Signals from the Mothership

Depth of Summer

2011-08-03T18:47:00.000-07:00

This has got to be my favorite time of year. The kids and I take off here and there for trips to swimming holes..or hiking trails on the BRP...or on mini-odysseys to visit old and far-flung friends, where we drink copious amounts of wine (that is me and the "old friends" drinking the wine...we don't share it with the kids..), make great pots of pesto pasta and olive bread and talk of days past and yet to come.

The garden runs amok, rife with oversized volunteer pumpkins, surprise tomatoes and whole colonies of harlequin bugs and those cursed Mexican bean beetles that I pad out gleefully in my bare feet to slaughter each evening with nothing but a flat rock and a large-ish piece of mulch or my bare hands.

At this point, I have lost all pretense of hoping for order. The garden is its own being. The once-bare spot where the potatoes where dug up now hosts a weird quilt of bastard onions, tomatilloes, nasturiums, hopi tobacco and herb plants that I thought would die, and thus put out to pasture in this bleak outpost. Somehow, thanks to the August sun and other unknowable blessings, they now are thriving, dark green and musky in the intense sunlight.

I walk out each day at the hottest point, when the kids are fading in the house, plugged into a video or sucking on a popsicle in the shade, and I inhale this fetid chaos...and I smile. This, my friend, is Life.

Ginger Bug

2011-06-26T11:23:00.000-07:00

A couple of bottles of our ginger ale. I love having a worthy purpose for old bottles!

I never thought I'd ever get this excited about a non-alcoholic drink. But guess what folks? I have just made ginger ale!! (or ginger beer, as the recipe I used calls it)

And I'm just going to go on and say it: It's amazing.

It's dry and spicy and zingy. It is reminiscent of that lovely Reed's stuff you spend a fortune on at EarthFare. It was so fizzy that when we Birch and I opened the first bottle this morning it fizzed out like champagne! Very exciting!

I used the recipe from one of my kitchen bibles as follows:

Ingredients
3 inches or more of fresh grated ginger root

2 cups sugar

2 lemons

water

Process

Make a ginger bug to start the fermentation: Add 2 tsp grated ginger (skin and all) and 2 tsp sugar to 1 cup of water. Stir well and leave in a warm spot covered with a cloth to allow air circulation. Add same amount of ginger and sugar every day or two and stir until the bug starts to bubble (2 days - 1 week

Make the ginger beer anytime after the bug becomes active. Boil 2 quarts water. Add 2-6 inches of grated ginger root (depending on how spicy/gingery you want your drink to be!) and 1-1/2 cups sugar. Boil the mixture for about 15 minutes. Cool.

Strain out ginger and add juice of the lemons and the strained ginger bug. (If you want, you can keep a bit of the ginger bug to jumpstart future batches. Simply replenish with water ginger and sugar.) Add enough water to make 1 gallon.

Bottle in resealable bottles. Bail-top beer bottles or soda bottles work well. Leave bottles to ferment in a warm spot for about 2 weeks.

Chill before opening. Remember -- when you open your bottles, have a glass handy for the champagne-like fizz!

So that's it. So easy! And yummy. And seriously...who doesn't love the sound of the words "ginger bug"?

The Mad Kitchen Scientist

2011-06-22T10:14:00.000-07:00

That's a lot of funky cherries! Notice the brown slush in the bottom of the box. But even such nastiness will not deter the diehard fermenter. Hey...all those cherries on top are Perfectly Good.

I am totally obsessed with fermentation. At a party at the house of some friends a little more than a year ago, I picked up the book "Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Food" by Sandor Ellix Katz. Check him out here. I haven't looked back since.

Using this book and various resources on the internet, as well as the book "Nourishing Traditions" by Sally Fallon , I have made my own kimchi, sauerkraut, tempeh, carrot-ginger pickles, goat cheese, vinegar, hard cider and ginger ale. The ginger ale is still brewing, but all the other things have been shockingly successful. Well...except for that one terrifying batch of vinegar. But that's for another post.

I have a clandestine source (as in, if I tell you I'll have to kill you) of mass quantities of random organic produce and fruits. It's not a regular supply, so I have to be prepared when a windfall arrives to start fermenting.

Last night on the summer solstice, soon after I had gotten the little one down to sleep, I was just getting ready to do some reading or crochet, when I received a sudden windfall of past-their-prime organic cherries at my door step. About 25 lbs of them! It wasn't pretty folks. These cherries needed to be dealt with immediately!

I dropped my plans for a peaceful evening and immediately went to work sorting, cleaning and then mashing them up for a nice solstice wine. Well, I hope it's nice anyway. I think part of the fun of fermentation is that it's always a gamble of sorts.

Cherries all mashed up and ready to become solstice wine. Too bad it will be almost a year before it's ready to drink.

Update on LIfe in the Twilight Zone

2011-02-11T17:36:00.000-08:00

On Monday my car caught on fire. And yes, I was driving it at the time.

Apparently there was this little piece of metal on the back of the battery that came disconnected. Really small thing. BUT it was the only thing keeping the stupid battery from turning itself into a fireball. There had been mysterious electrical problems for months -- mostly, I noticed, after driving on my friend's bumpy dirt driveway. Then suddenly Monday, Birch and I are tooling along Tunnel Road when -- SPARKS! SMOKE! HOLY CRAP -- FLAMES!!!! All shooting out from under the hood.

The engine died. Then it restarted. Then it died again. We were in the middle of the intersection trying to turn onto Riceville Road to get to my friend's house -- she of the Bumpy Driveway -- to pick up my daughter. A man in an electrician's truck shouts "Your car's on fire!" and I totally respond with this only-slightly-less-rude "No shit, dude!" sort of answer (which I later regretted). I got the engine to start again and pulled off the road into the parking lot of a Rite-Aid. Then we jump out of the flaming chariot, I pop the hood and Electrician Guy jumps out of his truck and -- I'm not making this up -- beats out the fire with a rag.

Seriously. Birch and I were ready to run and hide behind the nearest dumpster, and this total stranger jumps in and puts the fire out for me. Wow. He also disconnected the battery for us. How decent is that? Then he made sure we had AAA or something and drove off into the sunset.

The day just got weirder. We ended up spending a few hours in that parking lot after one dead cell phone; a couple of big, fat, time-consuming mix ups with AAA; a siren-blaring visit from the very-adorable guys of Fire Station #8, and finally the arrival of A.) My friend of the Bumpy Driveway and the Helpful Toddler Brigade (i.e. my daughter and her son), and B.) a super-helpful tow truck driver who actually just went on and replaced the battery for me right then and there.

Turns out that if Electrician Guy had not jumped in there and put the fire out when he did, either the engine would have been ruined OR the entire car would have just burned to the ground. So...THANK YOU Electrician Guy!!! I have no idea what your name is or even the name of the company you work for, but THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart!

Oh...did I mention that that same afternoon the wheel almost fell off my husband's truck? He almost didn't make it home. 3 out of the 5 lug nuts on one of his wheels were just GONE. Just like that. It was really strange.

So the next day, I call AAA again to get the truck towed to the shop. They LOVED that. And guess what? They sent out the SAME tow truck driver. When he called me to verify that he was coming, he asked "You're not having battery trouble again, are you ma'am?"

This Year

2011-01-06T19:28:00.001-08:00

According to my friend's sun sign horoscope book, this year (as in the 42nd year of my life) is supposed to be a crux. This is, in many ways, supposed to be the single most important year of my life, as far as learning and evolving. Wow...talk about big expectations.

But it does feel big to me. I can't say why really. I've liked the number 42 ever since I was in college and my friend and I painted that number (along with a lot of really bad artwork) onto the side of her little gray Honda because it is The Answer to The Question in the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."

You know...The Question. As in, "what is the meaning of life?"

Anyway, I can't say how this is going to be such a big year...I can't see any tangible evidence of the possiblity of significant growth...or anything else, really. However, we do have some interesting plans in the works:

THE BIG LIGHTS OUT EXPERIMENT:
Inspired by a random blog (which I can't remember the name of now, or I would post the link) detailing the interesting benefits of living with only the light of the sun and candles, our family is going to try 3 days of no artificial lights. None whatsoever. Not even the refrigerator light! If all goes well, we will extend that experiment in the more light-rich summer months.

THE BIG FAST:
Even though I'm still nursing (only a little, but still...) Scott and I are going to do a gentle -- as in For Whimps and Nursing Mothers Only -- cleanse and juice fast together over a weekend. I know I can't go hardcore with it (which I actually enjoy -- I'm a sicko, I know) but I am looking forward to it as a boost to my physical health, which feels like it has been steadily sliding downhill since I got pregnant with V three years ago.

THE Y
We are joining the Y, man. Yep. YMCA. I've avoided it for years because I thought I'd never use the membership (which isn't cheap). And we really can't afford it. Okay. No. I mean we REALLY can't afford it. BUT I finally realized this: The Y has free childcare. And a sauna. And a heated swimming pool. Enough said.

LEARNING TO CROCHET
This is so sexy, I know...I am totally taking a crochet class at the community college. I know it's that thing that grandmas do and it's something that people can apparently teach themselves just from being near other people that crochet, but I am severely Yarn Impaired and I just can't seem to pick it up. So I am taking a class. And I am STOKED! I mean, seriously, I am psyched like I just won a trip to Hawaii or something. I know....sexy, right?

Happy New Year!

Making Maeve

2010-12-30T19:47:00.000-08:00

This is Maeve. She is the Waldorf "heavy doll" I made for Veda's Christmas gift. Making this "simple" doll was waaayyy more complicated than I had anticipated, but it was very rewarding and enjoyable as well.

I made her from raw sheep's wool that I cleaned and carded, pieces of cotton fabric from an old t-shirt and wool yarn. The hair was very labor-intensive! I wound wool yarn around a rectangular piece of cardboard, taped the sides with painters tape to hold it in place, cut the loops on the sides and stitched down the middle. Then I had to hand-sew each strip onto her head. It took forever!

Her head is a ton of tightly packed wool. Her body contains wool and some lentils to give her weight. I made the clothes from an old t-shirt. I also made her a little wool hat from an old sweater and a backpack so Veda can carry her around like a baby.

Most of the instructions I found in this book, but I had to look up how to make the hair online. I also added the lentils myself because I wanted her to have weight.

Homemade Holidays

2010-12-30T19:23:00.000-08:00

Completely amazing dollhouse made by my father.

My big, fat Christmas dinner - kickin' it old school.

Snow People on Christmas!

The tree with gifts

Our Winter Solstice altar

This year, for the first time in a decade, I stayed home for Christmas.

Usually we drive either to Florida or Indiana (and trust me, NOBODY should be driving to Northern Indiana in December!) to visit family. But stress and craziness of all the traveling always leaves me feeling utterly wiped out - mentally and physically. So this year we opted to have a quiet holiday.

We celebrated the winter solstice with a fine meal, gifts and candle lighting, as we always do. Then my son left to go to Florida with his father, which made me sad. But I decided that Veda, Scott and I would do our best to enjoy Christmas this year, even with one of our flock missing.

And Christmas...it was truly wonderful! We awoke on Christmas morning to fresh snow...and it continued snowing all day. I cooked a big, traditional dinner...just took my time since nobody cared when we ate. We build a Snow Daddy and Snow Baby. We went sledding. We sat around and did absolutely nothing. Heaven!

We gave simple gifts...almost all handmade. Scott made me a beautiful pasta drying rack from oak. I made Veda a Waldorf doll I had sewn. She also received a doll house that my father made by hand from pieces of the old oak tree from my parents' backyard.

