Sunday, December 27, 2009

Morning After

WHAT am I going to do with this son? I am horrified to see how very like his father -- and his bio-mom -- he is. Is there nothing of me, none of my training in him at all? It's really very, very upsetting. I feel like one of those parents who adopt a troubled child and then are so distraught to find out that that act did not take away their genetic make-up. Not that I ever thought it would, but I guess I did think -- have always thought -- that nurture is far more than nature. So some of my love and care should have been there in him.

Joe was angry at me, because I was going to take his phone away for a month. This is something we had agreed upon, on several occasions, and I had reminded him of it a number of times. And still, he was $80 over his plan. Not as bad as the month he was $500 over, but still. And yet, he reacted as though I had told him I was going to pull out his teeth with pliers. Shock, horror, and then a hysterical -- and I mean that literally -- reaction that lasted for several hours. Crying, screaming, hitting the wall, stomping, shouting, yelling all kinds of completely false (or just halfway false) accusations at me, and my mothering skills, dating back to when I left his father, and he claims now that he wanted to go with me, but was unable to because I left "early." All sorts of rapid-fire accusations that put me squarely to blame for almost everything that had gone wrong in his life. And no regret or even accepting of responsibility for, his own actions. None whatever.

I'm stunned. Shouldn't be, but am. So now what can I do?

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Christmas Eve Day --2009 (looks like a movie subtitle!)

Well, I am back from another walk around Milwaukie (the town of), this Christmas Eve morning! I am aware of the coldness (my thighs are still registering chill) but I am very, very warm! (my thighs are burning!) Woo-Hoo! I feel good, like I knew that I would.

Joe is still asleep on the floor in the living room. He stayed up pretty late last night. And so did I, I must admit -- after midnight, in order to finish the book I was reading, even though I've read it at least twice before. "Some Lie and Some Die" by Ruth Rendell -- knowing that I still had to be up by six-thirty, in spite of having the day off. Must drink coffee at same time every day! I'm considering trying to break that cycle, though, now that I no longer have hormones running like fire through my veins. But not today!

As I passed the Waldorf School on my way out, a flock of geese rose from the large playing field, probably -- oh, let's be conservative -- say, one hundred and fifty. Probably closer to twice that many! All at once, all honking to beat the band, and they separated into two bands, one swooping out to the north in a wide circular loop, and the other to the south. It was something to see. I watched with my jaw hanging open. Reminds me of the swallows at Chapman School, though not as astonishing.

Didn't get coffee, since Sully's was closed until January 3rd -- next YEAR! --and I was already past the other two coffee shops that I know of when I found that out. So I simply carried my travel mug with me, which prevented me walking with my hands in my pockets. Probably a good thing.

Saw a cop out this morning, saw him three times in fact. I had crossed the street in front of him, and he looked at me pretty closely -- which would have worried me, if I had had anything to worry about -- but did make me wonder, since it was after nine in the morning. Not the crack of dawn or anything. So I walked on, congratulating myself on living a life that is so completely free of any wrong-doing that I am not even slightly concerned when I see a police officer. And then, maybe three blocks on, he came around the corner in front of me, about a block up, and looked pretty hard at me again. The third time was several minutes later, as I was crossing behind the lumber yard. He had pulled someone over and his lights were on. So possibly just an extra-determined cop, who was looking for anyone doing anything wrong.

I am very happy to have this day off, since I will spend it amusing myself! By which I mean cleaning my room, and unpacking boxes. Well, I find that amusing! I will probably also walk up to the Salvation Army, possibly get a coke at Taco Bell as I pass it by, possibly stop by the library -- in short, treating this day like any other weekend day! We are not celebrating Christmas here at our house. Next year, however, I will! I will be completely settled into this sweet little apartment, Joe will not be camping out in my living room, and I will have a little money to spend! Party givers, watch out!

Well, the crisp hot sweet buttery toast I just ate is gone, with even the streusel-y smell dissipating on the empty air, so I guess if I want more food I'd better go and make some. Tea! Hot, fragrant tea! More crisp hot toast! Possibly even some soft scrambled eggs!

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Rubicon is not just a cool-sounding word! It has MEANING!

You know what I don't like? One of the things, that is, of course -- there are so many things that I don't like, if I started counting them up, it would carry us on all day. Brussels sprouts, for one. Underground parking structures for another. Comb-overs. People with authority who misuse it. People without authority who pretend that they have it. Tight waistbands. East winds.

