reading now, as the sheer geekery of this entry will either cause you to shake your head in "tsk-tsk, kids these days" wonderment or possibly make you nauseous. I claim no responsibility either way.

Anyway, what I was specifically thinking about was not so much the simplistic "what kind of D&D character are you" LJ quiz meme type of thing (though if you're curious I'd have to say most likely I'm a Halfling Bard), but more specifically I was thought-riffing about what my own personal stats might be if they were translated into D&D terms. I wasn't thinking so much about actual numbers (though I could take a flying guess), but more about "hmmm what would I have high scores in and what would I have low scores in?" Here's what I came up with (and feel free to debate with me, if you can keep up with the geekness):

Strength: this would definitely be my lowest stat--I'm a lover, not a fighter. I'd give myself maybe a 9 or 10 in this--I'm not a delicate flower, exactly, and if I trained my lazy fat body hard enough, I might be able to raise this, but as it stands now, I'm generally a weakling. If you arm-wrestled me, you'd most likely win. Although I can heft a 26 pound kid (and sometimes a 45 pound kid) pretty well when needed, I usually pay for it with sore muscles and joints the next day.

Dexterity: although not exactly an acrobat these days (or, um, ever), I would say I have a pretty decent score in this, maybe a 13 or 14. I've got good balance (I always did like the balance beam in gymnastics, and I can usually pull off Tree Pose in yoga), and pretty decent hand-eye coordination (have I ever told you that I won awards in rifle shooting when I was a teenager at summer camp? Bizarre, I know…but there it is. If I were the NRA type I'd be stoked, but frankly that was the last and so far only time in my life I ever handled a weapon that was remotely gun-like. Who knows how good I'd be at sharp-shootin' if I'd kept practicing.) My reflexes are decent too--and again they'd be a lot better if I actually practiced.

Constitution: this one is kind of a difficult one. On the one hand, I think I've got pretty damn good stamina, but it's more the mental type than the physical type. I bounce back fairly quickly when I'm sick or injured, and overall my health has been fairly hearty, except for the fact that, oh yeah, I had cancer. And as I get older (I know, 37 is not really that old, but I *feel* old now) I feel like I'm falling apart more and more. Of course, much of that feeling could be due to lifestyle (raising two young kids while working full time leaps to mind), but generally I think my constitution score is slowly decreasing over time. Bummer. I give myself a somewhat overly generous 9 here.

Intelligence: Ok, I'm no Physics Ph.D., but I like to think that this is one of my higher scores, maybe even a 16 or so. There was a time in my life where I thought lots of lofty theoretical thoughts (yes, that would be grad school, thanks for asking), and I still enjoy doing so from time to time. I do like learning new things, and I feel like I can learn just about anything I put my mind to--assuming I’m interested in it in the first place. And I can be pretty logical and sharp with the analytical/critical thinking when I want to. (Sometimes it's more fun not to, right, Dr. McCoy?)

Wisdom: I think I've got this one in spades (not that I'm the Dalai Lama or anything). Willpower? Check. Goddamn it takes willpower to live the Gold-Medal-Mama lifestyle. Being aware of and in tune with one's surroundings? Check. In fact it's something I pride myself on, and it's come in handy as a writer. Common sense, intuition, perception? Checkedy check check. Maybe it's just that I've trained myself well in this skill during my lifetime (studying sociology and psychology helped with this, as have), but nonetheless, I think I've bumped this score up to around a 16 as well. (I'd give myself a higher score but then, I'm no psychic.)

Charisma: well since this is often shorthand for describing how physically attractive a character is, I'd have to give myself an 18 here. Ok, I'm kidding. If that were all this ability described I'd be well towards the 8 or 9 side of the range, but luckily for me this also describes one's general "people skills" (leadership, charm, persuasiveness), which I believe I've been generally more blessed with than classic good looks. Whether I like it or not, I'm a pretty good salesperson when I want to be--I can charm most people without too much effort and even sometimes get other people (especially the ones that are NOT my kids) to do what I want. I give myself a 14 here--good but not great (I'm no politician, though I did at one point want to be an actress and I'm still a ham whenever I get the chance to be. That should tell you something.) I probably could train this one up another point or two if I tried hard enough--but who has the time?

Ok, I could go on and on with all this but I think I’m all geeked out now. Time for bed so I can get enough sleep to stay up late tomorrow night playing actual D&D with my gaming buddies. (Now that might be the subject of a whoooooooole 'nother geeky post.)