San Francisco

2010-09-29T07:18:00.000-07:00

Inka, Kim and Kim's aunt (who officiated the wedding) during the ceremony

Veda looked lovely in her sparkly red dress. Too bad she had to be physically removed by Scott and missed the entire ceremony due to her siren-like shrieking.

Silvio was the ringbearer

The wedding cake -- it was quite delicious!

The newlyweds roasting in the sun after the ceremony

Birch and Kim's son Silvio running with the wild pack of kids that took over China Camp after the ceremony.

Birch being Birch in front of the Chinatown Gate in San Francisco

Chilling inside an ancient redwood tree in Muir Woods

My sistah Kim took us to the airport for the trip home

The new tattoo Kim gave me the night before we left

We just returned from our first actual vacation together as a family! We went to San Francisco for my friend Kim's wedding. I'm lucky to have close friends that live in excellent vacation spots!

Birch and I had been out there before to visit Kim and her son Silvio, but Scott had never been to California at all, and it was our first long airplane trip together with Veda (although I have quite a bit of hard-won experience in that area in a solo capacity...I travel a lot with one or both kids to visit grandparents).

The 6-7 hours of flying time and 2-3 hours of layovers each way was...errr...challenging, to say the least. Anyone with a 2-year-old knows that long trips with time changes, routine changes and lots of sitting still are not so fun for the active toddler (or the toddler's parents, or anyone else in the near vicinity).

But the trip...oh, the trip! I SO miss traveling! It was so incredible to spend 4 days seeing new sights and experiencing new things with my family. Sooooo good to get away from our routine. And the wedding itself was inspiring...

Kim and her new wife Inka live on boats in Galilee Harbor, an artsy, progressive houseboat community in Sausalito with a history that goes back to the hippie days of the 1960's. During our stay we got to participate in the wedding celebration with their amazing group of dynamic and fascinating friends. We were given one friend's entire apartment to use during out stay and were given rides to and from the airport and all the wedding activities by other friends, each with their own incredible life story.

September

2010-09-12T19:33:00.001-07:00

Apple peeling time!

This is my favorite month! When I was a kid, I'm pretty sure it was because of my birthday (Sept. 24). Well, heck, it's probably still because of my birthday. But there's more to it now...

Growing up in Florida, there was, of course, no change of seasons, except the change from Tourist Season to Not-So-Much Tourist Season. As far as the weather went, we had hurricane season and then the rest of the year. Temperature-wise, things went from Unbelievably Hot and Humid (summer) to Slightly Less Hot and Humid (not summer) with a rare freeze here and there to keep us on our toes.

Here in NC, we have these magical in-betweens called fall and spring and then the extremes of summer and winter. I love September the best because it's when the heat gradually begins to fade and you can feel fall coming, although it's not quite here. Still nice and warm, but not horribly hot. The nights cool down. Clear days become brilliant and the mountains stand out proudly from a tart blue sky, flashing the last of their green hues before putting on the browns and reds of autumn.

Oh, and the flowers and fruit! We get blue asters in September..and cosmos. And then there are the apples. I never cared much about apples when I lived in Florida, but now we have an annual ritual of picking apples then peeling them and making apple sauce, apple butter, apple pies...all that good stuff.

Although I do consider myself a person more inclined to tropical climates and I dream of someday living on a warm, sunny island, I know that if and when I leave here I will miss the texture of the seasons. Every September, I'll feel wistful for that first bit of chill in the air, the ritual of setting up the apple peeler in the kitchen, the cheering sight of that certain brisk shade of blue sky...

Can It!

2010-08-31T19:21:00.000-07:00

I am almost embarrassed to admit that part of me still wants to title this post "A Fig to Thee!" That's so sad. It just strikes me as funny in a nerdy Lit Major sort of way. Ah, well...on to the story....

I am addicted to canning. It's crazy. I started canning jam about 10 years ago because we always went blueberry-picking up on the Blue Ridge Parkway every summer and I needed something to do with our loot besides blueberry pie, blueberry pancakes, blueberry muffins...you get the picture. So I started making jam...and it was good. I graduated to peaches and then to apple butter and eventually got into making some pretty tasty salsa, if I do say so myself (with lots of garlic and cilantro...not as spicy as my father-in-law would prefer).

I've done that same stuff more or less every summer for years. But this summer, I started experimenting. I had a bigger garden this year than I've had in awhile. And my mom has an absolutely awe-inspiring collection of antique cookbooks. So using a combination of the internet and a bunch of pickling recipes from the late 1800's (using measurements such as "a teacup of sugar" and "a lump of alum the size of a walnut" etc.) I started making a bunch of fun stuff.

So far this season, I've done chow chow, dilly green tomatoes, kosher dill pickles, dill pickles (those are for my dad), salsa verde (TONS of tomatilloes this year!), peach salsa, peach jam, peach chutney, pickled jalapenoes, pepperoncini, tomatoes, pickled onions and today, the aforementioned figs. I still plan to get a few blueberries and, of course, make some apple butter...maybe a bit more peach jam before all the peaches are gone for the year.

There are so many cool things about canning -- besides its obvious edgy rock star appeal, of course. Here are a few reasons to get canning: 1.) If you keep your jars from year to year and grow your own produce, it's a great money-saver. 2.) Homemade stuff tastes amazing (unless you are a horrible cook) and there is nothing more uplifting on a miserable, grey February day than to break out a jar of last summer's goodness. 3.) It is a huge ego-boost to give someone a jar of your jam and have them gush about how crafty and smart you are to make YOUR OWN JAM! and...4.) possibly the most compelling reason...The jars look incredibly beautiful lined up in your pantry.

I will admit...after I can a batch of something...after the sticky, infernal mess is finally cleaned up and the canning stuff put away...my favorite, favorite thing to do is...is...is...to fondle my jars. Yes. I am a jar fondler. I love to pick them up and examine them, hold them tight. Ahhh...my riches. I feel rich in preserved food. Lining them up on the pantry shelf is a ritual. Each jar is carefully placed and admired, moved around, admired again. Is this just me? I think not. Surely everyone who invests the time and energy into growing, picking, cleaning and preserving a harvest feels this way.

the way august is...

2010-08-17T18:47:00.000-07:00

This is such a dragging-your-feet month...It is the end of summer. School is about to start. The garden is on the wane and, believe it or not, many of us are already stressing about holiday travel plans and such seemingly far-in-the-future questions as how we're going to make it through the financial and emotional crush of another long winter.

I love August. I love the fat, hot August moon. I love the slow evenings in the backyard with bonfires and conversation, snacking on green beans we just pulled from the vines. But it always feels like the end of a lovely thing.

Of course, part of this is a seasonal thing, but it is also, sadly, imposed by the school schedule. This annoys me no end. When Birch was very small, I always saw us as homeschoolers. I wanted our learning to ebb and flow with our energy and the seasons and the demands of our lives. But things turned out differently for myriad reasons and here we are kowtowing to the aggravating and unforgiving demands of "tardy policies," "vacations" and "attendance policies" that are set by people in suits that are far and away from the rhythms of our lives here in our little urban farmstead paradise.

Now, I hesitate to complain, mind you. Really, we are incredibly fortunate because my son is able to attend an absolutely amazing environmental charter school with a curriculum that comes straight out of my most Earth-conscious, peace-mongering, community-loving hippie dream. His teachers are phenomenal, dynamic people that constantly challenge the students to question what they are taught and search for their own answers. Every week, they go on amazing field trips to hike in forests, camp out, raft rivers, investigate natural areas and artistic communities, etc. But still...

Part of me wishes that we could homeschool...that we could create our own learning system. School has been such an enormous benefit to my son, that it would take a huge leap for me to pull him out of that wonderful learning community. I have a lot of soul searching to do as Veda approaches school-age...

Ahhh...summer

2010-07-01T11:25:00.001-07:00

These photos are a couple weeks old...need to take new ones! Things have grown at least 2 feet since then! Above is one of the raised beds with peppers, wax beans, basil , potatoes and carrots.

The chicken tractor before the chickens moved in. Again...need to update photos!

To the right are tomatoes and potatoes, to the left are tomatilloes, patty pan squash, pole beans and sweet potatoes.

The 4th of July is this weekend and we are soaking up every moment of this beautiful summer. I love how the lazy days unfold around here for the kids and I. On these quiet, peaceful days I so, so appreciate that we are crafting a life centered around our home and garden and the sacrifices that we make in order to have that life seem worth so worth it.

In the mornings we roll out of bed whenever our bodies tell us it's time. No schedule orders us to move out at a specific time. But when we do get up we are eager to begin the day. Birch runs outside as soon as he wakes up to feed and water the chickens, and Veda usually accompanies him. I fix a breakfast of fresh eggs and whatever else we have on hand. Then we usually all end up down in the garden to give it some love...squashing the squash bugs (sorry, squash bugs...not much love for you!), pulling weeds and harvesting whatever is ripe.

Sometimes we have errands to run or bread to bake or other busy things to do. But some days we go to a park or the library or just hang out being lazy, taking walks or playing until Veda's naptime rolls around after lunch.

I'll never forget all our summers. Even before I met Scott, even before I had Veda and moved to Asheville, once I went freelance and gave up the Rat Race, Birch and I have had these lazy, gorgeous garden and porch summers that seem to amble on on like a good slow song.

I am grateful to Scott for supporting this aspect of our lives...for getting up in the dark and going to a job he doesn't like every single day so Veda can spend her afternoons running naked in the backyard and playing with butterflies. So I can spend summer days canning salsa from our tomatoes and making pickles from our cucumbers. And I'm grateful that he is willing to never have any money and live so close to the bone so life can be so rich for us in other ways.

We are fortunate indeed.

river day

2010-05-27T18:43:00.000-07:00

Sunshine baby

Throwing stones into the river on our hike on the Warren Wilson River Trail.

Some of my nettle harvest drying in the kitchen.

Veda has been crazy about rivers lately, so this morning we took a trip out to the trail that runs along the Swannanoa River on the campus of Warren Wilson College. We hiked out for 15 or 20 minutes then settled down on a little bank that was covered with sweet, blue butterflies. Veda immediately wanted to get in the water, so it was off with the clothes and she went straight in. Such a good time...we need to do a "river day" at least once a week. :-)

I went by myself yesterday to the bank of the French Broad River, but with more of a purpose than just fun in the sun. I had heard that I could find stinging nettle there...and, yes, there were FIELDS of it! Not something you'd want to encounter by accident, I guess, but for me it was a bonanza. I harvested a huge shopping bag full of beautiful, vibrant green nettle to dry for my daily tea.

Inspiration

2010-05-12T10:35:00.001-07:00

Mother's Day at Craggy Gardens.

Inspiration...it's everywhere. Too bad there is never enough time in the day to take advantage of it all! Case in point: I had to admit a sort of defeat with my Poem a Day for a Month project.

NOTE TO SELF: Never vow to create a poem a day for a month during a month when you have a child on spring break and two different sets of relatives visiting.

At any rate, I will eventually write enough "make-up poems" to finish out the month...but it will take time, of course. I do believe, however, that ultimately the project was a success because the first couple of weeks where I actually did write a poem a day were phenomenal. I mean, I had seriously forgotten that I was capable of creative writing...of taking the plain old, nothing special moments of everyday life and assigning to them words that evoke images and feelings. Of course, I didn't always do that (which is obvious if you've read the poems! ha!) but there were moments...there were sparks.

This morning, I was talking to my amazing friend Virginia while our insane toddlers hurled themselves with abandon around the slides and swing sets at Oakley Park, and through the child-watching frenzy (only the parent of a toddler can relate to this) we were able to chat a little about being a mom and the creative process.