But the thing I was talking about at the start of that paragraph -- I don't like advertisements that cater directly and without any admixture, to the sex urge. In both men and women. For example, this ad I have been seeing lately for the latest Jeep model, which is called, ludicrously and ignorantly, the Rubicon. The Rubicon! The Point of No Return Jeep! The beyond-this-is-certain-death Jeep! Ridiculous.

Anyway, the whole ad, which is set to the song, "She's So Hot" which is a really stupid song, too -- vapid and free of content and just basically a dance tune. The ad has a lovely, long-limbed girl with long dark hair driving a top-down Jeep through the city streets, and flashing to different angles of this same girl and this same Jeep and these same streets, while she smooths back her hair and flirts with the camera.

AND THAT"S IT. That's the whole ad. That's the entire package designed to make me say, "Oh, man, if I just had a Jeep RUBICON I would look just like that dark-haired long-limbed girl! Get me a Jeep Rubicon TODAY!" and to make any male say, "Man, she's SO HOT! She's SO HOT! I WANT that dark-haired long-limbed girl! Get me a Jeep Rubicon today!"

Psssshhhhtttt.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Neighbors, or...?

The people in the next-door house were apparently only gone for a month or so, because tonight, for the first time since I moved in, there are lights on. I went out onto the balcony this evening for my nightly look at the lights reflected in the water and sparkling over the black surface. And turning my head, I gasped to look right into a bedroom. Across their yard, of course, but being brightly lit, it felt as though it were right beside me.

The owners no doubt also felt themselves very private in their bedroom, as it was well lit and also completely uncurtained. Large fat pillows piled on the head of a large bed, must be king-sized or even a California king. Hard to tell at this distance. But still a private oasis, since one couldn't see into it from any of my windows. And my privacy is still undiminished, since the wall facing my bedroom window is still completely blank, with nary a window in it. I suppose I will see a person eventually, but I'll burn that cross on a bridge.

Next morning: And today, there is smoke rising from their furnace pipe! I mean, I suppose that thing is a chimney, but to me, chimney means fire, as in fireplace, woodstove, built-with-your-own-hands type of thing. Funny to see the smoke coming out of the pipe and heading straight for the ground. It's pretty cold this morning -- isn't heat supposed to rise? What is going on over there? What gravity-defying stuff are they burning in that furnace? And still no signs of people. This could turn into an interesting story!

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Good mom, bad mom.

Well, hell.

I'm just very confused. I'm confused about who I am and who I should be in this current situation. Am I being too rigid and unyielding? Am I jealously guarding my privacy in this new, sweet, wonderful little apartment? Or am I being too soft and enabling, in allowing Joe to live with me in comfort, or at least, relative comfort, when I should have kicked his scrawny little butt to the curb long ago?

See, so Joe moved in with me last night. I knew he was going to, and I was prepared for that, but I wasn't prepared for how weird it would feel. How much I would be clenching my teeth, in bed at eleven at night, at hearing the loud movie he was watching on the computer, as he texted his friends -- he isn't even actually watching the movie, it's just that he needs the sound and the brightly shifting colors, I believe. How much I would resent it -- and him! -- for having to be quiet as I left for work this morning. How very awkward and guilty and angry this would make me feel!

And yet, how very much I care about him, and for him and worry about him and want to help him. And how easily I forgive him over and over and over again.

The kicking him to the curb part -- that is in relation to this past week. You know how I have told Joe repeatedly, that as long as he is driving an illegal car (long story) that he may not call on me for help, if he gets pulled over, it gets impounded or he gets arrested. That I do not want him to drive this car illegally, and so not to call for help, if anything goes wrong. Well, it did, and he did! He was putting new wheels on his car, "hella cool" ones, BTW, and did not put one of them on properly, apparently. It flew off while he was driving (no doubt too fast) up Thiessen hill. Fortunately Joe is a good driver, and managed to steer the car over to the side of the road without crashing into anyone, but the wheel, bouncing merrily along the road, was hit. The driver was very, very mad at Joe. And Joe promptly called me to come and bring my insurance card so the woman could get (illegal)reimbursement from my insurance company.

Wait, what?

