We have trained Katy so well about not coming to wake us up too early on non-school days that she sat in her bed until 8AM before finally coming to get us up. I feel a bit bad about that as it was Christmas morning after all and I had heard her moving about for a while. She waited patiently while we threw on robes and Rob went to get his camera (because nearly every step of our lives are documented these days) and then she sat on my lap and unwrapped her gifts. I think she was pleased with her haul. She is sitting in the living room right now playing Barbie’s with her oldest sister, Farron and watching cartoons - Looney Toons from the sound of it. I can hear Rob and Jordan talking about his Texas job offer as they do dishes in the kitchen. I am still in my pajamas and blogging. What a geek I am, but I can’t seem to not write daily anymore even if it’s just blogging.
Rob gave me two writer’s markets books last evening. I am itching to sit and thumb through them and see what is possible and what might be interesting to try. I was thinking about those books and him as I was making pancakes earlier and feeling so very lucky to be with a man who gets this writing part of me on this level.
My Lululemon yoga pants are on the bed upstairs calling to me. I am going to start classes after the New Year. But I should shower and get ready for dinner at Auntie Dianne’s (Farron and Jordan's aunt on their mom’s side). We are all going and I hope our highly strung Cat doesn’t go off on the dog, Loki, or the little kitten, Pandora, while we are gone. Cat has bitten both Rob and I since last evening. She is definitely not cool with idea of sharing her house or her people.
I talked with my mother and father earlier. My mom related the latest horror story involving my brother who lives on the West coast. He took the train down to San Francisco to spend Christmas with his girlfriend and to see his two daughters. He was supposed to catch a bus from the station but something happened to either the bus or his money. His version is that the bus didn’t arrive and he gave all his money away to homeless people in the spirit of the season. I am thinking, knowing him, that it didn’t quite happen this way, but whatever. Suffice to say, he had a tantrum which miraculously didn’t get him arrested but the couple of beers and the idiotic idea of walking to his girlfriend’s via the Golden Gate Bridge - did. Four hours is what I think he spent locked up this time. One day I am going to get a call telling me he is dead, I think, because this odd swings of mood and perception he has always had are becoming more exaggerated and dangerous as he ages.
My father was still in bed, at close to noon, when I talked with him. He had pneumonia a week or so ago and his cough is still alarming to hear. Someone else I fear will be the subject of a phone call sooner rather than later.
But it has been a good day despite these bits of family news from the states. I hope that everyone else is having as good a day as I am.
Merry Christmas once again!
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Monday, December 24, 2007
Us
This time last year I had known Rob for about ten days. He introduced himself to me via a PM (private message) on the YWBB (young widows bulletin board) in response to my response to one of his posts. He had posted about his daughter, Jordan, commenting on his teenage like behavior and I had replied, jokingly offering to be his evil twin as we seemed to share many of the same behaviors. His reply message to me was entitled, Hey there Evil Twin. Our hailing each other as twins proved more prescient than either of us could have known at the time. He offered an ear via email despite the fact that he’d recently had a bad experience with another person on the board. Someone who had contacted him, and he misunderstood the true intent behind this woman’s reaching out to him. Despite that he reached out in friendship to me anyway. He had been reading my posts, sensing that we had much in common and also they occasionally made him laugh.
We began writing to each other off the board on December 18th which was just short of a week later. We nearly stopped communicating a few days after that when he told me I reminded him of a character from the Chuck Palahnuik novel, Fight Club, and I googled the character only to discover she was a support group junkie and a nymphomaniac. I was more than taken aback, and he was profusely apologetic, and persistent, and we continued writing. Now Rob tells me that his initial impression of me, based on my posting on the YWBB, was way off, but I have since watched Fight Club and I can see way I reminded him of Marla Singer. He remarked the other day that “last time this year I was on the verge of fucking things up” and I had nearly forgotten all about it. Later that evening I went back and reread the letters from that week and the week of January 1st. I was at a low point then, and I remember how much I looked forward to hearing from him, reading his emails. They weren’t necessarily grief-related, and they certainly weren’t romantic or even leading to that way. They were just the kind of emails you would send to and receive from a new friend. Full of information about daily goings on and sharing interests and interesting things. They are long letters. I have plans to print them out someday and bind them for posterity - whoever that might end up being.
