Spies Like Us

One thing became crystal clear to me today:

If I want to have anything that resembles mental health after my children leave the nest, then I need to get a grip. Pronto.

Here's the thing, philosophically, I know that my kids are getting older and with age comes increments of independence. As one wise parent once told me, "The years go by so fast, but the days go by sooooo slow." And so it's been: I've gone about life with the days creeping and the years flying, and like any other parent I've gotten caught up in the minutia of parenthood. All of the lovely, daunting, moving parts. Yesterday, I took a moment and looked up, and to my unpleasant shock, Sydney is suddenly two months away from turning 13.

Apparently, I'm not taking this news well.

Exerting her almost-thirteen-year-old independence, Sydney and her friend decided that they wanted to go to the mall and then see a movie. Alone. Which is a new thing. Very new. Painfully new. I compromised with her by telling her that I would be at the mall if she needed me, but she could do her own thing, which she was thrilled about. Soooo, off she went giggling through the mall....with my heart and my sanity dangling helplessly along in her back pocket.

In a fit of sheer lunacy, I spent an entire afternoon tailing her. Stalking her, really. Using surprisingly super ninja skills,  I stealthily ducked into nearby stores, cautiously peeked over banisters, all the while being completely and unapologetically ready to spring out from behind one of those huge potted plants to tackle and flatten the first boy who might try to swoop in and flirt with her.

When we finally made it home (her giddy and none-the-wiser and me silently wondering if locking her in the house for the rest of her life really might be an option), I spent the evening in a deep state of melancholy, thinking that it would be nice to put the song "Time in A Bottle" on repeat, lay on the floor with the lights out and drink whiskey.

God, help me. The fierce love and vulnerability of motherhood has, once again, proven that it can turn me into a maniac. (And God help the first boy to break my daughter's heart. I feel like I should apologize in advance for shoving his face in the dirt.)

Snowpocalypse 2011

Here is an image of what it looks like to get a day off of school  because of snow on the East Coast:

And an image of what it looks like to get a day off of school because of snow in Middle America :

And here, my friends, is what it looks like to get a day off of school because of snow in Portland, Oregon. (Yes, school really was called off.)

10 am Thursday, my front yard

Now, I'm from Wyoming and I lived for a nice little chunk of time in Montana, so I find the frantic and frankly, obsessive, tendencies around snow here fascinating. I understand that it's a novelty around these parts, but people really do get nuts over the possibility of flurries. Normally rational people lose it and do things like cancel school.

In this case, for several days, people talked about the upcoming snow as if the apocalypse was imminent. I had to keep reminding myself that the forecasters were predicting around 2 inches and the sky wasn't going to open up and burp out enough snow to crush my house or my children if they happened outside.  It's all so strange.

So, we stayed home yesterday (Did I mention that work was canceled too?) and the kids played with other schoolless children and we drank hot chocolate and enjoyed the wimpy snow day. Well, whatever, we'll take it.

The Case of the Missing Dog Chunk

Meet WeeGee, our resident drama king.

A few fun facts about this eccentric little soul:

1) He wears a fedora when the mood strikes him

2) He is personally offended by men who wear biking shorts (Once, he started barking like he had lost his little dog mind and then promptly peed on me when Hubby Tim walked in the bedroom wearing biking shorts of the red variety. I guess it's possible he is mostly offended by Hubby Tim wearing bike shorts.)

3) His current infatuation is our plump and moody cat with whom he is having an unorthodox and disturbing affair of the biblical sort. I'll leave it to the imagination... but trust me, it's weird.

4) He's named after a photojournalist whose images of grisly murder and mayhem appeared regularly in the New York press during the thirties and forties....

 ....Which brings us to the current state of affairs. As if to prove that his namesake is well deserved, our little WeeGee went and chopped off part of his ear.

 Let me explain....
...Well, that's the funny part. I can't. It is a complete mystery.

Here's what I know: It was the middle of the night, it was shockingly gory for such a small ear (as in, needing-a-mop-to-clean-up-gory) and the missing piece hasn't shown up yet (Ewwww, I know).

We have some theories as to what could've happened since the scene of the crime seems to be his dog bed....like, perhaps, alien abduction. The other possibility being bantered around is that he took a que from Van Gogh and sent the severed chunk to our cat in a bizarre lover's spat ( I'm leaning toward that one). Or maybe our geriatric golden retriever who spends his days walking from one napping spot to another tried to eat him. I dunno.

He spent a few days sulking around looking like a battered little babushka...

 
...and he still refuses to talk. Soooo, if you happen to see an alien walking around with a dog ear for an eye patch, you'll know what happened.

Viva la Mexico!

I won't waste your time bragging about our time in Mexico; I won't mention the warm sun, the taste of sea salt on the lips, the looong solitary walks on the glittering beach or the mojitos before noon (I'll just show you instead).

I will, however, mention that you really haven't lived until you see Mama Mia onstage as interpreted by our non-English speaking neighbors to the south. As my sister-in-law noted, it was much like watching  Godzilla, only with semi-better dance moves. You also haven't lived until you've abandoned a perfectly beautiful whale-watching boat (complete with hors d'oeuvres and cocktails) for a rickety old Mexican dingy somewhere out in the ocean due to seasickness (poor Sydney: nothing says pre-teen cool like harfing off the side of a boat in front of ((gasp)) people. I told her we were in Mexico, every vacationer has to puke in Mexico at some time or another....it's kind of a traveling rite of passage). Anywho, it was an odd adventure complete with old, tired life vests that I was sure would drag us straight to the bottom of the ocean if we had jumped ship (and believe me, I considered jumping ship) plus a strange little captain who seemed to have had a few cocktails himself before taking us back to port (think Jack Sparrow, minus the super sexiness). But, on the bright side, seeing whales from a very small, 3 butt boat was a sight to behold, particularly since it felt like it could've been the last sight I ever saw.