Now, this all happened on an evening that Joe was supposed to be at home, cleaning as hard as he could go, since the house had been inhabited recently by hordes of teenage slobs, all of whom left dishes, food, cigarette butts, cigarette packs and beer ALL OVER my house. And, amazingly enough, we had a possible cash buyer who had been to look at the outside of the house, and who wanted to see inside. So I called Joe and told him, that this guy would be coming by the following morning. Joe said he and his friends would get it clean. In fact, he said that it was already clean, and that he and his friends would just put a shine on the place. So that's what he was supposed to be doing when he called me, at about nine o'clock, to ask for my insurance information.

I saw the house the morning that the man was due to come over, and it was god-awful. Joe insisted that he could get it clean in the hour and a half he had before the man showed up. But I saw it that evening, after Mr. Amazing Cash Buyer had come and gone, and it looked all but identical to the morning. Still the filthy floor in the kitchen incrusted with sticky goo. Still hardened, cracked puddles of egg on the filthy, sticky, multi-colored counters. Still piles of garbage here and there. Still food detritus in the sink. I was very, very angry, so angry at Joe for freely lying to me over the phone about how clean the house was, and how he and his friends had just spiffed it right up.

Wow. I can hardly see straight. Part of this, of course, is guilt. I should never have allowed Joe to live there on his own. I should not have cared about Joe's pleasure or his popularity or his friends in the neighborhood. I should have made him move to the apartment with me, taken his car keys away, and kept him bored and restless and irritated.

I mean, right?

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Veteran's Day

You know, the privacy I have in this small apartment is almost as good as living in a detached house! I say, ALMOST as good, because there are times when I can hear voices or footsteps, and the light of the interior walkway shines in my front door light at night -- which is actually pretty nice, and saves me the expense of a nightlight.

But I have never, not once, seen anybody out on their balcony or their patio. As I was standing out on my balcony this morning, with my cup of coffee, in my bathrobe, I was looking at the opposite balcony, and wondering why not. The house next door, though very well cared for and tidily kept, seems to be deserted -- no lights, never any lights on in there. I have yet to see the smallest sign of life over there. And no one has ever been out on their balcony, though I have, once or twice, seen someone in the paved area between the patios and the creek. Just the other day I saw someone out there smoking. Must have been a visitor, sez I, since you wouldn't move to a house that did not allow smoking, not if you smoked. Would you? Perhaps you would, though, if it were part of a quitting-smoking-package-deal you had made with yourself.

Well -- after we get through winter and move on into spring and summer, I'm sure I will see more people outside. But so far I have had absolute privacy as I stand and sip and gaze out over the water, speckled as it was this morning with rain, or full of ducks and geese and the occasional heron.

Saturday, November 7, 2009

I think this is the first Saturday that I have woken in my new house, and just said, "Ahhhh-hhhhh!" Nothing I am responsible for today! I drank coffee, I made my bed, I tidied the house, I washed the two dishes from the night before... and then I picked up my purse and walked out the door into the cool morning (no rain) and over four or five blocks to Sully's, where I sat, sipping their extra-good dark coffee and waiting for my cousins to arrive. We enjoyed the food -- Billy cleaned his plate of corned beef hash down to the last morsel -- and enjoyed the conversation. We then hurried through the splattering rain under the sky lowering with dark grey clouds to my new apartment! Still only half-moved-into, it is a lovely thing to show people , especially people who are not obsessed with newness or fashion or the latest thing. People who have seen a lot of houses, and know what they are looking at! Another half hour's visit, and they went home. My first actual company!

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Sleepy Bye

Well, goodness me -- this is the first time this has happened to me! Which causes me to worry, privately, if I have crossed a line into becoming an elderly person -- someone to whom things happen that never happened to them before!

Last night, I settled myself in bed, sitting up against a stack of pillows, with my quilts tucked cozily over me, a book open on my knee, and a cup of piping hot, sweet tea to drink. A sure-fire recipe for a good night's sleep, or so you would think! After about three pages of the book (a new library book)I, apparently, fell fast asleep, and tipped the whole mug of tea over onto myself, soaking the quilts, the pajamas I was wearing, the mattress, and even the corners of my pillows. That woke me, you may be sure, but I was so very soundly asleep, that it took me several seconds to figure out what had happened. Even when I had, I just wanted to continue sleeping, and so I put the book and the cup on the bedside table and curled up to go back to sleep. But as the large wet spots I was surrounded by began to turn icy-cold, I soon woke up all the way! Got up, changed my pajamas, pulled my old quilt from a pile and went back to sleep.