Virginia does a fascinating radio program and blog (check her out at http://www.systemiceffect.org/) that takes an enormous amount of time and energy, and she does it while also being a very devoted and conscious single mama. I bemoaned my inability to paint or write or sew or do ANYTHING not directly related to homemaking and childcare for more than a few paltry minutes snatched here and there from sleep time or family time. She agreed, and said that she finds herself to actually be most content when she is devoting herself entirely to being a mom and keeping a clean, orderly household. But, she is driven to create. She is driven to put her voice out there in the universe. And so she goes without sleep...or makes herself a little bit crazier by struggling constantly to carve out time for her work.

She inspired me. So now, I am cutting this short-ish so I can go work on my latest painting. I need it.

Poem for April 27

2010-04-27T10:07:00.001-07:00

Big gap here in the poetry...things have been busy, to say the least. So, now I'll be playing catch-up for awhile.

there are poems to write
and images of eggplants
and goddesses that need

translation
into the wet, vibrant
language of paint
and canvas.

there is wool to be felted,
quilts to be sewn, beer
unbrewed, money somewhere
to be made.

but it all must wait
for now,
my hands are full

with my child
in the heart
of childhood.

April 19 and SO FAR BEHIND!!!

2010-04-19T19:10:00.000-07:00

I'm not giving up. I'm still going to write a poem for each day of this month. But it is definitely taking some time.

I've realized something important...there is great truth to what Alice Walker said when I saw her speak a few years back in Hickory: Writers need TIME. In order to write, you must have a lot of down time. You must have a lot of alone time. You must have time that to others looks suspiciously like loafing, but which is really the incubator for creativity.

Without time to stroll around your yard talking to trees, time to sit perfectly still and stare aimlessly at the moon, time to lean back against a wall and feel the cool of the earth against your legs...without this, the brain has no time to process images...to do that alchemy that is turning an impression into words.

And sadly folks, this is a thing I do not have right now. My days fly by in a whirlwind of sleepless nights, meal-cooking, laundry-doing, question-answering, tadpole water-changing, boo-boo kissing, kid-ferrying, toddler-cajoling insanity. I careen from one needy person to another administering love and food and occasional reprimands and by the end of each very long day, after all the little monsters are tucked in their beds, I crumple into a shapeless heap on the sofa, barely a single brain cell sputtering.

This, my friends, is the stuff of life and often the stuff of inspiration, but it doesn't allow me to write a poem every single freakin' day for crying out loud! (((sigh)))

Alas, I shall perservere. One day I will actually get to my goal and have a full April of poems here for all to read and enjoy or else grimace at.

So...poem for April 15 is this:

Do you know what this is?
asks my neighbor's daughter
who is three. I look at her
etch-a-sketch with one square
and one rectangle one
inside the other, and I say,
It's a building.

Well, no, she says, of course
not. So, preoccupied
with grownup things, I mumble,
It's a box, because that is what
I see. But her sea-green eyes crackle
with mirth at my stupidity
and she patiently explains,

Noooo,
It is a robot tummy.

And so it is.
She is absolutely right.
And for just one moment
her fairy hands have pulled
me, dark and ponderous,
back into the light
of childhood.

Poem for April 14

2010-04-15T11:39:00.000-07:00

Ack! Still a day behind. Story of my life...always playing catch up.

This morning, thanks to a cool story on NPR, I learned that coincidentally April is National Poetry Month! How apropos. Obviously the National Poetry People found out about this blog and decided to make a national observance in its honor. Or not. Funny that I had no idea about that when I came up with the idea to do this (originally considered a "good" idea and now considered a "what the hell was I thinking?" idea).

The NPR story was also interesting because they had some lady from the National Poetry People Thingie read some favorite poems by some amazing poets that I didn't all catch because my toddler was repeatedly telling me "no" about breakfast and my son was complaining about having to do carpool. One thing I did catch was some poems by William Stafford, whom I used to read a million years ago, but have since forgotten about. Ah..the craftsmanship! The skullduggery of his words. Inspiring...and terrifying...to someone who who loves the art but putters pathetically with it.

And so, on with The Show...

There are days -
whole days -
that are a frog in the throat,

a pencil with the eraser
chewed off,
a spoiled pear.

There are days
that are two flat tires
in the rain with no spare,

a pimple on the end
of your nose or a worried
hangnail that won't come off.

I sigh through them,
these stingy days, or yell
and burn the scrambled eggs.

Sometimes I cry
along with the babies when the sun
pulls up stakes for the night.

But it's all good in the end.
The sun comes shuffling
back, rubbing his eyes,

and I remember
that this is just where we are
and this is just what it is
in the here and now.

Poem for April 13

2010-04-14T10:55:00.000-07:00

Behind again. Yesterday was insane. And Veda won't sleep...less than normal, even. Which means no free time or down time for mama. (((sigh))) On the bright side, we do have a bunch of new tadpoles in the family now...5 Japanese Firebellies and 1 Leopard frog who was a freebie from the pet store because he hitchhiked in with a school of goldfish.

Being not-quite-two,
the world is a full place
and sunshine endless.

April 12 Poem

2010-04-12T19:55:00.000-07:00

Tired
feels like a dishrag
in a kitchen that feeds
a big family
who has no dishwasher:
frayed at the edges,
soft and holey
in the center,
and faded all over
from too much wear.

catching up...Poem for April 11

2010-04-11T18:34:00.000-07:00

I miss that old place
up on the hill and way
out there in the middle
of nowhere.

that creek sang to me
like an eager lover
all night through open
wavy-glass windows.

the sweetgum trees sighed
and shook their heads
at my young, unrooted,
and artless ways.

It is joyous and sad that
without me the arrowheads
still doze beneath the pebbles
in the creekbed,

the winters still wrap
the dry hayfields
and proud little house
in a quilt of silence,

and spring still pops
each year like an imp
from behind the clouds
to claim it all in the name
of No One In Particular.

Still owe this one for April 10!

2010-04-11T15:08:00.001-07:00

Wow...I'm behind. This stinks. So I'm going to do a cheap trick here and write a little haiku for April 10, then hopefully catch up (with maybe another haiku?) tonight. At least, that's the plan. Wish me luck!

several platoons
of sugar ants marching to
my kitchen scrap pail

Poems for April 9 & 10

2010-04-10T12:07:00.000-07:00

Well, again I have to do two poems in one day because I never got time to sit down yesterday and write. This is hard! Between working and being mom, there is no time for things like writing and exercising and reading and contemplating...important things, but during this phase of my life, they go by the wayside. Ah, well. Here we go...

I think the real American Dream died
somehow, sometime
in the cold of the night
and no body was ever found.

No somber obituary was written,
no grand eulogy was delivered
in a breaking voice
before a weeping crowd.

Our Dream slipped away from us
quietly, frail,
her heart hollowed from neglect,
already become a hungry ghost

while we worried with prejudice,
felt our hearts break or soar
for unreal lives on a flat screen,
shopped for Rollback specials at box stores.

That one's been floating around in the brainpan for a few weeks...not fully formed. I think the above was just a draft. A direct response to my recent unsavory dealings with banks and bureaucracy and a resulting new understanding of the general fragility of "durable goods" such as houses and vehicles and such.

Will have to get to the next poem later. For now, I have to work.

Poems for April 7 & 8

2010-04-08T14:00:00.001-07:00

Ack! I didn't write a poem yesterday! I fell asleep on the futon last night watching "Sherlock Holmes" with a belly full of wild mushroom enchiladas and tres leches from Limones (hurray for tax refunds!). So, I owe two now. Guess I'd better get cracking.

The asparagus
crowns, long and wild like witch hair,
green magic inside.

Okay. There's one. Now, there's this other I wrote in my head and forgot. Let's see if I can find it...

When the rain started
after lunch, the whole world
inside this house

went to sleep
like nursing babies
in the hypnotic blue.

But the world outside
our walls split open
with a rush of color:

lime, young melon, jade,
seawater, spearmint, emerald,
the brilliance of moss.

April is a drug
that both heals us
and makes us high.

Poem for April 6

2010-04-06T19:00:00.000-07:00

Long and convoluted by very awesome spring day. Veda and I went to a park, played in a creek, screamed a bit, tried to nap but couldn't, ate some pumpkin seeds and danced to an African drummer in the GreenLife parking lot. Then we came home and while Papa Bear worked on building some raised beds in the backyard, we grilled some tofu, tossed some salad, mixed up some wicked dressing, washed some dishes, fussed a little bit and ate some supper. Now it is time to sleep....

And thus, from nowhere in particular shoots this verse....

Thanks

Tonight it is beans again
and rice, and maybe some carrots
if they're cheap.

The spring breeze floats
through the ripped screen,
The bluegrass ripples

Past me from the half-broken
Boombox I've considered
throwing away, but am too lazy.

Though I long for sushi,
I know we are blessed
with this simple meal because
I remember

The man in Yang Shuo
with no legs, who shared
jokes with us as he begged.

And the father in Hanoi
with the melted face
and torso from the napalm

who tried to smile when we
gave him a coin, but couldn't,
so his toothless wife did for him.

And those babies in the Mosquitia,
playing in the sun, under palms,

with ribs like my daughter's plastic
xylophone,
sleeping under a roof of cardboard.

We, the blessed, we have these gifts:
The wind, and our roof, and our forgetfuless --
And those who share them with us.

We are blessed.

Poem for April 5

2010-04-05T19:01:00.000-07:00

From a fun day of working compost into the garden with Veda:

Pretty, she babbles
As she strokes the pink ribbon
Of wiggling earthworm.

Poem for April 4

2010-04-04T20:21:00.000-07:00

I am tired. I do not want to write a poem. Which seems like a good argument for not doing this Month of Poetry crap. I mean, what's the point of writing poetry (supposedly a leisure activity for me) when I just want to go to bed and not write ANYTHING?

The fact that tomorrow is my deadline with the paper and I just spent several hours turning verbose press releases into banal but concise news briefs, could quite possibly be the reason for my rebellion. My brain is quite sick of words at the moment.

But here we go...

The community tiller broke
And needing to break up
The squash bed
I swung a wooden-handled
Hoe high into the clear sky
Then down again in a hard
Swoosh, over and over
into the relentless

Earth, a space
The size of two SUV's or
A swimming pool --
Not so big.

And the ground
Did relent little by little,
And I felt for a time
Jubilation,

And then I felt
A grain or two of the truth
Of the life of the women
Of this world
Who have no choice
But to beat life

For themselves
And their babies
Out of the dirt
Day after day
After sweaty day.

Poem for April 3

2010-04-03T20:06:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm running close to deadline here, but hey...that's my style. So, I have absolutely NO idea what I'm going to put down in the next few minutes. Impromptu poem-craft...let us see what unfolds...

POEM FOR APRIL 3

Finding the hostas
shooting sunbound
like rockets from their
forgotten bed
in the cold shade
of the wall makes me lose
for a moment the angry
ant of worry that will not
give up the trail.

April 2 - DAY TWO - POEM #2

2010-04-02T18:15:00.000-07:00

Well, today was a hard one to squeeze in. And only the second day of the month...oh no! Granted, today was WAY busier than usual. Very much not the normal routine. Birch got out of school at noon, we dyed Easter eggs and had an egg hunt, then I drove the 3-hour round trip to drop him off at his dad's for the holiday...THEN I came home and Scott and Veda and I went out to Highland Brewery for an hour of beer and games and barbecue.

So now I'm back, and this is the poem that has emerged from this day. Actually, it comes directly from my trip to drop Birch off with his dad, who was cleaning out out the last of his things from what used to be our old home...the place where Birch was nearly born and where he lived most of his young life.

And so here you have it...day two and already resorting to the brevity of haiku to fulfill my commitment. Ah, well...one does what one can.

