October 27, 2010
5.30 am.
That's when I got up this morning.
Dressed in complete darkness so as to not wake my fitfully sleeping husband.
Tried to keep the dogs quiet so they, too, would not wake my fitfully sleeping husband.
I just couldn't sleep.
How come?
Because all night, and I mean ALL NIGHT I fought with my fitfully sleeping husband to roll off his back and onto his stomach so the gawd awful, never ending snorning from hell that shakes the house and rattles the rafters would just, simply,
STOP!
Stephen sleeps with an state of deep unconscious that I have never encountered.
Perhaps its years of being awake at the hint of a cough, sneeze, footstep, creaking floor board, opening refridgerator door, but I can wake up at the drop of a pin.
It's MOST annoying.
Usually, Stephen's snorning doesn't bother me. After seven years together, I have developed an immunity to his snorning, a wall I've built around myself to prevent the obnoxious turbulence coming out of his face from shattering my peaceful slumber.
But every once in a while, regardless of the Herculean strength of my immunty, no matter how exhausted I am, how much melatonin I've injested, or how high I have built my walls, Stephen's snorning will occasioanlly prevent somnolence.
He is SUCH a deep sleeper that even the persistent blaring of the smoke alarm, caused by Stephen making cookies, putting them in the oven, and then going to bed because he was so tired he wasn't even aware he was making cookies in the first place, forced me out of bed with a speed I didn't even know I possessed when the smoke alarm went off, run downstairs (yes, run) to a kitchen filled with smoke from the charred remains of what I think were supposed to be chocolate chip cookies.
Dogs howling, kids pounding downstairs, cats clinging to the ceiling from the second the smoke alarm went off, little hearts pounding, while they watched their fur fall off in large patches from the smoke alarm inspired fear.
It took every fan we had in the house to even begin clearing out the burnt cookies smoke.
We smacked the smoke detector with a broom to stop its incessent screaming.
Every downstairs door and window was opened, encouraging, begging, pleading with the night air to take away the stink of chocolate chip cookies.
And while the kids and I were running around trying to rid the house of its black cloud, Stephen was sound asleep, oblivious to the complete and utter chaos he had initiated.
I tried to wake him up.
Nothing.
Yelling.
Throwing water on his face.
Dogs leaping on and off the bed with the same intensity exhibited by those Saturday morning exercise programs where the nauseatingly fit women jump on and off those step thingies.
Not even a twitch of his baby finger to indicate he was traversing the road to consciousness.
You can imagine what kind of conversation we had when he finally did wake up, wondering how come all the doors and windows were open, the fans blaring, and how come the house smelled like burnt cookies?
At least a week passed before we could walk into the house and not be greeted with the lingering odour of charred chocolate.
And at least two weeks before I could look at Stephen without the urge to throttle him.
It's now 6.22 pm.
I've just gotten home from work.
I enjoyed getting to work early.
If I didn't need to chauffer children hither and yon, I'd be at work every morning by 6.30 am.
That's when I work best. . . first thing in the morning.
No worrying about whether or not there would be an available parking space anywhere with a 10 km radius of the building that houses my office.
Things I hadn't dealt with, okay, things I had actively avoided because I was too tired to deal with them after teaching were finally dealt with.
300 emails reduced to 33.
"Delete" is my new favourite key.
An article read that I wanted to read prior to today was finally read.
It was a lovely way to start the day.
Quiet.
Peaceful.
Drinking coffee without fear of splashing it all over myself in response to the unanticipated, spontaneous, uncontrollable barking of my hounds.
Unfortunately, I was unable to sustain this peace.
Forces beyond my control colluded to ensure that my peace was shattered before lunch was even over.
However, the eternal optimist that I am, I've decided to see today as a learning experience.
About professionalism.
This is something I struggle with in some respects.
I don't see myself as a conventional professor.
As I have said many times before, I truly believe I was meant to be a stand up comedienne, however, this wasn't in the cards for me, so I turned to teaching instead, for reasons I have outlined before.
Because I'm not a traditional professor and see events and people in my life as a means of illustrating complex, abstract ideas, I can sometimes day things, and occasionally do things that, if they were taken out of context, could be construed as. . . . .
Odd.
That's the word I choose.
I believe you can teach using humour and have students take in more than if you stood there and lectured at them.
Understanding the importance of lecturing, I think its important to provide as many diverse means of teaching as you can.
I love storytelling. . .I know, I know, you've just fallen off your chair in shock and amazement.
Television programs from the 1970s, particularly All in the Family, are valuable sources of information.
And necessary for a good laugh.
There isn't anything that can't be fixed by watching Archie and Edith, Meathead and Gloria.
Robin Williams Weapons of Self Destruction can be a teaching tool, especially when trying to unravel the complexities of sex and gender.
And there isn't anything that can be made better with a good film clip, especially abstract theories.
Chicken Run, I contend, is the best Marxist film I've ever seen.
And you don't want to know what I can do with an empty red wine bottle and a loaf of white bread.
So I've had my challenges with understanding professionalism.
I had a particular image of academia as a student that wasn't borne out when I became a professor.
And it took me a while to reconcile my romanticized image of the academy with the harsh reality of being a university professor.
But the good of academia, at least for me, outweighs the bad.
Most of the time.
And today was one of those days when I the uglier side of academia reared its head.
Normally, if I know something particularly nasty is coming my way, I'll prepare myself for battle, equipping myself with the necessary armaments.
Which translates to adding to my vocabulary to ensure maximum scathingness and causticity.
And I'm not sure scathingness and causticity are words, but they're working for me right now.
But this time, I was caught completely off guard.
Absolutely no where near prepared for the unexpected shit storm.
With three children, two teenagers and one young adult, I've weathered many a shit storm.
It takes a lot to flabbergast and stupefy me.
But every once in a while, I find myself in a situation where I am utterly perplexed.
Like today.
Completely stunned to the point that I have no idea what I'm supposed to do.
Adrenaline was coursing through my veins.
Blood pounding through my veins toward my head.
Jaw lying on the floor.
I was trying to think of ways to prevent myself from doing something I would most assuredly regret later.
And my some miracle, I managed to keep my outer self reasonably calm.
Although I'm willing to guess people around me knew that I was dealing with off the rails inner turmoil.
This is where, I suspect, Mer gets it.
The difference between Mer and I, other than 21 years, is that I have learned when it's okay to get angry outwardly, and when it isn't.
Even when she lived in Ontario, if someone she loved had been maligned, Mer's first response would be,
"Who do I need to deal with?"
I have had my moments; there was the time I made a computer store clerk cry.
My computer needed fixin'.
They had to remove my files to do so.
Whether or not they really had to is moot. I wouldn't have known either way.
When I went to pick up my computer, the young man behind the desk informed me that it would cost an additional $75.00 to have MY information, that was removed from MY computer, reinstalled to MY computer.
Really.
My information. Already on my computer when I brought it to them to be repaired.
And they wanted money to put what was mine in the first place, back.
Even know it doesn't make any sense to me.
By the time I left, my stuff was back on at no additional charge.
And the computer clerk would think hard and fast about whether to tangle with an overextended single parent PhD candidate with three kids who were running around the store looking for electronic doodads they just HAD to have.
Shortly after, this store went out of business.
With practices like that, I'm not suprised.
But I have learned since then that sometimes, it's better to keep quiet.
Which is what I did.
Because there is a difference between airing opinions and being professional.
And this time I chose professional.
This time.
Who knows if the next time, and in academia there is ALWAYS a next time, I'll have the temerity to keep myself under control.
We can hope.
Cause there's always hope.
Now, where did I put that king size bag of Peanut Butter M&Ms, Ripple chips and the extra large container of dill pickle dip?????
Cause keeping my mouth shut has a cost.
Title Lyric: Better Be Quiet Now by Elliot Smith
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Sometimes the system goes on the blink and the whole thing turns out wrong. . .
October 26, 2010
Today is my parent's wedding anniversay. . .somewhere around 47 or 48 I think.
Almost 50 years married to the same person.
There are days, like today, that I can't imagine 5 minutes with one person, let alone 50 years!
I wouldn't hesitate to guess whether or not my parents believe they are happily married.
One is in a nursing home.
The other still resides at the Clarke family homestead.
I do know that, like all marriages, they have certainly had their ups and downs.
In fact, if I asked them to look back over their lives, could they have predicted they would be where they are today?
Probably not.
The other thing I know about marriage and life in general, is that when you make decisions about your life, decisions that will influence the lives of those around you, you make those decisions with the best of intentions.
People don't make decisions with the intention of f***ing up the lives of their loved ones.
At least not that I've heard.
For example, when I married my first husband, there was a small, very small and very quiet, almost inaudible voice in my head suggesting ever so gently that perhaps I might have been making a mistake.
However, I certainly didn't marry my first husband with the clear and lucid idea that I was going to make my life, my children's lives and my family's life absolutely, unequivocably miserable.
I wasn't joyfully deranged, gleefully thinking, "Think of the mess this'll make of my kids lives!!!!!! Muwahhhhhhahahahahahah. . . .!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Will this ever screw them over for most of their youth and young adulthood!!!!!!!!!" Whhhhhheeeeeeee!"
Nor, do I believe, that, when I was and my father retired from the military, did he think that he wouldn't secure full time employment again until I was 16.
Sometimes, we do things because at the time they were the best option we had among what is more than likely a pile of crappy options.
We just tried to pick least crappy option.
But the real question is, would you go back and change anything if you could?
I've said before that I would still have married my ex even if I knew what was going to happen because having Mer, Keith and Em was completely worth whatever I had to go through.
My mother would probably say that I was just being me, doing things the hard way, as always.
There may be some truth to that.
I was never the kind of person who listened to the logical suggestion, or followed the path of least resistance.
In fact, my mother would probably tell you that if there was a way to make a mess of something, I would always choose that option.
Telling me not to do something was THE quickest way to ensure I did it.
Suggesting that perhaps the British soldier who was visiting CFB Gagetown was not necessarily the man I should date was the most expeditious means of guaranteeing I would.
He turned out to be married.
Me, dating a married man.
Imagine.
But it wasn't on purpose.
I really didn't know.
I worked in a military bar.
There were plenty of available single men without me trolling for the married ones.
And it would seem this pigheaded stubborness, this belief that I knew everything and therefore saw those around me as mere pawns in my personal game of life, this determined rebellion against authority, this balky bullheadedess, this tenacious, steadfast singlemindedness has been passed on to all of my children.
However, they possess different degrees of hardheadedness, inflexibility, ornery persistence.
And guess who possesses the most and is, therefore, the most like me?
Just guess.
Really.
It's not rocket science.
You already know. . . .
Meredyth.
For love nor money, well, maybe money, I cannot get that child to learn from my mistakes.
To listen to her mother.
Or anyone for that matter, at least anyone over the age of 30.
From conception, she and I have been locked in a battle of wills.
There have been times when she's won, and others where I have come out with the upper hand.
She is, by far, of all the kids, the most like me.
And while this can be a good thing. . . .
. . . .most of the time it has resulted in all out war.
But no bloodshed.
At least so far.
She is unshakeable. Relentless. Resolute. Unbending. Willfull.
And opinionated????
Don't even get me started.
Oddly, this is what makes her Mer.
These are the qualities that I admire in her, because I know that no one, no where, no how, no way will EVER be able to get her to do something she doesn't want to do.
(Which is kind of scary given the things she has done, consciously, knowingly, etc. but that's for another time).
She will NEVER take crap from anyone, ever.
The only problem is when she uses these finely honed genetic skills with me.
Or at me.
Or against me.
For example, she has known her entire life how much I abhor smoking.
Really, take my money and it wouldn't upset me as much as smoking.
So what does Mer do?
Smokes.
Her first foray into the land of nicotine addiction was the age of. . . .
18 months.
This is how determined she was.
My mother is visiting because I am ready to pop Keith out at any minute.
(Although it took another 10 days for Keith to realize it was time to come out!)
My mother is in the bathroom, I'm in the kitchen (of course) and her father is in the bedroom.
By some cosmic force, we were all drawn into the living room at the same time.
Just in time to see 18 month old Meredyth with one of my mother's King Sized Benson and Hedges in her mouth, lighter in hand, ready to set that tube of nightmarish nicotine and assorted poisons aflame and send them coursing into her lungs.
All while she had put on my mother's bra, Madonna style, outside her clothes.
She screamed and jumped 6 feet when the three of us yelled, "STOP!"
Its a wonder she didn't drop the lighter and set the entire apartment on fire.
The same obstinance is evidenced when at 2 and a half, while puttering around in her grandmother's back yard with her grandmother, she simply walked over to the in ground pool and jumped in, fully clothed.
And promptly sinks to the bottom.
She's my child, there was no natural reflex to swim.
Grandma, of course, runs after her and jumps in, grabs her, pulls her out, and all Mer does is look at her and say,
"Grandma! You're all wet!"
I don't want Mer to be anyone but herself.
I just want her to listen to me once in a while, and accept that, while I am very old, I have at least one synape firing in my head.
