Late for a New Year's Resolution, but xanga, how I've missed ye.

I'm sad to read last year's post and report now that it all ended.  Frank moved out of his house and into an apartment in June; we looked at houses and made plans and worked on the kids getting used to stuff and I thought it was the beginning of forever.  In November, he said he was moving back to his house.  March 1st, he moved back West.  Gone, over, pfft.

Now my social life highlight this week is going to a funeral and hoping to see a familiar face.  I gave up so many friends and activities to be in that relationship with Frank.  Amazing how much time a man can suck up.

Frank retires today - it's his last day after 30+ years with one company.  Does that even happen anymore?

We know that big change is coming, but exactly what form the new "us" will take is still, to some extent, up in the air. 

Plans we made a year ago are supposedly still good plans, they just keep getting pushed back.  I want him to take some untakebackable step before I do.  I rescinded my offer to let him move in before we are married - so he's to sell his house first and find an apartment until I sell mine and we buy a house together.  Neither of us wants two mortgages - much less three.  One must sell first and his is in the better neighborhood, newer, and not full of ten years of kid-abuse.  Not that kind!  Kids-abusing-house kind!  Yikes, what google list will pull me up now.

We both agree that this (my) house is just too small to suddenly accomodate him and his stuff, especially since Frank hasn't ever lived with three rowdy, rambunctious boys and it will be summer soon - with all three of them home and full of vinegar.  That's the main thing, not the physical space.

Meanwhile, his family is in town and I'm worried about work layoffs and swine flu and, by the way, a script that is less than half done and due at midnight!

On that note..gotta go!

Writing again, losing weight again, feeling again.  I guess feeling came first.  Amazing how complete the shutdown is during emotional turmoil.  I did not say "crisis."  Turmoil as in tempest.  Yes or no.  On or off.  Stay or go. 

So.  It is apparently stay.  And we are recommitted.  And I believe in it about 80%, which actually isn't that great.  Still got some self-preservation hiccups, okay.

Yes writing. Script frenzy, believe it or not, and I need to get back to it.  I rediscovered that I like me some stageplay!  I wonder if I still have the one-act that I wrote in high school.  I really liked it at the time.  Something about a subway, which is funny, since I'd never even seen a subway in high school, much less learned enough about one to base a whole play on it.

More later, yes, promise, true, at least... I'm 80% sure, which is about as sure as I get anymore....

Drug store sign passed on the way to work:  COME TO OUR FREE MASTECTOMY DAY!  FRIDAY, MARCH 27^TH!!  NO APPOINTMENT NECESSARY

So, uh…no thanks.  If I were thinking about a mastectomy, I don’t think a free one at the barred-window drugstore on East Leavenworth would be the kind I want.  Although that “no appointment necessary” is attractive.  Maybe they have a drive-through service?  Pull up, shove your boobs through the slot, whack!  Whack!  Here’s some aspirin.  And two band-aids. 

I need to figure out how to have beers with authors that I admire while they’re still alive.  (That’s the only way to get them to split the check.)

No seriously, I finally cracked open the MFK Fisher book that my good friend CJ gave me, and it’s so wonderful.  She’s the Dorothy Parker of epicures, only more subtle.  Slightly.  And her sources go back a lot farther.  A LOT.  When’s the last time you read a book that referenced Seneca?  And was readable? 

I love her.  I want to hang out and drink Château Yquem with her.  Unfortunately, she died in 1992.  Serve it Forth, that wonderful dish that I was reading, was published in 1937!

So who is still alive that I’d invite to a Fisher-inspired dinner?  Limit 5 or at most 6, since Fisher agrees with the ancient Greek A-something-us that any more is too familiar to “a troop of beasts marauding their prey.” 

1-Frank McCourt, who has to tell stories and sing his father’s Irish hero songs
2-Pat Conroy, who writes like poetry but obviously has some seriously fucked up shit in his head.
3-Jonathan Welter, who has to observe and write an essay about it later.
4-Whichever one of the Mountain Goats writes all the lyrics.  He has to play acoustic guitar to Frank’s lilting Irish voice.  And write a song about me and that other Frank.  One that makes me feel like singing about the whole comic tragedy is better than living it.
5-Rita Mae Brown, with whom I will flirt madly and who will sleep over.
6-Clive Cussler, ditto.