Here it is:

Indian Creek laughs
remembering that lost spring
one decade ago.

a poem a day

2010-04-01T10:49:00.000-07:00

Happy April Fools! I sorta hate April Fools Day. I'm not good at practical jokes and I often am a big wet blanket when people play them on me, so I'm celebrating this day with...POETRY! Yay!

My whole life, ever since I could pick up a fat pencil and scribble a word, I have thought of myself as a poet. But lately it seems I don't write anymore. I could blame it on having toddler and a 10-year old to chase, but even when my son was small I wrote a lot of poetry. I think now that I write for a living, I spend my creative energy on other activities like sewing and painting and felting.

But with the entrance of this much-needed and very vibrant spring weather, I have made a vow to renew my love of writing verse. I declare that each day for the month of April 2010, I will write one poem and publish it here.

They may not all be good. In fact, all of them may completely suck. And a lot of them will probably be haiku...or else very short...because there are days I'm lucky if I can get a shower and dress myself in between taking care of everyone else. BUT I will write.

So...here we go!

POEM FOR APRIL 1

Getting Her Down

You are my sunshine, he hums
To her in his dark, rhythmic
Orbit of the bedroom.

Each night he shuffles
This path, holding her slumped
Sweetness against his beating heart,

Rocking and loving the daylight
And restlessness from her bones.
She breathes lighter

And flutters finally to sleep
As he sends again his mantra
To the listening Universe:

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.

out like a lamb

2010-03-31T07:18:00.000-07:00

Veda wearing a shirt made for me by my grandmother when I was a baby and a pair of cotton pants I made for her.

I took a pair of jeans that Birch had outgrown and used some scraps from some old cordouroy pants to make...voila!...new pants for the hip, discerning child.

This has been a hard year so far. Financial woes like I never really imagined possible, including ridiculous issues with banks, insurance companies and the state government that ended up costing us many hundreds of dollars in "idiot fees." Illness...bizarre, mutated illnesses that seemed to go on forever. Gloomy weather...rain, unseasonable cold, even snow this late in the year...but always the gloom.

Yuck. Well, I'm glad it's over. Here's to April!

And with April comes my Month of Poems. For the entire month of April I will write a poem each and every day. And YES haiku counts.

One thing I did do a lot of in March, besides using my neti pot and taking care of sick people, was sewing. Made lots of pants for the family. Repurposed some old jeans for Birch and Scott and sewed Veda a couple of new pairs of pants using some pretty cotton and cordouroy I was given. Also, March brought me my spiffy new "sewing closet." Scott converted the junk closet in our computer/dining/play room into an area for my sewing machine and stuff. Very cool!

Happy Birthday to Birch!

2010-03-17T07:11:00.000-07:00

My St. Paddy's Day birthday boy being himself.

Just had to put in a birthday wish for my big 10-year-old boy! He's so excited to be double digits today.

He woke up early this morning and we had hung Christmas lights all over the house. I had put his gift on the table for him last night before bed so he would find it first thing (I knew he would get up super-early). It was a huge Lego set he had been wanting. I let him open it early because I knew he would want to start working on it right away. Then I made him a cheese and olive omelet.

Tonight's plans: Asiana for dinner (FREE on your birthday...wooHOO!) then the legendary Hamburger and French Fries sugar bomb cake from Bi-Lo that he has been wanting for years now.

Now...if only I could go watch G-Love at the Orange Peel tonight to celebrate my own not-so-insignificant role in his birth. Ah, well. Maybe next year...

office hours...

2009-11-13T07:05:00.000-08:00

Really needed to get some work done today so I'd have less to do over the weekend toward deadline, so I'm sitting in my Satellite Office....an amazing place on Tunnel Road in Asheville called Growing Young Cafe. Check it out...www.growingyoungcafe.com.

It's a huge coffee shop full of toys and games for kiddies, so I can work while Veda runs around entertaining herself. What would I ever do without it?

(By the way, my Satellite Office is actually way more posh than my Main Office, which is a corner of our living room with a TV tray set up to be my desk. Here I have a table and chair, plus people to make me a nice cup of green tea when I need it!) Oh, so looking forward to the day when we have the money to remodel and I get a 'real' space to do my work!!)

Chuckie T's

2009-10-20T11:25:00.001-07:00

Mad Crafting Update:

The latest addition to my etsy site: www.etsy.dreamsoftreesart.com -- Little Pumpkins Tie Dyed Halloween Onesies

Made this jacket for veda out of old felted wool sweater, love and insanity. It's a bit wonky because I screwed up the jacket pattern a little (copied it from a book) plus on a whim I decided to add a lining, and I have no idea how to do that...so it has some, um..character.

Now I'm working on a pair of felt and leather slippers for Veda. Poor kid...her mother dresses her funny and there's nothing she can do about it...mwa ha ha ha!!!

Chuckie T's......

I'm so proud! Yesterday my 9-year-old got his first pair of Converse All-Stars. I never thought I'd see the day. For so long he thought my all-time favorite shoes were "lame" and just for old folks like me (I have 3 pairs that I wear very often). But when we went shoe shopping yesterday he spotted a pair of black high tops with flames on the side and decided they were beyond awesome. I agreed...but made sure not to make a big deal about my approval lest he be spooked by my positive reaction.

So, I am keeping my giddiness to myself, but secretly rejoicing in my son's punk rock fashion choice. Rock on, little man! Next I'll have to somehow get you into the Ramones. =:-)

Papa Passes

2009-10-19T18:48:00.000-07:00

Zeus dancing with Scott in his younger days. With him is his son Apollo who died of a blood disease shortly before Scott and I met.

Papa Dog, that is. Our old papa Great Dane Zeus passed away Sunday around noon at the ripe old age of 10 (quite elderly for a Dane). Zeus was such a grand old fellow. So sweet-natured and friendly. He was always charming the ladies -- whenever we took him out for hikes, he would look for other hikers (particularly women) and make friends. He loved to be petted and hugged. He left behind his son Hercules, an Irish Wolfhound cross that is a little strange in the head, but loveable all the same.

After his passing, we buried him in the corner of the backyard where I plan to plant a shade garden. Birch was very distraught and tearful about his death -- he had gone down the hill to visit with him where he lay in the sunshine shortly before he died and was the last one to see him alive. He helped Scott dig the grave and we held a funeral to celebrate his life and mark his passing. Birch and I picked herbs and flowers from the yard, Scott and Birch threw in locks of their hair and I placed a handmade wool pillow under his head (he loved to lay on pillows, even though he was so big he needed a full-sized bed!).

Zeus, you will be missed, old friend!

Facebook | My Photos - our beautiful wedding

2009-10-14T17:45:00.000-07:00

Facebook My Photos - our beautiful wedding

More crafty photos

2009-10-10T17:16:00.001-07:00

A cute handbag with moon and star applique. Made out of a pair of old blue jeans and lined with leftover fabric from my wedding dress.

A plain onesie I decorated with a painted bird applique. I just paint the images onto the appliques with fabric paint.

A really bad photo of a really cute pin cushion.

Craft-tastic

2009-10-10T14:25:00.000-07:00

The front applique on a onesie I decorated. There is another one with a different chicken on the back. Veda loves this one and carried it around with her until I finally just gave it to her!

We live in a tiny house. We are two adults, a 9-year-old boy and very active toddler living in less than 900 square feet with only 2-bedroom . This means the baby has to sleep in our room (less than ideal, to say the least). But nearly equally as alarming is the fact that my craft addiction has no place to call home.

Our family's only table (located in the dining/play/study/computer room) is almost always occupied by my sewing machine, ironing board, iron and stacks of fabric, patterns and sewing books. Sadly for my long-suffering family, this usually means that in order for us to eat a meal or for Birch to do his homework, the mounds of stuff must be moved to the floor...where it will promptly be inspected and tasted or even chewed on by Veda.

Behind the table, in one of our house's rare areas of actualy floor space, are bags of fabric, a basket of needlefelting supplies (securely tied shut! can't have Veda chewing on felting needles!), and usually some half-finished paintings or other semi-completed projects.

In the living room, in the corner behind one of Veda's toy boxes, sits my baskets of yarn. I had to move the crochet and knitting stuff to the closet, because Veda kept trying to joust with the needles. ("You'll poke your eye out!")

We do have plans...someday, when we win the lottery, we want to renovate our basement and make another bedroom, a play room and a craft area. Until then, though, we just keep shuffling stuff around.

Anyway, I have been very busy lately with my craftiness. I'm working on a sweater coat for Veda...the decorations look pretty awesome, but I have to say that the sewing job is beyond terrible. Really. I'll take photos when I'm finished, but I am pretty embarrassed. It looks like it was assembled by hallucinating monkeys.

Other than that, Ive been making more of my crazy felt mushrooms and some other felt things and clothes that are up now on my etsy site (http://www.dreamsoftrees.etsy.com/). Also doing a bit of screen printing. I just can't stop!

married...with children

2009-10-07T18:47:00.000-07:00

We are officially official now. On 9-09-2009, I did what I said I'd never do and got married...again.

We went into this whole wedding thing with the thought that we would do it as simply and inexpensively as possible. And, by "Modern Bride" standards (RIP "Modern Bride"!) we did just that. But by our standards, things did end up going a bit overboard in the end. Both our bank accounts ended up overdrawn and we went a bit further down debtors' road. But we did have truly, the best possible wedding. I - with 2 previous wedding experiences to draw from -- like to refer to it as "my last best wedding." :-)

Just so you know, getting married when you already have two kids to take care of -- one of whom is a nursing toddler -- is an entirely different deal than tying the knot when you have no responsibilities. For one thing, the whole idea of a romantic honeymoon for two is pretty much out...or it was for us, anyway. There was no way I was leaving my nursling for very long, plus we don't have the money (or the room on my credit card) to pay for a trip to Jamaica or something.

So the wedding we ended up with was this: We chose the date 9-9-09 because Scott likes 9's and it seemed cool (yes, I can admit that). Nevermind that it fell on a Wednesday. Then we gathered all the friends and family we could find that were willing to get together in N.C. on a weekday to see us united in unholy matrimony and asked them to drive to the Linville Gorge with us...in the rain...and hike a mile up a steep mountain (Hawksbill). And that's where we had our ceremony.

It was pretty epic. It really did rain all day. Everyone was wet and cold and miserable and many were more than a little unhappy about the strenuous hike. Some family members were in their 70's (hi mom and dad!) and some were in grade school (Birch and Syd!) or even still nursing (Veda!). But everybody made it to the top, although my sister at one point turned to me and growled "I am NOT having fun!" and my neice cried for the first 15 minutes of the climb. This is the same neice who also commented "I wish I was just sitting in a big comfy chair watching TV instead of climbing this dumb mountain!" Fortunately, Sydney was won over by the grandeur of Hawksbill once we reached the summit and asked if we could "do it again tomorrow!"

And once we got to the top, it was truly amazing!! The sun came out and the mountains and rivers of the Linville Gorge surrounded us green serenity. My old friend T-Bone, who conveniently happens to be ordained in the Church of Universal Light (a very reputable online fellowship, I hear!) performed the ceremony. Scott and I read vows we had written the night before. Veda and I wore dresses that I had made for the occasion. Sydney (my flower girl) and I had crowns and I held a bouquet we made that morning from flowers and herbs grown in my garden (plus some crepe myrtle I stole from the parking lot at Abele's Restaurant in Morganton where we stopped for lunch...thanks Abele's!).

That night, after we drove back, we had dinner at a nice restaurant downtown (Magnolia's) then Scott and I spent the next two nights at the Chestnut Street Inn in Asheville, driving home during the day to be with the kids and visit with everyone. That Saturday our good friends Jenn and Brett hosted an amazing celebration for us at their house...friends of ours were there from all over the country. It was completely incredible to see so many old friends from so far away. I will never forget it.