I do know some things.
I've had some life experience.
And I'm not out to get her.
At least not yet.
Nor am I gathering family members around me for THE SOLE PURPOSE of pitting them all against Mer.
At least not yet.
I'm not trying to run her life.
I can barely manage my own.
I just want her to not do the things I did, to not make things harder than they need to be.
To listen.
So, from the moment I opened my eyes this morning, the day has been one big shit show.
Literally. . .I wasn't even out of bed when things went down the toilet.
I overslept.
7.22 am.
Instead of my usual 6.00 am.
Oversleeping sets the tone for the entire day.
Nothing, no matter how hard I try, how much effort I put into it, or what I say regardless of my intentions, works out.
By 7.30 am, 1/4 of my family, meaning those people who live in my house, was pissed off.
At 9.30 am, that number had risen to 1/2.
3/4 by 11.30 am.
And of that 3/4, 2/3 were my children.
Even without the extra incentive that landed at my feet by 11.30, I was ready to get back in bed and pull the covers over my head, not coming out until at least 5.30.
Now, I'm just plain nervous.
I have to go home and make tonight's dinner and tomorrow night's.
Knives are a necessity in the dinner making processes.
Given the day I've had, I have no idea where the knives may land.
I just hope that whatever happens, hospitalization or incarceration, or both aren't required.
Title Lyric: Bad Day by Daniel Powter
Today is my parent's wedding anniversay. . .somewhere around 47 or 48 I think.
Almost 50 years married to the same person.
There are days, like today, that I can't imagine 5 minutes with one person, let alone 50 years!
I wouldn't hesitate to guess whether or not my parents believe they are happily married.
One is in a nursing home.
The other still resides at the Clarke family homestead.
I do know that, like all marriages, they have certainly had their ups and downs.
In fact, if I asked them to look back over their lives, could they have predicted they would be where they are today?
Probably not.
The other thing I know about marriage and life in general, is that when you make decisions about your life, decisions that will influence the lives of those around you, you make those decisions with the best of intentions.
People don't make decisions with the intention of f***ing up the lives of their loved ones.
At least not that I've heard.
For example, when I married my first husband, there was a small, very small and very quiet, almost inaudible voice in my head suggesting ever so gently that perhaps I might have been making a mistake.
However, I certainly didn't marry my first husband with the clear and lucid idea that I was going to make my life, my children's lives and my family's life absolutely, unequivocably miserable.
I wasn't joyfully deranged, gleefully thinking, "Think of the mess this'll make of my kids lives!!!!!! Muwahhhhhhahahahahahah. . . .!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Will this ever screw them over for most of their youth and young adulthood!!!!!!!!!" Whhhhhheeeeeeee!"
Nor, do I believe, that, when I was and my father retired from the military, did he think that he wouldn't secure full time employment again until I was 16.
Sometimes, we do things because at the time they were the best option we had among what is more than likely a pile of crappy options.
We just tried to pick least crappy option.
But the real question is, would you go back and change anything if you could?
I've said before that I would still have married my ex even if I knew what was going to happen because having Mer, Keith and Em was completely worth whatever I had to go through.
My mother would probably say that I was just being me, doing things the hard way, as always.
There may be some truth to that.
I was never the kind of person who listened to the logical suggestion, or followed the path of least resistance.
In fact, my mother would probably tell you that if there was a way to make a mess of something, I would always choose that option.
Telling me not to do something was THE quickest way to ensure I did it.
Suggesting that perhaps the British soldier who was visiting CFB Gagetown was not necessarily the man I should date was the most expeditious means of guaranteeing I would.
He turned out to be married.
Me, dating a married man.
Imagine.
But it wasn't on purpose.
I really didn't know.
I worked in a military bar.
There were plenty of available single men without me trolling for the married ones.
And it would seem this pigheaded stubborness, this belief that I knew everything and therefore saw those around me as mere pawns in my personal game of life, this determined rebellion against authority, this balky bullheadedess, this tenacious, steadfast singlemindedness has been passed on to all of my children.
However, they possess different degrees of hardheadedness, inflexibility, ornery persistence.
And guess who possesses the most and is, therefore, the most like me?
Just guess.
Really.
It's not rocket science.
You already know. . . .
Meredyth.
For love nor money, well, maybe money, I cannot get that child to learn from my mistakes.
To listen to her mother.
Or anyone for that matter, at least anyone over the age of 30.
From conception, she and I have been locked in a battle of wills.
There have been times when she's won, and others where I have come out with the upper hand.
She is, by far, of all the kids, the most like me.
And while this can be a good thing. . . .
. . . .most of the time it has resulted in all out war.
But no bloodshed.
At least so far.
She is unshakeable. Relentless. Resolute. Unbending. Willfull.
And opinionated????
Don't even get me started.
Oddly, this is what makes her Mer.
These are the qualities that I admire in her, because I know that no one, no where, no how, no way will EVER be able to get her to do something she doesn't want to do.
(Which is kind of scary given the things she has done, consciously, knowingly, etc. but that's for another time).
She will NEVER take crap from anyone, ever.
The only problem is when she uses these finely honed genetic skills with me.
Or at me.
Or against me.
For example, she has known her entire life how much I abhor smoking.
Really, take my money and it wouldn't upset me as much as smoking.
So what does Mer do?
Smokes.
Her first foray into the land of nicotine addiction was the age of. . . .
18 months.
This is how determined she was.
My mother is visiting because I am ready to pop Keith out at any minute.
(Although it took another 10 days for Keith to realize it was time to come out!)
My mother is in the bathroom, I'm in the kitchen (of course) and her father is in the bedroom.
By some cosmic force, we were all drawn into the living room at the same time.
Just in time to see 18 month old Meredyth with one of my mother's King Sized Benson and Hedges in her mouth, lighter in hand, ready to set that tube of nightmarish nicotine and assorted poisons aflame and send them coursing into her lungs.
All while she had put on my mother's bra, Madonna style, outside her clothes.
She screamed and jumped 6 feet when the three of us yelled, "STOP!"
Its a wonder she didn't drop the lighter and set the entire apartment on fire.
The same obstinance is evidenced when at 2 and a half, while puttering around in her grandmother's back yard with her grandmother, she simply walked over to the in ground pool and jumped in, fully clothed.
And promptly sinks to the bottom.
She's my child, there was no natural reflex to swim.
Grandma, of course, runs after her and jumps in, grabs her, pulls her out, and all Mer does is look at her and say,
"Grandma! You're all wet!"
I don't want Mer to be anyone but herself.
I just want her to listen to me once in a while, and accept that, while I am very old, I have at least one synape firing in my head.
I do know some things.
I've had some life experience.
And I'm not out to get her.
At least not yet.
Nor am I gathering family members around me for THE SOLE PURPOSE of pitting them all against Mer.
At least not yet.
I'm not trying to run her life.
I can barely manage my own.
I just want her to not do the things I did, to not make things harder than they need to be.
To listen.
So, from the moment I opened my eyes this morning, the day has been one big shit show.
Literally. . .I wasn't even out of bed when things went down the toilet.
I overslept.
7.22 am.
Instead of my usual 6.00 am.
Oversleeping sets the tone for the entire day.
Nothing, no matter how hard I try, how much effort I put into it, or what I say regardless of my intentions, works out.
By 7.30 am, 1/4 of my family, meaning those people who live in my house, was pissed off.
At 9.30 am, that number had risen to 1/2.
3/4 by 11.30 am.
And of that 3/4, 2/3 were my children.
Even without the extra incentive that landed at my feet by 11.30, I was ready to get back in bed and pull the covers over my head, not coming out until at least 5.30.
Now, I'm just plain nervous.
I have to go home and make tonight's dinner and tomorrow night's.
Knives are a necessity in the dinner making processes.
Given the day I've had, I have no idea where the knives may land.
I just hope that whatever happens, hospitalization or incarceration, or both aren't required.
Title Lyric: Bad Day by Daniel Powter
Monday, October 25, 2010
The kids are sick again. . .
October 25, 2010
Emily stayed home today.
Sick.
Fever, chills, sneezing, silliness. . . .
All the signs of not being well.
I had no classes today, so I stayed home and worked at the kitchen table.
Marking assignments for my 2103 class.
Em drifting in and out of the kitchen during her periods of wakefulness, or hunger.
Cause sick though she may be, she is still able to discern hunger.
Sick days when the kids were younger meant a day off. . .for me and them.
I mean, I couldn't leave them home alone, now, could I???
Someone had to be there to pump them full of liquids and medicines, feed them chicken soup broth, chauffer them to the doctor's office, wipe their sweaty foreheads, and try really hard to get them to the bathroom on time.
As soon as the first signs of sickness appeared, there would be the inevitable shuffling of the day's schedule.
Making arrangements to have classes cancelled, meeting rescheduled. . .
I won't lie, if it hadn't been for the periods of sickness among my children, I may have never gotten a day off.
Of all the kids, Keith was the one who was home sick the most.
From birth, if there was something going around Keith would be the one to get it.
Bronchitis, influenza, head colds, chest colds, even tracheitis, which I had never heard of until Keith got it.
He missed more school than the girls combined.
Or at least until Mer went to high school.
No one has been able to beat her record of most school days missed for no reason other than stubborness and an absolute desire to do whatever it took to piss me off.
There were some days when I would literally just walk into my office, the phone would be ringing, and upon answering it, I would say,
"What could she have possibly done! I JUST dropped her off!!!"
Because it was ALWAYS someone from the school.
Always.
I KNOW the vice prinicipals had me on speed dial.
Keithie and I spent many days together, cuddled on the couch while I wiped his sweaty brow, fed him sips of ginger ale and he watched television.
Or movies.
You don't know how many times I watched the original Batman, the one with Micheal Keaton and Kim Bassinger. It was Keith's favourite film for a very long time, to the point where I would routinely wake up at 5.00 am to find Keithie in the living room, on the floor in front of the television, wearing his flannel cowboy pjs, feet tucked underneath him, eating a bowl of cereal, so deeply engrossed in the film that he didn't even know I was in the room.
He did this for weeks.
And when he was tired with Batman he would simply change films, watching the three original Star Wars films.
One morning, having been awakend by Han Solo and Luke Skywalker for the umpteenth time, I asked him how come he would get up so early to watch these movies.
The answer was so obvious, I don't know why I didn't realize it myself.
Little Pookie: "It's the only time the girls are quiet.'
Touche Pookie, touche.
The first time I watched The Full Monty was with Keith, while he dozed on and off, taking periodic breaks to throw up in the bucket on the floor beside him.
I'd hold his little head, wipe his face off, and then he would drift off to sleep.
Until I moved.
As soon as I thought I may be able to sneak off to the bathroom and get some much needed relief, he would wake up, and ask me if I was leaving him.
I really, really miss those days.
The worst sickness related experience we ever had was the result of Meredyth.
Surprise, surprise.
In kingergarten, Mer was off everyday to learn all the skills she would use later on.
Detention, talking back to the teachers, refusing to participate in anything she didn't want to do, providing sex education lessons to the other little children in her class.
She's been honing her skills for years.
I always taught the kids to share, and it would seem that Mer took this literally.
Because she brought home the chicken pox.
And within a couple of day, all three kids were sporting spots.
Oddly enough, the severity of their chicken pox was directly correlated to their individual personalities.
Mer's were the least severe and didn't stay around very long.
Why?
Because she just didn't have the time to let something as insignificant as chicken pox get in the way of her socializing.
As soon as she was able, she went off to Nana's for a few days of respite from her infected brother and sister.
I know why she wanted to leave so quickly: she would be the sole recipient of Nana and Papa's loving care and attention.
No other siblings with whom to share the spotlight, Mer would soak up all the TLC she didn't get at home (um hum).
Just as she wanted it.
Mer has always maintained that she was meant to be an only child.
Sharing has never been one of her strongest attributes.
And she was more than capable of informing me of her displeasure at providing her with siblings.
When I told her I was pregnant with Em, she just looked at me and said, "Again???!!"
Pookie's chicken pox were a bit more severe than Mer's, because unlike Mer, he just wasn't of the mind that he could fight them off.
If they wanted to infect him, he wasn't going to stand in the way.
Mellow, yeilding, never creating ripples. . . that was Keith.
He stayed home with me while Mer finished convelescing at Nana's, the receipient of several oatmeal baths, calomine rubs, glasses of ginger ale. . .
During one warm, oatmeal bath, me bent over the tub scrubbing his spots, he looked at me and said,
Spot Pookie: "Mummy, if you thrown in some raisins and cinnamon, we could have breakfast in the bathtub!"
Always the smartest little Pookie.
Now Emily was nine months old when she was the beneficiary of Mer's chicken pox.
And because she was the least able to voice her opinions about her malady, nor was she able to actively and vociferously prevent the chicken pox from invading her little body.
She has chicken pox everywhere, all over, ten times the number her brother and sister had to deal with.
Including one that actually took up residence on her eye lid, with her little eyelashes stuck in the middle.
Of all the kids, she was the sickest.
The most miserable.