A year ago tonight, Rob was in Vancouver with the girls and Katy and I were just getting back home from Christmas Eve dinner with friends who are like family. Tonight, I cooked a Chinese feast and we were all together. I don’t think I could have imagined this back then. Even though I knew I would someday met someone and know love and marriage again, and even though I thought I would be lucky to find someone just like my new friend, Rob, I don’t think I was quite ready to imagine it was Rob. Or he me. But we were closer than we knew.
Merry Christmas to all my friends out there.
We began writing to each other off the board on December 18th which was just short of a week later. We nearly stopped communicating a few days after that when he told me I reminded him of a character from the Chuck Palahnuik novel, Fight Club, and I googled the character only to discover she was a support group junkie and a nymphomaniac. I was more than taken aback, and he was profusely apologetic, and persistent, and we continued writing. Now Rob tells me that his initial impression of me, based on my posting on the YWBB, was way off, but I have since watched Fight Club and I can see way I reminded him of Marla Singer. He remarked the other day that “last time this year I was on the verge of fucking things up” and I had nearly forgotten all about it. Later that evening I went back and reread the letters from that week and the week of January 1st. I was at a low point then, and I remember how much I looked forward to hearing from him, reading his emails. They weren’t necessarily grief-related, and they certainly weren’t romantic or even leading to that way. They were just the kind of emails you would send to and receive from a new friend. Full of information about daily goings on and sharing interests and interesting things. They are long letters. I have plans to print them out someday and bind them for posterity - whoever that might end up being.
A year ago tonight, Rob was in Vancouver with the girls and Katy and I were just getting back home from Christmas Eve dinner with friends who are like family. Tonight, I cooked a Chinese feast and we were all together. I don’t think I could have imagined this back then. Even though I knew I would someday met someone and know love and marriage again, and even though I thought I would be lucky to find someone just like my new friend, Rob, I don’t think I was quite ready to imagine it was Rob. Or he me. But we were closer than we knew.
Merry Christmas to all my friends out there.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Weekend Before Christmas
It’s now late in the afternoon on the day before Christmas Eve, a mere 24 hours before the festivities begin in earnest, and only 4 presents are wrapped. Most of the groceries are purchased, but I haven’t looked up any recipes I need to prepare this faux Chinese dinner that Rob and I thought would be a good idea. The basement and Katy’s room is in complete disarray because Rob’s sister and her children are coming to visit and we needed to make room to put up the extra full-size bed downstairs and pull out the trundle in Katy’s room, not to mention the fact that both Farron and Jordan - and at least one additional cat and a large dog - will be staying over tomorrow night. Why do we feel compelled to begin huge projects on the eve of holidays or family visits? Is there some sort of compulsion that drives us? We probably are tormenting ourselves for naught. Shannon, my sister-in-law, hasn’t even given us an arrival date yet. Perhaps she will call from the road? She’s a widow too, which explains much to those of us “in the know”.
Yesterday we ventured over to the mega-mall to finish up our shopping. Next year we are vowing to start in September and do it all on line, but this Christmas we did the bulk out and about with the rest of humanity - literally it seemed. We made remarkable time. In and out in 90 minutes and found a spot to park in the lot to boot.
