Prayer

I'm not a regular to prayer but I can see why people are. My thoughts and prayers are with the victims in New Orleans and Iraq. Always feel at a loss at times like this; wish I could go help.

comments

What is it about the comments feature on these blogs. Although I regularly say I am going to give this new hobby/habit up and go clean the bathrooms, I continue to do it. I guess it fills a need, a void; a need to be creative/ a need to be heard. So i guess that is why when you see that someone has left a comment it is so nice, makes you happy, even makes you smile sometimes.

sleep deprivation

Every morning when i drag myself from bed and into work, i swear that i'm going to go to bed as soon as i get home. Then i get home and i muster up enough energy to get a few things done. Then it's usually time to drive my son to the sport practice of the season. And then it's the worse time of day... dinner time. Once that dilemma is solved, i usually get my second wind and start sweeping the floors, wish i oddly find therapeutic and which i usually do on a daily basis (with a cat and a dog). Then when everyone else goes to bed and i have the place to myself it is far too tempting to stay up. So that is why i am chronically sleep deprived. For some reason i just don't like to go to bed. Anyone else have this problem?

Overwhelmedness

Yes I know that's not a word but I think it should be. Ive said this before, haven't I? You know, the constant state of being overwhelmed. Laundry, cat box, bills, toilets, dust, paper, vacuum, weed, paint, projects,etc. Not enof time in the day, what with having to work and drive the kids to their activities and social engagements. Oh and I forgot, shop, cook, clean up. I always say I could stay up all nite and still not get everything done. For us wannabee perfectionists that is disheartening news - everything will never be in it's place, laundry done, folded, put away. I did skip iron, however; I gave that up years ago.
Just looked up overwhelmed in the dictionary: surge over and submerge, engulf. to over come completely either physically or emotionally. but on a positive note you can be overwhelmed by the enthusiastic reception. One can only hope.

Turmoil

Living with a teenager is hell, especialy if you are the evil stepmom. It's round 3 maybe 4 or 5 of the custody thing between her mom and dad (she's decided she wants to live with us but there is the issue of her finishing her Sr.year there.
At the age of 4 my stepdaughter was in 2 weddings, her mom's and her dad's. I remember one night when I was watching her and we were having dinner, just the two of us, and she said to me calmly, " you're not marrying my Dad, you're marrying L. And my dad's marrying my mom. It's not that she didn't like us then(me and her future stepdad), she just wanted her parents together. When we moved to our second house I don't remember why or what precipitated it but I remember saying to her, you still wish they were together and she said "yes" and we talked about that for a little bit.
I just thought of something, lest I appear the protagonist; her mother and father were not married and not even together any more when we met. Just wanted to clarify that point as not to appear the housewrecker.
Just can't wait for the dust to settle over here.

Full moon

Driving home tonite from the Antigone Rising & John Butler Trio concert in Boston there was a beautiful full moon; now that explains the birtday calamity. But tonite made up for it. We had a great time, was so fun. Luke's first concert and as for me I can't remember my last, yes I can it was Bonnie Raitt before Luke was born so about 13 yrs. ago. Then we went to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. In the bathroom there was a picture of this guru guy smiling in orange robes that I recognized but couldn't remember his name. The quote under his picture read...
Living is lost in dreaming.
Dreaming is lost in becoming.

The killer bees

The birthday queen was a tad disappointed with her birthday yesterday. I was attacked by a swarm of yellowjackets( man I was right being deathly afraid of bees all my life - did a great job avoiding them til last year when i was stung for the first time) They actually reduced me to a crying blubbering mess that had to be consoled and administered to by my sweet wonderful 11 yr. old boy(he got the ice pack for me). Almost didn't go out to dinner because the 2 Benadryl i took to bring the swelling down almost brought me down.
Then it was like suppose you have a party and no one came. I didn't think anyone read my post but then i found out that 2 old friends did- they just didn't comment. Well there's always next year.
It was just brought to my attention that Madonna, a famous Leo with whom I share a birthday, fell off her horse yesterday and broke her arm. Makes you believe in astrology.

You says its your birthday....well it's my birthday too now

This could be a new meme (The Birthday Meme): My spin on Patry's FIVE THINGS TO DO ON YOUR BIRTHDAY 1. Ok let's face it I'm selfish - I buy myself a present - sometimes more than one. This is a great excuse to buy something you normally wouldn't. And this year I did it up big, i bought myself an Apple ibook laptop ( not to be used by the kids - hopefully) and I can blog at the beach, blog in the car, blog on vaca, blog at baseball and football practice. Blog on the go.
2. Eat cake !! and have seconds if you want, with ice cream!
3. Patry says,"Ask yourself where you came from and where you're going. If the answer is, "I don't know," spoken with marvel and wonder, you're on the right track." Well I have been asking myself this one for a long time and I still haven't got a clue ( i was happy to find out though that this is evidently a good thing and that i'm on the right track - hooray!)
4. Patry says," Thank your mother. Chances are the occasion you're celebrating was a pretty arduous day for her."
Since I can't thank mom or dad anymore I guess I'll have to thank that higher power. Maybe he'll pass it on along to them for me.
5. Do whatever makes you happy! Dance in yr. b-day suit. Drink champagne for breakfast. Celebrate all day, all week, all month if you can get away with it. I'm gonna try.