The least able to put into words how she was feeling.
But that was okay, because that child could always manage to make you understand just how miserable she was feeling.
By the time the chicken pox had finished their invasion of the Van Every children, two weeks had passed.
I was in the fourth year of my undergraduate degree, working on my honours thesis in sociology.
I had managed to get to classes sporadically, depending upon which already-had-chicken-pox-friend I could bribe to come to the house and stay with the kids, but even with my powers of persuasion, I still missed a lot of class time.
Just writing about it makes me want crawl in bed for a nap.
Now when I got sick, because I always did, there was no one to look after me.
One evening over dinner, I mentioned to the kids that I wasn't feeling well, and I thought I was getting sick, and Mer looked at me, shocked and said,
"Your Mum. You're not allowed to get sick!"
She was certainly right about that.
Now, if I get sick, Stephen takes such good care of me. . .he brings be soup and dry toast, keeps the dogs from harrassing me, doesn't force me to answer phone calls, he just lets me rest.
That alone is worth getting married for.
Now when Stephen is sick, he just wants to be left alone.
No food. No talk. No nothing.
Just alone.
If he wants coffe and conversation, he'll come downstairs and get it.
The only one allowed to be near him is Goblet.
She's all the comfort he wants.
He isn't even interested in his continuing relationship with Ellie.
Certainly, there were other times when the kids were all sick at the same time.
But the chicken pox were the most memorable.
After a while, I knew that if one of them brought home something, it was going to spread to the other two.
As they became older, it was a little easier to juggle work and home during times of illness.
I'd stay home during the early days, the worst days, but when they were on-the-mend-but-not-good-for-public-consumption, I was able to leave them for a couple of hours, so long as they had a big bottle of ginger ale, the remote and the portable phone.
Because they knew I'd call every 15 minutes.
Now they act like I'm abandoning them, leaving them to suffer alone, but not in silence, condemning me for being uncaring and unloving, the Cruella De Vil of mother's, the kind of mother who would leave them naked and starving in a snowstorm, who would give them baby aspirin for dengue fever.
The drama would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic.
Title Lyric: The Kids are Sick Again by Maximo Park
Emily stayed home today.
Sick.
Fever, chills, sneezing, silliness. . . .
All the signs of not being well.
I had no classes today, so I stayed home and worked at the kitchen table.
Marking assignments for my 2103 class.
Em drifting in and out of the kitchen during her periods of wakefulness, or hunger.
Cause sick though she may be, she is still able to discern hunger.
Sick days when the kids were younger meant a day off. . .for me and them.
I mean, I couldn't leave them home alone, now, could I???
Someone had to be there to pump them full of liquids and medicines, feed them chicken soup broth, chauffer them to the doctor's office, wipe their sweaty foreheads, and try really hard to get them to the bathroom on time.
As soon as the first signs of sickness appeared, there would be the inevitable shuffling of the day's schedule.
Making arrangements to have classes cancelled, meeting rescheduled. . .
I won't lie, if it hadn't been for the periods of sickness among my children, I may have never gotten a day off.
Of all the kids, Keith was the one who was home sick the most.
From birth, if there was something going around Keith would be the one to get it.
Bronchitis, influenza, head colds, chest colds, even tracheitis, which I had never heard of until Keith got it.
He missed more school than the girls combined.
Or at least until Mer went to high school.
No one has been able to beat her record of most school days missed for no reason other than stubborness and an absolute desire to do whatever it took to piss me off.
There were some days when I would literally just walk into my office, the phone would be ringing, and upon answering it, I would say,
"What could she have possibly done! I JUST dropped her off!!!"
Because it was ALWAYS someone from the school.
Always.
I KNOW the vice prinicipals had me on speed dial.
Keithie and I spent many days together, cuddled on the couch while I wiped his sweaty brow, fed him sips of ginger ale and he watched television.
Or movies.
You don't know how many times I watched the original Batman, the one with Micheal Keaton and Kim Bassinger. It was Keith's favourite film for a very long time, to the point where I would routinely wake up at 5.00 am to find Keithie in the living room, on the floor in front of the television, wearing his flannel cowboy pjs, feet tucked underneath him, eating a bowl of cereal, so deeply engrossed in the film that he didn't even know I was in the room.
He did this for weeks.
And when he was tired with Batman he would simply change films, watching the three original Star Wars films.
One morning, having been awakend by Han Solo and Luke Skywalker for the umpteenth time, I asked him how come he would get up so early to watch these movies.
The answer was so obvious, I don't know why I didn't realize it myself.
Little Pookie: "It's the only time the girls are quiet.'
Touche Pookie, touche.
The first time I watched The Full Monty was with Keith, while he dozed on and off, taking periodic breaks to throw up in the bucket on the floor beside him.
I'd hold his little head, wipe his face off, and then he would drift off to sleep.
Until I moved.
As soon as I thought I may be able to sneak off to the bathroom and get some much needed relief, he would wake up, and ask me if I was leaving him.
I really, really miss those days.
The worst sickness related experience we ever had was the result of Meredyth.
Surprise, surprise.
In kingergarten, Mer was off everyday to learn all the skills she would use later on.
Detention, talking back to the teachers, refusing to participate in anything she didn't want to do, providing sex education lessons to the other little children in her class.
She's been honing her skills for years.
I always taught the kids to share, and it would seem that Mer took this literally.
Because she brought home the chicken pox.
And within a couple of day, all three kids were sporting spots.
Oddly enough, the severity of their chicken pox was directly correlated to their individual personalities.
Mer's were the least severe and didn't stay around very long.
Why?
Because she just didn't have the time to let something as insignificant as chicken pox get in the way of her socializing.
As soon as she was able, she went off to Nana's for a few days of respite from her infected brother and sister.
I know why she wanted to leave so quickly: she would be the sole recipient of Nana and Papa's loving care and attention.
No other siblings with whom to share the spotlight, Mer would soak up all the TLC she didn't get at home (um hum).
Just as she wanted it.
Mer has always maintained that she was meant to be an only child.
Sharing has never been one of her strongest attributes.
And she was more than capable of informing me of her displeasure at providing her with siblings.
When I told her I was pregnant with Em, she just looked at me and said, "Again???!!"
Pookie's chicken pox were a bit more severe than Mer's, because unlike Mer, he just wasn't of the mind that he could fight them off.
If they wanted to infect him, he wasn't going to stand in the way.
Mellow, yeilding, never creating ripples. . . that was Keith.
He stayed home with me while Mer finished convelescing at Nana's, the receipient of several oatmeal baths, calomine rubs, glasses of ginger ale. . .
During one warm, oatmeal bath, me bent over the tub scrubbing his spots, he looked at me and said,
Spot Pookie: "Mummy, if you thrown in some raisins and cinnamon, we could have breakfast in the bathtub!"
Always the smartest little Pookie.
Now Emily was nine months old when she was the beneficiary of Mer's chicken pox.
And because she was the least able to voice her opinions about her malady, nor was she able to actively and vociferously prevent the chicken pox from invading her little body.
She has chicken pox everywhere, all over, ten times the number her brother and sister had to deal with.
Including one that actually took up residence on her eye lid, with her little eyelashes stuck in the middle.
Of all the kids, she was the sickest.
The most miserable.
The least able to put into words how she was feeling.
But that was okay, because that child could always manage to make you understand just how miserable she was feeling.
By the time the chicken pox had finished their invasion of the Van Every children, two weeks had passed.
I was in the fourth year of my undergraduate degree, working on my honours thesis in sociology.
I had managed to get to classes sporadically, depending upon which already-had-chicken-pox-friend I could bribe to come to the house and stay with the kids, but even with my powers of persuasion, I still missed a lot of class time.
Just writing about it makes me want crawl in bed for a nap.
Now when I got sick, because I always did, there was no one to look after me.
One evening over dinner, I mentioned to the kids that I wasn't feeling well, and I thought I was getting sick, and Mer looked at me, shocked and said,
"Your Mum. You're not allowed to get sick!"
She was certainly right about that.
Now, if I get sick, Stephen takes such good care of me. . .he brings be soup and dry toast, keeps the dogs from harrassing me, doesn't force me to answer phone calls, he just lets me rest.
That alone is worth getting married for.
Now when Stephen is sick, he just wants to be left alone.
No food. No talk. No nothing.
Just alone.
If he wants coffe and conversation, he'll come downstairs and get it.
The only one allowed to be near him is Goblet.
She's all the comfort he wants.
He isn't even interested in his continuing relationship with Ellie.
Certainly, there were other times when the kids were all sick at the same time.
But the chicken pox were the most memorable.
After a while, I knew that if one of them brought home something, it was going to spread to the other two.
As they became older, it was a little easier to juggle work and home during times of illness.
I'd stay home during the early days, the worst days, but when they were on-the-mend-but-not-good-for-public-consumption, I was able to leave them for a couple of hours, so long as they had a big bottle of ginger ale, the remote and the portable phone.
Because they knew I'd call every 15 minutes.
Now they act like I'm abandoning them, leaving them to suffer alone, but not in silence, condemning me for being uncaring and unloving, the Cruella De Vil of mother's, the kind of mother who would leave them naked and starving in a snowstorm, who would give them baby aspirin for dengue fever.
The drama would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic.
Title Lyric: The Kids are Sick Again by Maximo Park
Sunday, October 24, 2010
And I cleaned the fan-light inside out. . .I'm happy cleaning windows
October 23, 2010
There has been something going on here for quite a while that I am just now only able to write about.
It's so painful, so distressing, that I'm still not sure I'm ready to share, but, I need to begin the process of healing.
Stephen has been cheating on me.
Her name is Ellie.
She is much younger than I am, born in 1985.
Slimmer, less confrontational, she just pretty much lets him do whatever he wants without any complaint.
The worst part, the hardest part is I know her. I've known her since 1985. She was at my grandmother's house, she's been in this house, she's even stayed the night.
The only time she and Stephen haven't been able to be together is when she has been "getting work done."
The dogs love to play with her. The kids are less inclined to like her, but, they have been known to put their differences on the backburner to engage with her.
She and I were really close until Stephen came along. After that, our relationship deteriorated rapidly.
And now I know why.
Finally, this afternoon, when I got out of the shower and he was engaging with her, I knew I had to step in and say something.
Because enough is enough.
Its me or Ellie.
He said he refused to part with either of us, as he sees both of us as necessary in his life.
I said I am just not the sharing type.
Here's a picture of her, in case you see them together and feel the need to step in and say something on my behalf.
Ellie the Electrolux.
(PS: Stephen read and okayed this prior to posting, so don't panic!)
You can see how come I'm upset, right?
He grabs her as soon as we walk in the door.
And I know he's been having intimate time with her while I'm at work.
Many a night, as in midnight, I've been awaked by Ellie's not-so-dulcet tones.
As soon as I'm in the shower, he grabs her.
Maybe I wouldn't be so upset if he grabbed me once in a while with the same intensity and passion. . .
Upon hearing that my husband loves to clean, many people, especially women, tell me I am a very lucky women.
Or ask if they could borrow him for a few days.
Or invite him over for a little in-house cleaning.
Most men have tool belts.
Stephen has a cleaning belt, complete with compartments for his dry cloths, wet cloths, brushes, rubber gloves, furniture polish, Windex, vacuum bags, and poop bags in case Goblet has made a deposit in the basement.
He even vacuums and scrubs the basement floor.
Other men like watching sports, or action films.
Stephen loves How Clean is Your House??? with Kim and Aggie.
My response to women who think I have won the housecleaning lottery is to reply, "Be careful what you wish for!"
It is a well known fact that I despise cleaning.
But, I would do it.
Because I had to.
When Stephen and I first got together, I had a hard time allowing him to clean.
One day, while I was doing the dishes, he met Ellie the Electrolux.
In fact this was probably the beginning of what has become a long term love affair.
While he was plugging in the vacuum, I stopped washing the dishes and said to him,
"I can do that, you know."
And he replied,
"Well, so can I."
And he did.
As time went on, and we got to know one another better, thus dispensing with some of the niceities, he added to his list of household chores.
Graduating from vacuuming to dusting, to Windexing everything in sight, to cutting the grass, managing the recycling and garbage. . .
One specific incident, however, turned the tides.
I was getting ready to vacuum the livingroom when he came in and said,
"I don't know why you're doing this when we both know I can do it better."
And thus ended my reign as Domestic Diva of our humble abode.
I didn't put up much of a fuss, believe me.
Stephen, I suspect, has come to rue the day he spoke those words.
In fact, I know he has.
Because I have heard about over and over again.
Just because Stephen has taken over the role of Domestic Diva and loves housekeeping does not mean he doesn't have his moments.
It has taken a long time for him to understand that asking teenagers to do something, and them doing it right after you ask is not something that happens with a frequency he would like.
They always do what they have been asked.
But they don't always do it right away.
Just because the kids KNOW that their laundry needs to be done, or their rooms need to be clean doesn't mean they feel the need to complete said tasks.
The middle point: close their doors. And they do. And peace, even just a little, reigns.
