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.