Therefore, when I woke this morning and got out of bed, I simply tossed the still-damp quilts back so that everything could dry.

Now, I take a cup of tea to bed with me, every night. And I frequently fall asleep over the book I have also taken. But I have never combined the two things with the falling asleep -- the tea is always on the bedside table when I wake up and realize that the lights are still on and its three in the morning. So am I now officially an old lady? Will I be wetting the bed soon?

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Tuesday Morning

This morning I woke oddly -- my alarm did not go off, at least to my memory -- cuz it MUST have gone off, and I MUST have turned it off -- right? But I still woke around the right time, and slept and woke enough times to feel like getting up at about the time I would have gotten up if the alarm HAD gone off. Showered and dressed and went to make my coffee. As I stood in front of the kitchen sink in my sweet tiny little kitchen, my eye was caught and held by the picture outside the window. Trees on either side, framing the square view in an almost too perfect style -- green leaves, with just a hint of turning, with bright yellow trees behind them on the other side of the creek, and a floor of red and gold leaves on the ground leading up to the water. The ground covered so thickly with red and gold that the pewter grey of the water shone in a fine firm line, rippled occasionally with small silver ripples, and a small duck poised in the very center of the picture. The whole lit delicately by the rising sun. I stood and stared at it, while part of my mind hung its mouth open, and another part was gabbling, "oh, gotta remember this! Gotta draw it or take a picture of it or write it down so that I REMEMBER...!" But I know that none of those things will happen. I can't draw it or paint it, I have no camera, and even though I describe it ten times more closely and more fitly than I just have, I still will not remember it. Just won't! Life!

So. My mother has cancer.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Last Minute City

Well, correct me if I am wrong, but I do believe that today is Tuesday, the 20th of October, 2009. And I ALSO believe that this house is due to be auctioned off on Friday, the 23rd of October, 2009. And yet, I got a call this afternoon from my cousin Mickey, who, as you know, is also my real estate agent. What's that you say? An offer on the house? A long-awaited offer on the house, which is hours from it's foreclosure auction? No!

TWO OFFERS!

Unbelievable.

Yes. And even though I am still sort of betwixt and between in this whole moving thing, thinking with anxiety of the things that need to happen before I can settle down into unpacking at the new apartment, I am suddenly so relaxed that I can hardly stay awake. Whew! This could be the bacon-saving moment. I could walk away with a chunk of cash to give to Aunt Kathy! Wa-HOO!

Joe is "dying" "so sick, Mom" that he cannot even use the phone, and yet he has two friends down in his bedroom with him. What sort of sense does that make? So anyway, he's of no help to me at all, so I think I am just going to do some clean-up around here, and then take another load over to the apartment, and maybe see about setting up the stereo in the living room.

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Moving Day -- One of Them!

Well, today is the day of the moving van! I'm a little unhappy about this, since I hate (HATE) moving. I hate carrying boxes in and out and up and down. I hate struggling up stairs with one end of a couch or a dresser. I hate having to be the one who tells other people to do things that they don't want to do.

On the other hand, at the end of this weekend, I will be moved! Not necessarily moved in, but at least moved! And then for the rest of next week, I can drive back and forth in the evenings with stray belongings, and sort things into drawers and cupboards and perhaps sell some of this stuff.

So, it is 8:30 on Saturday morning, and since I have been up since 6:30, I'm starting to feel like taking a nap already. But instead, as I wait for Joe to come home, I think I will pack up a carload of books and make the drive. When he gets home, I will have him drive me to the U-Haul office and pick up a truck, so I don't have to leave my car there all day. Would anyone like to help?

Friday, September 18, 2009

The Big Day

So, today is the day that Joe gets to take his driving test. Hooray! Huzzah! Whooeee! We've been hearing about this day for months. In all kinds of ways -- longing: "When I get my license, I'll be so happy!" -- threatening: "Man, I'll have my license then, and you just wait...!" -- begging: "But that will be after I have my license, and I'll be able to....!" and so on and so on.