Because their rooms are their rooms, and so long as they don't hold our dishes hostage under their beds or on their dressers, and they don't harbour towels as fugitives, we try to respect their privacy and stay out.
Unfortunately, the same standards don't apply to me.
More particularly, to my side of the bedroom.
I have willingly sucuumbed to the knowledge that Stephen is a much better housekeeper than me.
The price for acknowledging his superior swabbing skills was letting him reign as supreme ruler of most of the house.
Including most of our bedroom.
Because the impeccable neatness he has established in all of the house, save the kid's bedrooms has also been established in our bedroom.
Except for one small corner of room, known as "Dawne's Corner."
On my side of the bed, a space large enough to contain a nightstand and bookcase leaning against the wall is all that is left of my personal domain.
And I have to fight to keep the diva of deterge out of there all the time.
"Don't you think you should clean off your nightstand?"
"Perhaps it would be a good time to think about taking some of those piles of books to the Owl's Nest?"
"Maybe you could think about putting some of your earrings away?"
These are questions and queries, demands and directives, coercions and commands I hear on a routine basis.
My response:
"This is the last corner of my kingdom. You have the entire house to obsess over and you are not getting my last bastion of beleagurement into your hot little hands!!"
Meaning leave my shit alone.
You should have heard me when he suggested that cleaning my office might be a good idea.
In his defence, Stephen has come by his cleaning obsession honestly.
A little known fact about Stephen is that he despised going to school.
Not the learning part, in fact, he enjoyed, and still does, learning.
What he didn't like was being told when to sit, what to study, when to go out for recess, when to eat lunch, when to go home.
By the time he was in high school, his parents had enough. They had been fighting with him for years, even threatening him with a Christian Brothers boarding school in Ottawa.
He was so audacious that he would actually get a drive to school with his mother, who worked at the school he attended, and as soon as they had said their "good-byes" and "have a good day" and he knew his mother was safely ensconced in the building, he would immediately return home.
Finally, accepting that they weren't going to be able to force him to attend school, his parents gave up.
But, he had to be doing something during the day. Not going to school was one thing; lazing around the house all day while his parents were at work and his sister, Mary Ann, was willingly attending school, was something else altogether.
This is how he was introduced to cleaning.
His grandmother, or Baba in Ukranian, knew how to clean. Upon immigrating to Canada, while living in Winnipeg, she cleaned for Rabbis.
After moving to Montreal, she cleaned for a wealthy Jewish family, who lived in Outremont.
And she would often go to Stephen's parent's house during the day, while every one else was gone, and clean.
And make pergoies.
I wish I had a Baba who came over, cleaned and made perogies while I was at work.
But I do have Stephen.
Who cleans.
But doesn't make perogies.
Before his parents accepted that Stephen was just not going to attend school no matter how much they yelled, cajoled, threatened, while they were still hauling out the big gun, Stephen's high school English teaching Aunt Irene, before they just gave in and gave up, Stephen would still escape from school, even if his grandmother was in the house.
He would hide in his parent's summer trailer and spend his day reading Thoreau's Walden.
He was SUCH a rebel.
Thus he learned to clean, through instruction from his Baba.
And she taught him very, very well.
Leading to the cleaning obsessed man I love and adore, want to throttle in equal parts.
Opposites attract. . .Stephen and I may be actual living proof of the veracity of this statement.
Or we're just really, really tolerant of each other's idiosyncracies.
Whatever it is, most of the time it works.
Title Lyric: Cleaning Windows by Van Morrison
There has been something going on here for quite a while that I am just now only able to write about.
It's so painful, so distressing, that I'm still not sure I'm ready to share, but, I need to begin the process of healing.
Stephen has been cheating on me.
Her name is Ellie.
She is much younger than I am, born in 1985.
Slimmer, less confrontational, she just pretty much lets him do whatever he wants without any complaint.
The worst part, the hardest part is I know her. I've known her since 1985. She was at my grandmother's house, she's been in this house, she's even stayed the night.
The only time she and Stephen haven't been able to be together is when she has been "getting work done."
The dogs love to play with her. The kids are less inclined to like her, but, they have been known to put their differences on the backburner to engage with her.
She and I were really close until Stephen came along. After that, our relationship deteriorated rapidly.
And now I know why.
Finally, this afternoon, when I got out of the shower and he was engaging with her, I knew I had to step in and say something.
Because enough is enough.
Its me or Ellie.
He said he refused to part with either of us, as he sees both of us as necessary in his life.
I said I am just not the sharing type.
Here's a picture of her, in case you see them together and feel the need to step in and say something on my behalf.
Ellie the Electrolux.
(PS: Stephen read and okayed this prior to posting, so don't panic!)
You can see how come I'm upset, right?
He grabs her as soon as we walk in the door.
And I know he's been having intimate time with her while I'm at work.
Many a night, as in midnight, I've been awaked by Ellie's not-so-dulcet tones.
As soon as I'm in the shower, he grabs her.
Maybe I wouldn't be so upset if he grabbed me once in a while with the same intensity and passion. . .
Upon hearing that my husband loves to clean, many people, especially women, tell me I am a very lucky women.
Or ask if they could borrow him for a few days.
Or invite him over for a little in-house cleaning.
Most men have tool belts.
Stephen has a cleaning belt, complete with compartments for his dry cloths, wet cloths, brushes, rubber gloves, furniture polish, Windex, vacuum bags, and poop bags in case Goblet has made a deposit in the basement.
He even vacuums and scrubs the basement floor.
Other men like watching sports, or action films.
Stephen loves How Clean is Your House??? with Kim and Aggie.
My response to women who think I have won the housecleaning lottery is to reply, "Be careful what you wish for!"
It is a well known fact that I despise cleaning.
But, I would do it.
Because I had to.
When Stephen and I first got together, I had a hard time allowing him to clean.
One day, while I was doing the dishes, he met Ellie the Electrolux.
In fact this was probably the beginning of what has become a long term love affair.
While he was plugging in the vacuum, I stopped washing the dishes and said to him,
"I can do that, you know."
And he replied,
"Well, so can I."
And he did.
As time went on, and we got to know one another better, thus dispensing with some of the niceities, he added to his list of household chores.
Graduating from vacuuming to dusting, to Windexing everything in sight, to cutting the grass, managing the recycling and garbage. . .
One specific incident, however, turned the tides.
I was getting ready to vacuum the livingroom when he came in and said,
"I don't know why you're doing this when we both know I can do it better."
And thus ended my reign as Domestic Diva of our humble abode.
I didn't put up much of a fuss, believe me.
Stephen, I suspect, has come to rue the day he spoke those words.
In fact, I know he has.
Because I have heard about over and over again.
Just because Stephen has taken over the role of Domestic Diva and loves housekeeping does not mean he doesn't have his moments.
It has taken a long time for him to understand that asking teenagers to do something, and them doing it right after you ask is not something that happens with a frequency he would like.
They always do what they have been asked.
But they don't always do it right away.
Just because the kids KNOW that their laundry needs to be done, or their rooms need to be clean doesn't mean they feel the need to complete said tasks.
The middle point: close their doors. And they do. And peace, even just a little, reigns.
Because their rooms are their rooms, and so long as they don't hold our dishes hostage under their beds or on their dressers, and they don't harbour towels as fugitives, we try to respect their privacy and stay out.
Unfortunately, the same standards don't apply to me.
More particularly, to my side of the bedroom.
I have willingly sucuumbed to the knowledge that Stephen is a much better housekeeper than me.
The price for acknowledging his superior swabbing skills was letting him reign as supreme ruler of most of the house.
Including most of our bedroom.
Because the impeccable neatness he has established in all of the house, save the kid's bedrooms has also been established in our bedroom.
Except for one small corner of room, known as "Dawne's Corner."
On my side of the bed, a space large enough to contain a nightstand and bookcase leaning against the wall is all that is left of my personal domain.
And I have to fight to keep the diva of deterge out of there all the time.
"Don't you think you should clean off your nightstand?"
"Perhaps it would be a good time to think about taking some of those piles of books to the Owl's Nest?"
"Maybe you could think about putting some of your earrings away?"
These are questions and queries, demands and directives, coercions and commands I hear on a routine basis.
My response:
"This is the last corner of my kingdom. You have the entire house to obsess over and you are not getting my last bastion of beleagurement into your hot little hands!!"
Meaning leave my shit alone.
You should have heard me when he suggested that cleaning my office might be a good idea.
In his defence, Stephen has come by his cleaning obsession honestly.
A little known fact about Stephen is that he despised going to school.
Not the learning part, in fact, he enjoyed, and still does, learning.
What he didn't like was being told when to sit, what to study, when to go out for recess, when to eat lunch, when to go home.
By the time he was in high school, his parents had enough. They had been fighting with him for years, even threatening him with a Christian Brothers boarding school in Ottawa.
He was so audacious that he would actually get a drive to school with his mother, who worked at the school he attended, and as soon as they had said their "good-byes" and "have a good day" and he knew his mother was safely ensconced in the building, he would immediately return home.
Finally, accepting that they weren't going to be able to force him to attend school, his parents gave up.
But, he had to be doing something during the day. Not going to school was one thing; lazing around the house all day while his parents were at work and his sister, Mary Ann, was willingly attending school, was something else altogether.
This is how he was introduced to cleaning.
His grandmother, or Baba in Ukranian, knew how to clean. Upon immigrating to Canada, while living in Winnipeg, she cleaned for Rabbis.
After moving to Montreal, she cleaned for a wealthy Jewish family, who lived in Outremont.
And she would often go to Stephen's parent's house during the day, while every one else was gone, and clean.
And make pergoies.
I wish I had a Baba who came over, cleaned and made perogies while I was at work.
But I do have Stephen.
Who cleans.
But doesn't make perogies.
Before his parents accepted that Stephen was just not going to attend school no matter how much they yelled, cajoled, threatened, while they were still hauling out the big gun, Stephen's high school English teaching Aunt Irene, before they just gave in and gave up, Stephen would still escape from school, even if his grandmother was in the house.
He would hide in his parent's summer trailer and spend his day reading Thoreau's Walden.
He was SUCH a rebel.
Thus he learned to clean, through instruction from his Baba.
And she taught him very, very well.
Leading to the cleaning obsessed man I love and adore, want to throttle in equal parts.
Opposites attract. . .Stephen and I may be actual living proof of the veracity of this statement.
Or we're just really, really tolerant of each other's idiosyncracies.
Whatever it is, most of the time it works.
Title Lyric: Cleaning Windows by Van Morrison
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Keep driving, keep driving, keep driving, keep driving. . . .
October 22, 2o1o
Today was a blissfully normal day.
At least so far. It's only 7.15 pm, so there is still plenty of time for a crisis or two.
Pennington's was on my list of things to do today, so after we finished at the Community Kitchen, we went to return the two sweaters I bought for my mother last week.
As predicted, they didn't fit. . .too big.
I took them to her Sunday evening. She was already in her pjs, sweater on, blanket wrapped around her, evening cleansing completed, meaning her teeth were in their cup, her face was washed, and she was just waiting for her meds.
When I came into her room, she was watching Antiques Roadshow, which meant that, as usual, I was late.
But because I came bearing gifts she was willing to excuse my tardiness.
Buying things for Mum is a crap shoot, and a professional shopper I am not.
And trying things on is always a challenge.
First, I have to extremely careful to ensure I don't do any damage to her hair.
Every two weeks she visits the salon in the nursing home and get her hair done. She then is particularly careful to make certain that in the next two weeks she keeps her hair as pristine as possible.
Then I have to adjust everything to ensure the proper "fall", meaning it does what it's supposed to do.
Rather than just tell me, say openly, verbalize her discontent, speak her mind, my mother prefers to use "charades" as her preferred method of communication when she is not pleased with something.
In this instance, she wiggled her hand to prove to me that this lovely navy blue cardigan was too big.
The cuff of the sleeve went halfway down her hand.
She looks at me in the way she has always looked at me in such situations.
But this time, just to make sure I was able to capture the meaning of the wiggling hand, she upgrades from charades to show and tell by stating,
"Too big."
I'm not convinced the sweater was too big for the woman who routinely wears two sweaters and a blanket while the heat blasts away at full capacity.
In the middle of October.
By January she may need the cardigan with a little room to fit over the five sweaters she wraps around herself.
But what do I know?
My mother has always taken great pride in her appearance.
(I know. WHAT happened to me??????)
She never went anywhere, not even to the grocery store, without making sure she was fully make-uped, everything matched and she had matching shoes.
Even in shorts and a t-shirt, my mother had to look good.
And this included her hair.
On a daily basis, my kids see me with wet hair, notice the long lines of shampoo and conditioner bottles, sitting on the edge of the bath tub like soldiers preparing for battle.
Because I have long hair, each day is an adventure in what catastrophic coiffure I have created to take out into the public.
I never had these experiences growing up.
In fact, I can count on one hand the number of times I've witnessed my mother sporting a head of wet hair.
How come, you ask?
Were we so wealthy that we had our own private hairdresser?
Not bloodly likely.
But. . . .