Wow...as I write this, I'm realizing we really did have a dream wedding. It was perfect!

sleep-over

2009-08-06T19:57:00.000-07:00

Birch had his friend Michael over for a sleep-over last night. Michael is a Good Kid. He listens when you tell him something, is polite, eats what you serve him and makes sparkling conversation for a 9-year-old boy. Plus he always wears a black fedora...like every day. Sheesh. How adorable. No complaints here for him.

However, I do have complaints about MY kid who morphs into some sort of deranged, moody Yeti creature whenever his friends come over. His manners deteriorate until he is ape-like, he gets smart-mouthed and pushy, he whines more, begs more, wheedles more and generally gets on my nerves more. Ugh. Can you fire your own kid? If so, he is totally fired.

Part of it is the fact that they stay up so late and get up so damned early (what's up with that? I remember doing that and I still can't fathom why...at what point is it that we started to cherish sleep...i can't remember that either...). This, I reason exhausts them and makes their emotions a bit raw. Then there's the sugar thing...

I'm not big on feeding kids sugar. He gets more than his share, but mainly because he is an amazing opportunist and takes advantage of the fact that I am often distracted with work or the baby to grab extra helpings of whatever sweets are available. But today...(((sigh)))...okay, brace yourselves...this story is classic....

I took the boys to the movies. The baby will NOT sit still for a movie, so I get them seated and give them $5 to buy "popcorn and anything else they need" knowing that popcorn is $2 each and water is provided free. They said popcorn was what they wanted, so i figure the worst they can do is get a candybar to share between them...this I can handle. So, then I take the baby outside to walk around, etc. and later I find out that instead of getting popcorn, they used the money to buy 5 - $1 candy bars!!!!! AND...this is the best part...Michael doesn't like candy that much, so my son ate 4 of the candy bars...by himself!!!

Can you imagine this??? Can you imagine eating 4 normal sized snickers, m&m's or whatever...ALL AT ONCE??? He didn't even act hyper afterwards. It's spooky, really.

I love sweets, personally, but even I am dumbfounded by this. Is he some sort of sugar mutant? How does his body process it all? really.

My Big Fat Jewish-Hawaiian-Japanese Wedding

2009-08-04T18:31:00.000-07:00

I'm clearly quite insane. Evidence: This past weekend I took The Boy and The Baby on a 2-day trip to Boston for my good friend's wedding. By myself.

Actually, I must still cling to some remnant of sanity because I opted out of the 24-hour long drive (visions of Veda shrieking from the bondage of her carseat for miles and endless miles....Birch asking every 30 seconds "are we there yet?") and I decided to break out the old credit card for some plane fare.

In retrospect, the travel part wasn't too bad...compared to something like 12 hours of back labor or getting your wisdom teeth removed with no painkiller. Veda had been getting her eye teeth the whole week before, which meant about 6 nights of screaming (Veda screaming, me crying) and no sleep, but thankfully she seemed to come out of it by the time we left.

We had to drive 2-1/2 hours to Charlotte for the flight, so I decided to spend the night before the trip at my friends' house in Cornelius to break up the travel time a little. That was fun. We drank wine and at homemade pizza the night before...stayed up a bit late and drank a bit too much wine, but hey, you only live once.

Anyway, we lucked out on the flight up...even with a stupid layover in D.C., we had no delays (what are the odds?) and the kids were great. Birch was super-helpful and Veda traveled like a pro. Thank goddess for my Ergo. Can't imagine doing the trip without it.

The wedding was so cool...Daryl (mi amigo from way, way back) is Japanese-American and grew up in Hawaii and his bride Becky is Jewish and the descendant of Holocaust survivors. So what we had was a wedding with Jewish klezmer band (accordian and all), leis, paper cranes, an aikido demonstration, singing in Hebrew and a rousing round of "banzai" at the end of the reception. They held it at a pre-Revolutionary War era farm in the Berkshires and it was just fantastically beautiful...flowers, flowers, everywhere.

And bonus...I even saw (or experienced) a ghost when I was upstairs in the old farmhouse nursing the baby. It was so freaky...it was just me and Veda up there in this incredibly old house full of antiques. It was totally quiet and really, really hot. We went into a bedroom and I locked the door with a bolt lock so Veda couldn't run out of the room and onto the stairs. We sat down on an antique sofa and I had just whipped out a boob, when the bolt flew up and the door slammed open. It startled me because I thought somebody was coming into the room (even though it was bolted from the INSIDE...duh!) but there was NOBODY THERE!!!! Yeah. Veda laughed. I sat there nervously for about 10 seconds, then we got up and left.

So, now we're home...exhausted but happy. It was a fun trip. And now that I've done it, I'm ready to do it again. Hey...maybe if I come into some money I can go back to my globe-trotting road rat ways...this time with babies in tow. :-)

the summer passes

2009-07-21T08:57:00.001-07:00

Birch being his usual silly self at Scott's birthday celebration last week.

It seems impossible that it is almost the end of July! Thursday is Veda's birthday, then the party Saturday night, then the following weekend me and the kids go to Boston for Daryl's wedding. Every day is a mix of laid back and crazy. Birch is doing skateboard camp right now, then next week cartooning camp. And of course these endless therapy sessions. Right now he goes at least 4 times a week!

I'm just realizing how completely drained I am from all these therapy sessions. I can only imagine how he feels. But we have to do it. Thanks to the sorry state of our nation's healthcare non-system at the moment, I only can afford therapy for him through the medicaid I get because of my status as a "single" mom right now. My income qualifies me and the kids. However, once Scott and I get married in September, I won't be a "single" parent anymore and his income, although inadequate to pay for insurance for me and the kids, will bump us out of the medicaid qualifying range.

So. In September, my kids and I will lose our medicaid, Birch will no longer be able to do therapy, and we must squeeze it all in over the summer. One summer for a 9 year old to learn how to pronounce sounds and deal with physical maneuvers he's never been able to do! I wish we'd found out about his challenges sooner. Ah...how a mother can torture herself. BUT, the wonderful thing is how Birch has stepped up and dealt with all this...he is learning his "R" sounds!!! He is writing in cursive!!! It's truly amazing. Miraculous.

now i'm cooking with gas!

2009-07-03T18:52:00.000-07:00

Today I got a stove. It's white and clean and perfect...and it cooks with GAS! Yes, I am a huge gas stove nerd. I've wanted this freakin' stove for like 20 years, and now thanks to the convenience of craigslist and a my willingness to take advantage of a down-on-her-luck woman forced to thin her belongings in order to buy food, I am now the proud owner of an almost-new, pristine, snow-white gas range.

I swoon over gas ranges solely because of the year I lived in that old apartment building owned by the old Bulgarians in St. Pete, FL. Our particular apartment had been inhabited by the owners for quite a long time, and the appliances were vintage, to say the least. There were lots of other perks like a very cool ironing board that folded up into the wall and a large selection of choice, used leopard-print furniture available for free in the storage room below us. But the coolest thing was the huge, ancient gas stove that sat like a tired elephant against the wall of our kitchen.

It had a ton of big, clunky dials on the front and it was really about as big as a VW Bug. You had to light it with matches and I'm pretty sure it wouldn't pass any modern safety inspections. When you had the oven on, the kitchen heated up so much you could have fired pottery on the kitchen table. I loved it. Despite its oldness and the danger factor, it was the most perfect cooking device I had ever used. Gas burners allow you to be detailed and precise about how you cook your food. I was spoiled. And ever after I have pined for the blue flame of gas.

crafting non-update

2009-05-07T09:04:00.001-07:00

With all the illness and teething and miserable boobages around here, there has been no crafting going on. Ah, well. I do have photos of a few more things though -- some are on my etsy site at http://www.dreamsoftrees.etsy.com/ and some are not.

The little blue dress I made for Veda a few weeks ago. It is made from an old skirt and an old men's shirt. I like it a lot, but it is too big right now, so will have to wait. The ball is a needlefelted jingle ball that's on the etsy site along with the little shirt. THe shirt was an old one that I tie dyed then appliqued with some fabric scraps. I dig the mushroom motif. (cuz I lika the shrooms...the wildcrafted edible kind, of course!)

the crazies

2009-05-07T08:51:00.000-07:00

It seems like life throws the crazy stuff at you in fistfuls...not ever in manageable bite-sized morsels.

I guess it's common knowledge that things go along okay for a short time, then suddenly -- powpowpow -- you get socked with a whole lot of nuttiness all at once. But I just never get used to it.

I'm drained right now. The flying fistfuls of awfulness have finally got me down. The whole family...including me...have been sick with this rotten, dragging-on fever/sore throat/body ache thingie for a week. There was this weird twister the other night that knocked out power and took down trees and squashed my new garden pretty flat. THe baby is getting another tooth and screams and screams all night so there's no rest for any of the weary and sick. Worst of all, my dang boobies are in agony. I let princess nurse too much during her illness, and now I have excruciating sore nipples. And guess what? Yep. All she wants to do right now while she's teething is nurse.

I guess, you know, this is just life. That thing that's not for sissies (or is that old age? I always confuse those.). But right now, even with the persistence of that indescribable shade of pale spring green practically tumbling through my windows, I am feeling pretty down and out. Physically more than mentally, I guess, which is somewhat of a beacon of hope.

So for now, I breathe. In and out. Just this moment. And this one. And this one. And I just have to remember to ride it until it levels out...and gather my strength for more.

crafty update

2009-04-24T09:23:00.000-07:00

So in the past few months I've gone wild for wool. And this is what I'm into:

-- Currently working on making a pillow out of felted sweaters with a needlefelted piece in the center.

-- Making dish cloths for the kitchen on the knifty knitter looms out of cotton yarn.

-- Loom knitting hats out of this incredibly soft organic cotton yarn for the family.

-- Weaving a rug for Birch's room out of old bedsheets that were on their way to Goodwill.

And I'm still...always...painting here and there. Plus some odds and ends of sewing projects, etc. I posted a few photos here of some recent stuff I've done. It's so fun! A woman at Birch's school used to raise sheep and she just gave me 3 trash bags full of raw wool, so at the moment I am experimenting with washing and carding this wool for future projects. Hoping to get into some wet felting soon! Yay!

special night

2009-04-24T08:27:00.000-07:00

With Scott working out of town for the 4th week in a row, I sometimes now get the pleasure of waking up in a bed full of angels. I realize that's a very precious thing for me to say...all Hallmarky-sounding. Ugh. But really, sleeping with both my kids, while not always conducive to the best night's sleep, is usually a cozy and amazing way to wake up in the morning.

Birch calls it "Special Night." Longtime co-sleepers he and I, after finally being forcibly removed from my bed just after his 7th birthday (okay, it was bittersweet for me as well), I now allow him very occasionally to come share the bed with the baby and I when Scott is away. And he loves it.

It's funny...Birchman needs his beauty sleep and will be the first to tell you so...and sleeping with Veda is what I imagine it would be like to sleep with an insomniac spider monkey, but nevertheless, he claims he doesn't mind her crawling all over him in the middle of the night.

And this morning...aw, gosh...to wake up to this warm spring sunshine with the two of them nestled together like little puppies beside me...it was the most perfect thing in the universe.

where i'm at

2009-04-07T06:46:00.000-07:00

Ah...today feels alright. Finally past the Horrible Week of Plague (so fun having your baby miserably sick with an awful cold while you have the same cold and a sinus infection...who mothers the mother, I ask you???). Scott's still out of town for the second week in a row and that blows, but there is an April snowstorm today, which is oddly satisfying and my baby is sleeping in my arms as I type this and I have the whole day ahead of me to sew and bake and felt...so...ahhhhh....I'm going to relax a bit in this little piece of bliss. :-)

2009-03-21T17:31:00.001-07:00

milestones

2009-03-19T19:11:00.000-07:00

This is crazy! Veda is only 7-1/2 months old and she is already about to walk. What is up with this? Where has my baby gone?