So. Test scheduled for ten a.m. Joe nervous the night before, says, wake him up early, like at eight. Then, at about midnight, he comes and wakes me, asking for his car keys, so that he can go and pick up Nick, who is currently walking down the hill to our house. This discussion goes on far longer than one would think, but he finally accepts that he isn't getting the keys, and goes off to meet Nick on foot, just like he used to. Then there is some scuffling around the house, and surreptitious eating of various articles, both upstairs and down, and then they settle.

At eight I go downstairs and wake Joe. At eight-thirty, I go downstairs and wake Joe. At 8:45, I go downstairs and wake Joe. At nine-oh-five I go downstairs and yell, "If you aren't ready to go when I think we ought to leave, then I'm not taking you!" It is now 9:28. The test, in case you have forgotten, is at ten.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Fog on little cat feet



"Why, there's nothing there but a field!"

Thus Uncle Ken, when I presented a map I had edited for him, for a mailing he was putting out to lure other unsuspecting real estate agents over to Oregon First. It was not, you understand, an accurate map -- not a map you would use to actually GET somewhere. Just a stylized map to sort of show how many offices we have in the Portland area. And the little conversation bubble which was pointing to the Vacouver office was maybe a thirty-second of an inch below the spot which held the invisible office. Where, in Uncle Ken's deathless oratorical style, there was nothing but a field.

This is going to represent Uncle Ken to me, now and hereafter. It's possible, I suppose, that he will say something else that will be even more Kennian to me -- but so far, that's it.

The drive in this morning was lovely, in spite of a lot of traffic -- and in spite of the fact that I overslept this morning by about an hour, as a result of my stomach pain last night -- because the lovely drifting fog straying down the sides of the wooded hills, from the fat white bulk of it along the tops of the hills.

Yes -- serious pain last night for about two hours -- when I at last woke this morning, it was with a sense of amazement that I had actually slept. I've got to go and see a doctor.

Last night when I arived home -- late, after picking up Kevin Ray and taking him to Fred's to get a prescription filled -- I found the house standing wide open -- three doors actually open, and several blinds pulled up. When I went in, I found the kitchen and dining room pretty much trashed, and smears of butter, bread crumbs, mango peels and chunks of cheese and scrambed egg smearing the counters. Twelve glasses were standing around the kitchen full to varying degrees of milk and juice. Other evidence of the juice-making were on the counters, from the empty cans to the trails and trickles and sticky spots of juice. Eaten -- or at least, vanished, were: two mangoes, four pears, six yogurts, a loaf of bread, two half gallons of milk, a lot of cheese, a package of pre-cooked Indian rice, four of the bottles of water I was taking to work with me (waah!) and a full dozen eggs.

And this is what the house still looked like when I left this morning -- Joe slept most of the evening, and then when he did get up, he kept not taking cae of any of it. I confess I did pick up and stack up and wipe up several screamingly egregious examples of the above-mentioned stuff. I did leave him a big-lettered note, though. So we shall see. I should be prepared, when I get home, to find that nothing has been done.

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Yay, Labor!

It started raining in the night, sometime after midnight and before six. Pretty steadily, pretty hard -- big fat drops of very wet wetness. Makes me cherish my steaming hot cup of tea with quiet gleefulness and try to let the rain work its old-time magic on me. I remembered when I woke that my car's windows were open and went outside in my nightshirt to close them -- six am on a holiday weekend morning, who was going to be up? And no one was -- and got my feet good and chilled. They are still cold and feel damp, even though I went back to bed for another hour or so, and then sat at the computer for a few. It's eleven now, and I'm wondering what this day is going to hold for me? I've got housework to do, of course, and laundry... but I already swept the dining room, so that looks better to me... I guess we will just have to wait and see.

I called Mom and Dad this morning, to see if they were home, thinking of going down to visit them -- but no response. Don't really want to drive to the coast on a holiday, or be in Cannon Beach on a holiday, either. And, I went over to Mickey's last night and hung out with her and Bryson, which is always enjoyable. This time was good, too, cuz we were at Gabriel Park, watching Bryson play on the playground equipment and talking. And then coming home and listening to Mickey reading Treasure Island aloud, and eating watermelon. A very nice evening was had by all.