When I was growing up, every Thursday evening, my mother would make her weekly trek into the salon at the Oromocto Mall and have her hair done by Edith.
Edith the hair ripper, I called her.
She once did my hair and attacked my scalp with her hair brush with such ferocity that she actually forced by head back and if it wasn't for my unusually quick reflexes, my head would have probably smashed into the mirror.
After settling herself at Edith's station, rubber cape wrapped around her shoulders making her look like a smarmy superhero, my mother would look at Edith and simply state,
"The usual, please Edith."
For those of you unfamiliar with Janet-isms, this translates to a wash, set, blowdry, style and hairspray.
Especially hairspray.
Because her turned out tresses had to maintain form until her next visit, my mother made sure her head was lacquered, varnished and enameled within an inch of its life.
Further, not content with just Edith's veneer, she made sure that she applied coat after coat of her own each day until she was able to get back to Edith's chair.
Every morning, or, early afternoon, depending on what shift she worked (my mother was a nurse), you would find my mother in front of the bathroom mirror, ozone depleting, gargantuan size can of hairspray clutched in her hand, while she maneuvered it over her hair with such dizzying intensity that if you happened to walk in on her, all you could see was the shadow of her head through the cloudy fog of hairspray.
Women like my mother all over the world are responsible for the shrinking ozone layer.
My mother always tried to cram as much as possible into any trip into Oromocto.
How come?
Because she absolutely HATED to drive.
She didn't get her driver's licence until she was 40.
I was 16, my brother was 15.
The only reason she did this was because she finally had to accept that she was either going to learn to drive, or take out shares in the local taxi company.
My dad's work required a lot of travel, so there were times when he was away for long periods of time.
We lived in a rural area, so there were no buses, except school buses, and it would take a couple of hours to walk into Oromocto.
So my mother, who did not want to have to cab it back and forth from the hospital everyday, broke down and got her driver's licence.
And on her way back from successfully obtaining her first driver's licence, she was stopped by the police during a routine traffic stop.
This didn't help her already well formed and solid as a rock hatred for driving.
She was a very nervous driver.
Before even igniting the ignition, she had a well established, never-deviated-from-no-matter-what-the-circumstances pre-trip routine.
In the car, seatbelt securely fastened, mirrors adjusted, purse settled beside her in case she needed a tissue, or mint while driving.
She always had a roll, or several depending on how long we were driving, of Ganongs peppermints in pink, green and white.
Key in the ignition, she would not turn the car on until the final step was completed.
The lighting of her King Size Benson and Hedges.
Cigarette clutched tightly between her shaking fingers, window opened a crack, ashtray open, Mum would only then turn the key secured in the ignition, and begin the laborious process of getting the car out of the driveway.
She'd chainsmoke the entire drive.
No matter how long or short.
She also spoke little and she made sure the radio was never played "too loudly;" she would say, "Dawne, turn that down! It's screaming in my face!"
If we were going to the mall, she made sure she parked as far from the building as possible to ensure that she would have no trouble getting out.
Under normal circumstances, driving with her was incredibly stressful.
Imagine what would happen if we had the misfortune to be caught in a snowstorm??????
One evening, after getting her hair done, my mother and I walked out of the mall into a snowstorm.
There wasn't even a hint of a flake when we went in.
And nothing was mentioned on the radio, because if it had been, my mother would have NEVER left the house, let alone the driveway.
The mere hint of a flake was enough to ground her.
So you can only imagine the look on her face when we walked out into a full fledged snowstorm. Wind howling, snow swirling with such savagery that I'm certain she contemplated what it would be like for us to bunk down in the mall for the night.
Sheer, utter, unfettered panic filled my mother faster than a Tim Horton's employee filling a coffee cup during rush hour.
Maybe even faster than that.
I had a beginner's but there was no way she was going to let me drive. She may have been terrified and panicking, but she knew at least she would eventually get us home.
Who knows where we would have ended up if I was behind the wheel.
Most likely the ditch, but I try to be optomistic.
Being a strong woman, and knowing that there was only one course of action, and it was not spending the night in the bed section at Woolworth's, my mother accepted her fate with a panicked grace and simply did what she had to do.
Suck it up.
She squared her shoulders, set her jaw, snapped on her gloves, tightly pulled her hood over her just-coiffed hair, and marched into that storm toward the car with an attitude and stride that left no doubt about what she was thinking, but would never say outloud:
F***!
We reach the car.
In my effort to aussage the already building tension, I offered to brush the snow off the car.
She nodded her acceptance of my offer and then slid into the front seat of her two-toned green, four door Chevy Impala (later nicknamed the "bedroom on wheels" but that I'll save for another time), while I grabbed the brush from the backseat and started to clean the car of its snowy blanket.
While I was cleaning, she was preparing herself for the long, arduous trek home.
She turned the car on, cranked up the heater, turned on the lights, tightly buckled herself in -- so tightly I was worried she impede her ability to take a complete breath. I get in the car and she spoke the only words she said to be the entire drive home: "Buckle your seatbelt."
She lit a fresh cigarette from the butt of the one she'd just finished, cracked the window open, and off we went.
Very, very slowly.
The car, that snowy winter's evening, was replete with a tension that was viscous and impenitrable, coming off my mother in waves.
I sat in the passenger sit, uncharacteristically quiet, fearful that if I spoke one word, diverted her fixed and concentrated gaze from the snowy scene before us, that we would surely end up in a ditch somewhere.
Cars passed us.
Some honked their horns.
While my mother stalwardly maintained her road raptness.
The drive from the Oromocto Mall to our house on the Broad Road was approximately 15-20 minutes depending on the time of day.
On that fateful night, it took us over an hour to get home.
No radio.
No talking.
I was lucky she let me breath.
The only sounds were the back and forth of the wipers and the click of the car lighter each time it popped out ready to light her next cigarette.
She white knuckled the steering wheel the entire drive. When we pulled into the driveway, I had to practically pry her fingers from the wheel.
Once safely inside the house, she sat down at the kitchen table with a soup bowl sized cup of coffee and drank it until her hands stopped shaking.
But I'll say this for my mother: she may have hated driving with a passion that could not be contested, but she drove us everywhere we needed to go, some places we wanted to go, and if needed, she'd fill her Chevy Impala with as many of my friends as we could cram in there.
And for that reason, plus that she was my mother, I gladly served as her second on our rural road adventures.
Even if it did mean years of therapy when I got older.
And a boyfriend who refused to teach me to drive because everytime a car came toward us, I would pull over to the side of the road.
Leaving him to comment to my mother one evening, "Mrs. Clarke, I love your daughter, but I am NOT going to teach her to drive."
And following in my mother's footsteps, I didn't get a licence until I was 32.
But never confuse my not having a licence with not driving.
That would be just silly on your part.
Title Lyric: Keep Driving by Meat Loaf
Today was a blissfully normal day.
At least so far. It's only 7.15 pm, so there is still plenty of time for a crisis or two.
Pennington's was on my list of things to do today, so after we finished at the Community Kitchen, we went to return the two sweaters I bought for my mother last week.
As predicted, they didn't fit. . .too big.
I took them to her Sunday evening. She was already in her pjs, sweater on, blanket wrapped around her, evening cleansing completed, meaning her teeth were in their cup, her face was washed, and she was just waiting for her meds.
When I came into her room, she was watching Antiques Roadshow, which meant that, as usual, I was late.
But because I came bearing gifts she was willing to excuse my tardiness.
Buying things for Mum is a crap shoot, and a professional shopper I am not.
And trying things on is always a challenge.
First, I have to extremely careful to ensure I don't do any damage to her hair.
Every two weeks she visits the salon in the nursing home and get her hair done. She then is particularly careful to make certain that in the next two weeks she keeps her hair as pristine as possible.
Then I have to adjust everything to ensure the proper "fall", meaning it does what it's supposed to do.
Rather than just tell me, say openly, verbalize her discontent, speak her mind, my mother prefers to use "charades" as her preferred method of communication when she is not pleased with something.
In this instance, she wiggled her hand to prove to me that this lovely navy blue cardigan was too big.
The cuff of the sleeve went halfway down her hand.
She looks at me in the way she has always looked at me in such situations.
But this time, just to make sure I was able to capture the meaning of the wiggling hand, she upgrades from charades to show and tell by stating,
"Too big."
I'm not convinced the sweater was too big for the woman who routinely wears two sweaters and a blanket while the heat blasts away at full capacity.
In the middle of October.
By January she may need the cardigan with a little room to fit over the five sweaters she wraps around herself.
But what do I know?
My mother has always taken great pride in her appearance.
(I know. WHAT happened to me??????)
She never went anywhere, not even to the grocery store, without making sure she was fully make-uped, everything matched and she had matching shoes.
Even in shorts and a t-shirt, my mother had to look good.
And this included her hair.
On a daily basis, my kids see me with wet hair, notice the long lines of shampoo and conditioner bottles, sitting on the edge of the bath tub like soldiers preparing for battle.
Because I have long hair, each day is an adventure in what catastrophic coiffure I have created to take out into the public.
I never had these experiences growing up.
In fact, I can count on one hand the number of times I've witnessed my mother sporting a head of wet hair.
How come, you ask?
Were we so wealthy that we had our own private hairdresser?
Not bloodly likely.
But. . . .
When I was growing up, every Thursday evening, my mother would make her weekly trek into the salon at the Oromocto Mall and have her hair done by Edith.
Edith the hair ripper, I called her.
She once did my hair and attacked my scalp with her hair brush with such ferocity that she actually forced by head back and if it wasn't for my unusually quick reflexes, my head would have probably smashed into the mirror.
After settling herself at Edith's station, rubber cape wrapped around her shoulders making her look like a smarmy superhero, my mother would look at Edith and simply state,
"The usual, please Edith."
For those of you unfamiliar with Janet-isms, this translates to a wash, set, blowdry, style and hairspray.
Especially hairspray.
Because her turned out tresses had to maintain form until her next visit, my mother made sure her head was lacquered, varnished and enameled within an inch of its life.
Further, not content with just Edith's veneer, she made sure that she applied coat after coat of her own each day until she was able to get back to Edith's chair.
Every morning, or, early afternoon, depending on what shift she worked (my mother was a nurse), you would find my mother in front of the bathroom mirror, ozone depleting, gargantuan size can of hairspray clutched in her hand, while she maneuvered it over her hair with such dizzying intensity that if you happened to walk in on her, all you could see was the shadow of her head through the cloudy fog of hairspray.
Women like my mother all over the world are responsible for the shrinking ozone layer.
My mother always tried to cram as much as possible into any trip into Oromocto.
How come?
Because she absolutely HATED to drive.
She didn't get her driver's licence until she was 40.
I was 16, my brother was 15.
The only reason she did this was because she finally had to accept that she was either going to learn to drive, or take out shares in the local taxi company.
My dad's work required a lot of travel, so there were times when he was away for long periods of time.
We lived in a rural area, so there were no buses, except school buses, and it would take a couple of hours to walk into Oromocto.
So my mother, who did not want to have to cab it back and forth from the hospital everyday, broke down and got her driver's licence.
And on her way back from successfully obtaining her first driver's licence, she was stopped by the police during a routine traffic stop.
This didn't help her already well formed and solid as a rock hatred for driving.
She was a very nervous driver.
Before even igniting the ignition, she had a well established, never-deviated-from-no-matter-what-the-circumstances pre-trip routine.
In the car, seatbelt securely fastened, mirrors adjusted, purse settled beside her in case she needed a tissue, or mint while driving.
She always had a roll, or several depending on how long we were driving, of Ganongs peppermints in pink, green and white.
Key in the ignition, she would not turn the car on until the final step was completed.
The lighting of her King Size Benson and Hedges.
Cigarette clutched tightly between her shaking fingers, window opened a crack, ashtray open, Mum would only then turn the key secured in the ignition, and begin the laborious process of getting the car out of the driveway.
She'd chainsmoke the entire drive.
No matter how long or short.
She also spoke little and she made sure the radio was never played "too loudly;" she would say, "Dawne, turn that down! It's screaming in my face!"
If we were going to the mall, she made sure she parked as far from the building as possible to ensure that she would have no trouble getting out.
Under normal circumstances, driving with her was incredibly stressful.
Imagine what would happen if we had the misfortune to be caught in a snowstorm??????
One evening, after getting her hair done, my mother and I walked out of the mall into a snowstorm.
There wasn't even a hint of a flake when we went in.
And nothing was mentioned on the radio, because if it had been, my mother would have NEVER left the house, let alone the driveway.
The mere hint of a flake was enough to ground her.
So you can only imagine the look on her face when we walked out into a full fledged snowstorm. Wind howling, snow swirling with such savagery that I'm certain she contemplated what it would be like for us to bunk down in the mall for the night.
Sheer, utter, unfettered panic filled my mother faster than a Tim Horton's employee filling a coffee cup during rush hour.
Maybe even faster than that.
I had a beginner's but there was no way she was going to let me drive. She may have been terrified and panicking, but she knew at least she would eventually get us home.