She started crawling not long after the holidays. It was maybe sometime in late January that she pushed herself up on all fours, rocked back and forth a few times, stuck out a tentative arm...and off she went. She practiced a bit before she took off...it was a period of a couple of weeks where she was really trying to work out how to do this movement thing. But it didn't take her long.

She's so different from her brother. Birch learned to crawl at around 7 months or so. But before that he was an expert roller. He spent a good month or more rolling very quickly from place to place. He would look at something, point to it and then roll right to it. It was so funny! And once he started crawling, you couldn't stop him. He love it...and he was FAST! He loved it so much that he didn't even bother walking on his own until he was 16 months old. (He did, however, very much enjoy walking around holding onto my finger from about 12 months...oohh, my aching back!)

Veda, however, is not much interested in this crawling business. Inferior transport, I can almost see her thinking as she reluctantly crawls after the adored cats after trying desperately to figure out how to get upright. She had only been crawling like 3 hours or something when she worked out how to push her bottom up in the air in downward facing dog, and she had only been crawling like 3 days when she figured out how to pull up on furniture and stand up. Now she spends the whole day standing next to the furniture trying to figure out how the HECK we do this.

Also, she has learned to clap. It's so funny. For several days I have noticed her watching her hands again...like she did when she was a tiny baby and still trying to figure out that they were attached to her. Then today I saw her watching them and slapping them around, then BANG...she clapped them...and was delighted! She did it! It happened at her Mother Goose story time at the library. She was so excited. She also waved today to a stranger at the chiropractor's office and shook her booty to a reggae version of John Denver's "Country Roads" at Mother Goose.

It's been quite a day. So many milestones. I feel exhausted!

gag me

2009-03-04T07:30:00.000-08:00

This morning I had one of those mothering moments that was so stupendous that it has burned itself indelibly onto the walls of my memory. It went like this:

It's 8 a.m. and I am in my daily Near-Frantic Mode trying to dress myself, gather the baby's things, make sure Birch has all his things and get us out the door in time to keep him from getting one of those stupid "tardies." (I want to beat to death the nincompoop who decided that any kid who is a minute late gets a "tardy" and that any kid with 3 tardies is in some sort of trouble...whoever came up with this idea definitely didn't have to get both an 8-year-old and a baby out the door.) I run out the door to turn the car on to thaw it out and when I run back in the house to grab the kids, I notice the baby has crawled under the coffee table. When I bend down to get her, I notice she is...ugh..I can barely even type this...she is grinning up at me while happily snacking on a...a...a...

A pile of cat puke.

UGH!!! grossgrossgross

Yep. It was the chunky kind, too. Like the offending cat didn't even bother to chew...just gulped it down then yacked it back up, kibble intact.

She seemed annoyed when I scooped her up and frantically wiped and washed it off her chin and mouth. "Sheesh, Mom," she was thinking,"What's your deal, anyway? Can't I even snack?'

I think I'm totally traumatized. I'll never be able to erase that image from my head. And I thought that the time Birch was a baby and had a rotavirus and puked right into my open mouth was nasty...

Ah, motherhood.

felt

2009-02-25T10:15:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I did the unthinkable and woke the baby up from her afternoon nap. There was a needlefelting workshop at a local cafe smack in the middle of naptime, and since I have been curious about this weird craft for awhile now, I decided to be wild and crazy and go for it.

I'm so glad I did it! Needlefelting is indeed about the oddest thing you could ever imagine spending your spare time on, but something about it really resonates with me. Basically, what you do is you get a big hank of raw wool and a tiny little barbed needle and you stab the wool over and over and over until it turns into whatever you want it to be. It's way easy and an excellent way to vent any nagging frustrations -- like stabbing a voodoo doll again and again. Plus there's this thing about it...you can sort of "paint" with wool. You blend the colors all together and create really cool stuff.

The best part is, you don't have to have any coordination or skill whatsoever. All you have to have is the needle and the wool and a level of inertia that allows you to sit for a fair amount of time doing repetitive jabbing motions.

So yesterday I made a fried egg and a little blue ball with a sun on it. And today I made a strawberry. Next, who knows? A doll? A flower? A replica of the Lincoln Memorial? The skies the limit. If I can just keep the cats and the baby away from my wool balls, that is.

veda's amazing birth story (very graphic - read at your own risk!)

2009-02-05T09:58:00.000-08:00

I originally wrote this in a letter to my friend Kim while Veda nursed or napped. It was all a bit haphazardly thrown together and I haven't edited it at all, so please excuse the roughness of it...

I went to see the midwife on July 22 and was 2cm dilated, 50% effaced so I knew it was coming...I had felt it coming on for days already anyway. I kinda felt like I was in early labor for almost a week (while we were moving all the shit out of my house in 95 degree weather! totally no fun, that)...you know...lots of random, braxton-hicks-like contractions, and was just generally feeling like I was going into that "birth zone."
Then at 3am on July 23 I woke up with a really strong contraction and I had a pretty good feeling that the big stuff was starting. I waited until 4:30 or so to wake up Scott...until then I just paced around the house in the dark and breathed and meditated and stuff. When Scott got up he started getting the birth pool ready and made up the bed and all. I tried to sit in a chair by our back window to watch the sun rise over the woods, but as soon as I sat down I got a big, fat contraction that really got my attention and I started moaning and told Scott to call the midwife right away. He had a hard time getting the midwife to call back -- it was around 6 or 7am by this time. I went to the bathroom and found out I had bloody show...lots of it. At about 8am the midwife and her apprentice/assistant arrived and by then I had laid down on my side on the bed with pillows between my legs...the contractions were hard and strong...I had to chant and sing through each one to keep focused...I played the "Birth Chants" cd on a loop over and over and used the chants on the cd to focus also.
Rani checked me at about 10am or so and I was at 7cm and 100% effaced. she told me I should get up to help move the baby down more, so I got up but it HURT to move...and it was disrupting my little peaceful mental cocoon, so I sort of limped in to the birth pool and got in...with my socks still on! SO funny...I just didn't want to take them off so Scott just let me be and I got in with them on.
For the next hour the contractions got more and more intense and I just hung over the edge of the tub on hands and knees and chanted my way through them. With each contraction kept feeling this overwhelming urge to push (never felt that with Birch). FInally Rani checked me again and I was at 9-10cm, BUT...I had a cervical lip. Arrrrgggghhh! Rani said she wanted to go inside me during my next contraction and move it,but it was gonna hurt like a mother...When she tried to do it, I freaked and splashed her with water. So, we decided to wait a bit and see if it would go away. Long story short, it didn't move and finally she went in and moved it...by that time I was so over the overwhelming contractions that I was just glad to get it over with.
Then Scott got in the water behind me and leaned against him, pulled my knees up and started pushing...it felt like I was pushing a truck out of my body! It was just this huge, primal rolling thunder of craziness...and then...she crowned!!! Yay!!! I was so excited! I could feel her hairy little head in my yoni...it was so weird! Then I pushed really, really hard and felt the 'ring of fire' and her head came out...and I was so excited and pleased for like 1/2 a second, then Rani started to freak...she ordred me to get on my hands and knees..."right now!" she said. I was like "hell no, I'm not, I just got that huge head out" and then she ordered Scott to flip me over, and so I got on hands and knees...I knew then something was really wrong and I started to feel sad, like my baby might be dead...
Rani ordred Jen (the apprentice) to call 911 then she started the most painful thing...she went inside me and started pulling and twisting to get the baby out...the baby had shoulder dystocia!! I thought she'd never get her out. Turns out the cord was wrapped several times around her neck and torso like a harness also, which was making it all more difficult. When she finally got her out, I collapsed down and didn't look up at first because I thought the baby was dead.
When I did look up, Scott was holding her and she was ENORMOUS (9lbs 8oz) and looked so foreign to me...not like Birch who I knew right away...plus she was totally limp and smashed-looking and dark blue. I thought she was dead...but Rani was working with her...and she got her breathing...
They pulled me out of the tub and we stumbled down the hall to the bed...I was dragging this huge, long umbilical cord and dumping so much blood all over the floor! We got in bed and they put Veda on my chest...and she was doing fine!!! About then the paramedics all showed up...there were at least 4 or 5 of them standing in my bedroom looking all embarrassed (butt nekkid me and all this blood everywhere) because Rani told them everything was fine and they could go.
A few minutes later I delivered the placenta...the HUGE placenta! It weighed around 5lbs -- biggest one Rani had ever seen. No wonder I had placenta previa -- it stretched from the top of my uterus to the cervix for most of my pregnancy.
Turns out Rani being such a kick-ass midwife saved Veda from being severely brain damaged or dying. WHen a baby gets stuck with shoulder dystocia,there is a 4 minute window for them to get the baby out. If they don't make it, it's death or severe mental and physical handicap. Rani got her out in about 2 minutes -- by being a no-shit, takeover awesome midwife. YAY Rani!!
SO, that's my story. It was a great birth. Scary at the end, but it all turned out okay. i couldn't have asked for a better birth partner than Scott or a better midwife than Rani. Birch had wanted more than anything in the world to be there for the birth, but he was visiting his dad then and didn't get a ride home until 2 hrs after she was born. Turns out that was a good thing, because he would have completely had a melt down and lost his shit if he had seen me in all that pain and bleeding and the baby looking all dead at the end. The universe had a good plan in keeping him out of the picture.

turrets

2009-01-16T08:38:00.000-08:00

I doubt there is any life experience quite as complex and surprising as parenting an 8-year-old. As a mother you realize that each age has its charms and challenges, but there is something completely unexpected and edgy about this 8-year-old thing...we have entered a new frontier.

For one thing, his body has become his own. Gone are the days when I felt I knew his physical being as well as I know my own. He dresses himself behind closed doors and selects his wardrobe based apparently on the prime directive of some chaotic alternate world dedicated to egregious color combinations and nonsensical layering. We do not hug and cuddle like we used to do. We don't have our long weekend mornings of hugs and stories leading to pancakes...now he gets up before we do and begins his mysterious rituals with the computer and his supremely important collections of trading cards and comic books. He has suddenly, almost overnight it seems, stretched out and grown into a lanky, bony fellow immersed in secret worlds of his own design.

And the mouth on this kid! This year he knows everything. Even more than before. Everything. And he is not even near puberty yet. It is most disturbing. I mean, I'm not even allowed to be the expert on ANYTHING anymore -- not even "mom" stuff like compost and grilled cheese. It bruises one's ego a bit.

I can handle the know-it-all-stuff, though, it's the incessant lawyering and backtalk that gets me. I start off each day swearing to treat our relationship like a moving meditation. He is my guru, I tell myself, my great teacher. I will take our experiences and learn from them.

Yes. This is what I tell myself. But by suppertime I am nearly apoplectic from explaining for the millionth time why we can't just leave the supper sitting on the stove and run to Wal-Mart Right Now so he can buy a pack of Pokemon cards that he can't live without...and then I veer insanely from apoplectic to morose and expasperated as he breaks into an absolutely stunning display of heaving sobs over my millionth 'no' to that same question. "You say 'no' to EVERYTHING," he shrieks, arms flailing dramtically over his head to illustrate that "everything" includes even the very air around him. "You never, EVER do anything I say." I am, indeed, a monster.