Oh why not.

Giving up alcohol for Lent and I’m a little ashamed to say that I know it will be very difficult.

I got rid of the interesting booze and wine and beer in the house.  I won’t tell you how, but I woke up with a little headache the next morning.  There is a bottle of white zinfandel on the fridge (blech).  I got it for Christmas.  It’s safe, believe me.  I’d hit the Sterno first, I think.

I caught myself thinking, “but that’s all I look forward to on the drive home from work.”  Uh, hello kids!  Yes, I love you, get out of my way, you’re blocking the fridge.    No, it’s not quite that bad.  Almost. 

I am irreverent and mean like that.  For example, I spent the contemplation time after ashes and Communion during Ash Wednesday Mass last night checking out ladies’ handbags and hairstyles.  Most were bad. 

I have a stressful job.  But wine just doesn’t make me feel good like it used to.  I get sick of the sugar or some additive before I feel any kind of buzz.  I actually have been drinking a lot less since I figured that out. 

So, I weighed myself and we’ll see where that number goes over the next 47 days.  I’m estimating that I spent about $10/day on wine or drinks.  Most days I drank 1-2 glasses and most bottles were about 15 bucks.  The total is padded to cover the 1-2 times per month I went to La Buvette and spent a whole lot more.  $10/day x 47 actual days of Lent = holy shit. 

As hard as it might be, it will never be as hard as the year I gave up caffeine (shudder).  That’s hard core, my friends.  Just thinking about it sends me running back to the coffee pot to make sure it’s still there.  Whew, it is.

facebook is down for some reason.

I'm the worst kind of cheater, skulking around xanga when my new shiny friend is unavailable.

There is so much I could say about that right now....

Back!  from vacation!  I dearly love having a day off at home before heading back to work.  Also good to have one more day to stay off the, uh, knee.  I sort of twisted it.  I hope it was entertaining for the folks on the ski lift.  I wish I had a video, to tell you the truth, because I think I did a total pinwheel wipe-out.  The last thing I remember as I plummeted down the whoop-de-doos, way too fast, was "Oh, shit."  I crawled up the hill to one ski and got it on, then skiied on it down to the other ski, which was a lot harder than I thought.  I found my ski poles and scooted out of the narrow dippy run back to the big, wide run and felt okay.  I made two more runs but my knee was hinky and I couldn't trust it anymore.  It was a good time to stop, so I turned in my rental stuff and picked up Norway (newly-turned 3!) early from ski school.  He'd had enough, too, and we ambled to a bench with a good view of incoming skiiers and watched a while. 

I am telling you right now.  The deals are out there.  Negotiate everything.  Then haggle them down again. GO.

We were at Jackson Hole, truly one of the premier ski resorts in the country.  Apparently, they have plenty of mixed-ability couples or families, because while a full-price lift ticket for the day was almost 90 bucks, a beginner ticket (only access to the green runs) was only twelve dollars.  TWELVE BUCKS TO SKI THAT GORGEOUS JH POWDER!!  And JH greens can get into blue-level skiing, take my word (and my twisted knee) for it.  It was plenty fun and I swooshed that mountain all damn day.

And since my lift ticket was only $12, I felt pretty happy kicking off my skis at the Four Seasons for a light lunch.  (Buffalo mozzeralla, fresh basil, tomatoes and olive oil: $14.  Cakebread Chardonnay, $20/glass).

I can't wait to see if there's any snow left at Crescent next weekend....

I've been cheating on xanga with facebook. 

It's not really a forum for writing, but... but... I suddenly feel so POPULAR.  A few days and I already have, like, 5 friends. 

The lure of quick and easy updates... oh... just one more check of the wall.....

I caught myself about to chastise Stan:  “You only have a B in Social Studies; you told me you had an ‘A.’”

He has a 91%.  (School rates an A as 93-100.)

91%!  Well, in my defense, it looks poorly when compared to his 100% in English and his 100% in Algebra.  He’s on the goddamned Honor Roll.