sometimes you can go home.....

even if just for a little while. Went to the Vineyard (Martha's ) for 2 days. It was a little bit of heaven, except for the tourists. I kept trying to pretend they just weren't there, on my Island. I was so glad when Luke liked it as much as me. I lived there 20 yrs. ago and hadn't been there in 10! and we only live 2 hrs. away(I hour drive to the ferry(45 min ferry ride). Of course it takes a little longer in summer, you have to park yr. car in the next town and take a shuttle to the boat; but it's well worth the trip to the Storybook Island. I always feel like i've left my worries behind when I step onto that Island.

Just another day at the beach

Took Luke & Elizabeth (my friends daughter-who he's been friends with since age 3) to the beach for a late afternoon swim with Jackson. We forgot to bring the long rope that we tie him up to the car with since dogs can't be loose at the beach. So we were forced to hold him on his leash the whole time. Not an easy task. Labs are pure muscle. The kids played with the dog in the water and I tried to keep him from chasing all the throngs of birds that were flying in cool formation over the water. a few minutes later dark clouds formed and it started raining. I guess those birds know there stuff.

blogs, blogs, blogs

Literary vs Personal. I thought I liked the literary ones but turns out the just plan personal ones are more upfront, funny and just plain better. The literary ones tend to be hibrow and boring and oh so self important. The real ones are insightful, thought-provoking, mood-elevating, inspiring, and just damn better.

disco blogger

Developing a bad habit of staying up too late ,workin on posts or reading other peoples blogs. Addictive,just one more blog, one more dance. anyone else have this problem?
well this disco dancer is too tired to blog tonite.

Birth

I've been cheating here lately and just posting old drafts, so here is another one since I am too lazy to finish my vaca post with pictures. But I really don't like the fact that they are not in real time or do not reflect what I am currently thinking about. I am going to try and post not draft in the future. I will have to duke it out with the editor of course.

Jeanette shared her birth story awhile back so I am copycat blogging. I too had an epidurial but I knew I wanted one before I stepped through the door of the hospital. I almost said Epidural when they asked me my name. I have a very low pain threshold ; I never even tolerated menstual cramps very well. My water broke 1st thing before any contractions ;because I was a high risk pregnancy and lived an hr. away from the hospital, we were told to come right in. We were told that we could go to the cafeteria ( but just have a drink or jello). I realized right away that wasn't a good idea. I wanted my room and my bed and I wanted it now. I didn't want to be whimpering and cryin out in the hallways. But getting into my room didn't improve things all that measurably until I got "The Epidural". I was so glad to be pain free that I almost sent my husband out for some bubbly. I had brought music tapes but we never got as far as the mood music. They were now instructing me on pushing this baby out. Only problem was I felt like I was pushing with my shoulders cause I couldn't feel a damn thing below my waist(below my neck, actually). Push what?! So there was the crown of his head and we were not going anywhere. So next thing I knew they're turning the epidural off and I am now in stage 4 or something and the pain is unbelievable. And breathe, forget that, I'm hyperventilating at this point. And my nice nurse had gone off duty and this bitch from hell was not happy with me one bit. I wanted to rip her head off if she told me one more time that I was wasting energy crying/screaming. So there is still no progress and now its been 24 hrs and they are starting to get worried(actually I just think the dr. wanted to go home, cause he went from nice to mean). So now we are moving from the birth/delivery room to a operating room ( just in case they have to do an emergency c-sec.) But first they are trying forceps. Things are getting scary now. So back on goes the Epidural and on the 2nd try they get him out. I am a shaking blubbering mess when they hand me the baby. I will spare you the details on my not an episiotomy.Well I am tired just from reading this, I can't believe I ever actually did it.

just one more load of laundry..

..fore I die ( sounds like a Bob Dylan song.) It's times like these I don't like being a mother.... when I'm sick I don't want to be the mom. I just want to crawl in bed and pull the covers over my head. I wish for the single days when at least if you felt like crap you could just read magazines to take your mind off of how bad you feel. But no matter how bad you feel, (and i felt bad today- let's put it this way if someone would've offered to remove my arm I would've let them), you still have to make dinner or in this case drive to baseball(the driving is the easy part, the hard part is standing around talking to the other parents).
I had another corisone injection in my shoulder and also one in my elbow -that one hurt like hell. Then my arm felt about 100 times worse and I thought,"what the hell did I do that for?" but thankfully it was better the next day. Now I am just praying that it doesn't wear off in 6 wks like last time.( This arm thing has been going on since April). Anyone out there with a nice recovery story from bursitis in the shoulder and tendonitis in the elbow, that will give me some hope?