Last night was a Christmas party at friend’s of Rob’s, Dan and Heidi, whose oldest babysits for Katy. It was strange to do the holiday party thing again. Deja vu and not. I didn’t know a soul aside from Dan and his girls. Katy played upstairs with the other kids and I spent a bit of time chatting with a very young medical resident until I happened to mention our odd blended family and circumstances. I forget that I shouldn’t speak so casually about dead spouses because most people who know me even a little don’t know how to react, so forget about people I have only just met. She did find Rob and I to say good-bye when she and her husband left which I will take to mean I didn’t completely scare her off. At some point, as the kitchen filled up and spilled into the living room area Rob and I just cuddled up a bit on the sofa near the wood burning stove, watching the other guests get hammered. It was nice to have another wall-flower to hang with. At parties past, Will was always engaged with some person or other when he wasn’t manning the grill (yeah, even at the winter holiday parties) and he would always nag at me to mingle and not depend on him so much for company. And it wasn’t as if I didn’t know people and I did interact but I also hung back and watched - because that is who I am. It’s still who I am even though I am far less ill at ease in a room full of strangers than I have ever been in my life. As I told the young resident during our conversation, I have been surrounded by strangers, more or less, for the last six months. I did recognize a few of the women in attendance - from the gym and dance too, I think. I wasn’t keen on getting to close. I am leery of making friends with people when they are drinking heavily. You just never know how close they are at the moment to who they really are or not.
Today was our usual Sunday of a long breakfast, followed by tearing up the house and then public skating. Skating is starting to be a family ritual. Even when it feels like a chore or interruption in the day, it is nice to get the heart pumping and feel the chill of the ice seep up from your toes. We had tea, hot chocolate and cookies when we got home. Another ritual. That’s what it’s all about in the end. Family and friends and the rituals that hold us together.
Yesterday we ventured over to the mega-mall to finish up our shopping. Next year we are vowing to start in September and do it all on line, but this Christmas we did the bulk out and about with the rest of humanity - literally it seemed. We made remarkable time. In and out in 90 minutes and found a spot to park in the lot to boot.
Last night was a Christmas party at friend’s of Rob’s, Dan and Heidi, whose oldest babysits for Katy. It was strange to do the holiday party thing again. Deja vu and not. I didn’t know a soul aside from Dan and his girls. Katy played upstairs with the other kids and I spent a bit of time chatting with a very young medical resident until I happened to mention our odd blended family and circumstances. I forget that I shouldn’t speak so casually about dead spouses because most people who know me even a little don’t know how to react, so forget about people I have only just met. She did find Rob and I to say good-bye when she and her husband left which I will take to mean I didn’t completely scare her off. At some point, as the kitchen filled up and spilled into the living room area Rob and I just cuddled up a bit on the sofa near the wood burning stove, watching the other guests get hammered. It was nice to have another wall-flower to hang with. At parties past, Will was always engaged with some person or other when he wasn’t manning the grill (yeah, even at the winter holiday parties) and he would always nag at me to mingle and not depend on him so much for company. And it wasn’t as if I didn’t know people and I did interact but I also hung back and watched - because that is who I am. It’s still who I am even though I am far less ill at ease in a room full of strangers than I have ever been in my life. As I told the young resident during our conversation, I have been surrounded by strangers, more or less, for the last six months. I did recognize a few of the women in attendance - from the gym and dance too, I think. I wasn’t keen on getting to close. I am leery of making friends with people when they are drinking heavily. You just never know how close they are at the moment to who they really are or not.
Today was our usual Sunday of a long breakfast, followed by tearing up the house and then public skating. Skating is starting to be a family ritual. Even when it feels like a chore or interruption in the day, it is nice to get the heart pumping and feel the chill of the ice seep up from your toes. We had tea, hot chocolate and cookies when we got home. Another ritual. That’s what it’s all about in the end. Family and friends and the rituals that hold us together.
Friday, December 21, 2007
When are you running for President?
I have been doing quite a bit of political blogging and commenting on others’ blogs at the Des Moines Register this past week or so. So much that my husband asked me tonight if I was planning to run for office myself. I told him I would be running for election right after I started to glow with the ethereal light of the chosen and asked him if he had noticed me lighting up the room at night with spiritual incandescence. He said no, but he had noticed that I fart in my sleep and offered to bring a lighter to bed.