And so later, Baby Daddy and I find ourselves, after watching yet another incredible performance prompted by our announcement of bedtime, exhausted and chuckling, then giggling, then laughing hysterically over our situation. You see, during the bedtime eruption I found myself stuttering and nearly slobbering stupidly with frustration as I tried to reply to him...honestly, I swear my eyes were twitching. It was truly shocking. And Baby Daddy and I laughed.

"I think I'm developing a nervous twitch," I say ruefully.

"Well," says BD, "If someone asks you if you have Turret's Syndrome, you can just tell them 'No, I have an 8-year-old.'"

Truer words were never spoken.

awww...sugar!

2009-01-02T13:54:00.000-08:00

I've had so much to eat in the past two weeks that I can almost watch the fat cells swelling on my flying squirrel upper arms and wibble-wobble thighs. It's bittersweet really. You see, I'm on a mission to eat any damn thing I want until I get back to North Carolina, at which point the holidays are Officially Over and I have to make good on my personal decision to do a detox and get rid of my beloved sugar and dairy. The next couple of days are my sweet tooth's last hurrah.

I do love my sweets. My mom's pecan pie topped with a fat pile of vanilla ice cream heads the list of favorites, but this year's Christmas bonanza cornucopia has also dumped in my growing lap some rather lovely butter toffees and a seemingly endless assortment of cookies.

But yes, it is high time for me to bite the bullet and stop wallowing in my recent pregnancy as an excuse for my fatness. It's time to get rid of the excess baggage. I need exercise. I need less food in general, but definitely less dessert. Yes, I am breastfeeding, but no, I am not breastfeeding an army of babies -- just one fat one.

So here's the plan: On Monday morning I officially stop eating anything with refined sugar or dairy until the following Sunday night. I will do a one day juice and tea fast to kick off the week, then eat only whole grains, legumes and raw or steamed fruites and veggies for the rest of the week. After that, I'm going to eat only a small snack for breakfast and try to generally consume less (esp. sweets!) until I lost the extra 20lbs I've been lugging around for the past 5 months.

So...wish me luck. Will power is not my forte. But it's a change I owe myself.

christmas cards from the heartland - part 1

2008-12-29T09:57:00.000-08:00

Getting here was an odyssey. I had never considered that a nighttime drive from North Carolina to the prairies of northern Indiana would become an epic journey. But what I had been told was normally a fairly boring 9-1/2 hour drive on interstate became for our little family a harrowing adventure.

Long story short...we left at 6pm and had smooth sailing all the way to Lexington, KY at which point the finger of fate shifted to point squarely at our little orange pontiac. At around 11:30 pm we hit a literal wall of immobile traffic in a sea of darkness and hissing icy rain. For 2 hours we sat unmoving 10 miles back (according to a passing police officer) from a nasty accident and ice-covered road. The wreck, we are told, had been cleared an hour before, but still no one was moving save the lone smokers and strollers who floated like hazy apparitions among the acres of families sitting mournfully in their frozen vehicles waiting to resume their nocturnal holiday migrations.

Unfortunately, we left our radio and defroster on. Seemed logical at the time, but we regretted it when Scott tried to turn the car on during a premature forward leap of traffic and discovered nothing but a clicking starter. Birch became inconsolable. The baby began to fret in earnest. I pondered a night sleeping bunched together in the cold like a den of testy badgers. Thankfully, Scott jumped right out and started hailing nearby cars for jumper cables (ours were, of course, in the other car at home). On his 6th try he got some from a friendly fellow and after a bit of fiddling and annoyance, we got the car started and we crept ahead...about 10 yards!

Yeah, the traffic was still jammed.When things did start to move they did so with a lurch and we surged forward quickly much to our excitment. However, immediately things skidded to a cold-blooded crawl and we inched along for another hour or so as orange signs forced 3 packed lanes to economize to 2.

After we finally got rolling at a good speed, Scott made the executive decision (because the rest of us were in various states of coma) to take I-69 from Indiananapolis to avoid icy backroads. The unkindest cut of all came as we prepared to merge onto 69 -- the home stretch, so to speak -- and found in front of us a wall of barricades and police cars with flashing blue lights....(to be continued)

2008-12-13T08:51:00.000-08:00

showers

2008-12-13T08:19:00.000-08:00

This morning I needed my shower...I mean not in a "needed it because I was dirty and smelly" sense, but definitely in a "needed as the salvation of my earthly being" sense.

It was one of those nights with the baby.. She puked in the bed...twice. And when she pukes like this, it amuses me how some adults call it "spit up" when babies hurl the contents of their tiny stomachs out at us. "Spit up" sounds almost cute...it sounds small and manageable and like something you'd brush off your lapel with a breezy laugh while sipping your apple-tini and chatting with your fashionable mama friends. But this was most definitely puke. The bed was awash with it.

She clearly was not feeling well. Besides the double dragon puke-fest, she generally just stayed up all night fussing and nursing and making poo messes in her pants on on the bedsheets and on her pj's...you get the picture. So at this point, as I write this with zero z's behind me, I'm feeling pretty close to comatose and very near the end of my good humour. Wishing I'd written this first in Word and pasted it in here so I could avail myself of spell check...

So at 8:30 this morning when I finally gave up on getting any shut eye and stumbled to the shower I was in dire need of some hot water salvation. Unfortunately, at that very moment my beloved had emerged from downstairs where he had just put in a load of puke-saturated sheets to wash...on hot. Thus, due to the limitations of our hot water heater, my steaming dose of salvation was sadly downsized to a non-commital, luke-warm drizzle.

But, for some reason, instead of giving in to despair, I started thinking:

Showers are truly divine. How many of us really appreciate the gift of our morning hot shower? Think about it.

I remember during my years on the road in Latin America, Asia and parts of Europe, a shower of any kind was a blessing...even an ice cold one (which most of them were) was welcome if you were cruddy and worn with road-rot and Tiny Bus Seat Funk (if you've ever traveled via reanimated school bus in the third world, you know what I'm talking about). But a hot shower...oh, the bliss of a hot shower! I mean, most hot showers you'd get were perilous to say the least since the water heaters in places like Laos and Honduras tend to be roughly the size and appearance of a yard sale toaster and hang precariously close to the water flow attached to the shower head with weird wires and things sticking out...But still. You would just stand there, forgetting your fear of death by electrocution for a minute or two and soaking in the rain of warmth...it was heaven.

And here in the U.S. today...I mean, hell yes, our economy has tanked, the government is rife with corruption, no one can afford to go to the doctor or buy a house, but damn it, most of us has access to a hot shower, at least every once in awhile.

When my son was a baby and colicky, the shower was my one moment in each long, lonely day of endless caregiving that was just for me. Even though his dad was usually gone and I would have to strap him crying in his baby seat on the bathroom floor just outside the shower, with the curtain drawn and the magnificent hot water tumbling down around me, I could snatch, even if just for a minute at a time, small islands of peace and serenity all for myself. In those days, I meditated in the shower. I even did a sort of modified yoga in the shower. It was MY time.

And so, even though this morning's shower didn't deliver everything I had hoped for, I am grateful. I am grateful that I have this magical, curtained box in my house for my own personal use. I am grateful for hot water heaters. I am grateful to have a daddy in the house to watch the baby while I let the falling water clean away the grit and misgivings of a sleepless night. Ahhhh....the beauty of it. :-)

monday

2008-12-08T10:01:00.001-08:00

Today is without a doubt One of Those Days.

Baby Boss and I are sick with a sniffly, sneezy, coughing, aching stuffy head, fever cold that has my emotional flag flapping listlessly at half-mast. Plus Baby Boss, probably due to her cold, but who knows why, is not sleeping...at night, that is. She is currently sleeping of course. Since it's noon and all. But from 8pm-around 6am, she's wide awake and fussy and wanting to be attached full-time to my poor nipples.

So today is not so wonderful. I'm actually sort of (my salt-of-the-earth, no-nonsense fundamentalist upbringing is fighting desperately to keep me from saying this) feeling sorry for myself.

(((sigh)))

You know, most moms have probably been to this place. It's called the Land of Needy Me. Today I suddenly feel most intensely all the choices I make that are strictly for the rest of the family: We go to Capture the Hoops games at the school on Sunday instead of the Buddha's Enlightenment celebration at the temple, I decide to catch up on all that laundry instead of going to yoga class, I make a special dessert for dinner and skip that walk I've been needing to take...those kind of choices. And I never even think twice about it...until today.

Here's a dream: To travel again. To hit the road with my backpack and my passport and head for somewhere high and lofty where I can hike for days, or else somewhere slow and tropical where I can sleep for a $1 a night in a handmade hammock in a hut on some quiet beach. I'd drink fruity drinks and fall into long, fascinating conversations over dinner with other travelers from places like South Africa or the Czech Republic. I'd spend a whole hour just sitting in one place doing nothing but staring at the sky. I'd lie in my hammock on a long afternoon and write haiku in my journal. I'd buy some local jewelry and find a good place to get a back massage.

I know as I write this, that my dream is as close as making some different choices...rearranging my life to make it happen. And honestly, I feel that slowly coming to pass. I can see the whole family sitting soemday soon on that quiet beach, playing in the sand and arguing over where to eat for dinner...or hiking the Annapurna...or sailing the Pacific.

But today...today I am sad. And tired. And I miss myself. Where did I go? I am here...yes,totally and completely here in this beautiful life I've reinvented...immersed in my kids and my man and my home. But I must remind myself...I must allow myself...to feed ME a little of the good love from time to time. It's a mama's duty.

pink

2008-10-21T06:48:00.000-07:00

Having a baby is a good way to examine the question of sexual identity. Cultural conditioning, nurture or nature...you can explore all of this in depth beginning with the simple act of giving birth.

That's because all babies are born either a boy or girl. Except, of course, hermaphrodites. And those babies have a whole other set of things to deal with. Uh-oh....here comes a tangent: When I was preggo with Baby Boss, my son somewhere heard the word "hermaphrodite" and upon learning what it meant immediately decided that he hoped the baby would be one. I was like, huh? But he thought, sure...best of both worlds, right?

Yeah. Or the worst. Depends how you look at your glass of milk, I guess.

So anyway, when I was pregnant with my son I was in the bloom of my "let's change the world" feminism and was determined that The Boy would grow up with no pressure or conditioning that might lead him to adopt a "traditional boy" role. In other words, I didn't want him to grow up unconsciously believing that all boys wear blue, like dump trucks and play baseball or that all girls wear pink, make cookies and play with barbie.

So I told our friends and family to please, please, please try to buy us gender-neutral clothing and toys. I didn't want our baby color-coded. I didn't want our baby to grow up assuming he/she was supposed to play with whatever our culture said she/he should play with.

I eschewed the ultrasound sex prediction for many reasons (not the least of which was we used a lay midwife who didn't do ultrasounds), but one of the main ones was so that our relatives wouldn't all go out en masse to Target or Mall-Wart or the nearest mall and paint our world in pink or blue. It made them mad as hell. And frustrated. I mean, really, if you can't buy a baby pink or blue, what are you left with? Well, I'll tell you: Lots of beige and yellow, that's what. And we got a lot of that...OR people waited until the baby was born, THEN ran to Target and Mall-Wart and the nearest mall and went blue-crazy.

Funny thing is, despite my earnest intentions -- and I did stick to my guns (ha ha...so to speak) as much as possible with all that stuff -- my son started being interested in cars and tractors almost as soon as he could hold his little head up and look around. And although I never bought him -- or allowed into the house -- a single toy weapon, he picked up sticks or whatever was handy and began his own rudimentary war games utterly uncoached.

Humph. So much for that. True, he had a thrift store doll named "Blue" that he carried around in a sling, and he loved to play dress up with my old clubbing dresses and a toy tiara. But really, in so many ways, he was just your stereotypical down and dirty, dump truck lovin' American boy.