Who knows where we would have ended up if I was behind the wheel.
Most likely the ditch, but I try to be optomistic.
Being a strong woman, and knowing that there was only one course of action, and it was not spending the night in the bed section at Woolworth's, my mother accepted her fate with a panicked grace and simply did what she had to do.
Suck it up.
She squared her shoulders, set her jaw, snapped on her gloves, tightly pulled her hood over her just-coiffed hair, and marched into that storm toward the car with an attitude and stride that left no doubt about what she was thinking, but would never say outloud:
F***!
We reach the car.
In my effort to aussage the already building tension, I offered to brush the snow off the car.
She nodded her acceptance of my offer and then slid into the front seat of her two-toned green, four door Chevy Impala (later nicknamed the "bedroom on wheels" but that I'll save for another time), while I grabbed the brush from the backseat and started to clean the car of its snowy blanket.
While I was cleaning, she was preparing herself for the long, arduous trek home.
She turned the car on, cranked up the heater, turned on the lights, tightly buckled herself in -- so tightly I was worried she impede her ability to take a complete breath. I get in the car and she spoke the only words she said to be the entire drive home: "Buckle your seatbelt."
She lit a fresh cigarette from the butt of the one she'd just finished, cracked the window open, and off we went.
Very, very slowly.
The car, that snowy winter's evening, was replete with a tension that was viscous and impenitrable, coming off my mother in waves.
I sat in the passenger sit, uncharacteristically quiet, fearful that if I spoke one word, diverted her fixed and concentrated gaze from the snowy scene before us, that we would surely end up in a ditch somewhere.
Cars passed us.
Some honked their horns.
While my mother stalwardly maintained her road raptness.
The drive from the Oromocto Mall to our house on the Broad Road was approximately 15-20 minutes depending on the time of day.
On that fateful night, it took us over an hour to get home.
No radio.
No talking.
I was lucky she let me breath.
The only sounds were the back and forth of the wipers and the click of the car lighter each time it popped out ready to light her next cigarette.
She white knuckled the steering wheel the entire drive. When we pulled into the driveway, I had to practically pry her fingers from the wheel.
Once safely inside the house, she sat down at the kitchen table with a soup bowl sized cup of coffee and drank it until her hands stopped shaking.
But I'll say this for my mother: she may have hated driving with a passion that could not be contested, but she drove us everywhere we needed to go, some places we wanted to go, and if needed, she'd fill her Chevy Impala with as many of my friends as we could cram in there.
And for that reason, plus that she was my mother, I gladly served as her second on our rural road adventures.
Even if it did mean years of therapy when I got older.
And a boyfriend who refused to teach me to drive because everytime a car came toward us, I would pull over to the side of the road.
Leaving him to comment to my mother one evening, "Mrs. Clarke, I love your daughter, but I am NOT going to teach her to drive."
And following in my mother's footsteps, I didn't get a licence until I was 32.
But never confuse my not having a licence with not driving.
That would be just silly on your part.
Title Lyric: Keep Driving by Meat Loaf
Friday, October 22, 2010
The prisoner is now escaping. . .
October 21, 2010
I was honest to goodness, no doubt, completely and utterly 100% pure concentrated pissed off today.
How come?
Was this because of the kids and their never-ending issues, concerns, or plots to ascertain how long it will take to rid me of my last, quasi-intact, hanging on my a thread so thin it's almost non-existant shred of sanity?
Or have the dogs kicked up their canine capers, their shameless shenanigans, their tiresome tomfoolery in an equally vociferous attempt to lay claim to my last round and still rolling marble?
Has Stephen tested the limits of my tenderness, taken advantage of my affection, pushed me with some bizarre, ludicrous, singulary Stephen-like activity that makes me feel crazier than a bed bug when I try to explain to him how come doing what he did was not at all logical?
Or plain assisnine?
Case in point: the afternoon I walked onto our back deck to happily slip into my Zen laundry hanging space, and saw my husband, the man I love, adore and want to strangle in equal parts, tettering precariously on a large, unsecured, uneven boulder waving an electric chainsaw over his head in an attempt to rid our very large, very old maple of tree of, in his mind, unwanted and unnecessary branches that were crowding our clothesline and impeding our power lines.
Either way, unless stopped, something was going to happen, it was going to be ugly, and it would most definitely result in an unwanted trip to the Emergency Room.
Really.
Who swings chainsaws over their heads while balancing on a rock in such a way that you are reminded of those crazy ariel riders in the circus, you know, the ones who walk across a clothesline wide wire, in bare feet, juggling flaming torches?
Stephen.
That's who.
In fairness to Stephen, I am even less adept at mechanical maneuvers.
Don't ask me for help with something as simple as hanging a clothesline.
This spring, our clothesline needed to be tightened.
We tried, we failed, we had to go to Canadian Tire and purchase replacement parts, then borrow a long ladder from our across-the-street-neighbour and attempt to restore our clothesline and my Zen space to its natural order.
Our futile attempts were witnessed by our next-door neighbour.
I think that he, and our across-the-street-neighbour feel a sense of paternalism and benevolence towards me and Stephen because while we are book smart, we are not necessarily the most savvy when it comes to around the house things.
Taking pity on us, he asks if he can help.
Actually, he may have been pleading. I think watching us actually caused him physical pain.
Climbing the ladder with a grace and expertise I can't even experience on the ground, let alone on a ladder, he manages, with minimal help from Stephen and me to get the clothesline up, tightened and ready for business in the time that it took Stephen and I to initally figure out how the hell to get the clothesline up there in the first place.
But no, Stephen was not the case of roiling rage burning inside me.
My parents perhaps? Did the nursing home call to inform me that my mother has taken wheel chair wrestling to a new level, arranging a wrestling ring in the nursing home so she could take on all those who annoy and anger her at once instead of one at a time, after she sold tickets to ensure some financial compensation for her sure-to-experience injuries?
Or, did my father's neighbour from across the road call and inform me that, once again, my father was trying to relive his youth and ignore that he was 70, and in his attempt to convince the world that he could do whatever he damn well wanted, climbed up his ladder to clean the gutters of the house, only to have the ladder fall, leaving my father suspended from the roof of the house, hands clasping the gutter in an attempt to not fall and thus land himself in the hospital?
Nope.
Had a student finally breached my seemingly impenatrable armor of patience and understanding, whinging and whining in my office, complaining about some imagined slight or unfair utterance, or more than deserved failing grade, leading me to leap from my chair, and firmly plant my foot on their butt in an effort to remove them from my only site of solitude before I really lost control and starting hurling plants at them?
Not even close.
The reason for my unfettered acrimony, my boiling rage, my ferocious fury. . . .
Me.
I am so angry at myself that if I had any tolerance for pain, I may have actually tried to hurt myself.
I haven't been feeling my finest for the last couple of days.
Annoying and unrelenting headache, tired joints, achy muscles, and in my genetically pre-determined way, I just ignored it.
But like Reilley, I refuse to be ignorned.
At one o'clock, an hour before the event I had been waiting for all week, the event that was previewed with a public lecture by Sheree Fitch, the event I cancelled an Advanced Methods class for, the two hour creative writing workshop by Sheree Fitch that was going to launch me into a long and lucrative career in creative writing, I was sitting in my office.
Was I in my customary office chair, marking papers while listening to episodes of All in the Family?
No.
I was in my blue office chair, the one the students sit in when they have meltdowns of epic proportions.
As an aside, it was interesting to see my office the way a student might see it.
Productive chaos.
Stephen arrived in my office to see me in the comfy the blue chair, my head back, eyes closed.
I usually only look like this during Sunday morning Quaker meetings.
This is a rare enough occurence in my office, however, for Stephen to be concerned.
Sitting in what has been designated as Keith's rolly chair, he wheels over to me and asks if I'm okay.
And here is where the anger starts.
No.
I was not okay.
And I had finally admitted it.
Apparently, I had a slight fever to go along with my other ailments.
Stephen said the words I didn't even want to think, let alone have said out loud.
Do you think its a good idea to go to the writing workshop?
Yes. I did think it was a good idea.
He looked at me in the way only Stephen can look at me.
And it wasn't the love-in-your-eyes-shit-in-your-pants look.
It was the you-know-what-I'm-talking-about-look-so-stop-being-obtuse look.
I knew what he was talking about.
I just didn't want to admit it.
And I knew he was right, which was even harder to admit.
So, rather than walk over to Holy Cross House to participate in the best writer's workshop to ever exist in the natural world, I went home.
Put on my flannel, zebra striped pj bottoms and red long sleeved top, crawled underneath my duvet, and promptly fell asleep until Stephen came in at almost 7.00 pm to wake me up, carrying with him a tray containing a bowl of homemade turkey broth and a few cornbread crackers.
Obviously, then, I wasn't and probably am still not feeling well.
I'm just loathe to admit it.
Rather than think I may be coming down with something, which wouldn't surprise me because my mother and every other resident of the 72 bed nursing home has been battling a cold of epic proportions, and I love to visit my mother and we're a huggy-kissy family, meaning germs travel, I am inclined to think that I am just a little run down.
Over tired.
And my body, no longer willing to enable my state of well-being denial, simply exerted its right to be heard.
It didn't have to scream relentlessly.
A gentle whisper in my ear would have sufficed.
Okay, probably not, but did it HAVE to be today?
The day of the Sheree Fitch lead creative writing workshop?
Yes.
Why?
Because.
Not to be outdone by my antics, the dogs have been up to their own madcap merry making.
Last evening, before we departed for the Sheree Fitch lecture, I took the dogs out for their after-supper outside ablutions.
I had asked Keith to do it, but he said he was putting his laundry away.
Not wanting in any way to deter him from such an honourable activity, one he did while his sisters watched, I might add, I accepted that taking out the hounds was going to have to be done by me.
Stephen would have done it, but Stephen always does it, and besides, he was still recovering from our family dinner feista, the one that required an hour of intense and meditative solitude.
Tikka and Frankie, every single time we take them out. . .
And I do mean every. single. time.
. . .behave in a manner reminiscient of prisoners locked up for 65 years in an underground cavern where they subsisted on grubs and dew particles from the air.
I don't actually know if dew particles exist underground, but I'm choosing effect over authenticity this evening.
Bedlam and pandemonium ensue.
They jostle and elbow each other out of the way in their animalistic need to scramble to the front of the front door.
They whine and paw at each other.
They snarl and leap.
They act like little shits.
A battle over who will be leashed is played out repeatedly, they hover, squeeze and shoulder their way into my private space wanting, needing, insisting on being the first one leashed.
When I bend down to leash one, the other immediately starts licking my face in adoration over the knowledge that soon the snap of the leash will reverberate in their ears.
I wear glasses.
Dog slobber and glasses do not good bedfellows make.
Especially in the chaos-infused catastrophic world of dog leashing.
Meaning, when I put the damn leash on Frankie I couldn't see a bloody thing.
Thinking if I could just get them out of the house and into the driveway, I'd be granted a moment of grace while they danced in the circles of their primitive pee and poo dance.
A moment wherein I could attempt to remove the drying dog slobber from the lenses of my glasses, thus allowing me to see what was going on.
I can't count the fingers in front of my face without my glasses on, let alone manage the visual acuity necessary when taking the hounds of hell outside.
No such moment of grace was allowed.
Because as soon as we were out of the house, but while we were still on the steps, Frankie, with a speed I still can't comprehend, was off like rocket launched by NASA.
Leaving me confused and bewildered.
And Tikka dragging me to the front lawn so she could pee before she exploded.
I couldn't even see what happened because my glasses were momentarily out of commission.
So while our fear infused Frankie was wreaking havoc in our neighbourhood, I was standing in the front yard trying to remove the dog slobber from my lenses.
No water was available and there was no way in hell I was rubbing my tongue over my lenses. . .
. . .there are just some things even I'm not willing to endure, such as a mouth full of dried dog slobber rolling over my taste buds. . .
. . .meaning I am standing there, yelling, "FRANKIE! FRANKIE!!! GET BACK HERE GOD DAMMIT!!!!!!!!!!!" while expertly smearing the dog slobber, instead of clearing it away.
I manage to create a small aperture in the slobber, enough to be able to glimpse with some clarity what the hell was going on.
And there was my Frankie, frolicing, cavorting, romping and revelling in his new found freedom.
While terrorizing anyone who happened to come with 100 meters of him.
Stephen had come out of the house to investigate. Tea towel in one hand, wash cloth in another, slippers falling off his feet, he bellows,
"FRANK! FRANK! GET OVER HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Frankie comes running back to the yard.
Is it because in the midst of his cavorting a little voice inside his head said, "it's probably a good idea to go back home and restore peace and order to our little cul de sac."
Nope.
It was because in the midst of his cavorting, the big voice in his butt was screaming, "FIND A PLACE TO DROP A LOAD!!!!!!!!! BIG WITHDRAWL IMMINENT!"
And being somewhat fastidious about where he makes his fecal deposits, meaning he'll only shit on the lawn, he comes back, circles and drops his butt, all the while watching me wrangle him and put him back on the leash.