I got an e-mail from Ruthie last night, which was very cheering -- amazing, isn't it, what a sucker I am for affection from my family? But yes, it cheered me no end just to see her name on the message, and reading the loving words was the icing on the cake. She thinks I should allow Joe to get his apartment and move on out of my life, just for the sake of sparing myself the worry and distress. (Which I am eager and anxious to do, if for nothing else, then because I am developing an ulcer. Serious pain whenever I eat anything other than yogurt.) But see, I also know that Joe will still be calling me probably every other day, wanting money or food or laundry or some such thing. Which I will, of course, be happy to provide, as long as I can -- as long as I am only responsible for my own bills. This morning I went downstairs, for some reason, and found three lights left on -- none of them visible from the stairway, of course, and turned them off with a sinking feeling -- the exchequer is getting extremely thin. So the thought of my own tiny apartment with only the lights on that I have turned on, and nothing ever left on overnight or while I am at work, sounds very seductive -- calls to me across the tossing seas!

Saturday, August 29, 2009

All the Children Sing

If I were that rabbit kid -- what's his name? Not Peter, but the rabbit from Rabbit Hill, who ran around singing "New Folks Comin'! Oh, My!" Georgie? Was that it? Isn't ringing a serious bell, but possibly Georgie -- if, as I say, I were he, I would have a song to sing that incorporated the words, "I've got a job! Hallelujah!" and mixed in a little "But I'm still pretty anxious about money, and no one is buying my house," and drop down to a darker, minor key bridge that went, "And my son is messing up his life as hard as he can," and follow it all up with, "But my family loves me, so no matter what happens I will be all right, tra la!"

So. Last night, the phone rang at about 2:10 am. I had been asleep for several hours, but I got up to answer it, thinking it was probably Joe, who had been supposed to get home at midnight. It was not Joe, however, but a Clackamas County sheriff, whose name I have forgotten, who was calling to tell me to come and get Joe from a party where he had been drinking. Instant flash to the night I got a call from a girl at a 7-11 to come and get Michael who was supposed to be at the VA hospital, but was actually in the middle of some ridiculous, staged set-up to get him more attention, and resulted in me getting no sleep and having to pretend to Michael that I believed the crazy story he was telling me in which he did not recognize me at all, nor know anything about his life. Man -- that is a bad memory, and I am devoutly thankful that a memory is all it is. Devoutly thankful that I never have to see that man again in my life.

As I was driving over to pick Joe up, I kept telling myself, "Hey, it can't be as bad as that! It
can't be as bad as that! It's just going to be a matter of driving there, driving home and that will be that!"

Well.

But I had reckoned without Joe. Joe was, of course, drunk. He will deny it, but he was, otherwise he would have just left with me. Instead, when the little short cop with the attitude problem started trying to make Joe kowtow to him (by trying to make him kowtow to me) Joe got instantly aggressive, hostile and combative, not unlike his father, once again, when we were pulled over because drunken Michael was shouting torrents of abuse at some officers. Joe got right up in the guys face (Joe was TALLER than he was) and bit off angry answers to the guys stupid questions along the lines of, "Tell Mommy how bad you are and how lucky you are that we aren't arresting you."


So then in the car Joe was overwhelmed with tearful fury that he had been so unbelievably badly treated and wanted me to do all kinds of things at once, like pick up some other guys who were hiding on a nearby street, and get the officers name so Joe could find out where he lived and make his life hell. I kept asking him not to talk, but just go to bed, and we would talk in the morning, but it actually took almost two hours before I was able to get to sleep. It is now noon -- and Joe and his three friends are still asleep downstairs amid welters of wrappers and jugs of OJ.

Now that it is morning, I am feeling better about it all. Joe will no doubt feel better when he wakes up, too.

Monday, August 10, 2009

Employment!

I have a JOB!
Hallelujah, I've got a job!

It isn't a fabulous job, but on the other hand it is, since it's work I can easily do, and it's for certain sure, and it's MINE! And I start TOMORROW!


I'm working for Oregon First, for Uncle Ken, and this first month I'm just being trained for the second half of the job which starts in September. The first half of it is being the receptionist/office manager for the Eastside office, which is on 98th and Burnside. The second half is being the office "expert" on RMLS, as well as doing the press releases and working on ways to make Oregon First the number one real estate office in Oregon.

Oh, frabjous day, calloo!! Callay! I chortle in my joy!

Friday, August 7, 2009

O, the water....

Half a mile from the county fair
And the rain came pourin' down
Me and Billy standin' there
With a silver half-a-crown...