ONE HUNDRED PERCENT IN ALGEBRA?  If I remember correctly, last year at this time he had about a 44%.

What alien is replacing my kid?

Fair warning, parents:  7^th grade SUCKS.  8^th grade is AWESOME.

Also, (while I’m already up here with the megaphone), he is on the swim team, swimming 50 breast in the relay and 50 and 100 free.  He has not missed one practice and seems easy and comfortable in his skin up there on the block and pounding through the water.  He’s not the fastest, but he’s sticking to it. I love yelling for him and his teammates at the meets.  Half the team is made up of schoolmates from elementary school and Scouts and the same parish, so the parents on the bleachers all know each other.  It’s like our own small town, all yelling for each other’s kids.  I love it.

I am so fucking proud of this kid.

The weather is giving us a break – supposed to be in the 40’s instead of 00’s or 20’s.  Frank is picking me up for lunch and we’re going to eat sandwiches in the car and drive with the windows down through some potential neighborhoods.  Plan is he moves in maybe May, after it warms up.  Maybe a new house in June or July, hopefully we can sell his (newer, west-er, nothing broken, no crayon on the walls or play-doh or seashell incidents with the plumbing) quickly while we finish what needs to be done on mine ….

Austerity Games, part 1

Pretend it hasn’t been invented yet.

                Real examples from my house last week:

                Bunny/Stan/Ollie/all:  “Mom, we’re out of napkins / Ziploc bags/ paper towels/cereal!”

                “What would you use if it hadn’t been invented yet?”

                Bunny:  blank stare

Stan:  blank stare

Ollie:  I’d invent it.  (Smart ass)

We have a good dozen cloth napkins.  Most don’t match, but who cares?

My grandmother saves all the bags from dry cereal and uses them as storage bags.  Slightly waxy, they are perfect for anything dry you’d put in a Ziploc – sandwich, cookies, banana bread.  I introduced the children to using wax paper, cereal bags, and bags from loaves of bread (Grandma does that too).  Foil we re-use if it’s still clean.   

We have some old bath towels, ratty or bleach-stained.  I cut each one into 4 dishtowels.  I’m sure another person would hem them and everything.  Yeah, right.   We have plenty of regular dishtowels too, but if the mess is really nasty (i.e., Norway poo’d on the floor again), use a ratty one and throw it away.

Guess what kids?  Out of cereal means out of cereal.  I’m not buying more groceries until next week.  So it’s oatmeal this week.  Or frozen waffles, yogurt, pb toast, or some fruit.  It’s not like there’s a shortage of food!  They survived. 

I am done with the running out to pick up something we ran out of.  That is one terrible sentence, but you get me.  Weekly shopping only. 

I bought a box of powdered milk to extend the gallons, since that’s the main thing we zip through.  When a new gallon gets to half empty, I mix 2 quarts of powdered milk and add it. 

Baby steps, baby steps.

I unsubscribed to almost everything coming to my work in-box.  I feel clean and pure and good.

I felt virtuous and good yesterday, too, shoveling the sidewalks and driveway in the pre-dawn light.  The first time.  The second time I shoveled, I didn’t like it so much.  And this morning?  For a third time in two days?  Pffft, forget it.    Should have, since we’re supposed to get a little more, and there’s no warm-up in sight, so it just freezes and hardens to a permacrust that’s impossible to melt.

The extension cords for my Christmas lights (which I virtuously attempted to take down remove yesterday) are partially encased in such a permacrust.  Three inches of solid ice formed, at some point, in the garden area by my front porch.  I can slide the cords back and forth in the ice, like a pierced ear, but the little tunnels are too small for the pluggy part.  I dumped a bunch of salt on the portion over the cord and hoped for the best. 

Net weight loss for all of 2008:  5 pounds.  That’s plumb lousy.  I may have a wedding dress in my immediate future, and I don’t want to wear one from the Plus Size department, damnit.

Hmm, let’s see if we can do some root-cause analysis…

1-      I like to eat

2-      I like to drink

3-      I don’t like to exercise

Maybe there is a computer program somewhere to help with this advanced analysis….hmm