Because, in my doggie induced blindness, I didn't hook the leash on his green and sturdy collar.
I hooked it onto the thin and flimsy metal doodaddy that held his "I've had my rabies shot" tag.
So as soon as I snapped it on, he KNEW something wasn't right, and he wasn't asking any questions.
He just took full advantage of the situation and let the chips, or poop in this case, fall where they may.
Tikka, meanwhile, was content to playing her look-at-me-I'm-a good-girl-who-would-never-engage-in- such-an-outrageous-and-unseemly-public spectacle.
Frankie and Tikka.
Mer and Emily.
I'm seeing some similarities.
And this scares me.
Title Lyric: The Prisoner by Tears for Fears
I was honest to goodness, no doubt, completely and utterly 100% pure concentrated pissed off today.
How come?
Was this because of the kids and their never-ending issues, concerns, or plots to ascertain how long it will take to rid me of my last, quasi-intact, hanging on my a thread so thin it's almost non-existant shred of sanity?
Or have the dogs kicked up their canine capers, their shameless shenanigans, their tiresome tomfoolery in an equally vociferous attempt to lay claim to my last round and still rolling marble?
Has Stephen tested the limits of my tenderness, taken advantage of my affection, pushed me with some bizarre, ludicrous, singulary Stephen-like activity that makes me feel crazier than a bed bug when I try to explain to him how come doing what he did was not at all logical?
Or plain assisnine?
Case in point: the afternoon I walked onto our back deck to happily slip into my Zen laundry hanging space, and saw my husband, the man I love, adore and want to strangle in equal parts, tettering precariously on a large, unsecured, uneven boulder waving an electric chainsaw over his head in an attempt to rid our very large, very old maple of tree of, in his mind, unwanted and unnecessary branches that were crowding our clothesline and impeding our power lines.
Either way, unless stopped, something was going to happen, it was going to be ugly, and it would most definitely result in an unwanted trip to the Emergency Room.
Really.
Who swings chainsaws over their heads while balancing on a rock in such a way that you are reminded of those crazy ariel riders in the circus, you know, the ones who walk across a clothesline wide wire, in bare feet, juggling flaming torches?
Stephen.
That's who.
In fairness to Stephen, I am even less adept at mechanical maneuvers.
Don't ask me for help with something as simple as hanging a clothesline.
This spring, our clothesline needed to be tightened.
We tried, we failed, we had to go to Canadian Tire and purchase replacement parts, then borrow a long ladder from our across-the-street-neighbour and attempt to restore our clothesline and my Zen space to its natural order.
Our futile attempts were witnessed by our next-door neighbour.
I think that he, and our across-the-street-neighbour feel a sense of paternalism and benevolence towards me and Stephen because while we are book smart, we are not necessarily the most savvy when it comes to around the house things.
Taking pity on us, he asks if he can help.
Actually, he may have been pleading. I think watching us actually caused him physical pain.
Climbing the ladder with a grace and expertise I can't even experience on the ground, let alone on a ladder, he manages, with minimal help from Stephen and me to get the clothesline up, tightened and ready for business in the time that it took Stephen and I to initally figure out how the hell to get the clothesline up there in the first place.
But no, Stephen was not the case of roiling rage burning inside me.
My parents perhaps? Did the nursing home call to inform me that my mother has taken wheel chair wrestling to a new level, arranging a wrestling ring in the nursing home so she could take on all those who annoy and anger her at once instead of one at a time, after she sold tickets to ensure some financial compensation for her sure-to-experience injuries?
Or, did my father's neighbour from across the road call and inform me that, once again, my father was trying to relive his youth and ignore that he was 70, and in his attempt to convince the world that he could do whatever he damn well wanted, climbed up his ladder to clean the gutters of the house, only to have the ladder fall, leaving my father suspended from the roof of the house, hands clasping the gutter in an attempt to not fall and thus land himself in the hospital?
Nope.
Had a student finally breached my seemingly impenatrable armor of patience and understanding, whinging and whining in my office, complaining about some imagined slight or unfair utterance, or more than deserved failing grade, leading me to leap from my chair, and firmly plant my foot on their butt in an effort to remove them from my only site of solitude before I really lost control and starting hurling plants at them?
Not even close.
The reason for my unfettered acrimony, my boiling rage, my ferocious fury. . . .
Me.
I am so angry at myself that if I had any tolerance for pain, I may have actually tried to hurt myself.
I haven't been feeling my finest for the last couple of days.
Annoying and unrelenting headache, tired joints, achy muscles, and in my genetically pre-determined way, I just ignored it.
But like Reilley, I refuse to be ignorned.
At one o'clock, an hour before the event I had been waiting for all week, the event that was previewed with a public lecture by Sheree Fitch, the event I cancelled an Advanced Methods class for, the two hour creative writing workshop by Sheree Fitch that was going to launch me into a long and lucrative career in creative writing, I was sitting in my office.
Was I in my customary office chair, marking papers while listening to episodes of All in the Family?
No.
I was in my blue office chair, the one the students sit in when they have meltdowns of epic proportions.
As an aside, it was interesting to see my office the way a student might see it.
Productive chaos.
Stephen arrived in my office to see me in the comfy the blue chair, my head back, eyes closed.
I usually only look like this during Sunday morning Quaker meetings.
This is a rare enough occurence in my office, however, for Stephen to be concerned.
Sitting in what has been designated as Keith's rolly chair, he wheels over to me and asks if I'm okay.
And here is where the anger starts.
No.
I was not okay.
And I had finally admitted it.
Apparently, I had a slight fever to go along with my other ailments.
Stephen said the words I didn't even want to think, let alone have said out loud.
Do you think its a good idea to go to the writing workshop?
Yes. I did think it was a good idea.
He looked at me in the way only Stephen can look at me.
And it wasn't the love-in-your-eyes-shit-in-your-pants look.
It was the you-know-what-I'm-talking-about-look-so-stop-being-obtuse look.
I knew what he was talking about.
I just didn't want to admit it.
And I knew he was right, which was even harder to admit.
So, rather than walk over to Holy Cross House to participate in the best writer's workshop to ever exist in the natural world, I went home.
Put on my flannel, zebra striped pj bottoms and red long sleeved top, crawled underneath my duvet, and promptly fell asleep until Stephen came in at almost 7.00 pm to wake me up, carrying with him a tray containing a bowl of homemade turkey broth and a few cornbread crackers.
Obviously, then, I wasn't and probably am still not feeling well.
I'm just loathe to admit it.
Rather than think I may be coming down with something, which wouldn't surprise me because my mother and every other resident of the 72 bed nursing home has been battling a cold of epic proportions, and I love to visit my mother and we're a huggy-kissy family, meaning germs travel, I am inclined to think that I am just a little run down.
Over tired.
And my body, no longer willing to enable my state of well-being denial, simply exerted its right to be heard.
It didn't have to scream relentlessly.
A gentle whisper in my ear would have sufficed.
Okay, probably not, but did it HAVE to be today?
The day of the Sheree Fitch lead creative writing workshop?
Yes.
Why?
Because.
Not to be outdone by my antics, the dogs have been up to their own madcap merry making.
Last evening, before we departed for the Sheree Fitch lecture, I took the dogs out for their after-supper outside ablutions.
I had asked Keith to do it, but he said he was putting his laundry away.
Not wanting in any way to deter him from such an honourable activity, one he did while his sisters watched, I might add, I accepted that taking out the hounds was going to have to be done by me.
Stephen would have done it, but Stephen always does it, and besides, he was still recovering from our family dinner feista, the one that required an hour of intense and meditative solitude.
Tikka and Frankie, every single time we take them out. . .
And I do mean every. single. time.
. . .behave in a manner reminiscient of prisoners locked up for 65 years in an underground cavern where they subsisted on grubs and dew particles from the air.
I don't actually know if dew particles exist underground, but I'm choosing effect over authenticity this evening.
Bedlam and pandemonium ensue.
They jostle and elbow each other out of the way in their animalistic need to scramble to the front of the front door.
They whine and paw at each other.
They snarl and leap.
They act like little shits.
A battle over who will be leashed is played out repeatedly, they hover, squeeze and shoulder their way into my private space wanting, needing, insisting on being the first one leashed.
When I bend down to leash one, the other immediately starts licking my face in adoration over the knowledge that soon the snap of the leash will reverberate in their ears.
I wear glasses.
Dog slobber and glasses do not good bedfellows make.
Especially in the chaos-infused catastrophic world of dog leashing.
Meaning, when I put the damn leash on Frankie I couldn't see a bloody thing.
Thinking if I could just get them out of the house and into the driveway, I'd be granted a moment of grace while they danced in the circles of their primitive pee and poo dance.
A moment wherein I could attempt to remove the drying dog slobber from the lenses of my glasses, thus allowing me to see what was going on.
I can't count the fingers in front of my face without my glasses on, let alone manage the visual acuity necessary when taking the hounds of hell outside.
No such moment of grace was allowed.
Because as soon as we were out of the house, but while we were still on the steps, Frankie, with a speed I still can't comprehend, was off like rocket launched by NASA.
Leaving me confused and bewildered.
And Tikka dragging me to the front lawn so she could pee before she exploded.
I couldn't even see what happened because my glasses were momentarily out of commission.
So while our fear infused Frankie was wreaking havoc in our neighbourhood, I was standing in the front yard trying to remove the dog slobber from my lenses.
No water was available and there was no way in hell I was rubbing my tongue over my lenses. . .
. . .there are just some things even I'm not willing to endure, such as a mouth full of dried dog slobber rolling over my taste buds. . .
. . .meaning I am standing there, yelling, "FRANKIE! FRANKIE!!! GET BACK HERE GOD DAMMIT!!!!!!!!!!!" while expertly smearing the dog slobber, instead of clearing it away.
I manage to create a small aperture in the slobber, enough to be able to glimpse with some clarity what the hell was going on.
And there was my Frankie, frolicing, cavorting, romping and revelling in his new found freedom.
While terrorizing anyone who happened to come with 100 meters of him.
Stephen had come out of the house to investigate. Tea towel in one hand, wash cloth in another, slippers falling off his feet, he bellows,
"FRANK! FRANK! GET OVER HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Frankie comes running back to the yard.
Is it because in the midst of his cavorting a little voice inside his head said, "it's probably a good idea to go back home and restore peace and order to our little cul de sac."
Nope.
It was because in the midst of his cavorting, the big voice in his butt was screaming, "FIND A PLACE TO DROP A LOAD!!!!!!!!! BIG WITHDRAWL IMMINENT!"
And being somewhat fastidious about where he makes his fecal deposits, meaning he'll only shit on the lawn, he comes back, circles and drops his butt, all the while watching me wrangle him and put him back on the leash.
Because, in my doggie induced blindness, I didn't hook the leash on his green and sturdy collar.
I hooked it onto the thin and flimsy metal doodaddy that held his "I've had my rabies shot" tag.
So as soon as I snapped it on, he KNEW something wasn't right, and he wasn't asking any questions.
He just took full advantage of the situation and let the chips, or poop in this case, fall where they may.
Tikka, meanwhile, was content to playing her look-at-me-I'm-a good-girl-who-would-never-engage-in- such-an-outrageous-and-unseemly-public spectacle.
Frankie and Tikka.
Mer and Emily.
I'm seeing some similarities.
And this scares me.
Title Lyric: The Prisoner by Tears for Fears
Thursday, October 21, 2010
We'll have lasagna. . .I'll treat you like a Queen. . .
October 20, 2010
Dinner is important to me.
And not because of the food.
Although it certainly helps.
Of late I've noticed a new and somewhat disturbing trend.
There are many evenings where dinner is a combination of the five of us, but rarely all five of us are at the table at the time.
Work, classes, spending time with friends means that I can no longer be guaranteed that all my chicks will be in the nest for dinner.
There was a time when I could tell you exactly where the kids and I were going to be at ANY time of the day, and day of the week.
Our lives were that predictable.
Lately I have had to accept that there are more times than not where I don't know where they are.
Or what they're doing.
Luckily for me, my children are very open about their activities, and they are more than willing to spill their guts.
As honest children, they have no compunction to hide their noctural undertakings from me.
And even if they thought they could, I have my ways of finding out what they've been up to.
Which does not include interrogating their friends, in a locked basement, Frankie held back from attack with a chain one centimeter shorter than it needs to be to ensure complete bodily dismemberment, Reilley on the water heater holding their eyes open with thread, while Tikka mans the maglight shining directly into their never-blinking eyes, with their hands secured behind their backs with duct tape, feet afixed to the chair legs, a bucket of cat urine precariously perched above their head, secured only with a line of dental floss, Goblet at the ready to release it at the first hint of a lie.
I have much simpler methods of divining for the truth.
Facebook.
I can see all of their high jinx, escapades, capers in a technicolor spectacle as extravagent and florid as a Picasso painting.
Even if I don't want to see their antics.
There is something about perusing your Facebook and seeing your son passed out on the floor of his sister's kitchen, nestled snugly between the fridge and the cupboards.