It's raining! Actual, lovely, liquid rain is falling from the sky, in gorgeous, glorious, exquisitely beautiful defiance of the recent ungodly heat wave. This has raised my spirits by several leaps, and I'm (momentarily) not even worried about my increasing lack of money, and lack of place to live and lack of job.

I've just finished making a big bowl of tomatoes and cottage cheese, and I have the dishwasher running. Next on the list is a big bowl of fruit salad, to use up some of these strawberries and grapes and pineapple before they all mold. Unfortunately, the big fruit salad bowl (with the lid) is currently full of cottage cheese and tomatoes. So I have to scratch my head and rack my brain for a moment or two to come up with an alternative. And whilst scratching and racking, I thought I would make some tea (steaming at my elbow) and write for a bit.

Before I began on these housewifely chores, I watched three episodes of Firefly -- I believe I am accurate in calling it my favorite television show. I do love it, and no matter how many times I watch the shows, I still grin at the funny lines and smile when someone says "Shiny!" Captain Mal is my favorite guy, more lovable even than Castle (the current incarnation of Nathan Fillion)and Kaylee and Simon are charming, too.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

In which I am shown to be a bad mother

Well, the weather today is far better (for me, at least) since it is beautifully overcast and gray, and the air coming in through the open screen door is quite cool. Some might even call it cold! I think it's about 61 degrees -- a far cry from the 106 of last week. I'm wearing my bathrobe over my pajamas and still feel the chill! Lovely.

However! I am still not happy right now, but it's a different sort of unhappiness. This is the anxiety and guiltiness and freaked-out feeling that I get when I do something that I consider to be wrong. And I forgot an appointment for my son, which counts as a failure as a mother. The office called me yesterday, so I remembered, right up until Joe came running in to ask if he could spend the night at Conner's house. I acquiesced! Gave him permission, even though Conner's house is an hour's drive away. Forgetting completely not just that he had an appointment, but that he had an appointment that his regular therapist had urged me not to forget. Bad mother! Bad, bad mother!

Part of my brain, of course, the part that always wants to cover for me, keeps squeaking that I didn't do it on purpose, that I forgot it, that I can't be blamed for forgetting, etc. But of course I can be blamed for forgetting. When I was about ten I used to get a spanking every night for forgetting to take the garbage out. The thought behind this punishment, which seemed so unfair at the time, was that the memory of pain sharp in my mind would keep the garbage sharply there, as well. Since of course I remembered right up to the time I went to bed, but kept putting it off because I was reading a book or playing a game or doing something that I did not want to interrupt -- or, in actual fact, because I was very frightened of our basement, and did not want to go down the long open-back staircase into the dim, cool, grey room with lots of dark corners, odd smells, and places for Things to hide. Thus, I had had lots of chances to do the right thing and take the garbage out before the timer of bedtime had rung and found me wanting.

But since I have nothing that I am afraid of this time, I wasn't putting it off, and I couldn't do it when I thought of it instead of putting it off, since it couldn't have been done until today, anyway, so...? How can I be construed to have done anything wrong? Should I always look at my computer calendar before I say yes or no to anything? What, really truly, did I do wrong? I did, actually, stop and think of possible commitments, when he asked, and this one did not rise to the surface of my mind, so how can I help it, really? This time?

Oh, but I am a bad, bad mother....

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Sunday Morning (and I'll be fine!)

I feel fairly sure that this morning's title will reappear unless I am very careful, since it comes to mind every single Sunday of my life since I first heard the song (Merkin, Dave Triebwasser -- don't remember what the album was called, sorry!) and that was back in the 90's sometime. It's a beautiful Sunday morning, though, cool breeze keeping the sun at bay, and a quiet, empty cul-de-sac out the window. The only thing is my neighbor's dog, which has been steadily howling for hours. HOURS! Long, quiet, plaintive howls, and no one is paying him the slightest attention. No one is even waking up enough to throw a boot out a window.

I am still in this strange-and-growing-stranger position, of trying to sell my house, trying to find a job, trying to be The Best Possible Mother, and trying to maintain. Growing stranger as my small hoard of gold gets smaller and smaller (steadily chipped away at by my teen-aged son, who also has no job but does have a car and NEEDS to fix the power steering or the dent in the front fender or what have you).

House is clean, though. Looking around I feel quite satisfied with its quiet tidiness.