So, here we go....just a few of many images from the trip.

A force to be reckoned with

Our Lady of Guadalupe

Alex and his whale

Patty and Kirsten

Moby Dick

Snotty Chuckle

Sydney being frisked by the Mexican 'police'

The family bed

The Mexican version of Abby Road Crossing

Greeting the day

Tim joins the cast

Feliz Navidad

Mexico, in the words of James Taylor:

"....so sweet with the sun sinking low
Moon's so bright like to light up the night
Make everything all right"

James, I think you're onto something.

Thanksgiving for Dummies, Part Deux

Well, I'm happy to say that we have made it through Thanksgiving intact. There were no trips to the emergency room from knive mishaps,which I have a sad history of, nor were there any salmonella poisonings that I know of....so I'll call dinner a success (and it was delicious which was an added bonus).

Since my last anxiety-ridden post leading up to cooking my first turkey, I learned some pretty interesting behind-the-scenes sorts of lessons with a couple of observations thrown in for good measure. I'm not sure that I'm the better for it, really...and you probably won't be either, but blogs are made for sharing.....

Let's talk lessons in physics: If a turkey has been thawing for days, it will create natural "juices"( truly "liquid rot", but we'll stay with the illusion for everyone's sake).  Come to find out, when you pick a turkey up and hold it just so, those "juices" will roll rigggghhhht up the sleeves of your sweater in mass quantity. I was completely unprepared for this little shock. To make matters worse, I stood there holding the turkey in front of me in unpleasant surprise, looked down and realized that I was giving my little dog a turkey "juice" shower, which was equally gross. Yeah, don't worry Martha Stewart, your day job's safe for now.

I don't expect people to give away all of their Thanksgiving secrets, but perhaps someone might have mentioned to me that when I stuck my hand in the bird for the first time, I'd find a paper bag full of animal organs sitting inside. Since I had no idea what this was all about, I assumed that I had somehow gotten the Hannibal Lecter of turkeys who had gotten the electric chair for his crimes and then sent directly to my grocer's freezer. I was assured that the paper bag was put there for me to find on purpose, kind of like the toy in the bottom of a cereal box, only creepier. Not exactly sure what I was supposed to do with the organs, I decided to play Hannibal Lecter myself by frying them up and drinking a glass of Chianti (and then gave them to the dogs).You might know what to do with the organs, but at this point, don't tell me; I don't want to know.

As I stood there amongst all of the Thanksgivingness,  stuffing the turkey full of oranges, carrots, onions and such, I couldn't help but think that if I was stuffing the exact same things into the rump of, say, a squirrel or a cat, people would run from me and then probably lock me up. But since I was shoving things into the rump of a turkey, people were not only coming over, they were flying across the country to be a part of it. It's weird, isn't it? (Or am I just weird? It's entirely possible.)

So here are some photos as things progressed...and I hope that your Thanksgiving was as enlightening (and fun) as mine.

Thanksgiving for Dummies

OK. I admit it.  I am a 34 year old woman, living in America (with a family)  and have never cooked a full Thanksgiving dinner in my life. Never. Not once. There are lots of reasons for this anomaly: travel, shared Thanksgivings with friends, and, of course, Hubby Tim who moonlights as my personal chef (go ahead and be jealous for a minute ladies, it's totally appropriate). I have silently relished the knowledge that I have somehow gotten out of cooking this monster meal alone; Breathed a sigh of relief that the stars had aligned just so, so that I was only responsible for side dishes. Well, my number was bound to come up sooner or later. *sigh* I have family flying in, friends coming over, and Hubby Tim is in Wisconsin...the perfect storm of my Thanksgiving nightmares. This one's alllllll me and seems like a relatively poor idea.

 There are two issues that are keeping me up at night:

Up until recently, I knew almost nothing about turkeys. I happily eat them exactly once a year and if I happen to see one that is alive, I get survivor's guilt. That's was about the extent of my knowledge. So, imagine my surprise to find out that in order for this meal to go smoothly, I have to give one a nice aromatic bath, tie it up, and then shove things in it's nether-regions. (Whaaaaa?!! Do I need to get it liquored up and throw candles in for good measure?!) Frankly, I like to get to know someone a little bit better before I go down that road (no, really mom, I do).

As if the that wasn't enough to give me performance anxiety,  I found out that there is a whole hotline specifically for people to call in the case of a butterball emergency (No shit...a Butterball Hotline AND a butterball emergency...both apparently real things).  I'm putting it on speed dial right next to the AA hotline that I'll be calling from drinking too much over the stress of this whole thing.

Here's the other potential issue: These days, I seem to have the focus of someone with dementia and an added touch of ADD. I'll start something, walk into another room, and then totally forget that I had been doing something else (As if to prove my point, in the middle of writing this very blog, I walked upstairs to get my phone and realized that I had food burning on the stove...). I'm relatively certain that preparing Thanksgiving dinner requires timing and focus, both of which I seem to have misplaced somewhere in the craziness that is my life.

Now, this whole Thanksgiving thing doesn't need to be a Martha Stewart production, but I just hope it isn't this either:



Oh boy. Wish me luck.

Halloween is for Lovers

The kids abandoned us for Halloween this year; I didn't even get one picture before they were swallowed into the night...But, I guess we made do.....