So now we have a girl and here we go again. I am loathe to let her grow up thinking she has to be thin and sweet and adorable to be happy and loved. So I want to shelter her from as much harmful pop culture influence as I can. And goddess help me, I want to keep her from drowning in pink.

It's truly amazing: She isn't even old enough to have a color preference, but thanks to a bunch of really sweet and very generous family members and friends and even acquaintances, this baby has so much pink stuff that it looks like a pepto-bismol bottle exploded in our house. And don't get me wrong, I am truly and deeply grateful for all the things people have given our Baby Boss. Lord knows we can't afford to buy all those clothes and things. But I am truly fascinated: Pink. Wow.

See, I never liked pink when I was a kid. I played barbie as much as the next little girl of the 70's, but when it came to clothes and room decor, I was more eclectic. I liked sporty-looking stuff, ironically, despite the fact that any respectable tomboy could have kicked my wimpy little bookworm butt. I do remember when I was very, very small wishing I could have a big, poofy ball gown like Cinderella's. And once "Little House on the Prairie" hit the small screen, I was wild about long dresses. But mostly I was into t-shirts and blue jeans. And my favorite color from my earliest memories was always, get this -- blue!

So it is fascinating and bit overwhelming the amount of pink that has entered my life. And I have to admit, a lot of this stuff is just so freakin' adorable. Really. Pink roses, pink ponies, pink teddy bears, you name it.

But as Scott said the other day, Baby Boss seems like such a take-charge, no-shit little person. She seems sort of serious, despite her big toothless smiles and giggles. She runs a tight ship around here. It almost seems like we're mocking her sometimes when we dress her up in her pink onesie, pink diaper cover, pink leggings, pink fluffy jacket and pink lacy socks with (oddest of all for a baby still months from walking) pink mary jane shoes. I mean, good grief, the kid has absolutely no say in this stuff -- she's totally at our fashion mercy.

Ah, well. Soon enough she'll be old enough to choose for herself. And just watch. She'll probably want to wear...PINK!

quiet

2008-10-15T16:54:00.001-07:00

This will be short...I started to write something about a dream I had last night, but when I read it it just sounded ridiculous, so I resorted to a mere account of what I am doing right now...right at this moment, which is this:

I am sitting at my computer, it is 8pm on the night of the final presidential debates (I should turn them on!), Scott and the Boy have taken Baby Boss to wally-world for a few minutes to give me a tiny island of time in this day all for myself -- well, almost. I had to do the dishes before I sat down here..better to do them now than have to do them later when the baby is driving me nuts, right? Anyway, this is it. This is my time. It's quiet...no one is asking me anything...no one needs anything...no one is trying to tell me something...this is all for me.

(((smile)))

Funny...now I really don't quite know what to do...

I think maybe I'll just....SIT. And. Do.

Nothing. :-)

may the forest be with you

2008-10-10T08:51:00.000-07:00

Just back from a trip to Florida to visit the family. Remind me never to do that again...that is take a 12-hour car ride with a 3 month old baby. Sheesh! V's a good-natured baby, but anyone would scream uncontrollably about being strapped tightly into a plastic seat facing backwards in a hurtling metal box for hours on end. And then there was the rain...so much freakin' rain. It rained the whole time we were in Florida (remind me to post about our Exciting Trip to the Beach where we stood under a picnic shelter for 2 hours and froze to death with an obnoxious group of drunken teenagers before we finally gave up and drove home). Then it rained the whole trip back. Hard. And the car leaked. And the floors were flooded with stinky water which kept getting all over our stuff and splashing in our shoes...okay, okay...I'll quit whining.

But it was great to see the family again, even though they were passing around a nasty head cold. Also, on the trip back we stopped at one of my favorite places in the entire universe -- the Hostel in the Forest. Hidden away in the pines and palmettos in an unlikely place just off of I-95, the hostel is and has been for many years my occasional salvation. As you drive down the long, ragged dirt driveway into the heart of the land you find yourself leaving behind you a trail of all the stress and aggravating shit that the modern world heaps on us every day. What you find at the end of that road is peace...well, peace and a bunch of wild, barefoot hippies cooking up "love bread" in the communal kitchen and using composting toilets and such.

At the hostel, you get to sleep in your own treehouse, which is incredibly cool. Many of the treehouses are totally without electricity, so at night they glow with candlelight. Some are very secluded and some are located close to the main dome structure that houses the office, kitchen and dining area. There's a pond for swimming and canoeing, a natural spring-fed swimming pool, a meditation and yoga building, outdoor showers and lots more and all of it is connected by catwalks. It's just so dang awesome!

So anyways, we're back now. Back to real life. Bah humbug. Oh, well...the good news is....

WE GOT MORE MUSHROOMS! Scott found a bunch of these little white puffball guys that we love that taste like scallops. Generally, puffballs are not something we mess with because some of them are very poisonous, but we know this one quite well and it's yummy, so we're always glad to find it.

shrooms: the ultimate groundscore

2008-09-30T08:09:00.000-07:00

I love fall. I love all the usual stuff like the changing leaves and cool weather, but it also brings out all kinds of mushrooms...some of which are good to eat!

For the past few years, I've had a good time looking for edible shrooms on my hikes. It's a bit of a scary venture, of course. You have to be sure that you get the right ones or you could end up one of those "idiot stories" on the 6 o'clock news...you know, the stories where people sit back in their recliners and say "what an idiot" when they hear how some hippie died in intestinal agony in the emergency room from eating a curry made with some pretty little mushrooms they found on the trail. Yeah...so I try really hard not to become one of the "idiot stories." We make really good friends with certain mushrooms we know are edible and we stick with them. If we find new ones, we proceed with extreme caution.

Anyway, this time of year, there are lots and lots of shrooms out there. Some are definitely just for looking at, some bear further investigation, and some -- like that nice, fat shelf of Chicken of the Wood we recently found (check out the photo above) -- are most definitely for eating.

We are always looking for oyster mushrooms other good-to-eat varieties, but Chicken of the Wood is the cat-daddy eatin' shroom. It's huge, it's in your face, it's cool-looking and when you cook it up in some olive oil, garlic and white wine it tastes just like very delicate chicken breast. Or at least I'm pretty sure it does -- I've not eaten meat in so long that I'm really pretty much guessing about that. At any rate, it's amazing.

And it's free. It's the ultimate groundscore, in my opinion.

Big Night Out

2008-09-28T09:26:00.000-07:00

Last night was a zany departure from the norm for me...I went out for drinks with friends. Woo HOO! Yeah...not that long ago, hanging out at the Westville Pub was all in the course of a day for me, but now it is a rare treat. Scott and Brett and Scott's sis hung out with the Baby Boss for a couple of hours so I could hit the town with my girlfriends.

I had started with pretty ambitious plans: Pump lots of milk to keep Baby Boss satisfied for up to 4 hours or more so we could meet up, have drinks and go see a band somewhere.

Well, for those of you in the non-lactating set, pumping really...um...sucks. You have to sit there for ages with this stupid machine attached to your boob. The machine makes a really monotonous whining noise. The pump makes a really monotonous sucking action on your boob. The baby senses competition and becomes restless...everyone else goes on with their day...the clock ticks endlessly on...and there you sit. I hate it.

But with a night out at stake, I managed to pump a few ounces...enough, I figured, to keep the bottomless pit satisfied for at least a couple of hours.

So me and the girls (and Nelson) ended up out at Westville Pub, which was really pretty awesome. I didn't realize how much I needed to get out and feel like an independent being for a little while. A couple pints of Wedge and a trout quesadilla thrown in didn't hurt.

Weird thing, though...by 9pm we were all getting tired. 9pm. How scary is that? Most bands don't even play 'til after 9. So anyways, Leanne goes for a smoke break and I take the opportunity to call home to check in...and guess what? Baby boss is screaming her fool head off. I mean, that's all I hear when the phone picks up...end-of-the-bloody-world baby shrieks.

She missed the boobs.

So off I go. My wild night on the town over at 9pm. It was okay, though. A couple of hours to sit around and talk trash with my girls and not have to focus on a baby were enough to give me a solid mental boost.

Now I can make it 'til the next mama's night out...in say, 2 or 3 years? Ha! Let's hope not.

What it's like to be 40

2008-09-25T09:39:00.000-07:00

Yeah, well, I guess it's about the same as being 39...only you get slightly more interest in your birthday because you are now officially Over the Hill.

So my birthday was sort of odd. I was in a really bad mood -- as in grouchy and ill-tempered in an almost pre-menstrual way from lack of sleep. This was due to the baby deciding the night before to have a big fuss party from 2am on. Not a nice birthday present for mommy, baby. Not nice at all. :-(

Then we had to get gas. Filling up the car used to be a sort of afterthought to all your other daily activities, but these days due to the incomprehensible gas crisis it is like foraging for food in the Ice Age. It takes precedence over every other thing. You are always scanning the internet, networking with people and keeping an eagle-eye out for available gas. Scott took the day off work because he had a meeting about refinancing the house and because he wanted to take me out to lunch and stuff. But our tanks were near empty so he spent the whole morning driving all over Asheville trying to find a station that had some. Luckily, he spotted a gas truck pulling into a station near our house during one of his searches and followed it in, making himself first in line. He then called me and I had to pull the baby (and myself) away from a potentially wonderful nap to go get in the monumental line for the pumps.

Because Scott is awesome and I am loved, I did get to go out to lunch at Salsa's and pick out a box of assorted truffles at the French Broad Chocolate Lounge, but the baby fussed all through lunch so I ate by myself while Scott walked her around the restaurant. Phooey. Foiled again by that deceptively adorable baby!

Then we just had a quiet evening -- take out (so I didn't have to cook) and ice cream cake and watching "Harold and Maude" for the first time since college.

It was a really enjoyable birthday other than my own sleep-deprived grumpiness and generalized self-pity. But what got me to thinking it a bit odd was this: Earlier in the day my X called to wish me happy birthday and acted suprised that I wasn't having a party. Hmm...a party. What a novel thought! It actually never even occurred to me, but I guess it would have been a fun thing to do.

But let's face it -- I'm 40. A nap seems more appealing than a round of tequila shots most of the time. Much of that has to do with the fact that I'm keeping up with a new baby and have to get up every morning in drill sargent mode to force a third grader to get ready for school. But maybe I've mellowed just a wee bit...

Nahhh.

Super Deluxe Birthday Premiere!

2008-09-23T07:55:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is my 40th birthday. 40. Forty. Wow. When I write it, it seems so old. I mean, when you're 8 or 9 and imagining your fabulous future with a celebrity spouse, a successful career in international espionage and jet-pack safari vacations to Africa, you never picture yourself being 40. I think 30 was about the outer-limits of my imagination when it came to picturing myself as an Older Person.

I don't really feel 40, though. I guess physically I'm feeling a bit older -- lower back pain, a bit of extra weight around the hips, aching shoulders from carrying my behemoth baby daughter, those odd wiry alien hairs that sprout overnight from my chin and a recent disturbing habit of falling asleep sitting up on the couch like my mother does.

I realize this is very cliche, but in my heart I am still 20. I am still hot. I am still edgy and wild and cool as hell. Too bad your heart is just that....your heart, and not the thing that everyone sees when they look at you.

Oh, well. It's okay. The media says 40 is the new 20 or something like that, right? And anyways, I have so much amazing stuff going on right now: New man, new baby, new house in a very happening town, a totally bizarro 8-year-old son that constantly amazes me, a bunch of oddball animals that keep me laughing...it's all good. Even the bad stuff. It's good.

So I decided to kick off this blog while I'm still officially a 30-something to get this new decade off to a creative start and to celebrate mi vida loca in all its ragged glory. Welcome to my world!