Or your oldest daughter wrapped around her boyfriend like bacon around a filet mignon, while she sports double lazy eye because she's tired and drunk, that makes you wonder about whether the internet really was a good idea.
This isn't to say that I didn't engage in my own alcohol-induced shenanigans.
I most certainly did.
And in spite of Herculian efforts on my part, I can't seem to rid them from my memory.
The difference between now and then, between me and them: there are no pictures, no evidence, nothing but my own memories, and only me to tell them.
Should I choose to tell them.
And THAT isn't likely.
On the other hand, my kids are going to have to live with these pictures for the rest of their lives.
With lots of people to tell stories.
And from my experience, at some point, when you least expect it, while your guard is down, and you think everything is fine. . .
Shit comes back to haunt you.
Weddings, for example.
And my kids should remember that I have the capacity to remember things that don't relate to me, very, very well.
Also, it's not wise to think that just because I tolerate the things my children do, I condone them.
Big difference between tolerance and condoning.
However, I know that telling them not do something is the fastest way for them to do it.
Especially with Mer.
As soon as she hears the words, "don't" she is off, racing to do whatever I said she shouldn't do.
And she has been that way since conception.
Not birth.
Conception.
My kids know how I feel about the things they do.
They know the difference between tolerating and condoning.
And they know what will happen if they cross the lines I've established.
Remember the scenario in the basement???
Dinner.
Tonight was one of those rare occasions when the planets and stars aligned, the karmic cosmic forces were co-operating, and all the kids, me and Stephen were present and accounted for at the dinner table.
Sitting around the table, Mer opposite me and Stephen, Emily at one end of the table, Keith at the other, Stephen and I sitting beside one another.
Dogs hovering around each side of Mer, assuming that she would be sympathetic enough to sneak food bits to them.
Reilley, in "his" chair, beside Emily, sitting, waiting for her to openly include him in the family meal.
He talks, contributes to the conversation, puts his two cents in.
And if Em isn't quick with the food, he will put his front paws on the table, for balance, and with his left paw, he will guide Em's fork to his face to ascertain whether or not the food she is eating is up to her standards.
Frustrated, I usually take something off my plate, put it in front of him, and watch him scoff it down as if he hadn't eaten a meal in his entire life.
There is NO ignoring Reilley.
Ignoring him is simply not part of his frame of reference.
And he'll make damn sure it isn't part of ours either.
He is clever, cute and ferocious rolled into one furry, six toed, eight pound package.
Dinner together is one of those things where there is no negotiation.
If you are at home, or not at work, or not in classes or out with you're friends, you ARE having dinner with me.
At the table.
None of this buffet line dinners where everyone collects their meal and disperses to the far corners of the house to eat while you watch AMC Fear Fest, or your dvds of every season of The Family Guy.
Or worse, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
Until reaching the tender of age of 16, where their evil and child-labour exploitative mother forced them out the couch and into the world of part time labour, dinner was the one time of day I knew without questions we would be together, sitting around the table, not distracted by computers or televisions, homework or housework, house phones or cell phones, felines or canines. . .
Just together.
I may be waxing nostalgia here, but I have relatively fond memories of those times.
Although I'm certain it didn't feel like that at the time.
Every evening, we'd sit around the table, the four of us, together.
But don't think it was the Leave it to Beaver kind of together.
It was kids fighthing, arguing, complaining about not liking whatever I had manage to put together after a day of being in classes and researching or writing for my dissertation.
My attempt to bring order to chaos was to give each of the kids an opportunity to share what they had done during their day.
Mer believed she had to be first, because she was at the top of the birth heirarchy.
She would share with us the events of her day with a dizzying drama she must have inherited from her father.
Technically, if we were following birth order, we should assume that Pookie was next.
Not so.
But we'll get to that in a minute.
Emily would be next, and even though she was much younger than Mer she would rightfully insist on her floor time.
And Em may be quiet, but like Reilley, she has always been able to make her point, have her say, ensure she has a voice.
No matter how hard Mer tried to silence her.
Keith. Pookie. Pookie Pot Pie with Bum Dumplings. Keith Ronald Alexander Van Every the third Van Every (that's what he'd say, when he was younger, if you asked him his name.)
When it was his turn to tell me about his day, he took me literally.
Keith: "I opened my eyes when you came into my room and turned on the light. You said, "Good morning Pookie. Time to get up." I said, "Okay" and then I got out of bed and and put my slippers on. I went downstairs to the bathroom, and had a pee. I then went to the kitchen and you asked me what I wanted for breakfast. I said cereal and juice. You gave me a bowl of Shreddies and a glass of orange juice. I ate my breakfast with Mer and Emily. They didn't have Shreddies. Emily had toast and peanut butter and Mer had Rice Krispies. After I ate breakfast, I went back to the bathroom and brushed my teeth. Then I went upstairs and got dressed. . . ."
You can see how this played out.
I never said anything. He just shared his little heart out.
He still does.
But unlike Mer, he selectively shares.
Mer just tells me everything.
Em tells me everything, or close to everything, without inducing paralyzing trauma.
Dinner together now is not much different than it was when they were younger.
With the exception of Stephen.
And he experiences a full-fledged family feast with equal amounts of entertainment and overwhelmingness.
The kids are a lot louder now, especially if Mer has managed to participate in under-the-deck activities prior to consumption of my gastronomical gala.
Last night was one of those nights.
Mer was giddy, silly, loud.
Keith followed suit even without engaging in under-the-deck-action.
Emily observed, as she usually does with wry amusement.
Stephen enjoyed their convivial conflabbing.
But after a while, his peace and quiet loving sensibilities rage against the rauchous cacophany and he retired upstairs for a few blissful moments.
Me, I love the chaos.
I'm used to it.
And honestly, I wouldn't want it any other way.
Title Lyric: Digsy's Dinner by Oasis
Dinner is important to me.
And not because of the food.
Although it certainly helps.
Of late I've noticed a new and somewhat disturbing trend.
There are many evenings where dinner is a combination of the five of us, but rarely all five of us are at the table at the time.
Work, classes, spending time with friends means that I can no longer be guaranteed that all my chicks will be in the nest for dinner.
There was a time when I could tell you exactly where the kids and I were going to be at ANY time of the day, and day of the week.
Our lives were that predictable.
Lately I have had to accept that there are more times than not where I don't know where they are.
Or what they're doing.
Luckily for me, my children are very open about their activities, and they are more than willing to spill their guts.
As honest children, they have no compunction to hide their noctural undertakings from me.
And even if they thought they could, I have my ways of finding out what they've been up to.
Which does not include interrogating their friends, in a locked basement, Frankie held back from attack with a chain one centimeter shorter than it needs to be to ensure complete bodily dismemberment, Reilley on the water heater holding their eyes open with thread, while Tikka mans the maglight shining directly into their never-blinking eyes, with their hands secured behind their backs with duct tape, feet afixed to the chair legs, a bucket of cat urine precariously perched above their head, secured only with a line of dental floss, Goblet at the ready to release it at the first hint of a lie.
I have much simpler methods of divining for the truth.
Facebook.
I can see all of their high jinx, escapades, capers in a technicolor spectacle as extravagent and florid as a Picasso painting.
Even if I don't want to see their antics.
There is something about perusing your Facebook and seeing your son passed out on the floor of his sister's kitchen, nestled snugly between the fridge and the cupboards.
Or your oldest daughter wrapped around her boyfriend like bacon around a filet mignon, while she sports double lazy eye because she's tired and drunk, that makes you wonder about whether the internet really was a good idea.
This isn't to say that I didn't engage in my own alcohol-induced shenanigans.
I most certainly did.
And in spite of Herculian efforts on my part, I can't seem to rid them from my memory.
The difference between now and then, between me and them: there are no pictures, no evidence, nothing but my own memories, and only me to tell them.
Should I choose to tell them.
And THAT isn't likely.
On the other hand, my kids are going to have to live with these pictures for the rest of their lives.
With lots of people to tell stories.
And from my experience, at some point, when you least expect it, while your guard is down, and you think everything is fine. . .
Shit comes back to haunt you.
Weddings, for example.
And my kids should remember that I have the capacity to remember things that don't relate to me, very, very well.
Also, it's not wise to think that just because I tolerate the things my children do, I condone them.
Big difference between tolerance and condoning.
However, I know that telling them not do something is the fastest way for them to do it.
Especially with Mer.
As soon as she hears the words, "don't" she is off, racing to do whatever I said she shouldn't do.
And she has been that way since conception.
Not birth.
Conception.
My kids know how I feel about the things they do.
They know the difference between tolerating and condoning.
And they know what will happen if they cross the lines I've established.
Remember the scenario in the basement???
Dinner.
Tonight was one of those rare occasions when the planets and stars aligned, the karmic cosmic forces were co-operating, and all the kids, me and Stephen were present and accounted for at the dinner table.
Sitting around the table, Mer opposite me and Stephen, Emily at one end of the table, Keith at the other, Stephen and I sitting beside one another.
Dogs hovering around each side of Mer, assuming that she would be sympathetic enough to sneak food bits to them.
Reilley, in "his" chair, beside Emily, sitting, waiting for her to openly include him in the family meal.
He talks, contributes to the conversation, puts his two cents in.
And if Em isn't quick with the food, he will put his front paws on the table, for balance, and with his left paw, he will guide Em's fork to his face to ascertain whether or not the food she is eating is up to her standards.
Frustrated, I usually take something off my plate, put it in front of him, and watch him scoff it down as if he hadn't eaten a meal in his entire life.
There is NO ignoring Reilley.
Ignoring him is simply not part of his frame of reference.
And he'll make damn sure it isn't part of ours either.
He is clever, cute and ferocious rolled into one furry, six toed, eight pound package.
Dinner together is one of those things where there is no negotiation.
If you are at home, or not at work, or not in classes or out with you're friends, you ARE having dinner with me.
At the table.
None of this buffet line dinners where everyone collects their meal and disperses to the far corners of the house to eat while you watch AMC Fear Fest, or your dvds of every season of The Family Guy.
Or worse, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
Until reaching the tender of age of 16, where their evil and child-labour exploitative mother forced them out the couch and into the world of part time labour, dinner was the one time of day I knew without questions we would be together, sitting around the table, not distracted by computers or televisions, homework or housework, house phones or cell phones, felines or canines. . .
Just together.
I may be waxing nostalgia here, but I have relatively fond memories of those times.
Although I'm certain it didn't feel like that at the time.
Every evening, we'd sit around the table, the four of us, together.
But don't think it was the Leave it to Beaver kind of together.
It was kids fighthing, arguing, complaining about not liking whatever I had manage to put together after a day of being in classes and researching or writing for my dissertation.
My attempt to bring order to chaos was to give each of the kids an opportunity to share what they had done during their day.
Mer believed she had to be first, because she was at the top of the birth heirarchy.
She would share with us the events of her day with a dizzying drama she must have inherited from her father.
Technically, if we were following birth order, we should assume that Pookie was next.
Not so.
But we'll get to that in a minute.
Emily would be next, and even though she was much younger than Mer she would rightfully insist on her floor time.
And Em may be quiet, but like Reilley, she has always been able to make her point, have her say, ensure she has a voice.
No matter how hard Mer tried to silence her.
Keith. Pookie. Pookie Pot Pie with Bum Dumplings. Keith Ronald Alexander Van Every the third Van Every (that's what he'd say, when he was younger, if you asked him his name.)
When it was his turn to tell me about his day, he took me literally.
Keith: "I opened my eyes when you came into my room and turned on the light. You said, "Good morning Pookie. Time to get up." I said, "Okay" and then I got out of bed and and put my slippers on. I went downstairs to the bathroom, and had a pee. I then went to the kitchen and you asked me what I wanted for breakfast. I said cereal and juice. You gave me a bowl of Shreddies and a glass of orange juice. I ate my breakfast with Mer and Emily. They didn't have Shreddies. Emily had toast and peanut butter and Mer had Rice Krispies. After I ate breakfast, I went back to the bathroom and brushed my teeth. Then I went upstairs and got dressed. . . ."
You can see how this played out.
I never said anything. He just shared his little heart out.
He still does.
But unlike Mer, he selectively shares.
Mer just tells me everything.
Em tells me everything, or close to everything, without inducing paralyzing trauma.
Dinner together now is not much different than it was when they were younger.
With the exception of Stephen.
And he experiences a full-fledged family feast with equal amounts of entertainment and overwhelmingness.
The kids are a lot louder now, especially if Mer has managed to participate in under-the-deck activities prior to consumption of my gastronomical gala.
Last night was one of those nights.
Mer was giddy, silly, loud.
Keith followed suit even without engaging in under-the-deck-action.
Emily observed, as she usually does with wry amusement.
Stephen enjoyed their convivial conflabbing.
But after a while, his peace and quiet loving sensibilities rage against the rauchous cacophany and he retired upstairs for a few blissful moments.
Me, I love the chaos.
I'm used to it.
And honestly, I wouldn't want it any other way.
Title Lyric: Digsy's Dinner by Oasis
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