The baton twirler vs. the bookworm

Just a picture of contradictions I am:
Leo/Aquarius, the batontwirler/the bookworm, happy/sad, smart/haven't got a clue, middle-aged/young at heart, funny/serious, attractive/haggard, creative/dilatante, compliant/searching, uplifting/dark, spirited/heavy-hearted, go-getter/slacker, vivacious/down in the mouth, life of the party/doubting thomas, energetic/lazy...

I guess I could go on and on. I have a memory of thinking about this at a rehearsal for a play I was in when I was 15 (and a baton twirler). Am I outgoing or shy? Do we all have these dualities? Are there any 100% cheerleaders or 100% librarians? I doubt it, I think in the librarian lies the cheerleader looking for an opportunity to break out and in the cheerleader - a part looking for a corner to go hide. Maybe we just spend out lives trying to reconcile all these characters.

Drafts vs. Posts

Seems like i am in a draft phase. Just thinkin of em, jottin em down, titles,ideas. Some of them even writing enough for a post (but the editor won't let me just post). This also could just be my form of ADD bloggin. Ya know, jump from draft to draft; not posting, make believe posting. Non-commital, that's me. Now let's see if i have the nerve to hit post or just draft again. I guess you will be able to tell by the unedited look of things... 10, 9, 8, 7 ....you can do it...6,5,4, just hit it dammit 3,2,1 post.

Lasts

I received this in an email and thought it deserved posting. Better than anything I could think of. Also tonite i happened upon a website post http://bookangst.blogspot.com/ that is also a last unfortunately as it piqued my interest. I must've happened upon it before cause I think it must be where I found the quote about the writers darkside that I wrote about in my July 15th Not Good News post.

Subject: Ben Stein's Last Column... Worth the Read !!!!!
For many years Ben Stein has written a biweekly column called "Monday Night At Morton's." (Morton's is a famous chain of Steakhouses known to be frequented by movie stars and famous people from around the globe.) Now, Ben is terminating the column to move on to other things in his life. Reading his final column is worth a few minutes of your time.Ben Stein's Last Column...
How Can Someone Who Lives in Insane Luxury Be a Star in Today's World?As I begin to write this, I "slug" it, as we writers say, which means I put a heading on top of the document to identify it. This heading is "eonlineFINAL," and it gives me a shiver to write it. I have been doing this column for so long that I cannot even recall when I started. I loved writing this column so much for so long I came to believe it would never end.It worked well for a long time, but gradually, my changing as a person and the world's change have overtaken it. On a small scale, Morton's, while better than ever, no longer attracts as many stars as it used to. It still brings in the rich people in droves and definitely some stars. I saw Samuel L. Jackson there a few days ago, and we had a nice visit, and right before that, I saw and had a splendid talk with Warren Beatty in an elevator, in which we agreed that Splendor in the Grass was a super movie. But Morton's is not the star galaxy it once was, though it probably will be again.Beyond that, a bigger change has happened. I no longer think Hollywood stars are terribly important. They are uniformly pleasant, friendly people, and they treat me better than I deserve to be treated. But a man or woman who makes a huge wage for memorizing lines and reciting them in front of a camera is no longer my idea of a shining star we should all look up to.How can a man or woman who makes an eight-figure wage and lives in insane luxury really be a star in today's world, if by a "star" we mean someone bright and powerful and attractive as a role model? Real stars are not riding around in the backs of limousines or in Porsches or getting trained in yoga or Pilates and eating only raw fruit while they have Vietnamese girls do their nails.They can be interesting, nice people, but they are not heroes to me any longer. A real star is the soldier of the 4th Infantry Division who poked his head into a hole on a farm near Tikrit, Iraq. He cou! ld have been met by a bomb or a hail of AK-47 bullets. Instead, he faced an abject Saddam Hussein and the gratitude of all of the decent people of the world.A real star is the U.S. soldier who was sent to disarm a bomb next to a road north of Baghdad. He approached it, and the bomb went off and killed him.A real star, the kind who haunts my memory night and day, is the U.S. soldier in Baghdad who saw a little girl playing with a piece of unexploded ordnance on a street near where he was guarding a station. He pushed her aside and threw himself on it just as it exploded. He left a family desolate in California and a little girl alive in Baghdad.The stars who deserve media attention are not the ones who have lavish weddings on TV but the ones who patrol the streets of Mosul even after two of their buddies were murdered and their bodies battered and stripped for the sin of trying to protect Iraqis from terrorists.We put couples with incomes of $100 million a year on the covers of our magazines. The noncoms and officers who barely scrape by on military pay but stand on guard in Afghanistan and Iraq and on ships and in submarines and near the Arctic Circle are anonymous as they live and die.I am no longer comfortable being a part of the system that has such poor values, and I do not want to perpetuate those values by pretending that who is eating at Morton's is a big subject.There are plenty of other stars in the American firmament...the policemen and women who go off on patrol in South Central and have no idea if they will return alive; the orderlies and paramedics who bring in people who have been in terrible accidents and prepare them for surgery; the teachers and nurses who throw their whole spirits into caring for autistic children; the kind men and women who work in hospices and in cancer wards.Think of each and every fireman who was running up the stairs at the World Trade Center as the towers began to collapse. Now you have my idea of a real hero.I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters. This is my highest and best use as a human. I can put it another way. Years ago, I realized I could never be as great an actor as Olivier or as good a comic as Steve Martin...or Martin Mull or Fred Willard--or as good an economist as Samuelson or Friedman or as good a writer as Fitzgerald. Or even remotely close to any of them.But I could be a devoted father to my son, husband to my wife and, above all, a good son to the parents who had done so much for me. This came to be my main task in life. I did it moderately well with my son, pretty well with my wife and well indeed with my parents (with my sister's help). I cared for and paid attention to them in their declining years. I stayed with my father as he got sick, went into extremis and then into a coma and then entered immortality with my sister and me reading him the Psalms.This was the only point at which my life touched the lives of the soldiers in Iraq or the firefighters in New York. I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters and that it is my duty, in return for the lavish life God has devolved upon me, to help others He has placed in my path. This is my highest and best use as a human.Faith is not believing that God can. It is knowing that God will.
By Ben Stein