My husband would make the perfect first husband however. He has a quiet presence of authority and is just apathetic enough to put to rest the fears of my fellow Americans who might worry that the United States would end up a mere puppet government in thrall to our empire building northern neighbors. I can assure you all that I am my own woman. Independent in thought and action (but I don’t clean litter boxes - that’s man’s work).
I am highly suspicious of those who seek the presidency too eagerly and am not at all surprised when their hypocrisy or true natures are exposed. Take for example the Republican, Ron Paul. He has been enjoying quite the cult-like build-up of late. His campaign raised something like $6 million over a short time period recently. But, interestingly and yet not surprisingly, about $500 of this money came from a known hate group. When called on this, the Paul organization went into a spin cycle that was as impressive as it was sad. Impressive because it was classic rationalization and sad because it seemed so effortless. So much for being different. I ran across a video on the Newsweek site which featured a Drake College student waxing rhapsodic about how wonderful and well-respected a guy Rudi Giuliani, of all people, is. It was especially ironic when you remember that he has children in college who dislike him enough to join Facebook groups supporting other presidential candidates.
Wouldn’t it be nice if real human beings ran for the presidency? People who realize that it’s just a job, albeit one with a great address, awesome health coverage and your own really cool jet so you can avoid the TSA entirely. I even bet when you’re president you don’t have to take your shoes off or check your shampoo at baggage. It is a job. I wonder if anyone remembers that? Seems odd that such an important position can be attained with vaguely detailed goals by people that many of us wouldn’t want to know personally.
I suppose though that someone has to want to be president just like someone has to clean rooms at Holiday Inn Express, chop up cow, pig carcasses for IBP, and roam from farm to farm during harvests, dragging their families behind them. Dirty work that most Americans won’t do. We leave it up to those without better options, leaving us free to up-size, accessorize and accumulate. I guess I should be ashamed that I don’t feel the tingly glow-worm of democracy pushing me to run for office.
My husband would make the perfect first husband however. He has a quiet presence of authority and is just apathetic enough to put to rest the fears of my fellow Americans who might worry that the United States would end up a mere puppet government in thrall to our empire building northern neighbors. I can assure you all that I am my own woman. Independent in thought and action (but I don’t clean litter boxes - that’s man’s work).
I am highly suspicious of those who seek the presidency too eagerly and am not at all surprised when their hypocrisy or true natures are exposed. Take for example the Republican, Ron Paul. He has been enjoying quite the cult-like build-up of late. His campaign raised something like $6 million over a short time period recently. But, interestingly and yet not surprisingly, about $500 of this money came from a known hate group. When called on this, the Paul organization went into a spin cycle that was as impressive as it was sad. Impressive because it was classic rationalization and sad because it seemed so effortless. So much for being different. I ran across a video on the Newsweek site which featured a Drake College student waxing rhapsodic about how wonderful and well-respected a guy Rudi Giuliani, of all people, is. It was especially ironic when you remember that he has children in college who dislike him enough to join Facebook groups supporting other presidential candidates.
Wouldn’t it be nice if real human beings ran for the presidency? People who realize that it’s just a job, albeit one with a great address, awesome health coverage and your own really cool jet so you can avoid the TSA entirely. I even bet when you’re president you don’t have to take your shoes off or check your shampoo at baggage. It is a job. I wonder if anyone remembers that? Seems odd that such an important position can be attained with vaguely detailed goals by people that many of us wouldn’t want to know personally.
I suppose though that someone has to want to be president just like someone has to clean rooms at Holiday Inn Express, chop up cow, pig carcasses for IBP, and roam from farm to farm during harvests, dragging their families behind them. Dirty work that most Americans won’t do. We leave it up to those without better options, leaving us free to up-size, accessorize and accumulate. I guess I should be ashamed that I don’t feel the tingly glow-worm of democracy pushing me to run for office.
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