Fair weather friends

They look hot. Jackson looks like a frog and Dakota looks like a dishrag. After yesterdays terrible post I thought I would show my very much alive and wonderful pets. And also my wonderful boy enjoying the waves at the beach yesterday. Also check it out 2 posts in one day!

Straight

It is always amazing to me at the end of the day, how little I have gotten done. How a whole day has passed and hardly nothing has transpired. There is the laundry, there is the dust, the floors unwashed. But on a positive note, not that anybody noticed, so i have to mention it.... drumroll please... I have posted for 7 days straight! This is a minor miracle, I don't know if i have every done anything 7 days in a row; other than water my plants and feed my kid. Haven't practiced piano 7 days in a row since I was a kid. Certainly haven't ever exercised 7 days in a row. So having broke my record my D&G(doom and gloom) prediction is that you will probably see less of me now. Who you are I don't know, since I think Patti is the only one who reads this drivel. There is also the fact that the computer is in a hot room- fan only. So I am retiring to my cool bedroom til this heatwave passes and maybe catch up on some of that reading.

Hot

Been reading all the posts about the weather. Yes I thought today was the hottest of the year. Luke & I and Jackson(our dog) went to the beach and I actually got in the water almost all the way ( the water is frigid here in Mass.). We only had time for a quick swim because Jackson had his annual Vet appt. It turned out to be a rather traumatic and shocking one.
We were a few minutes late and upon arriving someone else was being brought in to the exam room. I sat down to wait patiently. The older woman working at the desk received a phone call and after was noticeably upset, teary. Since I was directly across from her I asked, are you ok? She proceeded to tell me that the phone call was from a woman saying she thought her dog was dead, that she had accidently left him in the car. She was bringing him there. The woman behind the desk said she know the dog, they were clients there.I asked if we should reschedule and they said no. My dog decided he had to go out, so I took him outside to the area they have out back so he could "go". Just as I was heading back in, this woman pulled in, jumped out of a rather large vehicle, dressed in just a bathing suit and ran screaming into the office. The vet assistant came out as well as the Vet and they proceeded to pull the very dead and stiff dog out of the back seat. Luckily Luke( who wanted to wait in the car - windows open) was absorbed in his Sports Illustrated and didn't see this (I made a quick call for my husband to pick Luke up cause I din't know how long things would take now and I didn't want him seeing or hearing this.) So I went back in past the hysterical woman screaming "I killed my dog". I stopped for a second but didn't say anything to comfort her, all I could think about was the dog. They brought me and my dog right into the exam room(where we all ruminated on the horrible event while he examined my dog). I asked if she was gonna be alright and they said someone was coming. Evidently she had left him in the car around 12 cause someone was coming over?? it was now 4!!! she had just realized.. where is the dog. But why the hell she left him in there even if for a minute I don't know. Rushing, forgetful, too much on her mind? The Vet said the dog had been dead for awhile, probably only lasted 20 min. in this heat! When we finished and went back out to the waiting area she was gone. They said she had left herself and drove home- in her state! All I could think was I hope she doesn't hurt anyone else.